VII).

The rice is now ready for cooking; the chaff is collected, and is
used as food for the pigs and dogs, while the stalks are saved to be
burned, for the ashes are commonly used in lieu of soap.

Rice has also come to have great importance, both as a standard of
value and as a medium of exchange. A single stalk is known as _sanga
dawa_. When the stalks are equal in size to the leg, just above the
ankle, the bundle is called _sang-abtek_. [199] Ten _sang-abtek_ equal
_sanga-baal_. One hundred _sang-abtek_ make _sanga-oyon_. The measure
of cleaned rice is as follows: Two full hands (one coconut shell
full)--1 _sopa_ (Ilocano _supa_; Spanish 1/8 _ganta_). 8 _sopa_--1
_salop_ (Spanish _ganta_ or about 2 quarts). 25 _salop_--1 _kaban_.

It is customary to pay laborers in rice; likewise the value of animals,
beads, and the like are reckoned and paid in this medium. During
the dry season rice is loaned, to be repaid after the harvest with
interest of about fifty per cent.

According to tradition, the Tinguian were taught to plant and reap
by a girl named Dayapan. This woman, who was an invalid, was one
day bathing in the stream, when the great spirit Kaboniyan entered
her body. He carried with him sugar-cane and unthreshed rice which
he gave to the girl with explicit directions for its use. Likewise
he taught her the details of the _Sayang_, the most important of
the ceremonies. Dayapan followed instructions faithfully, and after
the harvest and conclusion of the ceremony, she found herself to be
completely cured. After that she taught others, and soon the Tinguian
became prosperous farmers. [200]

In Part I of this volume a reconstruction of the early life of this
people was attempted from their mythology. The results seemed to
indicate that the tales reflect a time before the Tinguian possessed
terraced rice-fields, when domestic work animals were still unknown,
and the horse had not yet been introduced into the land. But it was
also noted that we are not justified in considering these as recent
events.

At this time, with the more complete data before us, it may be well to
again subject the rice culture to careful scrutiny, in the hope that
it may afford some clue as to the source from which it spread into
this region. It is possible that the Tinguian may have brought it
with them from their early home, which may be supposed to have been
in southeastern Asia; they may have acquired it through contact with
Chine