
SOCIETY 149 \ 
times counter claims are advanced, and usually the 
amount of liability is contested. 
In minor cases the payment due may be settled in 
conference of the parties interested. Where the alleged 
offense is more serious, go-betweens are employed for a 
commission; or the community at large, that is its older 
and more influential men, gathers and renders a deci- 
sion. Such a verdict, even if it cannot be enforced, 
puts the offender under the strain of resisting public 
sentiment. The Nabaloi have a recognized council of 
elders, the tongtong, which meets in such cases; and 
among the Tinggian the lakay or head man is prominent 
in the council. But the tribes farther removed from 
civilization and therefore presumably preserving in 
purer form the institutions of their ancestors—the 
Ifugao, for instance—settle all disputes without refer- 
ence to anyone but the parties interested and their 
kinsmen or representatives. In Mindanao, where Mo- 
hammedan example has raised the head man to the 
fairly influential position of dato even among some of 
the pagans, justice is more largely dispensed by this 
individual; but this is obviously not the aboriginal 
usage. The Tagalog and other lowlanders were found 
by the Spaniards to be following much the same prac- 
tice, the chieftain retaining for himself a considerable 
part of whatever fine was paid over. Still, even among 
these people, councils for the purpose of conducting 
trials are reported, so that it seems that the head 
man’s power was probably less in native opinion and 
practice than it appeared to the Spaniards. The 
foreigner naturally tends to construe new institutions in 
terms of his own. 
Laws of the Northern Pagans. Of course, the 
loose native system did not always result in full justice. 
The brave and the wealthy were in a position to exact un- 
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