The pa-ba-fu’-nan building consists of a low, squat, stone-sided structure partly covered with a grass roof laid on a crude frame of poles; the stone walls extend beyond the roof at one end and form an open court.  The roofed part is about 8 by 10 feet, and usually is not over 5 feet high in any part, inside measure; the size of the court is approximately the same as that of the roofed section.  In some pa-ba-fu’-nan a part of the court is roofed over for shelter in case of rain, but is not walled in.  Under this roof skulls of dogs and hogs are generally found tucked away.  Carabao horns and chicken feathers are also commonly seen in such places.

In many cases the open court is shaded by a tree.  Posts are found reared above most of the courts.  Some are old and blackened; others are all but gone —­ a short stump being all that projects above the earth.  The tops of some posts are rudely carved to represent a human head; on the tops of others, as in a’-to Lowingan and Sipaat, there are stones which strikingly resemble human skulls.  It is to the tops of these posts that the enemy’s head is attached when a victorious warrior returns to his a’-to.  Both the roofed and court sections are paved with stone, and large stones are also arranged around the sides of the court, some more or less elevated as seats; they are worn smooth and shiny by generations of use.  In the center of the court is the smoldering remains of a fire.  The only opening into the covered part is a small doorway connecting it with the court.  This door is barely large enough to permit a man to squeeze in sidewise; it is often not over 2 1/2 feet high and 10 inches wide.  The occupants of the pa-ba-fu’-nan usually sleep curled up naked on the smooth, flat stones.  A few people have runo slat mats, some of which roll up, while others are inflexible, and they lie on these over the stone pavement.  Fires are built in all sleeping rooms when it is cold, and the rooms all close tightly with a door.

In the court of the building the men lounge when not at work in the fields; they sleep, or smoke and chat, tend babies, or make utensils and weapons.  The pa-ba-fu’-nan is the man’s club by day, and the unmarried man’s dormitory by night, and, as such, it is the social center for all men of the a’-to, and it harbors at night all men visiting from other pueblos.

Each a’-to, except Chakong, has a pa-ba-fu’-nan.  When the men of Chakong were building theirs they met the pueblo of Sadanga in combat, and one of the builders lost his head to Sadanga.  Then the old men of Chakong counciled together; they came to the conclusion that it was bad for the a’-to to have a pa-ba-fu’-nan, and none has ever been built.  This absence of the pa-ba-fu’-nan in some way detracts from the importance of the a’-to in the minds of the people.  For instance, in the early stages of this study I was told several times that there are sixteen (and not seventeen) a’-to in Bontoc.  The first list of a’-to written