Part 8

91. The ayak (soul-stealing) is a series of religious ceremonies in which the sorcerer calls to a feast the ancestral spirits of some man whose death he desires to encompass, together with many maleficent spirits and deities, and bribes them to bring to him, incarnated as a blue-bottle fly, a dragon fly, or a bee, the soul of the man whose death he desires. When one of the insects mentioned comes to drink of the rice wine in front of the sorcerer, it is imprisoned and put into a bamboo joint tightly corked. The enemy, being thus deprived of his soul, will die.

This form of sorcery cannot be practiced unless the sorcerer knows the names of the ancestral spirits of his victim-to-be. For this reason, when the Lamot people, who are famous sorcerers, come to Kiangan and approach a religious feast, the Kiangan people do not invoke their ancestral spirits until after the visitors have gone. Needless to say, sorcery is always practiced in secret. It sometimes happens that it is practiced by a man against his kin. In such a case, kinship does not extenuate his punishment, since the preservation of the family necessitates the extirpation of the sorcerer within its gates. This is the only exception I know of to the general rule that a family may not proceed against one of its members.

92. Other forms of sorcery.--Certain persons have an evil "cut" of the eye, which, whether they wish it or not, brings misfortune or sickness on whomsoever or whatsoever they see. Injury by means of the "evil eye" may be effected intentionally or entirely unintentionally.

The words of certain persons even though innocent and unconnected with evil, and though spoken as they usually are without malicious intent, have the quality of bringing whatever is spoken to an evil end.

Thus A, afflicted with the "blasting word," goes to the house of B, and, seeing a sow with a litter of handsome pigs, remarks, "That's a fine litter of pigs you have!" If A be truly afflicted with the blasting word, the pigs will die, even though A was without intent to do injury, and was even ignorant of his affliction.

The evil eye and the blasting word are frequent afflictions--afflictions that their possessor is the last to learn about. They may be cured by the possessor's offering sacrifices of the proper sort. In the event of injury unintentionally being done by evil eye or blasting word, no punishment is meted out, although in some cases restitution is demanded.

Curses are of two kinds: directly by word, and indirectly by curses laid on food, drink, or betels. Kiangan people are afraid to purchase rice from the Lamot people to the south of them through fear of being affected by curses that may have been laid on the rice.

93. Punishment of sorcery.--Sorcerers are not punished hysterically. To his credit, it must be said that the Ifugao proceeds slowly in condemning a person for this crime. Before he takes action, he demands not merely strong grounds for suspicion, but proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspected person is a sorcerer. Proof that one has performed the ayak ceremony against a person is sufficient ground for the infliction of the death penalty. But in the case of the evil eye and the blasting word, it must be proved that the death of the pigs, the betel vine, or whatever it be that dies, was due to the glance or words of the bewitched, and that both glance and words were used with evil intent. This would obviously be hard to do; but for the purpose of justifying an injured person in killing such a sorcerer or bewitched one, a record of previous misdeeds of the kind, and a general conviction, in which a portion, at least, of the man's kin concurred, that the suspect was a malicious sorcerer, would be sufficient.

A curse, by one who has no reputation for supernatural powers, is punishable by the following fine:

KADANGYANG MIDDLE CLASS NAWATAVAT Hin-bakid (One ten) Hin-bakid (One ten) Na-onom (Six)

Pu-u (2 death Pu-u (death blankets) P16.00 blanket) P8.00 Pu-u (dili) P8.00 Hay nub palyuk 5.00 Haynub palyuk 5.00 Natauwinan 1.00 Hay nub palyuk 2.00 Haynub palyuk 2.00 Nuntuku .50 Natauwinan 1.00 Natauwinan 1.00 Natuku .50 Natauwinan 1.00 Natauwinan 1.00 Na-oha .20 Natauwinan 1.00 Natauwinan .50 Liwa comes out Natauwinan .50 Nuntuku .50 of the No-onom Nuntuku (3 each) .50 Nuntuku .40 Nuntuku .50 Nunbadi .40 ====== Na-oha .20 P27.50 Liwa comes out Liwa or fee of of the Hin-bakid go-between (1 death blanket) P8.00 ====== ====== ====== Total, P35.50 Total, P19.00 Total, P10.20

A curse by one who had a reputation of being a sorcerer might possibly lead to the death of the sorcerer on the spot. In case he were not killed, and the person or thing cursed died, the death penalty would be inflicted later.

The following instances will be of value as illustrations. Some are recent, others historical:

Before the coming of the Spaniards, Atiwan of Longa acquired a reputation as a sorcerer. He killed several of his kinsmen in Baay. Even his relatives in Longa admitted that he was a sorcerer, and said that he ought to be killed. Ginnid of Baay and several companions went to Longa one night, and called to Atiwan that they had come to see him. He opened the house and put down the ladder. The party ascended, and set upon Atiwan with their war knives and killed him. In trying to protect him, his wife, Dinaon, was wounded. The killing was universally approved.

Kimudwe (alias Dulnuan) of Tupplak is a famous, or rather an infamous, sorcerer. Owing to a quarrel with one of his nephews, Butlong, over a debt, he performed an ayak to cause the latter's death. Butlong was informed of the fact by one who, eavesdropping below Kimudwe's house, heard the prayers and incantations. On a certain day on which there was a feast in Ambabag, to which Kimudwe was nearly certain to come, Butlong waylaid him, firing a rifle at him from cover near Ambabag. His marksmanship was atrocious. Before he could reload women rushed out from the village and covered Kimudwe with their bodies, interceding, and stating that there was not sufficient certainty that Kimudwe was guilty to justify his nephew in killing him. (This occurred in the interval between Spanish and American rule.)

Kimudwe is reputed to have killed by means of sorcery several of his kinsmen. Recently a child died in Tupplak whose death was attributed to him. He killed, it is said, the son of Bahni, another of his nephews. Bahni sent Dulinayan of Ambabag as a go-between to Kimudwe to challenge him to an ordeal, saying that he had no intention of killing him, even if guilty, owing to the peculiar prejudice of the Americans against such doings, but for his own satisfaction he wanted to know if Kimudwe were the sorcerer. He stated that in case Kimudwe won in the ordeal, he (Bahni) would pay a fine of a gold bead for having accused him falsely. This was an unusually large fine. Kimudwe refused, or rather evaded, saying: "If I am a sorcerer, it is a case of the entire family, including Bahni, being guilty." In other words, he took refuge behind the Ifugao doctrine of collective responsibility (see sec. 4).

In cases of strong suspicion, a supposed sorcerer was often openly accused and challenged to an ordeal. The ordeal was usually more in the nature of a duel, the two exchanging spears at twenty steps (20 meters) distance. If the ordeal showed the suspect guilty, he was killed if he stayed in the region. He was not, however, killed on the field of duel--unless killed in the duel or ordeal itself--because such an execution might precipitate a battle with this kin.

ADULTERY

94. Forms of adultery.--In its unaggravated form, adultery is called luktap. Luktap signifies sexual intercourse between a spouse and some person other than the one to whom he (or she) be married, uncomplicated by insults and scandalous behavior flaunted in the face of the injured spouse. The intention to abandon the spouse is either not present, or is concealed.

The aggravated form of adultery is called hokwit. It consists of openly and scandalously bestowing one's love and body upon some other person than the spouse; of insulting the injured spouse; or of repeatedly, while living under the same roof with the spouse, meeting the third person and having sexual intercourse. The intention is present of separating (or effecting a separation) from the injured spouse. The following is an illustration:

Maxima, a girl of Umbul, was married to Ananayo of Pindungan. But Ananayo had not yet reached the age of puberty, while Maxima herself had reached that age. Sergeant Dominong, of the constabulary company at Kiangan, began paying attentions to Maxima, while Maxima was living in the house of Ananayo 's father. During the season of watching the rice fields against theft of water these two continually cohabited, the sergeant going to where Maxima was watching the fields at night. Ananayo attaining the age of puberty in the meantime, Maxima refused to have anything to do with him. Both Maxima and Dominong were guilty of hokwit in this case. Maxima's conduct was considered especially reprehensible, since she was a binawit in the house of Ananayo 's father (see sec. 14).

95. Punishment of adultery.--In both luktap and hokwit, the offending spouse and the lover (or mistress) are equally guilty. Each is equally liable to punishment. However, the offended spouse may, if he chooses, forgive the offending spouse without forgiving the partner in crime. This frequently happens. A wife is more likely to forgive than is a husband.

The adulterer when taken in delicto is sometimes punished by death. The offended spouse is justified by public opinion in administering this punishment to a considerably greater degree than our laws in the United States would justify him. Several stories are told of persons caught in the commission of this crime who were impaled by a single spear thrust. It should be stated that the kin of those killed for this crime rarely look upon the killing as justified, and often avenge it. They take the stand that the offended spouse ought to have demanded the usual fine; that if this had not been immediately forthcoming no one would have questioned the propriety of the killing. On the other hand, the kin of the offended spouse take the ground, and it may be said that in general public opinion backs them in it that a self-respecting man could not well do otherwise than kill the offender, and that the holding off and demanding money would savor too much of the mercenary.

It is to be noted that a sexual offense committed after the mommon ceremony is punished by a small fine; that an offense committed after the imbango or hingot ceremonies is punished by a larger fine, and that an offense committed after the bubun ceremony is punished by what to the Ifugao is a very large fine. These fines are diagramed Ifugao fashion in sec. 75. Hokwit, aggravated adultery, is punished by twice the greatest fine demanded in the case of simple adultery, luktap.

Adultery being a very hard crime to prove, the Ifugao takes as proof: (1) the confession of either party; (2) evidence that the accused wilfully and intentionally placed themselves in such a position or circumstances that the crime would be presumed by any reasonable person to have been consummated. Thus, the sleeping of the accused together at night in the absence of the spouse would be sufficient evidence.

Both offenders must pay the fine demanded by the circumstances to the offended party or parties. Thus, if both the offenders be married, each must pay a fine to (a) his own offended spouse, and (b) to the offended spouse of the partner in the crime. The pu-u of the fine goes to the offended spouse--the rest to the kin of the offended spouse. In addition to paying the fine, should the offender desire to continue the marriage relation with his offended spouse, he must provide animals and other perquisites for a honga (general welfare feast) in which the kin of both parties take part, and which is supposed to start the spouses anew in domestic harmony and felicity, and in all that the Ifugao considers prosperity, namely, abundance of pigs, chickens, rice, and children.

96. Sex in relation to punishment for adultery.--Although the punishment for adultery is the same for either sex, the likelihood of the adulterer's being punished is much greater if the offender be a woman than if he be a man. This is for the reason that men are more jealous than women and less attached to their spouses, usually. A great deal of adultery on the part of men goes unpunished. Most women would rather not hear about the peccadillos of their husbands. They do not want to take action unless it be forced upon them. But once the matter is brought to their "official attention," they have to take

## action in order to "save face." Women sometimes tell their husbands

"It would be all right for you to have a mistress if you could only do so without my hearing of it." And when they learn of some such offense on the part of their husbands, they sometimes upbraid them, saying: "Oh, why didn't you do this thing in such a way that I would not hear of it?"

The husband, on the other hand, usually punishes, and often divorces his offending wife.

Once an offense is known, it must be acted on. Otherwise, the offended spouse is considered to be lacking in self respect. And indeed I believe that the insult involved in adultery is more serious than any other phase of the crime. The Malay's "face" is exceedingly dear to him.

THE TAKING OF LIFE

97. General considerations.--It is extremely difficult to unravel the law, if there be a law, with respect to murder, executions, and war. The Ifugao has no tribunals to sentence, and no government to execute. He makes no declarations of war. Doubtless no two nations or tribes of the world ever engaged in a warfare in which each did not consider the other the aggressor, or at least, the offender. The same is true with respect to feuds between families, which were almost as numerous as the families themselves. In spite of the years of American occupation during which comparative peace has prevailed, these feuds still exist. We must substitute, however, for patriotism, fraternal and filial love; the sense of duty to the unavenged dead, love of vengeance, and intense hatred engendered and justified by a well learned catalogue of wrongs and assassinations inflicted on the family by the enemy family. Once started, a blood feud was well nigh eternal (unless ended by a fusion of the families by means of marriage), for the reason that what was a righteous execution to one family was a murder (usually treacherous) to the other.

Outside of manslaughter, to be treated of later, it may be stated as a general tenet of Ifugao practice that the taking of a life must be paid by a life. Considering, too, that a member of an Ifugao family rarely if ever effected or accomplished any except the most ordinary and elemental acts without previous consultation with his family, and that nearly all killings were effected pursuant to a decision of a family council, it was not without a fair show of reason that Ifugao law held that a murder might be punished almost as well by the execution of some member of the murderer's family as by the execution of the murderer himself. For, if not principals in the commission of the crime, other members of the family were at least accomplices or accessories. Indeed Ifugao law held the whole family guilty, looking upon the crime, quite correctly, as an offense for which the whole family was responsible.

War, murder, and the death penalty exacted in execution of justice, in the Ifugao's society are so near each other as to be almost synonymous terms. We have already seen that a capital execution for crime is nearly always looked upon by the kin of the executed as being a murder; it is retaliated by them, by what to them is a justifiable execution; but by what, to the killers, is considered as a murder to be punished by another execution, and so on ad infinitum.

The Ifugao has one general law, which with a few notable exceptions he applies to killings, be they killings in war, murders, or executions, which public opinion would pronounce justifiable and legal. That law is: A life must be paid by a life. Let us pass now to a consideration of various classes of the takings of human life.

98. Executions justifiable by Ifugao law.--Public opinion or custom, or both, justify the taking of a life in punishment for the following crimes: sorcery; murder; persistent and wilful refusal to pay a debt when there is the ability to pay; adultery discovered in flagrante; theft by one of a foreign district; refusal to pay a fine assessed for crime or for injury suffered. But even though custom and public opinion justify the administration of the extreme penalty in these cases, the kin of the murdered man do not, in most cases, consider the killing justified. There are innumerable circumstances that complicate a given case. Was the sorcery proven or only suspected? Was it a murder that the man committed; or was he justified in the killing? Would not the debtor have come to his right mind had his creditor waited a little longer; and did the creditor approach him in the right way with reference to the debt? Did not the woman make advances in the adultery case that no self-respecting male could turn down? Was not the indemnity assessed too large or otherwise improper; or did the injured party wait long enough for the payment? These and a thousand other questions may arise with respect to the various cases.

If the death penalty be inflicted by persons of a foreign district, it is sure to be looked upon as a murder.

At feasts and gatherings about the "bowl that cheers" and especially in drunken brawls, an unavenged killing, no matter what the circumstances, is likely to be brought up as a reflection upon the bravery or manhood of the living kin, and so urge them to the avenging of what was really a justified execution.

Murder, sorcery, and a refusal to pay the fine for adultery justify the infliction of the death penalty even on a kinsman if he is not too close a relative. An execution of one kinsman by another is not so likely to be avenged as is justifiable execution by one outside the family. This is in accordance with the principle of Ifugao law: The family must at all hazards be preserved.

99. Feuds.--A feud is a series of takings of human life as vengeance, in which the heads may or may not be taken. There are some hundreds of ways in which feuds may start. As a rule they begin with a taking of life that is not justified in the eyes of the kin of him whose life was taken. They may begin from a retaliation for a kidnapping or even from an accidental killing. Feuds exist between neighboring districts, or districts not far distant between which to a certain extent ties of blood and marriage exist. It is exceedingly rare--if it ever occurs--that entire villages or districts are involved. The feud is an affair between families only. It consists of a series of vengeances and "returning of vengeances." Feuds may even start within the district: but as a rule, they are short lived, being stopped by the counsel of the influential. Feuds between districts are well nigh interminable usually, but may come to an end by means of intermarriage or when one or two of the leaders of each family are afflicted by certain diseases [17] thought to be inflicted by certain deities that desire the peace ceremony. As has been hitherto stated, each killing in a feud is considered by the killers to be an entirely justifiable execution in punishment of crime. The deities of war and justice are called to witness that the debt is not yet paid. Contemporaneously, the kin of the slain are calling on the same deities to witness that their family is sorely afflicted; that no debt was owed the others; that no chickens or pigs, or rice had been borrowed; that no theft or other crime had been committed, and so on; yet, that innocent, they are being slaughtered.

100. War.--Before the American occupation, districts that were far distant might be said to be continually at war with each other. The war was carried on as a series of head-takings. There was no formal declaration of war. As a rule there were no large expeditions to the enemy country, and heads were taken from ambush, on the outskirts of an enemy village or along much traveled paths. Women's heads were taken in these exploits; but not as a rule, in feuds. To avenge lives taken in war, while no doubt the life of the actual head-taker was preferable, the life of any person of the enemy village might be taken; just as in feuds, the life of any member of the enemy family might be taken.

101. Head-taking.--Heads were not taken in the case of executions for injury. In feuds within a district, heads were not taken. In feuds between families of different districts, heads might or might not be taken. Usually they were taken if there were no ties of kinship between the districts. It should be emphasized, however, that there was no definite boundary between districts, and consequently, no well-defined line beyond which heads might be taken. Families from the southern part of a district would take heads in territory from which those in the northern part of the district would not take them. Heads were always taken in the case of those killed in war, if circumstances permitted.

102. Hibul or homicide.--The Ifugao law clearly recognizes several grades of homicide.

(a) The taking of life when there is an entire absence of both intent and carelessness. As for example, in the case already cited (see sec. 54). when a party of hunters have a wild boar at bay. The boar, as there stated, charges the most advanced of the hunters, and in retreating backwards, the latter jabs one of his companions with the shod point of his spear handle. There is no penalty for such a taking of life.

(b) The taking of life when there is clearly an absence of intent, but a degree of carelessness. For example, a number of men are throwing spears at a mark. A child runs in the way, and is killed. The penalty is a fine varying from one third to two thirds the amount of the full fine for homicide according to the decree of carelessness.

(c) Intentional taking of the life of another, under the impression that he is an enemy when in reality he is a co-villager or a companion. In case the killer can make the family of the slain understand the circumstances, only a fine is assessed. This fine is called labod. (See sec. 106.) If the killer be unrelated to the slain, the full amount of the labod is demanded: if related, the amount is usually lessened.