FOUNDATIONS OF MANÓBO LAW
Owing to the utter lack of interclan and tribal organization there is no set of statute laws in Manóboland, but, in lieu of them, there are a number of traditional laws, simple and definite, that, in conjunction with religious interdictions, serve in the main to uphold justice, the foundation of all law. There is no word for law in the whole Manóbo dialect, but the word for custom1 is used invariably to express the regulations that govern dealings between man and man.
1Ba-tá-san.
One fundamental law is the obligation to pay a debt, whether it be a blood debt or a material one. A very common axiom says that "there is no debt that will not be paid"--if not to-day, to-morrow; if not during one lifetime, during another--for the collection of it will be bequeathed as a sacred inheritance from father to son, and from son to grandson. Montano2 notes with surprise the sacredness in which debts are held, not only by Manóbos of the Agúsan Valley but by all the numerous tribes with which he came in contact in his travels around the gulf of Davao. I noted the same throughout eastern Mindanáo. The Manóbo, when called to account, will never deny his true indebtedness, and when no further time is given him, he will satisfy his obligations, even if he has to part with his personal effects at a nominal value or put himself deeply in debt to others. He is never considered insolvent. It is true that the Christianized part of Manóboland is not so punctilious in the settlement of financial obligations to outsiders (Bisáyas), but this is explained by the bad feeling that has arisen toward the latter on account of-the wholesale, fraudulent exploitation carried on in commercial dealings between them and the Christian Manóbos.
2Une mission aux Isles Philippines.
So many references have already been made in previous chapters to the practice of revenge that it is not necessary to dilate upon it here. Suffice it to say that it is not only the right but the duty, often bequeathed by father to son, to obey this stern law. One who would allow a deliberate breach of his rights to pass without obtaining sufficient compensation would be looked down upon as a sorry specimen of manhood. The feeling is so deeply rooted in the heart that the wife may urge her husband, and the fiancé, her lover, to carry out the law, and the father may instill into the hearts of his little ones the desire to wreak vengeance upon their common enemies.