Class and Family

Social classes in prewar Buguias interdigitated along kinship lines. All baknangs had near relatives of the commoner class, and all commoners were tied not too distantly to elite families. Virtually the entire community traced its ancestry to the Kalanguya hunter Lumiaen, who arrived in Buguias in the early nineteenth century. Most elite families stemmed from Basilio, Lumiaen's wealthy son, while most commoners traced their lineage to Siklungan, his poorer offspring. But since kinship was reckoned cognatically, lines crossed and complex relationships linked most families. The generally poor immigrants were excluded from the Buguias family tree, but they could be grafted to it through marriage. Many individuals married across class lines; since customary law proscribed unions even between second cousins, the pool of potential mates was limited. Powerful families, in attempting to concentrate their wealth, sometimes allowed cousins to marry, or, alternatively, selected for their children elite spouses from other villages. But these were never standard practices, and many elite youngsters married commoners. This did not challenge the village's class structure, however, since local ideology explicitly allowed for individual mobility. Through luck and effort, poor individuals could rise, whereas children of the rich regularly fell.