Ilongot Way of Life

Adriann Joshua S. Singua

- Social Group

The Ilongot have traditionally lived a semi-nomadic life in groups with around 180 or so members.
Each groups is made up of several settlements, which in turn have four to nine household, with five to 15
nuclear families and 40 to 70 individuals. Settlements are set up by their fields and are moved whenever
they clear new fields. Houses are built on pilings 15 feet off the ground and have walls made of grass and
bamboo.

This 180-member ethnic group doesn’t have formal leadership in their community. Informal leadership
lies with sons and brothers who have oratorical skills and have acquired knowledge of myths, ceremonies
and genealogies. The oratorical skills are known as purun, which women reportedly can not understand.

This in turn may sometimes produce conflict. The usual issues that the Ilongot people experience are
debates on where and when to move their land and economic interference like what and who to trade
with. In worst cases, disputes are sometimes settled by giving offenders ordeals to establish their
innocence. More often than not they evolve into feuds settled through head hunting raids. A death in a
household requires a young man in that house avenge it. A pig is sacrificed when headhunters return.
Some feuds are settled with negotiations and exchanges, Many bear grudges for a long time.

The Ilongot people also do marriages. Young men are expected to engage in a successful head hunt before
marriage. Prospective marriage partners usually exchange gifts, work together in the fields and have sex
before the get married. Pregnancy speeds up the process which is finalized until the two families who are
going to be unified have settled all their disputes. Marriages are usually monogamous and cousins are
preferred partners.

The youth, by tradition, also do an initiation to adulthood. This is done by having the teeth of maidens
and youths trimmed. In 1947, a researcher named Laurence Lee Wilson said on a statement, “Sometime
in their middle teens, the maidens and youths have their teeth filed down. A group of her boyfriends will
rally round a girl in her house and hold her down tight while one cuts her teeth down - no matter how
much she screams from the excruciating pain. After the operation, one lad will take a pencil-sized twig
from a guava tree or the stem of a batac plant, heat it in the fire, and rub the warm bark on the teeth:
thus, stopping the blood and easing the pain. Thereafter the shortened teeth are strong for chewing -
even bones, and picking the teeth after eating is unnecessary. When it is all over, wreaths are hung up
and a gala time is had with basi [fermented wine], chicken, and rice”.

Lastly, the fun thing about Ilongots is that they are close to being real life Tarzans. Using 30-foot twined
pieces of rattan, Ilongots travel through the thick jungle by swinging from tree to tree. One end of the
rattan vine has a hook on it which is hooked around a tree limb. This ease of travel also helped them in
searching for new places to move their fields and allowed ‘spotters’ to mark hunt spots.

- Diet

The Ilongot people are known for their skills in agriculture, hunting and fishing. They grow maize,
manioc, rice, tobacco, sugar and vegetables as they move their fields once a year. The Ilongot also collect
forest products like rattan for their own use such as forging their own knives, picks and hoes. These
gathered materials are also used for trade and may include bullets, cloth, knives, liquor and salt.

Because the Ilongot people are great farmers, hunters, and fishermen, their diet is centered on vegetables
and meat from farm and forest animals and fish. One of the methods they do this is by using a cleared
field from a virgin forest for five years and left fallow for eight years so that the soil may cultivate and
regain its farming capabilities. As for the meat, the men hunt with dogs several times a week and all meat
is shared equally among the all households and consumed immediately. Sometimes longer hunting trips
take place. Here the meat is dried. Fish are taken with nets, traps, spears and poison.

Ilongot eat wild pigs, deer, and fish but do not eat the meat of the pigs and chickens that they raise for
sale to lowlanders. Domestic animals are said to eat excrement and thus should not be consumed.

- Clothes

The Ilongots’ traditional clothing mostly consists of plain or dark blue or black hues on loincloths
with a colored band around the hips. A long red or black band is tied around the hands and no shoes are
worn. Their handmade guitars often use human hair for strings. They also wear headdresses made from
horn bill, shell, wire, rattan, and hair. This is a part of their art and also includes bracelets, earrings, and
necklaces made from brass, beads, and mother pearl, ear pendants called “battling” made from hornbill,
discs of shells and brass for men, and pendants made from Japanese coins, brass, aluminum, and glass.

- System of Writing

- Religion

The religion and belief system of the Ilongots revolves around native beliefs and Protestantism.
They mostly believe in helpful and dangerous supernatural beings. Illnesses are commonly said to be
caused by supernatural beings who lick or urinate on their victims. Shaman preside over curing
ceremonies, and spirits are kept away by bathing, smoking and sweeping. Before the 1950s, when
Protestants missionaries arrived in their homelands, the Ilongot had never been exposed to major world
religions. Now many are evangelical Christians.

The Ilongot are buried in a sitting position. If a woman died in childbirth or in vain from a tragic death, her
hands are tied to her feet using a rattan rope to prevent her "ghost" from roaming.