Indigenous Tenure

Under indigenous tenure, all community members theoretically had unrestricted access to the forests and grasslands surrounding the village, although de facto land use even here proved unequal. Open lands used primarily as pastures were divided into semi-discrete sections by natural and artificial barriers. Each caretaker usually grazed his cattle in pastures near his home, although the animals often could wander relatively freely toward the higher slopes. As the baknangs scattered their animals among many commoners and over many pasture segments, most "herds" comprised cattle of diverse ownership lent to sundry caretakers. Still, elite couples usually possessed most of the animals pasturing near their own homes and thus they dominated certain pastures.

Dry fields, in contrast, were semiprivate, since individuals held recognized rights over their own plots while cultivating them. Cultivators gained the privilege of permanent cultivation by investing in permanent improvements, such as stone walls. Since land remained relatively plentiful throughout the prewar period, however, few conflicts erupted here.

By the middle years of American rule, some Buguias cattle lords adopted the techniques of land improvement to lay claim to private pastures. By enclosing and thoroughly cleaning a plot of grassland, a cattle owner could gain the community's consent to his exclusive grazing rights. But few could afford the required fencing, and even the wealthiest maintained private paddocks of no more than a few hectares.

Houselots also formed de facto private property since occupation was not easily disputed, but there were exceptions. Door-yard produce, for instance, was considered free to all, and children regularly exercised the privilege. Neither were house sites themselves sacrosanct. As most couples occasionally transferred residence, house sites frequently returned to the village common. In rare cases, poor couples could even be forced out of their homes by individuals with competing ownership claims. Present-day elders tell of one avaricious prewar baknang dispossessing several commoners who had established healthy coffee plantations on land that he was able to claim as his own.

Rice terraces were the most completely privatized element within

the indigenous land tenure system; only they could be inherited, bought, sold, and mortgaged.^[2] This tenure arrangement may have gradually emerged in Buguias owing to the investments required to establish a pond field, or it may have been adopted from the land codes of other terrace-making Cordilleran peoples. Whichever the case, an individual in prewar Buguias could usurp common land simply by carving out a new rice field. And because of the clear ownership prerogatives, investments in terraces, an option mainly open to the rich, yielded much greater returns than investments in dry fields. The land-tenure system thus reflected and reinforced distinctions of social power.