Part 11
129. The hot bolo ordeal.--In this, if two persons mutually accuse each other, their hands are placed side by side. The monkalun lowers a hot knife on their hands. The knife burns the guilty person much more seriously than the guiltless one. If only one person be put to the test, it is said that the knife bends away from the hands of an innocent person. The monkalun, with all his might, it is said, cannot put the knife down on the hand: the gods of war and justice will not permit it. But if the person be guilty, the knife grips the hand in its eagerness. If the accused show fear and try to withdraw, the kin of the accuser may catch him and burn him well. I know a man whose fingers were burned off in this way, the thumb adhering to and coalescing with the palm.
130. The alao or duel.--Eggs, runo stalks, or spears are used in trials, the accused facing each other and, at the word of the monkalun, hurling their missiles. The duel is not without its dangers. Even though eggs or runos be used, the one struck is likely to return a stone; and from throwing stones to throwing spears is an easy step. The two parties of kin are likely to take a hand. How much more likely are they to take a hand and avenge their kinsman if spears be the missiles and he be wounded!
The duel is used in cases of adultery, sorcery, and in some disputes over rice fields, everywhere in Ifugao. In adultery cases, only eggs are used in the duel.
131. Trial by bultong or wrestling.--This ordeal is used throughout Ifugao, preëminently to settle cases of disputed rice-field boundaries.
The Ifugao clearly recognizes that the processes of nature--landslides, the erosion of rainfall in wet weather, and caking and crumbling in dry weather--tend to wear away a terrace not maintained by a stone wall. A terrace maintained by a stone wall is a rarity in the Kiangan district. Should the boundary not be well marked by pagbok (see sec. 43) a dispute is nearly sure to result sooner or later. These disputes are usually settled by wrestling matches. The wrestling matches are usually friendly. The Ifugao believes that the ancestral spirits of the controversants know which party is in the right, that they know just where the true boundary is, and that they see to it that he who is right shall win, provided always that they be invoked with the proper sacrifices; and that they "hold up" even the weaker of the wrestlers, and cause him to win, provided his cause be just. Notwithstanding this belief, the people are sufficiently practical to demand that the wrestlers be approximately evenly matched. The owners of the adjacent fields may themselves wrestle, or they may choose champions to represent them. Between kinsmen these matches are presumably friendly; and only sacrifices of dried meat are offered the ancestral spirits. But between those not related, there is often a great deal of unfriendly feeling. In this latter case numerous chickens and two or three pigs are sacrificed, and ceremonies like those against enemies are performed.
On the appointed day the two parties meet at the disputed boundary and occupy opposite ends of the disputed land. A party of mutual kin follows along and occupies a position midway between the adversaries. With each party is one of the family priests. Taking betels and dried meat (presuming the contest to be a friendly one) from a head-basket, the priest prays very much as follows: "Come, Grandfather Eagle, Grandfather Red Ant, Grandfather Strong "Wind, Grandfather Pangalina; come, Grandmother Cicada, Grandmother Made Happy, Grandmother Ortagon; come, Grandfather Gold, etc. [throughout a list of perhaps a hundred ancestors]. Here are betels and meat; they are trying to take our field away from us. And was it here, Grandmother Grasshopper, that the boundary of the field was? No, you know that it was a double arm's length to the right. Hold us up, you ancestors, in order that we may be the wearers of gold neck-ornaments; in order that we may be the ones who give expensive feasts. Exhort [here the priest names over the gods of war and justice] to hold us up. Was it here, Grandfather Brave, that the boundary was when you bought the field? Do not let them take our land away from us, for we are to be pitied. We are sorely tried!"
After the prayers of the priests, each champion is led by one of his kinsman to the place where the first wrestling is to occur. This leading is very ceremoniously done, and suggests the heralding of the champions in feudal days. The dike of the upper terrace has been cleaned off at intervals of fifteen to twenty-five feet in order that the owner of the upper field may have no advantage. The champions frequently work themselves down half-thigh deep in rice-field mud, water, and slime. Catching fair and even holds, they begin to wrestle, encouraged each by the shouts and cries of his kinsmen and by the calling of the old men and old women on the spirits of the ancestors. Each wrestler tries to push his opponent into the territory that that opponent is defending and to down him there. If A throws B in B's field, ten feet from the line on which they wrestle, A wins ten feet of the rice field at that point. Finally, there is a fall that more than likely capsizes one or both of them in the black mud. One point in the boundary is determined. Frequently the lower terrace is eight or ten feet lower than the upper one, but there are no injuries for the reason that the mud is at least two feet deep and is a soft place in which to fall.
At every fifteen or twenty feet along the disputed boundary there is another wrestling match. Sometimes the champions are changed. The new boundary runs through every point at which there has been a fall.
132. The umpire and the decision.--The monkalun is the umpire in trials by ordeal. He interprets undue haste or a faulty performance as a confession of guilt. On the day following the trial by fire or hot water he goes to the house of the accused and examines the hand and forearm. If he finds white inflamed blisters, he pronounces him guilty. In the case of a duel, he pronounces the one struck by the missile guilty. The Ifugaos believe that the gods of war and justice turn missiles aside from the innocent in these duels. For the umpire to be manifestly unfair, would be for him seriously to imperil his own life.
As a matter of fact, a person whose skin is rough, dry, and horny has a great advantage in these ordeals. Since sword climbing and the walking on hot stones and live coals have occurred in other parts of the world, it would seem that a question might be raised whether state of mind, or other factors as yet unexplained, may not enter these affairs.
EXECUTION OF JUSTICE
133. Retaliation.--In the case of lives lost in feuds, sorcery, murders, and head-hunting, capital punishment inevitably follows, provided the kin of the slain be sufficiently daring to execute it.
Capital punishment is the rule, and is almost invariably inflicted in cases of the refusal to pay proper fines, for which demand has been made in correct form, and after a reasonable length of time has been given in which to raise the sum demanded, in punishment of adultery, manslaughter, the putting of another in the position of an accomplice in case of murder or death in feud, or for wounds, provided the culprit be not a kinsman or person closely related by marriage. Rarely would there be much trifling in the infliction of this penalty. Seizure of something of sufficient value to cover the fine assessed might sometimes be made, except in the cases of adultery and manslaughter. To practice seizure in the case of adultery--except when a kinsman were the offender--would have the aspect of anxiety to profit by the pollution of the wife's body and might give rise to suspicion of conspiracy on the part of husband and wife to bring about the crime in order to profit financially. In the same way, a self-respecting family would disdain to accept payment for the life of a kinsman except as a matter of forbearance and mercy to the taker thereof. We have seen before that unless the tokom be collected the injured person is in danger of losing his own life should he not slay him from whom the tomok is due.
The crime of arson undoubtedly justifies the death penalty; but it is so rare a crime that it is impossible to say what is the usual Ifugao practice in punishing it.
The non-payment of a debt when there is the ability to pay it, and after many and repeated demands have been made in the proper manner for it, justifies the infliction of the death penalty.
Capital punishment is administered by the injured person and his kin. In all cases it is fraught with the greatest danger to the inflicters. Usually it is inflicted from ambush, although it may be a sudden slaying in the heat of passion. The culprit is never notified that he has been sentenced to death. The withdrawal of a go-between from a serious case is, however, a pretty good warning. It has about the same significance as the withdrawal of an embassy in an international complication.
The infliction of a death penalty has been the starting point of many an interminable feud between families. For this reason the injured person exhausts every effort to effect a punishment in some other way if any other punishment be consistent with his dignity and respectability.
134. Seizure of chattels.--If a kinsman of remoter kinship than that existing between brothers commit a crime punishable by death, except sorcery or murder, and obstinately refuse to pay the fine assessed, seizure of his property or part of it is made.
Seizures are made from unrelated persons to cover fines due in punishment of theft, malicious killing of animals, arson, and the minor crimes, also to secure payment of a debt.
The following is a list of the things usually seized: gongs, rice-wine jars, carabaos, gold beads, rice fields, children, wives.
A seizure may be made by fraud or deceit, or it may be made in the absence of the owner of his household, or it may be made by superior force. Considering only the manner of the seizure, there is but one law to be followed: the seizure must be made in such a manner as to leave no doubt as to the identity of him who seizes. Thus if B persistently refuses to pay a fine owed to A, A may go to B's house when there is nobody at home and may run away with a gong. If he leaves his bolo, his scabbard, his blanket or some other personal effect in the house as a sort of a visiting card, his seizure is legal. Or A may go to B's house and, pretending friendship, borrow the gong, representing that he wants to play it at a feast and, having secured possession of it, refuse to return it till the fine be paid. Or suppose that an agent of B's is bringing a carabao up from Nueva Vizcaya, and that the agent has to travel through A's village. A and his friends stop the agent and take the carabao away from him, telling him to inform B that the carabao will be delivered to him when the fine is paid.
There is a second kind of seizure, a seizure of the property of some relative or kinsman of the culprit. The property of a wealthy kinsman may be seized to cover a fine due from a poor kinsman who has no property. This kind of seizure is more likely to lead to a lance throwing than a seizure from the culprit himself. The danger of such an ending increases with the remoteness of the kinship between the culprit and the person from whom the seizure is made.
A third kind of seizure is practiced against neighbors of delinquents who live in another district. Suppose a man B in one of the districts to the west of Kiangan to have gone to Nueva Vizcaya (east of Kiangan) and there to have purchased a carabao. He owes no debts, nor have any fines been levied against him. He returns through Kiangan, however, and his carabao is seized by A, a Kianganite. B is informed that C, a resident of the same district as he, stole a pig a year or two ago from A. The evidence against C is placed before him in the minutest details. He is given thirty pesos as patang (interest in advance) and told to collect from C the payment proper to the case, and in addition the thirty pesos advanced as patang. When he makes these collections, and delivers them to A, he gets back his carabao. If C is innocent of the crime charged, he may kill A for this, or he may do so even if guilty. More likely he kidnaps A's wife or child and sells them for a ransom sufficiently great to repay B, and leave a substantial surplus for himself. A may or may not retaliate with the lance.
In quarrels between kadangyang (for their dignity is very dear to them) and between persons of different districts or contrary parties, it is more frequently than not the case that the thing seized is not returned. Powerful individuals in a district are rather glad to have a seizure made of their property, since they can nearly always manage to come out winner in the finish. Thus in the case above, B, if a powerful individual, probably collects two or even three carabaos or their equivalent value from C, and besides he receives thirty pesos patang. It would seem that the obligation rests on every Ifugao--notwithstanding there is no political government--so to conduct himself as not to involve his neighbors in trouble with individuals of inimical or semi-inimical districts; and that should he so involve them, he is liable to whatever punishment circumstance metes out to him.
In the case of altercations between individuals of different districts, seizure of animals was generally practiced by persons of those districts through which the road led to the region from which the animals were imported. Of all districts, Kiangan was most advantageously situated in respect to this matter; since, for the greater part of Ifugao-land, the road to Nueva Vizcaya (whence most of the animals imported into Ifugao came) led through it.
135. Seizure of rice fields.--The seizure of rice fields is practicable only in case the fields are near the village of him who seizes them. For if located in a distant district, the working of the field would be extremely hazardous, and its protection and continuous holding impossible.
Fields may properly be seized for collection of debt or for refusal to pay fines or indemnities. Portions of fields are seized sometimes in disputes as to ownership or boundaries.
Disputes over ownership and boundary come to a head during spading time. One party begins to spade for the next year's crop the land claimed by the other. The other party sticks up runos, tied "ethics lock" fashion (alpud), along the line which he claims to be the true boundary. The first party then pulls up these runos, and sticks down others along the line claimed by it as the true boundary. The issue is joined. The defendant has made his "rejoinder." A monkalun is now selected by the plaintiff party, and tries to arrange--and in case of disputed boundaries nearly always does arrange--a means of peaceful settlement, either by compromise or through trial by wrestling. Sometimes the ownership of a field itself is in question. Usually the question is one of inheritance; although there are a number of other causes that may give rise to dispute. [23] Ownership is usually peaceably settled by means of a wrestling match.
"We come now to those cases in which a field is seized for debt as payment of a fine or indemnity. The plaintiff or prosecutor seizes the field at spading time by planting runo stalks, alpud, in it. The defendant probably pulls up these stalks and throws them away. [24] An attempt may be made by mutual friends and relatives to secure a peaceful settlement of the trouble. A rice field is a thing so dear to the Ifugao, and so necessary and useful to him, that such attempts are extremely likely, however, to come to naught.
If the matter be not arranged otherwise, the seizer of the field sends a body of men to spade it, holding in reserve an armed force of kinsmen and relatives to protect and maintain the spaders if they be attacked. The other party emerges with an armed force to drive the spaders away. The two parties meet. If one be greatly superior in strength, the other usually retires, and surrenders the field. If they be fairly evenly matched, a battle is likely to ensue. If the first wound be a slight one, the party receiving it is likely to withdraw; but if it be serious, or if one of their number be killed, they fight to avenge him. Sometimes four or five men are killed in one of these frays.
But in the meantime, and often before actual fighting begins, a body of mutual relatives, friends, and neighbors emerges and tries to make peace and secure an amicable settlement.
136. Enforced hospitality.--Sometimes a creditor and a numerous and powerful following of kinsmen descend upon a debtor's house as unwelcome guests, consume his stores of food, and force his hospitality until appeased by the payment of the debt.
This form of collection can only be used in the case of debts, for in all other controversies, taboos forbid the eating of the adversary's food, drinking his water, chewing his betels, etc. Even in the case of debt, if a go-between has been sent to the debtor, this means may not be used. It can only be used in a case where "diplomatic relations" have not been ruptured.
137. Kidnapping or seizure of persons.--Interior districts had no opportunity to seize animals from those districts nearer than they to the region whence animals were imported. Of necessity, then, they kidnapped and sold or held for ransom women and children from those districts.
138. Cases illustrating seizure and kidnapping.--The following instances actually occurred in times past. They are excellent and veritable illustrations of this phase of Ifugao administration of justice:
Bahni of Tupplak spoke scornfully of Bumidang of Palao. Some time subsequently he sent a man to buy carabaos in Nueva Vizcaya. The man bought two, and returned on the homeward journey, traveling through Palao. Bumidang took one of the carabaos away from him there, and with his kin, killed it and ate it. Bahni with his kin shortly afterward went to the house of Dulauwan of Bangauwan, a neighboring village, and stole away with Dulauwan's carabao. Dulauwan followed after them, hotfoot, and was given as patang three pigs, and told to collect his carabao from Bumidang. Dulauwan gathered together a great host of kinsmen and neighbors, descended on Bumidang's house, and camped there demanding three carabaos. To show that they meant to get them, they helped themselves to rice needed for their daily food from Bumidang's granary. Bumidang was unable to get together a sufficient force to frighten away his guests, and accordingly he paid the three carabaos.
Ginnid of Umbul presented a demand to Guade for the payment of a long-outstanding debt. Guade denied that the debt was owed. Ginnid seized Guade's field. Each party led a force of kinsmen to the field. There they fought with spears and shields. The first man wounded was Tului of Pingungan, a kinsman of Guade. He received a slight wound. Guade's party then withdrew. Guade paid the debt, and got his field back.
Gumangan of Ambabag when a youth, sent an advocate to ask for the hand of the daughter of M of Umbul. He was accepted. But he changed his mind about the girl, and went to Baininan, where he engaged himself to a girl of that village without assuaging the mental agony of his jilted fiancée by paying the hudhud indemnity. M seized a carabao belonging to Gumangan. Gumangan gathered together his kin and went to Umbul--only a quarter of a mile distant--to prevent the slaughter of his animal. But M's party was so much more powerful that Gumangan's kin ran away. M's party then killed and ate the carabao.
Gumangan married in Baininan, and bearing in mind his former humiliation, decided to do something that would restore his prestige and at the same time assure him a sufficiently large body of followers to make him strong to demand and to resist demands. He consequently gave a great uyauwe feast at which the unheard of number of six carabaos was slaughtered, to say nothing of innumerable pigs. And later, he gave the hagabi feast--an even more expensive operation.
Dumalilon of Tupplak borrowed a carabao of Gumangan. Five years elapsed, yet he made no move to repay the debt, notwithstanding repeated demands of Gumangan. Gumangan seized Dumalilon's field, which had already been spaded, and threw his seed-bed away. Both men led armed parties to the field, but this time Gumangan was careful to have a sufficient number of backers on hand. Dumalilon's party took to flight.
In Burnai, a fight occurred over the seizure of a rice field that resulted in the killing of four men.