| Society-IFUGAO The Ifugao (Ifugaw, Ipugao, Yfugao) occupy an area of from 750 (LeBar 1975: 78) to 970 square miles, roughly equivalent to the province of Ifugao, as well as small regions of neighboring provinces in the central Cordillera of northern Luzon in the Philippine Islands. The area is located at approximately long. 120 degrees 75 min. to 121 degrees 50 E and lat. 16 degrees 50 min. to 17 degrees N. The Ifugao are part of a group of indigenous mountain peoples of northern Luzon, which also includes the Bontok and Kalinga (Chaffee et al. 1969: 47). The most common subgroup designations for the Ifugao, usually taken from population centers or geographic locations, include: Bunhian (Bungian) and Mayoyao (Mayoyo, Mayaoyao, Mayawyaw) in the northeast; Halipan (Salipnan, Silipan) in the southeast; Kiangan (Quiangan) in the southwest; and Banaue (Banawi, Benauwe) and Hapao (Sapao, Japao, Hapaw) in the northwest. Kiangan is the name most frequently used by neighboring groups to refer to the Ifugao in general. Today the people who inhabit Ifugao Province refer to themselves as Ifugao, but the area contains a number of non-Ifugao speakers, and there are also people who are culturally and linguistically Ifugao but who call themselves something else because of contemporary political boundaries. The Ifugao language is Malayo-Polynesian. Conklin classifies it within his northern group of Philippine languages, while Dyen includes it within a North Cordilleran Cluster of his Cordilleran Hesion. Ifugao is closely related to Bontok and Kankanai, with a probable separation of the linguistic groups somewhere around 900 A.D. (LeBar 1975: 78). Population estimates on the Ifugao in the twentieth century have varied from 60,000 to over 100,000, with a 1960 census figure of 76,888 (Conklin 1967/1968: iii). Population density in some areas approaches 400 per square mile. Ifugao subsistence is derived principally from agriculture (84 percent), with an additional ten percent derived from the raising of aquatic fauna, such as minnows and snails, in flooded rice fields. The remaining six percent of subsistence activities involve fishing (fish, eels, frogs, snails, and water clams [ginga]; hunting (deer, wild buffalo and pigs, civet cat, wild cat, python, iguana, cobra, and fruitbat); and the gathering of insects (locust, crickets, and ants) as well as a large variety of wild plants. The primary source of animal food in the diet comes from fishing, further supplemented by hunting and the collecting of insects. Wild plants do not form a significant part of the diet. Monkeys, although hunted, are not eaten. Rice (in flooded fields) and sweet potatoes (on swiddens) are the principal crops, supplemented by maize, taro, yams, cowpeas, lima beans, okra, greengrams and other legumes, sugarcane, and tobacco. Coffee is the main export, and other tree crops include jackfruit, grapefruit, rattan, citrus, areca, coconut, banana, guava, and cacao. Terracing, often extending more than 1,000 feet up a mountainside, is extensively used. Irrigation is controlled by elaborate systems of dikes and sluices. Fields are worked with wooden spades and digging sticks. Ritual accompanies all stages of rice cultivation. Rice is the prestige crop, and a man's status is determined by his rice fields. Sweet potatoes, on the other hand, while an important staple food crop, enjoy low prestige value. Conklin's (1967/1968) intensive survey of a 40-square-mile portion of northcentral Ifugao revealed a division of the region into some 25 discrete, agriculturally-defined "districts" (himpuntona'an), which were traditionally geographic units with ritual functions. The focal center of each agricultural "district" was a named ritual plot, the first to be planted and harvested each year. In the Ifugao economy, barter has been replaced by rice and money for exchange. The Ifugao import livestock, cotton, brass wire, cloth, beads, crude steel, and Chinese jars and gongs (status symbols). Families own rice and forest lands and heirlooms, which are passed on to the children, but may be sold in emergencies. Personal property consists of houses, valuable trees, and sweet potato crops. Unowned land belongs to anyone who clears and plants it. The general pattern of settlement is that of small, named hamlets, consisting of from 8 to 12 houses (with 30 or more persons), located on hillocks or on spurs along the sides of mountain valleys, invariably near the rice fields. Settlement clusters are not found among the Mayoyao, however; each dwelling is situated as near as possible to the owner's fields. Houses are well made of timber and thatch, raised on four posts, and are characterized by their pyramidal roof construction. Less permanent structures, such as the house for the unmarried (agamang), are frequently built directly on the ground. Government institutions are poorly developed among the Ifugao, and chiefs, councils, and politically defined districts or other units are lacking in the traditional culture. "The functions of government are (or were) accomplished by the operation of collective kinship obligations, including the threat of blood feud, together with common understanding of the adat or custom law given the people by ancestor heroes, in particular the inviolability of personal and property rights." Informal arbitrators (monbaga), who are "respected men of wealth skilled in knowledge of genealogy and adat," and whose decisions can be backed up by a large and powerful kin group, serve as go-betweens who "negotiate and witness property dealings, marriage transactions and the like, and who are paid for their services" (LeBar 1975: 81). A very loose type of community leadership has traditionally been achieved, however, through the role of the "rice chief," one of the leading priests of the area, to whom members of the community give voluntary obeisance. The principal function of the "rice chief" was merely to determine on which days certain religious customs of common interest to all should be observed. The "rice chief" (manu'ngaw) had very little real authority for he could not enforce the decisions he had made, nor could he in any way change the laws dictated by the adat. The bonds of kinship served to unite the people of a particular valley or watershed area, but feelings of solidarity rarely extended much beyond the local area. Beyond this so-called "home-region" were zones of increasingly less friendly contacts, culminating in an outer "war zone," the locale of headhunting raids. Social stratification was traditionally based on the accumulation of wealth in terms of rice, water buffalo, and slaves. The ranks or statuses (they are not really classes) are: the kadangyan, the wealthy aristocrats; the natumok, who are families with relatively little land and as a result are greatly dependent on the kandangyan for their existence; the nawatwat, or very poor, with no land at all (including servants and tenants on the lands of the wealthy); and, finally, the slaves. The political power of the kandangyan is in terms of prestige and influence rather than institutionalized authority, but is still often considerable. There was a tendency toward endogamy among the kandangyan. Slaves were only rarely kept, most often being sold to lowlanders. There was no hereditary slave class. Monogamy was the normal form of marriage, although polygyny was practiced occasionally by the wealthy. In cases of polygyny, the first wife has higher authority and status than her co-wives. Marriages are alliances between kindreds. First cousin marriages are forbidden in both theory and practice, but marriages to more distant cousins can take place, with suitable payment of fines in livestock. Bride-price is present. Residence is left to the personal choice of the married couple and usually results in settlement near the largest rice field holding of either partner. First children tend to inherit irrigated farmland, but otherwise inheritances are divided among all legitimate children. Each sibling group is the center of an exogamous, bilateral kindred, which is reckoned vertically to great-great-grandparents and laterally to third cousins. Each kindred is collectively responsible for the actions and welfare of its members. Eggan (1967) mentions a regional descent group or "cognatic stock," which includes those persons in a particular region who claim descent from a common deified culture hero. The "clan district" mentioned by Beyer and Barton (1911) seems to be the same as Conklin's "agricultural district." Conklin's districts, however, cannot be defined as localized kin groups. Ifugao kinship terminology is generational with a Hawaiian-type cousin terminology. Igugao religion is pantheistic in nature and has a well-developed cosmology. Adult males traditionally functioned as priests within their kindreds and invoked the spirits of departed ancestors within their own and closely related kin groups. This is a part-time occupation, and payment is made in meat and drink. Most rites involve invocation, prayer, and spirit possession on the part of the priest and inevitably require some type of offering. Illness is believed to be caused by deities acting with the consent of the ancestors and is treated by a priest through the medium of divination and curing rites. If the deities refuse to return the soul of the person they have made sick, despite the best efforts of the priest to effect a cure, then the person dies. Illness and death can also be caused by sorcery and the evil eye. The tulud is a witchcraft ceremony in which characters of a recited myth are made to perform the desire of the priest. For an easily accessible and concise summary of Ifugao culture, see LeBar (1975: 78-82). Culture summary by Martin J. Malone Beyer, H. Otley. An Ifugao burial ceremony. By H. Otley Beyer and Roy Franklin Barton. Philippine Journal of Science, 6, D (1911): 227-252. Chaffee, Frederic H. Area handbook for the Philippines. By Frederic H. Chaffee, et al. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969. Conklin, Harold C. Some aspects of ethnographic research in Ifugao. New York Academy of Sciences, Transactions, ser. 2, 30 (1967-1968): 99-121. Eggan, Fred. Some aspects of bilateral social systems in the northern Philippines. In Mario D. Zamora, ed. Studies in Philippine Anthropology in Honor of H. Otley Beyer. Quezon City, Alemar-Phoenix, 1967: 186-202. LeBar, Frank M., ed. and comp. Ethnic groups of Insular Southeast Asia, Vol. 2. New Haven, Human Relations Area Files Press, 1975. 7848 | |
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