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.[4] 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.[5] 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.
Kodamon of Pindungan and Katiling of Ambabag[6] had a dispute over the boundary of a field. There were paghok to mark the boundary, but Kodamon contended that all memory of the planting of the paghok was absent, and that they were, consequently, without significance in the matter of dispute. They wrestled, and Kodamon lost a little ground, but Katiling tried to take more than was due him according to the verdict of the wrestling matches. Katiling sent men to spade the disputed territory, and led an armed force out to support them. Kodamon led an armed force to the field. At the same time and at a safe distance, the mutual kin of the two parties and a goodly number of neighbors gathered. Kodamon was armed with a Remington rifle whose trigger was broken; Dulinayan, a kinsman of Katiling, with a revolver for which he had no ammunition. The other members of each force however were substantially, if less spectacularly, armed with spears which they well knew how to use. Women rushed in between the two parties, and catching the warriors by the waist tried to lead them away. One can well believe that the air was riven by curses, threats, accusations, upbraidings, imprecations, invocations. The male neutral kin shouted from their safe distance that if Kodamon killed Katiling, they would kill Kodamon (as a vengeance for the death of their kinsman) while if Katiling killed Kodamon, they would avenge their kinsman’s death by killing Katiling. “What kind of a way is this for co-villagers to settle a dispute,” they shouted. “Go back home and beget some children, and marry them to each other, giving them the two fields, and then it will make no difference where the division line is!” There was an exchange of spears in which Buaya, a kinsman of Kodamon’s, was wounded slightly. The matter was then left in abeyance with the understanding that as soon as possible, the two families be united by a marriage, and the two fields given the married couple.
It happened, however, that on account, of the sexes of the unmarried children of the families, a union between them was impossible. Accordingly, Kodamon gave his field to his son Dulnuan, and Katiling traded his field to Pingkihan, his brother. Both of these young men had pregnant wives. Pingkihan’s wife gave birth first, the child being a girl. Shortly afterward, Dulnuan’s wife gave birth. I met Dulnuan, and not knowing of the event, and noticing that he seemed downcast, asked him why he was so sad. “My wife has given birth to a girl baby,” he said. The quarrel over the boundary is as yet unsettled.
Kuyapi of Nagakaran, before the Spanish occupation, sent a slave child to Guminigin of Baay, to be sold in Baliwan (Nueva Vizcaya), stipulating that the child must bring at least five carabaos. Guminigin sold the child for seven carabaos, delivering five to Kuyapi, and kept two.
The Spaniards came. They were exceedingly partial to the people of Kiangan district in which the village of Baay is located. They paid little or no attention to complaints of people of other districts against people of Kiangan district. Many debts owed by Kiangan people were unpaid, for the Kianganites took advantage of the protection given them by the Spaniards. And yet the Nagakaranites and Kianganites were very closely united by marriage and by blood. Indeed Kuyapi and Guminigin were second or third cousins.
Owing to the difficulty the Nagakaran people had in collecting debts owed them by the Kianganites, they conceived for the latter and for the Spaniards a most violent hatred, and began to make reprisals. The Spaniards punished these reprisals by making an expedition to Nagakaran in which they came off second best.[7] They sent another and stronger expedition, which killed a number of people and which burned all the houses in the district. To this day the Nagakaran people have not been able to rebuild their houses—the large trees having long since been cut from nearby forests—and live in wretched shacks built on the ground. They blame the Kiangan people, saying that the latter invited the Spaniards into Ifugao.
Kuyapi claimed that the terms on which he sent the slave to Guminigin were that Guminigin was to receive only one carabao for having effected a sale, and that all the rest were to be delivered to him, and that there was consequently a carabao still due him. It seems likely that the claim was false, and that it was advanced merely as an excuse for making a reprisal.
Pagadut, the son of Guminigin, to whom demand was presented for the payment of the carabao claimed to be yet due, refused to pay this debt. The Nagakaran people made an expedition into Kiangan district (about two miles distant) and captured Ormaya, the daughter of Pagadut, a very comely girl of sixteen or seventeen. In order to make her walk, and in order that she should not continually offer resistance, they took her skirt off so that she would have to cover her shame with her hands and would also hurry to arrive at the journey’s end.[8] But the Baay people managed to cut off Lubbut the son of Kuyapi, and imprison him. They took him to a granary in Baay, intending to keep him as a hostage for the return of Ormaya. But word was carried to the ears of the Spanish commandante of this capture. He had Lubbut brought before him. He struck Lubbut, tied although he was, twice in the face, and would have continued, had not Alangwauwi the husband of Ormaya seized and held his arm and beseeched him not to use Lubbut harshly. The commandante promised not to take his life. 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.
When the Nagakaranites heard of Lubbut’s death, they at first blamed the people of Baay for it. Inasmuch as it is against the ethics of people of the Kiangan-Nagakaran-Maggok area to kill women, or at least to kill any but Silipan women, they considered walling Ormaya up in a sepulchre and leaving her to die for want of food and drink. The women relatives of Lubbut wanted very much to kill Ormaya, and pointed out that while it would not be permissible for the men to kill her, there would be no disgrace in their doing so. But Kuyapi would have none of it. He himself guarded his prisoner two or three nights to see that her life was not taken.
Soon a monkalun was sent to ascertain the true details of Lubbut’s death. His report exonerated the Baay people. The Nagakaran people held Ormaya’s ransom considerably higher, however, because of that death. They received five carabaos, twenty pigs, two gold beads, and a great number of spears and bolos, and death blankets. It was five months before the Baay people could raise the amount of this ransom. During this time, Ormaya was well treated—for was she not a kinswoman?—but she was carefully guarded.