Seed planting

Pad-cho-kan’ is the name of the sementera used as a rice seed bed.  One or more small groups of sementeras in every pueblo is so protected from the cold rains and winds of November and December and is so exposed to the warm sun that it answers well the purposes of a primitive hotbed; consequently it becomes such, and anyone who asks permission of the owner may plant his seed there (see Pl.  LXV).

The seed is planted in the beds after they have been thoroughly worked and softened, the soil usually being turned three times.  The planting in Bontoc occurs the first part of November.  November 15, 1902, the rice had burst its kernel and was above water in the Bontoc beds.  The seed is not shelled before planting, but the full fruit heads, sin-lu’-wi, are laid, without covering, on the soft ooze, under 3 or 4 inches of water.  They are laid in rows a few inches apart, and are so close together that by the time the young plants are 3 inches above the surface of the water the bed is a solid mass of green.

Bontoc pueblo has six varieties of rice.  Neighboring pueblos have others; and it is probable that fifty, perhaps a hundred, varieties are grown by the different irrigating peoples of northern Luzon.  In Bontoc, ti’-pa is a white beardless variety.  Ga’-sang is white, and cha-yet’-it is claimed to be the same grain, except it is dark colored; it is the rice from which the fermented beverage, tapui, is made.  Pu-i-a-pu’-i and tu’-peng are also white; tu’-peng is sowed in unirrigated mountain sementeras in the rainy season.  Gu-mik’-i is a dark grain.

Camotes, or to-ki’, are planted once in a long period in the sementeras surrounding the buildings in the pueblo.  There is nothing to kill them, the ground has no other use, so they are practically perpetual.

The average size of all the eight varieties of Bontoc camotes is about 2 by 4 inches in diameter.  Six of the varieties are white and two are red.  The white ones are the following:  Li-no’-ko, pa-to’-ki, ki’-nub fa-fay’-i, pi-i-nit’, ki-weng’, and tang-tang-lab’.  The red ones are si’-sig and pit-ti’-kan.

To illustrate the many varieties which may exist in a small area I give the names of five other camotes grown in the pueblo of Balili, which is only about four hours from Bontoc.  The Balili white camotes are bi-tak’-no, a-go-bang’-bang, and la-ung’-an and the red are gis-gis’-i and ta-mo’-lo.

Millet, called “sa’-fug,” is sowed on the surface of the earth.  The sowing is “broadcast,” but in a limited way, as the fields are usually only a few rods square.  The seed is generally sowed by women, who carry a small basket or dish of it in one hand and scatter the seed from between the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger of the free hand.

There are said to be four varieties of millet in Bontoc.  Mo-di’ and poy-ned’ are light-colored seeds; pi-ting’-an is a darker seed —­ the Igorot says “black;” and si-nang’-a is the fourth.  I have never seen it but I am told it is white.