Note 1 — Chapter XXII

The morning of the 12th, our one full day at Lubuagan, broke clear, bright, and hot, and so the day remained. Events during the next few hours had no particular axis. We looked on mostly, though, of course, here as elsewhere, business there was to be dispatched. The upper terrace was the scene of crowded activity, being packed with people from sunrise to sunset. Dancing went on the whole day; the sound of the gansa never ceased. A particularly interesting dance was that of a number of little girls, eight or ten years of age, who went [167] through their steps with the greatest seriousness and dignity, a very pretty sight. In yet another the performers, nine all told, grown men, attracted attention from the fact that the handles of their gansas were human lower jaws, apparently new, in the teeth of two of which gold fillings glistened. The Ifugaos, who, it will be recollected, had accompanied us from Banawe, also danced, their steps, motions, and music forming a sharp contrast. This dance over, Comhit could not restrain himself, but made a speech, in which he declared that “These people up here, the Kalingas, are very good people indeed, but not so good as the Ifugaos.” Fortunately, only his own people understood him. He had noticed on the way that the people we passed offered nothing to drink to the traveller, and had commented freely to Gallman on this lack of hospitality, so different from his country’s habits. We had nothing to complain of, however, on this score at Lubuagan, for basi circulated freely the whole day, being passed along sometimes in a tin cup, at others in a bamboo; everybody drank out of one and the same vessel. On the whole, this basi was poor stuff, not nearly so good as bubud. Harris told me after the day was over, and we had taken innumerable tastes, at least, of the brew (for one must drink when it is passed), that in preparing [168] basi a dog’s heart,1 cut up into bits, is added to the fermenting liquid to give it body. One man amused us by going around with a bamboo six inches or more in diameter and at least eight feet in length over his shoulder, and obligingly stopping to let his friends bend down the mouth and help themselves—a “long” drink if there ever was one!