The Harvest of Uncultivated Lands

Uncultivated plants and wild animals also helped support the people of prewar Buguias. Gathered plants and hunted animals, while never forming staples, provided incidental protein and vitamins as well as welcome culinary variation. The production of fuel, fiber, and building materials from uncultivated lands, however, was absolutely essential.

Hunting, Fishing, and Insect Gathering

The hunting of deer and wild hogs, the only large game, demanded skill, patience, and sometimes daring. Although neither creature inhabited central Buguias, deer roamed the more remote pine forests and savannahs, and wild hogs populated the higher oak woodlands. A few expert spear-wielding hunters followed trained dogs in pursuit of game, but most men preferred sedentary techniques. Some excavated pitfall traps alongside animal trails, rendering them deadly with sharpened sticks. The easiest method of deer capture was to burn an area of brush and then hide nearby until the animals arrived to lick the mineral-rich ash. Few men were versed in the more elaborate hunting techniques, but those who were could provide ample meat for their families and their neighbors.

Smaller mammals, such as civets and rats, were both abundant and troublesome. Civets raided houselot gardens, eating even coffee berries and occasionally killing chickens, while rats feasted on most crops. Hunting these animals thus protected other food

sources and provided meat as well. Snares were usually employed, but young men enjoyed small-game hunting at night using dogs as trackers and pine torches for illumination.

Birds, ranging from large waders to tiny perchers, provided special delicacies. Buguias villagers caught migratory birds in season and residents the year round. Specialized snares were employed for different species at different times of the year; passive nooses sufficed in favorite roosts, while bent-stick spring traps snagged the warier species. The most plump and plentiful of the avian prey were the quail of the pasturelands, the snipes of the rice fields, and the wild chickens of the higher forests.

Most persons enjoyed fishing. The plentiful sculpins were sometimes netted by women, but were more often trapped by young men who would divert a river channel, thereby exposing all manner of life in the desiccated bed. Men and boys captured meaty eels with nets, hooks, and in river diversions. In rice fields and irrigation ditches, mud fish provided children with easy prey. Amphibians were plentiful in select seasons: tadpoles crowded the riverbed in March and April, and adult frogs could be captured at night, having first been blinded by torch light, in November and December.

Favored invertebrates spiced the seasonal fare as well. Fatty termites were funneled into water pots as they emerged for nuptial flights following the first rains. In the early years of this century an even greater bonanza occasionally appeared in the form of locust swarms. Buguias residents followed the insects for many miles, sometimes returning with several bushels to be dried and consumed at leisure. Lowland locust eradication programs sponsored by the U.S. were little appreciated in Buguias. More regular if less abundant invertebrate morsels included the mole crickets of the rice fields, the three varieties of rice-field snails, and the various river-dwelling water bugs. A few old men specialized in honey gathering, discerning hive locations by patiently observing the flights of bees. Honey itself was a delicacy, but wax was even more appreciated as a fiber coating.

The pursuit of wild creatures, other than deer and hogs, was—and still is—primarily an activity of young, unmarried men. Buguias bachelors still spend hours diverting streams for a meager catch of tadpoles, sculpins, and water bugs. This is not "optimal

foraging" so much as simple entertainment. In the prewar period, poorer villagers found intensification of sweet-potato patches much more rewarding than hunting or fishing. But wild meat—some of it, such as tadpole flesh, very strong of taste—did provide welcome variation to an otherwise bland diet.

Wild Plant Foods

Prewar Buguias was endowed with several wild fruits and vegetables. Brambleberries and huckleberries were abundant in pastures and woodland clearings, and wild guavas grew thick in several dry grasslands. Children gathered most fruit, consuming the bulk forthwith but usually bringing some home for their families. The foremost wild vegetable was Solanum nigrum , a weed of abandoned dry fields. Buguias residents collected wild tomatoes and Capsicum peppers (both exotics), as well as watercress. They regarded mushrooms highly and sought them diligently, gathering over twenty different varieties, some in sufficient quantity for drying. But perhaps the most essential wild "food" plant was the cosmopolitan weed Bidens pilosa , which formed the base of bubud , the yeast cake used in making rice beer.

Only in famines were wild foods essential. A delay of the southwest monsoon could bring food shortages, and real hunger would ensue if drought persisted, as it once did, until July. A prolonged typhoon could also spoil the sweet-potato crop, thus depleting the essential food stock. Even a rat infestation could cause a food deficiency. During times of severe want, the Buguias people consumed the tubers of a drought-adapted pasture legume and the pithy centers of Miscanthus canes. In the harsh famine at the end of World War II, some individuals retreated to the oak forest to gather acorns. The standby food of hard times, however, was taro. Wild taro, common in higher elevation seeps, was edible if leached, and several varieties of cultivated taro survived well through the worst storms and droughts.

Non-Food Products

The most significant use of wild plants was for nonfood products. Several wild legumes and the semiwild (and exotic) agave yielded

fibers for rope and thread. In the early American period, poorer residents pounded the bark of several different trees into fabrics suitable for loincloths and skirts. Bark clothing disappeared only in the 1930s, when it was universally replaced by cotton cloth. Wild grasses served as thatch, and a variety of vines fastened house rafters and fences. Connected bamboo lengths formed water conduits, and individual sections functioned as canteens. Artisans carved hardwood, obtained from small groves in stream depressions, into bowls, handles, and durable tools. And finally, the versatile Miscanthus cane served in all manner of light construction.

But pine wood overshadowed all other hinterland products. Straight-bole trees, found on favored northern exposures, provided lumber. Hand-split pine planks sufficed for house construction in the early period, but by the 1920s boards sawn by itinerant Northern Kankana-ey workers were commonplace. Most fences (planks and posts) were pine, and hollowed pine logs formed conduits over stream crossings in the larger irrigation systems. Pine wood also fueled the hearths and heated the homes of prewar Buguias. The villagers usually derived their firewood from the more gnarled trees of the rocky slopes and southern exposures. Smoldering fires gave warmth when temperatures dipped to near freezing in December and January and helped counter the wet season's damp. Finally, metalworks were fueled by charcoal, derived largely from pine branches and bark.

The most valuable pine product was perhaps saleng , the resinous heartwood of old or prematurely injured trees. Saleng provided illumination: torches for outside activities, and slender "candles" for the home. The Buguias people also treasured such wood for its resistance to rot; only saleng posts could support a house for more than a few rainy seasons, or serve at all in fencing.

The inhabitants of prewar Buguias did not consider wood procuring to be an especially onerous chore. Pines were still plentiful and large, and a variety of labor-saving techniques were employed. Men and older boys usually secured a year's supply of fuel in the dry season; left to desiccate in the field the wood would lose roughly half of its weight before being carried. On steep slopes logs were shunted down gravel shoots to more accessible sites, if necessary affixed to boulders for extra weight. Trees closer to settlements

were more casually, and gradually, harvested by boys who would climb them to lop off branches for fuel.