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Animal Sharing

Few persons in prewar Buguias owned the large animals they tended. Commoners typically received their animals on loan, as infants or yearlings, from the village elite, with the understanding that any offspring would be shared. The actual apportioning varied according to the animal lent and the relationship between the borrower and lender.

Hog-lending arrangements varied greatly. When a female piglet was transferred, the caretaker would usually keep the entire first brood, and two of every three in subsequent litters; if the loan were a mature sow, the owner could usually take the choice one of every three piglets. Few commoner women could tend more than two or


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three brood sows; occasionally they owned one outright, but more commonly they "leased" all. Caretakers could not easily acquire breeding stock, for their own shares were typically devoted to rituals or sold for cash. Most commoners were eager to raise swine for the rich, but a few resisted the entailed subordination. Yet even reluctant individualists could often be pressured by wealthy patrons into building a pigpen and borrowing stock.

Cattle and water-buffalo lending (pastol , a Spanish-derived term also referring to the caretakers themselves) was more prestigious though not as ubiquitous as hog lending. Few men could care for more than a few water buffalo, but the ambitious could raise twenty or more cows, steers, and bulls. Enterprising caretakers commonly borrowed stock from several sponsors. Commoners would usually sell their own shares for cash, sometimes to their own patrons—who might immediately "lend" them back again. Pastol agreements typically favored the lender, since he could claim the first offspring, the third, the fifth, and so on; under such terms, the vagaries of reproduction ensured the animal owner a greater share.[1]

The basic pastol contract included provisions for a number of contingencies. Castrated male calves, for instance, might be sold at maturity with the profit divided equally. Yet conflicts sometimes flared, as when cattle fell from precipitous slopes. After such an occurrence the caretaker had to show evidence that the death was indeed accidental. Dead and seriously maimed cattle were usually butchered and sold by weight to interested neighbors, with most of the profit accruing to the animal's owner. A magnanimous baknang, however, would be expected to give a feast and freely distribute his windfall meat.

The customary apportioning of calves and piglets might not be realized if the commoner caretaker were deeply in debt to his or her patron. In this instance, the baknang could claim all offspring, although many often simply let their credits accumulate through subsequent breeding rounds. For the common people, the indebtedness that usually began at marriage was exacerbated by the terms of animal sharing.


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