The Bontoc Igorot

by Albert Ernest Jenks

It is customary for the old men of the interested ato to consider all except common offenses unless the parties settle their differences without appeal.

A fine of chickens, pigs, sementeras, sometimes even of carabaos, is the usual penalty for assault and battery.

Adultery is not a common crime. I was unable to learn that the punishment for adultery was ever the subject for a council of the old men. It seems rather that the punishment—death of the offenders—is always administered naturally, being prompted by shocked and turbulent emotions rather than by a council of the wise men. In Igorot society the spouse of either criminal may take the lives of both the guilty if they are apprehended in the crime. To-day the group consciousness of the penalty for adultery is so firmly fixed that adulterers are slain, not necessarily on the spur of the moment of a suspected crime but sometimes after carefully laid plans for detection. A case in question occurred in Suyak of Lepanto Province. A man knew that his faithless wife went habitually at dusk with another man to a secluded spot under a fallen tree. One evening the husband preceded them, and lay down with his spear on the tree trunk. When the guilty people arrived he killed them both in their crime, thrusting his spear through them and pinning them to the earth.

Among a primitive people whose warfare consists much in ambushing and murdering a lone person it is not always possible to predict whether the taking of human life will be considered a criminal act or an act of legitimate warfare.

It is considered warfare by the group of the murdered person, and as such to be met by return warfare unless the group of the murderer is a friendly one and at once comes to the offended people to sue for continued peace. This applies to political groups within a pueblo as well as to the people of distinct pueblos.

When murder is considered simply as a crime, its punishment may be one of two classes: First, the murderer may lose his life at the hands of his own group; second, the crime may be compounded for the equivalent of the guilty man’s property. In this case the settlement is between the guilty person and the political group of the victim, and the value of the compound is consumed by feastings of the group. No part of the price is paid the family of the deceased as a compensation for the loss of his labor and other assistance.

The three following specific cases of misdemeanors will illustrate somewhat, more fully the nature of differences which arise between individuals in pure Igorot society:

In Samoki early in November, 1902, Bisbay pawned an iron pot—a sugar boiler—to Yagao for 4 pesos. In about two months, when sugar season was on, Bisbay went to redeem his property, but Yagao would neither receive the money nor give up the boiler. The old men of the ato counseled together over the matter, and, as a result, Yagao received the 4 pesos and returned the pot, and the matter was thus amicably settled between the two.

Early in January, 1903, Mowigas, of the pueblo of Ganang, cut and destroyed the grasshopper basket of Dadaag, of the pueblo of Mayinit, and also slightly cut Dadaag with his ax, but did not attempt to kill him. The cause of the assault was this: Mowigas had killed a chicken and was having a ceremonial in his house at the time Dadaag passed with his basket of grasshoppers. According to Igorot custom he should not have taken grasshoppers past a house in which such a ceremony was being performed. The breach made it necessary to hold another ceremony, killing another chicken. Old men from Mayinit, the pueblo of Dadaag, came to Ganang and told Mowigas he would have to pay 3 pesos for his conduct, or Mayinit would come over and destroy the town. He paid the money, whereas the basket was worth only one-sixth the price. Trouble was thus averted, and the individuals reconciled. In this case the two pueblos are friends, but Mayinit is much stronger than Ganang, and evidently took advantage of the fact.

In January, 1903, a woman and her son, of Titipan, stole camotes of another Titipan family. The old men of the two ato of the interested families fined the thieves a hog. The fine was paid, and the hog eaten by the old men of the two ato.