﻿478 The Philippine Journal of Science 1914 



inherited it from the grandfathers of our grandfathers, and thus we signed 

 it and put our cross at the end of the names of those who cannot read or 

 write. 



The ancestors of the inhabitants of the barrio of Patiacang 

 are traced by the manuscript to 1793, when they "went to a 

 place called Balaoa, west of Santa Lucia in Ilocos Sur." The 

 infidel Igorots were compelled to pay a tax for the benefit of 

 living in the town and to promise to aid the Christians should 

 harm threaten from other Igorots. In 1840, when a census or 

 tax list of the people of Patiacang was made, the Spaniards 

 appointed several officials in the barrio. In 1908, the barrio was 

 organized under the American Government. No customs or 

 beliefs are recorded. 



The story of the barrio of Mabalili is as follows : 



We, the inhabitants of the barrio of Mabalili, in the limits of the town- 

 ship of Angaki, Mountain Province, have written out this history of the 

 customs we used and how we lived in the ancient times. The first people 

 who cleared and formed this place into a town were Guilalo, Ao-aoiden, 

 and Balugong; they and their wives came from Sumade; they cleared these 

 places and planted camotes, aba, maize, bananas, and squashes, which they 

 used for their food, and when they had increased in number, Guilalo and 

 Amasan moved to the other side, called Tubo, clearing the same, and when 

 some other people from other towns came to join them, they thought of 

 turning the land that would be watered from the brooks into good but 

 small rice fields; the boundary of our town is close to the mountain called 

 Tirad on the south and touches the foot of the mountain called Tubba. The 

 custom of marrying a young man and a young woman is first that they 

 make an agreement and they must tell their agreement to the old men or 

 to the principales, 29 and they [that is, the old men or principales] go to the 

 houses of the parents of the girl and boy to witness the agreement; the 

 [acts of the] witnesses are [that] the principales or the old men eat etag 

 (salted pork) ; but, if at the last moment there should be one of the mar- 

 riage couple who wishes to change his mind or to dissolve their marriage, 

 we punish her or him with 25 (anything counted to that number) as was 

 our custom in ancient times until now. Thus after the marriage of the 

 couple has been witnessed, first, the husband goes to find fuel and brings 

 it with him to the house of his parents-in-law and after that the wife gets 

 a jar of water and takes it with her to the house of her parents-in-law 

 also; as to their building they kill a hen, and if the hen that they kill (by 

 beating the body of the hen with a stick or anything else until the hen dies) 

 has a good and satisfactory gall, we inform our town mates; and everyone 

 who comes to help them, must bring with him some cogon or bamboo that 

 will be added to the materials that they are preparing for the building: 



!B In the Filipino town, during the Spanish regime, the principalia was 

 a class made up of those who had held the office of gobernadorcillo and 

 cabeza de barangay. The members of the class were known as principales. 

 Among the mountain peoples, the chiefs and often the old men form the 

 principalia. 



