The Ifugaos
Philippine ethnologists generally agree to the hypothesis that the Negritos, a race of little blacks, remnants of which now inhabit mountain regions of many of the larger islands, were the original inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago. They advance the hypothesis that these little blacks were driven by Malay immigrants from their former homes in the fertile plains to the mountains; and that these first Malay invaders were driven from the lowlands into the mountain regions by succeeding immigrations of Malays superior to them in organization and weapons.[1] By and by, no one cares to hazard how long afterward, the Spaniards came. They christianized the lowlanders, except the Mohammedan populations of Mindanao and Sulu. But at the time of the American occupation the mountaineer descendants of the first immigration, for the most part, had not received the spiritual ministrations of Her Most Catholic Majesty’s missionaries, on account of the inaccessible character of their habitat. True, garrisons and missions had been established in a few localities among them; but owing to the scattered character of the population, the independent spirit of the people, their natural conservatism, and the lack of tact and consideration on the part of the Spanish officials and missionaries, practically no progress had been made in christianizing or civilizing them.
The great majority of the non-Mohammedan, non-Christian Malays inhabit the island of Luzon. The Luzon non-Christian tribes and their estimated numbers are: Apayaos, 16,000; Benguet Igorots, 25,000; Bontoc Igorots, 50,000; Wild Gaddanes, 4000; Ifugaos, 120,000; Ilongots, 6000; Kalingas, 60,000; Tingianes, 30,000; Lepanto Igorots, 35,000; total, nearly a quarter million. All these tribes inhabit the mountain ranges of the northern third of the island.
The habitat of the Ifugaos is situated in about the center of the area inhabited by the non-Christian tribes. In point of travel-time, as we say in the Philippines, for one equipped with the usual amount of baggage, Ifugao-land is about as far from Manila as New York from Constantinople. To the northeast are the Wild Gaddan, to the north the Bontoc Igorot, to the northwest, west, and southwest the Lepanto and Benguet Igorots; to the east, across the wide uninhabited river basin of the Cagayan, are the Ilongots. This geographic isolation has tended to keep the Ifugao culture relatively pure and uninfluenced by contact with the outside world. Two or three military posts were fitfully maintained in Ifugao by the Spaniards during the last half century of their sovereignty; but the lives of the natives were little affected thereby.
Ifugao men wear clouts and Ifugao women loin cloths, or short skirts, reaching from the waist to the knees. Wherever they go the men carry spears. Both sexes ornament their persons with gold ornaments, beads, agates, mother of pearl, brass ornaments, and so forth. Ifugao houses, while small, are substantially built, of excellent materials, and endure through many generations.
It may safely be said that the Ifugaos have constructed the most extensive and the most admirable terraces for rice culture to be found anywhere in the world. The Japanese terraces, which excite the admiration of tens of thousands of tourists every year, are not to be compared with them. On these steep mountains that rise from sea-level to heights of six to eight thousand feet—mountains as steep probably as any in the world—there have been carved out, with wooden spades and wooden crowbars, terraces that run like the crude but picturesque “stairsteps” of a race of giants, from the bases almost to the summits. Some of these terrace walls are fifty feet high. More than half are walled with stone. Water to flood these terraces is retained by a little rim of earth at the outer margin. The soil is turned in preparation for planting with a wooden spade. No mountain is too steep to be terraced, if it affords an unfailing supply of water for irrigation. The Ifugao, too, makes clearings on his mountains in which he plants sweet potatoes, and numerous less important vegetables. Without his knowing it, he bases his agriculture on scientific principles (to an extent that astounds the white man) and he tends his crops so skillfully and artistically that he probably has no peer as a mountain husbandman.
Of political organization the Ifugao has nothing—not even a suggestion. Notwithstanding, he has a well-developed system of laws. This absolute lack of political government has brought it about that the Ifugao is a consummate diplomat. After an eight years’ residence among them, I am convinced that the Ifugaos got along very well in the days before a foreign government was established among them. Through countless generations the Ifugao who has survived and prospered has been the one who has carried his point, indeed, but has carried it without involving himself in serious trouble with his fellows.
The Ifugao’s religion is a mixture of an exceedingly complex polytheism, ancestor worship, and a mythology that is used as an instrument of magic. His religion seems to be far more highly developed than that of the other non-Christian tribes.
Attempts made by Spain to colonize the Ifugao in the lowlands invariably met with failure. The Ifugao is a hillman, and loves his hills. He is of an independent nature and cannot stand confinement. A great many prisoners jailed by American officials have courted death rather than endure incarceration.
While there are well defined tribal divisions that mark off the various mountain-Malay populations of northern Luzon, the cultures of all of the tribes are basically similar. Numerous parallelisms, too, are found with the lowland Filipinos, even now, in features of daily life, religion, taboo, law, and marital relation. The dialects of all the tribes inhabiting the islands are branches of the great family of Malay languages—languages spoken over more than half the circumference of the globe. 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. All these bargains and their amounts and their varying terms, our wealthy Ifugao remembers, unaided by any system of writing or other artificial means. Many Ifugaos know their ancestors back to the tenth or even the fourteenth generation, and, in addition, the brothers and sisters of these ancestors. If we consider the racial or tribal memory of these people, we find a mythology fully as voluminous as that of the Greeks. But the Ifugaos have no recollections of having ever migrated. Unless they have lived for many centuries in their present habitat, it seems certain that they would have retained at least in mythical form the memory of their migration.
Another consideration that is significant lies in a comparison of the rate of rice-field building in these peaceful times, when such work is not hindered but instead vigorously stimulated by the government, with the amount of such work accomplished by past generations. One who stands on some jutting spur of the mountain-side in Asin, Sapao, or Benaue can scarcely help being impressed with the feeling that he is looking upon a work of tens of centuries. Any calculation must be based on vague and hazardous figures of course, but, without having any theories to prove, and making due allowance for increased rate of building during peaceful times and for the pressure of the needs of increased population, from a comparison of the estimated area of voluntary rice-field building with the areas already constructed, I come to the conclusion that the Ifugaos must have lived in their present habitat for at least two thousand years, and I believe that these figures are too small.