

SOCIETY 141 
although the new religion has somewhat altered the 
form. The Moro sultans have genealogies that go back 
to the creation of the world, but the old native cos- 
mogonies have been replaced by lines of descent begin- 
ning with Adam and passing through Noah, Abraham, 
and Mohammed. The Moros preserve these genealogies, 
which are their only histories, in books written in Arabic 
characters. These records are demonstrably accurate 
for a considerable number of generations back from the 
present, and at least approximately authentic over a 
period of about five centuries. 
While society is so incisively divided into ranks, there 
is no trace in the Philippines of the principle of clans or 
exogamie or totemic groups. These two systems agree 
in being social classifications based on descent; they 
contrast fundamentally in that clans are not in essence 
subordinated in prestige or power but are regarded as 
equivalent units within the social fabric. It is true that 
references have occasionally been made which might 
seem construable as indicative of the existence of a clan 
scheme among some of the less advanced Filipinos. 
Thus the previously mentioned ato or smaller units with- 
in the Bontok towns might speculatively be construed 
relics of a clan organization: but they are not exogamic, 
and persons may change their ato affiliation. The Ifugao 
have been said to be organized into ‘“‘clans’’; but again, 
the characteristic features of a true clan system— 
exogamy, the reckoning of descent exclusively in either 
the male or the female line, totemism—are all absent. 
Therefore, it is extremely likely that the Ifugao ‘‘clans”’ 
are only the familiar barangay or something similar. 
There is no objection to denominating such units clans, 
provided it is clearly realized that the groups are essen- 
tially the same as those existing among the other 
