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Copyright 1986
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WHY FORAGERS DO NOT BECOME FARMERS:
IN THE P H ILIP P IN E S
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN ANTHROPOLOGY
MAY 1986
By
Thomas N. Headland
Dissertation Committee:
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We certify that we have read this dissertation and that in our
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
a,
ii
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c Copyright by Thomas Neil Headland 1986
iii
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
assignments for the following seven years until the project was
thanked.
James Yost, on Chapter II; Alan Howard, on. Chapter III; Bruce
revision and editorial problems. Wayne Dye and Lou Hohulin gave me
iv
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Several people assisted me in archival research. Pedro Gil Munoz,
U.S. Army operations in the Casiguran area at the end of WWII. Thercial
Development for Region IV, kindly compiled for me data on the various
the Pagasa Weather Bureau Station in Casiguran, have for many years
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vi
graciously loaned me his CNI records for the years 1960-1964, and
during the War, and translated those documents for me. The following
for me those parts referring to the Agta, and to William Henry Scott for
Shirai.
data from their areas: Rowe Cadelina, Thomas Conally, Harold Conklin,
Michael Dove, James Eder, Robert Lawless, Harold Olofson, and Stuart
computer age. Joseph Grimes and Michael Walrod modified their software
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v ii
the use of their house and motor boat in Casiguran in 1983, while they
Richard Lieban, Leslie Sponsel, and Lawrence Reid. Without them, the
wife and I to live with them for so manyyears, and to raise our three
children in their camps. One must wonder what they thought about all
the strange questions we have asked of them over the years, which they
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v iii
months of field work, gathering much of the data herself. Our children
of the data into the computer in 1984, after Stephen and Jennifer coded
All five of us spent many boring but necessary hours reading back and
given me immense support and hope, for their gifts of love and
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ABSTRACT
where they can no longer live by hunting, and are thus modifying their
The present study, based on 13 years of field work among the Agta
between 1962 and 1984, attempts to describe this change and to test how
well the Agta are adapting to it. The two basic questions of the study
are, What are these Agta doing for a living in the 1980s, and Why do
the present-day Agta culture, and for showing why they are not
successful at agriculture.
for explaining why this type has persisted into the late twentieth
century.
The data used for testing the hypotheses are heavily quantitative,
ix
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analyses of swidden cultivation activities and of the gathering of
list of "endangered species," this group would appear near the top. The
data show that the Agta did little hunting in 1983-84, while at the same
time only 24 percent of the men did any cultivation during the same
period, producing enough rice to feed the population for only 15 days.
Instead, these people are moving into a niche manifested by casual labor
independent agriculture.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................... iv
ABSTRACT.................................................. ix
LIST OFTABLES.............................. xv
P R E F A C E .................................................. xx
xi
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CHAPTER III CULTURAL ECOLOGY: THE THEORETICAL BASIS OF
THE S T U D Y ................................... 61
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CHAPTER VIII HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS: THE AMERICAN PERIOD
UP TO POST-WWII: NEW ECOLOGICAL INFLUENCES
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.................. 227
x iii
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CHAPTER XII CASIGURAN AGTA DEMOGRAPHY: THE CASE OF
AN UNSTABLE POPULATION ............. 359
APPENDICES
A. DEFINING THE POPULATION...................... 546
B. FORMAL DEFINITIONS OF CASIGURAN AGTA KINSHIP TERMS 549
C. FOOD TYPES EATEN AT AGTA M E A L S ................ 553
D. OUTLINE OF PERSON-WORK-DAY ACTIVITY TYPES . . . . 557
E. AN OUTLINE DESCRIPTION OF THE 48 FIELDS
CULTIVATED BY CASIGURAN AGTA IN 1983 ........... 563
F. A HISTORY OF FIELDS CLEARED IN THE KOSO
RIVERSHED IN THE 20th C E N T U R Y ................. 575
G. DOCUMENTS AND OFFICIAL LETTERS RELATING TO
AGTA LAND PROBLEMS............................ 584
H. REFERENCES OF GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO TEACH
AGRICULTURE TO AGTA IN THE YEARS 1960 TO 1963 . . 593
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
4.5 Types of Terrain Where Agta Camps Were Located ........ 455
XV
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10.2 Breakdown of 3,283 PWDs by 37 Different Variables .. . 470
xvi
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12.1 A Comparison of Agta Vital Statistics
With Other Populations .............................. 509
12.2 Mean and Median Ages of the Population in 1977 and 1984 511
12.9 Number of Offspring Alive in 1984 Per Woman Age 45+ . . 529
x v ii
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
x v iii
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LIST OF MAPS
Map Page
x ix
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PREFACE
The Agta Negritos of eastern Luzon, Philippines, are among the most
found in this area of the world. The present study focuses on the
Agta, from December 1982 to July 1984. Many of the data used for
testing the hypotheses of this thesis were gathered during this latter
period.
xx
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xxi
they trade with non-Agta lowland farmers for starch food. The Agta
goods are forest products for rice. Rattan has recently replaced wild
meat as the most important forest product in the Agta trading system.
activity of Agta men was that of hunting large game with bow and arrow.
reached a point today where they can no longer live by hunting, and
survive. The goal of the 1983-84 field research was to find out, and
quantify, just what that modified strategy is. The following pages
this thesis indicates that this is not the case for the Agta. It is, in
fact, a major proposition of this study that the Agta have not and are
not moving in this direction. That is, they are not taking up
even in face of the fact that they can no longer live by hunting. The
fact that the Agta are not successfully adapting today is witnessed to
mainly by their severe population decline over the last 50 years. Would
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XXII
not a move from foraging into farming bring these people back from a
The two questions this study focuses on, then, are: One, why
aren't the Agta taking up agriculture for themselves? And two, what
then are they doing for a living today? Most of the discussion in this
thesis will lead the reader to the answer to these two questions.
explaining not just the Agta anomaly, but also the economic behavior of
type has persisted into the present century in so many areas of the
worId.
niches not in spite of but precisely because of their contact with the
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xxiii
modern world around them. The reason for this will become clear in the
pages to follow.
propositions, which are listed briefly here. They are presented in more
economic occupation. (2) The Agta are also not taking up independent
maladaptive step for them, under their present circumstances, and would
lowlanders, from whom they receive most of their food. (5) The Agta
this stress is seen in their population decline. (6) Because the Agta
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x x iv
thousand years.
Casiguran Agta culture looks like. Their brief mention here already
gives the reader a clue and basic framework of how these people live.
the point where we can learn just what the socioeconomic system of these
data. These are, first, a large corpus of sample data of the daily
in the thesis. They show how Agta adults allocated their time in
activities of one Agta man. These data comprise the activities of this
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XXV
population (Headland and Headland 1985). In the text, this 1984 census
will be compared with the author's earlier census of the 1970s (Headland
herein.
in 1983.
558 meals, of what Agta ate over a 7 month period in 1984, and where
The final set of data comes from documents found during archival
priests working in Casiguran over 200 years ago. They reveal some
surprising revelations of what Agta culture was like on the eve of the
of the study.
Other types of data were collected as well, and these are explained
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xxv i
and the theoretical approach used for viewing this problem. The final
outlined with each proposition, and these may serve the reader as a
Chapter 2 describes the research design— how the data were gathered
way that others will be able to replicate the research and confirm the
findings. I discuss here also how I controlled for bias in the sampling
recent developments in cultural ecology, and how these may best explain
theory are also discussed here, and how economics relates to ecosystems
and to the Agta as "economic men." This chapter will also discuss
behavior.
the Agta, including climate, land types, the dipterocarp forest, and the
important flora and fauna, including the Agta themselves, and other
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XXV11
both of these to the ecosystem. Kin terms are also described, with a
the people and the area. As the reader will come to see, the present
Spanish period shows the Agta to have then been in control of most of
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x x v iii
several new forces which entered their ecosystem (e.g. logging and
since 1970— and how these have affected the Agta culture. These include
1972, the local guerrilla war of 1974-75, the road built into Casiguran
in 1977, loggers, the effects of the international demand for copra and
together, have introduced profound change into the Agta culture and
if not extinction.
many Agta families do make small swiddens, and a few Agta cultivated
crops grown, and percent of Agta who planted in 1983, and then analyzes
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x x ix
Focus is placed on the population decline, the reasons for the decline,
the thesis; that is, why the Agta, and other 20th century foragers, do
not take up farming. The reader who reaches this chapter will see by
then that Agta occupy their unique economic foraging niche not in spite
of but because of the modern world around them. As we shall see, this
become farmers. One major reason is that the more powerful farming
Appendix G.
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XXX
why so many of the world's hunting and gathering societies fail to make
A NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY
language unless indicated otherwise by the context. All Agta terms are
vowels and after final vowels of utterances, and between certain vowel
sequences, is not symbolized. The mid close central vowel (the so-called
this thesis, except for money units which are stated in U.S. dollar
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xxxi
table (Table 0.1) lists the metric units used in the thesis, showing
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ENDNOTES TO PREFACE
1. Some readers will want to know just how much time I actually
spent "in the field" over the years. My wife and I first came to the
Philippines in February 1962. From then up to the time of this writing
(December 1985), we have lived in the Philippines for 18 years, where
all three of our children were born. This period excludes three
furloughs we had in the United States (for 15 months in 1967-68, for 16
months in 1973-74, and for 43 months in 1979-82). Our actual periods of
time spent residing and working with Agta sums to 13 years. This does
not include vacations, business trips to Manila, etc. Our diaries show
we spent a total of 2,482 days (83 months, or 7 years) of this time
living with Agta in their own camps. These months are the sum of
numerous field periods in the Casiguran area over a 24 year period,
usually ranging from 3 to4 months at a time.During these periods we
resided in five different areas, and always inside an Agta camp.
Periods we spent working with Agta outside of their own areas— and these
totaled another 70 months— were spent either in the town of Casiguran
or, most frequently, at the SIL Workshop Center at Bagabag, Nueva
Vizcaya. Here various Agta families lived withus, wherethey assisted
us in linguistic analysis and Bible translation in Agta, and where we
helped them in the preparation of primers, folk stories, and other
reading booklets in the Agta language.
x xxii
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CHAPTER I
by the year 2000, and to double in just 26 years (PRB 1983). As will be
which the present thesis focuses. This thesis will attempt to describe
that change.
Luzon through the Visayas and Palawan, to Mindanao in the south. (For
locations of most of these groups, see Fox and Flory 1974). Depending on
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Luzon they refer to themselves, as well as the languages they speak, by
the term agta. This word does not mean 'black' in the Agta language, as
All other humans are called pute. (In Tagalog the cognate term, puti,
means 'white', but in the Casiguran Agta language pute refers to any
'non-Negrito human'.)
' Aurora Province. This is a verbalized form of the Tagalog word dagat
'ocean', and the term may have originally meant 'people of the sea,'
since the Agta often live along the seacoast. The Agta have never
the Agta are referred to by the Ilokano people aspugut (which means
Province.
people, and their local setting. This includes a brief outline of the
tropical forests and the human populations in the area, as well as the
the general research problem uDon which this study focuses, the
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of previous studies on the Agta. At the end of the chapter the formal
122° 8' east longitude. For purposes of this study, the Casiguran
half of Aurora Province, excluding the western side of the Sierra Madre
Dinalongan, Casiguran, and Dilasag which are east of the Sierra Madre
(53 mi). The maximum width of the area is 25 km, but the width in most
km (124 mi), with about a third of this protected by coral reefs. The
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WWII, in outlying barrios, while the Agta are widely dispersed in the
forested foothills throughout the area. (There are also some Casiguran
Agta living outside the confines of the present study area. This
A.)
east of the Sierra Madre ridge before it was divided up into three
municipal districts in 1959 and 1966. This definition thus excludes the
the western side of the Sierra Madre. It includes only the area where
the Casiguran Agta are commonly found. None of the Casiguran Agta bands
normally live anywhere on the western side of the Sierra Madre, though
some individuals who have married into other Agta population groups on
that the whole archipelago was once completely covered with unbroken
Spanish contact, when the human population in the islands was estimated
few years ago, at the end of WWII, when the population was only 19
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Today, the story is far different. With an exploding population
of some 54 million persons, there does not appear to be much time left
for the Philippine forests. During the last two decades the country's
forests have been cut down at the rate of about one hectare every three
cutback rate even higher, one hectare per minute (Lynch 1982:299, Scott
follow the loggers into the forests to try their hand at slash-and-burn
farming.
of the nation was still forested then (Myers 1980:98, 100); and one
1980.1
be gone by about the year 2000 (ibid.). One simulation model projects
that all primary forests will have been sawn off by 1993 (PREPF
Only the most optimistic, then, would deny that the Philippines
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will bring widespread hunger and hardship. In a study such as' this,
tribal group, the Agta Negritos, the above picture looms large in the
covered with primary dipterocarp forest(see Table 4.4), and both loggers
areas. Five of these land types are different types of forest, while
Aurora is its large expanse of tropical rainforest. There are still wide
these forests.
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7
All of the five forest types found in Casiguran come under the
general class of forest called 'tropical moist forest' (or IMF). Myers
'rainforest' (ibid.:15, 95). Such forests are quite different from the
there is a marked dry season. Monsoon forests fall outside the limits
Tropical moist forests .are the most complex and diverse biome on
elsewhere the richness of the Casiguran plant world, how the Agta
interact with it, and the 603 Agta plant names I have gathered to date
arthropods.
rainforests ranges from 350 to 600 metric tons per ha. Another
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area. Dipterocarp forests are estimated to typically have from 40 to 100
study emphasizes, rainforest ecosystems are much more fragile than are
thesis the possible future for the Agta. It is my argument in this study
that Casiguran is already well into the beginning of what will prove to
population groups. These are the small population of 609 Agta, and the
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The Agta. Since early historic times, if not long before, the
occupation: hunting large game with bow and arrow. They also secured
starch from the wild caryota palm and, to a lesser extent, from
the Agta have exchanged wild pig and deer meat, or fish, for most of
their starch foods by trading with lowland farmers, with whom they have
In the years since WWII major environmental changes have crept over
especially large game, fish, and primary forest. In the decade of the
1970s these changes became so precipitous that most Agta were forced to
society which within less than a decade finds itself no longer able to
Today the Casiguran Agta number 609 people (as of June 1984), down
number from 618 to 609 in the seven year period from 1977 to 1984. (The
causes of this decline will be discussed in Chapter 12). The Agta are a
band society, but not in the strict sense of the term as defined by
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10
of trying to isolate Agta bands, or to define what they might be. Most
know who their kinsmen are, but these are not synonymous with 'band.'
earlier papers I stated that there are 13 band areas in Casiguran. While
there is evidence that there may have once been more or less that many
band areas, there are too many loose ends to force such a typology
today, and too many Agta who, even though I may know their life
histories and their genealogies, I cannot be sure what band they belong
Agta residence patterns. While no one would argue that the Agta
are not a band society, a term which has been recently revived by
Leacock and Lee (1982), it is not so easy to define what a 'band' is. In
this thesis, I will use the term, but only loosely, and in an etic
'camps.' And Iconsider the term 'band society' here in the same way
that Leacock and Lee do, as something more or less synonymous with
Chapter 3.
and these are easy to measure, map,and census (if one can find them, a
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11
task not so easy). I have personally been doing this for many years,
scattered camp groups. Agta camps may fuse and split. Most camp groups
however, for a family tomove into a camp unless they have close blood
relatives there.
are situated inside the forest. That is, even though Agta camps may be
within forest areas, their houses are seldom situated under the shaded
areas of the primary forest canopy. Agta residence sites are more often
either on the open beaches, or in beach forest. The inland band groups,
houses on dry river beds, or on land fronting the rivers. (See Table
4.5 for the types of terrain where Agta camps were located in 1983-84.)
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12
Most Agta houses are placed where they receive direct sunlight (on
clear days) for most of the day. Even when they are camped inside the
forests, their houses are usually found in open areas, such as on dry
own).
So, while during daylight hours Agta may be found in the forest,
spending the day in leisure, they do not normally live in dense forests.
The main reasons for not residing deep in the forest are four. The most
of their irritating bite. In the cooler damp forests mosquitos are more
prevalent, and are much more active during daylight hours, especially
during rainy periods. In many forest areas they are so thick that if
Agta camp groups I know of which are situated deep in the forest (as
rattan). They tend to be there, away from the beaches, when there has
been little or no rain for a week or two. Then, when two or three days
A third reason Agta are not usually found residing under tall trees
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13
danger, and have been quick to scold me and my family when we have
camped at times under big trees. They speak from experience. We know
of three Agta who were killed by falling tree limbs during our tenure,
The fourth reason Agta tend not to live in the deep forest is
because they have some fear of the many classes of supernatural spirit
beings which are said to live there. Though Agta do not share the
days, were the leeches. There are very few leeches today, but in the
1960s it was the custom, when traveling in the forest on rainy days, to
Casiguran picking off of my own body some two to three hundred leeches a
tend to be located elsewhere than in the deep forest; that is, because
the forest 'edges' have more foods available in them. I reject this as
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14
know that Agta believe the best hunting areas are in deep primary
forest, that they do most of their hunting in such forest, and that
Agta body size. Agta are small in size, and theyhave sometimes
been referred to as pygmies. They are taller, however, than the African
Mbuti pygmies. They are shorter than the south African Bushmen, and 10
cm shorter than the average Filipino. On the average, Agta men are 153
cm in height and weigh 46 kg. Women are 144 cm tall and weigh 38 kg
ratios of the Agta with those of other populations, which show that the
Agta are, on the average, among the thinnest people in the world (see
Table 12.16).
that in the Agta case their thin body condition is the result of
Agta are not a healthy people, and I will discuss these more in Chapter
indicate that the Agta population is not doing well. Their crude death
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15
population decline of minus 0.2 percent per year since 1977. These
since the Franciscans first founded their mission there in 1588, and
2
possibly long before. The town population was listed as numbering
1,560 in the year 1649, 2,067 at the turn of thiscentury, and 9,381 at
the time of my first field work there in 1962. Today, the lowland
(see Table l.'l). I will discuss in Chapter 8 the profound effect this
population explosion, most of it since 1960, has had on the Agta and
their ecosystem.
very near the town proper. Today, the Casiguranin people are a minority
have migrated into Casiguran since WWII, most of them since my arrival.
also Tagalogs and Visayans, and even a good number of Igorots (mostly
but have spread out throughout the lowlands of the Casiguran area.
have been different before WWII when wild game was plentiful, the
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16
lowlander/Agta ratio was just two or three to one, and most of the
lowlanders lived in town. At that time, the early 1940s, the Agta had
and more lowlanders move up the river valleys to clear farms in areas
where Agta have lived and hunted for thousands of years. I will have
a tribal swidden group of some 3,500 who live on the west side of the
Sierra Madre. A few also live in southern Aurora near Dipaculao and
Baler. The Ilongot are mentioned here for two reasons. First, they
live just across the southwestern border of the Casiguran Agta area, and
assumption, since the Ilongot are widely known as intense raiders and
Ilongot social practice until at least the early 1970s" (M. Rosaldo
or killings, only twice did I find people who knew of Ilongot killing
Agta. An old Agta man named Tikiman told me in 1977 (when he was
about age 76) that his mother, whose name he could not remember, was
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17
Areas 8 and 9, in Map 2.) And Agta Doyeg (age 65) told me in an
raiders killed three older Agta women, also at Dibet, whose names were
Pukeng, Boyan, and Sinayda. Doyeg did not himself remember the time
of the incident, but said, "My father used to tell us about it." I
suspect that both men were probably referring to the same incident.
otherwise, with the Palanan Agta, as Peterson claims, since the two
Casiguran Agta men married to Ilongot women, with both families living
in Ilongot areas.
There may have been more interaction between the two groups in the
priest in Casiguran, in 1720, mentions how some Agta killed "a lot from
this town," and then went and threatened some Ilongot with their arrows
who were wanting to settle on the Calabgan River (in Area 9 of Map 2).
The letter says the Agta would not let the Ilongot settle there (AFIO
1720). Whatever the case was then, there are no Ilongot today in
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18
Paranan, and Casiguranin. The latter two languages are spoken by non-
A recent study (ibid.), based on Reid's 372 word list (Reid 1971),
Tagalog, and 43 percent with Ilokano. The respective figures for the
Casiguranin language are 52 percent for both Tagalog and Ilokano. These
latter two languages are the two main trade languages of the Casiguran
Tagalog and Ilokano. In fact, Agta and Casiguranin are both more
languages. They have also borrowed from Ilokano, but less heavily.
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19
westernization which has come to the Casiguran area since WWII, the Agta
them on their own land and help them take up farming. This occurs in
spite of the apparent poverty under which the Agta live— a way of life
the present thesis to argue that it is for this second reason that the
they, in contrast to most tribal groups in the world, are not turning to
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westernization for traditional peoples, still, many such peoples are
One argument of this thesis is that the Agta are not resisting
presents data which support the hypothesis that the Agta are intelligent
economic maximizers and that they have made a unique and sensible
and economic concepts to clarify the logic behind Agta behavior in the
1980s.
answering two central questions. First, what are the Agta doing for a
living today? That is, what is their present economic strategy? And
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21
to the two basic questions of this thesis. The first of these two
questions was raised by Richard Lee in 1966, whenhe asked just what do
answer to his question for a hunting society in Southeast Asia, and take
the question a step further by explaining what they do for a living when
(1980:94).
At the same 1966 symposium where Lee read his paper, Sol Tax made
the appeal that "we should study the reasonsfor the persistence of
these peoples all over the world in light of all the conditions
out? (Wobst 1974:x). Recently, the question was raised again when
Vierich (1982:213) asked, "What accounts for [the] durability [of the
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22
the above questions asked by Bennett, Cadelina, Lee, Tax, Wobst, and
today.
the unique problems of the Agta, and how they are trying to adapt to
and more powerful framework for interpreting and explaining the behavior
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23
approach is the best model for explaining the sociocultural systems of,
phenomena, this study takes the view that cultural ecology will carry us
(Ellen 1982:29-30).
of the title Social Science, we must make our data available in a high
Thus, readers are left with little more than the elegance of the
n.d.l), and the help one can gain when such data is made public (e.g.,
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24
data must also be made clear so that the research could be replicated
In this thesis, then, the reader will find a great deal of data
linguistic and ethnographic notes on the Agta for the year 1936 (1937,
1937-38), showing how the people were living then. Nicolaisen (1974-75)
provides a brief description of the same group from his visit in 1972,
and the Headlands have produced a series of works based on their years
from the Petersons, who began their field work there in 1969. Jean
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25
his 1976 Master's thesis on the Palanan Agta, and more recently a paper
on Agta change there (1977). Three other Master's theses were done, as
well, on the Palanan Agta (Simangan 1956, Zipagang 1970, and Simon
Cagayan, which draws heavily from Peterson's 1978 book (Simon 1982).
women in hunting pig and deer, using bow and arrow, and often without
male companions. (This is a custom not found among the Casiguran Agta
One study has been done on the Agta in San Mariano, Isabela, by
Rai (1981, 1982, 1985). Rai describes a band group from this area
which was still heavily involved in intense hunting and meat trading
that though the San Mariano Agta do practice some cultivation, only
four percent of their total food intake came from their own gardens
that year.
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26
1985).
James Eder also completed in 1981 his second period of field study on
this same group, and is now preparing a series of papers and a book on
them. Eder's most significant paper so far, for the purposes of my own
He has also written a paper on their culture change (1977b) and on the
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27
explained. It should made clear here that there are two basic meanings
extension of that, and refers to "an idea to check out" (Agar 1980:171-
72). The hypotheses outlined here tend towards the latter definition.
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28
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29
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30
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 1
31
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CHAPTER I I
that others can replicate the research and confirm the findings. With
methodology, and especially how I gathered the data for testing the
the Agta language, and all interviewing was done in that language.
Agta camp in Area 4 (See Map 2). During the summers our three children
lived with us. We had never lived in Area 4 before, nor with any of the
regular members of this group. Throughout this period the group lived
in two camps about 200 m apart. Our camp was more stable, with
many overnight visitors). The other camp was very unstable. Their
32
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33
but often the camp was empty, as this half of the group would go away
Using this camp as our home base, we tried to visit every Agta camp
and by motorboat. We also made four survey trips of the Casiguran area
days duration. We were absent from Casiguran for two extended periods
during the 19 months. These were from April 5 to June 6, 1983, and from
February 2 to March 25, 1984. Thus, no PWD data were collected for the
months of April and May 1983, nor for February and March 1984.
allocation schedule kept on one man for372 days. A third data corpus
was the taking of a census of the total Casiguran Agta population, and a
called dBASE II (or Data BaseTwo). It was this program which helped me
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34
will outline how the five sets of field data were gathered, compiled,
archival sources.
data, I should explain that when I returned to the Agta field in 1982 I
laid out in my proposal, was for the purpose of getting the specific
mind, and with the view that other new and opposing hypotheses might
not mean that I did not have dominant hypotheses, but that I also had
Alternative hypotheses, for example, were that the Agta were moving
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35
farming. Another alternative hypothesis was that the Agta are not as
not neat patterns of change emerge, the goal of the study, and this
(hereafter, PWDs) were collected on 331 adult Agta. On the day the
data were collected each PWD was recorded in longhand in a notebook and
later (usually the next day) transferred to index cards. In late 1984
the cards were coded for transfer to computer. Each card was coded
number, age, sex, civil status, whether he did agriculture and (on the
applicable). The data from each of the 3,283 cards were then
during the period of field work. These are listed in Appendix D, with
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36
displayed in Table 10.2, where they are broken down by sex, month, age,
This section will describe how I collected the 3,283 PWDs of data
Since the basic question of the study was to find out just what the
Agta were doing for a living in the 1980s, the present research design
was developed for getting the data needed to answer that question. The
plan was that a major part of the research would bespent in collecting
possible.
The Casiguran Agta are scattered over 700 square kilometers of mostly
the weather. Coastal camps could only be visited in our motor boat when
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37
the sea was calm and the tide rising (because of coral reefs), while
inland camps were inaccessible when rivers were flooded by heavy rains.
activities the preceding day and the day of the interview" (Yost and
Kelley 1983:207-09; these authors used the same technique for their
study of a group in Ecuador). If any adults were absent from the camp
at our time of arrival, if they had slept there the previous night we
either waited for their return, hiked to where they were, or interviewed
three options were feasible, we did not record data for those absent
persons.
Basically, that was the method. Agta do not always give candid
other nearby adults who did not hear what their neighbors had told us
earlier. In this way I believe we caught most of the errors which could
otherwise have crept into the data corpus from those few Agta who failed
in an Agta camp to see what people were actually doing that day. Still,
we had to rely on our interviewees' word for their activities for the
previous day.
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It should be clear to the reader, then, that the data on PWDs were
based partly on what respondents told us they were doing, and not always
on what we saw them doing. Daniel Gross reports that it is typical for
were doing when we got there. The only exceptions were if an individual
one was sure what he or she was doing, or if we went to a camp on some
other business, in which case we purposely did not record the PWDs of
anyone. We never entered a camp on some other business and then said,
"Hey, these people are doing something interesting today; let's record
recording PWDs and decided after we got there not to, say because no one
area to record PWDs, we followed through with that, no matter what was
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39
adult in the camp, this meant that some individuals had their
activities recorded more than once in a given month. This was because
one day. Then, when we visited another camp a few days later, that
same individual would be present there and would have his PWDs recorded
again. For this reason, as well as others, some individuals had more
Now, the question arises, what kinds of activities did my wife and
In this study, however, I was not trying to find out how many times
Agta chew betel in a day, how long they nap at noon, or the amount of
time women spend nursing babies (all interesting questions, but beyond
the scope of this study). Rather, the focus was on how Agta make a
living, and how much time they spend in major activities such as
"What else did you do?" I soon found I was running into too many
details, taking too much time in interviewing, getting more data than I
could handle, and that the secondary data were not speaking directly to
my hypotheses.
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40
the following:
7. There were some minor chores Agta did, other than housework,
which took more than one hour of time, but less than two (such as women
washing clothes, or drying unhusked rice in the sun, or guarding a
grazing water buffalo). These were always recorded in the "no work"
category, but given a different one-hundred number and modified with the
statement, " . . . just washed clothes," or whatever. (See the E100
numbers in Appendix D for examples.)
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41
was not random and is thus not a probability sample. We know, however,
2
that very few samples in ethnographic field work are random. Most
1978:236).
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42
It should be clear from the above that I took care to avoid bias
these. I was not just sampling PWD activity. I also had to try to get
representative samples for each month of the year, for each of the ten
main "band" areas, for rainy days, for Sundays, and for age and sex
not aware.
some degree. For example, I was absent from the Agta area from April 5
City. Thus, no PWDs were collected for the months of April and May, and
this is reflected in the tables presented with Chapter 10. (We did,
however, collect data for those months in 1984.) Also, the PWD data for
hindered from going out and collecting data in the pouring rain. More
serious, two band areas, 8 and 10, are underrepresented. There are
three reasons for this latter bias. One, since in the early weeks of my
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43
field work I did not yet know the locations of these camp groups, I did
not sample them. Two, since the Agta are nomadic, I would often hike to
a distant camp only to find them gone; and three, these two band areas
are underrepresented because, in part, they are the most distant from
where we were residing. They were harder to reach. (See Table 10.4 for
I had two choices when this bias became apparent after the field
bank the PWD samples I took of those two areas, which seemed like a
risky manipulating of the data, or to leave the data in and warn the
upon.
throughout the year, many others were sampled very sporadically, or only
patterns. (In one case, for example, a whole band group moved into Area
10 from the province of Quirino after one of their men killed an Agta
the two most important variables. These were the 12 calendar months and
the ten general band areas where the Casiguran Agta tend to aggregate.
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44
That is, I tried to get PWDs for every month of the year for each of the
ten areas where most of the Agta were living. I achieved this with
in collecting PWDs from seven of the ten areas for every month, there is
individuals.
when he read a draft of this chapter. This was after the data had been
"paired" PWDs (two PWDs of an individual for two days in a row) would be
the same more often than would be a sample of non-paired PWD dyads
chosen at random from the same individuals. He was right. There were a
His second hypothesis was that, if I removed from my data the first
PWD of each "paired" dyad (and there are 964 of those), thus making the
significant difference between the original set of 3,283 PWDs and the
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45
with both sets of data. There was no significant difference at the one
percent level for any of the 25. Since there were no differences, and
thus no bias introduced by using paired PWDs, I have used the total
There are certain ways for testing for the veracity of the claimed
"slices of data." This means that you try to gather other data which
might fit or contradict the conclusions you make based on your sample.
The main questions in the present thesis are how much time the Agta
of the total land cultivated by Agta during the year, complete daily
records of one particular man for the entire year, and records of
hunting activity for several weeks of all the men in one camp during the
in subsequent chapters.
The two major arguments of this thesis are that the members of this
in Chapter 1). These two hypotheses are not difficult to test in the
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46
are doing on a daily basis, provided one is able to visit the area for a
From January 24, 1983 to July 16, 1984 my wife and I recorded the
main daily activities of one Agta man, Nateng Prado. The main
activities of this man were collected on 372 different days. These data
described above, except that for Nateng we recorded his two main
activities for each day, what he did in the morning, and then what he
this 19 month period come up later, where they are used as "slices of
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47
grove, his hunting activity, their swidden and wet rice field, their
borrowed fishnet, and the domestic pigs they raised. I did not have
the nerve to try to record their food intake, a task just a little too
activities of the six children of this man and his wife, though I was
aware that most of their protein was coming from the fishing activities
chose him for our case study because he was more than willing to allow
us to observe him, and to question him about his daily activities, and
because he was our closest neighbor. His house, open sided throughout
most of the 19 months, was only 7 meters from our open window. When we
and they were at home, we were able to see them at anytime throughout
the day. I did not pay Nateng for this. He preferred to develop an
close friends. His real name is used in this thesis, at his request,
My wife and I have been collecting census data on the Agta since
had by that time collected census data on all Casiguran Agta, as well as
kinship maps and family genealogies. Most of those data were analyzed
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48
and incorporated into a formal Agta census of 361 pages (Headland and
Headland 1982). The data in that typescript are all dated to June 15,
1977. That is, even though the data may have been gathered before or
after that date, the vital statistics drawn from it are for that 1977
this census as our basic working tool in the retaking of a new Casiguran
people with a resulting list of names. The two Agta censuses include
much more than that. They include, in fact, all the data needed for a
For both of our periods of census taking (in the 1970s and in
We had two major advantages over many census takers. One was that
course, still have to deal with another problem common to field workers
when they use the interview method— that of interviewees who may give
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less than candid answers (see Appell 1969). Three factors helped us to
One, we had, by now, actually lived with the Agta longer than most
present day Agta themselves— long enough for us to have some knowledge
could not hide from us, for example, their divorce histories, even if
close rapport with the Agta, to the point where they knew us, trusted
us, and were usually relaxed about answering our seemingly endless
own society, one or two of whom always accompanied us when we did our
were doing, and would often tactfully correct interviewees who gave
given.
All this does not mean, of course, that our census taking
the Agta do not know the names of.any of their grandparents (though 29
percent knew the names of all four grandparents), and no Agta knew the
to a fair extent because there were often older people around who did
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50
Eliciting the 'correct' names of Agta. Many Agta have two first
they gain a permanent name. Some Agta have formal names used only in
Agta claim to have surnames, many are unsure of what they are, or gave
All this creates confusion for the census taker, of course, and it
took a good deal of repetitive work for my wife and I to get everyone
compared to Nancy Howell's problem among the !Kung Bushmen, where there
1977:12-13).
especially past infant mortalities. Older women who had had several
pregnancies (and women who reach menopause have 6 live births apiece, on
the average), sometimes could not recall all of the neo-natal deaths of
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51
two. and full term fetal deaths. We tried to overcome this problem by
asking mothers of perinatal dead offspring, "Did the baby ever cry or
move after it came out?" This helped, but some women persisted in
problem in mind. The perinatal rates are accurate. The infant death
have no notion of their absolute age or year of birth. Nor do they have
sodalities, etc.). One of our most difficult and time consuming tasks,
the demographic analysis of any society. We used three basic tools for
figuring the ages of Agta. These were, first, recording ages based on
because, though most everyone could give the order of births of the
sibling set to which they belonged, many Agta were vague about where
their first cousins fit in the birth order. It was usually impossible
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52
from events of known date, such as the outbreak of World War Two, the
fixed in this fashion" (1977a:146n). This method was the most useful
trying to decide who to include and who to exclude from the "Casiguran
Agta population" (and thus from our census). In the beginning, our
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53
lowlanders in infancy, and who did not know the Agta culture or
1975).
1) that the Agta spent very little time in agriculture for themselves,
and that very little of their food comes from their own fields.
One way to test these two hypotheses was to find and take
the field time was spent in locating every Agta swidden and wet rice
field, and then measuring both the fields and the crops in them. It
turned out the Agta cultivated 43 swiddens and 5 wet rice fields in
were planted and harvested, and as fields were either replanted or left
sizes, crops planted, yields, etc.). Map 3 shows the locations of the
43 swiddens, and Map 4 shows the locations of the 5 wet rice fields.
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54
chapter.
My method when visiting each field was to first measure the whole
fields, such as areas cropped in rice, root crops, sugar cane, uncropped
slopes, and I recorded only the general slope of the whole field (not
all the ups and downs of each part of the field).^ The owners took
pride in their fields, and all were glad to show me their fields, and to
answer my questions.
was cleared, types and amounts of cultigens planted before and after
the rice harvest, degree of intercropping, what biotopes the field was
adjacent to, percentage of area planted in rice, whether field had been
weeded, whether rice straw was weeded after the rice harvest, whether
field was replanted in root crops after the rice harvest, what crops
amount of seed of each variety, amount of rice the owner claimed was
swidden, swidden no. 17 of Nateng. This was the field closest to our
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55
work-man-days put into this swidden, and we measured both by weight and
volume all of the rice as it was harvested. We did this three times,
before drying, after drying and right after it was milled. The history
detail in Appendix E.
Agta claimed they had swiddens in 1983 or 1984. But when I followed up
by visiting the sites I found they had either lied outright, or they
were referring to a swidden someone else had made (which they may have
done some labor in), or that they had begun swidden clearing but had
quit before the burning or planting stage. For whatever reason, Agta
visit repeatedly every swidden through the annual cycle, and question
field. Reliance on interviews alone will badly skew this sort of data.
One indirect way to test the hypotheses of this study (in Chapter
1) was to find out and record what Agta were eating at their meals, and
where they procured the food they were eating. For example, if we could
know what percent of their starch food was coming from their own fields,
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56
foods are to the Agta diet, as well as wild game and fish. Such data
should also give us some clues as to the nutritional status of the Agta
diet, something we would like to know as we search for the reasons for
Between January and July 1984, my wife and I recorded the food
eaten at 558 Agta meals. No data were taken in February and June.
Our method was to ask Agta, when we visited their camps, what they had
eaten for their previous three meals. It should be noted that we were
recording here what Agta told us they had eaten, not what we saw them
eating. Also, we only recorded their main starch food eaten, and their
main side dish eaten (i.e., their protein or vegetable food eaten with
rice or tubers). I felt this was all we could trust our respondents to
remember. To have asked for more details would have introduced errors
in responses.
The data on Agta meals were coded and computerized using the
C. As the reader may see in that appendix, these data provide another
percent of the Agta starch food came from their own agricultural
these data were collected for the months of October and November, when
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57
since we have much stronger data sources for that. We will use these
data on meals merely to lend indirect support to what has already been
proven by the PWD data and the data on Agta fields in Appendix E.
LIBRARY RESEARCH
There is one other important data source I must mention here, since
this thesis drew mainly from this data source. This concerns the
proper ecological study of the Agta could not be done without knowing
peoples have been synchronic. This in fact has been a major weakness in
the Agta would be diachronic— a study of the past as well as the present
century.
There were two authors who showed me how much one can learn from a
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58
was primarily from reading his Discovery of the Igorots (1974), that I
great deal about the Agta past, and why they live as they do today, from
history was lost during the Second World War. I have searched for
town records were destroyed when the municipal hall was leveled by
Typhoon Pitang on September 11, 1970. I spent much time searching for
secure copies of most of the CNI records for Casiguran from 1959 to
H.) These particular records alone provide strong support for the
* * *
how these data were gathered. These included the time allocationdata
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59
of Agta adults, the recording of main daily activities of one Agta man,
food eaten at Agta meals, and data from archival research. There were
of course other sets of data collected during the 19 month study period,
success rates, recording what Agta were being paid for various work
activities, aerial surveys, and the mapping of old swidden sites on one
officials.
as one reads through this thesis. Before we get into the data,
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 2
60
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CHAPTER III
This statement sums up what this study is all about. Most of the
chapters in this thesis will, in fact, focus on the many changes now
occurring in the Casiguran environment, and how the Agta are modifying
radically changing the Agta way of life, and how the Agta are attempting
61
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62
"ecological anthropology." Many writers use the terms this way, while
some prefer one term over the other, even when talking about the same
ecology" solely with the work of Steward and his immediate followers,
research has drawn much more heavily from the biological sciences than I
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63
all the biological variables in the Casiguran ecosystem which may affect
premises are taken as givens, such as that humans are a part of nature,
not separate from it, and are integrated into ecosystems just as are
in small-scale societies like the Agta. Thus, groups like the Agta
as the major device humans use to survive in, adapt to, and exploit
I argue here, then, that if the Agta are ever to be understood, one
culture and environment, and the present strategy the Agta themselves
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64
and we will especially see just how the Agta's behavior in the 1980s is
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65
southern California during the late prehistoric period, the reason they
did not adopt agriculture may have been because of their world view and
Indians. For him the reasons are as much spiritual and psychological as
model for viewing and interpreting the Agta. As my early mentor Kenneth
Pike argues that the same phenomena can be viewed through two or more
Likewise,
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66
work equally well for analyses of all cultures. Such models are not
have been done on such societies (e.g. Steward 1955:210ff, Geertz 1963,
Bennett 1969, and Gmelch 1977), and Britan and Denich (1976) argue that
it can be done. But most such studies have been done on small-scale
groups, where the conditional forces are fewer and more easily seen.
for very small groups like Agta foragers, who live immersed in and
tool of analysis.
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these. The study also uses three principles taken from general
especially true that, for small-scale societies like the Agta, much of
(Service 1966:9).
since rejected that view. I now, like Steward and Murphy, "see the key
behavior.
the Agta. It is for this reason that the field research concentrated so
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68
Orlove. From this structure the actual means of Agta subsistence change
calculation.
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69
ecological.
basic questions proposed in the introductory chapter: What are the Agta
doing for a living today? and Why don't they switch to better economic
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70
make a living when their basic food source is depleted? Why do these
The model I will build in this thesis to explain Agta culture rests
squarely on the view that the Agta, and all humans, "primitive" or
otherwise, are what Schneider (1974) calls Economic Men. That is, the
outsiders as irrational.
leisure or good human relations, which are Agta goals), not merely in
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in planned change, have been overly willing to assume that major aspects
a way as to choose one or more goals and to rank these goals in terms of
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72
put into action— then decisions must be made as to how to allocate the
does not assume that the outcome is "the most rational" by some
other constraints, and simple mistakes, prevent human action from being
givens. It is not concerned with why they are valued, simply with how
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73
I hope to show in this thesis, then, how the Agta are using their
also argue that the Agta reject agriculture not because they are too
"success," or lack thereof, may be determined for any one group by the
But the final, firm measure of adaptation— the bottom line— would be
evidence that the Agta are not presently adapting to their changing
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74
though the Agta have a very high birth rate, their death rate is
This does not mean the Agta do not have an adaptive strategy today.
Being "economic men," they of course do. The problem is that,with the
are not quite efficient enough to keep them above the threshold of what
birth rate which is higher than their death rate. This they do not
have. (There were 184 live births and 193 deaths in the population
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75
peoples, with balance and symmetry between culture and resources (Ellen
world. If the Agta would reject just these two customs this would
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76
maladaptation to adaptation.
myth says, "I [no longer] feel very defensive about the original
the reader will see, the present thesis does not go in that direction.
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77
unique niche they fill in their ecosystem. The Agta practice a basic
gathering."
from the neofunctionalists, who in turn borrowed the concept from Marx's
production type is among hunters all over the world. Many of the groups
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78
mode of production" (Lee 1981). Drawing from Lee, I describe here this
all, Philippine Negritos were excluded from this category at the Man the
modicum of agriculture and thus fall outside the range of our discussion
[sic]" (Murdock 1968:17). I argue here, however, that the Agta indeed
mostly rice, and most of them have planted crops for themselves at one
time or another.
1968:15). As Lee and DeVore have stressed (op. cit.), such ideal
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gatherers." It is my view that most of the world's hunter-gatherer
admits, in fact, that the earlier 'pristine nature' view of the !Kung as
incorrect (ibid.). Lee found that the reason the !Kung were doing no
men planted fields (ibid.; see also Lee 1976:18; 1981:16). This is a
figure much higher than the Agta's, which was 24 percent in 1983 (see
Table 10.7).
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80
trap Lee fell into in his earlier fieldwork, and which unfortunately
statements" (1984:219).
1976:100). Brooks' argument is that the G/wi were not the 'pure'
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81
who presents evidence "showing that foragers and food producers have
longer than was previously suspected. Over 1,200 years ago, these
networks reached into the heartof the Dobe [i.e., !Kung] area"
agriculture, or who eat only wild foods. Rather, the terms are meant
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82
a living.
Drawing from Marxist theory, Lee (1981) has emphasized that there
Agta, off from other small groups such as swidden farmers. These salient
These are listed here because all six are prevalent among the Agta, as
well as among other foraging societies with whom the Agta will be
'owned' tools; and total sharing within the camp and with visitors (what
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83
the Agta, "No one goes hungry if there is food in the camp" (ibid.).^
important; but they are not the primary factors in themselves [for
emphasize at the outset here that I use these principles, and other
a new idea, and I will use them here in that way. (See Bennett
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84
pressures under which they find themselves in the 1980s. They will be
thesis, What are the Agta doing for a living today, and Why do they
switching to agriculture?
Symbiosis. There are many small human groups found throughout the
world who follow the particular basic production type I call here
populations such that one cannot get along without the other (e.g.
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85
fact, as will become clear in subsequent chapters, any of the types may
occur at times.
family and their, often serial, farmer trading partners. In the Agta
populations, Agta hunters and lowland farmers, have not always been
shifted back and forth between different bands and individual families
been the norm for some bands. That is, the interaction was optional
for both populations. For other bands, there were and are periods of
other). Today the Agta are usually the ones to suffer. During the
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86
7. And as more and more immigrants flood into the Casiguran area, I
sense that the symbiosis is already moving from one which was usually
from the lowlanders, but the lowlanders are unaffected by the Agta), and
the lowlanders, but the lowlanders are unaffected by the Agta). (See
Both the Agta and the non-Agta lowland farmers who interact with
them are skilled at exploiting this system for their own benefit. The
Agta have come to rely on it moreand more for providing their needs,
farmers depend on the Agta as well, as a cheap labor resource and for
providing them with forest products and wild meat protein (the later now
increasingly scarce). I argue in this thesis that the Agta have moved
second major question of this thesis, why the Agta don't take up
Agta are actually locked out of pursuing this alternative life style.
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87
explain it thus: "If two populations compete for some resource that is
necessary for the survival of each and is in short supply, one of the
biology.)
jar of flour, as long as they were kept in separate jars. But whenever
thrive.
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88
its niche (not necessarily its habitat)., but is not usually starved out
the weak Agta population. They are precluded from moving into an
different species, rather than within the same species. However, the
competition occurs within the same species. For example, a corn plant
competes for nutrients more intensely with a neighboring corn plant than
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89
years ago.
of the same genus of chipmunk in the same habitat (Heller and Gates
competition.
between two Homo sapiens groups. I remind those readers that the
groups of the same species, and that I am using the concept by analogy,
not directly.
the other two principles presented here, the CEP has not been applied
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90
surprising, since this principle has, for me, been a powerful heuristic
device for helping me tounderstand not only the Agta, but the many
Australopithecus existed at one time, and how these hominids could have
1980), make brief mention of the CEP as a reason horses displaced dogs
authors neither define the term nor explain their use of it, nor use it
North Pakistan, in which we see vividly the CEP at work. But Barth does
competition, not even in his 1964 paper which has the term "competition11
in the title, and which makes one vague remark about "processes of
between commercial fishermen and sport fishermen in Lake Erie "in terms
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91
to the CEP, nor does he cite Gause or Hardin. And he concludes that the
groups in Almond Valley, California in the 1970s, and his case study is
Gause's principle, nor does he mention the term -CEP in his paper
(though Eighmy and Jacobsen [1980:286] use the term once, in passing,
Jochim (1981:45, 46) mentions the term CEP twice in his cultural
Yet he fails to carry through with this suggestion. The CEP is never
ecology (Ellen 1982) never mentions the term, nor does the author cite
Gause or Hardin.
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92
anthropologist to both use the term CEP, and to harness its explanatory
paper (1978), where he argues that during the Neolithic, and up to the
against each other over one particular scarce resource, arable land.
fighting against each other over the usual scarce resource most
competition with a group much stronger than they. My ideas on the use
of the CEP for explaining the behavior of human foragers did not come
until November 1984 that I learned that Carneiro was working on the same
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93
idea. I have received some helpful correspondence from him, and his
from a niche the dominant population wants. In the Agta case, this is
direct competition with the lowlanders. For the Agta to become farmers
they would have to compete with the dominant Filipino population for one
valuable and scarce resource, land. The Agta sense that there is
them to keep and farm good land. The result is that they simply avoid
that economic niche. They do not reject agriculture because they are
ignorant, lazy, or dislike hard work. Many Agta, rather, would like to
move into agriculture, at least that is what they told me, if the
possibility is a door shut hard in the faces of most Agta at the present
time.
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94
The niche concept. The third ecological principle I will use for
best defined as the role the organism plays in the ecosystem (Odum
the plant or animal does in its ecosystem. In this thesis I use the
term more or less synonymously with "basic production type." All human
fill, we may call it by the term defined above, "commercial hunting and
together because they all exploited different niches, and because they
different niches not used, or only partially used, by the other two
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95
lowland neighbors.
to tie those Agta habits to the CEP. Let us use the concept here as a
building, and not in the strict literal sense. Even ecologists cannot
agree on the use and definition of the concept in their own field of
ecology.
similar niches, but displace each other in such a manner that each takes
1977:28). This is why the Agta avoid trying to move into a niche
Agta may have practiced more agriculture in the past than they have in
this century, when the non-Agta Casiguranin population numbered only 500
and the CEP was not a significant force in their ecosystem. It is for
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96
present thesis.
have surveyed had two primary goals in mind, to settle the 'nomadic'
Negritos onto reservations, and to make them into farmers. There are
change (I outlined eleven in the above cited paper). But there are also
and specifically the Agta, resist such change. The three bioecological
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97
the Agta if they tried to take up the same "life style or feeding
lowland farmers soon move in and take over the supervision of such
cultivation, and eventually end up taking over for themselves the Agta's
the very reason the Agta have survived as well as they have in their
ecosystem is because they are filling a different niche from that of the
energy to the lowland population which they have come to depend upon, in
the form of meat, fish, forest plant products, and cheap labor. The
lowlanders not only tolerate the Agta in their ecosystem, but actually
need them to provide certain requisites. For the Agta to try to change
to farmers would certainly cause the CEP to come into play, and it is
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98
the past, when the CEP was not a force in the Agta ecosystem, the Agta
of capital may have been a factor in their not doing so then, a more
logical reason was that game was then very abundant, farmers were
willing to trade starch food for it, and there was no need to go to the
societies."
Love (1977) provides a good example of what happens when two human
populations in the same habitat compete for the same niche. As the
a natural result of the CEP. The same principles can be used to explain
(Bennett 1969). It would have put them in direct competition with the
option for survival. And we have all read recently in the news
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99
Vietnamese are having to cope against forces which the CEP helps us to
understand.
So, how can the Agta best survive in their delicate position in
on this question, the Agta have their own ideas. For now, their
solution has been to let themselves evolve along the path of least
niche which they have found to be their best adaptive strategy, that of
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 3
100
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CHAPTER IV
assert tremendous influence over the kind of adaptation the Agta have
flora, fauna, and climate, but other critical components such as the
consequences for the Agta culture and ecosystem, as I will make clear in
Chapter 9.
the Agta.
THE CLIMATE
101
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102
cyclones.
(Phil. Atlas 1975:25; Flores and Balagot 1969:200), which means that
this area has the highest amount and most evenly distributed annual
defined as rainy throughout the year with at most one and one half dry
(from 1962 to 1984) there were only 18 months with less than 60 mm of
had more than two 'dry months;' four of the years had two 'dry months,'
and ten of the years had one 'dry month' (see Table 4.1). The other
years, as shown in Figure 1, Table 4.2, and Table 4.1. April is the
month with the lightest average rainfall, 154 mm, while November has the
varied, with the year of heaviest rainfall on record being 1971, with
6,878 mm (275 in). The year with the least rainfall was 1968, with
1,353 mm (54 in). The 24 hour period with the highest recorded rainfall
was on March 13, 1971, with 401 mm (16 in) (see column 7 of Table 4.1).
The average rainfall for the 34 year period of 1949-83 was 3,448 mm per
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103
year (138 in). The rainfall in 1983 was 3,119 mm, just slightly below
4.1, Casiguran averages 212 rainy days per year (defined by the national
this definition, Casiguran had 184 rainy days in 1983, somewhat below
3, 1962, and the highest was 36.8°C (98.2°F), on June 12, 1962 (Pagasa
1975:2).
al. 1979:4).
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104
year, with "about 9 of them crossing the country per year" (ibid.rl).
29 (in 1952). Although these cyclones cause enormous losses to life and
118 kph, and 'typhoons,' with center winds of 119+ kph (Pagasa
1978:viii). From 1948 to 1978 there were 611 tropical cyclones in the
storms, and 325 were typhoons. The main- axis of these cyclones is
Casiguran for many of those typhoons, and we remember them well, and how
the Agta reacted to them. The effect of these typhoons on the Agta will
The only months for which there are no records of typhoons in Casiguran
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105
June to December. "August has the greatest mean frequency with 3.7 and
LAND TYPES
type, including both primary forest (30,487 ha) and secondary forest
(9,853 ha). Though originally all of this type was 'full-closure' forest
swidden farming, most of the primary forest falls under the category
Table 4.4).
rather than rainforest. This is because the area has less than 4,000 mm
of rainfall per year, and more than two months per year with less than
in).
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106
the areas where the canopy is full-closure (that is, where loggers have
vines, and epiphytes, are common. Up until 2 or 3 years ago the many
species of rattan were very abundant everywhere. Today, they have been
after which they gradually succeed to the mossy type forest described
There are six plant foods which were important to the Agta in the
recent past, all of which grow wild only in primary forest. All of these
are types of wild yams. Judging from the statements of older informants,
and the frequent mention of these six plants in folktales, these were
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107
important starch foods of the Agta up until the present century, and
again during certain periods of WWII, when rice and root crops were not
Agta ate these wild tubers at only two percent of their meals (see
Headland (1981:71-76).
Another important wild plant food of the Agta during the past, and
inner trunk of the caryota palm (age! 'Caryota cumingii'). This palm
the past, but I did not observe it being processed or eaten during our
land type to be defined below), they refer to the former with the term
forest with a very high canopy and a ground area relatively easy to
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108
'forest'.
single most important plant for the Agta in their environment. This is
palms, with some 600 different species, all belonging to the subfamily
genera and some 60 to 70 species. Only 2 genera are used for commercial
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109
Until the early 1980s, rattan was very abundant in the Casiguran
areas (cf. Arnold 1915:6). Rattan gathering was the main economic
Casiguran forests. The reasons for this, and what it implies for the
molave forest. Several clumps of this forest type are found on the
eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre, and on the steep eastern sides of
the Casiguran San Ildefonso peninsula. These forest patches are found
in drier places where limestone hills are predominant, and the soil is
dry, and shallow or scanty. The forest canopy is not high, and the
trees are much less dense. The main trees are molave (Vitex
there is much growth on the forest floor of many kinds of shrubs, vines,
Agta refer to this forest type as pinomtaw, although one Agta group
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110
are located on the very western border of the area. Some writers refer
1977:45).
These mossy forests occur on the steep sides of high mountains. I have
inaccessible mossy forests. I have many times flown over these areas,
Sierra Madre. Yet I have never actually been in these forests, and I
1982:29ff).
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Ill
are found along dry sandy beaches above the high tide line. About 30
such forests. They cover about 0.3 percent of the total land area (see
the mangrove forest. Several of these stands are found on tidal mud
flats along the Casiguran coast, usually atthe mouths of rivers where
water is brackish. Most of the trees are ofthe genus Rhizophora (bekaw
River just 2 km south of Casiguran town, is thick with nipa palm (Nypa
lowlanders work part time distilling nipa liquor for sale. This nipa
Casiguran land area, 0.4 percent, they are very important ecologically.
They not onlyprovide income for hundreds of people who manufacture and
sell nipa shingles and nipa wine, but they provide an important food
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112
source for both the Agta and lowland populations. These foods are
are a fairly reliable source of these important protein foods, and women
food chain. The high volume of mangrove leaf litter has special
and provide important breeding areas for fish. (For details, see NRC
1982:204, Scott 1981, Cortiguerra 1979, and Serrano 1978.) The Agta terra
land type is defined as areas of young trees or brush at least one meter
areas cover some 6 percent of the Casiguran area, all in the lowlands.
The Agta term for this land type (as well as young secondary forest) is
secondary forest.
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113
Agta exploit heavily this land type, not only harvesting fruit from
domesticated trees or feral root crops planted when the land was first
cleared, but also wild plants which are not found in primary forest. An
for poles in house construction, because termites will not eat it. The
leaves are used for plates for meals, or as wrapping paper. Another
nutritious snack food. Guava, introduced into the Philippines from the
New World during Spanish times, is, in fact, probably the most
important wild plant food in the Agta diet today. Children, and to a
lesser extent adults, eat the fruit almost daily from March to August,
and sporadically during the rest of the year, when the tree bears less
fruit.
every year.
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114
and logged over areas in the southern part of the area (the area in the
This grass is used for roofing material, and in the Dinalongan area
all lowlander houses (except those with iron roofs) are roofed with
The single largest grass meadow, an area of some 1,200 ha, lies
just behind and upriver from the town of Dinalongan. This grassland
1963, when Dinalongan was a small barrio of some 200 people. (It is
Agta men relate how, when they were boys before WWII, they used to help
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115
1962.
In the early 1960s there was a landing strip in this meadow built
parts of themeadow there are several small farms with dry plowed
fields. And for the last several years a 312 ha area at the upper
Up until the late 1960s some of these grasslands were usedby the
Agta for a particular type of hunting, where they drove game by setting
the grass on fire. There are two Imperata meadows on the steep eastern
side of the San Ildefonso Peninsula which two Agta bands used
meadows are large (3-5 ha), and both are situated on very steep
percent of the total land area is composed of this type, with a reported
4,614 ha of this made of wet rice fields, and 6,372 ha planted in fruit
trees, almost all of which are coconut (again, see Table 4.4).
preceding the founding of the townof Casiguran in 1609. Only two Agta
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116
families owned and cultivated their own wet rice fields in 1983.
Filipinos who have migrated into the area since my arrival there in
400 swiddens were made by lowlanders in the area in 1983. The majority
of farmers in both groups make their living by means other than swidden
farming. These means are primarily wet rice farming followed by seasonal
gathering.
(20 percent of the Agta households made small swiddens of their own in
Agta in Casiguran in 1983 (average size 0.18 ha) and, as I will explain
Appendix D).
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117
custom for those lowlanders who make swiddens to intercrop their rice,
whose leaves, within a very few years, form a canopy which almost
types as defined above and in Table 4.4. Another 6 percent of the area
except forthe remote mossy forests, almost all of the forest areas
These are the ocean areas in Casiguran. These areas are not uniform.
They include areas of deep and shallow water, coral reefs, sandy
bottoms, calm bays, and rough ocean. The Agta and lowland people use
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118
Important to note is the fact that Casiguran Bay is the only large
harbor of safety for boats and ships on the eastern coast of Luzon. It
is customary for deep sea vessels in the area to head straight for
waters (and such warnings are announced about 19 times per year).
Whenever typhoon signals are up one can expect to find one or two ships
This may have been the custom for sailors even during the Spanish
safe natural harbor is probably what led to the founding of the town of
Casiguran in 1609.
Though all of these play roles in the ecosystem, I can only mention here
number, and how this has affected their culture. These population
and lowlanders alike are the aquatic fauna, especially fish. There are
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119
127 Agta lexemes for fish, 28 of which are riverine, in the early 1970s
recorded), marine crabs, and river eels. In 1984, some type of aquatic
fauna was eaten at 53 percent of the Agta meals, and for 37 percent of
the meals that fauna was fish (see Tables 4.7, 4.8, and 4.9). Agta
shellfishing, and women 4 percent (see Table 10.13). This does not mean
obvious evidence of the scarcity is the fact that in 1984 the Agta had
remember eating this meat often in the 1960s, but almost never in the
beach at the northern border of the study area in July 1984, indicating
that there are still a few left. But I do not know of any Agta who
are especially important in the Agta economic system. These are wild pig
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120
Both today and in the past, when hunters secure meat, most of the
although small portions are also shared out throughout the Agta camp of
philippinensis. Lowlanders do not eat monkey meat, and Agta thus eat
all of this meat themselves. (Table 4.7 shows the percentage of meals
at which meat from these animals were eaten; Chapters 8 and 10 will
discuss Agta hunting in some detail.) Many Agta families keep pet
monkeys, which they capture when they are babies. Adults and,
become very attached to their owners, sleeping with them, and grooming
their hair (picking out lice). Sometimes Agta women nurse them.
birds, and the Agta recognize many more than that. A favorite pastime of
Agta children is hunting small birds with bow and arrow or, more often
bird, and men sometimes set a type of snare (called balaybay) to trap
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121
them. They also sometimes shoot them with arrows. Another important
bird is the domestic chicken. Most Agta families have a few chickens,
which are allowed to roam loose. Agta almost never eat these chickens
hydrocorax). Agta men hunt these. They eat the meat, but the more
fletching arrows. These birds were abundant in the 1960s in the primary
forest where we lived, and we saw and heard them virtually every day.
Then, for the last several years before we moved to Hawaii in 1979, we
almost never saw or heard a hornbill bird. I remember, too, that in the
1970s Agta arrows were usually fletched with soft feathers (not the
Casiguran, were going extinct from being overhunted with guns by Agta,
forest around us. Both Agta and lowlanders I have questioned about this
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which smashed into Casiguran with winds of 240 kph in September 1970.
While that may be so, the equally destructive Typhoon Aring in November
population.
system are snakes, palm civets, monitor lizards, and fruit bats. There
(Python reticulatus). I have seen them kill these and not eat them,
however, including very large ones. On the one occasion when I was
present to see them butcher and eat a python, it was mainly the fat
which they wanted. They left most of the meat and ribs behind at the
with snares, and eaten. Rarely, pre-adults are kept as pets. Large
tree lizards (Hydrosaurus spp., Lophura sp.) are sometimes eaten, but
Casiguran Agta do not eat the large river lizard (Varanus salvator).
Agta say they eat the large fruit-eating bat (Acerodon jubatos), though
I have never seen them do so, probably because these bats do not live
There are just two types of insects which the Agta eat. One is the
larvae of honey bees. There are only two species of honey bee in
Casiguran which the Agta exploit. Honey is a favorite food of the Agta,
the country. I have never seen Agta sell or trade honey to lowlanders,
2
as they do other forest products. Most of the larvae and honey is
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123
eaten right at the place of procurement by the camp group, with some
lying on tidal mud flats at low tide. These grubs bore holes in the
wood, much like termites. They are about 7 mm wide and 18 mm long. The
wood is split open and they are picked out and eaten raw.
crops, or carry disease (e.g., the malaria mosquito). These details will
not be discussed in this thesis, except to mention that malaria has been
the area.
which are important to the Agta in one way or another. I have already
relationship. Both populations benefit the other, yet both also transfer
disease to the other. Dogs serve two beneficial functions in the Agta
ecosystem. First, since they are rarely fed anything but the skimpiest
of scraps, they serve as scavengers: This keeps the camp somewhat clean
of garbage and filth. When children defecate in the camp, for example,
also eat leftovers from meals, such as fish bones, or a few grains of
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124
rice. They also eat carrion. Agta camps would be a lot dirtier without
dogs.
Though Agta seem hardly aware of the above function of dogs, they
are very well aware of their second function, serving as camp guards,
approach the camp without every dog waking up and barking furiously.
Agta society, in that some of them served as hunting dogs. Indeed, some
dogs were prized for hunting, and these would be fed small amounts of
rice and special scraps almost daily. Hunting dogs were also fed the
There are two specific types of hunts where dogs are used: anop, a
type of hunting when a man goes out alone with two or three dogs, and
tabug, a type of group hunt with both men and women. On these latter
hunts the women guide several dogs in driving game towards the men, who
lie waiting in ambush. Both of these types of hunts were very common in
the 1960s, but are rarely practiced today, at least in the areas where I
resided.^
asked Agta, they said it was because they don't have any dogs nowadays
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125
which know how to hunt. I find this answer hard to accept. Thedogs
twenty years ago had to be taught to flush out and drive game. The
question is, why don't the Agta bother to teach them today to do this?
I think it is because Agta men do not hunt often enough today to train
the point ofskin and bones, and often splattered with dried fecal
matter of small children which drips onto them from the cracks in bamboo
floors above. Both dogs and Agta are chronically infected with
dogs are not treated as pets, except when puppies, they are allowed to
sleep with the Agta at night, often on the sleeping mats lying against
surely a factor in the high death rate of the Agta. On the other hand,
between the Agta, their dogs, and certain parasites have evolved over
Domestic pigs and carabaos. There are two other domestic mammals
which play a role of some importance in the Agta system. These are
domestic pigs, and carabaos. Agta will not eat the meat of domestic
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126
A good number of Agta families do, however, raise domestic pigs. Thirty
percent of the families claimed this in 1983-84 (11/37). These pigs are
to raise it for him. Later, when the lowlandersells the pig, he and the
Agta will, ideally, split the money earned fifty-fifty. A few Agta own
were raising pigs, 5 said they owned the pig they had, while 6 stated
purchased or helped purchase for their owners in the past. All four
families derive substantial economic gain from these animals, but not in
a way one might expect. Instead of using the animals to cultivate their
own fields, the Agta owners usually have theircarabaos leased out to
harvest. Or, they may loan their carabao to a lowlander as a way to pay
off their own debts. Sometimes they rent their carabao out for the day
today are of little importance to the Agta. Horses, cattle, goats, and
domestic cats . are common, but Agta have no interaction with any of
these, except that a few Agta families own cats. Older Agta tell me that
before the 1950s, including very large ones. Today they are gone,
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127
species of river turtles, small lizards, land mollusks, rats and mice.
The Agta eat none of these, nor have any of them posed a particular
faunal hazards in the Agta ecosystem. With the high death rate of the
Agta, the question arises as to what possible role certain fauna may
been bitten [that is, attacked] by a python?" "Do you know of anyone
who has ever been killed by a python?" and, "Do you know of anyone who
It turned out that only one of the 64 women I interviewed had been
visible scars from python bites which they showed me, and which I noted
down. One man had been bitten onthe elbow, one on the back, and the
rest on the legs. Four of the men had multiple bite scars, where they
said they were bitten more than once by the same python.
These make for good 'Tarzan-style' stories, but are they true? I
found no reason to doubt their word.- Some of these pythons are very
4
large, up to 7 m m length. When I asked my second question, however,
only two elderly Agta could recall any instance of a Casiguran Agta
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128
interview) claimed her 'uncle', Diladeg had been killed by a python when
she, Pidela, was a child. In the second case, Ayogyog (age 58) said a
man named Dinsiweg was killed and eaten by a python when he, Ayogyog,
was a boy. He also said that the victim's son, Sinayatan, killed this
snake the next day, cut it open, and removed his father's body. Neither
told me of a Visayan man with an Umirey Negrito wife who had two
parents of these two children, who verified the incident. Later I heard
the same story from the Catholic priest in Casiguran who buried the
children.
Pasahabat, Casiguran, a python entered the house of this family when the
parents were out. It caught and killed two of the three children in the
house. When the father arrived home later he found the python still in
the house, with one child half-swallowed in its mouth, and the other
child lying dead on the floor. He said he then killed the python with
his bolo. He said the python was wrapped around the child and was trying
knew of anyone who had ever died of a poisonous snake bite, none of them
could think of a single person. Though many Agta claim to have been
their language they use the same word for 'snake' as they do for
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129
ulag. One man I know of would have died, if I had not gotten him to the
1912 also stated that he was unable to find records of any Negritos
having died from poisonous snakebites (Newton 1920:8, 22). And a study
annual mortality rate from such of only 1.26 per 100,000, or 0.07
extremely rare in the humid tropics; and the above provides some
very high death rates from poisonous snakebites. Deaths from such are
said to be 15.4 per 100,000 in Burma (Reyes and Lamanna 1955:193), and
Chagnon (1977:20) states that 2 percent of all adult Yanomamo deaths are
Here 4 percent of all Waorani deaths (not just adult deaths) are caused
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130
1978).
difficult to study, they are very important to the Agta. These are
Rai 1982). Briefly, the Agta are animists. They believe in a single
headlands, or in caves.
There are two general classes of spirit beings in the Agta world
view. These are hayup 'creature', and belet 'ghost'. The latter are
feared, as they are prone to return to the abode of their family during
the night, causing sickness and death. When an adult dies in a camp,
Agta burn down the house in which the person died, and the whole camp
group moves to another area, usually not returning for several months.
non-human, they are bipedal and may appear in human form. Most types of
hayup beings are malignant; others are neutral, and a few can be called
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131
opinion, take their own religion very seriously either. Probably the
value in their ideology. Their animistic system has less control over
their daily lives, for example, than do the religious systems of other,
among other tribal swiddeners (e.g., the Manobo [Hires and Headland
passing lowlander told them they should. If the cross falls over, they
are unlikely to set it back up. If they have a poor crop, they will
Manila.)
This does not mean that Agta ignore the spirits, however. They
worry a great deal about them when it comes to illness. They usually
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132
they look for spiritual causes. At these times they will request
Eight percent of the Agta adults are shamans in Casiguran, with two
aids him or her in diagnosing and treating disease. The primary role
Shamans may treat their patients with herbal medicines and simple
prayers to their spirit 'friend' or, for difficult cases, they may
state, chanting prayers over the patient until they are possessed by
their familiar spirits. These chants are not in the normal Agta
their environment. Rather, they fear them, and placate them. They do
though they occasionally offer small gifts to the hayup spirits if they
are taking something from the forest. These gifts may consist of a few
man's G-string.
They have only a vague interest in the afterlife, realm of the dead,
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133
1990s. We have seen in this chapter how the forest structures are being
and I have stated how the large mammal populations most important to the
Agta, wild pig and deer, have greatly declined (the deer being almost
several other fauna, the green sea turtles, hornbills, crocodiles, and
lobsters. At the same time, there has been rapid increase in some other
immigrant homesteaders.
in Casiguran which have affected these changes and, thus, the Agta
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134
affecting the ecosystem which are just as critical as the biological and
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 4
135
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CHAPTER V
relationship between Agta kinship and Agta social life in the 1980s, and
kinship one of the components which influences both the flow of energy
and certain adaptive actions on the part of the Agta. Agta use their
kinsmen, and between kin groups. This chapter will first describe and
map the Casiguran Agta kinship terminology, and then discuss aspects of
is actually carried out "on the ground." Specific topics will discuss
orphans, and the delicate in-law relationships found among the Agta.
136
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137
KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY
acting as the basic social unit. The Agta do not have lineages,
English glosses appearing here in single quotes are not precise formal
meanings of the Agta terms, since no Agta kinship term means exactly the
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138
Headland 1984, and for a graphic display of the 15 terms see Figure 2.
ama, and for 'mother', ina. Siblings and cousins of both parents are
called amay 'uncle' for males, and dada 'aunt' for females. These are
the only four kinship terms in Agta which carry a meaning component for
Appendix B.
anak, and for children of Ego's siblings and cousins the term is aneng
'nephew' or 'niece'.
All kinsmen two or more generations removed from Ego are referred
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139
Figure 2).
kabalaian (ka-+balai+-an).
therefore, has his own unique personal kindred, which he shares only
with his full siblings. Thus when Ego dies, his kindred group
dissolves.
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140
for this. First, the very high death rate among Agta (described in
kindreds. Second, most Agta cannot trace out their personal kindred
of Agta adults know the names of all four of their grandparents, while
that Agta know their first cousins, some of their second cousins, and
occasionally a few others who they have been told are their third
cousins.
receive help from and give help to the members of his kindred. These
generational or collateral distance between Ego and the alter from whom
humans among whom he feels most secure and safe. This does not mean
is. But in times of stress from outside the kindred, consanguines come
his own kindred. The Agta social behavior which results from these
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141
40 minute hike up rivers from lowlander barrios, and they are seldom
only 11 percent of the camps (6/56) were actually located under the
one of the three types of forest biomes, but most of those were situated
the forest (see Table 4.5 for details). I explained in Chapter 1 why
household size is 4.3 members. (The median and mode were both also
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142
Agta houses are very small (and very temporary, too, I might add).
In a sample of 129 houses measured in 1983-84, the mean floor area was
2
only 3.9 m . The per capita area of floor space, per family member,
2
averaged 1.2 m (for details, see Table 5.1). Figures like these amaze
2
the average Westerner. Their significance is that they tell us
indirectly something about the Agta. For one thing, they are poor.
Also, they live outdoors much of the time. They do not so much "live"
in their houses, as use them for shelter in wet weather, and for
sleeping. Also, they move often, and they have few belongings.
Finally, Agta have told me that if they had bigger houses they would
just have visitors living with them more often. Agta place a high value
grow weary of the drain this puts upon them. I have lived with Agta
long enough to know they would sympathize with the statement an old
Agta do move often, and some families very often. Rai found that
the Agta camp group he lived with in San Mariano, Isabela, in 1980
do not have data on just how often the average Casiguran Agta family
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143
moves, I know there is a wide range. Some move as often as the group
Rai lived with, while others may live in the same house for up to a
year. The Casiguran camp groups which moved the most often in 1983-84
were those living then in Area 1 (see Map 2). Every time I visited
this area, usually once a month, their camps were situated at different
spots.
The Agta residence norm is bilocal, the couple may live with either
households. (In Rai's [1982] study of another Agta group, he also found
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144
camp group where he does not have primary relatives, although overnight
reside in an Agta camp unless he or his spouse has one or more primary
people to whom they are not related, and lowlanders, who do not feel
a camp where my wife and I resided for 42 nights in 1978 (in Area 9, on
Map 2), lowlanders slept in the camp 21 percent of the nights, and non
resided in 1983 (in Area 4), lowlander visitors slept in the camp 19
non-related Agta were usually mere passers-by on their way home who
needed a place to sleep. These figures are doubtless higher than the
average, since both camps were on main trails leading from town, and
because ill Agta from other bands were often brought to us for medical
treatment. (For details, see Table 5.2.) The high number of non-
related Agta overnight visitors in the 1978 camp was doubtless because
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145
this camp was situated just a 15 minute walk from the large Agta
should stress that Agta camps have visitors who are relatives almost
4
every night of the year.
from the data of some other hunter-gatherer societies. Gould found that
band "may be defined in terms of its area of focus but not in terms of
its membership" (1972:246), and an individual may move freely from one
the fission and fusion of Mbuti and Ik individuals or groups "does not
These examples differ from what we find among the Agta, where
individuals and families are not free to move into camp groups of
non-kin, except for overnight visits. Ideally, Agta reside only with
kin, a phenomenon found also among other groups both within the
This does not mean that "flux" (in Turnbull's [1968] use of this
term) is not present among the Agta. Indeed, the frequent changeover in
both camp location and camp composition among the Agta is important for
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146
with kin.
Virtually all Agta adults marry, except for some with mental or
1984, only 4 males and 1 female over age 29 had never married. (This
count excludes the 5 members of the de jure population over age 29 who
were taken away by lowlanders eight or more years ago, whose civil
Agta practice strict kin exogamy, and a strong preference for group
genealogical records, one between first cousins who were married for
many years (they had no offspring), and a man presently married to, he
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147
There are also 12 cases known to us, 5 still ongoing in 1984, of unions
between affines.
There was one sororate union in 1984, and one levirate union. The
genealogy records show four more such unions in the recent past. Mild
criticism is made about these unions, and the two couples presently so
incest rules and exogamy rules. "The incest taboo defines the limits of
One may not marry any person whom he already callsby anykinship term.
Peterson has described the same rule for the Palanan Agta: No one may
should not marry known consanguines of persons who have ever married
societies, for example, two brothers may marry twogirls who are
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148
cousins, or even sisters. This is frowned upon among the Agta. This is
Conklin (1959:634) describes the same exogamy rule for the Hanunoo
of Mindoro. The Hanunoo, however, often break the rule, whereas the
Agta seldom do. (Similar rules against the marriage of affines are
Agta are not supposed to marry any affine or former affine (since one
from, say, kin group X, Ego is thus precluded from marrying anyone in
brother or cousin marries a girl named Susie, then I cannot marry any
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149
indirect exchange (see Keesing 1975:84). For the Agta, this means that
once my kin group takes a spouse (male or female) from your kin group,
children, they should all secure their spouses from four different kin
groups.
any one kin group through a wide range of locales and food resource
zones. In time of need, this means any Agta has a number of widely
dispersed kinsmen with whom he can reside. These Agta mating rules
provide what Wobst calls "steady insurance at low cost [because they]
with those outside one's immediate terrain are the ultimate insurance
the Agta genes more homogenized in this small population than would
planned, of course, nor are the Agta aware of its adaptive function. It
natural selection.
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150
the highlands of New Guinea. That is, "every marriage between two
This contrasts with the "alliance systems" found elsewhere, where men
of group A take all their wives from group B, in turn giving sisters as
social ties are concentrated between two or three groups. But in the
This Agta marriage rule also supports some findings described by Cohen,
that "the widest extension of incest taboos beyond the nuclear family is
(1982:110).
above, Agta do not keep any genealogical records in their own memories.
land-owning, and have bilateral descent groups. The Agta have none of
these. The Ifugao, for example can count pedigrees back for 8 to as
memory of a^ person, not of a_ genealogy. Those few Agta who could give
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151
because they had personally lived with those grandparents when they
usually because the grandparents had died before they were born, or
are not strictly taboo, there _is some reluctance to say such names.
course results in the names of the dead being forgotten by most people
Agta, then, have a broad exogamy rule. How can they keep such a
rule, with their small population size, and still find mates? I am
one sheds distant cousins, thus making them eligible marriage partners.
If the Agta were ever to settle down and become farmers, with a land
pressure on the exogamy rule, with the probable result that the exogamy
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152
without forcing them to break their exogamy rule? Not very. Whether
consciously or not, the Agta find it convenient, when looking for mates,
girls you have from which to choose. From this it is quite logical to
the Agta to form ties with several other groups who can then be relied
on in time of need.
unions are formed. The socially approved way, and the norm, is for two
have described the sakad in detail elsewhere, and will not repeat it
living with the parents of the girl. From this, a period of "trial
marriage" evolves.^ After the couple have been sleeping together for
some time, there is, ideally, a kasal 'wedding', in which bride price
gifts are given by the boy's kindred to the kindred of the girl.
'elopement'. In this case, a boy and girl arrange privately to run away
together. After living together for several days alone in the forest or
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153
either set of parents. The parents and elder kin of the couple are
usually terribly upset by the elopement, but they make no overt attempt,
that I have ever been able to observe, to separate the couple. The
This refers to a marriage in which at least one, but more often both, of
I have observed, both partners were widowed, and both were older than
widower, but the woman is not, or is young enough so that her parents
time, the male to whom she is betrothed, or with whom she elopes, is
agreed upon by the two sets of parents of the couple. Sehebi (from
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154
the two kindreds, and before the kasal 'wedding'(if there is one).
During this trial period the young man can still be rejected by the
males claim to have done 'bride service' when they married (28/63 males
interviewed in 1976).
females today marry at the mean age of 18.4 years (see bottom of Table
12.5). A good number marry before that, however. A third are married
Though most girls are married by the time they finish their teens, a
their early twenties. (The mean male age at marriage is 21.7 years [see
Chapter 12].)
good deal older than their wives, most Agta are married to partners
less than 6 years apart in age. That is, 73 percent of the married Agta
have mates which are members of their same 5 year age cohort group. In
9 percent of the unions, the couples are the same age (12/132). In most
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155
marriages, 80 percent, the husband is older than his wife, while for 11
they have been divorced at least once (23/127). Most cases of divorce
occur among couples who are newly married, or who are still in a
"trial" period of incipient marriage (as when the boy is still living
widowed people.
On the other hand, marriages are very stable among couples with
formal event marking such. No bride price is returned and, since Agta
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156
neither partner had been married before, 45 percent of the unions began
not merely between two individuals, even death itself does not terminate
between the surviving spouse and his or her kindred, and the kindred of
the deceased, come into play. First of all, if no consanguines were with
the deceased at the time of death, his primary kin may blame the
have even seen cases where the surviving relatives spread the rumor that
For this reason, the widow(er) and his kin group make efforts to
avoid such accusations in the following ways: (1) they may carry the
dying person to the camp of his own relatives, or (2) they will make
camp before the death occurs, or at least before the body is buried.
Then, when the person dies, (3) the widow(er) is expected to go through
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157
neither bathe, cut his hair, or wear clean clothing. His relatives will
also help him weave heavy strands of fiber, which he will then wear on
his wrists, arms and around his upper body for one year. The widow(er)
is not supposed to cut these cords off himself, but is to wait until a
primary relative of the deceased decides to cut them off. When this is
done, it signals the end of the period of mourning, that the widow(er)
is forgiven for letting his spouse die, and that the in-laws will not
her kin group: They are expected to perform megbilo. The word bilo
at them, and so that they will not continue to hold them responsible
for the death" (Headland and Headland 1974:25). The gifts (called
pagbilo) should be given within a year of the death, and these consist
of cooking pots, cloth, and bolos. I have seen aspects of this action
custom which is dying out, or it may have always been a form of ideal
groups.)
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158
all adult primary members of the kindred of both parents. Indeed, the
Agta language does not have a word for 'parents', but has a near
equivalent term, dedikel, which we may gloss as 'elders who raised me'.
It is a generic kinship term not only for Ego's mother and father, but
for all kin of the first ascending generation from Ego who had a part
in raising Ego. (The term itself is a derived form of the verb dikel
Since a kindred group does have some claim on its juvenile members,
the deceased spouse. This is usually the oldest child. The child will
then live indefinitely with his dead parent's kin. It was explained to
compensate them for the loss of their deceased kinsman. This is never
defined as a child who has lost at least one parent by death. The
previous section has outlined how orphans may be given by the surviving
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159
the new spouse views the widow's children as non-kin, and thus typically
Though there are exceptions, I have seen several cases of second class
For this reason, 'orphan' children often find living with a dead
parent's kindred more favorable to living with the surviving parent who
kin group of the new spouse. In that case, the child would find himself
unfortunate situation for any Agta individual, since Agta make little
This is not to say that orphans receive first class treatment just
because they are living with their dead parents primary kin. In this
situation, though they are not treated as outsiders, they are still
foster children. As such, they will not always receive the same care
from their aunts and uncles as do their cousins who are lineal offspring
of those adults. Adult Agta will care for their foster nephews and
nieces but, if they have children of their own, they will favor their
1984, there were 16 females in the population age 18+ who were still
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160
age 22+, all were 'orphans' except one, who is totally blind. There is
some evidence, then, that orphans tend to marry at a later age than is
their other senior kindred (aunts and uncles) do not make the extra
between full siblings is a close one. Both during childhood and after
marriage, full siblings are very close. Though there may be quarrels,
for the most part there is a strong trust bond among siblings. This is
the same camp, especially if the mutual parent is still living, there is
genealogies.
all adult members of his spouse's kindred (except for their own mutual
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161
of all never says the names of any of his spouse's kindred. Those names
are taboo to him, and he will never repeat them even if they are not
present. This norm is closely followed today. (Affines with names taboo
kindred. And this is especially the case during the first year or two
of marriage. When Ego is living with the kinship group of his spouse he
is absent from all of his own kindred ( except his children), and
Just one spiteful sister-in-law can make life miserable for Ego, and I
have seen many cases where a kin group will harass an in-law continually
until he and his spouse are forced to move out of the camp.
his own kindred, in the camp of his spouse's group, there is often a
close relationship which builds up between him and his idas 'co-
These two individuals, though not directly related, are drawn together
own spouse, these other outsiders, (Ego's idas) are the only ones whose
names he can say in the whole camp. The result is thus often a close
bond relationship between idas dyads of the same sex, in the same camp.
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162
They will address each other by the reciprocal vocative term idas, work
together, and support each other as needs arise. This is one of the
* * *
relationships between Agta kinship and Agta social behavior, and how
the Agta use kinship to relate with their total ecosystem including,
described here household and camp composition, marriage, and how that
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 5
163
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CHAPTER VI
As the reader will soon see, the argument of this chapter disagrees
all" (ibid.).
other human cultural behavior. This chapter, and the following three,
history which has led, or pressured, the Agta into their present
164
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165
people.
these models (and repudiate the first). These data are based on
from early historical records (in the next chapter). Following that,
American period and up to the 1960s, and Chapter 9 will review the
we see how they have and are affecting the flow of energy units in the
will be partly conjectural. For both that period and the Spanish
models, which I here argue is the best and most accurate reflection of
Model One reflects the popular view of how most lay people, many
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166
It should be made clear at the start that the two models are not
overlap, and sometimes even complement one another. They do, however,
argument, and to clarify the issues as I see them. The goal is to lay
this thesis, why the Agta behave economically as they do, and why they
reader will see, the historical records cited in those two chapters
how the Agta may have been living in prehispanic times may be
delimited. The older and more generally accepted assumption, the Model
assumes that the first human inhabitants of the Philippines were some
type of Pleistocene Homo sapiens which evolved some 20,000 years ago
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167
(Bellwood [1985:74, 113] is one who believes that the Negritos were the
proposes that
This model assumes that the Negritos, then, were the aboriginal
lifestyle well into the Spanish era. If there were non-Negrito non-
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168
early Holocene, the Negritos had little or no contact with them. And
around 4000 B.C.,1 the Negritos had only light contact with them.
Yet, Model One assumes, their original languages became extinct as the
Austronesian neighbors.
This "isolationist" model proposes that the Agta bands living along
farming populations, since even during Spanish times very few non-
the Spanish era, and perhaps even into the early part of this century.
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169
1965, the Agta groups I found there, 170 km north of Casiguran, looked
pretty 'wild' compared to the Casiguran Agta. Loggers had not yet
reached this area, the present-day coastal town of Maconacon was still
virgin rainforest, and the Agta camps there were far from lowlanders.
And even today this particular Agta population is considered the least
however, by my recognition that these people had steel bolos and glass
diving goggles, and that they wore G-strings and wrap-around skirts of
commercial cotton. They also had small root crop swiddens, and they knew
what day of the week it was. Every camp had drying racks covered with
wild meat. But this meat was not for themselves, I soon learned. They
Casiguranin lowland farming population until well into the last century,
and perhaps even up to 1912, when the American Army Officer Wilfrid
times, but up to the turn of this century, and for some bands up to the
end of WWII, the Casiguran Agta may have lived by hunting, fishing, and
gathering, with wild yams their main starch food. They had, this
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170
"isolationist stance" assumes, little trade of any kind with the lowland
Some aspects of this model may not be too far from reality. It is
a reasonable argument that the Negritos were here long before the
began migrating into the islands, and that their languages were not
the Philippines during the early Holocene, lived at that time a Model
One lifestyle of some kind. That is, I accept in my Model Two framework
that at some time in the distant past the ancestors of the present-day
have ended, but there was probably a gradual changeover to a Model Two
begin migrating into northeastern Luzon. This was probably not as early
Philippines), but the Model Two changeover may have been established, or
at least have begun, by 1200 B.C., when humans which were probably not
My point here is that my Model Two view proposes how Philippine Negritos
lived during the last 2,000 years or so. I am not hypothesizing here
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171
ago.
Gagelonia 1967:108, and Lebar 1975:24), that the Negritos do not have
any languages of their own today, but merely speak the languages of
their closest neighbors. The Agta groups of Eastern Luzon all speak
lowland neighbors (except for those lowlanders who have learned them
through lifelong interaction with the Agta). These six or more Agta
languages are neither more nor less similar to the languages of their
3
lowland neighbors than are other Philippine languages to each other.
Model Two: The newer model. I propose here a second, more complex
model which overlaps with the first model above, but which, I argue, may
come closer to the actual history of the Agta in the prehistoric and
hispanic periods. This revised model, Model Two, agrees with some parts
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172
First, Model Two argues for a great deal more contact and symbiosis
farmers, both during the early hispanic period and since at least the
time of Christ. Second, the model argues for a much earlier date for
with the first model is that— and this is the case with most models— it
will be seen in Model Two, and later in subsequent chapters, not all
Agta bands followed the same economic life style; nor did they all have
The Model One "isolationist" view, then, assumes that the Agta
least until the Spanish period. This seems logical when we realize
that there were approximately only a half a million people in the whole
archipelago in the 16th century. Though there were surely very few
Spanish documents do firmly establish that such groups did exist there
in the 1500s. One document dated 1582 states there were "about five
The Franciscan Fathers began their mission work among the lowland
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173
and evidence of the reaping of [wild?] grain (1974b:131, 161, 162, 225,
(Thiel 1980). These people were using what Thiel calls "grass reaping
blades" in the same area at a date she proposes of around 5000 B.C.
Thiel also found a brass needle at the same site inan archaeological
level she dates as 2000 B.C., and a burial cave she dates at 1500 B.C.
Warren Peterson (1974b) also excavated a site on the west side of the
time span of 2110-4120 B.P." (That is, from 2000 B.C. to the time of
the fertile alluvial plains of Palanan and Casiguran before the time of
Christ. Model Two proposes that at least some Agta bands, whether in
these two wide valleys or in other areas on the western side of the
another with these farming populations by the eve of the Christian era.
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174
This symbiosis may not have been continuous, and it surely had not
piece of evidence showing that there must have been heavy prehistoric
languages and dialects in various areas of the Philippines show that all
the Agta languages (Baer 1907, Scherer 1909, Vanoverbergh 1937) show
and Sama-Bajaw.) (See Reid 1981:235 and, for details, Walton 1979.) None
of the Negrito languages are included in this deviant group (but see
Pennoyer n.d., on the Ati Negrito language). The Agta languages, for
neighbors.
today are fully developed Austronesian languages? There can be only one
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175
present day Agta must have been in almost continuous interaction with
for them to have lost their original languages, to the point where no
trace of them can be found today, and adopt the speech of their non-
or no contact at all until the end of the prehispanic era, would hardly
earliest Austronesians is shown by the fact that the name by which they
languages *R went to y (hence ayta), and so on. All these terms, found
archaic features which are not found today in most other Philippine
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176
adopted the PNC language itself as their own. Then later these ancient
continued to retain the language they borrowed from them, PNC. Over
time, through the normal processes of language change, the PNC language
of these two groups diverged into separate dialects, and finally into
populations lost.
mina- and minag—, rather than their reducing to the na- and nag- forms
indicate that they were first learned when such forms were present in
the Austronesian language spoken by the people with whom they were then
that must have been a very long time ago. We are not talking about
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177
have taken at least a thousand years— after the two groups separated—
for the two daughter languages spoken today by the descendants of those
archaic forms in present day Casiguran Agta provides evidence that this
is what happened.
following the mid close central 'pepet' vowel. (Palanan Agta does have
geminate clusters by the way.) Nor does Casiguran Agta share the
children and parents of both groups worked together for periods long
enough for bilingualism to develop, and then for the earlier Agta
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178
model I present here, Model Two, which proposes that the Agta were not
prehistoric times.^ Some Agta bands possibly did live far from and
groups moved at times to where they could trade with farmers. But most
that they not only learned the languages of these 'lowlanders,' but
symbiotic relationships which are so salient today between the Agta and
the lowland farming populations have gone on for a lot longer than most
debate, but which data are too weak— almost non-existent— at the moment
Eder, and some data from Karen Endicott on Malaya, the empirical data
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179
has not yet been collected which could satisfactorily answer what I
The question concerns just how plentiful wild yams are in the
of wild starch foods available for them in the forest. Like many other
because the Agta have several types of wild yams— six in Casiguran—
which they exploit when they cannot get rice or root crops. (However,
only 1.6 percent of the Agta meals in 1984 consisted of wild yams [see
Table 4.6].)
independently. The argument has been made, for example, that such wild
very low population density would not satisfy the conditions, if the
wild yams are not available all year around. As we know from Liebig's
(1840) "law of the minimum," it doesn't matter how abundant food is for
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180
strong support for Model Two, as well as explain why Agta, not to
mention other tropical forest foraging groups (e.g., the Mbuti, etc.)
does not mean human foragers could not have lived in such areas during
the Pleistocene; but the carrying capacity would have been quite low,
and such people would have depended on other foods than yams, such as
perhaps animal fat, for their carbohydrate needs, and/or aquatic fauna.
are buried beneath the soil where they are hard to get at (ibid.:263).
(ibid.). To my knowledge, he is the only one who has used that term in
as a "desert covered with trees," but she is referring to the poor soils
of that area, not lack of starch foods. Meggers (1971) calls the Amazon
as a "food desert" for foragers living there; and Chagnon and Hames
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181
argue against the view that the Amazon is a "protein desert" (1979:913)
Estioko-Griffin and Griffin, who have had extensive field time with
plant food poor" (1984:211). The Griffin's statements are not based on
1973:62).
Model Two, which I support, because it would mean that Agta would have
fact, argues that the supposed lack of plant foods is the primary reason
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182
(1982:135).
does not support my argument) which suggests that Rambo and Hutterer
may be wrong in believing that there are not enough wild starch foods in
in Malaya. The Batek, she says, average 2 lbs of wild tubers per hour of
percent of their starch food is wild tubers, with the other 30 percent
however, both because of the great amount of rice the Batek eat and
Philippine rainforests comes from James Eder (1978). Eder claims that
the Batak Negritos of Palawan, Philippines, ate a good deal of wild yams
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183
1.85 kg per hour of work of one type of wild yam, and 0.52 kg per hour
preliminary), that they simply cannot be used for trying to disprove the
added).
the Batak's caloric intake was from their swiddens (ibid.:60), and
Eder estimates that about half of Batak calories come from wild yams
(and half from rice). But ina one year field study in 1979 on Batak
intake was wild plant foods that year (84 percent was rice) (Cadelina
1982:245).
Both of these Batak studies suggest that there may be more wild
yams in Philippine forests than Hutterer and Rambo allow for. But
such yams in £he Batak area to sustain them indefinitely if they had no
rice.
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184
It should be noted that Eder presents the recent past of the Batak
1964 thesis on the Batak, that they "began cultivating rice only during
the latter part of the 19th century" (ibid.:58). There is not a shred
yet to be proven (though Eder assumes it in his 1978 paper), that the
1947-48. Fox argues that the many wild food plants he collected and
must be reckoned in a few hundred years— excepting perhaps the taro and
he allows that these Ayta may have been cultivating taro and yam, if
nothing else, previously to the "few hundred years ago" date when, he
development of the Model Two argument, proposed above. These are Roger
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185
Keesing, Fredrick Dunn, and Karl Hutterer. All three describe the
been in intense interaction with one another for a very long time. All
Keesing calls this Model One view "the mosaic stereotype", and critiques
it in detail (1981:111-122).
His systemic view argues that "for several thousand years the
(ibid.:122). The mosaic view (what I call Model One), on the other hand,
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186
(1983:124).
know now . . . that all hunter gatherers in southern Africa have shared
this Model Two view for the Kalahari, and says, "Inthe nineteenth
to study in the Kalahari Desert, "in fact there has probably been no
years" (Denbow 1984:188). Bahuchet and Guillaume (1982) argue the same
for the West African pygmies. There are several papers in a volume
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187
(mostly to China) has gone on since the 5th century. He argues that the
(ibid.:108).
trading in Borneo even earlier than the 5th century date Dunn gives
order to supply the constant demand for forest goods, but that they may
This suggestion comes from the theory that certain kingdoms in Sumatra
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188
emphasizes that the export items were mostly forest products (1974:295,
eastern coast of Luzon in the 5th century, as Dunn argues they were in
the time of the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) (R. Fox 1967, Jocano
Philippines was surely going on long before that. As Scott points out,
982, Mindoro merchants appeared on the Canton coast with merchandise for
Luzon shipping was plying the waters . . . that includes all of insular
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189
international Asian trade route by 972 A.D. (Scott 1983:1), and by 1270
A.D. Mindoro "was itself the central port for the exchange of local
trade. I suggest that the ancestors of the present day Agta also sought
ways to trade and interact with other societies (perhaps even Chinese
merchandising [on the eve of the Spanish arrival] was the delivery of
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190
Agta, I have been forced at this point to rethink my earlier Model One
ideas (that the Agta did not do any cultivation until this century) by
the writings of Hutterer. Hutterer takes Model Two a step further than
(Hutterer 1976:226).
of their own, and that many bands assisted their lowland farming
neighbors in both swidden and wet rice agricultural work. It was only
the rare bands which may have lived independently and alone in isolated
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191
type or another. I believe the Model Two concept I have proposed here
thesis:
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 6
2. Not all visitors to the Agta would agree with my Model Two
argument presented in this chapter, of course. It is exasperating to me
how others continue even today to perpetuate the Model One myth in the
popular literature. A French jouriialist who visited an Agta band in
Isabela for a week in 1979 published an article on them in a popular
magazine with first class color photographs. This journalist depicted
them in an extreme Model One stereotype: "No evidence that the tribe
practiced any kind of agriculture," and described their supposedly acute
fear of his mirror, tape recorder, and camera— "obviously the first they
had everseen. And I was the first white man to intrude upon them
[sic]" (Evrard 1979:38, 39).
192
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193
7. Eder seems to have moved from his 1978 "Model One" view of the
Batak to, by 1984, a partial "Model Two" view. At least he acknowledges
that the Batak may have been trading with Chinese, directly or
indirectly, a thousand years ago (see Eder 1984a:839).
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CHAPTER VII
HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS
that the prehispanic Agta were far from being the isolated stone age
which provide evidence that the Agta were, indeed, involved in both
symbiotic trade and part time agriculture throughout the Spanish period.
The archival evidence for both of these institutions among the Agta for
that 350 year period is so striking that it should persuade the reader
that they did not just suddenly spring up when the Spanish missionaries
waded ashore on the eastern coast of Luzon in 1578. Rather, they must
have already been widely practiced before the end of the prehispanic
evidence for the argument in the previous chapter that the prehistoric
Agta lived a Model Two "systemic" lifestyle, not a Model One "mosaic
194
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195
There are some records concerning the Casiguran area for the
Spanish period. These are sparse, but what we have does provide
Of the many questions we have concerning what the Agta culture may
have been like during the Spanish period, two of the most important, for
In this section I will cite from the Spanish documents I have found
Casiguran from the 16th to the 19th century. I will also comment on my
interpretation of these documents, and what they tell us about the Agta
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196
how the Agta conform to either of the two models outlined in the first
and north coast of Luzon, Salcedo sailed down the whole "uninhabited"
Salcedo kept a diary of this trip, I was unable to find any reference to
it. The one very short description of the trip, a letter written by a
In all the length of that coast there was not a single village
nor one Indian [sic], for the whole country is desolate where
they supposed there would be a great many people (translated
in Blair and Robertson, Vol. 34:258 [hereafter B&R 34:258]).
the eontracosta in 1572. The fact that there were "Indians" (i.e.,
non- Negritos) there then is plain from a document written in June 1582
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197
Loarca does not give the source of his information, it may have
come from a Capt. Don Juan de Arze who, apparently, was the second
that Salcedo missed seeing any "Indians" on his trip. Both the Palanan
and Casiguran plains are shielded by mountains from the view of boats
would miss seeing the farming sites which were in Baler. In any case
century. There is some confusion as to just when this work began, and
say 1588, and other historians refer to 1609. The work was opened by a
[translated in B&R 41:94]), who mentions a second priest who went with
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198
The correct year was probably 1578. First of all, Franciscan records
show that both Ortiz and Porras died in 1582 or 1583 (Bruce Cruikshank,
1578; Huerta (1865:279) gives the same date, and so does the 1978
confirmation of the earlier date comes from a statement from Perez which
says that Ortiz left the work to others in 1579. This statement says
that P. Ortiz
1578 date, rather than 1588, but it implies that the Franciscans began
never reached Baler and Casiguran, and that these missions began later—
the date of the opening of the Casiguran mission could have been in
this is the date given in the local oral history (on June 13, in fact).
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199
the present. Their influence on the Agta, of course, was much less than
should be mentioned here that the Franciscans turned their work on the
Perez 1927:290; the Blair and Robertson editors [B&R 41:13-14] state the
Spanish period the Agta were probably at least equal in number to the
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200
three to one in the sixteenth century (see Table 1.1). The Franciscans
had a zeal to reach the Agta, as can be seen from a reading of their
records, but this zeal was hindered both by geographical distance and by
prevalent among the Agta today. Today, almost all of the lowlanders in
little interest in Christianity of any type. True, some Agta have their
infants baptized today, and 32 percent of the Agta adults claim they
culture and world view have been influenced by almost 400 years of
interaction with Christianized farmers. But few, if any, Agta today are
references to the baptizing of Agta in the 1700s, and there are two
in 1742. Some priests went to the effort to study the Agta languages.
Santa Rosa (who lived in Casiguran from 1727 to 1750) evidently learned
was compiled by an anonymous priest, which was said to have been given
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to Ferdinand Blumentritt in 1844 by a P. Teodoro Fernandez (Perez
1927:295; 1928:86).
the questions of the present thesis. We must bypass those for now, and
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202
having with their farming neighbors during the Spanish period, if any,
and whether they were doing any agriculture. Let us see first what the
interactions follow Model Two, and not Model One. During the earliest
century for which we have data, the 1700s, there were strong symbiotic
there were some Agta living with lowlanders in or near the town, and
further away, there were still other Agta groups who kept the
townspeople living in fear, sometimes even cutting the town off from
remaining at the same time mortal enemies of other Agta. We will see in
the next chapter that this historical situation, resembling Model Two,
continued right on into the American period. But for now let us limit
have of the Agta is a 1649 document which mentions that the area near
extensive mountains near by [which were] filled with Aetas, blacks, and
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203
17th and 18th century periods says, "The roads [from Casiguran] for
communicating with the town of Palanan and the one with Baler are very
Casiguran in the second quarter of the 18th century, Santa Rosa says,
Among the many hamlets of Aetas which are found on the beaches
and in the mountains of the Caraballo [Sierra Madre], some
are peaceful, docile and gentle, not taking
vengeance . . . but there are others, such as the Dumagats,
who live between this town [Casiguran] and Baler who are
extremely bloodthirsty. . . . the most vile rascals . . . Some
of the Aetas . . . are happy to see the Padres, but these
that live between this town and Baler . . . they are surely
killers . . . who disturb all the vicinity . . . because of
such things this distance between Casiguran and Baler is very
painful [to travel through]; . . . In the time of Father
Fulano (Father Doe) they killed so many Aetas and
Indians . . . and in my time . . . they have [killed] was it
nine or ten Indians and Aetas? (cited in Perez 1927:293-94).
Torres, dated February 10, 1720, he mentions some Agta (in Area 8 of
Just then it happened that thfe negro Aetas, all pagans and an
accursed rabble . . . killed a young unmarried man of this
town [Casiguran]; and then they went with their bows and
threatened the Ilongots [who were starting to build a pueblo
at Calabgan, near Casiguran]. These, seeing that they
couldn't be sure of finding a living in those steep places
and that the Aetas wouldn't let them live there, decided to
return to Comblan (AFIO MS 89/62).
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204
Casiguran. He then states that he sent the Agta five bags of hulled rice
and some tobacco, "In order that this chief and his people eat and
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205
Agta during the Spanish period (since the situation is often reversed
today). Yet records show that even in the early decades of this
found that
period when they were apparently so' afraid of the Agta that they wrote a
protection so they could go out and work their fields without fear of
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206
Lukban also tells us how, in the first decade of this century, the
most of the time, and assaulted or killed [by Ilongot and Agta, when
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207
was then governor of Tayabas (of which Casiguran was then a part),
states,
of Agta, in the second decade of this century. Speaking for around the
exaggeration, they recur often enough in the records for us to know that
the symbiotic relationships between the Agta and the farmers was not
always mutualistic, but that they ranged as well to competitive and even
see in Chapter 12, the homicide rate among the Casiguran Agta today is
one of the highest in the world. Killing was obviously a way of life,
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208
both written by a German naturalist named Carl Semper, who spent three
In his 1869 book Semper mentions that the Agta live "without
the very next page he refers to their trading forest products to the
says the Agta who live "further up from Palanan and south of Casiguran
moves "to the west side of the Cordillera in order to seek work and
food there among the Tagalog tribes" (ibid.). Referring to the Agta
taken on much [linguistic and cultural borrowing] from the Tagalogs and
other tribes . . . with whom they always live in close proximity. Some
Rosa, for example, describes what sounds like a type of almost "silent
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209
Worcester, for example, who was U.S. Secretary of the Interior of the
Philippines from 1901 to 1913, and perhaps did more than any other
single individual to perpetuate the Model One myth, made this statement
after a quick steamer trip down the east coast of Luzon in 1909: "In
this region, and in this region alone, the Negrito . . . has had little
1912:833).
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210
arrowheads, steel bolos, and cotton cloth (ibid.:841)! Two other items
Worcester found, and photographed, in these Agta camps, and which are
coast were probably the most isolated and remote hunter-gatherer group
in the Philippines (and this was still the case when I visited them in
Hardly.
some Agta, they at the same time had very friendly and continuous
interaction with other Agta bands, including trade. The same priest who
has just described for us above the trouble between the 'savage' Agta
and the Christianized farmers, Father Santa Rosa, now tells us the
have been a heavy symbiotic trading system, a system of some type which
I believe went on, perhaps not always in the same form, both before and
during the Spanish period. This is what Model Two proposes. It is not
hard to believe that the Agta were desiring the above-mentioned goods in
early Spanish times and, in the case of knives and rice, in the
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211
prehispanic period as well. With this felt need for goods, symbiotic
giving in exchange wild meat and other forest products and, by the
Semper describes the same trading system going on 120 years later, after
his trip through Casiguran and Palanan in I860. He says the Agta then
had metal bolos "which they receive from the Christians," and that they
were then trading beeswax to the Christians "for glass beads, straw
mats, some rice, and their most coveted item, tobacco" (1869:52).
which we find today among the Agta (best described by Peterson 1978b),
Santa Rosa describes what must have been a similar system in the 1740s:
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212
the early 18th century! Like today, it sometimes included the forming
little people' (Lynch 1975). (For details, see Hart 1977 and, for
'friend' in the above quote are probably Santa Rosa's gloss of the word
Rosa says,
These people are very gentle, very docile, and very obliging
in everything; and all want to be Christians. The majority
have grown up in the town, and afterwards, with the motive of
marriage, they go away to the cape (orig. 1746, cited in
Perez 1928:87).
something about the high degree of interaction between the Agta and
their farming neighbors in the early 1700s, as the languages of the two
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213
• ( t 4
groups are not similar enough to be mutually intelligible. If the
some Agta areas by the end of the Spanish period, if not before. In
this case, the Agta were being used by the lowlanders as servants and
Agta areas, in one form or another, where each family or camp group had
Frank Lynch (1948) provides a later report for these same Agta, for
the year 1947, saying that they were then involved in hunting,
says these same Agta are today, 1984, working as laborers and practicing
Report of the Philippine Commission: "The Negritos [on the east coast
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214
(1908:334). Segovia also mentions this same thing for the Agta in both
had Agta living with them when he spent a month there in 1860.
then), says
The second cited report on the same page, by a Father Eusibio Platero,
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215
following for the Agta there, a situation which I hope I have convinced
From these references it seems obvious that Model Two depicts more
long before. We see here that, contrary to the traditional and more
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216
popularly believed assumptions of Model One, Agta were not living alone
chronic warfare. Let us see now what we might learn from the early
during the Spanish period: To what degree, if any, were they involved
Note that this particular area (Area 10 of Map 2) was very distant from
in several references quoted above. Here were Agta living far from
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217
agriculture, this time under his supervision: "I made them dig up a
piece of land for them to sow seed" (Santa Rosa, cited in Perez
1928:87). This same group, he says, previously "had their own sown
land extended well onto the road going to Palanan . . . which they
Christian "infidels," and who did not come to town, but who "help the
refers to yet another Agta band which abandoned their hamlet and
another reference later in the report mentions an Agta camp with houses
"like the Tagalogs . . . and also their own fields" (ibid.:96). (Note
that all these references were written in the first half of the 18th
century.)
San Mariano, he says that about one-half of the sitios of the Irrayas
had Agta attached to them, and that these Agta "had accepted their
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218
northeastern Luzon:
There are a few settlements far within the large forests whose
[Agta] inhabitants take the trouble to cultivate tiny fields
near streams, but the cultivation is conducted on so small a
scale that it seems like play. Indian corn is almost the
only thing which they plant, but there are those who do not
even know this, and they are, perhaps, in the majority. Even
when they have cleared a small field, it is fashionable to
abandon it in a short time (Medio 1887, cited in Report
1901:390).
being done Dy the Casiguran Agta in the 1980s. Concerning the 19th
"they do not cultivate the fields nor sow anything but a few sweet
be quite obvious— that these two institutions, found among Agta groups
throughout the Sierra Madre from the northern tip of Luzon to Camarines
Sur, are not new; they have been practiced, I argue, for hundreds of
years.
Worcester, on his steamer trip down the east coast in August 1909 found
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219
as steel utensils and cotton cloth. In the same article Worcester says
that these Negritos told him— this was in 1909— that "during the rainy
season they went back into the mountains, where they sometimes planted
In this same letter by Whitney, dated March 15, 1914, written from
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220
officer, was putting pressure on the Agta at this time not only to live
referring to his visit to the Agta in San Mariano in 1939, says that
"they lived by catching fish which they traded for corn, tomatoes and
"trade with the Negrito and other forest pagans" (Tangco 1951:85).
Speaking for the Agta of the Baler area shortly before WWII,
Wilfrid Turnbull, the American Army officer who began working with the
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221
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222
guides and carriers for lowland travelers, and also that the Agta
the coast, [which would be about halfway between Casiguran and Palanan,
which] when seen by the writer [Turnbull], had quite a few coconuts
Casiguran Agta who did not come to live on his reservation [established
Turnbull seems to imply that all these Agta, scattered along 180 km
under his inducement. I, of course, argue that these Agta had been
arrival.
'wildest' Agta (in Area 10 of Map 2) and got them to agree to make a
favorite camping place." Here he says they then cultivated "a small
(1930:794). Turnbull does not tell us if these Agta made this field on
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223
their own, or under his order. But he does say, several pages later,
1912, but this work was done under his more-or-less forced supervision
(ibid.).
the culture of the Casiguran Agta in 1936, also provides us with some
excellent data on how the Agta were living then. We are not surprised
to learn that, in 1936, "Rice is the staple food among the [Casiguran]
references inferring this for the Spanish period, and Turnbull, speaking
Agta obtain this rice they need. Continuing Vanoverbergh's above quote,
. . . very few of them raise rice, and even when they do, they
never raise it in sufficient quantities . . . therefore they
largely depend on the Malays for their daily bread
(1937-38:922).
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224
they depend almost entirely on their Malay neighbors, who furnish them
This does not mean all Agta were involved in agriculture during the
historical period, much less the late prehispanic era. Model Two allows
that some bands may have gone for periods without making swiddens, and
even that a few bands may never have made them. I found only one piece
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225
* * *
In this chapter we have seen that the prehispanic Agta did not live
establish that the Agta, at least by the eve of the Spanish conquest,
Negrito lowland populations, and that most Agta bands were practicing at
stone-age lifestyle ended long ago, possibly in the early Holocene, and
that the Agta probably moved into the neolithic at more-or-less the same
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 7
4. There are two reasons for arguing that the Agta and Casiguranin
languages are not mutually intelligible. One, the shared vocabulary
between the two languages is only 77 percent, slightly below the 80
percent threshold score by which two languages would be considered
mutually intelligible, and two, the intelligibility tests I conducted in
Casiguran in 1975 showed that those Casiguranin townspeople who had
never interacted with Agta could not understand Agta. The scores of
those five lowlanders were 80, 80, 70, 69, and 65, with the averajge
being 73 percent. (For details see Headland 1975a.)
226
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CHAPTER VIII
that Philippine Negritos at the time of the Spanish arrival were living
cultivation, long before the 16th century. In the last chapter I cited
evidence that these two economic institutions were almost surely well
227
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228
This "Model Two" view of Agta prehistory will take us a long way in
these same two institutions, with not a great deal of modification from
however, there are still some 20th century historical highlights— new
century, which have and are affecting the Agta today. It is necessary
today.
American period, from the arrival of the American Capt. Turnbull in 1911
firearms and its effect on game populations, the Agta school, commercial
will look especially here at the program of Capt. Turnbull himself, and
we will review what is probably the most crucial force of all, the
more current events, forces which entered the Agta ecosystem after my
influences resulting from the building of the national road, the mass
media, foreign missionaries, the world demand for rattan furniture, the
NPA guerrilla war, Martial Law, the Aquino assassination, etc.) Not all
of these "ecological" forces fit neatly into one period or the other.
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229
whichever period I think they made the heaviest impact. Those forces
which played an influence during both periods will be made clear from
the context.
lasting culture change among the Casiguran Agta, it would be the arrival
to the traditional Agta way of life, as we shall see in this and the
next chapter; but none of them, in my opinion, could have caused as much
with his orders in hand to "bring [the] wild [Agta] tribe under
States, where he became a medical doctor. He joined the U.S. Army, and
from the Army in 1901, with rank of captain, but remained in the country
was just what the title of his 1930 article states, to bring the
assigned to Baler, and was in and out of Casiguran until at least 1917,
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230
he also spent considerable time working with the Ilongot, and with other
war broke out. Perhaps because of his age he was not interned at the
put into operation to establish an Agta land reserve near the mouth of
the Calabgan River, 14 km southwest of the town. The primary goals were
bring all Agta together where they could be policed in such a way that
short, to "civilize" them. Originally, the plan was to bring all Agta
for a few Palanan Agta families who visited the Reservation for a short
Agta, he says,
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231
time:
Turnbull was not the only American to work with the Casiguran Agta.
There was an unnamed American school teacher whom Turnbull says "was
(1930:32), and there was another American military P.C. officer who came
there were "about" 150 Agta families living there, that the settlement
was well laid out with new houses, that most Agta were busy at farming,
and that the school was built and class attendance was high. Yet he
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232
the Reserve. He mentions four times the use of leg irons, and other
chronic problem of the Agta leaving the Reserve to go off into the
mountains whenever the lieutenant governors were away from the Reserve
dated March 15, 1914, of the problem of getting the Agta to live on the
Reserve, and asking permission "to use force in making them come
problem of getting the Agta to live at the Calabgan Reserve was still
1980s as well.
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233
As the reader may suspect by now, however, the Agta did not see
'his resettlement scheme in the same light. These Agta had at the time
themselves. The government's plan was to put all these Agta onto an
2
area of just 1.53 km , and there contain them. It should not be hard
recall those prewar years, they continued to alternate back and forth
for free meals while they played at farming, to hiding from soldiers
who would hike to Agta camps at the end of the summers to round up
the . . . expense involved and the small number of Negritos that could
(Sanvictores 1923).
declaring this reservation land as for the Agta. That year the
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234
After the War, there were no further efforts to either move the
now legal claim to this land, until 1963. That year, a Mr. Macaraya,
squatters from the Reservation and move the Agta on in their place.
Agta on this land, the same land cleared by their own grandparents many
farmers off this land (literally sawing through their houseposts with
chain saws and dragging their houses off the Reservation with logging
trucks), and then moved a reported 50 Agta families onto the same area
in order to begin farming. The optimism of the military and Panamin was
Things went well for awhile. Under supervision, the Agta built a
"village," complete with streets and houses all in neat rows, and took
up farming (more or less) while the Panamin agency supplied them with
free rice.
for their benefit. However, at about the same time the free rations
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235
between the different bands and between the Agta and the Panamin
March 1978 it was down to 7 families (plus 8 lowlander men who had
gained access to the reservation land either because they were married
the time of my last visit to the Reserve, in July 1984, there was only
after forcing the Agta to clear this wide area of fertile land during
the pre-war years, and seeing it today covered with naturally irrigated
lowlanders), there are still no Agta with deeded land there today.
and I have listened to older Agta tell stories of their sporadic periods
them and taken to the boarding school (from where they often ran away
and returned to their families). But mostly the stories were of fun
times at the school. None of the story tellers seemed to have bad
fed, and supplied with clothes and school supplies from America. The
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236
1941. A number of Agta remember the day the school closed, and they
were sent home, when word came of the Japanese attack on the
Philippines.
percent of those who were of school age between the years 1921 and 1941
attended the Calabgan school for at least a short period (31/48). All
but 3 of these attended for at least one year (they said), 7 claimed to
and corn agriculture. They were also taught both Filipino and American
apparent to us. None of the Agta we knew could speak English (although
there were three men who thought they could, whenever they were
drinking). There was one man who died in 1968 who was fully literate in
Tagalog, and several who could write their names. There were a dozen or
so who could sing English folk songs, and several who knew the names of
various Filipino and American folk heroes. One of the important things
they learned was to count, using Tagalog, Spanish, and English numbering
systems.
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237
effect on the whole Agta culture, as Agta children were brought into
intense interaction with lowland teachers and, later, carried new ideas
If the program of Capt. Turnbull was the first and biggest catalyst
Casiguran area, especially since 1960. Four hundred years ago the Agta
Casiguran Agta population numbered between one and two thousand in 1582,
5:99].) By 1900 the ratio had reversed to 1 to 2 (i.e., for every Agta
was about 1 to 12.5 (about 800 Agta and 10,000 lowlanders). Today, June
1984, there are 609 Agta and 35,000 lowlanders, a ratio of 1 to 57!
Not only were the lowlanders few in the past but, until the 1920s,
virtually all of them lived in or very near the town. The maps of the
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238
Casiguran barrios in both the 1903 and 1918 national censuses show that
the then eight barrios were all adjacent to the town central. In short,
we see that, just as my older informants recall, the pre-war Agta had
2
virtually the whole 700 km of the Casiguran ecosystem pretty much to
2
themselves, with a population density of about 1.5 persons per km ,
except for the area in and around the town, where the lowlanders
4
lived. Today these same Agta are vastly outnumbered by the fast
towns (of which there are now four in the area). Instead, they are
spread widely throughout most of the area, moving every year further up
the rivers as they clear forest land for cultivation, rechannel whole
open strip mining (at Dinapigui in the 1960s), bulldoze logging roads,
research plan was to measure the distances from all Agta camps to the
really sure. When I got back to Casiguran, however, I found this goal
down the rivers that many Agta camps had lowlanders living upriver from
camps had lowlanders living right with them, usually to buy their
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239
rattan as it was collected each day. Almost every Agta camp in 1983-84
had lowland families living within a hundred meters. Besides this there
were, on any given day without heavy rain, somewhere between one
1970s most Agta groups had their upriver areas mostly to themselves,
except when loggers were working the area, but upon my return in 1982 I
found that every Agta band area now had lowlanders living in it.
Indeed, as I spent most of the next 19 months hiking back and forth
throughout these areas, it was a rare hour of hiking when I did not
will continue at an accelerating rate, and that the Agta will come out
as the biggest losers. In fact, the Agta's inability tocope now will
Chapter 12.
number of older Agta to compare their life now with their life before
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240
the War, and for which period they felt their life was best. A few of
the respondents said their life was better before; but in these cases,
every one of them was focusing on some individual problem of their own
spouse. One woman, for example, told me, "Life was better before
But otherwise, virtually every Agta to whom I asked this question said
Budegdeg (not his real name),age 61 when I interviewed him on June 27,
would dare to enter this rivershed area, (except the Guerrero family,
since Mr. Guerrero was the ahxbay trading partner with Budegdeg's
father and his band). In those days this Agta band group were lords in
killed during WWII. When I finally asked him if he thought life was
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241
what a dumb question, then said, "Look, Tomas, before, we were always
We seldom could get these things, and we had to hike all the way to
town. Now," he said, "we can get rice all the time from these
lowlanders living right here. And we can get drunk anytime we want."
So there you have it. I asked this question to many other Agta.
All who spoke to the general situation, not to some specific personal
availability of rice. Agta, like other Filipinos, use the same word for
'cooked rice' as they do for 'food' and for the verb, 'to eat'. They
also, like other Filipinos, do not consider that they have eaten if they
do not have rice with a meal. I have been many times in Agta camps
when rice was not available. Even if there were root crop foods, and
they were eating them three times a day, they all claimed they were
their meals in 1984. In January of that year, when there was a rice
they were starving and without food. Yet they still had rice at 86
percent of their meals that month. (This is not to say Agta have
enough rice to eat, their thin body' size suggests they do not [see
For better or for worse, the Agta have a quite different attitude
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242
peoples. While there are many Agta who complain of exploitation from
lowlanders, the fact is that they are more concerned about having rice
in their cooking pots for that day than they are about long range loss
of their lands. Their rice comes from the lowlanders, and perhaps we
have here a case of a group of people who know better than "to bite the
hand that feeds them." Doubtless, my Agta respondents here were, like
case, whatever the Agta may think of the flood of lowland Filipinos
became harder, to be sure, for both Agta and lowland farmers, but there
was next to no direct warfare in the area. For most of the period,
until mid 1945, there was just one platoon of Japanese stationed in the
area. This was a part of the Kamba Co. (the rest of whom were
captain was fair and kind to the local people in Casiguran. In fact,
the relationship between these Japanese and the local people, Agta and
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243
Takamiya (ibid.), all the men of this platoon died in Casiguran in mid
1945.
It was hard for me to sift out the facts from the myths which are
told in Casiguran today about the war years. Now, 40 years later,
my informants, some Agta lived near the town and had no trouble with
except for the disruptive period from June to September 1945. And many
lived in the distant areas said they ate wild yams more often than they
had in the prewar years, and also were more conscientious about making
root crop gardens, since their normal food, traded rice, was less
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244
difficult, though they recall periods of time when they could not get
barrios also said their own clothing in those days was made of bark
cloth). They were obviously well treated by the American forces when
they arrived. Older Agta can still relate with excitement about the
about the American sailors who gave them blankets in exchange for live
baby monkeys. And my wife and I well remember their excitement in 1962
when they first heard we wanted to live with them. We thought a fight
was going to break out between two of the band groups over who was
going to get the 'Amerikanos' to live with them. The matter was
time. (I might add, therewas some disillusionment when they found out
A few Agta men claimed to have killed Japanese at the end of the
war, but I could substantiate only one of these claims after so many
supported by other Agta. Two other Casiguran Agta men, Gahang and
Bulitug (now deceased) both told me they killed one Japanese each in
Agta men (Kirispin, Tanyet, and Rumines, all now deceased) who were
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245
latter 3 men.
August 8, fleeing east through the mountains until they came out on the
Map 1). At that time, the report states, "At the seashore there were
month [to hike through the Sierra Madre from Minuri], and four-fifths
died from starvation, exhaustion and sickness. But some died at the
hands of Agta:
A scale map in this report shows clearly the path of this retreat.
"River Q" runs northwest down the western side of the Sierra Madre, and
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246
Ilagen) River at grid coordinates 16° 37' N by 122° 03' E.^ The
20," (which was located at coordinates 16° 33' N by 122° 08' E).
wife's and my census of 1977. Perhaps this was the result of a high
desperate Japanese troops retreated into the Sierra Madre after their
terrible defeat at Balete Pass (also called Dalton Pass), at Santa Fe,
Nueva Vizcaya, in early June, 1945; and thousands more fled in the same
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247
In June and July groups of these sick and starving soldiers were fleeing
The ones who went to Casiguran were the ones /no had stationed
themselves in Pinapagan. From the end of June many different
troops of the Japanese 4th Air Division were at Pinapagan.
Then other groups of the Japanese 10th Infantry Division came
at the beginning of July. One platoon of Takahashi Company
of the 127th Battalion (of Major Shitami) was sent to
Casiguran to guard, but it seems that most of them died of
sickness and by the attacks of guerrillas. This 127th
Battalion arrived at Pinapagan on March 20 to gather rice.
About the beginning of April they sent one platoon to
Casiguran. Then, on June 20, 700 Americans landed at
Casiguran, and 300 guerrillas joined them. Only one orderly
made it back to Pinapagan (Soeda 1985).
hundreds died from starvation and sickness . . . there were dozens upon
1961:40).
about 30 men led by a First Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuoka from the 52nd
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248
between Casiguran and Palanan weeks after the war was over.^ Nishida
from the American side of how these Japanese stragglers were picked up
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249
that "a third of the Ilongot population died during that month of June"
for food, and the rest from disease and starvation as they fled from
(ibid.:120-34).
Agta may have been killed by these same Japanese, who were by this time
dire straits— those who were still alive— from starvation, exposure,
and sickness, and terrified of the advancing Americans and the local
the mid 1970s, thatthe difference between my census figures and those
hypothesis, I asked 127Agta adults in 1976, "Do you know the name of
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250
any Agta who was killed by Japanese during the War?" I did not get a
teenage girls, sisters named Diteng and Dumilya, who were killed by
Filipino guerrillas. They were traveling at the time with the mayor of
Casiguran, Antonio Angara, and his wife, when all four were ambushed and
during the War, nor could anyone remember any Agta having been killed.^
during the War. I know of only 3 cases of such, after asking this
Simion, married to an Agta woman named Oriyeng at the time; another was
an Ilokano man at Dilasag named Gurigul; and the third was a Visayan
visitor whom the Japanese executed after he was caught stealing in the
town of Casiguran.
sawmill at Dibakong, seven km west of the town. This was the Philippine
remember as Mr. Tutu and Mr. Noe. Some photographs of this company's
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251
was building a sawmill. Local people say this company moved their camp
Casiguran, until the 1978 ban, and I have lived in Agta camps when they
While I suspect the figure of 10,000 employees may be inflated, the fact
companies working the area at this time, until the ban in November
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252
in spite' of the ban, since their cutting is all done just north of the
Reports n.d.; Mina 1983:19), the logs harvested "in whole" for this
1982.
than the three towns in the area. In 1969 the camp at Lawang, 6 km
course, their own vehicles. In some logging camps in the early 1970s
Magnolia ice cream flown in from Manila. The Acoje Mining camp at
aircraft.
1960, and especially to the Agta band group at Dinapigui. This was
the year the Acoje Mining Co. began work to open a magnesium open pit
mine at Dinapigui. (The name "Acoje" stands for the names of the five
Jacinto, and Elizalde.) I estimate that during the first half of the
decade of the'60s between 200 and 300 Agta lived at Dinapigui for
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253
periods of time, where the adults were employed as laborers for Acoje,
at 4 pesos a day (then equivalent to $1.00 U.S.), which was almost four
times the standard days's wages in Casiguran. I visited twice the Agta
settlement site during those years, and twice more in the late 1960s,
after most of the Agta had left the area, and twice in 1983- 84.
Dinapigui. The most obvious effect of this industry, which closed down
in the early 1970s, was that it brought in large numbers of Ilokano and
and that it denuded much of the mine area of trees. The Dinapigui
rivershed was almost all primary forest when I saw it in the early
1960s; today it is almost all cleared of trees, with farms dotting the
whole area. In 1960 the Agta band group there had the valley for
themselves. They were reportedly driven from their land, and their
houses and crops destroyed when the mining company arrived, to make room
Appendix G.) Today they are displaced (though I found two extended
family groups there in 1983-84, employed as hunters and guards for the
Any final chance for the Agta to gain rights to this, their
traditional area, was probably lost in the summer of 1984, when the
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254
Panamin agency (who forgot that the land really belongs to the Agta,
Effect on the Agta ecosystem. What effect has this all had on the
life" (1981:48; see also Rai 1982). While I am not sure if logging has
miners, have affected the Agta culture not only through their removal of
most of the high forest canopy in all of the Agta areas, but in many
other ways. Some of these are the hiring ofAgta as guides, laborers,
and equipment guards, the using of stream beds as their main roads (thus
cutting off the Agta aquatic resource base, since the streams became
after the loggers arrived in 1983. This was after she and her husband
had lived for almost two years with these Agta in 1980-82. She says,
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This was not the only effect of the coming of the loggers. She
the crisis in October 1983 when the leader and senior male of this Agta
group was killed, while drunk, when he was run over by a logging truck,
and that the Agta have now all left the area because of the loggers
(ibid.:220-21).
who were more affluent and thus gave a better exchange on, especially,
wild meat; they eagerly sought and were always granted free
loggers coming around at night to molest Agta women (though the presence
behavior). On the other hand, I do remember how when they drove home
down our muddy river late at night with their truck bed covered with
fish (from dynamite fishing at the sea), they would stop, honk their
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256
horn, and give a large fish to every Agta household (and to us).
Indeed, I found the loggers to be, for the most part, gentlemen, and I
g
became close friends with some of them.
The fact of the matter is that, for better or worse (and we cannot
ignore the Agta's opinion on this), the logging industry has affected
heavy machinery has driven away the wild game from Agta hunting grounds,
alterations to both sides of the Sierra Madre. This can only result in
making all Agta populations displaced and homeless persons in their own
Many Agta individuals and families, and on rarer occasions whole bands,
Still, 1911 marks the major watershed in Casiguran Agta culture change.
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257
Since that date most Agta, most of the time, have lived under the
throughout most of this century, and thus are major agents of Agta
and punish Agta for alleged crimes and misbehavior, tell Agta where to
live, and make them serve as guides, hunters, errand runners, etc.
Most of the time this irregular rule over the Agta is kept to a
escaping from any authority which goes too far. There have been cases
of abuse. (I know of three times when Agta women and children were
rounded up and kept in the local jail as hostages until wanted Agta
need.
this century, full time agents in charge of handling problems among the
Casiguran Agta.
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258
of the various agents who came and went over the years prior to my
for the CNI from January 1960 to January 1964. Casala certainly was not
corrupt in any way. He was well liked by the Agta, and he is still one
budget, trying to help the Agta with their problems. These were mainly
Agta wanting to farm. Much of Casala's time was spent in trying to help
Agta gain legal titles to their ancestral lands, and he apparently spent
even more time in trying to help Agta who were continually having their
details on the kind of acculturative influence this CNI agent hadon the
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259
After the CNI went defunct in Casiguran in 1964, the Agta had no
"agent" over them until 1976, when Panamin entered the scene. I have
the Agta after they were put on the reinstituted Calabgan reservation in
fiascos of this agent's programs, and her alleged crimes against the
Agta. We have already seen how the Agta, now quite skilled themselves
became intolerable. The Panamin office was dissolved in 1983, and this
9
agent no longer lives in Casiguran.
and they themselves claim, and take pride in, this as their chief
early 1960s, it was not their most frequent activity. They, and perhaps
most Agta bands in the '60s, gave slightly more of their time to fishing
the year some Agta families, then and now, assist their lowland trading
1983-84). While I do not have records of just how much time Agta spent
hunting in the early 1960s, I do remember that it was much more than
now. In the two different camps where we resided in the early '60s,
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260
someone was out hunting almost every day, and we usually had more wild
meat than we could eat in our house. The Griffins found that, among a
n.d., Table 12; see also Griffin 1981:38, and Estioko-Griffin 1984:169).
In Rai's study of a remote San Mariano Agta band group in 1980, he found
that men spent 74.6 percent of their work time in hunting (1982:88, 158,
232). This gives us some clue as to the amount of time Casiguran men
may have spent in hunting in the past. The Agta in the two camps where
we resided in the early '60s, however, did not spend that much time in
hunting. The percentage of days the men went hunting then was somewhere
Casiguran Agta. Agta hunting activity has declined because the game
populations have dwindled to the point where Agta can no longer make a
living by hunting. Wild pig and deer were once extremely abundant in
and Robertson volumes (1903-09), one source, dated 1586, states, "There
is in the land great store of swine, goats and fowl, and excellent
hunting of buffalo and deer, which are so common that two thousand
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261
6:205). Another source dated 1618 states that game was so abundant in
year," the skins of which were traded to Japan (B&R 18:98-99). Other
in their opinion that game was very abundant in the area in the past.
there with her husband on August 3, 1919, as new teachers at the Agta
wanted fresh meat, they would just call over to their nearby Agta
Mrs. Susie Angara, then age 69. She said she moved with her parents to
Calabgan in 1917, when her father, a Mr. Urbano Obaldo, was assigned to
help "tame" the Agta there. She said that there were so many wild pig
and deer there then that they would buy a quarter of an animal, and
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262
the past. One day the oldest Agta in the population was reminiscing to
some of us about the past. This was Pidela, a woman aged about 71 then
(September 9, 1983). She said, "When I was a child we got all the pigs
and return after just one hour with three pigs." I was also personally
impressed at game abundance when I visited very remote Agta camps north
Agta band groups used two steep grassland meadows on the San Ildefonso
before they were discontinued in the late 1960s. The first time was on
December 30, 1962, when they got two deer and one pig; the second time
on June 7, 1964, when they got two pig and one deer, and the third time
in 1965, when no game was secured (although I was with an Agta who shot
The method was for the men to lie in wait in ambush, scattered
along a line at the top of the ridge (almost a cliff) and just inside
the forest. The women would string themselves out in a line along the
beach at the bottom of the meadow, and then set the grass ablaze. As
the fire swept up the slope it drove the game before it and, ideally,
into the line of waiting men at the top. Lowlander men were with the
Agta on all three of these overnight trips and, I was told, always went
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263
along on these important game drives. They did not, however, on the
three trips I witnessed, participate with the men in the ambush. They
remained in the camp or, perhaps, went with the Agta women to set the
game drives he went on in the 1950s the Agta would secure up to 20 head
of game in a single drive. The point here is that this type of hunting
has not been practiced for at least 16 years.^ When I asked why, the
for this. The first and most obvious is the population explosion.
pressure the Agta to hunt for them, but they have introduced new types
At the same time these immigrants have cut back, and continue to cut
back, the forest, the natural home of wild game. It all leads to
evolved.
by the authorities when Martial Law was declared that month. The Agta
did not own these shotguns. Rather, they were made and owned by
the lowlander was given half of the meat of all game shot. (In actual
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264
dressed meat, that the gun owners seldom receive a full half of the
By the mid '70s Agta were again back to hunting with firearms, this
1983-84, only 17 percent of the hunting was done with bow and arrow,
while 83 percent was with carbines, M-16 armalites or M-l Garand rifles
There are two other items which are contributing to the depletion
any Agta using this method. Some Agta have, however, adopted another
method of catching pig and deer, introduced in the mid '70s. This is
among immigrant swidden farmers). Agta spent only 0.36 percent of their
The population death rate for pig and deer must be very high in the
Casiguran area today. In fact, the hunting data show that deer are
Twenty-eight of those 37 hunts got a pig, 8 got monkey, and only 1 got a
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265
other catalysts of change outlined in this and the next chapter, which
element of major value in the Agta economic system. But it has been an
or liquor, from their farming neighbors or, increasingly since the '70s,
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266
historian who hiked with some Agta from Casiguran to Palanan in 1982
50).
show, Agta adults were found drunk before noon 4.4 percent of the time.
(For men the figure was 5.3 percent, and for women, 3.4 percent.) By
nightfall the figures would be much higher (though I do not have data
maids in their homes. Even many peasant farming families, and most
homes in the town centers, have maids. These are often relatives, and
are usually teenage girls. Agta teenage girls, then, and sometimes
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percent of the adult females (interviewed in 1976) said they lived for a
And our 1984 jle jure census shows that in June of that year fully 31
males in the same age cohort, where 9 percent were living with
from Agta communities in June 1984 (not just those aged 13-24), a total
Manila, while the rest lived in one of the towns or lowland barrios in
Casiguran.
is there. Taking a tribal girl straight from the forest to the big city
well treated, and that they eventually return home feeling satisfied
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268
against their will, though some may regret theiraction later. There
have been a few bad experiences. We know one girl who came home
maid in Mindanao, then came home without the child (who the father
of two other girls who have not been heard of for many years, and whom I
suspect may never return, and yet another middle age Agta woman who was
taken away many years ago as a five yearold child. (My wife was able
to locate this woman, a maid in Manila, in 1978. She does not remember
how to speak Agta, and she did not wish to return with us to Casiguran.)
These two children, though well treated by the Ilokano family with whom
they were living, had been kept against their will— they claimed— for
is, what ecological effect, if any, does this have on the Agta
population? Probably a fair bit. I have known for some time that the
mean age at first marriage for Casiguran Agta females' is later than
Women in such societies usually marry earlier than this: age 16.9 years
among the !Kung (Howell 1979:174-77), and between ages 11 and 14 among
Griffins for the Ea.*tern Cagayan Agta, who are less acculturated than
the Casiguran Agta, show that females there marry no later than age 17
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269
hypothesis that the reason we find a later mean age at marriage among
the Casiguran females is because those that leave the area, most for
more than 2 years, thus postpone the time of their first marriage to the
extent where they skew the average figure upward by at least one year.
declining, as this one is. But the population decline of the Agta is
not the result of a low birth rate, as we shall see in Chapter 12, but
a high death rate. Enough Agta babies are being born, it is just that
half of them die before puberty (Table 12.1). The problem is not so
much the girls that leave, since most of them return after a year or
two and marry Agta men, but with the girls that never return at all, or
who do not return for several years. There are quite a number in this
for long periods of time. I will pick this up again when I discuss the
Agta women who are marrying out; that is, who lowlander immigrants take
then (3 men and 18 women). Our 1984 census shows there were 28 Agta
Today, 1984, we find 18 percent of the presently married Agta women are
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270
12
married to lowlanders (26/141), and this trend is increasing fast.
This has even more serious demographic implications than the temporary
removal of Agta women as domestic maids, since many of these Agta women
who marry out are permanently eliminated from their role of helping to
are being removed from fulfilling their needed role in keeping this
they reach age 20. Looking at a 5 year cohort group of males in their
mid twenties in this group, we find that 20 percent of those age 23-27
were unmarried in June 1984 (6/30, all healthy normal men). Beyond
or their relatives, about this. For example, I asked the uncle of one
never- married man namedNalowadinang, then age 26, why his nephew was
court who is a non-relative; they are all his cousins." (Or they are
all in Manila, he could have added.) Incidentally, this man did marry
a girl, Inggel, in early 1984, within a few weeks after she returned
from a two year period in Manila. When I last saw them, in August '84,
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271
influences which entered the Agta ecosystem after the turn of this
major ecological and cultural change in the area today. Wehave seen
how an American Army Captain began these series of changes in 1911, with
his program to "tame" the Agta; and I have shown how the Philippine
population explosion worked to bring the Agta from a time just 80 years
2
ago when their population density was 1.5 per km to a state today
effects of WWII on the Agta population, and saw that it did not play a
populations, the effect of alcohol, and how the use of Agta house maids
effect on the Agta. Then, in the following chapters we will see how the
Agta are attempting to adapt to these forced changes, with mixed degrees
of success.
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 8
3. Another large area of land in Casiguran was set aside for the
Agta as well, at Kasapsapan Bay (Area 7 on Map 2). This area,
comprising 62.69 ha, was formally reserved for the exclusive use of the
non-Christian Agta by Presidential Proclamation No. 467, signed by
President Manuel L. Quezon on October 9, 1939 (Quezon 1939:748-49). No
Agta live on that reservation today.
5. There are Agta living in this area today, still one of the most
isolated and remote areas in the Philippines. In fact, my doctoral
advisor, Bion Griffin, and Thomas Nickell (an SIL colleague of mine),
visited an Agta camp on this exact spot, the mouth of "River Q," on May
14, 1981. (The Agta name for this river is Dinalawan.) Casiguran Agta
from "band" area 8 often reside on another tributaryof the Ilagan
River, just 24 km in a straight line directly south of this spot (at
coordinates 16° 24' N by 122° 02' E). I visited and mapped two
recently abandoned Agta camps in this area, each with a swidden, on July
272
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273
8, 1983. Neither loggers nor lowland fanners live anywhere near these
areas.
11. Two or three Agta men are said to be living now primarily by
setting rope snares for pig and deer, in Area 10. Mariyaning claimed to
have 270 snares set in December '83, and that it takes him a week to
check his "trapline." (This is probably a gross exaggeration.) He has
a non-Agta partner who furnished the nylon rope, and who is given half
the meat. He does not accompany Mariyaning in the work.
12. This contrasts with data on the less acculturated Palanan Agta
women, where I found that only 3 Agta, all women, were married to
lowlanders, out of a sample of 97 adult Agta censused in April '79. Of
the 39 women then married in that sample, 8 percent were married to
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274
lowlanders, slightly less than half the 18 percent figure for Casiguran
Agta women in 1984.
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CHAPTER IX
may influence both the directions and rates of energy flow, and other
ecosystems come more and more under the control of the humans living in
harness those sources of energy for their own use. This is a historical
movement on our planet which John Bennett (1976) calls the "ecological
275
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logging companies, government agents, WWII, etc.— and how they serve as
major forces of Agta culture change. This chapter will look at the more
within the last couple of decades, and which serve today as catalysts of
missionaries, the Martial Law era, the guerrillawar of 1974-76, the new
road in 1977, the drop in the world market price of copra in 1980, the
assassination, the tiny transistor, etc. This chapter will show how all
these, working together, have affected energy flow into the Agta
see how the Agta are attempting to adjust to these many forces by
disease (two of our own three children had it), which I presume was not
present until recently among the Agta, at least to the extent to which
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Ill
adult (age 15+) deaths in the 7 year period between our two censuses.
There was one flu epidemic among the Agta, that I remember, in
during the Spanish era. Because I was searching in 1977 for possible
they could remember any peste ('epidemic') ever occurring among them in
the past. Six of the respondents gave negative answers (though they
did mention a year before WWII when many wild pigs died of a strange
disease). Two of the men, however, gave positive answers. Doyeg, born
in 1919, told me on May 12, 1977 that his parents told him about a
month later, on June 16, old Pekto, who was born about 1902, told me
17th and 18th centuries. A document cited in Blair and Robertson refers
to three vessels which entered Casiguran in June 1622, "And all the
vessels suffered from a plague that'was like to finish them. All the
Palanan areas in the the early 1700s, which "occasioned the death of an
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278
Agta camps then. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure. If such
history, except for the vague recollections of the two old men mentioned
above.
"The cholera in Baler and Casiguran continues. The Rev Father Cura Fr.
Antionio Soper, the Governor, and some leading people have died in the
last month" (AFIO MS 299/16-3). This disease may not have affected the
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279
the annual June 12 town fiesta in 1985. No less than 8 Agta died from
what the Agta call eltor 'cholera' in the month following that fiesta,
mothers with nursing infants. Not only were 3 young women (ages 26, 31,
and 35) eliminated from this small population before they could produce
their full complement of offspring for the next generation, but their 3
infants may now also die, since they were all still nursing.'*'
percent of Palanan Agta who died were between 30 and 50 percent, "and
not lower than 30 percent" (1981:52, see also page 59). In a recent
paper his wife makes the same claim, "25-35 per cent" (J. Peterson
800 Agta in the Palanan valley. Thirty percent would mean 240 Agta died
Agta area through 1974 and 1975, as informing her (in personal
(ibid.:144, n.9). (I also lived at this camp for 12 days in May 1975.
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The "epidemic," if there was one, occurred after I returned to
Casiguran.
I probably were the main, but not the only, introducers of this
Agta, of course, have their own folk healers, along with a complex of
quite a bit over the last decade or more, as Agta have turned
doubtless slowed somewhat the high death rate we find in the Agta
population today.
came to the area when the government built a badly needed hospital in
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281
and equipment. Nevertheless, many lives have been saved here in the
last ten years; and this includes Agta, who increasingly go there for
worked in the Casiguran area in this century. The first to arrive were
beginning in 1947 (CDP 1978:567). These had little direct effect on the
Agta, since their ministry was exclusively with the Christian lowland
today.
with the Agta, were my wife and I, under the auspices of the Summer
question here, but I will give some background, and then leave the
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282
native ways of life or, less often, of saving a primitive group from
certain extinction (as was stated about one missionary in a 1984 issue
as yet there has been very little response from the Agta. We had also
Agta. We were not successful in this. We wanted to tell the Agta that
Jesus of Nazareth is alive, is the savior of the world and the Lord of
the universe, and that he meets people's needs. Many Agta say they
believe this now, though it has not resulted in a great deal of change
within the context of their own culture (a view which we still hold).
We believed that God could make the Agta "better” Agta within their own
emic moral code, if they turned to him, read the Bible, and applied for
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283
also wanted to help the Agta with their material needs. Here we were
the deculturation we see among the Agta today; and we certainly slowed
with its headquarters in Sanford, Florida. The first family from this
mission, Colin and Eileen Law from Ireland, moved with their two small
April 1974, returned to Ireland, and resigned from the mission. The
spent most of her time giving the Agta medical help. Later, in June
1980, a second couple from this mission, Glen and Liz House, moved to
Casiguran to take up where the Laws had left off. They withdrew,
however, about a year later. They were replaced by two single women
missionaries of the same mission, Iris Harrison and Anne Kueffer. These
read their own language. They continue today living with the Agta in
Casiguran, where they have learned to speak Agta. They give most of
their time to giving reading lessons to those Agta who show an interest,
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284
major upset in the Agta way of life, except in one crucial area. This
was hunting. The use of firearms for hunting after WWII gradually
increased until, by 1972, most of the hunting was done this way. I did
not keep records in my early years of the amount of hunting done with
firearms, but I estimate it was about 20 percent in the early '60s, and
used, which were loaned to Agta by lowlanders in return for half of the
meat.) On the eve of Martial Law wild game was very scarce, and the
chances of success with a bow and arrow were slim by then. (This is my
firearms are more efficient than bows for hunting, though my 1983-84
Thus, when Martial Law began, and all firearms were confiscated in
This was not just because bows and arrows were also confiscated, because
the Agta were soon, within two months, allowed to make new ones.
Rather, the game had been so reduced by heavy hunting with shotguns
that to now go hunting with a bow and arrow was usually fruitless. A
pigs, were able to increase again. In the short run, the Agta suffered
years. But in the longer run the game populations got some chance to
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285
only temporary).
most traumatic event to hit the Casiguran area itself during my tenure
1974. These forces were members of the New People's Army (NPA), a
military force which is still alive and well, and very strong in other
conflict. (We were in the United States from May 1973 until our return
1974. All non-Agta civilians were then confined to the three town
centers under a dusk to dawn curfew, and after sundown people in the
homes neither lit lights nor talked above whispers. I was not allowed
to leave the Casiguran town, but I could visit the Agta who were living
55th P.C. Battalion, under the command of Colonel Orlando Dulay. At the
same time the Philippine Air Force conducted bombing raids with jet
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the government troops clearly had the NPA on the run, and we were
allowed to move back to the forest to live with the Agta on May 9, with
continued during that summer (two of which we heard from our house).
The conflict did not cease until the end of 1975, and heavily armed P.C.
How were the Agta affected by this conflict? The first question
the reader might ask is, how many Agta were killed, and by which side,
order, most of the Agta moved next to one of the local towns during the
conflict, where they remained under the protection and authority of the
did the same (most of the NPA forces were made up of outsiders, not
local people).
There were 22 Casiguran Agta who lived with and assisted the NPA
(as guides and hunters), for various periods of time. Nine of those
were women, and one was a small child named Merli. Though most of
not list the names of those still living. Two of those, both men, were
man, Akal, was executed by P.C. soldiers the day after he was caught
burglarizing a warehouse to get food. The child, Merli, was shot and
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soldiers during the NPA conflict. No Agta were killed by NPA forces.
hunting game for the NPA there, and was imprisoned at the P.C.
mother, and another Casiguran Agta teenage girl were also prisoners at
1979. After working through some red tape, the girls were released to
my wife and me on April 2, 1979. Two of the 22 Agta who were with the
NPA have been missing for years. They were rumored killed by soldiers,
but on a trip to Palanan in 1985 some Agta there told me they are alive
became, for periods of time, refugees, as they moved out of the forest
and lived next to the towns to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
They did not avoid involvement even then, of course, because they were
called on by the P.C. troops to serve in the same roles for which the
NPA tried to use them— as guides, servants, and hunters. Many of the
young Agta men, both married and single, joined the newly organized
paramilitary CHDF unit (Civilian Home Defense Forces), where they were
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armed with M-l Garand rifles and assigned to guard duties and jungle
know of two Agta men who were rewarded for killing NPA guerrillas while
serving with CHDF units. Other Agta worked as hunters for the
Other Agta who did not move to the towns on their own in 1974 were
eventually rounded up and brought in by the P.C. This probably was for
Eventually, Col. Dulay moved most of the Agta onto the long defunct Agta
to occur in the Philippines since World War Two was the assassination of
and the Agta themselves, have not been spared economic suffering, which
they began to feel within a month after the crisis began in Manila in
August '83.
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the controversial chain of events which has thrown the Philippine people
both Agta and lowlanders alike. These data are displayed in Tables 9.1
and 9.2. As we see in Column 2a of Table 9.1, the first effect of the
for the Agta, as well as non-Agta laborers in Casiguran, the daily wage
of laborers did not rise along with the rising price of rice. In fact,
as we see in Table 9.2, while the price of rice rose 108 percent in the
eleven months following the August tragedy, wages to Agta laborers rose
only 50 percent. Even worse was that Agta income from a day of rattan
collecting did not rise at all, but actually declined 29 percent in peso
income from an average day's rattan collecting in July 1984 could only
buy 68 percent as much rice asthey were able to buy the previous
One wonders what members of the labor unions in Europe and America
But all the Agta did were tighten their belts, and work longer hours.
Unfortunately, the Agta have neither unions nor group solidarity. Their
ability to adjust to this economic trauma in their lives is all the more
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probably live just a hair above the level of starvation. Indeed, while
July 1984 was P33.50 pesos a day (including a "cost of living allowance"
of P7.50 a day), the Agta wages were 55 percent below that, only P15.00
a day (see Table 9.2). Of course the question remains whether or not
the Agta did adjust to this 1983-84 hardship. As we will see in Chapter
12, the Agta death rate is higher than their birth rate already, and
following the Aquino assassination, may have raised the Agta death rate
price of rice in August '85, while at the same time daily wages for farm
gives Casiguran laborers slightly more buying power than they had before
the crisis began two years before (see the 2 bottom rows of Table 9.1).
This is indeed good news. The point to note, still, is that for many
months the poor in Casiguran suffered hardship while they waited for
THE ROAD
There are two particular conditions which have kept Casiguran, and
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291
Philippines until the years following WWII. These are the Sierra Madre
mountain range which extends like a large protruding backbone along the
eastern side of Luzon, and the northeast monsoon winds which keep the
eastern seacoast unsafe for boat travel during much of the year. It is
these two factors which have isolated the Casiguran area from the rest
of the nation, even up to the 1970s, and which have partially inhibited
planners had talked of building a road into Casiguran. But the rugged
temporary road through the Sierra Madre from Madella, Quirino, to the
this road was temporary, and often closed because of rain damage.
People and cargo came into the area either by motor launches with
long and winding single-lane dirt road, twisting and turning along the
rugged eastern slope of the Sierra Madre for 118 km from the provincial
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292
homesteaders, and all kinds of goods (and perhaps disease) triiich were
4
absent from Casiguran in the '60s, and rare in the '70s. Perhaps more
significant, it has provided an easy path out for cash crops, which
were hard to export before in open boats over rough and dangerous seas.
I estimate that somewhere between 5 and 10 motor vehicles per day passed
between Baler and Casiguran over this road in 1983-84 (not counting
motorcycles).
returned from a four year absence in December 1982. The road plays the
major, but not the sole, role in these changes. Some of the most
salient new innovations I noted in the three towns in 1983 were: motor
receives monthly payments from users), television sets, rice mills (no
one hand-pounds rice anymore), piped water in the town (but not in
graveled roads, a few cement roads, a new public market with galvanized
roof and stalls and, lots of food for sale which was seldom available
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before (e.g., eggs imported from central Luzon). The Casiguran farmers
are now much more into cash cropping, especially peanuts, which are
growing everywhere, and which I never noticed in the '70s. The flow of
cash is much more heavy in Casiguran in the 1980s than it ever was in
the '60s and '70s. Of course the biggest change, discussed in detail in
the last chapter, is the massive movement of immigrants now flowing into
to the Agta in the 1980s was when my wife and I went on November 4,
at 9:30 that morning, 12 of the 24 Agta adults in the camp were roaring
unusual was the mood the Agta were in, including the children. It
turned out they had been up all night. One of their former trading
video tapes on his Betamax TV set, which he and his cronies had carried
preceded the opening of the 1977 road. This is copra, a dried coconut
meat from which oil is extracted. For many years, long before my time
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in Casiguran, Agta have worked part time in the coconut groves of their
lowland patrons. The most common role they fill here is cutting down
the brush in the coconut groves, a hard task which must be done about
twice a year, always necessary before the nuts can be harvested. This
2
is usually a contract labor job, where Agta cut the brush of a 100 m
area for a set payment usually pegged to the price of a ganta of milled
1983). Agta men, women, and children work together in this task which,
important role in this needed chore which no one else likes to do; and
since it provides income for them in slack periods where there would
option for them in 1979. I predict that it will be even more important
to them when the rattan runs out, probably in the next year or two.
During the 19 month study period, Agta gave 3.8 percent of their
activity. What I want to point out here are two outside ecological
work should go on evenly throughout each year, since coconuts are not a
seasonal fruit. As it turns out, these two outside forces can stop the
work of copra making for long periods, even up to two years, and this
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295
causes severe problems for the Agta, for the reason mentioned in the
paragraph immediately above. These two forces are typhoons, and the
typhoon can not only knock down all the growing coconuts, but also
damage the trees so badly that it can take up to two years before the
trees will produce mature coconuts again. (Of course strong typhoons
can also completely kill coconut trees, too, especially tall ones, but
there were only two which did damage to the extent that all copra work
typhoons brought in their wake economic tragedy for the many lowland
farmers who own coconut groves and who depend on copra for a small but
steady source of income. They also caused economic problems for the
Agta, who were deprived for a year or two of this source of part time
throughout the Philippines, was when the bottom dropped out of the copra
market in 1980.^ The national decline in the market price of copra did
leading export commodity. Table 9.3 shows both the official annual
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296
copra in Casiguran during those years andin early 1984. As this table
Casiguran in 1980. This was a blow to the coconut farmers, and created
As it turned out, it did not much matter what the price of copra
was in 1981, because there were no coconuts to harvest anyway— they had
all been blown down by Typhoon Aring the previous November. There were
nuts again by mid 1982. But with a selling price of copra averaging
only the equivalent of ten U.S. cents per kg, (a drop of 88 percent
from the 1977 price), the farmers did not bother to harvest. It would
have taken far more work than it wasworth to make copra to sellat
coconut-copra labor. Not until the latter months of '83, when the
price for copra began to increase (and rattan began to get really
wage labor in coconut groves. Note, however, that there was a drop in
the percentage of days Agta spent in this labor after April 1984.
There were two reasons for this. First, as described below, rattan
buyers began accepting inferior quality rattans at this time from Agta
second, as shown in Column 3 of Table 9.3, the real price of copra (in
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297
rice value) dropped at the same time, thus discouraging farmers from
second decade of this century when the Agta were involved in collecting
1914, when the American Capt. Whitney had the Agta collecting rattan
commercial rattan buyers hiring them in the past. Agta were of course
involved often in the '60s and '70s in gathering rattan for their
trading partners, but this was for local use, and it was only an
1978. This started on a small scale, and began with these middlemen
bringing Agta up from south of Baler to collect rattan for them, rather
than their hiring Casiguran Agta. These so-called Umirey Agta speak a
language which is so different from Casiguran Agta that the two groups,
when they meet, converse in Tagalog. The Umirey Agta did not
intermingle with the Casiguran Agta in 1978, and they left the area
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298
after about a year. Then, in May of 1979, I left the Philippines for
Hawaii, not realizing until I returned in December 1982 that the Agta
left.
what seemed like a rush to collect every piece of rattan in the whole
forest before someone else beat them to it! Indeed, as we shall see in
rattan buyers were everywhere, plying the coast in motor boats, hiking
lowlander rattan collectors were all over in the forest, too, cutting
carabaos. The Agta were making a good living in early 1983, by their
standards, more than triple the income they made during the 1960s and
Agta labor. This improved income declined greatly in 1984 (see Table
Rattan furniture, the new Euroamerican fashion. What was the cause
the decade of the 1970s, become the "in" thing in America, Europe, and
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299
Japan, and that this had precipitated a tremendous economic demand for
rattan on the world market. One cannot help seeing this as a phenomenon
analogous to the fur trade in North America, and how a simple change in
item: the beaver hat— did so much to change the ecology of northern
time. But the annual export of rattan more than doubled after 1978 (see
countries. At about the same time, the late '70s, the rattan supply
was the combination of these two factors which precipitated the sudden
could easily sell a lot more rattan furniture if it were not for the
from Casiguran. I began to wonder how long the forest ecosystem could
sustain this phenomenon, and how long it might be before the last stick
of mature rattan was cut, and what the Agta would do after that. True,
ecosystem much, at least compared to what loggers can do. But when I
began to research this question, I found that no one really knows much
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300
forests" (personal correspondence March 30, 1984). But he too did not
have the data to know just how this might happen. Weinstock (1983)
document just how long it would take to deplete the Casiguran forests
work activity, and counted and measured rattan poles. (See column 5 of
Table 9.1 for data). I expected, for one thing, that the monthly
decline during the study period. But as section 5 of Table 10.2 shows,
field study. There were other signs that the rattan was getting
scarce, however. The cut vines, before they were cut into three meter
poles, were shorter in 1984, and the Agta were working longer hours
and, by July, bringing in 64 percent less rattan (see Table 9.1, Column
5). The rattan buyers, in early 1983, were only buying certain
varieties ofrattan, and only very mature poles. But then, beginning
in April 1984 the buyers were willing to buy almost any type of rattan,
and were accepting less than fully mature poles. Moreover, as we see
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in Column 4a of Table 9.1, they were willing to pay much more in 1984
need not belabor the point that when this comes we will find the Agta
last chapter, their main traditional livelihood based on hunting is, for
all practical purposes, a thing of the past. Now another of their main
and 9.2 show this is already occurring. Other changes may not be so
easyto measure. But I predict that when the mature rattan is gone that
Agta adults will be back to working for the equivalent of one ganta of
husked rice per day of labor, an income which keeps them just a hair
And what will the Agta do then? Many change agents and government
planners have already decided that question: They think the Agta will
wish to do this. Two families, in fact, are moving this way now with
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302
There are of course many other forces which have been introduced
1983.6
I asked all of these mothers why they were using baby bottles
that they didn't have enough milk themselves, or some lowlander told
them canned milk was better. Two mothers said their breast milk was
"yellow," and that their previous infants had died from being breast
especially from the higher class homes, now bottle feed their babies.
trend in the '70s; and I blame this trend on the advertising in the
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303
What is so sad about this, beyond the fact that it usually spells
the kiss of death for the infant, is that these Agta mothers have
neither the expertise, the equipment, nor the money to support such a
fad. Not being followers of the "germ theory" of disease, they do not
properly wash the bottles and nipples, let alone sterilize them, they
cannot refrigerate the cans of milk once they open them, and it takes
100 percent of a father's wages just to buy enough milk (more, if the
The result is that these mothers buy the cheapest canned "milk,"
which is not milk at all, but a heavily sugared "filled milk" (the term
These brands are condensed, to be diluted with water (which the mothers
never boil). The problem is aggravated because the mothers add more
water than they should, to make it last longer. Then, when they run out
poured from a pot of boiling rice. All Agta babies are thin, but most
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304
of the 10 had died by June 1984, and 3 more had died by September 1985.
introduced into the Agta system, though used by only a small minority of
people.
eat much more fish than they do wild meat (see Table 4.7). Up to the
year 1976 we lived inland most of the time, away from access to marine
downriver areas. Likewise, marine resources are less today. There are
batteries. All of these are used for fishing. The result is the
decline of aquatic fauna in all areas. I have never seen Agta use
1983, eleven months after I had returned to Casiguran, a man came up the
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305
invited people to collect for him the wild forest vine called in
offered to pay two pesos a kg for fresh peeled rolls of this vine.
Soon two other rattan buyers, that I knew of, also began buying this
gotten scarce by this time anyway, and it is easy to peel off its outer
January. I did not collect economic data for the next three months. In
April the collecting of Raphidophora vines had dropped off (1.4 percent
the reason for this. Perhaps because in March 1984 rattan buyers began
accepting for the first time inferior quality rattan varieties from
the day we found a whole camp full of Agta in the forest watching
to Casiguran, there were Agta who did not know they lived in the
Philippines, thought Manila and Amerika were the same place, or thought
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306
No longer today. By the '70s a few Agta owned radios, and others
working radio in their homes.^ Agta now not only know the name of
their country and its president, but many would discuss with me such
remember the bright moonlight night in July of 1969 when several Agta
made his "giant leap for mankind" onto the lunar surface. The powerful
all affecting one another and the living populations in the ecosystem.
human-occupied ecosystem.
of the Agta to know that these are a people which have undergone a good
squeezed into a small economic niche in their now changed ecosystem, and
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307
what the major forces causing this are. We have also grasped by this
times up to the 1980s, and seen that they have not recently emerged from
13 will argue, neither are they moving into some "higher" stage of
sedentary farming.)
The question before us at this point is, then, just what economic
strategies are the Agta pursuing today in this new and severely
still ask, How well are the Agta doing in this 1984 niche? Are they
question. First, however, let us look at just what the Agta were doing
in 1983-84.
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 9
1. The 8 Agta who died of what the people said was 'cholera' in
late June and early July 1985 were as follows: Only one was a male,
Kutey, a 60 year old visitor from Palanan. The 7 females were the 3
young mothers of nursing infants, Nora (census no. 2021 age 26) Ekdet
(no. 174 age 31), and Elpoh (no. 186 age 35). The other 4 were Siding
(no. 471 age 47), Lawdeng (no. 2012 age 51), Doring (60 year old
visitor from Ilagen), and an unnamed one year old daughter of Ninyeng
(no. 418).
3. The first year of the Martial Law era runs a close second in
historical importance to the Aquino assassination. But in most areas of
the country the poor were affected far more by the latter event than by
the former. Both events caused major hardship for the Agta.
308
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309
some part of that year, or 20 percent. Six of these 10 were still alive
in June 1984. By September 1985, when my wife made a visit to
Casiguran, 3 more had died, leaving 3 of the 10 still alive.
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CHAPTER X
period of field work in 1983-84. At the end of the period I had a data
and female. Each PWD datum consists of a record of the person's name,
age, sex, civil status, date for which the PWD activity was recorded,
person's location that day, the weather and, most important, the main
Table 10.1.
person per day, and that was what he (or I, depending on the situation)
considered his main activity that day. The nine rules I followed in
310
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311
Casiguran Agta people in 1983-84. The data do not give us the details
especially able to see here what their major economic activities were
during those 19 months, how much time they gave to agriculture, wage
labor, hunting, etc., how often Agta are ill, and what percentage of
The PWD data were collected in such a way that they could be used
at the end of Chapter 1). This chapter will discuss several, but not
all, of the activity categories, and draw conclusions from what the
data show concerning them. Where appropriate, I will discuss where the
just how hard such people have to work to make a living. Specifically,
idea (though he did not originate it), to the point where this view is
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312
course, and we do well to set aside the outdated view that the life of
prehistoric hunters was "nasty, brutish, and short." But Sahlins' model
Lee reported that these desert hunters were able to supply their needs
Second, Lee's time allocation data is drawn from such a tiny sample—
useless for testing Sahlins' theory. And third, Lee did not include
"housework" in the time !Kung spent working. There is more to work than
mongongo nuts). Lee corrected for this in his 1979 book, and he now
all.
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313
speak to Sahlins' argument. For one thing, the Agta are hardly
paleolithic foragers. However much leisure they may have had in the
past, the data presented here is for the 1980s. Also, the PWD data was
number of days per month the Agta spend in no work at all, but they do
not tell us how many hours they work per day. One qualitative statement
I can make about Agta is that they, like most hunter-gatherers, do value
leisure. While theyare not lazy, they are not followers of the
So, I do not use the data in this first activity category to argue
what these data tell us about Agta culture, economic and otherwise.
When we first look at the data, it does seem that Agta have a fair
of their days throughout the year in "no work," and women 49 percent.
This was not all spent in "leisure," however. Fourteen percent of their
(164/1163). This is high, surely higher than average for most Western
in Chapter 12, which showsthat the Agta are very obviously not, on the
do men, 14 percent of the women's "no work" PWDs were of women with
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314
infants, or who had just given birth, or were in their last month of
pregnancy (108/775).
The PWD data show that for 12.5 percent of the "no work" days
(145/1163) Agta adults were found drunk before noon. Overall, the data
show that Agta adults may be found drunk, before noon on a typical day,
4.4 percent of the time (145/3283). The figure is only slightly higher
for men (5.3 percent) than for women (3.4 percent). Not all Agta are
heavy drinkers, of course, and there are a few-very few— who never get
drunk. For example, looking only at my sample of the 52 men from whom
15+ PWDs were collected during the field work period, slightly over
half of these, 29, were never recorded as drunk in the morning. The
those PWDs are recorded as "no work— drunk." That is, these 23 men, on
the average, were found drunk in the morning 10 percent of the time.
The figure for women "morning drinkers" is just half that. Of the
42 women with 15+ PWDs in my data, 12 were found drunk at least once.
Of the total 225 PWDs of these 12 women, 19 of their PWDs were recorded
that I cannot state how many Agta adults get drunk on an average day
how many are drunk in the morning. But it was logistically impossible
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for me to collect the data needed to answer that question. My
double, and probably triple those for the "morning drinkers." The
There are human groups, primitive and otherwise, who have built-in
We will see, however, when we get to Chapter 12, that alcohol use is
very debilitating in the Agta society. In that chapter we will see that
among the Agta is associated, in almost every case, with heavy drinking.
The most general conclusion we can make from these data are that
the Casiguran Agta have some leisure, but certainly not enough to call
age 60, and exclude the PWDs of those men when they were sick or
average of 6 days per we.ek (1,303 out of 1,538 PWDs). While not all of
these are full work days, most of them are. One man, for example,
Nateng (the only man for whom I kept records of number of hours of work
per day) worked throughout the year an average of 6.1 days per week,
averaging 6.8 hours of work per work day. (This sample [N=146 days]
excludes from its calculation the days when this man did no work at
all.) Women have more "no work" days, but are busy with more domestic
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316
work than are the men, such as child care, washing clothes, etc. We
also see from the data that there is a high rate of sickness among the
Hunting has traditionally been the chief pursuit and most salient
activity of Agta men for centuries. This does not mean it was their
beaches, may have consumed more time than hunting. Still, Agta males
consider themselves primarily "hunters," and this is also how they are
viewed by the lowland farmers. Rai, in his 1980 study of an Agta band
group in San Mariano, Isabela, found that men there gave a very high
1982:88, 158, 232). The Griffins also found that, among the remote Agta
band group they lived with on the eastern coast of Cagayan in 1980-81,
Casiguran Agta men were involved in hunting when I first went to live
with them in the early 1960s. I estimated that men at that time spent
of listening to the stories of older Agta— is that the figure was closer
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317
there that Agta men gave only 6.2 percent of their PWDs to hunting
(106/1709 [this includes 12 PWDs which were "trapping," that is, setting
or checking rope snares for wild pigs]). Furthermore, we see from Table
10.3 that, in the sample of 52 men for whom I recorded 15+ PWDs, 58
30 men may have hunted a few times during our 19 month period of field
data. Specifically, I will discuss here success rates, and whether time
day of the week. We will also look here at types of game secured, and
discovery, in the late 1970s by the Griffins, ofCagayan Agta women who
variables which may affect the time men give to hunting. Turning to
variables, and how they relate to PWDs given to hunting. These are
ages of Agta men, band area, months of the year, men with and without
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318
this table. My impression over the years is that Agta tend to hunt more
often on rainy days, or during the "rainy season." Agta say they do
rain, and that the pigs are "lazier" during the cold months of December
and January. The rain versus no rain data in Section 2 of Table 10.2
and October of '83, when the rainy season began, but it is unclear
'83, yet the PWD time given to hunting that month was not high. (For
data. Fifteen percent of the total PWDs recorded were for "rainy
excluding the 12 cases of "pig snare work"). This suggests that Agta
10.2). But what about the day after a rainy day? That is when pig
tracks would be fresh, and yet wouldn't be washed away by rain. Here I
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found that Agta tend to go hunting more often than would be expected by
What about the question of whether young men hunt more often than
older men. Again, there is only weak support for this hypothesis, as
than those in other bands. In fact, I expected that the further Agta
men live from the three towns in the area, the more often they would be
found hunting. Section 2 of Table 10.2 shows that, indeed, men in some
band areas do hunt more often than those in other areas (see Map 2 for
less twice as often as do those in the other seven band areas. This
might expect. Again, we would need a much larger sample before definite
patterns would emerge. The Agta living in band area 7, for example,
camped most of the time very near to the town of Dilasag. This was a
small group of Agta (that is why only 164 PWDs were recorded for this
group throughout the year [see Table 10.4]). One man in this group,
population. Now age 57 (in 1984), his high number of recorded "hunting"
Another question concerns whether men who had their own swiddens or
wet rice fields did less hunting than did those without fields. As we
see in this same section of Table 10.2, the case is the very opposite.
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Those with fields did over twice as much hunting as did those who did
I had also suspected that Agta did more hunting on Sundays, than on
weekdays (since they are more often working for the Christianized
hunt ing.
turns out there is a wide range here. Looking at the 52 men for whom I
PWDs each, with a range from 15 to 26.) For details, see Table 10.3.
Table 10.5, we see that individual men secure game (deer, wild pig, or
men who went hunting, not number of hunting trips. That is, if 2 men
hunt together, that counts as two "hunts," not one, in this sample.
of 103 men who went out hunting throughout 1983-84. This is the average
commercial large game (pig and deer, excluding monkey meat which
lowlanders will not buy), the success rate was only 14 percent (see
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column 3 of the Table) N<pte also that, as shown in Table 10.6, the
The PWD data on hunting directly support Proposition 1 Cat the back
of Chapter 1), which states that Agta are no longer involved in hunting
why Agta bother to hunt at all. There are at least three reasons for
this. First, Agta nren enjoy hunting. They refer to hunting as their
forest, and most men not only like to hunt, but show keen excitement
when sighting or stalking game. One would not expect people who have
hunted for a living all their lives to manifest the same degree of
excitement we find among, say, urban American males when deer hunting
season opens. Yet Agta men do find hunting exciting, and I have seen
(1984:187). Wild pig and deer meat are a sought after food. The Agta's
craving for such food, when they haven't had it for a time, is analogous
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322
find women assisting men in hunting. This was quite common among the
Casiguran Agta in the 1960s, when women would drive game towards the
hunts in the PWD data are of women (two cases of women together with
women helping men track wounded game shot the day previously).
of Agta women who hunt large gamewith bow and arrows, and without male
women studies.
about it (since the custom is unknown among the Casiguran Agta). I was
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west of Palanan. Four of these 18 were women who claimed they had
themselves hunted pigs with bow and arrow in the past. Finally, when I
Roy Mayfield, saw several women and children drive a deer right into the
ocean, whence it was caught and stabbed by one of the women with an
arrow. While the Griffins are careful to point out that only a few Agta
we have here the unusual case of some Agta women involved intensely in
Aquatic food is the most important protein source in the Agta diet.
As we see from Table 4.7, such foods are eaten at 53 percent of Agta
Agta have many techniques for fishing, which we cannot go into here.*
(men, 6 percent, and women, 4 percent). Children are even more active
the household with this food, especially when they, the adults, are
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The PWD data for this activity provide strong support for
their own in 1983. In the next chapter we will look at these 48 fields
Here I will limit the discussion to what the PWD data show.
their own, of course. In fact, there was a wide range in the time
their own fields in 1983 (40/168). A few others, 12 men, assisted Agta
relatives part time in swidden clearing, and 6 men worked part time in
adults on whom 15+ PWDs were collected (see Table 10.8), we get a
agriculture. Almost half of those 94 adults did not have a single PWD
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325
season. Looking at the swidden work, we see that the amount of days
Agta gave to such work was highest during the swidden clearing phase of
the cycle. Agta gave 10 percent of their PWDs to swidden work in April
'84 (see Table 10.9). In January, the slack season for swidden work,
the amount of PWDs given to such work dropped to its lowest, zero
percent in January '83 and 2 percent in January '84 (see Table 10.9).
band areas. The Agta in band areas numbered 2 and 5 gave high amounts
swiddens in 1983, and in area no. 5, 5 swiddens and 1 wet rice field
were made that year. As one might guess, in the band areas where no
Perhaps the main point to note from the above, and from the PWD
do not all do the same thing. A few Agta hunt intensely, while most
today hunt very seldom. While a few Agta could perhaps be called
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Rattan collecting for commercial sale was the most salient and most
combined. The overall PWD time given to rattan collecting through the
this occupation, but with the men giving twice as much of their time to
collecting among the months, and among the band areas. Agta do not like
1983, the percentage of PWDs given to rattan work that month dropped to
15 percent. The month with the highest percent of time given to this
work (39 percent) was the dry month of May '84. This may have been
partly due, however, to the increased pressure put onthe Agta to work
at that time by commercial rattan buyers. (For details on this and the
The band area with the highest percentageof PWDs given to rattan
collecting throughout 1983-84 was Area 1 (33 percent). The Agta in this
area did not do any agriculture in 1983. The band area with the lowest
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327
We might hypothesize here that those Agta who cultivated that year
fields. But the Agta in Band Area 5, where 8 Agta fields were located,
percent.
1984. This never happened. Instead, the last month for which I
collected PWDs, May 1984, had the highest percentage of time given to
rattan work for any of the 13 months for which I had such data (39
percent). There is no doubt that rattan was getting very scarce by that
time, but the commercial rattan buyers merely compensated for this by
moving whole Agta camp groups to distant areas by truck or motor boat,
where they supplied them with rice, salt, canned fish, liquor, and
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The time Agta give to this occupation, in fact, decreased soon after I
left Casiguran in 1979 for Hawaii, as Agta moved into more and more
declines in Casiguran.
agricultural labor.
frequently request Agta to secure such products for them (other than
wild meat and rattan, discussed above). Such products are Imperata
grass or palm leaves (used for roofing), poles or houseposts (for house
"wage labor," is that of mat weaving. In a typical Agta camp one will
usually find one or two women weaving sleeping mats, either for
This work is underrepresented in the PWD data (only one percent of the
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There are a wide variety of work tasks, minor chores, and errands
that Agta do for lowlanders. Some of the all-day type-tasks are listed
repeated here.
Nine percent of the PWDs fall under this wage labor category. Agta
men gave 12 percent of their PWD time to this work, and women 6 percent.
new to the Casiguran Agta. The Spanish documents show clearly that Agta
250 years ago were doing seasonal agricultural labor for Casiguranin
farmers. I also remember in the 1960s when, during the planting and
harvest seasons for wet rice, approximately half of the adult Agta
friends near or in town. Here they would work for about a month each
harvest rice. Only a few families were choosing this economic option in
percent of the Agta PWDs were given to labor in the wet rice fields of
lowlanders' swiddens.
"copra work." Agta gave 4 percent of their PWD time to this labor.
have been much higher, probably consuming 10-15 percent of their PWD
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330
this type of work in 1983-84. It was not only because the Agta now had
the devastating Typhoon Aring in November 1980 damaged the coconut trees
then. Furthermore, at the same time the world market price for copra
the activity number E590. A word should be said about "travel," however
(PWD activity no. E600). Agta spend a great deal of their waking hours
in this activity, usually hiking, but also often hitching rides on the
motor boats of lowlanders. The data show they gave 7.5 percent of their
was their major activity on the day recorded. I have estimated that the
average Agta spends far more time than just 7.5 percent of their time in
travel. When one observes their frequent, almost daily, hikes downriver
percent. When we think of it, this may not be much different than the
amount of time the average American spends in his automobile per day.
* * *
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331
Casiguran Agta in the first half of the 1980s. In short, we learn here
a great deal about Agta culture. Specifically, we see just how the Agta
are making their living today. We see how much time they gave to not
"leisured" days. The Agta, it turns out, are not "affluent," though
they may not work much harder than do blue collars in America. We also
learn that they have an abnormally high amount of morbidity, and a high
one might assume. Some Agta hunt, others never do. Some are involved
in hunting, and how low their success rate is. We also see howlittle
fact, it turns out that almost all Agta work is done as service tasks
for lowlanders. Wage labor for lowlanders, both agricultural and non-
collecting to this (also done for lowlanders), the percent of their PWD
we subtract the "no work" PWDS, so that we just look at the actual
production time— the days when Agta were doing some kind of "work"— we
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332
find that the Casiguran Agta gave 64 percent of their "work" time to
entrenched institution in the Agta culture, which the Agta favor, and
Finally, and perhaps most important for the purposes of the present
study, the data provide solid empirical support for 3 of the 7 major
propositions of the thesis (nos. 1, 2, and 4), and for the formal
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 10
333
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CHAPTER X I
every year since I have known them, they grew crops again in 1983. In
fact, in 1983 they cultivated for themselves 43 new swiddens and 5 wet
rice fields. For any reader who has read this far, then, a central
view of the fact that they do very little hunting today, and why I argue
I argue, they are not farmers. This chapter will attempt to provide
I first review here briefly the seven main stages of the Agta
swidden cycle, and the absence of certain traits in the Agta swidden
describe the characteristics of Agta swiddens and wet rice fields, such
area of cultivated land per person, and the rice yields from that land.
From there I will compare Agta swiddens with those of other swidden
farmers in SE Asia. We will see at this point how very different Agta
334
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335
fields are from the fields of any other groups yet studied in SE Asia.
Agta swidden cycle goes through seven main stages. These are briefly
described below. The number of actual work days allotted to each stage
in the cultivating of one swidden, swidden no. 17, is also given. (This
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336
about April 14, working with 3 Agta hired men. Five days
later, on April 19, he and one lowlander (who worked with
Nateng on a labor exchange basis) felled the rest of the
trees (except one in the center of the field which was never
cut). A total of 6 work days.
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337
There are other swidden tasks besides the above seven, of course.
The sporadic planting of other crops is the most important, and this
cultigens are even planted before the burning stage.) Nateng did no
be a very time consuming task in SE Asian swidden work, but the Agta
almost never bother to do it. Only one of the 43 swiddens was fenced in
1983, done to keep out carabaos, not wild game. Guarding is another big
task (especially from birds, when the rice is ripening). I have often,
over the years, seen Agta put scare-bird devices in their rice swiddens.
This year, 1983, I found only one swidden (no. 20) that had two sticks
with palm leaves hanging on them, to frighten birds, and only one
swidden (no. 37) with rattan lines strung over the rice, with leaves and
since the rainforest is too damp, even in the dry season, for there to
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338
mark, clear, burn, plant rice, and harvest rice in their swiddens.
etc. (See, for example, our description of such among the Manobo in the
with the Agta I have seen none of this. The only exception is that Agta
implant a small bamboo cross in the middle of their swiddens after they
this without accompanying ceremony, and when the cross falls over they
12 percent on very steep slopes, and the rest, almost half, on moderate
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339
This did not surprise me. What I did find surprising was the
discovery that Agta leave large parts of the cleared and burned areas of
they had never heard of it, and that the groups they studied had
that perhaps the Agta do this forsome sound ecological reason, perhaps
keeping open edges along the swidden borders to lower the incidence of
idea, but a look at the maps do not .support it. When I asked Agta
"We didn't have enough seed (or cuttings)." What is apparent is that
Agta begin seeding rice at the lower edge of their fields and work
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340
uphill until they run out of rice. What burned area is left they say
they will plant in root crops. But in most cases they never got to it.
every case but one, according to their responses, they secured their
seed from a lowlander friend. Only one swidden family claimed their
seed came from their previous year's rice harvest. True swidden
selecting their rice seed each year from their own fields, and saving
Negrito hunter- gatherers as ever doing this. The saving of food is not
a major reason why they do not crop completely their burned fields.
after they have planted them in rice, not returning to their fields
until later when it is time to harvest. For example, after the owner of
swidden no. 17 had planted his rice on June 20, he did not visit his
October 3, and again on October 24. In other words, he only visited his
swidden three times during the four months of the rice growing season!
"abandoned" like this, I measured the hiking time from all of the
gauge of whether swiddens were cared for (defining "cared for" swiddens
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341
the area, where I have never lived, and where there are areas of
imperata grassland, but in most of the Agta area their swiddens succeed
This is probably due in part to the fact that most Agta fields (84
than do other swidden farmers. In fact, most Agta swiddens (57 percent
in 1983 [24/42]), are left to fallow within 7 to 8 months after they are
burned, with no secondary crops planted in them after the October rice
harvest (see Table 11.4). Other fields are planted in root crops, which
will be sporadically harvested throughout the year after the swidden was
made. But even those fields, with few exceptions, will be abandoned to
One may ask, then, what becomes of the few tree seedlings Agta
plant in some of their new swiddens each year? Most of them die. That
frequent weeding, and sunlight, if they are to grow into healthy trees.
Agta do not normally provide that needed care. Only one Agta has his
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342
half- brother.
fast— fast enough to keep above the shade of wild plant growth— and
which provides Agta with food even 3 to 4 years later, after the rest
In December '83 the old w^dcw Kasting, with the help of her
son-in-law, cleared a 128 m patch near the side of the house
of the lowlander who buys their rattan (in Area 3), and
planted many sweet potato cuttings, 3 cassava cuttings, and
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343
I have no doubt that there were many other instances of Agta doing
such planting of a few cultigens here and there which escaped my notice.
I am sure I did not miss anything major, but incidental cases of Agta
Another set of data one may look at to help decide whether Agta are
farmers or not is to find out how many of them were working under the
case, the data do not support the hypothesis: Only 21 percent of the
think we can assume from this that Agta can, if they want to, do
independent agriculture.
each swidden, and among the Tiruray, also a Philippine group, Schlegel
contrast, the average number of cultigens per Agta swidden was only 7.5
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344
swidden was 27. The mode, however, was one cultigen per swidden.
to seem almost ridiculous. The actual number and types of crops found
in each swidden are listed in Appendix E. The reader may note the
1983; but the amount was as follows: 7 swiddens had corn planted in
Many fields were found with other cultigens planted in tiny amounts, as
well. For example, by the spring of 1984 there were fields which had
among those 20, 1 okra, 1 mustard plant, 1 yam cutting, and 1 balsam
apple.
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345
answer to that will, I trust, be quite obvious by the time we reach the
Agta in all swiddens, but the mean number of varieties per rice swidden
was only 1.47. Cassava, sweet potato, banana, and sugar cane are the
banana in 23, and sugar cane in 20). Two varieties of taro, coconut
those families also made swiddens that year. All five of these fields
were irrigated, and all were planted with hybrid varieties of "miracle
rice." These conditions would easily have allowed two crops to have
been harvested from these fields in 1983; but in every case only one
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346
standards, large: 2.6 ha (see Table 11.6). The average size of the 5
fields was one half hectare each. Two of the fields were very large,
2
almost a hectare each. The smallest field, 1,532 m , was still larger
the "owner" of wet field no. 1 has applied for a 25 year forest lease
from the Bureau of Forest Development. This has been pending now for
three years. He and his extended family also made five swiddens in 1983
right next to this field. Wilson rented from a lowlander the field on
which he made his wet field (field no. 2). He is said to also legally
own another wet field, but does not cultivate it because it has no
standard arrangement where they pay the owner 3.5 units of rice at
harvest time for each unit of rice seed planted. In other words, the
produced by Agta on these 5 fields was about 4.4 metric tons. I base
this estimate on my calculation of the yield from wet rice field no. 1,
the equivalent of 1.7 t/ha (shown in Table 11.6). It was from this
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347
field that I harvested and later measured two sample plots of one
square meter each. We will have to give the Agta the benefit of the
doubt here and and assume that the other 4 Agta wet fields produced
more or less the same yield, since I did not harvest sample plots from
those fields. This 1.7 figure is slightly higher than what reliable
rice, "around 25 to 40 sacks per hectare" (33 sacks would be about 1.4
t/ha). The Agta yield figure here is slightly higher than the
yield for centuries [of which] was from one ton to 1.5 tons per
It should also be mentioned here that there are five other Agta
families who are said to "own" wet rice fields on the Reservation, and
rice. The Agta are supposed to receive one third of each harvest from
these fields.
cultivated land, the size of the crop yields they get off that land, and
just how long those yields would feed the population. As we see from
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348
Table 11.10, the Casiguran Agta grew rice on a total of 7.8 ha of land
percent in wet porid fields. When we divide this area by the total
2
population of 609, this gives a per capita area in rice of only 128 m .
(See also Table 11.11 for details of per capita cropped land for each
We must not lose sight here of the fact that the Agta planted
another 0.8 ha of land in other crops, mostly cassava and sweet potato
Agta depend on these tiny root crop patches to provide them with
flooded from rain that Agta may be cut off for three to five days at a
time from reaching their lowland trading partners, from whom they
are not important, since the Agta ate them at only 5 percent of their
meals in 1984, while they ate rice at 92 percent of their meals (see
Table 4.6).
The next question is, how much rice did these 7.8 ha of land
produce, and how long would this rice feed the people who produced it?
As we see from Table 11.8, the Agta harvested about 9.1 metric tons of
rough (dry unhusked) rice in 1983. Four point seven tons of this came
from the 32 rice swiddens, and another 4.4 t from the five wet rice
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349
agricultural work groups did not share their rice harvests with any of
their relatives or visitors (that is, if they kept their rice just for
would have lasted them 43 days (Table 11.8). If the rice had been
lasted only 15 days. (As we will see in Chapter 13, the Agta didshare
other shifting cultivators in SE Asia, the reader should know that 1983
rainfall was ideal during the rice growing season, there were no
We come now to the main point I want to make in this chapter, that
the Agta are not agriculturalists. The most convincing way I can do
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350
this thesis.
each of these how the Agta compare with 19 other swidden societies in SE
recently forced into part-time swidden cultivation, and other data come
from groups like the Gaddang, traditional swiddeners who have been
Still, as Table 11.9 shows, all of these groups have much more
impressive swidden statistics than do the Agta. This does not mean, by
the way, that the Agta are ignorant, when it comes to farming, but just
farming.
Asian swidden systems. I did not leave out data on any groups of which
I had access to reliable published reports, either because they did not
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351
found on groups other than the present 19 which I did not include were
because I did not have access to the primary sources from which that
table, then, it is because the authors I cite did not give information
in each paragraph the data, when known, for the Hanunoo, since
Conklin's (1954, 1957) study on this group in the early 1950s is the
following paragraphs were drawn are listed, with page numbers, at the
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352
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353
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354
Actually, 1983 and 1984 may not have been average normal years.
year for the Agta. Certainly, during the last 23 years (my period of
tenure in Casiguran), there were very few "normal" years (however that
forces— have come and gone in the last two decades, with the Agta
imagine what a normal year would be like. Which of the last few years
the process eliminating a major economic activity of the Agta for the
next two years (clearing coconut groves for lowland copra producers).
In 1972 the decade of Martial Law was instituted, causing some abrupt
control of most of the valley, and this was soon followed by a major war
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355
Agta were forced to move back and forth throughout this period, as they
Calabgan, where they all were "taught [again!] how to become farmers."
major change in Agta economic patterns which did not begin to wane until
1983. Then, in 1980, another terrible typhoon, code named Aring, ruined
the coconut crop a second time. Finally, in late 1983 abrupt economic
logging and mining companies, the opening of the road into Casiguran in
the same time the bottom again dropped out of the coconut market, after
and 1984 were "typical." But they were probably as close to "average" as
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356
not only the weakest, but far worse than groups even like the Gaddang,
whose data were taken the year of a crop failure. Agta swiddens are
tiny, they produce only enough food to last a month or so, their rice
yield per hectare is low, and their labor input appears so high that
they don't even get back enough food to feed their families for the days
of work they put into the rice production. We note too that their lack
number and variety of secondary crops and rice varieties, suggest their
the !Kung Bushmen, the group that is depicted as the archetype of "real"
!Kung men planted fields in 1967-69, when the drought ended in the
10.7 in this thesis, only 24 percent of Agta men planted fields in 1983
sizes among Kalahari Bushmen. The !Kung average is 0.53 ha, and the
average overall for several Bushmen groups is 0.50 ha. This is triple
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357
these reasons in detail in Chapter 13. But first we will look in the
just how well the Agta are doing under their present ecological
limitations.
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 11
1. Some Agta limit the word sikaw to new swiddens only, referring
to a swidden after it is well cropped as nma. Others refer to both new
and old swiddens as sikaw. All Agta referto abandoned swiddens, that
is swiddens 2+ years old, as elas, which isalso their term for
brushland and young secondary forest.
358
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CHAPTER X II
the result of a high death rate, not because of a low birth rate or
The chapter will not only provide us with a measuring stick for
359
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360
the population decline, and then speak directly to Weiss' above question
what the main causes of death are. One of these causes is homicide, a
topic I will discuss in some detail. We will also look at the role of
decade, divorce and widowhood, and other topics. At the end of the
chapter we will see how well the data support or fail to support
the same population in June 1977 will also be presented for comparative
in June 1984.
hundred- and- three of these were absent from the area on this date, and
may not have been absent. Included in this count of 103 out-migrants
were 11 persons who have been gone from the area for 5 or more years who
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the same month, June '84, there were present in the area 75 in-migrant
population pyramids for the de jure population in June 1977 and in June
1984. The first data to note here is that the population declined in
that seven year period from 618 to 609, a decline of 1.5 percent, or
0.21 percent per year. Note that this figure concords with the Agta
of dependents was 37.6 percent in 1984, with 35 percent being under age
15 and 2.6 percent over age 64. (See Table 12.1; for comparisons of
this with other populations see column 9 of the same table.) In both
The mean age of the 1977 population was 24 years for males and 25
for females. In 1984 the mean male age was 23 years, and the mean
female age was 26 years. The median age for males in 1977 was 20
years, and for females it was 21 years. In 1984 the median age of
males was 18, while for females it was 24 (see Table 12.2). (My method
both pyramids, 124:100 in the 1977 population, and 145:100 in the 1984
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that the Agta may practice this custom, especially with the child sex
ratios we see here, and because this is a practice commonly reported for
against this hypothesis, however, is that my wife and I have never known
have come across cases of it during our years of living with them. We
group, either past or present.*' Agta value their children, and value
having children. The 3 sets of Agta twins born since our arrival were
all cared for as lovingly as any other infants (though 5 of the 6 twins
eventually died). The most logical explanation, then, for the high
ratio of Agta male children over female is that it is nothing more than
population.
Births. The Agta crude birth rate (CBR) is 43 births per 1,000
population per year. This is a high figure. The average for the world
and the figure for the total Philippines is 34. The Agta CBR is
slightly higher than the rate for the !Kung Bushmen, which is reported
as 41. (For sources of these figures, see Table 12.1; the Agta figure
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is based on the 184 infants born alive in the population during the
seven year period following June 1977, all of whom are listed in Table
12.3). Agta women have a high total fertility rate, an average of 6.3
2
live births produced by women who live to age 45.
Deaths. The Agta crude death rate (CDR) is extremely high with a
figure of 45 deaths per 1,000 persons per year. The nation with the
12.1). The reasons for the high Agta death rate will be discussed in
but none to my knowledge provide the vital data needed for computing
just what that rate of decline is. For the Agta we have that data for
a 7 year period. With a CBR of 43, and a CDR of 45, the Agta yearly
57/1,000, a rate of natural increase of 0.8 percent per year (see Table
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364
these, 9 of whom are females and all of whom were orphans, were taken to
the whereabouts of most of these 11, nor even if they are still alive.
"dead," since the chances of their ever returning after being gone so
many years is not high. However, in fairness to the data, and to keep
1984 population. Four of them were missing at the time of our 1977
census, and those 4 are also counted as alive in that census. There are
of course several other persons included in both censuses who have been
away for 5+ years, but who are not in the same category as these 11
throughout human history and prehistory who have had infant and child
documented cases with reliable figures. The Agta infant mortality rate
(IMR) is 342 deaths per 1,000 life births. Afghanistan has the highest
populations are reported to have very high death rates, the Semai with
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The percentage of Agta children who die before reaching age 15 is
even higher: 51 percent (see Table 12.1). Again, this is higher than
3
any population for which I have found data.
21.2 years. The figure for males is 22.3, and for females, 19.8. This
is the mean age at death of all individuals who died between 1977 and
62. In Afghanistan it is only age 40. The U.S. figure is age 74, and
the Philippines, age 62. The figure for the !Kung is age 40 (see Table
12. 1).
average. At age 15 the mean life expectancy for males is age 47.2,
and for females age 48.9 (see bottom of Table 12.4). These figures
populations, Weiss has calculated life expectancies for people who have
Hassan op. cit.) Agta life expectancies at age 15 are even higher than
the estimate
for England in the fourteenth century, as determined from
4
tombstones by Russell (1958), which was age 41.
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366
way of life is the age at which people die" (1968:35). Using the
present life expectancy figures, it is apparent that the Agta are not
except for those few who are physicallyhandicapped or who have been
reported (or assumed) for other hunter-gatherer societies. The mean age
at first marriage for Casiguran Agta females is 18.4 years (see bottom
of Table 12.5). We do not know of any girls who married before age 15.
of the females marry at age 15. By the end of their 16th year 27
percent have married, by the end of their 17th year 41 percent, by the
end of their 18th year 55 percent, and by the end of their 19th year 65
these marry before they reach age 23 (but for exceptions see Table
12.6, which data are from a different sample).^ This is higher than
the mean age at first marriage for females among the !Kung which is
age of marriage for Casiguran Agta women may be the result of the high
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367
number of teenage girls who leave the area for a year or two to work as
Readers may want to know at this point what the mean age of
empirical answer to this question for the Casiguran Agta (though I did
Griffins, however, do have such data for the Cagayan Agta, where they
found the mean age at menarche to be age 17.14 years (Goodman et al.
1985). I think we may assume this same figure for Casiguran Agta women.
see that in the first cohort (ages 15-19) 40 percent have been married
The mean, median and modal age of Agta males when they marry are all
husbands are often found to be several years older than their wives.
For example, among the !Kung, "Men are often 7 to 15 years older than
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368
not the case with the Agta. Most Agta are married to partners close in
than 6 years apart in age. In 9 percent of the unions, the couples were
the same age. In most unions, 80 percent, the husband is older than his
wife, while in 11 percent the wife is older. In 8 of the 132 cases the
husband was 10 or more years older than the wife, and in 2 cases the
high among Casiguran Agta. In June 1984, 8 percent of the ever- married
At the same time, there were 9 current widowers and 22 widows in the
population. Two of the widowers and 9 of the widows were under age 50.
Agta adult does not have a very wide choice of selection if he is going
were absent from the area at the time, leaving only 15 single men
available for marriage. At the same time, there were 38 single women
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369
also then gone from the area, leaving 24 available marriage choices for
as it does, most of these individuals should find and mate with each
The question is concerned with how small a population can be and still
maintain itself. That is, at what point does a population find itself
mates for its members from outside, or allow those members to marry
consanguines?
partners becomes substantial for small groups, even when there are no
even more difficult to find mates. Adams and Kasakoff (1976) look at
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370
21 societies. Their data show that the smaller a group's size, the
hypothesizes that the adoption of an incest taboo will not take place
table similar to that of the San Bushmen would need a minimum breeding
pool of 475 persons for every adult to find a mate (1976, cited in
decline. Hammel et al. (1979) point out the disadvantage posed on small
decline in this century, numbering less than 360 in 1975. The results
are as the model predicts. Eder (1977a) presents data showing marked
interest to see how the Casiguran Agta are adjusting to their small and
mate partner choosing among the Agta in the past several years. Rather
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371
not marry at all, Agta are finding mates from outside of their own small
increase over the past, but I do know that marriages to lowlanders have
percent in 1984.
the hair texture type of 422 Agta. Overall, 84 percent of these people
percent had straight or wavy hair. But the number of adults (those born
before 1957, or age 20+ in 1977) with "Negrito" hair in that sample was
very high, 92 percent (242/262), while among those then aged 10-19 only
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372
82 percent had "Negrito" hair (75/91), and among those aged 0-9 the
For whatever reasons, it seems obvious that some type of gene flow
quarter-bloods. There may be a few more than these, but probably not
and many Agta do not know their grandparents or who they were.)
cohort groups must be higher than in the older cohort groups. The data
0-19 are half-bloods (30/278), the figure drops to just 3 percent among
those aged 20-39 (6/205), but then rises again to 9 percent among those
over age 39 (11/126); and 5 of the 33 individuals age 60 and over are
half-bloods. The sample is too small, and the risk of subconscious bias
too great, for this data to prove very much. Also, Agta have been in
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373
Agta from other populations residing in the Casiguran area, and 103 of
the Casiguran Agta'were out of the area at the same time (including the
11 Agta mentioned earlier who have been gone or "missing" for 5 or more
years). There were also 14 Casiguran Agta who were in the area at the
time, but who were living either in town or in a lowland barrio, rather
than with other Agta. (These were all servants in lowlander homes.)
(See Table 12.7 for breakdown by sex.) In June 1977, according to our
census taken then, there were 34 in-migrant Agta in the area, who were
were absent from the area. The latter figure is probably trustworthy,
since my census collecting did not then focus on Agta from other
population groups.
enter band areas of other Agta unless they have kinsmen there.
the area (defined as persons who have been in the area less than one
(see Table 12.7). The in-migrant Agta come from eight different
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374
the number of in-migrant Agta from other population groups see Table
12.7.)
that the Agta population has declined over the last 7 years following
June 1977. Though this decline may appear slight, only 0.2 percent per
gone wrong in this population, since human populations, even those with
high death rates, usually grow, not decline (for example the Yanomama,
1977:399).
phenomenon which has been going on for a long time, say the last 60
years or so, or is this just something which occurred in the last 7 year
decline has been going on since before WWII, at least. One of these
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375
asking them, "How many Agta were there when you were young? Were there
more then, or less, or just the same?" I still have their answers on my
more Agta in the past. I havealso asked this question to many older
lowlanders. There answers are the same. (Both groups, by the way,
gave the two reasons for the decline as "diseases" and "overdrinking.")
to remain stationary is for each woman to produce one daughter each who
shows that the average woman age 45+ produces 2.88 offspring who live
to reach age 15. The question is, how many daughters does each woman
who lives to age 45 produce which live to reach reproductive age (i.e.,
age 15)? We would assume the figure would be half of 2.88, or 1.44. If
stationary, but stable (i.e., growing), since each woman (who lives to
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376
reach age 45) produces, on the average, more than one daughter each.
Looking at Table 12.10, we see that the data does show this to be the
case. Agta women age 45+ produced 1.41 daughters each who lived to age
15.
this question is that though a group of, let us say, 100 women produce a
a mistake to assume that these 140 daughters will in turn produce 197
granddaughters (140 X 1.41 = 197). This is because not all of these 140
women will survive to the end of their childbearing period. The mean
12.4). This means that a high number of these 140 daughters, roughly
half, will die before they reach menopause. Only those who survive to
age 45 will produce 1.4 daughters each who live to reach age 15.
women's names who were ever married adults in 1936, and who are listed
average of 1.21 daughters each. This is slightly fewer than the 1.4
average mentioned above. The question is, how many daughters did these
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377
daughters each (75 X 1.4 = 105), but only 64! These data suggest that
these data. First, we do not know how many of the original62 women
Vanoverbergh lists lived to reach age 45. We also do not know how many
still infants, will live to reach age 45. The data are illustrative,
and suggest that, though enough daughters are being produced, most of
them are dying before they in turn can reproduce enough daughters to
thesis.
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378
did not count "small children." Second, while he counted the Agta in
10 Casiguran band areas (and he names those areas and the number of
count. Let us look at these one at a time, and how I attempted to solve
in his count createda problem for me, because I did not know how
"small children." Father Vanoverbergh was then 94 years old (he died in
1979, that he could not remember. The next day he came back to the
question and said, "As I recall, I did not count infants under one year;
How many infants could this have been? If the ratio of infants to the
rest of the population then was the same as it is now, then there would
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379
g
have been 124 infants whom Vanoverbergh declined to count. Thus, if
Vanoverbergh had counted infants his census count would be 787 plus 124
may have been living in the three Casiguran band areas Vanoverbergh
his reason for bypassing these locations is obvious— they are distant
areas which he failed to reach during his short ten week period in
Casiguran (ibid.:908). They are all north of the town, and he simply
traditional Agta band areas. There is some possibility that the Agta
visit them because they were distant from where he was living (which
was south of the town), and because he could not reach there by boat.
would have had at least 100 more names, and possibly over 200 more
Casiguran Agta in 1936, I will stay on the conservative side and assume
he missed counting only 100 Agta who were then living in these three
1936 is 787 (his de facto count, which included a small number of Agta
infants, plus 100 Agta who were living in areas distant from Casiguran
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380
Casiguran Agta population may have been in 1936, since my main census,
I have a de facto count for June of '84 as well, which was 581, only 28
inflated if there were a high number of Agta visitors in the area from
lists by name most of the Agta he counted, and I have worked through
those names and found almost all of them tobe in my own genealogy
and whom none of my informants knew. These latter may have been
certainly some members of the Casiguran Agta 1936 de jure population who
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381
were not in the area then, and who Vanoverbergh thus did not include in
his count. We do not know how many people these may then have been,
hundred. But to stay on the conservative side, let us assume there were
no out-migrants in 1936.
Coming back to our question, then, what was the probable de jure
just about the same as the de facto count. That is, about 1,000
percent, from 1,000 persons to 609. This is the figure I will hold to
There is one factor here which makes this 40 percent figure look
suspicious. If there are 402 less people in the population now than
there were 48 years ago, this means there was a decline of 8.4 persons
per year, on the average. But in the last 7 year period the decline
averaged only 1.3 persons per year. What may account for this
influence has recently entered the Agta ecosystem which has slowed their
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382
death rate. (It may also be possible that any two, or all three, of
recent years from the third answer; that is, by a new factor now found
western medical help. This help includes the hospital in Baler, the
Casiguran, the medical program of my wife and I, and the medical program
of the missionaries of the New Tribes Mission, who began working with
the Agta in 1973. It is impossible for me to know how many Agta lives
my wife and I may have saved during our tenure there since 1962, but I
Casiguran and Baler, had saved an average of 7 Agta lives per year
during the 7 year period between the two censuses (a total of 49 lives),
that would have changed the annual population decline from an otherwise
8 persons per year to its actualtrue figure of 1.3 per year. That is,
if western medical help had not been available during the 7 years
following 1977, more Agta would have died during that time. Just how
many more is an open question. But it would only take a few more, just
7 deaths more per year above the actual average of 28 deaths per year
since 1977 (Table 12.4), to bring the death rate up to the estimated
g
total yearly average decline of 8.4 per year since 1936.
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383
percent over a 50 year period. But the decline was much less during
the last 7 years. I have presented here what I believe is the reason
for this recent slowing of the decline, namely, the availability today
of modern medicines.
over the last half century. It may have been only 30 percent, even
figure was, the evidence is solid that there was and is a decline, and
that this decline has been high. Even a decline of only 1.3 persons a
fully supported by the data— the Agta are in a maladaptive state today.
While the recent introduction of modern medicines has, at least for the
time being, apparently reduced the decline, it has not brought the Agta
made available to the Agta, and if the Agta find a way to adjust to the
many new ecological pressures being .put upon them, they may survive.
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384
Assuming, then, that the population has suffered this high rate of
decline over the last 50 years, the most obvious question to be raised
next is Why? There are only four possible answers to this question.
Either the decline was caused by a high death rate, a low birth rate,
The above discussion has pretty well eliminated three of these four
possible answers. The Agta birth rate is very high, not low, and the
correct answer, then, is obvious. The decline has been caused solely by
This brings us, then, to the next question, the question asked by
Weiss at the opening page of this chapter: What are all these people
dying of?
that the decline in population size between 1936 and 1984 may have been
population after 1936. We concluded there that there have been no major
epidemics since that year. But could there have been any other major
events which may have caused the deaths of a large number of Agta all at
once? The first thing which comes to mind here is WWII. Surely the
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385
that a significant number of Agta may have been killed during WWII.
Agta was killed by Japanese during the War. We can thus rule out that
times of severe hunger during the War which were severe enough to
affect mortality, but if such was the case Agta today do not remember
it.
but we know of only two Agta who were killed during separate typhoons
(both by falling trees). There have been Moro slave raids into
Casiguran,*-* but these occurred long before 1936. The guerrilla war in
Casiguran in 1974-75 has been the major event in the area since WWII,
of that conflict.
raids? Could there have been a large number of Agta deaths from some
parties must have been a chronic problem for Agta in the past. Their
hear them talk about it, one would assume it was once a frequent danger.
But when I have tried to get Agta to tell me about actual raids in
Casiguran, I was able to elicit cases of only four raids where Agta were
killed. Only one of these occurred in the heart of the Casiguran area.
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386
This was in 1950, and it resulted in the death of one man (individual
area. The first raid was at the mouth of the Dinapigui River, about
1938, in which about 20-25 Agta were reported killed, most of whom were
Table 12.14 (no. 2), since my informants could not remember the names
of the other victims. The other raid occurred at the mouth of the
Agta were killed in this raid, though I only list in Table 12.14 those
table).
The fourth raid occurred in an Agta camp on the west side of the
the Casiguran area. As near as I can fix the date, it was probably in
the late 1940s (though one of my Agta sources, who was not an eye
attackers were not Agta, but Ilokano lowlanders allegedly led by a man
named "Rafael,” alias "Paeng." This incident is known by some, but not
all, of the older Agta who live inthe southwest area of Casiguran.
Two of the four men who related the story to me (in three separate
interviews, on June 26, July 8, and October 23, 1978) were present in
the camp when it was attacked. Both were then teenagers, and they were
among the few who escaped. One of them, Bunaw, was badly wounded in
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387
place names. "About 30" Agta were killed, they said. The list of
those names were given by more than one informant. I don't know if 42
Agta were actually killed, but the fact that 9 of the names matched when
story. I am sure those 9, plus others, were killed, but it may have
As best I can place these names, however, only two of the victims
Table 12.14), whose father was a Madella Agta and whose mother was a
Casiguran Agta. My informants say the camp was composed of Madella Agta
one was a Madella Agta and the other, Bunaw, also grew up in Madella
The question we want to ask here is, What role did these 4 raids
first thing to note is that, with the exception of the lone victim in
the 1950 raid (Molina), not a single one of the victims of the raids
12
whose names I have are listed in Vanoverbergh's census. The terrible
raid in Madella probably did not affect the Agta population, since
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388
those victims were Madella Agta, not Casiguran Agta. (Only 2 of those
victims are listed in Table 12.14, nos. 43 and 44.) The 2 raids in
Casiguran Agta, but they do not contribute to the high rate of decline
since 1936, since Vanoverbergh did not include in his census the
I want to make the point, then, that the high Agta death rate since
the same event, except forthe two raids in 1938 and 1947. (And these
other two exceptions, both minor, were when two men drowned when their
dugout canoe turned over in 1963 (they were both drunk), andthe time
when four Agta infants died of the flu in January 1976, on the Panamin
Let us turn then and look at what the causes of all the deaths
were.
There are two sets of data we will look at here to answer this
causes of death of the 193 members of the population who died between
1977 and 1984. We will here call these people members of "Population
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389
whether the high death rate is the result of a high number of deaths by
cases of men who drowned, 2 separate incidents of drunk men who fell out
of coconut trees while attempting to fetch coconut wine, and 1 case each
sick man who fell from a cliff, woman who cut herself, boy who fell from
a tree, another boy who fell, small girl who died from overdose of worm
medicine, small child who fell from floor of house, man who accidentally
shot himself with a shotgun, and a man who died from eating a poisonous
shellfish.
Other minor unusual deaths shown in Table 12.13 were: one case of
suicide (a young man who drank some commercial insect poison when the
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390
girl he was to marry eloped with a lowlander man), 1 case of a man who
This seems high even for primitive populations. I suspect that the high
women are in weak health to begin with (from poor nutrition), or because
90 per 100,000 (WHO 1983:15), and the U.S. rate of 19 per 100,000 in
1971, or of 165 per 100,000 in 1935. (Howell does not give a !Kung rate
and Bahn 1974:195). The population loses two members at each maternal
death, since the fetus or infant usually does not survive, not to
mention the future offspring these women would have produced if they had
not died.
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391
drunk on the beach in the morning and lay all day in the direct
Beyond the high number of adults who die directly from overdrinking,
1983-84. And we will see in the next section below that alcohol also
saket 'disease'. But before we look at the role of disease in the high
Agta death rate we should look first at what is the most surprising and
homicides per 100,000 people per year). The 14 homicides on which this
14
calculation is based include only homicides of members of the de jure
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392
12.14). There were 6 other Agta homicide victims killed during the
period (nos. 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, and 52 in Table 12.14), but these are
not included in the rate calculation because they were not de jure
members, and only 1 of the 6 was killed inside the Casiguran area.
i.e., manslaughter, and these are marked with the word "yes" in column
11 of that table.)
The population with the highest homicide rate for which I have found
the Agta, but empirical data on this is unavailable for such groups
populations where the percent of adult male deaths from murder is higher
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393
than the Agta. These are the Yanomamo, the Dani, and the Waorani (see
Table 12.15).
homicides. With the lowlander immigrants now pouring into the Agta
should be noted here also that Agta kill lowlanders, too. I know of 24
arrival in '62.^
A second question concerns what role alcohol may play in all these
lowlanders or other Agta since 1962, the killer and/or the victim were
could probably sustain such rates (since only 15 percent of the victims
since 1962 were females) and remain stable if there were no other
factors causing a high number of deaths. But with the high number of
Agta deaths from disease, malnutrition and alcohol, the homicide rate
population instability.
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394
row of Table 12.13, the major cause of Agta deaths is disease, with 80
especially for "Population 2," I did not record the specific disease
diarrhea.^
causes of Agta deaths, which probably play even bigger roles in the
malnutrition and general poor health of the Agta which makes them so
Agta die directly from malaria, for example, most Agta suffer at times
from chronic malaria, thus weakening them even more and making them more
people on record.
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395
and only 88 percent of the Filipino standard weight of 50.9 kg for that
from column 4 of Table 12.16, the Agta are quite thin. In fact, they
are thinner than any human population for which I have data.
One salient way of showing just how thin the Agta are is to compare
their mean weight/height ratios with those of the young men used in the
Note that this ratio figure of these American men, after six months of
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396
thesis, the extreme thinness of the Agta, seen in conjunction with their
extremely high death rate, leads us to the conclusion that Agta body
environment, but is rather the result of poor nutrition and poor health.
In fact, several of the data sets presented in this chapter— the infant
etc.— lead us to conclude that there is little doubt but that the Agta
* * *
measured at minus 0.2 percent per year during the last 7 years, and
40 percent over the last 50 years. As we have seen, the decline has
been caused solely by a high death rate; neither low birth rates or out
the Casiguran Agta havebeen sustaining their present high death rate.
Have child mortality and maternal mortality rates always been this high?
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397
Have diseases always plagued them as they are at present? Has life
were yes, the Agta population would have died out long ago. While I am
to only one conclusion: The Agta have only recently— within this
century— been thrown badly out of balance by the many new acculturative
forces introduced into their ecosystem. That is what this thesis is all
about. I think the points Dunn made so well at the seminal hunter-
That is, before this century Agta malnutrition was rare, chronic disease
absent today. Unfortunately, the Agta today would fit easily into John
Progress."
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 12
398
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399
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400
after 1936 may account for the difference. Perhaps a large number of
Casiguran Agta out-migrated to the west side of the Sierra Madre after
1936 and are still over there somewhere. To check this hypothesis, I
made trips to Madella and to Jones (a municipal area in Isabela), as
well as to Palanan, to collect census data on the Agta in those areas.
I specifically went to see if I could find out-migrant Agta from
Casiguran in these areas. I found very few. Most of the Agta in these
three areas were born there, and their parents were born there. I
rejected that hypothesis.
12. Molina, the victim of the 1950 raid (victim no. 10 in Table
12.14), is probably the same Molina listed in Vanoverbergh 1936-37:145.
Vanoverbergh also lists 2 different women named Ugay in his census, but
neither of these are the Ugay murdered in the 1947 raid at Dibulo
(victim no. 6 in Table 12.14).
15. I should make clear here that there have doubtless been more
homicides than those I report here. I have records of other cases
reported to me which I do not include here because they fall into the
category of "rumors;" and there are almost surely a few other cases I
have never heard about.
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401
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CHAPTER X I I I
This chapter attempts to explain why the Casiguran Agta are not
wild game now so scarce in the Agta ecosystem, and with the heavy
cutting back of primary forest, the Agta can no longer make a living by
hunting, fishing and gathering. The question is— and this is one of the
two central questions of the present thesis— -why are they not changing
most outsiders. Why have the Agta not gone in this direction, even
402
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403
circumstances, and would result in failure." We will also test the two
explanations have merit, and some provide partial answers to the Agta
which has never been used to help explain why so many band-type
of the major reasons, if not the major reason, why the Agta, and many
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404
today are being kept in their marginal niches by their more powerful
page later,
There is a hint that the key factor in the process may well be
social stratification, with its accompanying process of
exclusion and suppression . . . the explanation . . .
involves the social exclusion of a relatively low-energy
society by a relatively high- energy one (ibid.:135 emphases
added).
reason the Agta are not successful farmers is because they are
because the lowlanders will not allow them access to one scarce
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405
partly to avoid coming into competition with other human groups much
Casiguran wherewe may seethe CEP come into play between Agta and
The first thing I want to make clear in this chapter is that the
regions. (See Table 13.1 for a list of groups which have the
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406
meat) and labor from the forager groups for starch foods from the
the plant food eaten by the forager groups is cultivated, not wild, and
most is secured by trade, not from their own fields. Fourth, the
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407
universally in their ecosystems which has led them all to evolve into
authors have used similar terms for particular foraging band groups they
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408
were), either the foragers would have modified their "culture type" from
Steward's ideas are heavily criticized today, and I would not want
to use his model to carry my explanation of Agta culture too far. But
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409
had the data to work with which we have today (such as those data cited
Murphy were on the right track when they wrote their classic paper on
this paper, however, was that Murphy and Steward failed to see the more
gatherers I listed above. The result would have been a more acceptable
principle, does indeed explain much, though of course not all, of this
modern foragers. There are foraging societies today which do not fit
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410
cases, let us look at some other reasons why hunters do not become
few of them have ever succeeded. It is beyond the scope of the present
few of those programs geared to Southeast Asian Negritos will give some
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411
Negritos (Hashim and Faulstich 1985) repeats exactly the same situation,
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412
unsuccessfully.
in Casiguran writes, "I made [the Agta] dig up a piece of land for them
to sow seed" (Santa Rosa, cited in Perez 1928:87). Throughout the 20th
century there have been repeated efforts to get the Casiguran Agta to
Appendix H.) At the time of this writing (December 1985), yet another
program has been instigated, this time by the newly appointed national
friends in Casiguran are that four carabaos have been loaned to the
Agta, and that several Agta families were moved onto the Reserve in
village square, and were set to work plowing fields for planting wet
2
rice.
We can be sure there is more than one reason for this. Let us look
why the Casiguran Agta, who up until WWII were the sole possessors of
2
700 km of rich forest teeming with fish and game, would be resistant
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413
educated elite who fail to see this. Many such people continue to be
perplexed as to why the Agta would prefer their traditional way of life
evolutionary level, lazy, etc., are not worth arguing about here. The
contradict this view. They are skilled at plant manipulation, and know
how to do both swidden and wet rice cultivation. I agree with Cohen
(1977:26). And I disagree with Fox, for example, who argues that one
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414
some good idealist reasons which help to explain why foraging groups
farmers.
food sharing customs found among all band foragers (about which I have
more to say below). Also, sedentary farming just does not fit the world
them for one way of life, hunting and gathering, which is seen as the
proper sort of life for humans to live" (Calhoun 1979:257; see also
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415
Such people not only live only with kinsmen, but they typically resolve
conflicts by moving away. When they are put into resettlement villages,
Here is another example of how the Agta value system hindered one
Agta names in this chapter are pseudonyms), the only man in our camp
who made a swidden that year, invited several Agta men to work forhim
clearing back the brush around some coconut seedlings he had planted
several months before in his 1982 swidden site. They together arranged
to do this work on the 17th, and Bukek paid them all in advance.
However, when the day came, not one of these men showed up. When Bukek
hiked to their nearby camp to get them, they all gave excuses as to why
they could not come. Two of the men later explained to me privately
that they did this on purpose, to put Bukek in his place for trying to
get ahead of them. As one man said to me, "Who does Bukek think heis,
block by other Agta to keep Bukek from getting ahead. These men
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416
The point here is, one reason Agta fail at agriculture is because
other Agta hinder any of their fellows who behave in a way they
model, that such behavior is common among all traditional peoples, and
Agta avoid agriculture, but it plays a partial role in what we see among
have preferred their way of life. Though they may not have lived quite
followed by all humans for many thousands of years without the need for
particular, may not have such an easy time of it as did their ancestors.
Still, there are some positivefactors which make them favor this
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417
1982:200- 202). Rai found, for example, that the Agta band he studied
hour of hunting than they they could by growing their food (Rai
1982:158). The bottom line is that, generally, foragers get more food
per hour of foraging labor than they could by farming. (For a review
mode of production provides more protein in the diet than does farming,
although this may no longer be the case among the Casiguran Agta.
Kirk Endicott (1979) points out another reason why foraging may be
also points out that nomadic forest life offers these peoples a degree
first.
their fear that their children will be forced to attend school, and that
not enough food rations were supplied when the government first put them
farming, they often establish them on poor quality land unsuitable for
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418
(Gomes 1982:37). There are at least three reasons for this: Foragers
they have low immunity (Turnbull 1963:37); their villages become fouled
moving, not by sweeping; and they soon deplete the surrounding area of
gatherers just do not have the capital necessary for moving into a
several months' supply of food to eat until the first harvest. It was
sad to listen to the Panamin agents complain about the Agta's laziness
Calabgan Reserve in 1975. The Agta told me repeatedly that they could
not cultivate the wet rice fields there because the carabaos promised by
the Panamin agents had not yet been given, or because they were too busy
looking for food to have time to plow a field which would not produce
food for another several months. Yet when the head agents made their
twice-yearly visit from Manila they were disgusted at the Agta for
letting their assigned plots lie idle, or for hiring lowlanders to till
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419
security and protection of their patrons. They are so busy working for
these patrons that they have little time for their own fields. For
example, on April 23, 1984, an Agta family left our camp to move upriver
for a few days to finishing clearing their new swidden site. On the
way, however, they met a group of lowlanders who needed a guide to take
them to the seacoast for a weekend fishing trip. They hired the only
adult male member of this family on the spot. The rest of the family
returned that afternoon to our camp, while the man served as the guide
for these lowlanders for three days. It turned out this Agta family
never burned their swidden that year. They just had too many
with surrounding food producers. The high commercial demand for forest
study such as this, we did not try to find out the emic reasons why the
say about the question posed in the title of this chapter? We cannot,
Agta, because they themselves, like humans everywhere, are not cognizant
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420
84. Here are some of their answers to my question, "Why didn't you make
"I am too busy collecting rattan [to bother with farming this
year]." [This was the single most frequent response.] "I
didn't have any rice seed." "I have to work for my ahibay
('lowlander patron') first to pay off my debt." "Where would
I make a swidden around here? All this land is claimed by
lowlanders." "I was going to make a swidden this year, but
when I started to clear my old swidden site the Bikolano
[immigrants] there told me to move away."
When I asked interviewees why they didn't cultivate a wet rice field on
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421
outside agencies often fail to ever ask the people themselves what
the Agta see this as any kind of a problem, though those that attempt
high value in Agta society, and one gains prestige by sharing. The
discussed by Fox 1953:248, Lee 1981, Meillasoux 1973, and Wiessner 1982;
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422
Lee also reports what happened when a few !Kung families planted one
year. When they harvested their crops, these crops "were rapidly
elsewhere, "The food brought into a !Kung camp is shared out immediately
with harvested grain would quickly put them out of business" (1981:16).
Some examples from Casiguran show the same food sharing custom
among the Agta. Let us look at the case of one family who lived next
year. On October 18 I hiked with the woman, Dokdoek, and her married
son, when they went to visit a distant relative, Kiyakin, whom they had
heard was then harvesting his swidden rice. Several weeks earlier,
give her some rice. Dokdoek and her son arrived while Kiyakin's family
and five other Agta were cutting rice in the swidden. They joined in
and harvested for one hour. When they said they were going to go,
Kiyakin handed them a sack and told them to take some rice home for his
Dokdoek said, "Oh, no, we'd be ashamed to take your rice. We have
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423
plenty at home.” But when Kiyakin insisted, the woman and her- son
stuffed the sack full of unthreshed rice, much more than they had
liters, and dried it came to 48.6 liters. This was worth 57 pesos, the
grown sons were given some more rice by another relative of her
This last week has been the height of the [swidden rice]
harvest season, and those Agta who did not make rice swiddens
this year are going around this week requesting rice from
those who did, and are helping them harvest. Yesterday, for
example, I went with Dokdoek and her two adult sons to
Dimagipo, where she said she was going to get their share of
rice from [her husband's brother's son-in-law, Deloy]. They
came home carrying 27.4 gantas of [rough] rice [which measured
24 gantas, or 72 L after drying, worth96 pesos, the
equivalent of ten day's wages for laborers].
Dinipan, where she was given 62 L of rough rice by four different Agta
families there who were just harvesting. This would be worth 83 pesos,
between Dokdoek and a woman named Dedek, who gave her (Dokdoek) 3.6 L
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424
In all, this woman alone was given rice by six different Agta
time, just in time to help harvest, and eat, the rice. Citing from my
Erning and his married son, Teming, have been growing rice in
both of their swiddens at Ages. Throughout the rice growing
season, just these two families lived at this camp. But when
the harvest began, several Agta moved right in with them.
This last week, in fact, there have been eight families
staying with them, where they are being very well fed!
Agta share their field produce all year around, not just at harvest
time. I have noted for years that when Agta pass through the swiddens
whatever is growing in other Agta swiddens when the owners are not
there, and without asking permission. This includes major starch foods
such as cassava and sweet potato. (At the same time, Agta seem to never
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425
from his own society. Interestingly enough, there is one Agta family
which has done this. This is the family of the old widower, Timpladen.
his wife, Akobina (who died in 1978) over the years. They have lived
for many years, with their six children, at Amuhawen, Casiguran, very
far from any other Agta. They own a carabao, wet rice land, a small
producing coconut grove, and they were the cultivators of the second
largest wet rice field (field no. 2) in 1983. There are a number of
indications showing how this family has divorced itself completely from
house, clothing and general customs are that of lowlanders, they donot
cut their hair in the Agta style or have any of thebody decorations of
Agta (ear plugs, filed teeth, etc.) and, especially significant, theydo
not speak Agta in their home. Timpladen can speak Agta, but none of
his sons refuse to court or show interest in Agta girls, hoping to marry
lowlanders someday (The ages of the four sons of Timpladen— all still
farmer. But this family, for some reason, choose to go this route.
None of the four adult sons, all strong and good looking, but with the
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426
illustrate the extent to which Agta, and probably all band foragers,
would need to change their culture before they could become successful
peasant agriculturalists.
How does this CEP work out in actual behavior? Hardin, the
bioecologist who first coined the term, says, "Roughly [like] this:"
not have in mind how the CEP might manifest itself when two neighboring
but distinct human societies evolve right next to each other. This
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427
section shows how I see this biological principle being played out
and will, one way or another, try to block any attempts of foragers to
case analogous to the CEP, where strong groups push weak ones off their
land. (For a most recent example, see the Fall '84 issue of Cultural
agriculture "they have not been able to successfully compete for access
reported that
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428
100 people, who live by growing rice, rubber tapping, and gathering
forest products for sale. Gomes provides an example of what I call the
inCamarines Sur inhibited Agta there from clearing land for themselves
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429
There are a number of instances of the CEP coming into play when
lowland peoples interfered with Agta farming. Even as far back as the
American officer, Wilfrid Turnbull, who was then trying to make the Agta
opposition on the part of a few Kasiguran people to this work with the
wild [Agta] people— some fearing a lack of labor, others a loss of trade
This was correct, but it was not the only reasons the lowlanders
were against Turnbull's project. The townspeople were also against the
land the Agta were being given. Exactly ten years after the project
titled Resolution No. 71 and dated July 14, 1923 objecting to the land
given to the Agta because, the Resolution says, it gave "them greater
added).
century. I have searched for years for the written reports of these
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430
however, find the records of the last appointed agent for the
records, for just this four year period alone, which are examples of
CEP behavior between Agta and agriculturalists. One wonders how many
more examples I might have found, if I had had access to all the CNI
case, the cases we have for just the years 1960 to 1963 are quite
ecosystem comes when we look at the history of swidden making over the
last 50 years in one particular area, the Koso rivershed (see Map 5).
This area, the traditional band area of one of the main Agta groups,
ranges from the SSE edge of Area 6 (in Map 2) into most of Area 5. As
the history of all the field sites on this river which my informants
knew about. Since I myself lived with the Agta on this river for many
informants and I knew of, several of which had been swiddened more than
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431
with Agta labor, and 13 of the sites were made exclusively by Agta.
Koso rivershed, clearing swiddens on this Agta land (with seldom any
objection from the Agta), and taking over, one way or another, all but
one of the 13 field sites cleared by Agta. (The one exception is Field
No. XXIX). Five of the 13 field sites were usurped by force from the
Agta, in 3 cases the Agta owners sold their site to lowlanders, and in 5
of the cases lowlanders just moved in and took over the land after the
for details.) The point here is that what we see occurring in this
the Agta are reluctant to move into major farming. These are just a
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432
Case No. 3_: On Sunday I was able to ask Nati why she and
Hayme made their swidden so far upriver. She gave virtually
the same answer as had Nateng, the lowlanders all claim the
forest spots along the seashore. (From my field notes dated
6/26/83.) [Old man Binong [Agta] also told me in an
interview on 9/27/83 that the reason the Agta at Gumanineng
make their swiddens so far upriver is because the lowlanders
claim all the land nearby.]
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433
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434
The next weekday, January 30, the 8 Agta who were still
patiently waiting (6 had already returned home), and I, went
to town, got their Certificates, and were able to get their
Constitution notarized. Today the Agta Pundasyon ng
Casiguran ('Agta Foundation of Casiguran') is a formal
corporation, incorporated by the Securities and Exchange
Commission in Manila on February 22, 1984, and by the Bureau
of Rural Workers, on January 23, 1985. Several Agta families
have since applied for "individual forest leases" (which are
supposed to include an area of 7 ha per family). According
to the President of the Pundasyon, 42 families have applied
as of November 1985 . It will be interesting^to see when and
if these leases are ever granted to the Agta.
All these cases in Casiguran illustrate what goes on all over the
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435
who typically fight losing battles over their land, merely back off when
adaptive device which has evolved among many foraging groups, and
certainly among the Agta. That is, instead of trying to compete with
hunting and gathering." This not only allows them to avoid what would
In short (in systems theory models), the forager group serves a vital
more smoothly through the food chain to both their own stomachs and
those of the agriculturalists. As the CEP shows, the two groups can
niches.
for centuries been the terror of the plains— defeating, driving off,
even annihilating any group that got in their way," allowed the Okiek
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436
them? His answer is that the Okiek do not hold things the Maasai covet.
That is, the two groups are not competing for the same resources.
Further, the two groups are mutually dependent on each other, each
trading goods to the other they could not otherwise have. In other
words, mutualistic symbiosis. Some ask, why don't the Okiek keep
other words, the CEP would immediately come into play and, if continued,
the Okiek "are wisely passive and slip back into the shadows of the
This is, of course, just how Agta behave. They avoid the
enter that niche would throw them immediately into competition with
their powerful neighbors. No one knows better than the Agta who will
lose in such competition. Thus, when lowlanders move in on. their tiny
This does not mean some Agta would not take up agriculture if given
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437
someone they know and trust would seriously lobby for them, as Tomas
Casala did for four years in the early '60s. But since they seldom have
this chance, and since even Casala's efforts ended in failure (not to
and move elsewhere when some outsider challenges them over a piece of
arable land.
* * *
help Negritos break free from the patron/client ties they have with
not against such efforts, provided the change agent works in full
program would likely throw the Negrito society into direct competition
with their much more powerful neighbors, the lowland farmers, over
important forest products for the farmers at low cost (e.g., meat,
rattan, laborers, etc.). At the same time, the Negritos do not compete
with the farmers for that one resource the farmers consider so precious,
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438
on top of this they were to try utilizing the prime resource in thearea
(viz. land), the two groups would quickly become enemies. It is not
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ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 13
3. The Agta President and I spent two days going from office to
office at the Bureau of Forest Development building in Manila in
November '85. The director of the BFD for Region IV told us not to
worry, the lease applications were in process now, and would eventually
be granted. I will believe it when I see it. I have received a great
deal of assistance in this project from PAFID (Philippine Association
for Intercultural Development), a private lobby group in Manila working
for the rights of Tribal Filipinos. It would have been impossible for
me to have cut through the red tape without their help.
439
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CHAPTER XIV
the future for the Agta. Most of the data presented in this thesis
leads to the same conclusion: the Agta are in a bad way. The
While it is risky to predict what the future may hold for this
area at an ever faster tempo, the important protein foods of the Agta
will be practically extinct, the Agta death rate will remain high, and
steps to protect the Agta, the usurpation of Agta land and the abuse of
Agta human rights will be worse in the next decade than it was in the
last. It is highly unlikely that, without such protection, the Agta will
ever move into successful independent farming. Rather, and this seems
440
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441
however, may decrease as the most important forest products, meat, fish,
lowlander men.
It will probably take more than a decade but, if the present trend
continues, within the next several years the Agta will reach a point of
language will be a thing of the past. I am not talking here just about
culture change (which I am not against), but rather the actual decay of
The present thesis is not meant to be the final word on the Agta,
and gatherers, how they live, why they live as they do, and what
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442
accounts for their persistence. The present thesis deals with those
nomadic foraging niche. Why and how they are doing this is probably the
wealth of data presented here which can be used for future cross-
allocation study, Agta demographic data, and data on Agta swiddens. The
we have such data, except for the excellent work of Howell (1979) on the
statistics on the two groups are not thesame.) The Agtaswidden data,
on the other hand, is quite startling— though perhaps not too surprising
since the Agta are, after all, foragers and not farmers— because many of
their swidden statistics are anomalous when we compare them with similar
variables for other swidden societies for which data are available.
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443
applied here a new concept, an ecological principle which has not been
used before for explaining a major reason, perhaps the major reason,
more powerful food producing populations simply will not allow a small,
weak population in their same habitat to compete with them for the same
economic niche.
groups like the Agta know better than to abandon a lifestyle which
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444
order to attempt a new way of life which will change that symbiotic
such plans must include long-time fully guaranteed land security for
ethnocentrically imposed plans are by now, for me, a rather sick joke.
I have observed many of these over the last 20 years, and I think I know
given to reconstructing the history of the Agta. This was not done just
in mind, one of my first goals was to dispel the naive and grossly
what I call the Model One myth in Chapter 6. This view, when carried
Cooper (1941), for one, implies for Negritos). Reports on Negritos, for
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445
print today, the opinion continues as strong as ever. While few if any
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446
believe in the myth these two men introduced (or at. least codified)—
anthropologists).
the reasons such ethnocentric views are are still so strongly held in
the 1980s about' tribal peoples. The fact is, this "isolationist" Model
written separate volumes where they attempt to explain why the mythof
needs of people are met by the symbol of the wild man" (Pandian
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447
dominant and dominated societies. What I call a Model One myth he sees
of the world" (1983:85). Dove asks why this myth persists when the
(ibid.:96).
particular perpetuate the Model One myth: The high value that they
obvious that it is the view held by .many agents of change who have
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448
and dismayed over the years as I have watched program after program
all of these have failed, partly because the agents failed to understand
the Agta are as fully modern as any 20th century human group, that they
have been involved in cultivation for many hundreds of years, and that
they are "backward" at all, but because they are kept there by the
nomadic peoples may be reduced to two— always the same two— to settle
them and to get them to take up farming. These are goals which are
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TABLE 0.1 A CONVERSION TABLE OF METRIC, U.S. AND PHILIPPINE
UNITS OF MEASURE
AREA
Hectare (ha) = 10,00^ sq m = 2.47 acres
Square kilometer (km ) = 100 ha = 0.39 sq miles
Acre = 43,560 sq ft = 4047 sq m = 0.405 ha
LENGTH
Centimeter (cm) = 0.39 inches
Meter (m) = 39.37 inches
Kilometer (km) = 0.62 miles
Inch = 2.54 cm
Foot = 30.48 cm
WEIGHT
Kilogram (kg) = 2.2046 lb
Ton (metric) = 1,000 kg = 2,2046 lb
Pound (lb) = 0.373 kg
VOLUME
Liter = 1.06 quarts = 0.33 ganta
449
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TABLE 1.1 POPULATION FIGURES FOR CASIGURAN AREA FOR VARIOUS YEARS*
*These figures are for the total Casiguran area, including the
municipalities of Dilasag, Dinalongan, and Dinapigui,Isabela.
**This 1850 date is approximate, as Huerta does not give the year
for which his population figure refers.
450
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TABLE 4.1 CRITICAL CLIMATE VARIABLES AT CASIGURAN
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
annual
Casig. 26.0 3447.8 212 87
Luzon 26.8 2724.4 168 80
Philip. 27.0 2533.4 180 82
EXPLANATIONS OF COLUMNS:
451
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TABLE 4.2 RAINFALL DATA IN CASIGURAN IN 1983-1984
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TABLE 4.3 TYPHOONS WHICH PASSED THROUGH CASIGURAN LATITUDE-LONGITUDE
SQUARE IN THE THIRTY/YEAR PERIOD 1948 TO 1978
453
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TABLE 4.4 LAND TYPES IN THE CASIGURAN ECOSYSTEM
Column 1 gives the names of the 12 land types, including the five forest
types. Column 2 gives the approximate area in hectares of each land type
in 1983. Column 3 gives the percentages of each land type in the total
area. The figures followed by a plus symbol in column 2 mean those
figures are rough approximations. These 12 land types are defined in
Chapter 4.
454
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TABLE 4.5 TYPES OF TERRAIN WHERE AGTA CAMPS WERE LOCATED IN 1983-84
\----- --------------
\general land types: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
\ (macro) pri sec bea rep grs cul TOTALS
\ for for for brs land tiv
\\________________
-- ------
micro\
land \
types \
shaded forest 5 1 4 10
riverbed 3 3 2 8
new swidden 2 1 2 5
last year's swidden 2 2 1 5
open beach 9 9
grass area 1 1 1 4 7
repro. brush area 1 3 1 5
mature coconut grove 7 7
TOTALS 12 7 15 9 1 12 56
Columns numbered 1-6 represent six of the 9 general (macro) land types
found in Casiguran (as described in Chapter 4). These are primary
forest, secondary forest, beach forest, reproduction brush, grassland,
and cultivated areas.
The 8 rows represent micro terrain types which may be found within any
of the macro land types.
455
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TABLE 4.6 MAIN STARCH FOOD EATEN AT AGTA MEALS*
456
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TABLE 4.7 MAIN SIDE DISH FOODS EATEN AT AGTA MEALS*
(1 ) (2 )
AQUATIC RESOURCES
fish 171 37.2%
river shrimp 31 6.7%
snails 22 4.8%
octopus 10 2.2%
crabs 5 1.1%
bivalve shells 7 .7%
WILD MEAT
pig 16 3.5%
chicken 3 .7%
monkey 2 .4%
deer 0 .0%
sub-totals 21 4.6%
sub-totals 56 12.2%
sub-totals 41 8.9%
NO SIDE DISH
salt only 58 12.6%
coffee 4 .9%
sugar 6 1.3%
rice only 32 7.0%
T O T A L S 460 100.0%
Column 1: Number of meals at which the item in the row was the main
side dish.
Column 2: Percentage of times this item was the main side dish out
of total sample of 460 meals.
457
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TABLE 4.8 NUMBER OF MEALS RECORDED FOR EACH MONTH, AND PERCENT
OF THOSE IN WHICH RICE WAS THE MAIN STARCH FOOD
Column 1:
date.
Column 2:
number of meals recorded.
Column 3:
number of meals in which rice was main food,
Colum.. 4:
percent of meals which had rice (column 3 divided by
column 2).
Column 5: numbers of the band areas from which data was taken
(e.g. meals data were collected in March from band areas
numbered 1, 3, 4, and 5 on Map 2).
458
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TABLE 4.9 NUMBER OF MEALS RECORDED FOR EACH BAND AREA, SHOWING NUMBER
AND PERCENT OF THOSE WHICH HAD RICE AS THE MAIN FOOD*
459
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TABLE 5.1 AVERAGE MEASUREMENTS OF AGTA HOUSES
Example: The bottom box of Colimn 1 reads that for Agta houses of
all types, the mean floor area is 3.9 square meters, with
a standard deviation of 2.2 square meters. The range
spreads from the smallest house which was 1.2 square
meters to the largest which was 13.3 square meters. The
data in this box is based on a sample of 129 houses measured.
460
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TABLE 5.2 PERCENTAGE OF NIGHTS VISITORS SLEPT IN AGTA CAMPS
*No lowlander female adults slept in the camps on nights data were
collected.
**The denominators in this table are the number of nights data were
collected; the numerators are the number of those nights in which
visitors slept in the camp who were not blood relatives to anyone in the
house in which they slept.
461
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TABLE 8.1 AGTA LIVING IN LOWLAND COMMUNITIES AS HOUSE SERVANTS
IN JUNE 1984
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
name census sex age civ time location no . parents
no. '84 sta gone in 6/84 living
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TABLE 9.1
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS
Column 7: N o te s .
463
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TABLE 9.1 MONTHLY MEAN AGTA INCOME IN 1983-84
(From Daily Wage Labor and Rattan Collecting, Measured in Pesos,
U.S. Dollars, and Rice Equivalents)
1 2 ' 3 4 5 6 7
p r ic e r ic e d a i l y wage p r ic e fo r e a r n in g o f r a t .
d a te per g a n ta f o r la b o r e r s 100 p o le s p o ls g a t h e r e r s / d ay
(a ) (b ) (a ) (b ) (c ) (a ) (b ) day (a ) (b ) (c )
P . $ P $ g P $ P $ g
464
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TABLE 9.2 PERCENT OF RISE-DECLINE IN COST OF RICE, DAILY INCOME
FROM WAGE LABOR, AND DAILY INCOME FROM RATTAN COLLECTING
IN CASIGURAN, 11 MONTHS AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF POLITICAL
OPPOSITION LEADER BENIGNO AQUINO OIN MANILA ON AUGUST 21, 1983
% change in +108% + 9% NA
cost of rice P6.50 to P13.50 $0.68 to $0.74
* "1.5g to l.lg" means that the average Agta could buy, before the
economic effects of the Aquino assassination reached Casiguran, 1.5
gantas of milled rice with his day's wages (enough to feed a family of 4
for 1.5 days). But 11 months after the assassination the amount of rice
he could buy with his day's wages declined 27 percent to only 1.1
gantas.
465
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TABLE 9.3 YEARLY PHILIPPINE EXPORT OF COCONUT PRODUCTS, 1977 TO 1983
AND YEARLY MARKET PRICE FOR COPRA IN CASIGURAN, 1977 TO 1984
Column 3: This column shows the real buying power of one kg of copra
during the various periods, in equivalents of gantas of milled rice.
The first figure in Column 3, for example, 1.20 g, means the market
price of one kg of copra in 1977 would buy 1.2 g (=gantas) of milled
rice (equal to 3.6 liters), enough to feed a family of 4 for one day.
466
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TABLE 9.4 FIGURES ON EXPORT OF RATTAN FROM THE PHILIPPINES
FROM 1970 TO 1982
1 2 3
column 1: year
column 2: annual amount of rattan poles and split rattan exported
(in net kilograms),
column 3: annual amount of rattan furniture exported (in pieces,
including 'chairs,' 'seats,' 'furniture')
* The reason for the decline of raw rattan at the end of the 1970s,
as shown in Column 2, is because the government restricted its export at
that time, and to the present. This rule is called Ministry of Natural
Resources Administrative Order No. 5, titled "Regulations Governing
Rattan Resource" (Generalao 1981). This order outlawed the export of
unworked (raw) or semiworked rattan from the country.
467
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TABLE 10.1 BREAKDOWN OF 3283 PWDs INTO 11 MAIN ACTIVITY CATEGORIES
(for all areas for total 18 month period, by no. and %)
468
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TABLE 10.2
Each page of the table shows the breakdown for one of the eleven
general PWD activities shown in Table 10.1, except for the three bottom
activities in that table which are of less importance. (Those three
excluded activities are "equipment/house making," "gathering forest
products,", and "other."
There are thus 8 sections in this table, with one section displayed
on each page of the table. Each section measures the number and
percentage of the general activity of that section against 37
independent variables. These variables compare potential differences
between PWDs for various age cohorts, band areas, for individuals who
cultivated fields in 1983 versus those who did not, rainy versus non-
rainy days, married versus never married people, and weekday versus
Sunday activities.
Looking at the first section of the table, for example, one may
check any of various hypotheses he may have (Do old people work less
than young people? Do Agta in Band Area X work more than those in other
band areas? Do Agta work less on Sundays, or on rainy days? etc.)
469
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TABLE 10.2 BREAKDOWN OF 3,283 PWDs BY 37 DIFFERENT VARIABLES
(by sex, number, and percent of 8 general PWD categories)
(continued)
470
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TABLE 10.2 (cont.)
(continued)
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TABLE 1 0 .2 Ccont.)
(continued)
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TABLE 10.2 (cont.)
(continued)
473
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TABLE 10.2 (cont.)
(continued)
474
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TABLE 10.2 (cont.)
(continued)
475
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TABLE 10.2 (cont.)
(cont inued)
476
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TABLE 10.2 (cont.)
477
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TABLE 10.3 BREAKDOWN OF AMOUNTS AND PERCENTAGES OF PWDs GIVEN TO
HUNTING ACTIVITY (based on a sample of the 52 adult
males from whom 15+ PWDs were collected in 1983-84)
30 men 0%
9 men 4% to 6%
4 men 7% to 10%
3 men 11% to 13%
1 man 17%
3 men 27% to 29%
1 man 33%
1 man 54%
52 men total
478
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TABLE 10.4 NUMBER OF PWDs GATHERED EACH MONTH/FROM THE TEN BAND AREAS
band 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 tota!
month
JAN 83 1 8 0 46 6 7 2 0 34 2 106
FEB 83 52 52 14 51 13 23 16 1 28 36 286
MAR S3 28 24 0 6 17 15 11 36 45 8 190
JUN 83 0 6 12 40 24 15 2 16 3 0 118
JUL 83 1 2 0 35 21 7 7 16 19 0 108
AUG 83 79 20 9 35 7 12 5 0 45 0 212
SEP 83 59 25 8 32 16 17 2 13 37 0 209
OCT 83 26 17 32 28 34 16 6 0 35 20 214
NOV 83 94 45 27 41 26 29 6 53 42 22 385
DEC 83 8 31 47 42 32 28 0 20 26 32 266
JAN 84 78 24 40 44 26 29 26 16 63 24 370
APR 84 63 60 14 33 64 17 36 65 16 54 422
MAY 84 36 32 22 29 96 8 45 38 4 87 397
totals 525 346 225 462 382 223 164 274 397 285 3283
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TABLE 1 0 .5
11.We recorded the hunting tool used (bow or gun) for only 176 of
the 198 hunting trips. Also, for only 175 of the 198 trips do we know
the outcome, whether successful or not. The percentage calculations in
the Table are based on those data where these variables are known, not
on the total sample. The actual sample sizes used for calculations are
shown in each cell of the table.
480
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TABLE 10.5 HUNTING SUCCESS RATES (males only)
7. no. pig 28 14 14 13 4
no. deer 1 1 0 0 0
no. monk 8 5 3 1 2
481
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TABLE 10.6 HUNTING SUCCESS RATES OF ELEVEN MEN FOR WHOM 4+ HUNTS
WERE RECORDED IN 1983-84 WHERE OUTCOME IS KNOWN
482
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TABLE 10.7 NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF 168 AGTA MEN INVOLVED IN
VARIOUS TYPES OF AGRICULTURE IN 1983
Explanation of columns:
Column 1: No. of men in each sub-category.
Column 2: Totals
Column 3: Percentages.
Notes:
1. These 40 men cultivated a total of 48 fields in 1983.
Maps of these 48 fields are displayed in Appendix E.
2. The 27 "out-migrants" refer to men who were absent from the area
for part or all of 1983, or who lived in the homes oflowlanders
in the area, or who died during the first half of that year.
483
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TABLE 10.8 BREAKDOWN OF AMOUNTS AND PERCENTAGES OF PWDs GIVEN TO
AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES (based on a sample of the 94
adults from whom 15+ PWDs were collected in 1983-84)
44 adults 0%
10 adults 1% to 5%
15 adults 6% to 10%
10 adults 11% to 15%
9 adults 16% to 20%
3 adults 21% to 25%
1 adult 26% to 30%
1 adult 31% to 35%
1 adult 36%
Notes:
1. The range of PWDs collected on these 94 adults was
15 to 26.
484
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TABLE 10.9 AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT BY AGTA IN SWIDDEN WORK
(for 13 months during 1983-84)
1. Column(1): Date.
2. Column(2): Number of recorded days (PWDs) Agta spent in
swidden work (excluding swidden labor for lowlanders) each
month.
3. Column (3): Total number of PWDs recorded each month.
4. Column (4): Percentage of PWDsspent each month in swidden
work (column 2 divided by column 3).
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TABLE 1 1 .1
Notes:
486
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TABLE 11.1 DATA ON 43 AGTA SWIDDENS, SHOWING FIELD
SIZES AND CROP YIELDS
SW 25 424 52 52 ? 9 9 9 ?
SW 26 2048 1703 1659 12.0 135.9 72.6 0.8 1:11
SW 27 2841 2694 2634 12.0 146.2 45.7 0.6 1:12
SW 28 1260 1260 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 29 476 144 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 30 4030 4030 4030 9 9 9 9 9
SW 32 570 174 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 33 1259 936 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 34 480 480 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 35 2154 1639 1509 9 9 9 9 9
(continued)
487
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TABLE 11.1 (coat.)
N 43 42 32 24 15 24 15 15
488
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TABLE 11.2 PERCENTAGE OF BURNED AREAS LEFT UNCROPPED, OF 43 SWIDDENS
(continued)
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TABLE 11.2 (cont.)
N 43 42 42 42
Explanation of columns:
490
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TABLE 11.3
Column 2: Tells biotope type where swidden was made. (The code symbols
for this column, and for Column 5, are as follows: BR=brushland; CG=
mature coconut grove; GR=grassland; NS=new 1983 swidden; OS=old 1982
swidden; PF=primary forest; SF=secondary forest.) (Example: Swidden 1
was cut from primary forest.)
491
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TABLE 1 1 .3 ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES OF THE 4 3 AGTA SWIDDENS MADE IN 1983
492
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TABLE 11.4 LIST OF 43 SWIDDENS, SHOWING NUMBER OF CULTIGENS PLANTED
IN EACH FROM EARLY 1983 UP TO MAY 1984
1 no —
1 0 0 0 1
2 no — 1 0 0 0 1
3 no — 1 0 0 0 1
4 no — 3 0 0 0 3
5 yes none 2 0 6 0 8
6 yes 60% 1 4 0 0 5
7 yes 50% 4 8 0 0 12
8 yes all 6 12 0 5 23
9 yes 40% 1 6 1 1 9
10 yes all 4 10 0 0 14
11 yes none 4 6 3 4 17
12 yes 8% 20 1 6 0 27
13 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
14 yes 15% 3 3 0 5 11
15 yes none 5 0 2 0 7
16 no — 3 0 2 0 5
17 yes none 1 0 3 0 4
18 yes none 6 1 2 1 10
19 yes none 3 2 1 2 8
20 yes none 3 0 3 2 8
21 yes none 1 1 0 0 2
22 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
23 yes none 2 0 0 0 2
24 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
25 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
26 yes none 3 0 3 0 6
27 yes none 2 0 1 0 3
28 no — 3 0 2 0 5
29 no — 2 0 4 0 6
30 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
31 yes none 1 0 2 0 3
32 no — 4 0 4 0 8
33 no — 2 0 1 0 3
34 no — 4 0 0 0 4
35 yes 30% 3 10 0 7 20
36 yes 25% 2 13 0 3 18
37 yes none 9 0 3 0 12
38 no — NA* NA* NA* NA* NA*
39 no 5 0 3 0 8
(continued)
493
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TABLE 11.4 (cont.)
40 yes 9% 2 3 2 0 7
41 yes none 2 3 0 0 5
42 yes all 4 2 6 1 13
43 yes none 4 2 0 4 10
N = 42 42 42 42 42
median =
2 0 0 0 6
mode = 1 0 0 0 1
Explanation of columns:
494
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TABLE 11.5
495
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TABLE 11.5 47 CULTIGENS FOUND GROWING IN THE 43 AGTA
SWIDDENS IN 1983-84
(continued)
496
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TABLE 11.5 (cont.)
497
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TABLE 11.6 DATA ON FIVE AGTA WET RICE FIELDS, SHOWING
FIELD SIZES AND CROP YIELDS
N 5 5 5
(For explanation of columns see the facing page for Table 11.1.)
498
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TABLE 11.7 ESTIMATED TOTAL AMOUNT OF RICE PRODUCED BY AGTA IN 1983:*
499
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TABLE 11.8 ESTIMATED NO. OF DAYS RICE PRODUCED BY CASIGURAN AGTA
IN 1983 WOULD FEED THE POPULATION
** When Agta have enough rice they typically measure out and cook
one letsean (a milk can used as a standard unit of measure throughout
Casiguran, which holds 33 L, or 256 g of husked rice) for each adult
present, regardless of sex, for 3 meals a day. Children (ages 0-14) are
calculated here as averaging half the rice consumption rate of adults.
Thus the 127 adults who were members of the 34 work groups would
together eat a total of 33 kg of clean rice per meal, or 98 kg per day,
and the 97 children in the same work groups would together consume 12 kg
per meal, or 37 kg per day. This totals 135 kg of rice consumption per
day. The total rice harvest of 5824 kg of clean rice, divided by 135
kg, equals 43 days.
*** Using the same calculations as the above, the 398 adults in the
total population would eat 306 kg of rice per day, and the 211 children
would eat 81 kg per day. This totals 387 kg per day. Dividing the
total rice harvest of 5824 kg by 387 kg, equals 15 days.
500
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TABLE 11.9 A COMPARISON OF AGTA SWIDDEN DATA WITH OTHER GROUPS
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
501
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TABLE 11.9 (cont.)
(continued)
502
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TABLE 11.9 Ccont.)
(continued)
503
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TABLE 11.9 (cont.)
504
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TABLE 11.10 SUMMARY OF DATA ON CASIGURAN AGTA AGRICULTURE IN 1983*
total area of the 43 swiddens [see Table 11.1]:* 76807 m2 (7.7 ha)
total cropped area [11.1]: 59508 m2 (6.0 ha)
total swidden area in rice [11.1]: 51579 m2 (5.2 ha)
total burned area never cropped [11.2]: 13519 m2 (1.4 ha)
% of burned area never cropped [11.2 footnote]: 18% (1.4/7.7)
(continued)
505
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TABLE 11.10 (cont.)
total adult members (age 15+) of agri. work groups [11.11]: 127
total children in agri. work groups [11.11]: 97
total members of agri. work groups [11.11]: 224
of Agta men who cultivated own fields in 1983 [10.7]: 24% (40/168)
mean swidden size (cropped area only) [11.1]: 1417 m2 (0.14 ha)
mean size of wet fields(cropped area only) [11.6]: 5258 m2 (0.53 ha)
mean rough rice yield/ha of 32 Agta swiddens (N=17) [11.1]: 0.9 t/ha
mean rough rice yield/ha of 5 Agta wet fields (N=l) [11.6]: 1.7 t/ha
♦Numbers in brackets refer to table no. from which data were taken.
506
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TABLE 11.11
The totals at the bottom of the table show that 48 fields were
cultivated in 1983, that the sum total number of Agta who were members
of these 34 work groups was 224, that the sum total of all land cropped
by Agta that year was 73,352 square meters (or 7.3 ha), and that the sum
total of land planted in rice by Agta in the same year was 65,423 square
meters (or 6.5 ha).
507
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TABLE 11.11 DATA SHOWING PER CAPITA NO. OF SQUARE METERS OF CROPPED
LAND IN 1983, AND TOTAL LAND CULTIVATED BY ALL AGTA IN 1983
(of the 34 Agta agricultural work groups that year)
508
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TABLE 12.1 A COMPARISON OF AGTA VITAL STATISTICS WITH OTHER POPULATIONS
EXPLANATIONS OF COLUMNS:
2. CBR = crude birth rate; annual number of births per 1,000 popu.
3. CDR = crude death rate; annual number of deaths per 1,000 popu.
4. Yearly rate of natural increase (%).
5. IMR =infant mortality rate; number of deaths to infants under
one year of age per 1,000 live births per year.
6. percent of children who die before reaching age 15. These
figures for the small tribal groups are deflated because many of
the children still alive will die before reaching age 15.
7. TFR = total fertility rate; average no. of live births born to
women who live to age 45.
8. Life expectancy at birth (in years).
9. Percent of population under age 15 and over age 64 (i.e. in the
"dependent" ages).
SOURCES OF DATA:
Data on populations of the world in general, United States,
Afghanistan, and the Philippines are from WPDS 1983; the CDR on the
Philippines in the 19th century is the average of the 39 figures in
Table IV of Smith 1978; Semai data (a swidden group in Malaysia) are
from Fix 1977:45, 48, 52, 55-57, 69, 79, 81; Yanomama data are from Neel
and Weiss 1975; IKung data are from Howell 1979:45, 81, 87, 89, 95, 103,
114-15, 120, 123, and from Howell 1976:141; data on Casiguran lowland
population infant death rates are for the years 1977-81, and came from a
posted chart in the town's Health Center building; Palanan Agta data are
from Headland field notes (the Palanan data in columns 6 and 7 are based
on interviews with 15 Palanan women age 45+ in 1979, and the data in
column 5 is based on interviews with 32 Palanan women during the same
509
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month); Eastern Cagayan Agta data are from Goodman et al. 1985 and from
Table 19 of Griffin et al. n.d. Sources of the Casiguran Agta data are
given below.
GENERAL NOTES:
Statistics on Afghanistan are compared here because it is the
nation with the highest figures, worldwide. Crude statistical rates of
small tribal populations over short periods of time must not be taken as
reliable indicators of the overall long-term population dynamics of such
groups, since random differences from the underlying true rates from
year to year, and even decade to decade, may be quite large. The !Kung
CDR of 16 is from Howell 1976:141; but see Howell 1979:103-04 for her
later doubts about the accuracy of this figure.
510
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TABLE 12.2 MEAN AND MEDIAN AGES OF THE POPULATION IN 1977 AND 1984
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TABLE 12.3 LIST OF THE 184 MEMBERS OF THE DE JURE POPULATION BORN
ALIVE BETWEEN JUNE 16, 1977 AND JUNE 15, 1984
(listed in order of births by year)
(continued)
512
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TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
(continued)
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TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
(continued)
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TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
(continued)
515
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TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
% of total 184 who died before June 16, 1984: 46% (84/184)
% of males who died before June 16, 1984: 43% (43/101)
% of females who died before June 16, 1984: 49% (41/83)
% of total who died before reaching 365 days of age: 34% (63/184)
(those showing age 0 at time of death in Column 7)
516
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TABLE 12.4 LIST OF THE 193 MEMBERS OF THE DE JURE POPULATION WHO DIED
BETWEEN JUNE 16, 1977 AND JUNE 15, 1984
(listed in order by age at death)
(continued)
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TABLE 12.4 (coat.)
(continued)
518
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TABLE 12.4 (cont.)
(continued)
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TABLE 12.4 (cont.)
(continued)
520
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TABLE 12.4 (cont.)
521
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TABLE 12.5 LIST OF FEMALES SHOWING AGES AT FIRST MARRIAGE (from a
sample of 51 females whose ages and dates of marriage are known)
(continued)
522
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TABLE 12.5 (cont.)
sum: 937
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TABLE 12.6 FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF NUMBER OF AGTA MARRIED
FROM AGE 15 TO 29 IN JUNE 1984 (N= 78 men, & 101 women)*
age no. men no. men % men** no. women no. women % worn.
never mar. ever mar. ever mar. never mar. ever mar. ever m.
15 9 0 0% 7 1 13%
16 9 0 0% 5 3 38%
17 2 0 0% 1 1 50%
18 7 1 13% 2 3 60%
19 3 2 40% 3 4 57%
20 2 3 60% 0 3 100%
21 2 0 0% 4 2 33%
22 0 1 100% 1 7 88%
23 0 5 100% 3 10 77%
24 0 3 100% 2 7 78%
25 0 7 100% 0 7 100%
26 3 3 50% 0 4 100%
27 0 8 100% 0 2 100%
28 0 5 100% 1 9 90%
29 0 3 100% 0 9 100%
totals 37 41 29 72
* This sample includes all men in the 1984 de jure population aged
15-29 except 3, and all women aged 15-29 except 7. These 10 were
excluded because their civil status in June 1984 was unknown to the
writer.
** The percentage figures tell the percent of men (or women) age n
who were ever married in 1984. For example, in row 4 it is shown that
there were 8 men age 18, 1 of whom was married. One is 13 percent of
8. Thus, 13 percent of the 18 year old men were ever married.
524
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TABLE 12.7 INFORMATION ON AGTA OUT-MIGRANTS AND IN-MIGRANTS
IN JUNE 1984
i
1 u>
ro 1
V
O' 1
O 1
O 1
TOTALS (50%) (50%)
O 1
(100%)
1w
1 o
I
i
i
1
•
1
1
i
1
1
1
1
1
(sums may not equal 100 due to rounding)
number of males: 36
number of females 39
number of widowers: 2
number of widows: 1
525
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TABLE 12.8 NUMBER OF LIVE BIRTHS PER WOMAN AGE 45+ *
(continued)
526
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TABLE 12.8 (cont.)
41 TILOKEN 0179 50 9 2 5 6 NO
42 AWAY 0159 65 10 6 4 4 yes
43 ISTRING 0485 66 10 1 9 6 yes
44 NURING 0018 48 10 4 6 5 NO
45 INELTENGA 0136 55 11 6 5 4 yes
46 LODI 0103 51 11 7 2 3 NO
47 PILISA 0360 65 11 4 7 6 yes
48 LIYANITA 0320 67 12 7 5 3 yes
* EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
1. These are the names of all women in the census over age 44 for
whom records of their complete birth histories are known. These
48 women include 5 who died before 1977, and who therefore do
not have a census number in column 2.
2. Census numbers from Headland and Headland 1985.
3. Numberof years in 1984 since the births of the 48 women.
4. Numberof live births for each woman, the sum of which is 300.
5. Numberof those 300 offspring who died before reaching age 15.
6. Numberof those 300 who lived to reach age 15.
7. Numberof those 300 who were still alive in September 1985.
8. The symbol "NO" indicates those 12 women who have children who
have not yet reached age 15.
COMMENTS:
The combined sums of columns 5 and 6 do not equal the sum of column
4 because 12 of the 48 women (those marked with "NO" in column 8) have
live children who have not yet reached the age of 15.
The important data from this table are two: One, this sample of 48
women who have completed their childbearing years indicates that Agta
women have a total fertility rate (TFR) of 6.3 live births per woman,
(300 / 48 = 6.3). Two, since 147 of the 300 offspring died before
reaching age 15, the child mortality rate (CMR) ofthe Agta, or at least
from this sample of Agta women, is 49 percent (147/ 300 = 0.490).
Since there are 15 children still under age 15 included in the 300
figure total of column 4, some of whom may die before reaching that age,
the actual child mortality rate of the Casiguran Agta may be slightly
higher than 49 percent. Table 12.1 column 6, give another figure for
this rate, 50.8 percent, which was calculated from a different sample.
527
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TABLE 12.9
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
1. These are the names of all 81 women in the census who reached
age 45.
2. Census numbers from Headland and Headland 1985.
3. Number of years in 1984 sincethe births of these 81 women.
4. Number of live offspring of each woman in 1984, including both
children and adult offspring of each woman.
5. For 59 of the 81 women, the number of their offspring who
reached age 15 is known, and these 59 women had no children under that
age in 1984. The total number of offspring of each of these women who
reached age 15 is listed in column 5. The sum is 170. Some of these
170 persons were deceased by 1984, but not before they reached age 15.
The statement "(NA, some under 15)" means that some of the offspring of
the women in those rows are still under age 15. Since it is unknown
whether those children will reach age 15, the offspring of those women
are not included in the sum of column 5.
COMMENTS
The important data from this rabie are two: One, it shows that
Agta women who had completed their child bearing by 1984 had an average
of 2.81 offspring each who were alive in June of that year (228 / 81 =
2.81). And two, it shows that Agta women produce an average of 2.88
offspring each who survive to reach adulthood, age 15 (170 / 59 = 2.88).
528
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TABLE 1 2 .9 NUMBER OF OFFSPRING A L IV E IN 1 9 8 4 PER WOMAN AGE 4 5+
U>
(1) (2) (4) (5)
name of census no.years no. of no. of offspring
woman no. since offspring alive or dead
woman's alive in who reached
birth 1984 age 15
1 DODENG NONE 78 0 0
2 EBET 0092 67 0 0
3 LAWDENG 2012 50 0 0
4 LIYONIDA 0323 67 0 0
5 MANTI 0335 67 0 0
6 PILISIN NONE 74 0 0
7 ROSING 0515 52 0 0
8 TALENGADEN 0559 65 0 0
9 TANENG 0151 67 0 0
10 TIKA 0050 58 0 0
11 ADILING 0512 62 0 1
12 GAHET 0134 70 1 1
13 KASTING 0265 52 1 1
14 LUDING 0465 56 1 1
15 UDAD 0241 46 1 1
16 MENSIANG 0616 69 1 2
17 ADILING 0006 60 1 3
18 INEK NONE 75 1 3
19 TIRAY 0015 70 1 3
20 PILISA NONE 65 1 5
21 ANDITA NONE 56 2 2
22 BIDING 0115 52 2 2
23 BITA 0089 61 2 2
24 ERMINYA 0192 51 2 2
25 LIMINIDA 0041 50 2 2
26 MILA 0555 53 2 2
27 NENA 0094 61 2 2
28 NINGNING 0417 57 2 2
29 PIDELA 0391 72 2 2
30 PANGKUY 0243 57 2 3
31 PETANG 0469 59 2 3
32 SAGED 0517 73 2 3
33 LODI 0098 46 3 (NA, some under 15)
34 DORANG 0153 46 3 (NA, some under 15)
35 MUNING 0351 52 3 (NA, some under 15)
36 KARNASION 0042 50 • 3 (NA, some under 15)
37 LODI 0103 51 3 (NA, some under 15)
38 LUNINGNING 0268 45 3 (NA, some under 15)
39 UPEK 0439 59 3 (NA, some under 15)
40 ISTING 0591 61 3 3
(continued)
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TABLE 1 2 .9 (c o n t.)
41 KULUDING 0601 52 3 3
42 LUNINGNING 0455 53 3 (NA, some under 15)
43 OLIBIYA 0375 61 3 3
44 P0MP0EK 0130 53 3 3
45 ROSITA 0480 46 3 3
46 SARING 0346 48 3 3
47 SENIKA 0534 78 3 3
48 RUSING 0594 55 3 4
49 LAYDING 0305 57 3 5
50 LIYANITA 0320 67 3 5
51 PINYANG NONE 69 3 5
52 UPILA 0608 83 3 6
53 ADILING 0316 49 4 (NA, some under 15)
54 ILEN 0163 47 4 (NA, some under 15)
55 PANSING NONE 50 4 (NA, some under 15)
56 REKREK 0400 49 4 (NA, some under 15)
57 SANING 0135 52 4 (NA, some under 15)
58 AWAY 0159 65 4 4
59 ISLING 0202 53 4 4
60 KONSITA 0295 45 4 4
61 LUNING NONE 66 4 4
62 MAMING 0246 63 4 4
63 PINOSA 2063 65 4 4
64 PORMING 0561 54 4 4
65 SIDING 0565 46 4 4
66 DEBYENG 0209 47 4 (NA, some under 15)
67 INELTENGAN 0136 55 4 5
68 ISTRING 0253 69 4 6
69 SABILITA 0289 45 5 (NA, some under 15)
70 SIDING 0471 46 5 (NA, some under 15)
71 GOLBIENG 0169 55 5 (NA, some under 15)
72 MENSIANG 0257 52 5 (NA, some under 15)
73 AMPARING 0108 52 5 5
74 SULIDAD 0036 58 5 5
75 NURING 0018 48 5 (NA, some under 15)
76 ELI 0380 49 6 (NA, some under 15)
77 LIGAYA 0156 58 . 6 (NA, some under 15)
78 TIL0KEN 0179 50 6 (NA, some under 15)
79 MALENSIYAN 0337 79 6 7
80 PILISA 0360 65 6 7
81 ISTRING 0485 66 6 9
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TABLE 1 2 .1 0
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
1. These are Che names of Che same women lisCed in Table 12.9,
excepC chac here 10 of Chose 81 women are eliminaCed because Chose 10
have daughCers who are sCill under age 15. All living daughCers of Che
71 women in Chis Cable are age 15+.
COMMENTS
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TABLE 12.10 NO. OF DAUGHTERS PRODUCED BY WOMEN AGE 45+
WHO LIVE TO AGE FIFTEEN
(continued)
532
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TABLE 12.10 (cont.)
totals 100 75 25
* Note that for 3 of the women (rows 31, 50, and 66) information on
their number of granddaughters and great-granddaughters is uncertain.
Those categories are marked with question marks for those women.
533
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TABLE 1 2 .1 1
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
1. Sample list of about 75% of the names of older women (around 35-
40+ years of age) in tho 1936 census of Vanoverbergh (1937-38:140-47).
This sample is not representative. I took from the list the names of
all women of whom I was sure were mature adults— Vanoverbergh does not
give ages— and for which I had complete genealogies in my own data.
Women without offspring are probably underrepresented, since they did
not leave descendents from whom I could elicit genealogies.
The term "so far" (in columns 4 and 5) means that the number in
parentheses may increase because one or more of the women in the
preceding column is still of reproductive age. The numbers, then, in
parentheses are especially liable to increase. And any of the numbers
above zero in columns 4 and 5 could decrease as some of the female
infants and children included in the counts of these two columns may die
before reaching age 15.
534
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TABLE 12.11 WOMEN LISTED AS EVER-MARRIED IN VANOVERBERGH'S
CENSUS OF 1936 (showing no. of female descendants in
3 generations through the female lines)
1 EPPANGE 05 0 0 0
2 VALENTINA 05 0 0 0
3 SIDEG 14 0 0 0
4 SINDINA 17 0 0 0
5 TIRAY 17 0 0 0
6 ANATOLIA 17 0 0 0
7 KIDADAYAN 17 0 0 0
8 LITTAY 17 0 0 0
9 ANTIKINA 17 0 0 0
10 TIMAY 19 0 0 0
12 DAMPILENG 22 0 0 0
13 TEPOR 32 0 0 0
14 SADOK 33 0 0 0
15 TITAY 33 0 0 0
16 TINANG 39 0 0 0
17 MARSIANA 46 0 0 0
18 ISAY 47 0 0 0
19 TALOKTOK 51 0 0 0
20 KANDIDA 52 0 0 0
21 KONSING 53 0 0 0
22 MAYENA 54 0 0 0
23 DEDEK 56 0 0 0
24 AGUSTINA 15 1 0 0
25 TOTIEK 15 1 0 0
26 ULITA 18 1 0 0
27 APALIA 21 1 0 0
28 MANENG 32 1 0 0
29 FELISA 36 1 0 0
30 PULUMENA 37 1 0 0
31 LAGAYAN 26 1 0 0
32 ALODIA 11 1 1 0
1
33 NEYENG 15 1 A 0
34 ANAKASIA 14 1 1 (1)
35 PUTUT 17 1 (1)
36 BILANGEG 32 1 1 1
37 MARIA 17 1 (1) so far (2)
38 MEME 24 1 1 4
39 MONGGEY 36 1 2 (0)
40 MANING 32 2 0 0
(continued)
535
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TABLE 12.11 (cont.)
41 AKILINA 36 2 0 0
42 ASIONA 36 2 0 0
43 ABUNDIA 45 2 0 0
44 FELISA 59 2 0 0
45 MALINAY 17 2 1 (0) so far
46 SA6ED 55 2 1 0
47 MIYA 14 2 1 (1) so far
48 IKIT 17 2 2 0
49 ANENA 17 2 (2) so far (1) so far
50 INGGEK 17 2 2 (2) so far
51 DONGGASILAN 17 2 2 (2) so far
52 PAKENENG 17 2 2 (3) so far
53 BIYA 33 2 3 1
54 ALIMANIA 17 3 0 0
55 FRANSISKA 49 3 1 0
56 UPILA 33 3 1 (2) so far
57 MALAKANIA 48 3 1 (3) so far
58 PALADING 25 3 (7) so far (2) so far
59 PAYES 17 4 6 1
60 KANORA 44 4 (7) so far (1) so far
61 DINDAY 58 4 7 (6) so far
62 PINYANG 35 4 9 (0) so far
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TABLE 12.12 CAUSES OF THE 193 DEATHS IN THE POPULATION
FROM 1977 TO 1984*
(listed in order from most frequent cause to least frequent
cause, showing number and percent of deaths by each cause)
HOMICIDE 2% 4% 21% 3% 7%
1/66 2/45 10/48 1/34 14/193
ACCIDENT 4% 6% 3% 3%
2/45 3/48 1/34 6/193
DRUNKENNESS 2% 12% 3%
1/48 4/34 5/193
CHILDBIRTH 12% 2%
4/34 4/193
SUICIDE 2% 1%
1/48 1/193
537
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TABLE 12.13 COMMON CAUSES OF DEATHS IN THE FIFTY YEARS BEFORE 1977*
(1) cause (2) cohort (3)% of cohort in Pop.l (4)% of cohort in Pop.2
of death measured who died of this cause who died of this cause**
(before 1977) (after June 11, 1977)
DISAPPEARED adult 1% **
IN FOREST males 1/77 none recorded
BERIBERI adult 6% **
females 5/78 1 woman recorded
LEPROSY adults 0% 5%
4/82
FLU all 2% **
ages 5/249 none recorded
TUMOR adults 2% **
4/249 none recorded
MALARIA all 1% **
ages 3/249 1 case recorded
(continued)
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TABLE 12.13 (cont.)
(1) cause (2) cohort (3)% of cohort in Pop.l (4)% of cohort in Pop.2
of death measured who died of this cause who died of this cause**
(before 1977) (after June 11, 1977)
EAR children 3% **
INFECTION 1/29 none recorded
MENSTRUAL adult 1% **
females 1/78 none recorded
SORCERY adults 1% **
2/155 none recorded
BY FOREST all 6% **
SPIRIT ages 14/249 none recorded
539
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TABLE 1 2 .1 4 AGTA HOMICIDE V IC T IM S * * *
/-" N
r—t
(2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
victim's sex killr alleged sex year no. of weapon drunk pre acci
name & was killer's Agta used medi dent
age Agta name killed tated
(continued)
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TABLE 12.14 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
victim's sex killr alleged sex year no. of weapon drunk pre- acci
name & was killer's Agta used medi dent
age Agta name killed tated
(Data from Headland and Headland 1985 and Headland field notes.)
***EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
Column 2: Sex and ages of victims. In cases where age is unknown, age
is marked with "ch," for child, or "ad," for adult.
541
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TABLE 12.15 COMPARISONS OF HOMICIDE RATES FOR SEVERAL POPULATIONS
542
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TABLE 1 2 .1 6
All Agta were measured by having them stand on a spot in our house
where two footprints were painted on our floor, with their backs against
a wall on which we had made measurement marks using a steel ruler. The
computed mean weights of both men and women were reduced in Table 12.16
by 0.6 kg. This was our estimation, based on our weighing of some of
their clothes, of the average weight of the clothing worn by both sexes
when we weighed them. Thus the 1983-84 Casiguran Agta weights here are
presented as nude equivalents.
SOURCES OF DATA:
1. Headland field notes; 2. Wastl 1957; 3. Goodman et al. 1985, and
field notes of Bion Griffin; 4. Mika Hanna 1975 field notes; 5. Omoto
et al. 1978:190; 6. Rahmann and Maceda 1955:819; 7. James Eder
personal communication; 8. Schebesta 1952:326; 9. Newton 1920; 10.
Lee 1979:285; 11 and 12. Tanaka 1980:15; 13. Harrison et al. 1977:192;
14. Larrick et al. 1979:152; 15. Matawaran and Gervasio 1971; 16.
Claudio et al. 1976:192, 280; 17. IRRI 1979:68; 18. Conklin 1957:10;
Conklin notes, cited in Estel 1950:55-56; Rappaport 1968:16-17; 20.
Polunin 1953:85; 21. Diem 1962:623-24, cited in Truswell and Hansen
1976:173. (US measurements were of people wearing indoor clothes and
shoes.)
543
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TABLE 12.16 A COMPARISON OF AGTA HEIGHTS AND WEIGHTS
WITH THOSE OF OTHER POPULATIONS
17. 56 48
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TABLE 13.1 LIST OF HUNTER-GATHERER SOCIETIES WITH MOST OF THE SIX
CHARACTERISTICS OF "COMMERCIAL HUNTER-GATHERERS" *
AFRICA
Okiek/Dorobo Kenya Chang 1982, Blackburn 1982
Boni Kenya Harvey 1978
Bambote Zaire Terashima 1980
Mbuti pygmies Zaire Hart 1978; Turnbull 1965
Ichikawa 1978; Tanno 1981
Aka pygmies W. Africa Bahuchet & Guillaume 1982
Bushmen (gener.) Botswana Guenther 1977; Silberbauer 1966
Bushmen. River Botswana Cashdan 1979
Bushmen, !Kung Kalahari Gordon 1984; Denbow 1984; Lee 1979
Schrire 1980,1984; Howell 1979:12-16
Bushmen, "Basarwa" Kalahari Vierich 1982
INDIA
Paliyan India Gardner 1982
Hill Pandaram India Morris 1982
Birhor India Williams 1974; Sinha 1972
India in gener. India Fox 1969
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Punan/Penan Borneo Hoffman 1984; Kedit 1982;
Needham 1972
Negrito, Satek W. Malaysia Evans 1968:33ff,60-61; Endicott '79
Negrito, Semang W. Malaysia Rambo 1982
Negrito, Batak Philippines Miller 1905:184; Venturillo 1907
Warren 1964; Eder 1978,1984a
Negr, Agta, Palanan Philippines Peterson 1978a, 1978b
Negr, Agta, S.Mar. Philippines Rai 1982
Negr, Agta, E.Caga. Philippines Estioko-Griffin & Griffin 1981a;
Griffin 1981, 1984b
Negr, Agta, Casig. Philippines Headland (this volume)
Negr, Mamanua Philippines Maceda 1975a:46-48
Negr, Ata, Negros Philippines Cadelina 1980
545
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APPENDIX A
June 1984. This is a de jure count, (not a de facto count. The figure
includes all Negritos who fit the following four criteria: (1)
language; and (4) individuals who were alive on June 15,1984. A person
This definition thus includes only those Agta born and raised on
the eastern watershed of the Sierra Madre range, within the Casiguran
Dinalongan, and Dinapigui.) It excludes some 300 Agta who live on the
immigrant Agta who were living in the Casiguran area in June 1984 who do
not fit all of the above four criteria. I excluded as well those mixed
blood Negritos who have lived most of their lives in lowland Filipino
communities. These are people who do not speak Agta as their mother
546
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547
those mixed bloods who were raised by Agta in Agta communities, who are
regardless of whether or not they were living within the confines of the
Casiguran area in June 1984 (and 17 percent were living outside of the
Filipinos who lived in the area at the time. Also, if Agta were married
1984 (28/257, 2 men and 26 women). The children of such unions were
counted as Agta only if they are or were raised as Agta, and grew up in
19.)
the above definition of the population complies with the emic definition
Casiguran Agta who have been gone from the area for many years, on whom
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548
in this category, most of whom were probably alive in 1977, and possibly
still alive in 1984. Though their names turn up in our genealogy lists,
we cannot be sure whether they are still alive, nor do we know their
609 members in the de jure population in 1984. We must presume for now
that they are alive, even though some of them may not be.)
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APPENDIX B
2 3 4
Agta primary formal componential analysis
kinship terms analysis
(with Eng. gloss) components listed components listed
symbolically numerically
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11. asawa S G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'spouse'
12. kayong SPC(G) ■ G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'sibling-in-law'
13. idas SPC(G)S G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'co-sibling-in-law'
14. manugeng SP(1) G+l So A @ Ae. 20201
C(-1)S G-l So A @ Ay 20202
'parent-in-law', 'child- flaw'
15. balai C(0/)SP(0/) G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'co-parent-in-law'
C = child
e = elder ego
(G) = primary meaning extends to include all other consanguines of
that generation
m- = male ego
-m = male alter
P = parent
S = spouse
(-S)= primary meaning extends to include affines of the same
corresponding position
y- = younger ego
(1) = primary meaning extends horizontally (up) and vertically,
without limit
(-1)= primary meaning extends horizontally (down) and vertically,
without limit
(0/)= primary meaning of previous symbol extends in all three
directions, horizontally (up-and down), and vertically,
without limit
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551
1. Genealogical distance
1.1 Alter is of ego's generation
1.2 Alter is one generation removed from ego
1.3 Alter is more than one generation removed from ego
2. Sex of alter
2.1 Alter is male
2.2 Alter is female
4. Lineality
4.1 Alter is a non-lineal kinsman
4.2 Alter is a lineal kinsman
5. Seniority
5.1 Alter is ego's senior— in age if of ego's generation,
otherwise of an ascending generation.
5.2 Alter is ego's junior— in age if of ego's generation,
otherwise of a descending generation.
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552
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APPENDIX C
Between January and July 1984, my wife and I recorded the starch
food Agta ate at 558 household meals, and the main side dish food eaten
at 460 of those same meals (i.e., non-starch food, such as meat, fish,
these data.) There were a number of reasons for wanting to know what
wanted to know what percent of their starch food was rice, and how much
might play a role in the high death rate and low life expectancy of the
Agta.
the Agta eat almost no wild starch foods today, to Hypothesis 8, which
asserts that less than 10 percent of their food comes from their own
swiddens, to Proposition 2, which asserts that the Agta are not living
assert that the Agta are no longer living by hunting wild game.
The reader will find these data less than ideal for answering the
553
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554
not actually weigh (or even see) the food people were consuming. But
onecan only do so much in the field, and I could not bring myself, even
asking to see and weigh all their food just before they ate it. Another
shortcoming was in our failure to ask, most of the time, the source of
computerized that I realized that we failed to ask and record the source
of their starch food at 83 percent of the 558 meals. This means we have
this source recorded for only 97 meals. Finally, the data covers only 5
of the 19 months we were in the field, with very small samples for2 of
for telling us more-or-less what the Agta diet is like. I will use
We do learn some interesting things about the Agta from these data.
Most surprising is how little wild starch food they eat, only 2 percent
their main food at 92 percent of their meals (Table 4.6). This high
degree of rice consumption was general for all the months (Table 4.8),
and for all 10 band areas (Table 4.9). If they only grew enough rice
in 1983 to feed themselves for 15 days (as Table 11.8 suggests), where
do they get all this rice? That question is not hard to guess, and
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5 55
this thesis shows that they trade for it, using wild game, rattan, and
shown, I believe, just how bad off nutritionally these people are.
These data will not take us that far, but they do suggest that the Agta
in the fact that, according to these data, they had no meat protein,
another 7 percent of the meals sampled they had nothing but pickled
fish sauce for their side dish. This is little more than a flavoring,
significant role in their high death rate and low life expectancy.
of the starch food, such food came from their own swiddens for 16 of
of their starch foods comes from their own fields. Thirteen of these
meals were for January, right after the rice harvest, and the other 3
meals were from the same family in July, when they were harvesting
their cassava. Also, the food was rice at only six of the meals (all
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556
in January), the other ten meals being sweet potatoes, cassava, and
food comes from their own fields, and of rice, only about 2 percent. A
figure, but Table 11.8 lends support to the 2 percent figure for rice.
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APPENDIX D
557
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558
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559
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E370 = AGRICULTURAL WORK FOR OTHER AGTA (for pay) (total PWDs:23)
(or for share of harvest)
E371 = cutting brush in swidden (1)
E372 = plant swidden rice (1)
E373 = weed swidden rice (0)
E374 = harvest and/or thresh swidden rice (17)
E375 = plow or harrow rice paddy (0)
E376 = plant rice in paddy (0)
E377 = harvest or thresh rice in paddy (1)
E378 = uproot seedlings & tie in bundles (3)
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561
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562
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APPENDIX E
In 1983 the Casiguran Agta made 43 new swiddens and grew rice in 5
wet rice fields. (This excludes Agta who did agricultural labor in
appendix I present to the reader who wants to know the details, the data
concern, for each field, the crops planted, rice yields, involvement of
rice harvest, biotope where field was made, and various other items of
table form, is mentioned below for each of the 48 fields. The reader
on each field.
this appendix are based on my own measurements, or counts, done with the
following paragraphs, but are not included in the counts in the tables,
563
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564
SWIDDEN NO. 1
SWIDDEN NO. 5
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SWIDDEN NO. 6_
SWIDDEN NO. 1_
SWIDDEN NO. 8^
SWIDDEN NO. 9^
Up to the time of the rice harvest, this field was planted only in
rice and 3 sugar cane cuttings. After the rice harvest the field was
planted in sweet potatoes, many cassava, 21 banana suckers, 8
sampernando taro, 20+ sugar cane cuttings, and a small patch of onions.
SWIDDEN NO. 10
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2
11 more banana suckers, 13 more coconuts, and a 12 m patch of onions.
Later, in early 1984, the owners planted 17 taro, 3 jackfruit
seedlings, and 2 calamansi seedlings.
SWIDDEN NO. 11
Before rice harvest season, this swidden was planted with rice, 4
eggplant, 10 okra, 11 stalks of corn, 7 papaya seedlings, 2 sweet
potato hills, and 14 cassava cuttings. (The lowlander owner of the land
also planted 2 coconut seedlings in the swidden). After the rice
harvest, the field was planted (by the Agta) with 13 banana suckers, 6
taro, 9 more eggplant, 7 more okra, 3 string bean plants, and 2
sampernando taro. In January 26 mustard plants, 11 onion sprouts, and 3
stalks of corn were found newly planted.
SWIDDEN NO. 12
Before rice harvest, Ending and his family planted in their swidden
the following: rice, many cassava, several sweet potatoes, about 25
coconut seedlings, several sugar cane, several eggplant, 10+ taro, some
sampernando taro, 6 yams, 5 ginger, 4 papaya seedlings, 20+ banana
suckers, 2 chili plants, several string beans, 5 pineapple, 1 pomelo
seedling, 1 calamansi seedling, 1 balsam apple plant, 1 silangan plant,
one dusol plant, 6 tobacco, a few mustard, 2 derris poison plants, 2
lemon grass, 4 okra, and a few zacate grass plants. After rice harvest,
they planted 4 sampernando taro, and 1 coconut seedling and, in early
April, 2 more samgernando targ. They also cleared 2 small patches of
rice straw (72 m , and 345 m ) in December, but never planted anything
in them.
SWIDDEN NO. 13
This swidden was actually cleared by Nolbing, but for some reason
he abandoned it after the burning. The swidden was then considered as
Ending's, who planted it in rice. No other cultigens were planted in
this swidden in 1983 up to May 1984.
SWIDDEN NO. 14
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567
The following were planted here before rice harvest season: rice,
many cassava, several banana suckers, 10 coconut seedlings, 4
sampernando taro, a few string beans, and several mung beans. No
cultigens were planted here after rice harvest, or in early 1984.
This was the only swidden which was cleared, and then planted
without first being burned. It was planted with mostly sweet potato,
many cassava, 3 stalks of corn, 1 avocado seedling, and 1 papaya
seedling.
SWIDDEN NO. 18
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5 68
planted after the rice harvest were 2 more coconuts, and 6 sampernando
taro.
SWIDDEN NO. 19
Planted here before rice harvest were rice, 23 cassava, 30+ string
beans, and one coconut seedling. After rice harvest the following were
observed newly planted: 10 sugar cane cuttings, 9 ginger hills, 3 more
coconut seedlings, and one screw pine cutting.
SWIDDEN NO. 20
SWIDDEN NO. 21
Rice was the only cultigen planted here up to harvest tim^. After
the harvest, 8 cassava were planted in a weeded plot of 27 m~, and 12
cassava in another plot of 31 m . The owner of this swidden, Erning,
is the leader of an extended family group which, together, made
Swiddens numbered 21 through 25, and W|t Rice Field No. 1. Erning
also planted, in January 1983, a 66 m plot of peanuts in his previous
year's swidden.
SWIDDEN NO. 22
SWIDDEN NO. 23
2
Besides rice, the only other cultigen planted here was a 75 m plot
of sugar cane.
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SWIDDEN NO. 24
SWIDDEN NO. 25
Only a tiny portion of this small swidden was planted, and that
only in rice. The swidden "owner," an 18 year old man in frail health,
was married to the daughter of the owner of Swidden 21. They divorced
in mid 1983, and this young man moved to a distant area, abandoning his
half-done swidden.
SWIDDEN NO. 26
Before rice harvest time this swidden was planted with rice, 15
cassava, about 10 sweet potato cuttings, 2 string bean vines, 1 stalk of
corn, and one common (bottle) gourd vine. No cultigens were planted
after the rice harvest.
SWIDDEN NO. 27
SWIDDEN NO. 28
This root crop swidden was part of a larger swidden owned and
cleared by a lowlander named Martin Galyato. He had his Agta client and
family clear this section of his land and plant the following cultigens
for themselves: many sweet potatoes, many cassava, 3 pineapple, 4
banana suckers, and 10 sugar cane. The lowlander also planted 5 coconut
seedlings on the swidden (which are not included in the figures in the
tables).
SWIDDEN NO. 29
I did not locate this tiny root crop swidden until November 7,
1983. It was then choked with weeds, and seemed all but abandoned.
But growing in it were 104 cassava, 7 taro, 4 sampernando taro, 6
bananas, 5 coconuts, and 1 stalk of sugar cane (all planted in.1983).
The plants were all sickly because of heavy weeds. The Agta men who
guided me there said the swidden was planted in corn right after it was
burned in April or May. This was probably true, though there was no
evidence of corn (which would have been harvested about July).
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570
These two rice swiddens were planted by the same Agta band at
Gumanineng. The work was heavily supervised and dominated by a
lowlander named Uya Gabas. This man had separated from his legal wife in
town in early 1983, and then in August "married" a young Agta widow in
this band named Kulut. Uya lived most of the year with this Agta band
of 4 families, and they said they all shared equally in the rice
harvested from the 2 swiddens. No other cultigens were planted in
Swidden 30. Planted in Swidden 31 were 2 eggplant and 1 banana sucker.
Neither field was planted with any secondary crops after the rice
harves t.
SWIDDEN NO. 32
SWIDDEN NO. 33
SWIDDEN NO. 34
This small root crop swidden- was cut in late 1982, and burned in
February 1983. In March it was newly planted with corn throughout, and
many sweet potato cuttings, about 15 taro, and 22 cassava cuttings. No
more new cultigens were observed during subsequent visits up to March
1984.
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571
SWIDDEN NO. 35
This swidden was first planted in rice, with 20-30 sweet potato
cuttings, and 28 banana suckers. After the rice harvestit was planted
with several more cassava cuttings, many sweet potato cuttings, 15 more
banana suckers, about 40 stalks of corn, 2 coconut seedlings, 2
breadfruit seedlings, 5 pineapple, 1 okra, 8 sugar cane, 12 taro, 3
sampernando taro, several onions, 1 mustard plant, 6 asparagus bean
plants, 1 yam cutting, 1 balsam apple, and 2 chili plants.
SWIDDEN NO. 36
Before the rice harvest this field was planted only in rice and
about 20 banana suckers. After the rice harvest, it was planted with
many sweet potato cuttings, 1 coconut seedling, 6 more banana suckers, 3
jackfruit seedlings, 27 stalks of corn, 30 mustard greens, 1 oregano
plant, several impatiens flowers, several marigold, 4 tobacco plants, 1
avocado seedling, 1 calamansi seedling, 1 crotonplant, 2 lemon grass
plants, and a few ginger plants. One of the most salient
characteristics of this swidden was its steep slope, overall about 50
degrees.
SWIDDEN NO. 37
This swidden, and Swidden 38, were made by a 66 year old widow,
Liyanita, with the help of some of her children and grandchildren. This
woman is strong, a very hard worker, and a serious agriculturist. Her
father was a lowlander. No cultigens were planted in this field after
the rice was harvested, but before the harvest the following were
planted: rice, many cassava, several eggplant, several string beans, 4
chili plants, about 8 corn, 6 papaya, 3 yams, a few sugar cane, okra,
and mustard greens. This land is on the Panamin Reservation.
SWIDDEN NO. 38
After the rice harvest in Swidden37, the old widow owner, rather
than planting secondary crops in that swidden, cleared a new swidden
adjacent to it, in October of '83. It is unusual to cut and burn a
swidden in the rainy season, but somehow this woman succeeded, with the
help of her relatives (perhaps because it was brushland). She had a
successful burn in November. On January10, I found the following crops
growing here: corn throughout most ofthe field, many garlic, several
tobacco plants, 20 mustard greens, 11 watermelon plants, 18 squash, many
sweet potato cuttings, 23 eggplant, 2 chili, many sincamas, many string
beans, and many peanuts. In the center of the swidden was a wide clump
of old banana plants, planted 3 years before by a lowlander who claims
the land is his. This land is on the Panamin Reservation.
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572
SWIDDEN NO. 39
SWIDDEN NO. 40
Planted here before rice harvest were rice, many cassava, about 15
sweet potato cuttings, and 1 banana sucker. After the rice harvest,
they^planted here, in January, a 77 m plot of sweet potatoes, and a
54 m plot of cassava, and 12 sampernando taro cuttings.
SWIDDEN NO. 41
Planted here before^rice harvest were rice and many cassava. After
the rice harvest a 370 m area was replanted in corn. Also planted were
12 taro and 16 more cassava. The rice straw was not weeded.
SWIDDEN NO. 42
SWIDDEN NO. 43
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573
The Agta family cultivating this field in 1983 were renting the
land from a ^owlander, but were not sharecroppers. This large field
(of 9,180 m ) was planted in late 1982, and harvested in the second
quarter of 1983, and then planted again in the fall of 1983. In 1984
this family did not cultivate this field, but did cultivate another
nearby field, also rented from a different lowlander. (1984 rice
harvests are not computed in the tables.)
This small field was planted by the Agta family of Melanio in late
1982, and harvested in the spring of 1983. They replanted the field
again in late 1983. This field is on the Agta Reservation at Calabgan,
supervised at the time by the Panamin Agency.
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574
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APPENDIX F
One goal of the 1983-84 research was to look for data which might
though a number of Agta families clear land to make their own swiddens
each year, most of those areas of land are claimed or taken over by
One way I tested these hypotheses was to survey and map a river
drainage which is the traditional home area of one of the larger Agta
band groups. The area I chose was that of the Koso band. I chose this
Casiguran were spent living with this band on the Koso River Con the SSE
border of Area 6 in Map 5). I had watched both Agta and lowlanders
clear swiddens on this river for many years, and I had a fair
Plus I had several close friends, both Agta and lowlanders, who assisted
who originally cleared the swiddens, and who owned them now, if anyone.
575
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576
all the old swidden sites of an area, and to try to reconstruct their
histories, if he was not first very familiar with both the people, their
My method was to survey up and down the Koso River with different
informants, which I did three times in 1983-84, and to map the locations
wet rice fields (II and X). These were emically recognized plots of
sites were plots upon which swiddens had been made several times over
My two main Agta assistants on these trips, then aged 60 and 51,
were both born and raised in Koso. Both they, their parents, and their
grandparents, they said, made swiddens on this river, and they pointed
out to me the spots where these swiddens had been made and remade,
the swiddens, however (19 out of the 32), were made by lowlanders,
usually using Agta as hired laborers. Two of the sites (IXX and XXVI)
were cleared by Agta under the orders and supervision of agents of the
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577
vague (or in disagreement) about who cleared what before the 1930s.
What was apparent was that the Koso Agta were doing some independent
small scale agriculture by the end of the last century, and that with
only one exception (Field No. XXIX) they were unable or unwilling to
that, both then and now, Agta worked more often for lowlanders in
themselves. Often they were allowed to make their own small gardens in
a part of the larger swiddens of their lowlander friends for whom they
worked.
by Agta only (including the 2 cleared under the orders of the CNI) are
took the land by force (III, IV, VI, XI, and IXX). In 3 cases the Agta
owners sold the land to lowlanders (XXIII, XXIV, and XXV), and in 5
XVIII, XXII, XXVI, and XXX). Sometimes a piece of Agta land lies
fallow for so long, with no old tree crops in it, that lowlanders
There were only three Agta families living part-time on the Koso
Also, no lowlanders cleared new swiddens there either during those two
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578
years, though they did harvest tree crops from old swiddens. There were
Koso Field No. II. Wide area of wet rice fields, most of
it cleared by lowlander Nicolas Corbadura and his brothers at
the end of the 19th century. All owned by lowlanders today.
Koso Field No. III. This area was first cleared by Agta
in the 1920s, according to my informants. The Agta men who
opened this land were Aduanan (alias Buhek), Mahew, and
Pegkeng. It totals about 4 ha,and is today planted
completely in mature coconut palms. This was a frequent and
favored settlement site of the Koso band through the 1940s.
All Koso Agta hold a long standing grudge against a certain
lowlander named Morning Guerrero, the present owner. It was
Morning's father, the late Tino Guerrero, who allegedly stole
this land outright from the Agta when the Agta were said to
have given him their land title for safekeeping during the
War. The land is now titled to the son, Morning. This case
has been to court at least twice, with the Agta losing both
times.
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579
Koso Field No. IX. This large area cleared yearly in the
years following 1910, and up to the 1950s by lowlander Paran
Garcia, using Agta labor. It is now mostly mature coconut
groves owned by lowlander sons of Paran, Guiriel and Berto
Garcia.
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580
Koso Field No. XIX. This land first opened by Agta just
before the turn of the century. It was cleared again by Agta
Ayogyog and his nephews, and Agta Dikmin, in 1961, under the
orders and supervision of CNI agent Tomas Casala. Soon after
Dikmin died in 1964, a lowlander named Doming Malabunga
claimed Dikmin and Ayogyog had sold the land to him (for 10
gallons of nipa wine and 100 pesos [U.S.$25], as Dikmin
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581
needed the wine for the wedding of his son). I was involved
with the Agta in legal disputes over this land for 3 years.
The Agta lost, and Doming now owns this land, which he
planted in coconuts in the late 1960s.
Koso Field No. XXV. This area was first cleared by Agta
in the 1920s. The land was recleared by Dikmin and his son,
Gibson, in 1963, then partly cleared again by Agta Eleden in
1973. Gibson sold this land to Turusilla in 1979, at the
same time he sold him area XXIII.
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582
Koso Field No. XXVII. This area was cleared and planted
in rice, then coconuts, by lowlander Nalding Garcia in 1966,
with the help of Agta labor. This was right after it had
been partially cleared by loggers. It is today covered with
mature coconuts, and is owned by the lowlander sons of
Nalding.
Koso Field No. XXX. This land was first cleared by Agta
Tigo, uncle of Didog, during WWII. It had succeeded to
secondary forest when it was taken over and cleared by
lowlander Hatoy in the late 1950s, and increasingly enlarged
by him each year during the 1960s, using hired Agta laborers
to clear and guard the crops. Most of the area is covered
today with mature coconut trees, except for secondary forest
on the upper hillside. The owner is still Hatoy.
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583
farmer, and the only man who lived permanently at his swidden
site. (All other lowlanders were what Conklin [1957] calls
'partial' swiddeners, and lived most of the time in the town
of Casiguran.)
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APPENDIX 6
The following quotes are taken from various letters and documents,
concerning Agta land problems. Most of these date from 1960. I have
never been able to locate the originals of many of these documents, but
carbon copies of many of them, but only those dated from 1960 to 1963,
during those four years. Other documents cited here are from various
embarrassment or retaliation.
584
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585
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586
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5 87
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588
CNI agent Tomas Casala (Casala n.d.), typed in English and submitted as
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589
quote from it. Following are references to land problems between Agta
and lowlanders:
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590
23. "Left station at 9:30 a.m. for Calabgan by horse back for
inspection trip. Petition of Non-Christians concerning Real
Property conflict was signed" (12/Feb/62).
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591
that whatever happens they must not leave the said place"
(10/Apr/62).
32. "Sent letter to the Vice Barrio Lt. Mariano Mora of Sitio
Bikal concerning reports of land grabbing in the Calabgan
[Agta] Reservation" (7/Feb/63). "Sent letter to the Ba. Lt.
Bonifacio Briagas of Bo. Dibet, concerning land grabbing in
that Barrio to the land reserved for the Non-Christians"
(8/Feb/63).
33. "Left Manila at 6:00 a.m. for Lucena [City] and arrived
at 10:00 a.m. Meet the Hon. Prov. Gov. and conferred about
the newcomers [lowlander and Igorot immigrants] from
different provinces [who have] entered the Calabgan [Agta]
Reservation. Request the Governor to let these people vacate
the place" (27/Feb/63).
R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. F urther reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.
592
36. "Meet the Chairman of the C.N.I. [in Manila] and request
immediate investigation about land grabbing of Christians
from the land for the Minorities [Agta]" (6/Jun/63).
R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.
APPENDIX H
The following quotes are taken directly from the daily log of a Mr.
the period from January 1960 to January 6, 1964. The originals of this
log were typed in English and submitted as monthly reports to to the CNI
main office in Manila. Mr. Casala loaned me his carbon copy of the log,
from which the following quotes are taken, and used here with his
permission.
of the efforts of the CNI to try to make the Agta into agriculturalists.
The quotes also give us a glimpse of the degree to which Casiguran Agta
593
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594
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595
11. "Left Casiguran at 8:30 for Bakyad [Area 8], held meeting
and give lecture to Non-Christians concerning upland rice
planting season coming" (25/Apr/61).
12. "Held meeting [at Area 9], give advise how to plant
upland rice and the way to prepare seedlings, and to use same
varieties of seedlings if possible" (5/May/61).
14. "Left station for Barrio Cuso [Koso] at 8:30 a.m. to hold
meeting. Visit; the newly acquired Public Land situated in
the said place by the Negritos residing thereat. [This is
the upriver part of the Koso River, shown on Map 5.] Advise
them to plant permanent fruit trees and root crops"
(l/Aug/61).
18. "Left station at 8:00 a.m. for sitio Muntay by horse back
to visit and estimate how many gantas of corn seedlings can
be planted on their kaingin [swidden]" (5/Feb/62).
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596
24. "Visit the kaingin of the Negritos [in Area 2] and found
out that about 45% destroyed by rat infestation" (8/Nov/62).
26. "Hold meeting [at Dinalongan, Area 10] and found out that
their harvest is good, but only 50% of the [Agta] residents
have a kaingin [swidden]" (22/Nov/62).
31. "Left Calabgan for Dinalongan [Area 10]. Found out that
most of the Negritos are half [done] with their harvest of
rice" (19/Nov/63). "Left Dinalongan for Bungo [also in Area
10], Of all the [Agta] barrios I visit, Bungo is the best in
rice harvest. I advise them not to sell their rice to
anybody, especially [not] to barter [it] for liquor.
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597
Anybody who will barter their rice for liquor will receive
punishment" (20/Nov/63).
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598
r i
1700
1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
C/i
K
hi
(■
hi
1100 ri
S 1000
mJ
5 900
z •x trtm t
800 maximum
£ 700
z
3
a: 600
500
400
300
200
100 axtrama minimum _J
_r
Jan Ftb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sap Oct Nov Dae
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599
rE*
e
9
UJ
£
o
X o
If
Is
C2
Si
t! •• M
s•
. W ii
I! £
s ic * **
ij iI 1 M
■ M
M M
•*
Z £<OD
R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.
FIGURE 3: AGTA POPULATION PYRAMID FOR 1977
75+
70-74
65-69
60-64 10
55-59 15 6
50-54 11 14
45-49 12 22
40-44 12 13
35-39 14 19
30-34 18 18
25-29 28 21
20-24 30 33
15-19 28 44
10-14 26 28
5-9 49 -=== 31
0-4 49 43
Explanation of Figure:
To the left of the vertical line are shown the number of
males in each age cohert. Females are to the right. Each
dash represents one individual. There are 618 dashes in
the above pyramid.
600
R eproduced with perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ith o u t perm ission.
FIGURE 4: AGTA POPULATION PYRAMID FOR 1984
75+ 0 1
70-74 1 :. 3
65-69 4 :: ••*• 7
60-64 12 ....
55-59 7 .::: :::: 8
50-54 g ....
45-49 14 .....
40-44 in ...
35-39 19 ....... 16
30-34 25 .......... 24
25-29 30 ............. 33
20-24 16 43
15-19 35 32
10-14 45 27
5-9 33 31
0-4 47 28
Explanation of Figure:
To the left of the vertical line are shown the number of
males in each age cohert. Females are to the right.
Each dot represents one individual. There are a total of
609 dots in the above pyramid.
601
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6 02
CAGAYAN
MAP I km 50
EASTERN LUZON
ISABELA Palonan
Dinapigui
NUEVA
'Dilasag
VIZCAYA
QUIRINO Casiguran
Dinalongan
.Casiguran ecosystem
Baler (research area).
'AURORA
124'
LUZON
laniia
Manila
[QUEZON
0 100 200 km
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603
ISABELA
AURORA
MAP 2
THE 10 AGTA "BAND" AREAS
\ Casiguran
15'-
,Ojjr T/v *
Calabgan
Reservation
for Agta
6 km
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604
122° ISABELA
AURORA
MAP 3
LOCATIONS OF THE 43 SWI ODENS
CULTIVATED BY AGTA IN 1983
29 28
Casiguran
30-34
-26-27
35-36 -21-25
19-20
42 37-38
39
40-41 12-15
6-11
43
6 km
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605
122°
MAP 4
LOCATIONS OF THE 5 WET RICE
FIELDS CULTIVATED BY AGTA
IN 1983
Casiguran
6 km
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606
MAP 5
LOCATIONS OF 20th CENTURY
FELDS ON THE KOSO RIVER KOSO
River
m
W
~9H
N ss
3ZE
TEL
*WTT rnn
33C
Deppeg
— Koso River / Creek
yyyt s x m x
400 m
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607
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. /
\ \
S
■\ \' ss s N
N \ S' SN
+ -------- > N \ \l
\/
s' s' >
rice a - .
r lav>^A /
Of '«•" T e r -sin3 /
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608
I
I
/ j
v / no. 3 \
rice Su/ld<Jen
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6 09
••
A. ▼
A"'
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610
/ o f lo u la n J *
OV*ner
>1
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611
owner : Botrse^
^ ~ _ location: E b u t Area. J_______
(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix E )
no
Crop s
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612
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613
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614
\
\
\
\
I ~
\
s/' s \ \
i SwidJe/
\ sN \ \
no. 6 \ \ n's\ \
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\
s>N \ S>\ s\
Ns
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615
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616
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617
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618
<«X x XX X s s'
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K*
area cropped in rice
i—
cropped in other than rice
horsed area newer cropped
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619
. 13
SVIDDEN FIELD NO
t
no- /2-
»_
£ 5 22m
Smidden
no. t4r
y
/
/
/ £ midJen
\ no. 15"
\
\
area cropped in rice \
lil cropped in other than rice *
burned area newer cropped
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620
t
no.
\
\
no. /3
\ 22m
/
\\ no. iff
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621
I Sw»«W<o no-1^•
Stridden
\
no. /3
Suiiaden
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622
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623
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624
I!SSBiSSK£
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625
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626
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627
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no- 4.3
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628
St*tidJe,rs
no. 3,1 \
/ StAiiJd^n
/
flo. 23
J
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m
area cropped in rice I I
•••
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\
burned araa newer cropped
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6 29
\
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6 30
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631
no crops
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633
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634
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639
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,
C om
£ w « * f Po+A+otf5
721
. area cropped is rice
cropped in other than rice
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644
no. 3 7
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645
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646
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6 48
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649
Qinda.h
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VET K.ICS FIELD SO. 1
owner; location: A 5"
(for history and details see tables and test of Appendix £ )
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651
/
0 */ 5 £ f t f e |k *
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652
owner; fA G IA n tO location: ^
(for hiatory and details see tables and text of Appendix £ )
\
\
\ wd h c <
\ fi'cU nos ^
---- ---
scale: - 100 m2
area in rice harvested in 1983: / 5 3 2 f*Z
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D total
*lM; 7 o 4 (,
3 s - 3 J w**>*
i *c*Iej
Mission
° f the
c°Pyright
owner.
F m h e 'rep m a
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Pormis.sion.
654
2 2
m
*1
m
asil
m
% ■
m
as
m
m
m t
total field size: J372-0 m
• 100
Y/\ area in rice harvested in 1983: 9 6 7 2 m *
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REFERENCES CITED
Addicott, John F.
1984 Mutualistic Interactions in Population and Community Processes.
In A New Ecology: Novel Approaches to Interactive Systems.
Peter W. Price, C. Slobodchikoff, and W. Gaud, eds. pp. 437-
455. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
AFIO MS 89/62
1720 Carta de Fr. Juan Torres al Prov. Fr. Mateo de S. Jose, dandole
cuenta del estado de la mision, Casiguran, 10 Febrero 1720.
Unpublished letter archived in the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-
Oriental, Madrid. Catalog No. 89/62.
AFIO MS 89/60
1745 Certificacion de Fr. Bernardo de Santa Rosa de administracion
de sacramentos, 10 Marzo 1745. Unpublished letter archived in
the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, Madrid. Catalog No.
89/60.
AFIO MS 89/61
1754 Carta de Fr. Juan de Ocana al Prov. P. Alejandro Ferrer,
dandole cuenta del estado de las misiones, Baler, 6 Marzo 1754.
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Oriental, Madrid. Catalog No. 89/61.
AFIO MS 299/16-3
1846 Unpublished one page letter in Spanish, written by Narcisio
Claveria, "Superior Gobierno y Capitania General de Filipinas,"
from Manila, dated October 1846, citing a report dated March 20,
1864 by the mayor of the Province of Nueva Ecija on a cholera
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299/16-3.
Agar, Michael H.
1980 The Professional Stranger. New York: Academic Press.
Alland, Alexander
1975 Adaptation. Annual Review of Anthropology 4:59-73.
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656
Amazona, Damian
1951 Some Customs of the Aetas of the Baler Area, Philippines.
Primitive Man 24(2):21-34.
Anderson, James N.
1973 Ecological Anthropology and Anthropological Ecology. In
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Appel1, George N.
1969 Social Anthropological Census for Cognatic Societies and Its
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de Tall-Land-en Volkenkunde 125:80-93.
Arnold, Hohn R.
1915 Rattan Supply of the Philippines. Washington: Government
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Baer, G. A.
1907 Contribution a Letude des Langues des Indigenes aux lies
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Bargatzky, Thomas
1984 Culture, Environment, and the Ills of Adaptationism. Current
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Barnes, John A.
1971 African Models in the New Guinea Highlands. In Melanesia:
Readings in a Culture Area. L. Langness and J. Weschler, eds.
pp. 97-107. Scranton: Chandler Publ. Co.
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Barrows, David F.
1924 History of the Philippines. New York: World Book Co.
Barth, Fredrik
1956 Ecologic Relationships of Ethnic Groups in Swat, North Pakistan.
American Anthropologist 58:1079-1089.
Barton, Roy F.
1969 Ifugao Law. Berkeley: University of California Press.
(Originally published 1919.)
BCS
1972 Statistical Handbook of the Philippines. Manila: Bureau of the
Census and Statistics.
Bellwood, Peter
1985 Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. New York:
Academic Press.
Benjamin, Geoffrey
1973 Introduction. In Among the Forest Dwarfs of Malaya. By
Paul Schebesta. London: Oxford University Press.
Bennagen, Ponciano
1976 Kultura at Kapaligiran: Pangkulturan Pagbabago at Kapanatagan
na mga Agta sa Palanan, Isabela. Master's thesis in
anthropology, University of the Philippines, Diliman.
Bennett, John W.
1969 Northern Plainsmen: Adaptive Strategy and Agrarian Life.
Arlington Heights, 111: AHM Publishing Corp.
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658
Bergman, Frithjof
1975 On the Inadequacies of Functionalism. Michigan Discussions in
Anthropology 1:2-23.
Eerkes, Fikret
1984 Competition between Commercial and Sport Fishermen: An
Ecological Analysis. Human Ecology 12:413-429.
Berlin, Brent
1978 Ethnobiological Classification, ^n Cognition and
Categorization. Eleanor Rosch and Barbara Lloyd, eds. pp. 9-
26. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
BFD Reports
n.d. Annual Reports of Northern Aurora Forest district, R3D-10,
Casiguran, Aurora for Calendar years (1980, 1981, 1982).
Typescripts.
BFD
1982 1981 Philippine Forestry Statistics. Manila: Planning and
Evaluation Division, Bureau of Forest Development.
Billings, W.D.
1970 Plants, Man, and the Ecosystem. 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth.
Birdsell, Joseph B.
1972 Human Evolution. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Blackburn, Roderic H.
1982 In the Land of Milk and Honey: Okiek Adaptations to Their
Forests and Neighbors. In Politics and History in Band
Societies. Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee, eds. pp. 283-305.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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6 59
Blumentritt, Ferdinand
1900 The Philippines: A Summary Account of Their Ethnological,
Historical and Political Conditions. (Translated by David
Doherty). Chicago: Donohue Brothers.
Blust, Robert A.
1972 Note on PAN *qa(R)(CtT)a 'Outsiders, Alien People'. Oceanic
Linguistics 11:166-171.
Bodley, John H.
1970 Campa Socioeconomic Adaptation. Ann Arbor: University
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