ABSTRACT
The interior of Northern Luzon is one of the most isolated regions in the Philippines. Towering mountains, rugged hills, and dense forests have made it relatively inaccessible to foreign intrusion. Religion pervades all activities of any importance, with no little share of the food supply of the community being destroyed in the endless sacrifices to the numerous deities and ancestor spirits of the Ifugao pantheon. Yet because of factors mainly inherent in the physical environment and partly due to conditions set up by the economic structure, rice is not the chief food of the Ifugao family. Each Ifugao family is more or less a self-contained unit and manufactures its own items for its own uses. As in our own society where social status is generally correlated with economic position, so in Ifugao the influence and social esteem which an individual can achieve is dependent upon the amount of property.
