This is a seminal ethnographic report published by the United States Department of the Interior's Ethnological Survey for the Philippine Islands in 1905. The study, Volume 1 of the Survey's publications, represents a comprehensive effort by the early American colonial government to understand the indigenous peoples of Northern Luzon. The author, Albert Ernest Jenks, conducted field research in 1903 among the Bontoc Igorot of the Province of Lepanto-Bontoc, a group considered representative of the region's mountain agriculturists. The publication documents nearly every aspect of the Bontoc way of life, including their complex social structure, economic practices like rice and camote agriculture, traditional warfare (head-hunting), animistic religious beliefs, and language. As a detailed snapshot of a distinct culture at the beginning of the twentieth century, the work served as a resource for American administrators shaping policy toward the non-Christian populations of the Cordillera Central.
The Bontoc Igorot (Ethnological Survey Publications, Volume 1)