Ifugao

By Martin J. Malone and Ian Skoggard

Ifugaw, Ipugao, Yfugao.

The Ifugao are a rice-growing people who live in the mountainous region of northern Luzon in the Philippines. They inhabit an area of some 900 square kilometers--mostly within Ifugao Province--and between 1,000 and 1,500 meters above sea level. The Ifugao are also known in the literature by their locationally-linked names: Bungian (Bunhian), Mayayao (Mayoyo, Mayaoyao, Mayawyaw), Silipan (Selipan, Salipan, Halipan), Quiangan (Kiañgan), Sapao (Japao, Hapoa, Hapaw), and Banaue (Benauwe, Banawe, Banawi.)

Of the 106,794 Ifugao in 1970, 25,379 lived outside the province of Ifugao. Population densities range from 100 to over 250 per square kilometer.

The Ifugao language is Austronesian and one of the Central Cordillera group of languages, which includes Bontok and Kankanai, both closely related to Ifugao. There is no standard Ifugao dialect, rather dialects vary across districts. Conklin describes the language as 'a reticulated network of mutually intelligible dialects' (Conklin 1993, xi).

The renowned Ifugao system of terraced rice growing appears to have developed indigenously over a period of at least four centuries. Ifugao contact with the outside world began in the 16th century with several unsuccessful attempts by Spanish military expeditions to pacify the peoples of the Northern Cordillera and control the gold mines of the interior. After 1898, during the U.S. administration of the Philippines, American military officers had better success pacifying the Ifugao by establishing permanent outposts, co-opting leaders, and building roads and schools. Near the end of the Second World War, the Japanese made a last ditch stand in the mountains of northern Luzon, bringing a great deal of destruction to the area. In the postwar years this area has been a center of communist insurgency, which has also adversely impacted on Ifugao livelihoods. Improved transportation has allowed Ifugao to work in the lowland towns and cities. Beginning with the American occupation and continuing afterwards, Ifugao have been resettled in lowland areas to help relieve population pressure in the mountain valleys. In the lowlands, Ifugao have engaged in growing cash crops, such as tobacco and sugar cane.

Hamlets (BUBLE) of eight to twelve dwellings, housing a total of thirty or more people, are built on hillocks on the sides of valleys. The houses (BALE) are built on terraces close to rice fields. They and the granaries are made of timber and rest on four posts, with thatched roofs; the only difference in design between the two is that houses are larger and have hearths. There are also temporary buildings, such as houses for the unmarried, which are built on the ground. Houses once had a shelf for the skulls of enemies taken in battle. The typical household consists of the nuclear family; once children are old enough to take care of themselves, they go to live in boys' houses and girls' houses.

The majority of the Ifugao diet is derived from agriculture, which is a combination of swidden and wet-rice cultivation. Ten percent of their diet is from the fish, clams, and snails, which live in the wet fields. The Ifugao also grow taro, cotton, beans, radishes, cabbage, and peas in the wet fields and sweet potatoes and corn in swidden fields. They also raise chicken, pigs and sometimes cows, used for sacrificial purposes. Rice is a prestige crop and a man's status is determined by his rice fields. Irrigation is accomplished by dikes and sluices. Pond fields range in size from just a few square meters to more than one hectare, the average size being 270 square meters. Terracing often extends for more than 1,000 feet up a mountainside. Altogether there are around 20,000 kilometers of terrace embankments in Ifugao. Fields are worked with wooden spades and digging sticks. The Ifugao also depend on private woodland plots for fruit, medicinal plants, fuel, and building materials.

Bilateral kinship relationships are the most important social ties. Every individual is a member of an exogamous bilateral kindred that extends to one's great-great-grandparents and third cousins. The kindred is responsible for the welfare of its members, and formerly the Ifugao activated its network in times of feud. One's kindred becomes allied with one's spouse's kindred at marriage.

Kinship terminological categories are relatively few; several types of relationship are described by the same term. For example, all kin of Ego's generation are known by the same term. A second term applies to one's child, nephew, or niece, and a third to one's mother and one's parents' sisters.

Monogamy is the norm, but the wealthy sometimes practice polygyny. The incest prohibition extends to first cousins; more distant cousins may be married only on payment of livestock penalties. Ifugao courtship takes place in the girls' houses (AGAMANG). Before a wedding, temporary trial marriages sometimes occur. Wealthy parents arrange marriages through intermediaries, and they make decisions concerning their children's use and inheritance of property. Families exchange gifts and maintain close relations following marriage. Divorce may occur by mutual consent, or with the payment of damages if contested. Grounds for divorce include bad omens, childlessness, cruelty, desertion, and change of affections. Childless partners each take whatever they brought individually into the marriage through inheritance and divide commonly acquired joint property equally; if they have children, all property goes to the children. A widow or widower may marry again only after making a payment to the deceased spouse's family; the payment is reduced if the second spouse is of that same family. Postmarital residence is typically close to the largest rice field acquired by either partner, but newlyweds may initially spend some time with the parents of either the groom or the bride.

Both sexes may inherit property and debts from both parents, although the firstborn receives the greatest share. An illegitimate child has the right to receive support from his or her natural father's family but no right to inherit from his estate.

Traditionally, social differentiation has been based on wealth, measured in terms of rice land, water buffalo, and slaves. The wealthy aristocrats are known as KADANGYAN. The possession of a HAGABI, a large hardwood bench, secures their status symbolically. They maintain their high status by giving feasts and by displaying their heirlooms, including hornbill headdresses, gold beads, swords, gongs, and antique Chinese jars. Kadangyan tend to class endogamy. The less wealthy are known as NATUMOK; they have little land, which forces them to borrow rice from the kadangyan at high interest rates. Because of these high rates, it is nearly impossible for natumok to rise to kadangyan status. The poor, NAWATWAT, have no land; most of them work as tenant farmers and servants to the kadangyan.

The Ifugao have little by way of a formal political system; there are no chiefs or councils. There are, however, approximately 150 districts (HIMPUTONA'AN), each comprised of several hamlets; in the center of each district is a defining ritual rice field (PUTONA'AN), the owner (TOMONA') of which makes all agricultural decisions for the district.

Bilateral kinship obligations provide most of the political control. Beyond local areas, in which people are controlled largely by kinship behavior, are areas that are more and more unfriendly the farther outward one goes; at a certain point one reaches what was formerly known as a "war zone," within which Ifugao once fought head-hunting battles. Social control is a combination of kinship behavior and control by a MONBAGA, a legal authority whose power rests on his wealth, knowledge of customary legal rules (ADAT), and especially a large supporting group of kin who stand behind his decisions. The monbaga's main sanctions are death and fines. The degree of wealth of the offender or the degree of his or her kinship relatedness mitigate the severity of the punishment; the less wealthy or the more distantly related the offender, the more likely that death is the sanction. However, the monbaga could not control feuding between kin groups within the larger group and warfare with outsiders.

Feuds were often of long duration; if they ended at all, they were most often concluded by intermarriage between the feuding groups. Warfare often took the form of raiding, with up to 100 men in a war party. Raiders not only collected heads for display on the skull shelves of expedition leaders, but also took slaves for sale to lowlanders. Blood feuds and warfare ended with the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, head-taking by mid-century.

The complexity of Ifugao religion is based in part on the complex Ifugao cosmology. The Ifugao divide the universe into the known earth, PUGAO (the people refer to themselves as "Ipugao," or "inhabitants of the known earth"); the sky world, KABUNIAN; the underworld, DALUM; the downstream area, LAGOD; and the upstream area, DAIYA. Each of these five regions has large numbers of spirits. The spirits have individual names and each belongs to one of thirty-five categories, among them hero ancestors, celestial bodies, natural phenomena, and diseases. In addition, the Ifugao have deities; these figures are immortal, are able to change form or become invisible, and are mobile.

Ifugao priests are men who take their positions voluntarily and after a period of apprenticeship. Their job is to serve the members of their kindreds by invoking the spirits of deceased ancestors and deities. Priests do not make their living from their priestly activities, although they are compensated with meat, drink, and prestige.

Rituals and ceremonies -- for the purposes of augury, omenology, hunting success, agricultural abundance, prestige feasts, etc. -- typically make use of as many as fifteen priests. Priests recite myths to give them power over the deities and hero ancestors named in them, by way of inviting them to possess their bodies. Invoking deities may involve chanting for more than five hours. Once in the priest, a deity is given an offering (which may be betel, chicken claw, pig, chicken, etc.) and is fed rice and wine (through the body of the priest). Finally, an exhortation is made to the deity.

Illness is caused by deities taking souls in cooperation with ancestors. Priests treat illness through divination and curing rituals, in an effort to have the deity return the soul. If the deity does not do so, the sick individual dies.

A corpse is washed, its orifices are plugged, and it is placed in an honorary death chair (corpses of kadangyan people are given insignias). There the body lies in state guarded by a fire and a corpse tender, and it is "awakened" each night; the wealthier the deceased, the longer this period lasts (up to thirteen days). Burial is in a family sepulcher or in a coffin that is placed either in a mausoleum or under the house. Sometimes secondary burials take place three to five years later, especially if the deceased is unhappy and causing illness among the living. Some Ifugao groups bury males and females separately and inter children in jars.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

There are 29 documents in the eHRAF Ifugao file. Religion and economy are best represented here. General cultural and historical accounts are found in Barton (1930, no. 12; 1938, no. 13), Villaverde (1909, no. 19), and Dumia (1979, no. 34). Studies of religion include a general monograph (Barton 1946, no. 1), rituals associated with rice, marriage, death, and property (Lambrecht 1932-1941; no. 9; Dulawan 1988, no. 39), harvest ritual and songs (Daguio 1952, no. 10; Barton 1911, no. 21), healing rites (Lambrecht 1955, no. 14), mythology (Beyer 1913, no. 18; Barton 1935, no. 4; Barton 1955, no. 20), funerals (Beyer 1911, no. 22), and ancestor rites (Lambrecht 1954, no. 29). Economic sources cover hunting (Lambrecht 1957, no. 25), land use (Conklin 1967, no. 16, Dove 1983, no. 36), and rice terracing (Breeman 197 , no. 35). Material culture studies include weaving (Lambrecht 1929, no. 26), basket weaving (Ng 1978, no. 32), and house design and construction (Lambrecht 1929, no. 26). An acculturation study examines the American impact on Ifugao land use and property (Klock 1995, no. 30). There is one linguistic study of Ifugao ethnobotany (Conklin 1967, no. 17). A comprehensive bibliography is supplied by Conklin (1968, no. 15). For more detailed information on the individual works in the file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

The culture summary is from the article, "Ifugao," by Martin J. Malone, in Sixty Cultures: A Guide To The HRAF Probability Files. 1977. Robert O. Lagacé, ed. New Haven, Conn.: Human Relations Area Files, Inc. Ian Skoggard wrote the synopsis and revised the following sections: Identity and Location, Linguistic Affiiliation, History and Culture, and Subsistence. Harold Conklin helped with suggestions for new additions to the electronic file.

Barton, Roy Franklin (1919) Ifugao Law. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 15:1-186.

Barton, Roy Franklin (1922) Ifugao Economics. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 15:385-446.

Barton, Roy Franklin (1930) The Half-Way Sun: Life among the Headhunters of the Philippines. New York: Brewer & Warren.

Barton, Roy Franklin (1946)The Religion of the Ifugaos. American Anthropological Association Memoir 65:1-219.

Conklin, Harold C. (1980) Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao: A Study of Environment, Culture, and Society in Northern Luzon. New Haven:Yale University Press.

Conklin, Harold C. (1993) Forward. Batad Ifugao Dictionary:with Ethnographic Notes. Compiled by Leonard E. Newell and Francis Bon'og Poligon. Manilla: Linguistic Society of the Philippines, xi-xiv.

Lambrecht, Francis (1932) The Mayawyaw Ritual, 1. Rice Culture and Rice Ritual. Publications of the Catholic Anthropological Conference 4:1-167.

Lambrecht, Francis (1955) The Mayawyaw Ritual, 6. Illness and Its Ritual. Journal of East Asiatic Studies 4:1-155.