Roy Franklin Barton

“ Definition of illegitimacy; its frequency.—A bastard is one whose father refuses to take the mother as his legal wife for any period of time, however short. The marriage of the parents after the birth of the bastard, consequently, legitimizes the child.
Bastardy is not very frequent. It is extremely frequent, however, for a girl to become pregnant before her marriage. But in such cases her lover usually marries her. It is usually in cases of doubtful parentage and in cases in which one of the parents is of vastly different status as to wealth that a marriage does not follow pregnancy. ”

“ It is taboo to blackguard, to use certain language, and to do certain things in the presence of one’s own kin of the opposite sex that are of the degrees of kinship within which marriage is forbidden or in the presence of another and such kindred of his, or to make any except the most delicately concealed references to matters connected with sex, sexual intercourse, and reproduction. ”

“ I chop off the life of the fine collector. [The priest blows and swings his arm in the direction of the fine-collector’s house.] Travel thither, Ender, to the house of him who took from us the death blankets. Stay with him. If he goes to get wood, turn the axe into his body. If he travels, push him off the steep. If he sleeps, sleep with him. In the middle of the night stab him, and we will hear about it with the rising sun. For we are poverty stricken. We owed them no debt, yet they have taken our pigs and our chickens and our death blankets and our rice [etc.] ”

“ The monkalun has no authority. All that he can do is to act as a peace making go-between. His only power is in his art of persuasion, his tact and his skillful playing on human emotions and motives. Were he closely related to the plaintiff, he would have no influence with the defendant, and mutatis mutandis the opposite would be true.
Ultimately in any state the last appeal is to a death-dealing weapon. For example, in our own society a man owes a debt which he does not pay. Action is brought to sell his property to pay the debt. ”

“ In fact, one inclined to be prudent in his speech would never pronounce an Ifugao marriage a permanent one until the death of one of the parties to it.
The trial marriage is merely a primitive sexual mating in the dormitories of the unmarried. It might be called a courtship, it being understood that, except in its very incipiency, Ifugao courtship postulates an accompaniment of sexual intercourse. It is very reprehensible, but not punishable, for a girl to enter into two such unions contemporaneously. The moral code is hardly so strict with respect to the male. ”

“ Most of the Ifugao’s myths have either been invented or if not invented, changed, for the purpose of affording an analogy to the solution of the difficulties or misfortunes that confront men today. The Ifugaos have a myth telling of a great flood, whose only survivors were a brother and sister—Balitok and Bugan. In chagrin and shame because her brother has gotten her with child, Bugan flees into the East Region to seek destruction from the terrors there. ”

“ Another reason why what we consider moral turpitude does not enter into punishment is that treachery, ambush, and accomplishment by superior force are the rule, not only in commission of crime, but also in perfectly legal capital executions and seizures of property. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Remember that in a country where a living must be eked from a tough, stony mountain-side with a wooden spade, the means to life handed down from the sweat of former generations is a thing as sacred, as it is precious.
Besides these considerations, there is the principle on which Ifugao society is based: The family exists principally for the youthful and future generations of it. ”

“ Kinship.—Kinship is so strong a mitigating circumstance as often to excuse crime altogether. It has already been stated that crimes of one brother or sister against another are not punished. Inasmuch as all procedure is conducted by and between families, and since the family of the two brothers is identical, procedure in such cases is impossible. In the case of relatives of remoter degree, kinship is a strong extenuating circumstance in the event of the more serious crimes. In minor crimes, while the usual amount of the fine might be demanded, it would very frequently not be collected ”

“ The amount of property that parents settle on a bastard is to a great extent a matter of caprice. His rights to any property whatever, except a single field from his father, are decidedly weaker than those of children of legitimate birth, added to which he has not the right in any case to so great a portion of property. ”

“ In general it may be said to be assessed against that spouse who has made necessary the dissolution of the marriage, whether or not he be the one who takes the initiative in effecting the divorce. Should the divorce be effected on account of sexual crime of one of the spouses, the greater the injury the more severely the crime is punished. The hudhud is a small fine, but its payment is said effectually to banish the mental anguish. The dignity and self-importance of the Malay are of unusual proportions in comparison with his other feelings and emotions. ”

“ The breaking of a taboo that concerns the person or possessions of an individual of another family is a crime. The following instances will illustrate:
In nearly all districts2 of Ifugao it is taboo for persons of other districts2 to pass through a rice field when it is being harvested. It is also taboo for foreigners to enter a village when that village is observing its ceremonial idleness, tungul, at the close of harvest time. One who broke this taboo would be subject to fine. In case it were believed that the fine could not be collected, he would be in danger of the lance. ”

“ Obligations of father to bastard child.—The father of a bastard must give his child a rice field if he has a field unassigned. He must also give the mother an oban, or blanket, with which to carry the child after the Ifugao fashion on her back. The value of this gift is principally in its constituting a formal recognition of the child.
The mother’s rights are enforced by her kin. To a certain extent the same is true of the bastard’s rights. A man is never forced to marry a woman against his will—an Ifugao woman would be ashamed to ask such a thing. Such a marriage, too, would not be congenial. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Malay does nothing without first thoroughly talking it over. After a payment has been tentatively consented to by the offender and his family, there yet remain many conferences with the go-between before everything is arranged. An uninitiated white man on seeing a group of these people, squatted in a circle, moving little sticks about, and in heated discussion, might think they were playing some primitive but absorbing native game. ”

“ But a soldier called attention to the fact that a gun had been captured with Lubbut, which gun, it was claimed, was that of a Spanish corporal whom the Nagakaran people had killed. Alangwauwi and his companions started back to their homes in Baay. But on the road, they saw, across the valley, Lubbut with his back turned to a firing squad, saw a puff of white smoke, and saw Lubbut fall into a rice field. Alangwauwi says he burst into tears for he realized that this meant serious trouble for him and his relatives, and placed Ormaya’s life in the greatest peril. ”

“ The Ifugao child, even at the age of ten or twelve, begins to look upon his parents’ property as his own, or at least that portion of it that will fall to his share. A little later, he becomes independent—he does not obey his parents unless he wants to do so. He is fully as likely to command them as to obey them. And the parent is under the obligation early to allow the children to displace him from his possession. He must turn over all his property to them as soon as they are able to marry or care for themselves. Should there be but a single field, he assigns it to his eldest. ”

“ It is not incumbent on a man to secure permission of the owner of an abandoned field before working it; it is incumbent on the owner to prevent others from working his field against his will.
In the event a rice field is made on privately owned forest lands from which the timber has long been cut, the owner of the land, when he has proved title, demands payment for the land. But he may not take advantage of the labor that the other has spent on the land in making rice fields, to demand an exorbitant payment. ”

“ Should a man sell a field for a light or trivial cause without the permission of his wife, the validity of the transfer would not be effected by the fact of the non-consent of the wife. But the wife would have recourse for damages from her husband, and might demand: (a) twice the price received for the field as a settlement on their children; (b) a divorce; (c) or both. The right of each spouse to veto the sale of the other’s property is equal and the same. ”

“ Civil obligations rest more heavily upon the older children and as nearly as possible in proportion to the amounts of property received from the parents. Children who receive no family property contribute very little.
One might ask how compliance with these obligations is enforced. Compliance with them is really not enforced. They are the most sacred of all duties. Not to meet them would bring upon one’s self such universal reproach as to render life unbearable. [39]
1 When the Ifugao sacrifices a chicken or pig, he always consults the omen of the bile sac. ”

“ Pingkihan tried in vain to have sexual intercourse with her. The girl’s resistance made the thing impossible. The marriage ceremonies were carried no further.
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that husband and wife are never united into one family. They are merely allies. The ties that bind each to his own family are much stronger than the ties that bind them together. An Ifugao explained this to me by putting his hands parallel, the forefingers together. ”

“ Certain acts are believed to be injurious to others because they are bad in their magic influence. Thus trying to collect a debt when a member of the debtor’s household is ill is taboo. The penalty for this act is the loss of the debt, be it large or small. It is believed that any subtraction from the sick person’s or his family’s possessions is bound to react injuriously on his health.
Passing near or through a field of rice in a foreign district during harvest is taboo, because it is a disturbing factor and interferes with the miraculous increase. ”

“ The linguistic differences that exist between the mountain and the lowland tribes seem to be not much greater than the linguistic differences between the various mountain tribes themselves.
Many things lead us to believe that the culture of the Ifugaos is very old. We have to do with a people who possess both as individuals and collectively a most remarkable memory. Ifugao rich men lend to considerable numbers of clients and others every year during the “hungry time”—to these, varying numbers of bundles of rice, to this one a skein of yarn, to that one a pig, and to another again a chicken. ”

“ The Ifugao has the remnant of a peculiar belief that a child may be begotten by two fathers. They say, for example, that if A and B, two men, are having sexual intercourse with a woman, Z, and that if it is settled by fate that A and B each shall beget a child of the male sex, Z will conceive and the child may be the son of both of them. But if A is fated to beget a female child, and B to beget a male child, the semen of the one undoes that of the other, and the woman does not conceive. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The balal.—In case a man finds himself under the necessity of raising a considerable sum of money—usually in order to provide funds for a funeral feast or a sacrifice—he frequently borrows the sum, giving a rice field into the hands of his creditor as a security and as a means of paying the interest on debt. The creditor holds, plants, and harvests the field until the debt be repaid. The field is to all purposes his, except that he cannot sell it. He can, however, transfer it as a balal into the hands of another. ”

“ If the adopted child be the son or daughter of a cousin, there is assigned him, or he inherits all the property that his parents would inherit in case of the death of the related parent, and a portion in addition. Should the parents not be in the position of being likely to become heirs to the related adopting parent, the adopted child inherits, or has assigned him, only a minor portion of the estate. If there be no brothers and sisters of the parent by adoption, he may have assigned him the greater portion of the estate, however. ”

“ A bastard is entitled to a rice field from his father if the father has a rice field that is unassigned to a legitimate child. He is not entitled to any special value of fields, and as a rule, receives less than his legitimate brothers and sisters if there be such.
The above paragraphs apply equally to the bastard’s right in [53] the property of his mother. He has, however, no kin to enforce his rights against his mother. Since he is of illegitimate birth, the kin of the father are not in a position to enforce his rights against her ”