years
two, three, and even four or five men jointly owned one battle-ax.

As the Igorot acquires more money, or, as the articles desired become
relatively cheaper, personal property of the group (outside the family
group) is giving way to personal property of the individual. The
extinction of this kind of property is logical and is approaching.

Real property of individual

The individual owns dwelling houses, granaries, camote lands about
the dwellings and in the mountains, millet and maize lands. in the
mountains, irrigated rice lands, and mountain lands with forests. In
fact, the individual may own all forms of real property known to
the people.

It is largely by the possession or nonpossession of real property
that a man is considered rich or poor. This fact is due to the more
apparent and tangible form of real than personal property. The ten
richest people in Bontoc, nine men and a woman, own, it is said,
in round numbers one hundred sementeras each. The average value
of a sementera is 10 pesos for every cargo of palay it produces
annually. A sementera producing 10 cargoes is rated a very good one,
and yet there are those yielding 20, 25, 30, and even 40 cargoes.

It is practically impossible to get the truth concerning the value of
the personal or real property of the Igorot in Bontoc, because they
are not yet sure the American will not presently tax them unjustly,
as they say the Spaniard did. But the following figures are believed
to be true in every particular. Mang-i-lot', an old man whose ten
children are all dead, and who says his property is no longer of
value because he has no children with whom to leave it, is believed
to have spoken truthfully when he said he has the following sementeras
in the five following geographic areas surrounding the pueblo:

Geographic area
Number of sementeras
Number of cargoes produced

Magkang
6
15

Kogchog
3
5

Felas
1
8

Toyub
1
5

Samuiyu
2
10

Total
13
43

These sementeras produce the low average of 3 1/3 cargoes. The
average value of Mang-i-lot's' sementeras, then, is 33 1/3 pesos --
which is thought to be a conservative estimate of the value of the
Bontoc sementera. Mang-i-lot' is rated among the lesser rich men. He
is relatively, as the American says, "well-to-do." However, when a
man possesses twenty sementeras he is considered rich.

The richest man in Bontoc, with one hundred sementeras, has in them,
say, 3,330 pesos worth of