academy of scences] INTERTRIBAL AND OTHER RELATIONS 183 



PREVAILING MANOBO PRICES 



The following list will give a fair idea of the monetary value of some of the commodities that 

 are most frequently exchanged between Manobos. 



Pesos 



1. A slave who can perform a full-grown person's work 30.00 



2. A slave who can do a certain amount of work 20. 00 



3. A slave whose right hand can not reach the tip of his left ear 15. 00 



4. A male pig 1 year old 1. 00 



5. A sow that has given birth once 1. 00 



6. One fathom of abakd cloth nearly 1 meter wide 1. 00 



7. A woman's skirt of abakd . 50 



8. One double sack of paddy (150 liters) . 50 



9. Three double ganlas (15 liters) . 06)4 



10. One large basket (15 liters) of camotes, corn, taro, etc . 06J4 



11. One bunch of bananas . 06J4 



12. One dugout, 7 fathoms long, with a beam of 4 spans 1. 50 



13. One dugout, 11 fathoms long, with a beam of 5 spans 2. 50 



14. One bamboo jointful of tobacco, into whose mouth the closed hand can not be easily inserted . 06% 



15. One bamboo jointful of tobacco, into whose mouth the closed hand can be easily inserted . 12)4 



16. One full-grown hen or rooster . 12^ 



The values above indicated are based on the monetary terms used to represent their value, 

 and borrowed, possibly, from the terms which are still in vogue in eastern Mindanao. 7 



From the above scale it will be seen that a pig 1 year old could be exchanged for 2 full-grown 

 chickens, 2 sacks of paddy, and 2 bamboo joints of tobacco. It is not customary to trade in such 

 things as camotes, taro, and corn, the return of them being the usual stipulation, but the corre- 

 sponding values have been inserted in the above list in order to give the reader an idea of the value 

 of food commodities. 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 



No measure of weight is used by the hill Manobo. The Christianized Manobo may have 

 obtained some old scales of the type used by Bisayas for weighing abakd fiber. These scales 

 are steelyards, the construction of which permitted the Bisaya trader to fleece his non-Christian 

 customers of as much as 50 per cent of their abakd fiber. The method of falsifying the balance 

 was by loading the counterpoising weight with lead, and by filing the crosspiece that acts as 

 fulcrum. Another method which might be used with even true steelyards consisted in giving 

 the counterpoise arm a downward tilt, after the abakd fiber had been loaded on the other arm. 

 This was usually done on the pretense of picking up the counterpoising weight which had been 

 purposely left on the ground. 



In measures of volume the Manobo is almost equally destitute for he has only the gdntang. 

 This is a cylindrical measure made out of the trunk of a palm tree, with a bottom of some other 

 wood. It has a capacity of from 10 to 15 liters, but I know of no rule which fixes its exact size. 

 An interesting point with regard to the size of this measure is that it is double that of the one used 

 by Bisaj'as. 8 It is suggested that the early Bisaya traders, on the introduction of the Spanish 

 gdnta and fanega, taught, for obvious purposes, their unsuspecting mountain friends to make 

 a measure double the size of the legal one. 



In the manner of measuring out paddy (for it is practically only for this purpose that the 

 gdntang serves) there is a feature that is characteristic of Manobo frugality and economy. The 

 paddy is scooped with the hands, little by little, into the measure, which is not moved until it 

 is full. Then with a piece of stick the surface of the paddy is leveled off and it is emptied into 

 the larger receptacle. At the same time the number is counted out loudly. The intention in 

 not moving or disturbing the measure is to allow the paddy to have greater bulk, for if it is 

 disturbed the grains settle and it requires more to fill the measure. 



' I-sd-ka si-pi (Bis., usa'-ka sa-ld-pi), T0.50; ka-M-ti, T0.25; Si-ki-pat, P0.12& Si-kau-au, PO.06^4. 



8 The gdntaUg measure in eastern Mindanao is of two kinds, de almaccn, " of the store," and it provincia, "of the province." The latter is twice 

 the size of the former, and is universally used by the mountain peoples. 



