Transfers of Property for a Consideration
There are two kinds of transfer of family property for “consideration”: the balal (pawn), and outright sale.
46. 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. But he must transfer it for the same or a less amount of money; that is, if he has loaned fifty pesos on the field, he must not borrow more than that sum, unless, of course, he be able to secure the owner’s consent. This is a very wise provision of Ifugao law that insures the prompt return of the field to the owner as soon as he be able to get together the amount needed to redeem the field. An example will make this clear. A borrows fifty pesos of B, giving his field as a balal into B’s charge; B gives it as a balal to C for the same or a less amount, who gives it as a balal to D and so on. When A is able to repay the debt, he goes to B and delivers him the sum plus the fee of the agent through whom the deal was effected. With this amount, including the fee, B goes to C, C goes to D, and so on. Were B to have borrowed without A’s consent more than fifty pesos, say seventy pesos, and were he not financially able to obtain the difference (twenty pesos) between his debt to C and the debt that A had just paid him, there would be an excellent beginning for a quarrel that might end in lance throwing.
Real estate of this kind continues in the hands of the creditor until the debt be paid. Transfers of the same piece of land may go on indefinitely. The transfers are witnessed each time by the agent who obtains the loan for the person in whose charge the field is. This agent receives as his fee about five to twelve per cent of the value of the loan obtained. He is the only witness necessary. His fee is paid him in the first place by the creditor. But the fee is added to the amount loaned, and must be returned by the debtor when the debt is paid. As soon as the agent has received his fee, it is his duty to inform his oldest son, in case he be of sufficient age, otherwise his wife or a brother, of the terms of the transaction. This is a precautionary measure against his death and the consequent leaving of the transaction without a witness.
Each creditor is liable to his debtor for the return of the field upon the payment of the sum due, the case being precisely parallel to the liability of the indorsers of a check or a note, one to another.
Suppose, however, that the field be planted in rice. In such an event, the owner must leave the creditor in possession of the field until the crop shall have been harvested. In case the field be newly planted, it is sometimes returned to the owner on the agreement that he care for the growing crop, harvest it, and give the creditor half. If the field be spaded, but not planted, the owner may pay his creditor for the cost of the labor expended in spading the field, together with a bonus as interest.
The amount loaned on a field never equals the value of the field. Usually it is about half the value. It makes no difference how long a field remain in the status known as balal, the field, subject to the conditions of the preceding paragraph, must be returned to the owner or his heirs whenever the amount loaned be returned. Sometimes a field remains a balal for two or three generations.
47. Sales of family property.—The Ifugao has a very peculiar system of buying and selling in connection with family property, by which, paradoxical as it may sound, a man has to pay for an article almost twice its price. In order to complete the purchase of a rice field, there are “extras” almost without number, to be paid, each extra bearing as its metaphorical name, the name of some act of rice-field cultivation or of a feature of the trade itself. So far as has yet been ascertained, there is no myth or story to explain how this peculiar idiosyncracy originated.
The price is divided into ten parts, each part being represented by a runo stick or a notch cut in a stick, or by knots in a string. In the Banaue district, these sticks are kept for generations as records of the sale. The first two sticks are called budut, and represent the payment down. They are the heaviest payments, not necessarily made on the day of the transfer, but at a set time. The eight others represent some standard in the Ifugao’s system of barter, and are called gatang, or price. They are paid at some indefinite time in the future. Possession of the field is given after the first payment. In order to make the sticks conform to the standards of barter, it is sometimes necessary to represent one payment by two sticks.
Fee of witnesses and agent. This fee is called lukbu, or lagbu (in Benaue dialect). The principal witnesses are preferably the distant kin of the seller, and the agent or agents who effected the sale. The names of the different sticks, knots, or notches are translated literally in the tables diagraming the transactions in purchasing fields.
These fees are paid and the presents made to the kin of the seller at a feast called ibuy. This feast is performed whenever the purchase price of the field has been paid. The kin of buyer and seller meet in the purchaser’s house.
A. Transactions in the Purchase of a Field in the Kiangan Area
I. Payments on the property
| Paid down at time purchase is consummated, or soonafter: | ||
| Name of transaction and meaning | Article transferred | Value |
| Budut, or tandong | 1 pig | ₱20.00 |
| Budut, or tandong | 1 pig | 15.00 |
| Additional instalments (gatang) paidirregularly: | ||
| Gatang | 1 death blanket | 8.00 |
| Nunokóp (two at a time) | 1 death blanket | 8.00 |
| Nunokóp (two at a time) | 1 pig | 20.00 |
| Gatang | 1 pig | 8.00 |
| Gatang | 1 pig | 8.00 |
| Total | ₱87.00 | |
II. Fees (lukbu) of the principal witnesses
| Name of transaction and meaning | Article transferred | Value |
| Bobod (the tying) | 1 pig | ₱10.00 |
| Page (rice) | 1 small pig | 6.00 |
| Lanad (commission of the go-between) | 5.00 | |
| Pugug (finished) | 4.00 | |
| Gogod (cut) | 3.00 | |
| Kinta (left over) | 1.00 | |
| Total | ₱29.00 |
III. Advance interest paid to the seller
| Baloblad | ₱6.50 | |
| (If the seller is a kinsman, he may not take this amount. If taken,the seller and the purchaser may not eat together for five days, sincethey are on a basis of “theoretical enmity.” This“theoretical enmity” exists in several other instances inIfugao life. See [section 15] and [appendix 2].) |
IV. Gifts to the seller’s kin
| Piduan di gogod (repetition of the cut) | Natauwin | ₱1.00 |
| Piduan di kinta (repetition of the surplus)[1] | Natauwin | 1.00 |
| Hablal (flooding of field) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Hagaphap (chopping of grass from terrace wall) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Ohok (sticks for beans to climb up) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Umuhun (burning off grass) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Aiyag (dinner call) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Banting (flint and steel) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Pakimáan (chewing betels together) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Alauwin (woman’s rice-field jug) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Kalakal (edible water beetle living in rice-field) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Tobong (spit on which kalakal are strung) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Inipit di otak (holding bolo between toes to cut meat with) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Banga (cooking pot) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Hukup (lid for the same) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Duyu (dish) | Na-oha | .25 |
| Tayap di gatang (wings of the sale) | Natauwin | 1.00 |
| Tayap di mongatang (wings of the seller) | Natauwin | 1.00 |
| Kindut (carried under the arm) | Natauwin | 1.00 |
| Inhida (eaten chicken) | Natauwin | 1.00 |
| Total | ₱9.50 | |
| Grand total | ₱132.00 |
B. Transactions in the Purchase of a Field in Benaue
I. Payments on the property
| Budut nabungol (the jeweled budut) | ₱60.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Budut nadulpig (additional budut) | 10.00 |
| Total (value of field, 15 pigs) | ₱150.00 |
II. Additional payments made to the seller, his kindred, and the witnesses after payments of purchase price but before the ibuy feast
| Tayap di gatang (wings of the sale) | ₱30.00 |
| Bobod (tie) | 20.00 |
| Binangwa de bobod (half of the tie) | 10.00 |
| Pinohat (carried under the arm) | 8.00 |
| Dotag (meat) | 5.00 |
| Gogod (cut) | 2.00 |
| Total | ₱75.00 |
III. Payments at ibuy ceremony
| To the witnesses: | |
| 1 death blanket | ₱8.00 |
| 1 death blanket | 8.00 |
| Inagagong (kind of blanket) | 5.00 |
| For distribution to seller’s kin: | |
| 10 chickens, Nunpatngan (?) | 8.00 |
| Alaag (cooking pot of Chinese origin) | 2.00 |
| Gogod, 1 bolo (the cutting off) | 1.00 |
| Puguy (finish) | 2.50 |
| Linuta (cooked) | 2.50 |
| Total | ₱37.00 |
| Grand total | ₱262.00 |
One of the fine points in buying consists of an insidious hospitality on the part of the purchaser, which gets the seller and his kin drunk so that they forget some of their perquisites. At the psychological moment, that is, when a few, but not all, of the presents or lukbu have been made the seller and his kin, and when the latter are at the proper stage of drunkenness, one of the purchaser’s kinsmen says: “Let us proceed with the praying.” If he is successful in getting the religious part of the ceremonies started, and can keep the minds of the seller and his kin from the unpaid gifts or fees until they eat, then the fees never have to be paid. For when they have started eating, everything is over. They may demand the unpaid fees only if they want to make themselves laughing stocks in the eyes of their fellows. For according to Ifugao law, when the seller and the purchaser eat together at the ibuy feast, the transfer of ownership is complete, and irrevocable.
Although possession of the property is given before the purchase price is paid, ownership of it is not, however, complete until after the performance of the ibuy. If one were to buy a field without performing the ibuy ceremony, the presumption would be held that the field had passed into his hands as a balal. It has been noted already that but one or two of the unit payments are made at the time possession is given, and that no particular time is set for making the rest of the various partial payments. At any time before the ibuy ceremonial which forever transfers the field, the seller may demand a payment or all the payments, except the fees to the witnesses and his kin. He may do this as a matter of malice, or he may do it as a matter of necessity. He sends a monkalun, or go-between, to demand payment. The go-between and the buyer arrange a reasonable time—usually not less than ten days—within which the payment is to be raised. If it be not then forthcoming, the field may revert to the former owner, should the latter so desire, and be sold by him. He must, however, return immediately the entire amount of the partial payments made to date by the first purchaser.
In case of such a transfer of a field as that described in the preceding paragraph, the same rules apply to the ownership of standing crops as apply in transfers of possession arising from the balal.
But should the seller of a field, after having sold it to a second person, and after having received a part of the purchase price of the field from him, without consultation or notification, and without giving this second person a chance to make the final payments on the field, sell it to another, he must repay to the first purchaser double the amount of the partial payments made by the first purchaser to the date of the sale.
Personal property is transferred without formality.
48. Responsibility of seller after property has left his hands.—In both Ifugao and Kalinga, if a rice field after passing into the hands of a purchaser, is subject to an unusual number of slides in the terrace wall, or is wholly, or in part washed away by a freshet, the purchaser may, at any time within the year following the purchase, relinquish the field and demand the return of his purchase price. This is on the ground that the seller may have put a curse on the field when it left his hands, or that, at least, he did not relinquish his hold on its welfare and fertility.
In Kalinga, if a water buffalo, horse, or ox, die within the year following its sale, the purchaser may demand the return of the purchase price.