VII. WARFARE, HUNTING, AND FISHING 



Head-hunting and warfare are practically synonymous. To-day 

 both are suffering a rapid decline, and a head is seldom taken in the 

 valley of the Abra. In the mountain district old feuds are still main- 

 tained, and sometimes lead to a killing, and here too the ancient funer- 

 ary rites are still carried out in their entirety on rare occasions. How- 

 ever, this peaceful condition is not of long standing. In every village 

 the older men tell with pride of their youthful exploits, of the raids 

 they indulged in, the heads they captured; and they are still held in 

 high esteem as men "who fought in the villages of their enemies." 



During the time of our stay in Abra, the villages of the Buklok 

 valley were on bad terms with the people of the neighboring Ikmin 

 valley, and were openly hostile to the Igorot on the eastern side 

 of the mountain range. Manabo and Abang were likewise hostile 

 to their Igorot neighbors, and the latter village was surrounded with 

 a double bamboo stockade, to guard against a surprise attack. Manabo 

 at this time anticipated trouble with the warriors of Balatok and 

 Besao, as a result of their having killed six men from those towns. 

 The victims had ostensibly come down to the Abra river to fish, but, 

 judging by previous experience, the Tinguian believed them to be in 

 search of heads, and acted accordingly. This feud is of old standing 

 and appears to have grown out of a dispute over the hunting grounds 

 on Mt. Posoey, the great peak which rises only a few miles from 

 Manabo. There have been many clashes between the rival hunters, 

 the most serious of which occurred in 1889, when the Tinguian had 

 twenty-nine of their number killed, and lost twenty-five heads to 

 the Igorot of Besao. 



The people of Agsimo and Balantai suffered defeat in a raid car- 

 ried on against Dagara in 1907, and at the time of our visit a 

 number of the warriors still bore open wounds received in that fight. 

 In the same year at least three unsuccessful attacks, probably by 

 lone warriors, were made against individuals of Lagangilang, Likuan, 

 and Lakub. 



Accounts of earlier travelers offer undoubted proof that head- 

 hunting was rampant a generation ago; while the folk-tales feature 

 the taking of heads as one of the most important events in Tinguian 

 life. 



37i 



