The Head Hunters of Northern LuzonWillcox, Cornélis De Witt
History
The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon
Willcox, Cornélis De Witt
Igorot (Philippine people); Luzon (Philippines) -- Description and travel
"Toward noon they told me that they were going to perform the feast
which looked towards securing vengeance for Aliguyen's death. They went
to where the people had built a shed to protect them from the sun's
fierce rays on a little hillock some distance from any house. Two
pigs were provided there, one being very small. Only the old men
were permitted to gather around the pigs and the rice-wine and the
other appurtenances of the feast. The feast began by a prayer to the
ancestors, followed by an invocation to the various deities. The most
interesting and the principal part of the feast was the invocation to
the celestial bodies, who are believed to be the deities of War and
Justice, Mánaháut (The Deceiver), a companion of the Sun God, was first
invoked. The people cried: Who-oo-oo! Mánaháut, look down! Come down
and drink the rice-wine and take the pig! Don't deceive us! Deceive
our enemies! Take them into the remotest quarters of the sky-world;
lock them up there forever so that they may not return! Vengeance
for him who has gone before!' Then an old man put his hands over
his forehead and called: 'Come down, Mánaháut.' Mánaháut came and
possessed him, causing him to call out: 'Sa-ay! sa-ay! I come down
Mánaháut; I drink the rice-wine; I will deceive your enemies, but
I will not deceive you,' The old man, possessed, jumps up and, with
characteristic Ifugao dance step, dances about the rice-wine jar and
about the pig. Quickly follows him a feaster who has called Umalgo,
the Spirit of the Sun, and was possessed by him. Mánaháut dances ahead
of Umalgo to show him the pig. Umalgo seizes a spear, dances about the
pig two or three times, when he steps over to it and with a thrust,
seemingly without effort, pierces its heart. The blood spurts out
of the pig's side and there quickly follows a feaster who has been
possessed by Umbulan, who throws himself on the pig and drinks its
blood. He would remain there forever, say the people, drinking the
pig's blood, were it not that one of the Stars, his son, possesses a
feaster, causing him to dance over to Umbulan, catch him by the hair
and lead him from the pig. Following these ceremonies, there came
feasters of various spirits of the Stars to cut the pig's feet and
his head off. Then comes the cutting up of the pig to cook in the
pots. The blood that has settled in its chest is carefully caught;
it is used to smear the _bangibang_ and the _jipag_. The _jipag_ are
interesting. They are little images of two or three of the deities
that help men to take heads. The images are of wood about six or
eight inches high. Sometimes there are images of dogs also. When an
Ifugao goes on a head-hunting expedition, he takes the images in his
head-basket, together with a stone to make the enemy's feet heavy so
that he cannot run away, and a little wooden stick in representation
of a spear, to the end of which is attached a stone--this to make the
enemy's spear strike the earth so that it might not strike him. [28]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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