Where is the Igorot’s “stone age”?  There are stone hammers and stones used as anvils in the ironsmith’s shop.  There are stone troughs or bowls in most pigpens in which the animal’s food is placed.  Very rarely, as in the Quiangan area, one sees a large, flat stone supported a foot or two from the earth by other stones.  It is used as a bench or table, but has no special purpose.  There are whetstones for sharpening the steel spear and battle-ax; there is the stone of the “flint-and-steel” fire machine; and of course stones are employed as seats, in constructing terrace walls, in dams, and in the building of various inhabited structures, but that is all.  There is no “stone age” —­ no memory of it —­ and, if the people were swept away to-day, to-morrow would reveal no trace of it.  It is believed that the Igorot is to-day as much in the “stone age” as he ever has been in his present land.  He had little use for stone weapons, implements, or utensils before he manufactured in iron.

Before he had iron he was essentially a user and maker of weapons, implements, utensils, and tools of wood.  There are many vestiges of the wood age to-day; several show the use of wood for purposes usually thought of as solely within the sphere of stone and metal.  Among these vestiges may be noted the bamboo knife used in circumcision; the sharp stick employed in the ceremonial killing of domestic hogs in Benguet; the bamboo instrument of ten or a dozen cutting blades used to shape and dress the hard, wooden spear shafts and battle-ax handles; the use of bamboo spearheads attached to hard-wood shafts; and the bamboo spikes stuck in trails to impale the enemy.

In addition to the above uses of wood for cutting flesh and working wood there follow, in this and subsequent chapters, enough data regarding the uses of wood to demonstrate that the wood age plays a large part in the life of a primitive people prior to the common use of metals.  Without metals there was practically no occasion for the development of stone weapons and tools in a country with such woods as the bamboo; so in the Philippines we find an order of development different from that widespread in the temperate zones —­ the “stone age” appears to be omitted.

Wooden implements and utensils

The kay-kay (Pl.  LXI) is one of the most indispensable wooden tools in Igorot land.  It is a hard-wood implement from 5 to 7 feet long, sharpened to a dull, flat edge at one end; this end is fire tempered to harden and bind the fibers, thus preventing splitting and excessive wear.  The kay-kay is obtained in the mountains in the vicinity of most pueblos, so it is seldom bought or sold.  It is the soil-turning stick, used by both men and women in turning the earth in all irrigated sementeras for rice and camotes.  It is also employed in digging around and prying out rocks to be removed from sementeras or needed for walls.  It is spade, plow, pickax, and crowbar.  A small per cent of the kay-kay is shod with an iron point, rendering them more efficient, especially in breaking up new or sod ground.