of old women -- that is, over 50 years old -- than there are old men.


Child

The death rate among children is large. Of fifteen families in Bontoc,
each having had three or more children, the death rate up to the age
of puberty was over 60 per cent. According to the Magulang census
the death rate of children from 5 to 10 years of age is 63.73 per cent.

The new-born babe is as light in color as the average American babe,
and is much less red, instead of which color there is the slightest
tint of saffron. As the babe lies naked on its mother's naked breast
the light color is most strikingly apparent by contrast. The darker
color, the brown, gradually comes, however, as the babe is exposed
to the sun and wind, until the child of a year or two carried on its
mother's back is practically one with the mother in color.

Some of the babes, perhaps all, are born with an abundance of dark hair
on the head. A child's hair is never cut, except that from about the
age of 3 years the boy's hair is "banged" across the forehead. Fully
30 per cent of children up to 5 or 6 years of age have brown hair --
due largely to fading, as the outer is much lighter than the under
hair. In rare cases the lighter brown hair assumes a distinctly red
cast, though a faded lifeless red. Before puberty is reached, however,
all children have glossy black hair.

The iris of a new-born babe is sometimes a blue brown; it is decidedly
a different brown from that of the adult or of the child of five
years. Most children have the Malayan fold of the eyelid; the lower
lid is often much straighter than it is on the average American. When,
in addition to these conditions, the outer corner of the eye is higher
than the inner, the eye is somewhat Mongolian in appearance. About
one-fifth of the children in Bontoc have this Mongolian-like eye,
though it is rarer among adults -- a fact due, in part, apparently,
to the down curving and sagging of the lower lid as one's prime is
reached and passed.

Children's teeth are clean and white, and very generally remain so
until maturity.

The child from 1 to 3 years of age is plump and chubby; his front
is full and rounded, but lacks the extra abdominal development so
common with the children of the lowlands, and which has received from
the American the popular name of "banana belly." By the age of 7 the
child has lost its plump, rounded form, which is never again had by
the boys but is attained by the girls again early in puberty. During
these last half dozen years of childhood all children are slender and
agile and wonderfully attractive in their naturalness. Both girls and
boys reach puberty at a later time than would be expected, though data
can not be gathered to determine accurately the age at puberty. All the
Ilokano in Bontoc pueblo consistently maintain that girls do not reach
puberty until at least 16 and 17 years of age. Perhaps it is arrived
at by 14 or 15, but I feel certain it is not as early as 12 or 13 --
a condition one might expect to find among people in the tropics.


Pathology

The most serious permanent physical affliction the Bontoc Igorot
suffers is blindness. Fully 2 per cent of the people both of Bontoc
and her sister pueblo, Samoki, are blind; probably 2 per cent more
are partially so. Bontoc has one blind boy only 3 years old, but
I know of no other blind children; and it is claimed that no babes
are born blind. There is one woman in Bontoc approaching 20 years
of age who is nearly blind, and whose mother and older sister are
blind. Blindness is very common among the old people, and seems to
come on with the general breaking down of the body.

A few of the people say their blindness is due to the smoke in their
dwellings. This doubtless has much to do with the infirmity, as their
private and public buildings are very smoky much of the time, and
when the nights are at all chilly a fire is built in their closed,
low, and chimneyless sleeping rooms. There are many persons with
inflamed and granulated eyelids whose vision is little or not at all
impaired -- a forerunner of blindness probably often caused by smoke.

Twenty per cent of the adults have abnormal feet. The most common
and most striking abnormality is that known as "fa'-wing"; it is an
inturning of the great toe. Fa'-wing occurs in all stages from the
slightest spreading to that approximating forty-five degrees. It is
found widely scattered among the barefoot mountain tribes of northern
Luzon. The people say it is due to mountain climbing, and their
explanation is probably correct, as the great toe is used much as is
a claw in securing a footing on the slippery, steep trails during the
rainy reason. Fa'-wing occurs quite as commonly with women as with men,
and in Ambuklao, Benguet Province, I saw a boy of 8 or 9 years whose
great toes were spread half as much as those shown in Pl. XXV. This
deformity occurs on one or both feet, but generally on both if at all.

An enlargement of the basal joint of the great toe, probably a bunion,
is also comparatively common. It is not improbable that it is often
caused by stone bruises, as such are of frequent occurrence; they
are sometimes very serious, laying a person up ten days at a time.

The feet of adults who work in the water-filled rice paddies are dry,
seamed, and cracked on the bottoms. These "rice-paddy feet," called
"fung-as'," are often so sore that the person can not go on the trails
for any considerable distance.