The Family in Relation to Procedure
124. Family unity and coöperation.—The mutual duty of kinsfolk and relatives, each individual to every other of the same family, regardless of sex, is to aid, advise, assist, and support in all controversies and altercations with members of other groups or families. The degree of obligation of the various members of a family group to assist and back any particular individual of that group is in direct proportion: first, to the kinship or the relationship by marriage; second, to the loyalty the individual in question has himself manifested toward the family group, that is, the extent to which he discharges his obligations to that group.
The family is without any political organization whatever. It is a little democracy in which each member is measured for what he is worth, and has a voice accordingly in the family policy. It is a different body for every married individual of the whole Ifugao tribe.[1] There are a great many relationships that complicate matters. An Ifugao’s family is his nation. The family is an executive and a judicial body. Its councils are informal, but its decisions are none the less effective. The following rules and principles apply to the family and to individuals in the matter of procedure.
Brothers of the blood can never be arrayed against each other. They may fall out and quarrel, but they can never proceed against each other. This is for the reason that their family is identical (before marriage at least), and a family cannot proceed against itself.
Cousins and brothers of the half-blood ought never to be arrayed against each other in legal procedure. In case they should be so arrayed, the mutual kin try to arrange peace. Only in the event of serious injuries may a cousin with good grace and with the approval of public opinion collect a fine from another cousin, and even then he should not demand as much as from a non-related person. In the case of minor injuries he should forego punishing his kindred. The following is an example:
A steals some rice from his cousin B. Theft and thief become known. B takes no steps against the thief; but B’s wife cannot overlook it—and the injury was an injury to her as much as to B. Her kin take the matter up. They collect half the usual indemnity for their kinswoman. B foregoes his half of the indemnity.
In cases of minor injury, procedure against more distant kin is frowned on, but sometimes occurs.
It is the duty of mutual, equally related relatives and kin to try to arrange peace between opposing kin or relatives.
In the event of procedure on the part of one kinsman against another, those who are related to both take sides with him to whom they are more closely related. Besides blood relationship, there is marriage relationship oftentimes to make it a very complex and difficult problem for a man to decide to which opponent his obligation binds him. This is most frequently the case among the remoter kin. A man who finds himself in such a position, and who knows that on whichever side he may array himself he will be severely criticized by the other, becomes a strong advocate of compromise and peaceful settlement.
In case a kinsman to whom one owes loyalty in an altercation is in the wrong and has a poor case, one may secretly advise him to compromise; one must never openly advise such a measure. One may secretly refuse him assistance and backing—one must never oppose him.
One owes no obligation in the matter of procedure to another merely because he is a co-villager or inhabitant of the same district.
The obligation to aid and assist kinsmen beyond the third or fourth degree is problematic, and a question into which elements of personal interest enter to a great extent. One of the greatest sources of the power of the principal kadangyang lies in their ability to command the aid of their remote kin on account of their prestige and wealth and ability to dispense aid and favor.
There is also a class, small in number, corresponding somewhat to the “clients” of the chiefs of the ancient Gauls. This body is composed of servants who have grown up in the service and household of a master, and who have been well treated, and in times of need sustained and furnished with the things needful to Ifugao welfare; another division consists of those who habitually borrow or habitually rent from one who stands in the nature of an overlord to them. This class is most numerous in districts where most of the lands are in the hands of a few men. The duty of the clients to their lord and of their lord to them seems to be about the same as those duties have always been in a feudal society; that is to say, the duty of rendering mutual aid and assistance.
The first step in any legal procedure is to consult with one’s kin and relatives. In initiating steps to assess a fine or collect an indemnity, the next step is the selection of a monkalun.