Ruling Ideas and the Incorporation of Subordinates

The post-Althusserian social theory of the past twenty years offers a broad range of analyses of the reproduction of social disparity within complex political structures. While analysts, as we have seen, disagree sharply on many of the basic issues, general accord is evident on at least one point. It is agreed that it is inaccurate to measure the incorporation of political subordinates merely by assessing their belief or disbelief in the legitimizing myths of a ruling class. Political structures are significantly reproduced by other means (and here there is disagreement): by nondiscursive practices, by coercions, by compensatory beliefs or the "common sense" consciousness generated as part of the everyday operation of systems of domination (see, e.g., Bourdieu 1977; Foucault 1978; Abercrombie et al. 1980; Williams 1980; Corrigan and Sayer 1985; Elster 1985; J. Scott 1985, 1990).

The contemporary descendants of the Magindanaon aristocracy favor the view (shared by a range of political actors) that Magindanaon subordinates have perfectly shared (and continue to share) the dominant myth of sanctified inequality. Datu Alunan Glang notes that "down to this day, many of them still hold the datus in characteristic religious awe and adulation" (1969, 33). Datu Michael Mastura seconds this sentiment when he writes that "much of Magindanao's sociopolitical history can be evaluated in terms of the tradition for loyalty to the datus or at least in the veneration of descent groups belonging to the Magindanao core lineage" (1984, 40). Bai Rebecca D. Buan ("Bai" is the form of reference for a female member of the nobility), in a 1978 letter to the editor of a Cotabato newspaper, takes a peculiar pre-Islamic slant when she comments that "the datus of olden days . . . were the living gods of their people" (Mindanao Cross , April 7, 1978).

An examination of the historical evidence and oral traditions from Cotabato suggests that ideological adherence was more fragmentary and symbolic power relations more complex than imagined by contemporary datus. Looking first at the more formal constructs of the myth of sanctified inequality, we find that the tarsilas had little relevance for subordinates except on the occasions when they were used to restrain the behavior of a social-climbing commoner. As essentially private doc-

uments, the tarsilas were viewed rarely, if ever by subordinates (Majul 1973, 3). Commoners were more likely to hear tales of nobles past and present performed by professional reciters and praise-singers at weddings and other celebrations. The primary audience for these performances was aristocrats, and their first purpose was rank competition rather than the edification of commoners.

A second official forum for the transmission of the dominant ideology would have been the mosque, particularly at Friday community prayers. As putative sharifs, sultans and ruling datus were religious as well as political leaders. Imams (prayer leaders), themselves datus, were appointed by rulers, and they paid customary obeisance to those rulers before beginning public prayers in the mosque. In their Friday orations, imams asked special blessings for the sultan, his family, and his royal predecessors (Saleeby 1905; Loyre 1991). Accounts of public religious practice suggest, however, that the mosque was not a primary arena for interclass instruction. William Dampier visited Cotabato for seven months as an officer aboard a British privateering vessel, the Cygnet . His 1697 account, New Voyage Round the World , provides the best ethnographic description of Cotabato in the seventeenth century. It includes the following description of mosque attendance: "Friday is their Sabbath; but I never did see any difference that they make between this Day and any other Day, only the Sultan himself goes to the Mosque twice . . . The meaner sort of people have little Devotion: I did never see any of them at their Prayers, or go into a Mosque" (1906, 344–45).

The entire community did gather for such ceremonial events as royal weddings, installations, or lustrations. These were certainly (as elsewhere in Southeast Asia) occasions for displaying the power and splendor of the ruler, but they offered limited opportunity for the direct inculcation of dominant beliefs.^[26]

The ideology of sanctified inequality was tracked by more elemental (and more indigenous) representations of rule. These were symbolizations of individually exercised power rather than sanctions for collectively claimed authority. Jeremy Beckett notes that the term "datu" had two meanings: "ruler" and "one entitled to rule on account of his descent from datus" (1982, 396). The ideology of nobility emphasized the latter meaning. In practice though, the regular occurrence of feuds, wars, and succession struggles ensured that the personal attributes of a datu, especially his ability to command fear and deference, remained a key factor in his political successes.^[27] Datu Adil informed me that the

ideal datu acquired recognition without demanding it and obtained tribute without exacting it—not because of his elevated rank but as a result of his personal force. That regard for personal power and its projection was often represented in the names of prominent datus, three of which—Mangelen, Makapuges, and Dilangalen—may be glossed as "the Controller," "the Enforcer," and "He Who Cannot Be Moved." It was also evident in some inherited titles. The full title of one of the highest offices in the Magindanao Sultanate, "Amirul Umra a Tibpud a Bangias a Dimakudak u Pagilidan," translates as "Commander of Decisive Power Who Treads upon the Seashore."

The substantial power of a ruling datu was projected symbolically through his supernatural abilities. As with the political skills that secured his position, those abilities were individually acquired, not innately possessed. The single exception to the pattern of intentional acquisition of supernatural abilities was the supernatural potency that inhered in the person of the sultan. That endowment of potency was equally capable of benefaction or injury. As related by Imam Akmad, "The sultan would bathe ceremonially in the Pulangi River to drive away the three evil spirits of Satan [Saytan]. Ordinary people were careful never to bathe downstream from the sultan. It was believed that the sultan was toxic, that the water that flowed past his body would make a person ill."^[28] All other aristocrats, I was told, acquired their supernatural abilities through the study of esoteric arts known collectively in Magindanaon as kamal or ilmu ("special power" or "special knowledge"). Kamal was taught by special masters and was effectively limited to members of the aristocracy. Kamal arts included the abilities to repel blades and bullets, leap great distances, and disappear at will.

Ethnographic evidence suggests that these symbolizations of power were appreciated, and often embellished, by Magindanaon subordinates. When asked about the supernatural powers exercised by past rulers, contemporary datus had few stories to offer, and those they did tell usually emphasized how the powers were acquired from specific teachers rather than relating how such powers were used to secure or maintain political power.^[29] By contrast, Magindanaon commoners related numerous narratives of supernatural power—stories that diverged from those of datus in interesting ways.

I often heard stories of datus of old (and a few in living memory) possessed of extraordinary physiognomies: terrible visages, monstrous bodies, extra eyes and fingers. Rulers also exhibited various marvelous

powers—those directly related to the kamal arts but others as well: prognostication, remote vision, and the ability to strike a man dead without touching him. In these stories, neither extraordinary appearance nor exceptional powers was explicitly linked to noble descent. They were attributed only to prominent and powerful members of the nobility and served as both metaphors for and explanations of the personal power of individual rulers. The narratives related by non-elite Muslims tend to be unclear about, or indifferent to, the ways in which kamal powers were acquired by rulers. They focus instead on linking the power of command with the command of supernatural powers. Taken as a whole they form a subordinate mythology of power analogous to but distinct from the dominant mythology of nobility.

While the myth of sanctified inequality is advanced by many in Cotabato today as the fundamental axiom of traditional governance, it is more likely that symbolic representations of power, some of them generated endogenously out of the experiences of subordinates, were more significant for social reproduction.