The Bontoc Igorot

by Albert Ernest Jenks

Again (p. 159):

The maxim of the ruffians (Kayans) is that out of their own country all are fair game. “Were we to meet our father, we would slay him.” The head of a child or of a woman is as highly prized as that of a man.

Mr. Roth writes that Mr. F. Witti “found that the latter (Limberan) would not count as against themselves heads obtained on head-hunting excursions, but only those of people who had been making peaceful visits, etc. In fact, the sporting head-hunter bags what he can get, his declared friends alone excepted” (p. 160).

The Ibilao of Luzon, near Dupax, of the Province of Nueva Vizcaya, give the name “debt of life” to their head-hunting practice; but they have, in addition, other reasons for head taking. No man may marry who has not first taken a head; and every year after they harvest their palay the men go away for heads, often going journeys requiring a month of time in order to strike a particular group of enemies. The Christians of Dupax claim that in 1899 the Ibilao took the heads of three Dupax women who were working in the rice sementeras close to the pueblo. These same Christians also claim that they have seen a human head above the stacks of harvested Ibilao palay; and they claim the custom is practiced annually, though the Ibilao deny it.

Some dozen causes for head-hunting among primitive Malayan peoples have been here cited. These include the debt of life, requirements for marriage, desire for abundant fruitage and harvest of cultivated products, the desire to be considered brave and manly, desire for exaltation in the minds of descendants, to increase wealth, to secure abundance of wild game and fish, to secure general health and activity of the people, general favor at the hands of the women, fecundity of women, and slaves in the future life.

From long continuance in the practice of head-hunting, many beliefs and superstitions arise to foster it, until in the minds of the people these beliefs are greater factors in its perpetuation than the original one of the debt of life. The possession of a head, with the accompanying honor, feasts, and good omens, seems in many cases to be of first importance rather than the avenging of a life.

The custom of head taking came with the Igorot to Luzon, a custom of their ancestors in some earlier home. The people of Bontoc, however, say that their god, Lumawig, taught them to go to war. When, a very long time ago, he lived in Bontoc, he asked them to accompany him on a war expedition to Lagod, the north country. They said they did not wish to go, but finally yielded to his urgings and followed him. On the return trip the men missed one of their companions, Gu-ma′-nûb. Lumawig told them that Gu-ma′-nûb had been killed by the people of the north. And thus their wars began—Gu-ma′-nûb must be avenged. They have also a legend in regard to head taking: The Moon, a woman called “Kabigat,” was sitting one day making a copper pot, and one of the children of the man Chalchal, the Sun, came to watch her. She struck him with her molding paddle, cutting off his head. The Sun immediately appeared and placed the boy’s head back on his shoulders. Then the Sun said to the Moon: “Because you cut off my son’s head, the people of the Earth are cutting off each other’s heads, and will do so hereafter.”

With the Bontoc men the taking of heads is not the passion it seems to be with some of the people of Borneo. It, is, however, the almost invariable accompaniment of their interpueblo warfare. They invariably, too, take the heads of all killed on a head-hunting expedition. They have skulls of Spaniards, and also skulls of Igorot, secured when on expeditions of punishment or annihilation with the Spanish soldiers.

But the possession of a head is in no way a requisite to marriage. A head has no part in the ceremonies for palay fruitage and harvest, or in any of the numerous agricultural or health ceremonies of the year. It in no way affects a man’s wealth, and, so far as I have been able to learn, it in no way affects in their minds a man’s future existence. A beheaded man, far from being a slave, has special honor in the future state, but there seems to be none for the head taker. As shown by the Lumawig legend the debt of life is the primary cause of warfare in the minds of the people of Bontoc, and it is to-day a persistent cause. Moreover, since interpueblo warfare exists and head taking is its form, head-hunting is a necessity with an individual group of people in a state of nature. Without it a people could have no peace, and would be annihilated by some group which believed it a coward and an easy prey.

There is no doubt that the desire to be considered brave and manly has come to be a factor in Bontoc head taking. In my presence an Igorot once told a member of ato Ungkan that the men of his ato were like girls, because they had not taken heads. The statement was false, but the pronounced judgment sincere. In this connection, also, it may be said that although the taking of a head is not a requisite to marriage, and they say that it does not win the men special favor from the women, yet, since it makes them manly and brave in the eyes of their fellows, it must also have its influence on the women.