(f) At the termination of a feud, between the families involved in the feud. A feud was rarely—my belief is that it was never—terminated except by a marriage or on request of one of the members of the family afflicted by the hidit deities. In the latter case, peace might or might not be purchased. At any rate, the family suing for peace furnished the animals for sacrifice.
In most parts—I believe all—of Ifugao, peace was never made between districts or villages. Peace was always made between families; but peace between the principal families of two villages or districts was sometimes in effect a peace between the districts or villages involved—I say sometimes because such a peace was uncertain and undependable.
When peace was made between families of different districts, or between families of the same district in cases of serious controversy, two men were chosen, one by each party to the peace, and with appropriate prayers and ceremonies, were given good spears. It was understood always that these spears were for the purpose of killing the first one of either party who reopened the feud, war, or controversy. After this ceremony, other spears were broken and tied together as a symbol of the breaking and tying up of all enmity; as a symbol, too, that spears were no longer needed.
An Inter-village Law
142. Neutrality.—When a war expedition or party passed through a village en route against another village, the intermediate village might signify its neutrality by casting a spear at the party. The spear never struck a member of the party, of course, nor was its casting taken as an unfriendly act. It was merely a declaration of neutrality. Should a village fail to cast a spear in these circumstances at such a party, the people of it would be held as enemies and accomplices of the members of the war party.
[1] Thus A and B, two brothers, are members of the same family until they marry. After marriage A’s family consists of his blood kin and of his relatives by marriage, and the same holds of B’s family. Thus after marriage only half the individuals of the families of the two brothers are identical. The families of two cousins are identical as to one-half the component individuals before their marriage and as to one-fourth of the component individuals after their marriage.
[2] The word monkalun comes from the root kalun, meaning advise. The Ifugao word has the double sense, too, of our word advise, as used in the following sentences, “I have the honor to advise you of your appointment” and “I advise you not to do that.”
[3] When a crime such as theft has been committed, and it cannot be determined from any evidence at hand who was the culprit, the injured person frequently resorts to the hapud. One form of this ceremony consists in placing an egg or areca nut on the edge of a knife or the bevel of a spear and repeating the prayers necessary to make the egg or areca nut balance and stand on end at the mention of the guilty person. Another form consists in spanning an agba stick. At the mention of the guilty person the stick grows longer, as revealed by its length in relation to the span of the priest. These sticks are kept for generations. Many of them are over a hundred years old. These ceremonies are not of virtue as evidence and are entirely without the pale of Ifugao procedure. They are of value only to the injured person in assisting him to determine who has committed the crime.