The Manóbos of Mindanáo / Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir

by John M. Garvan

LAWS OF LIABILITY

LIABILITY ARISING FROM NATURAL CAUSES

The liability here referred to is the general responsibility that a person acquires for consequences that are imputed to an act of his, whether voluntary or involuntary. Instances of this strange law arise on many occasions in Manóboland. The reader is referred to the case of the loss of the beads, the attempt to collect from me for the natural death of one of my carriers, for the death of a child that I had frightened, and other instances mentioned previously, all of which show the idea of responsibility for consequences following an act. A few more instances will make the principle involved clearer. On the upper Agúsan, a Manóbo of Nábuk River went over to Moncáyo to collect a debt. According to custom he carried his shield and spear. Now it happened that there were two women walking along the river bank, one of whom was the wife of an enemy of this Nábuk warrior. Upon seeing him she became frightened, fell into the river, and was drowned. The result of this was that the Nábuk man was condemned to pay a slave or its equivalent. As a near relative of his enemy owed him "thirty" (P30) he transferred the fine to him but the transference was not accepted on the ground that the Nábuk man ought to pay his fine first. A few days' discussion of the matter resulted in the departure of the Nábuk man, who upon his arrival in a near settlement killed, in his rage, one of his slaves. The outcome of the whole affair was a feud between Moncáyo and Nábuk.

LIABILITY ARISING FROM RELIGIOUS CAUSES

The violation of the numerous taboos is believed to bring about evil consequences that are chargeable to the account of the infringer. For example, a man in Búai was charged 30 pesos for the breaking of a certain birth taboo, a violation which was supposed to have been responsible for the stillbirth of a child. I was warned on many occasions to desist from making disrespectful remarks about animals, such as monkeys or frogs, because, if Anítan were to hurl her thunderbolts at one of my companions and harm were to befall him I would be fined or killed. I would undergo a similar punishment, I was told on other occasions, for using such tabooed words as crocodile and salt; it was believed that a storm would be the result of the use of these words. On one occasion I thought it prudent to give a carrier of mine a piece of rubber cloth wherewith to cover his salt, for he had threatened to collect from me if it became wet from the storm that was impending, and which all my companions imputed to my deliberate use of the names of certain fish not native to their mountain water.

LIABILITY ARISING FROM MAGIC CAUSES

Another pregnant source of fines and of sanguinary feuds is the belief in the possession, by certain individuals, of magic power to do harm. No one that I know of or have heard of, except a few fearless warrior chiefs, has made open avowal of the possession of such power and yet on many occasions I have heard of the supposed possession of it by various individuals. To give an instance, a Manóbo on the upper Agúsan had the reputation of having secret poisons. One day another Manóbo and his wife visited him. With the exception of a trifling altercation about a debt, everything went well. On her return home the woman was suddenly taken sick and died. Her death was ascribed to the magic power of the person recently visited and the outcome was that the party with the bad reputation had to build a tree house, one of the few that I have seen, and surround his settlement with an abatis of brush and of sharp spikes, all in anticipation of an attack by the deceased woman's husband.

It was the rule rather than the exception that I, myself, had the same reputation applied to me. Upon arrival in heretofore unvisited regions I was fequently[sic] informed that they had heard of my wonderful power of killing. On many occasions it was only by assuming a bold front and by vowing vengeance on my traducers that I freed myself from the imputation. In such cases I always asked for the name of the slanderer, and, upon learning it, announced my intention of seeking him without delay, for the purpose of clearing myself from the imputation and of demanding satisfaction from him.