The Elite and their Servants

The Baknangs

The animal-owning baknang class was internally stratified; the smallest "baknang of pigs" might have a dozen animals let out to neighbors and relatives, while the richest could own hundreds of cattle, hogs, water buffalo, and horses—as many as a thousand animals in all. These very wealthy baknang were few; in the early American period only one, Danggol, lived in what is today Buguias

Central, although by the later colonial period this number had doubled to include Berto Cubangay (Danggol's son), and Paran, an immigrant from a village to the east. The following discussion concentrates on the wealthier individuals.

Most baknang women were little removed from the economic milieu of their poorer relatives; few indeed escaped the drudgery of the uma. The wealthiest were also required to manage female servants and tend to a constant stream of visitors. The topmost men, however, occupied themselves strictly with managerial and financial work: overseeing livestock, supervising rice-field construction and pasture maintenance, and lending money and conducting trade. Unlike their poorer relatives, they seldom directly engaged with the land; rather, they directed others—their servants, assistants, contract workers, and livestock caretakers. Ultimately, the male baknang's role was that of community "leader." These men essentially governed Buguias (both in the indigenous and the American-sponsored systems), organized its religious practices, and headed its traditional courts. These capacities await analysis in later chapters; here we are more interested in the role of labor, as organized by social power, in deriving subsistence from—and thus transforming—nature. We have already seen how the elites acquired commoners' labor through animal lending and dangas "wages"; now we will examine several groups of people over whom they exerted more direct control.

Slaves, Servants, Itinerants, and Clients

The servile class encompassed a varied group. Some individuals voluntarily tied themselves to wealthy patrons. Elderly widows and never-married women, hard pressed to live alone, could usually enter a baknang household in exchange for hog tending, fire keeping, and dry-field cultivation. In the early years of the century, entire families living to the east of Buguias were often forced by brigands to flee their homes, and many sought the protection of powerful families in Buguias. In return, they would provide labor services for a number of years. A rich man could sometimes protect another accused of a crime, again receiving labor in exchange. In one noted example, after the Kalanguya immigrant Kabading

was inconclusively tried, by ordeal, for witchcraft, the baknang Paran protected him from further hazing. Subsequently, Kabading built five rice terraces, four of which became the property of his benefactor.

In the early years of American rule a few individuals were held in slavery. Wealthy traders purchased slaves with animals, blankets, or cash from the Ifugao. Once in Buguias slaves remained bound for life, but they were not traded and their positions differed little from those of the other servants. Their owners sometimes encouraged them to marry local commoners, and their children did not automatically remain in bondage.

The relationships between the elite and their attached clients varied. Servile married couples and elderly women usually lived in small huts near the main residence, while unmarried male retainers (and itinerant workers) more often lodged in crude "bunkhouses." Most dependents, however, were female, since women's work was in more constant demand; the routine tasks of the dry field, house yard, and kitchen could not be accomplished through dangas payments or contract. Some serving women also cared for children, but rarely were couples of child-bearing age so prosperous. Male servants, however, primarily cared for the private herds and pasturelands of a baknang, in addition to providing a host of other minor services. The elite couples always provided patronage for their workers, paying for their funerals and sometimes their weddings, and in general assuring their places within the community. Yet by no means did such relationships approach reciprocity.

The elite could obtain labor for daily, seasonal, and single-occurrence tasks either from commoners (through dangas) or from their dependents. But some projects demanded greater skill and effort than could be locally obtained. Elite men therefore hired, by contract, itinerant workers, usually Northern Kankana-ey or Kalanguya men. These sojourners constructed rice terraces and stone walls, sawed lumber, and occasionally cleared new fields. Remuneration came as cash, animals, or blankets. The Northern Kankana-ey never stayed long, but the Kalanguya, culturally and genealogically tied to the Buguias people (and less secure in their bandit-infested homeland) not uncommonly married and remained.

The wealthiest residents of prewar Buguias commanded yet another set of clients for managerial work, namely their juvenile male

relatives. As these younger men (usually sons, sons-in-law, and nephews) acted primarily in trade, their work is discussed in that context in chapter 5. While these underlings could grow wealthy themselves in later life, their careers were anything but secure. Prewar Buguias was a stratified society, but it was also marked by class mobility—particularly striking in the downward direction.