Kidnapping
115. Circumstances under which kidnapping may occur.—If performed to cover a debt for which payment had been repeatedly demanded, or to cover an injury for which a proper fine had been repeatedly demanded in due form, kidnapping was a legal seizure, although the victim and his kindred might not consider it so.
But there were a good many cases in which the kidnapper’s motive was utterly different. He might wish, for example, to display his valor, or to profit financially by the sale of his captives. Sometimes, too, a head-hunting party, failing to get a head, would capture a woman and carry her back with them to their village. In some parts of Ifugao the woman was ravished for a period of five days by the party of head-hunters. She was then sold into slavery.
The penalty inflicted by the kin of the kidnapper was either death or retaliation by kidnapping.