Why Foragers Do Not Become Far PDF

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Headl?nd, Thomas Neil
WHY FORAGERS DO NOT BECOME FARMERS: A HISTORICAL STUDY OF

A CHANGING ECOSYSTEM AND ITS EFFECT ON A NEGRITO HUNTER-
GATHERER GROUP IN THE PHILIPPINES
University of Hawaii Ph.D. 1986
University
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Copyright 1986
by
Headland, Thomas Neil
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WHY FORAGERS DO NOT BECOME FARMERS:
A HISTORICAL STUDY OF A CHANGING ECOSYSTEM
AND IT S EFFECT ON A NEGRITO HUNTER-GATHERER GROUP
IN THE P H ILIP P IN E S
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN ANTHROPOLOGY
MAY 1986
By
Thomas N. Headland
Dissertation Committee:
P. Bion Griffin, Chairman

Alice G. Dewey
Richard W. Lieban
Leslie E. Sponsel
Lawrence A. Reid
We certify that we have read this dissertation and that in our
opinion it is satisfactory in scope and quality as a dissertation for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology.
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
a,
ii
c Copyright by Thomas Neil Headland 1986
All Rights Reserved
iii
R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. F urther reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is impossible for me to adequately thank all those whose help
and support made this research possible. Appreciation must be
expressed first to my home institute, the Summer Institute of
Linguistics, which first asked me to do a doctoral program in
anthropology in 1979, and which allowed me complete freedom from other
assignments for the following seven years until the project was
completed. They provided major financial support during those years.
I also gratefully acknowledge funding from the Lowell Berry Foundation
during my period of field work and the writing of the present
dissertation. The Philippine Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports
which provided my affiliation while in the Philippines is also to be
thanked.
The following persons read parts of dissertation drafts and sent me
comments: James Eder, on Chapter I; Murray Chapman, Arthur Gilmore and
James Yost, on Chapter II; Alan Howard, on. Chapter III; Bruce
Cruikshank, Karl Hutterer and William Henry Scott, on Chapters VI and
VII; and Harold Conklin, on Chapter XI. Janet Headland, Rachel
Headland, Kristy Nickell, Charles Peck, and the members of my doctoral
committee at the University of Hawaii read and commented on drafts of
all or most of the dissertation. Howard McKaughan helped me with
revision and editorial problems. Wayne Dye and Lou Hohulin gave me
helpful comments on my research proposal in 1983. I am indebted to all
of these. They cannot be blamed for the remaining deficiencies, but
there are fewer because of their wise advice.
iv
Several people assisted me in archival research. Pedro Gil Munoz,
archivest at the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, in Madrid, located
and sent me photocopies of many documents and letters pertaining to
Casiguran. David Bain sent me photocopies of various historical
records on Casiguran and Palanan. Rudolf Rahmann sent me photographs
taken of Casiguran Agta in 1936, which he located in the Anthropos
Institute in West Germany. Ronald Edgerton sent me an important
document he chanced upon at the Dean C. Worcester Collection, at the
University of Michigan. John Slonaker, Chief of the Historical
Reference Branch of the U.S. Army Military History Institute,
Pennsylvania, located, photocopied, and sent to me documents concerning
U.S. Army operations in the Casiguran area at the end of WWII. Thercial
Curitana of Casiguran also supplied me with information on U.S. military
units in that area in 1945.
The following persons from the National Archives and Records
Service in Washington, D.C., corresponded with me, answering my various
questions: Richard Crawford, W.M. Getchell, and Michael Musick.
Bernardo Agaloos, Regional Director of the Philippine Bureau of Forest
Development for Region IV, kindly compiled for me data on the various
forest types in Casiguran fordifferent years. Hermes Gutierrez of the
National Museum of the Philippines identified for me plant specimens I
brought to him from Casiguran. Santiago Pena and Ruben Valencia, of
the Pagasa Weather Bureau Station in Casiguran, have for many years
patiently supplied me with monthly rainfall measurements. Tomas Casala,
former Representative for the Commission on National Integration,
vi
graciously loaned me his CNI records for the years 1960-1964, and
granted me permission to photocopy them and to quote from them. I
acknowledge with deep appreciation the assistance of all these persons.
A number of individuals assisted me in the translation of various
documents. Flora Lasaro Switzer translated for me certain Ilokano
manuscripts. Takashi Fukuda, an SIL colleague, located for me archival
information in Japan on the movement of Japanese troops in Casiguran
during the War, and translated those documents for me. The following
persons translated various German documents for me: Hella Goschnick,
Marianne Finkbeiner, and Hartmut Wiens, all SIL colleagues. I owe a
special word of thanks to my colleague Charles Peck, who spent several
days reading through some 300 pages of Spanish letters written by
Franciscan priests in Casiguran during the 18th century, and translating
for me those parts referring to the Agta, and to William Henry Scott for
helping me to interpret those paragraphs which neither Peck nor I could
decipher. Other Spanish documents were translated for me by Martha
Shirai.
In 1984 I advertised in both Current Anthropology and Anthropology
Newsletter for information on swidden studies from other SE Asian
areas. The following persons responded and supplied me with swidden
data from their areas: Rowe Cadelina, Thomas Conally, Harold Conklin,
Michael Dove, James Eder, Robert Lawless, Harold Olofson, and Stuart
Schlegel. I acknowledge the contribution of these swidden specialists.
A number of SIL members introduced to me the wonders of the
computer age. Joseph Grimes and Michael Walrod modified their software
v ii
programs to fit my needs. Carl Dubois and Kenneth Zook developed
programs for arranging and analyzing my data, and patiently supplied me
with data printouts and statistical figures as I needed them. John
Wimbish introduced to me the dBase II program, which I used for most of
my data analyses. Reg Giesbrecht never tired of helping me with my
computer problems. Robart French assisted me with the final printing.

T <*-1 u .11
X uiioiiCN. uiicm a ix •
John Bailey lent his expertise to the project by taking my maps of
the 48 Agta agricultural fields and calculating the number of square
meters in each field. I thank him.
My family and I owe a special thanks to Iris Harrison and Anne
Kueffer, missionaries of the New Tribes Mission, who graciously gave us
the use of their house and motor boat in Casiguran in 1983, while they
were away on furlough in the United States.
I feel a deep sense of gratitude to the five members of my doctoral
committee at the University of Hawaii. Each of them contributed with
keen interest in my research, from their various areas of expertise.
These include Professors P. Bion Griffin, my chairman, Alice Dewey,
Richard Lieban, Leslie Sponsel, and Lawrence Reid. Without them, the
completion of this dissertation would have remained a dream.
Most of all, I thank the Agta people themselves for allowing my
wife and I to live with them for so manyyears, and to raise our three
children in their camps. One must wonder what they thought about all
the strange questions we have asked of them over the years, which they
so patiently tried to answer. Those Agta who were especially helpful to
v iii
us in 1983-84 were Didog Aduanan, Eleden Aduanan, Lito Aduanan, Erning
Moral, Nateng Prado, and Pompoek Saguned.
Last of all, I want to thank my wife, Janet Headland, and my
children, Rachel, Stephen, and Jennifer, who not only patiently
tolerated my long hours at the desk, but who served as my research
assistants in the field. My wife worked with me throughout the 19
months of field work, gathering much of the data herself. Our children
lived with us in the field during both summers, assisting me in the
measuring, observing, and counting of various data. Rachel typed much
of the data into the computer in 1984, after Stephen and Jennifer coded
it from my notebooks onto cards. My wife read and reread drafts of
chapters as they were completed, and her criticisms were invaluable.
All five of us spent many boring but necessary hours reading back and
forth to each other literally thousands of data figures, checking for
typing errors on computer printouts. The field study was a Headland
family project, and I am grateful to my wife and children, who have
given me immense support and hope, for their gifts of love and
understanding. Without them I could never have completed my studies. I
dedicate this dissertation to them with love and gratitude.
ABSTRACT
The Casiguran Agta, a Philippine Negrito hunter-gatherer society,
are today undergoing traumatic socioeconomic change as a result of game
decline and intrusion by outsiders. These hunters have reached a point
where they can no longer live by hunting, and are thus modifying their
traditional economic strategy in an effort to survive.
The present study, based on 13 years of field work among the Agta
between 1962 and 1984, attempts to describe this change and to test how
well the Agta are adapting to it. The two basic questions of the study
are, What are these Agta doing for a living in the 1980s, and Why do
they resist taking up agriculture as an alternative way of life, in
spite of repeated government efforts to encourage them to do so.
Special attention is given to finding out why this population has
declined over the last 50 years.
The study is based on theories developed in cultural ecology.
Three ecological concepts are used as heuristic devices for explaining
the present-day Agta culture, and for showing why they are not
successful at agriculture.
A model is proposed here for explaining most of today's foraging
societies as belonging to a single, unique basic production type, called
here "commercial hunter-gatherers." Theoretical arguments are developed
for explaining why this type has persisted into the late twentieth
century.
The data used for testing the hypotheses are heavily quantitative,
and include a time allocation study, hunting success rates, input/output
ix
analyses of swidden cultivation activities and of the gathering of
forest products, and a breakdown of food types consumed. An analysis of
the population's vital statistics is also presented, based on the data
of Agta demographic events recorded over a 20 year period.
The study shows the Agta to be living in a degraded environment,
suffering from deculturation, alcoholism, nutritional stress, and an
extremely high death rate. If human populations were to be put on the
list of "endangered species," this group would appear near the top. The
data show that the Agta did little hunting in 1983-84, while at the same
time only 24 percent of the men did any cultivation during the same
period, producing enough rice to feed the population for only 15 days.
Instead, these people are moving into a niche manifested by casual labor
for immigrants. Evidence is provided showing that a main reason they
avoid farming is because the dominant lowland population hinders any
attempts Agta make to change from patron-client servanthood to
independent agriculture.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................... iv
ABSTRACT.................................................. ix
LIST OFTABLES.............................. xv
LIST OFF I G U R E S ............................................ xviii
LIST OFM A P S ............................................... xix
P R E F A C E .................................................. xx
The Major Propositions ........................ xxiii

The Six Bodies of D a t a ........................ xxiv
General Contents .............................. xxv
A Note on Orthography........................ xxx
A Note on Units of Measure.................... xxx
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: THE NATIONAL AND LOCAL SETTING

AND THE CASIGURAN AGTA P E O P L E ................. 1
The Casiguran Ecosystem ...................... 3

The Philippine Forest Situation ............... 4
Casiguran Land Types .......................... 6
The Human Populations in Casiguran ............. 8
The Language Situation ........................ 17
The Research Problem.......................... 19
The Theoretical Approach ...................... 22
The Data Presentation........................ 23
Previous Studies on the A g t a ................... 24
Major Propositions and Hypothesesof the Study . . 26
CHAPTER II THE RESEARCH DESIGN: HOW THE DATA WERE GATHERED . 32
A Multiple-Working Hypotheses Approach ......... 34

Collecting the "Time Allocation" D a t a ......... 35
Recording the Daily Activities ofOne Man . . . . 46
Taking an Agta C e n s u s ........................ 47
Collecting Information- on Agta Fields ......... 53
Finding Out What Agta E a t ..................... 55
Library Research .............................. 57
xi
CHAPTER III CULTURAL ECOLOGY: THE THEORETICAL BASIS OF
THE S T U D Y ................................... 61
Defining Cultural Ecology ..................... 61

Economics and Ecosystem Theory ................. 67
The Agta as "Economic M e n " ..................... 70
Adaptive Strategies Among the Agta ............. 73
The Equilibrium Concept in Cultural Ecology . . . 74
The Agta as Commercial Hunter-Gatherers....... 77
Three Ecological Principles ................... 83
Using Ecological Concepts to Explain Agta Society. 96
CHAPTER IV THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT...................... 101
The C l i m a t e ................................. 101

Land T y p e s ................................... 105
Important Casiguran Fauna ..................... 118
Casiguran: fast-Changing Ecosystem ............. 133
CHAPTER V AGTA KINSHIP AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO SOCIAL

ORGANIZATION, BEHAVIOR, AND THE ECOSYSTEM . . . . 136
Kinship Terminology .......................... i37

Kinship and Social Behavior ................... 139
Household and Camp Membership................. 141
Marriage, Divorce, and Widowhood ............... 146
Orphans, Half-Siblings, and In-Laws ........... 158
CHAPTER VI HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS: THE PREHISPANIC PERIOD . . 164
Two Models of Agta Prehistory.......... 166

The Linguistic Evidence for Model T w o ......... 174
The Wild Yam Q u e s t i o n ........................ 178
Other Model Two Arg um en t s..................... 184
CHAPTER VII HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS: THE SPANISH PERIOD:

1609 TO 1 9 1 1 ................................. 194
The Spanish Documents ........................ 195

Agta-Farmer Relations in the Spanish Period . . . 201
References to Agta Practicing Agriculture . . . . 216
Early 20th Century Records..................... 218
CHAPTER VIII HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS: THE AMERICAN PERIOD
UP TO POST-WWII: NEW ECOLOGICAL INFLUENCES
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.................. 227
The Agta Reservation at Calabgan........... 229

Effect of the Philippine Population Explosion .. 237
World War T w o ........................... 242
Logging and Mining Operations ................. 250
Government Agencies in Charge of the Agta . . . . 256
Firearms, Hunting Pressure, and Game Decline . .. 259
The Importance of A l c o h o l ................ 265
The Use of Agta Girls as Housemaids....... 266
The Out-Karriages of Agta W o m e n ........... 269
CHAPTER IX CURRENT EVENTS: NEW ECOLOGICAL INFLUENCES

SINCE 1970 ................................... 275
Introduced Diseases, Medicines, & the Hospital .. 276

The Foreign Missionaries ...................... 281
The Martial Law E r a ...................... 284
The Guerrilla War of 1974-1975 ................. 285
Effects of the Aquino Assassination ........... 288
The R o a d ................................. 290
Coconuts and the Copra Market . . . . . ....... 293
The Influence of the Market Demand for Rattan .. 297
Other New Influences...................... 302
CHAPTER X WHAT AGTA DO FOR A LIVING: A TIME ALLOCATION

STUDY OF AGTA ACTIVITIES IN 1983-1984 310
General Activity No. 1: "No W o r k " ............. 311

General Activity No. 2: Hunting ............... 316
General Activity No. 3: Fishing ............... 323
General Activity No. 4: Own Agriculture........ 324
General Activity No. 5: Rattan W o r k ........... 326
General Activity No. 6: Non-Agri W o r k ......... 328
General Activity No. 7: Agricultural Labor . . . . 329
Other PWD Activities...................... 330
CHAPTER XI ARE THE CASIGURAN AGTA FARMERS? A DESCRIPTION AND

ANALYSIS OF THEIR CULTIVATION PRACTICES IN 1983. . 334
The Agta Swidden Cycle-.................... 335

A Description of Agta Swidden Characteristics .. 338
Agta Wet Rice Fields ...................... 345
Per Capita Cultivated Land and Rice Yields . . . . 347
Comparing Agta Swiddens with Other Groups . . . . 349
Was 1983 a "Typical" Agta Y e a r ? ........... 354
Why Agta Cannot Be Called F a r m e r s ......... 356
x iii
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CHAPTER XII CASIGURAN AGTA DEMOGRAPHY: THE CASE OF
AN UNSTABLE POPULATION ............. 359
The Casiguran Agta De Jure Population in 1984 . . 360

Some Vital Statistics ........................ 362
Evidence of the Population Decline ............. 374
Looking at the Causes of the Population Decline . 384
The Main Causes of Agta Deaths................. 388
CHAPTER XIII WHY DON'T THE AGTA TAKE UP AGRICULTURE?....... 402
Commercial Hunter-Gatherers as a Production Type . 405

Multilinear Evolution and Commercial Hunters . . . 407
Why Foragers Don't Become Farmers ............. 410
The Competitive Exclusion Principle ........... 426
CHAPTER XIV CONCLUSION: WHAT OF THE AGTA F U T U R E ? ......... 440

Contribution of the S t u d y .................... 441
APPENDICES
A. DEFINING THE POPULATION...................... 546
B. FORMAL DEFINITIONS OF CASIGURAN AGTA KINSHIP TERMS 549
C. FOOD TYPES EATEN AT AGTA M E A L S ................ 553
D. OUTLINE OF PERSON-WORK-DAY ACTIVITY TYPES . . . . 557
E. AN OUTLINE DESCRIPTION OF THE 48 FIELDS
CULTIVATED BY CASIGURAN AGTA IN 1983 ........... 563
F. A HISTORY OF FIELDS CLEARED IN THE KOSO
RIVERSHED IN THE 20th C E N T U R Y ................. 575
G. DOCUMENTS AND OFFICIAL LETTERS RELATING TO
AGTA LAND PROBLEMS............................ 584
H. REFERENCES OF GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO TEACH
AGRICULTURE TO AGTA IN THE YEARS 1960 TO 1963 . . 593
REFERENCES CITED .......................................... 655
x iv
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
0.1 A Conversion Table of Metric, U.S. and Philippine

Units of Measure............................... 449
1.1 Population Figures for Casiguran for Various Years . . . 450
4.1 Critical Climate Variables at Casiguran............... 451
4.2 Rainfall Data in Casiguran in 1983-1984 ............ 452
4.3 Typhoons Which Passed Through Casiguran,1948-78. . . . 453
4.4 Land Types in the Casiguran E c o s y s t e m ........... 454
4.5 Types of Terrain Where Agta Camps Were Located ........ 455
4.6 Main Starch Food Eaten at Agta M e a l s ............. 456
4.7 Main Side Dish Foods Eaten at Agta M e a l s ......... 457
4.8 Number of Meals Recorded for Each Month, and Percent

of Those in Which Rice Was the Main Starch Food . . . . 458
4.9 Number of Meals Recorded for Each Band Area, and

Number and Percent of Those Which Had R i c e ....... 459
5.1 Average Measurements of Agta H o u s e s ............. 460
5.2 Percentage of Nights Visitors Slept in Agta Camps . . . 461
8.1 Agta Living in Lowland Communities as house

servants in June 1984 462
9.1 Monthly Mean Agta Income in 1983-84 464
9.2 Percent Rise/Decline in Cost of Rice and Daily Wages

in Casiguran 11 Months After the Aquino Assassination . 465
9.3 Yearly Philippine Export of Coconut Products, and

Yearly Market Prices for Copra in Casiguran ......... 466
9.4 Figures on Export of Rattan from the

Philippines from 1970 to 1982 467
10.1 Breakdown of 3,283 PWDs Into 11 Main Activity Categories 468
XV
10.2 Breakdown of 3,283 PWDs by 37 Different Variables .. . 470
10.3 Breakdown of Number and Percentage of PWDs

Given to Hunting A c t i v i t y .......................... 478
10.4 Number of PWD Activities Gathered Each Month

from the Ten Band A r e a s ............................ 479
10.5 Hunting Success Rates (Based on 198 Hunting Trips) .. . 481
10.6 Hunting Success Rates of Eleven Men ................. 482
10.7 Numbers and Percentages of 168 Agta Men Involved in

Various Types of Agriculture in 1983 ................. 483
10.8 Breakdown of Amounts and Percentages of PWDs

Given to Agricultural Activities .................... 484
10.9 Amount of Time Spent By Agta in Swidden Cultivation . . 485
11.1 Data on 43 Agta Swiddens, Showing Field Sizes

and Crop Y i e l d s ................................... 487
11.2 Percentage of Burned Areas Left Uncropped, of 43Swiddens 489
11.3 Environmental Variables of the 43 Swiddens Made in1983 492
11.4 List of 43 Swiddens, Showing Number of Cultigens

Planted in Each from Early 1983 up to May 1984 ....... 493
11.5 List of the 47 Cultigens Found Growing in the 43

Agta Swiddens in 1983-84 ............................ 496
11.6 Data on Five Agta Wet Rice Fields, Showing Field

Sizes and Crop Y i e l d s .............................. 498
11.7 Estimated Total Amount of Rice Produced by Agta in1983 499
11.8 Estimated No. of Days Rice Produced by Casiguran

Agta in 1983 Would Feed the Population............... 500
11.9 A Comparison of Agta Swidden Data With Other

Groups in Southeast A s i a ............................ 501
11.10 Summary of Data on Casiguran Agta Agriculture in1983 . 505
11.11 Data Showing Per Capita No. of Square Meters

of Cropped Land Cultivated by All Agta in 1983 ....... 508
xvi
12.1 A Comparison of Agta Vital Statistics
With Other Populations .............................. 509
12.2 Mean and Median Ages of the Population in 1977 and 1984 511
12.3 List of the 184 Members of the De Jure Population Born

Alive Between June 16, 1977 and June 15, 1984 512
12.4 List of the 193 Members of the De Jure Population Who

Died Between June 16, 1977 and June 15, 1984 ......... 517
12.5 List of Females Showing Ages at First Marriage........ 522
12.6 Frequency Distribution of Number of Agta Married

From Age 15 to 29 in June 1984 ...................... 524
12.7 Information on Agta Out-Migrants and In-Migrants

in June 1984 ....................................... 525
12.8 Frequency Distribution of Number of Live

Births Per Woman Age 4 5 + ............................ 526
12.9 Number of Offspring Alive in 1984 Per Woman Age 45+ . . 529
12.10 Frequency Distribution of No. of Daughters Produced

by Women Age 45+ Who Live to Age Fifteen............. 532
12.11 Women Listed as Ever-Married in Vanoverbergh's

Census of 1936 (Showing Frequency Distribution of
No. of Female Descendants).......................... 535
12.12 Causes of the 193 Deaths in the Population

from 1977 to to 1984 ............................... 537
12.13 Common Causes of Agta Deaths in the Fifty

Years Before 1977 538
12.14 Agta Homicide V i c t i m s .............................. 540
12.15 Comparisons of Homicide Rates for Several Populations . 542
12.16 A Comparison of Agta Heights and Weights

With Those of Other Populations .................... 544
13.1 List of Hunter-Gatherer Societies with Most of the

Six Characteristics of "Commercial Hunter-Gatherers" . . 545
x v ii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Average and Extreme Monthly Rainfall at Casiguran . . . 598
2. Kinship Chart of Ego's Relatives ..................... 599
3. Agta Population Pyramid for 1977 ..................... 600
4. Agta Population Pyramid for 1984 ..................... 601
x v iii
LIST OF MAPS
Map Page
1. Eastern Luzon, Showing Casiguran Ecosystem Area. . . . 602
2. The Ten Agta "Band" A r e a s .......................... 603
3. Locations of the 43 SwiddensCultivated by

Agta in 1983......................................... 604
4. Locations of the 5 Wet Rice FieldsCultivated

by Agta in 1983
5. Locations of 20th Century Fields on the Koso River . . . 606
6. Maps of the 43 Swiddens (in Appendix E ) ...... 607
7. Maps of the 5 Wet Rice Fields (in Appendix E ) . 650
x ix
PREFACE
The Agta Negritos of eastern Luzon, Philippines, are among the most
traditional societies found anywhere in Southeast Asia, and are
representative of the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies still
found in this area of the world. The present study focuses on the
socioeconomic change of one of these groups, the Casiguran Agta (or
Casiguran Dumagat), a population of 609 people living in northern
Aurora Province. The Casiguran Agta have undergone traumatic cultural
change in the last decade as a result of game decline and intrusion by
several outside forces. Drawing from recent theories developed in
cultural ecology, the present thesis will attempt to describe this
change and how well the Agta are adapting to it.
The present author lived with the Casiguran Agta discontinuously^
Cor seventeen years, from April 1962 to March 1979, as a missionary
linguist with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Following
three years of graduate studies in anthropology at the University of
Hawaii, a further 19 months of field work were conducted among the
Agta, from December 1982 to July 1984. Many of the data used for
testing the hypotheses of this thesis were gathered during this latter
period.
The Casiguran Agta may be best characterized as a foraging or
hunting and gathering society living in a tropical rainforest
environment on the eastern side of the Sierra Madre mountain range of
eastern Luzon. Traditionally, these people have pursued a livelihood
based on hunting, fishing, and gathering forest products, much of which
xx
R eproduced with perm ission o f the copyright owner. F urther reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.
xxi
they trade with non-Agta lowland farmers for starch food. The Agta
have lived for a long time in an intense symbiotic relationship with
the neighboring lowland farming population. This symbiosis is
manifested in an exchange relationship where the most important trade
goods are forest products for rice. Rattan has recently replaced wild
meat as the most important forest product in the Agta trading system.
Up until the decade of the 1960s, the most salient economic
activity of Agta men was that of hunting large game with bow and arrow.
It is a major argument of the present study that these hunters have
reached a point today where they can no longer live by hunting, and
have thus modified their traditional economic strategy in an effort to
survive. The goal of the 1983-84 field research was to find out, and
quantify, just what that modified strategy is. The following pages
will answer that question.
Many people assume that when hunter-gatherers can no longer make a
living by hunting they evolve into farmers. The evidence presented in
this thesis indicates that this is not the case for the Agta. It is, in
fact, a major proposition of this study that the Agta have not and are
not moving in this direction. That is, they are not taking up
agriculture as an economic option for themselves— this in spite of
repeated government efforts to help and encourage them to do so, and
even in face of the fact that they can no longer live by hunting. The
fact that the Agta are not successfully adapting today is witnessed to
mainly by their severe population decline over the last 50 years. Would
XXII
not a move from foraging into farming bring these people back from a
threshold of possible extinction?
The two questions this study focuses on, then, are: One, why
aren't the Agta taking up agriculture for themselves? And two, what
then are they doing for a living today? Most of the discussion in this
thesis will lead the reader to the answer to these two questions.
The second of these two questions will be answered in Chapter 10.
The first question will be dealt with in Chapter 13, where a
hypothetical model will be presented for answering the question, and
for proposing an ecological explanation for Agta economic behavior in
the 1980s. This model will be presented as a general model for
explaining not just the Agta anomaly, but also the economic behavior of
most of today's remaining hunting and gathering societies. The model
proposes that most of today's hunter-gatherer groups belong to a single
unique basic production type, called here "commercial
hunter-gatherers." Multilinear evolutionary theory will be used to
identify this "culture type." Drawing heavily from cultural ecology,
theoretical arguments will be developed here for explaining why this
type has persisted into the present century in so many areas of the
worId.
A salient fact which will emerge as one reads through these
chapters is that the Agta, and doubtless other "commercial
hunter-gatherer" societies, worldwide, remain in their unique economic
niches not in spite of but precisely because of their contact with the
xxiii
modern world around them. The reason for this will become clear in the
pages to follow.
THE MAJOR PROPOSITIONS OF THE STUDY
The present thesis develops itsargument around seven major
propositions, which are listed briefly here. They are presented in more
detail at the end of Chapter 1, in outline form with their corresponding
twelve hypotheses, along with summaries of the data which substantiate
them, and reference to the particular chapters which discuss each
proposition. These propositions and hypotheses were formulated at the
University of Hawaii in 1982, andwere written into my formal research
proposal that year.
The main arguments or propositions of the present thesis are as
follows: (1) The Agta are no longer involved in hunting as their
economic occupation. (2) The Agta are also not taking up independent
agriculture as their economic occupation today. (3) Further, for the
Agta to take up agriculture as a way of life for themselves would be a
maladaptive step for them, under their present circumstances, and would
result in adaptive failure. (4) The Agta today are in a dependent
symbiotic relationship with non-Agta lowland farmers. This is
manifested by serf-like relationships with lowland patrons, and by the
Agta spending their working timeprimarily in service tasks for these
lowlanders, from whom they receive most of their food. (5) The Agta
today are undergoing severe ecological stress. The main evidence of
this stress is seen in their population decline. (6) Because the Agta
are "economic men," their present economic lifestyle is logical and, in
x x iv
fact, the best option open to them in their present, severely-
restricting, ecosystem. (7) The Agta are not "fossilized" remnants of
some recent group of isolated hunter-gatherers. Rather, they have been
in intense interethnic relationships with farming populations, and have
been acquainted with cultivation and cultivated foods, for at least a
thousand years.
These 7 propositions, all of which are substantiated by data
presented in the following chapters, state in concise form what the
Casiguran Agta culture looks like. Their brief mention here already
gives the reader a clue and basic framework of how these people live.
The task of the following chapters will be to fill in that framework to
the point where we can learn just what the socioeconomic system of these
Agta is really like, and why they behave as they do.
THE SIX MAIN BODIES OF DATA
The 7 propositions of this thesis are supported by six sets of
data. These are, first, a large corpus of sample data of the daily
"person- work-days" of Agta adults. A sample of 3,283 such
person-work-days were collected, and an analysis of these is presented
in the thesis. They show how Agta adults allocated their time in
1983-84, and they reveal some interesting aspects of Agta behavior
which might otherwise have passed unnoticed.
A second set of data consists of a record of the main daily
activities of one Agta man. These data comprise the activities of this
couple for 372 consecutive days, and include a detailed input/output
analysis of this family's 1983 swidden.
XXV
The third data set consists of a detailed census of the total
population (Headland and Headland 1985). In the text, this 1984 census
will be compared with the author's earlier census of the 1970s (Headland
and Headland 1982) as a baseline for the demographic analysis presented
herein.
The fourth main set of data is comprised of the information
collected on the 43 swiddens and 5 wet rice fields cultivated by Agta
in 1983.
The fifth data set consists of a quantitative sample, taken from
558 meals, of what Agta ate over a 7 month period in 1984, and where
they procured this food.
The final set of data comes from documents found during archival
research. Many documentary records are cited in the following chapters
and appendices, drawn from Philippine, Spanish, American, and Japanese
archives. Many of these are quotes from reports written by Spanish
priests working in Casiguran over 200 years ago. They reveal some
surprising revelations of what Agta culture was like on the eve of the
Spanish contact period, as well as highlight the diachronic perspective
of the study.
Other types of data were collected as well, and these are explained
in detail, with the above six, in Chapter 2.
GENERAL CONTENTS OF THE THESIS
In this thesis we will first set the scene in Chapter 1 by
outlining the general Agta culture and language, the geographical
environment, some history of the region, and the actual research
xxv i
problem. This chapter will include a discussion of the non-Agta farming
populations in the area, as well as the ecological changes which have
occurred since WWII. The research problem is outlined here, as well,
and the theoretical approach used for viewing this problem. The final
section of the chapter will outline the 7 formal propositions of the
thesis, and the 12 supporting hypotheses of those propositions which
were tested in the field in 1983-84. The conclusions reached are
outlined with each proposition, and these may serve the reader as a
summary of the basic findings of the total study.
Chapter 2 describes the research design— how the data were gathered
and the total field methodology. This is presented in detail in such a
way that others will be able to replicate the research and confirm the
findings. I discuss here also how I controlled for bias in the sampling
procedures used in data collecting.
Chapter 3 presents a general discussion of some of the theories and
recent developments in cultural ecology, and how these may best explain
the seeming anomaly in the Agta culture. Certain aspects of economic
theory are also discussed here, and how economics relates to ecosystems
and to the Agta as "economic men." This chapter will also discuss
three particular bioecological principles, and how these influence Agta
behavior.
Chapter 4 is a detailed presentation of the physical environment of
the Agta, including climate, land types, the dipterocarp forest, and the
important flora and fauna, including the Agta themselves, and other
human populations in the area.
XXV11
Chapter 5 is on Agta kinship. This chapter focuses on the
relationship between Agta kinship and behavior, and the relationship of
both of these to the ecosystem. Kin terms are also described, with a
componential analysis of these presented in Appendix B.
Chapters 6, 7, and 8 present 3 periods of history and prehistory of
the people and the area. As the reader will come to see, the present
study is not a synchronic, point-in-time study of the Agta. Rather, I
describe the Agta using an intense diachronic perspective. This is one
of the main strengths of the thesis. A serious weakness of many
ethnographic descriptions is their lack of historical depth. As one
anthropologist has stated,
The anthropologist posits a place where natives are authentic,

untouched and aboriginal, and strives to deny the central
historical fact that the people he or she studies are
constituted in the historically significant colonial
situation, affirming instead that they are somehow out of
time and history (Cohn 1980:199, cited in Wilmsen 1983:17).
The present thesis avoids this shortcoming. Chapter 6 proposes a model
of Agta prehistory, showing these prehispanic hunters as involved then
in cultivation and in intenseinterethnic trading relationships with
other populations, andlinked to international trade. Chapter 7 reviews
early Spanish documents describing the 18th century Agta as living in
symbiosis with lowland farmers then, as well as practicing agriculture.
A review of hostile interethnic relationships in Casiguran during the
Spanish period shows the Agta to have then been in control of most of
the Casiguran valley. Chapter 8 reviews Agta 20th century history,
including government efforts to "civilize" them, and the effects of
x x v iii
several new forces which entered their ecosystem (e.g. logging and
mining companies, World War II, firearms, commercial alcohol, etc.).
Chapter 9 reviews recent current events— new ecological changes
since 1970— and how these have affected the Agta culture. These include
such factors as introduced diseases, the declaration of Martial Law in
1972, the local guerrilla war of 1974-75, the road built into Casiguran
in 1977, loggers, the effects of the international demand for copra and
rattan, transistor radios, foreign missionaries, insecticides, etc. As
the reader will see, these new "ecological" influences, working
together, have introduced profound change into the Agta culture and
ecosystem, and brought the Agta to the verge of serious deculturation,
if not extinction.
Chapter 10 presents the analytical results of a time allocation
study of Agta daily activities in 1983-84. Agta hunting activity in
1983-84 is discussed here in some detail.
Chapter 11 is on Agta agriculture. Though it is a major
proposition of this thesis that the Agta are not "agriculturalists,"
many Agta families do make small swiddens, and a few Agta cultivated
wet rice paddies in 1983. This chapter presents dataon fieldsizes,
crops grown, and percent of Agta who planted in 1983, and then analyzes
these data. Discussion is given to the quantitatively insignificant,
but qualitatively important contribution Agta gardens make,
ecologically, to Agta adaptation. A cross-cultural comparison is
presented here between Agta swiddens and those of other swidden
x x ix
societies in Southeast Asia. A concluding section discusses why Agta
cannot be called farmers.
Chapter 12 discusses Agta demography. This chapter presents an
analysis of the vital statistics of the Casiguran Agta population.
Focus is placed on the population decline, the reasons for the decline,
and the main causes of the high Agta death rate.
Chapter 13 attempts to answer the question posed in the title of
the thesis; that is, why the Agta, and other 20th century foragers, do
not take up farming. The reader who reaches this chapter will see by
then that Agta occupy their unique economic foraging niche not in spite
of but because of the modern world around them. As we shall see, this
'niche,' here called "commercial hunting and gathering," is found in
near identical form in many parts of the world. Multilinear
evolutionary theory is used to help explain this interesting phenomenon.
Several reasons are given in this chapter as to why foragers do not
become farmers. One major reason is that the more powerful farming
populations surrounding such foragers raise insurmountable obstacles
whenever these foragers attempt to take up independent agriculture. One
particular ecological concept is used here to best explain this problem,
called the "competitive exclusion principle." This principle is defined
in Chapter 3, and illustrated with case studies in Chapter 13, and in
Appendix G.
Finally, Chapter 14 presents a summary of the findings and
conclusions of the study, and proposes a model of the Agta future.
XXX
As the title of this thesis implies, this study attempts to explain
why so many of the world's hunting and gathering societies fail to make
a successful adaptation from a foraging to a farming way of life. As a
survey of the literature plainly shows, throughout the world, and
certainly repeatedly among the Agta (Headland 1985), governments
continually make efforts to "settle the nomads," aiding them, imploring
them, pushing them to become farmers. The success of such efforts, on
every continent of our globe, is practically zero. Why? This thesis
attempts to answer that question.
A NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY
Vernacular words, written in bold face, refer to terms in the Agta
language unless indicated otherwise by the context. All Agta terms are
written phonemically. Glottal stop, which is predictable before initial
vowels and after final vowels of utterances, and between certain vowel
sequences, is not symbolized. The mid close central vowel (the so-called
Austronesian "pepet" vowel) is written as e, and the velar nasal is
written as ng. (For a full description of Agta phonology, see Headland
and Headland 1974:xii-xxvii, Headland and Healey 1974:4-19, and
Headland and Wolfenden 1967.)
A NOTE ON UNITS OF MEASURE
The metric system is used for all units of measure discussed in
this thesis, except for money units which are stated in U.S. dollar
equivalents. In a few cases metric figures are followed in parentheses
by common U.S. or traditional Philippine equivalents. A conversion
xxxi
table (Table 0.1) lists the metric units used in the thesis, showing
their U.S. and Philippine equivalents.
ENDNOTES TO PREFACE
1. Some readers will want to know just how much time I actually
spent "in the field" over the years. My wife and I first came to the
Philippines in February 1962. From then up to the time of this writing
(December 1985), we have lived in the Philippines for 18 years, where
all three of our children were born. This period excludes three
furloughs we had in the United States (for 15 months in 1967-68, for 16
months in 1973-74, and for 43 months in 1979-82). Our actual periods of
time spent residing and working with Agta sums to 13 years. This does
not include vacations, business trips to Manila, etc. Our diaries show
we spent a total of 2,482 days (83 months, or 7 years) of this time
living with Agta in their own camps. These months are the sum of
numerous field periods in the Casiguran area over a 24 year period,
usually ranging from 3 to4 months at a time.During these periods we
resided in five different areas, and always inside an Agta camp.
Periods we spent working with Agta outside of their own areas— and these
totaled another 70 months— were spent either in the town of Casiguran
or, most frequently, at the SIL Workshop Center at Bagabag, Nueva
Vizcaya. Here various Agta families lived withus, wherethey assisted
us in linguistic analysis and Bible translation in Agta, and where we
helped them in the preparation of primers, folk stories, and other
reading booklets in the Agta language.
x xxii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: THE NATIONAL AND LOCAL SETTING
AND THE CASIGURAN AGTA PEOPLE
The 7,100 islands comprising the Philippine archipelago contain
today, 1985, a total population of some 54 million people. The total

2
land area is approximately 300,000 km . The population density is 180
per km2 (462 per mi 2 ). Especially significant in the present study is
the annual population increase in the Philippines, 2.7 percent. At
this rate, the national population is predicted to reach 76.5 million
by the year 2000, and to double in just 26 years (PRB 1983). As will be
seen in the pages to follow, this particular ecological variable poses
grave future implications for the subjects of this study. It is
probably the critical independent variable triggering a whole series of
secondary dependent variables which are, in turn, causing most of the
environmental and cultural change today in the particular area upon
which the present thesis focuses. This thesis will attempt to describe
that change.
Sprinkled throughout the Philippines are a number of groups of
small, dark-skinned, kinky-haired peoples which number in total around
15,000 individuals. These people, generally referred to as "Negritos,"
comprise at least 25 distinct ethnolinguistic groups, from northern
Luzon through the Visayas and Palawan, to Mindanao in the south. (For
locations of most of these groups, see Fox and Flory 1974). Depending on
the group, these Negritos refer to themselves by terms such as Aeta,
Agta, Alta, Arta, Ata, Ati, Atta, Batak, or Mamanwa. In northeastern
Luzon they refer to themselves, as well as the languages they speak, by
the term agta. This word does not mean 'black' in the Agta language, as
some have supposed, but is a term of reference foranyone with
Negrito-like characteristics (including Africans or American blacks).
All other humans are called pute. (In Tagalog the cognate term, puti,
means 'white', but in the Casiguran Agta language pute refers to any
'non-Negrito human'.)
The Agta aregenerally called "Dumagats" by the lowland peoples in
' Aurora Province. This is a verbalized form of the Tagalog word dagat
'ocean', and the term may have originally meant 'people of the sea,'
since the Agta often live along the seacoast. The Agta have never
been, however, a sea-oriented people. In some areas of eastern Luzon
the Agta are referred to by the Ilokano people aspugut (which means
'black' in Ilokano), but this latter term is not used in Aurora
Province.
The presentstudy focuses on one particular Agta population, a
group of 609 people who live in or near an area called Casiguran, in
the northern part of Aurora Province on the eastern coast of Luzon.
The present chapter will present a general introduction to these
people, and their local setting. This includes a brief outline of the
main components of the Casiguran ecosystem, emphasizing its delicate
tropical forests and the human populations in the area, as well as the
local language situation. The chapter concludes with a description of
the general research problem uDon which this study focuses, the
theoretical approach taken in the study, and a review of the literature
of previous studies on the Agta. At the end of the chapter the formal
propositions and hypotheses of the thesis are outlined.
THE CASIGURAN ECOSYSTEM
The town ofCasiguran is located at 16° 17' north latitude and
122° 8' east longitude. For purposes of this study, the Casiguran
ecosystem will be defined as the eastern watershed area in the northern
half of Aurora Province, excluding the western side of the Sierra Madre
mountain range. This includes areas in the northern edge of the
municipal district of Dipaculao, and the areas of the coastal towns of
Dinalongan, Casiguran, and Dilasag which are east of the Sierra Madre
ridge. It ends at the municipality of Dinapigui which lies on the
southern border of Isabela Province.This corresponds with the home
areas of the Casiguran Agta (see Map 1).

2
This ecosystem thus covers a land area of approximately 700 km
_2
(273 mi ), consisting of a long narrow stretch of land along the
seacoast. The area is generally mountainous with an elevation ranging
from sea level to a maximum height of 1,841 meters at the summit of
Mt. Anacuao, in the municipality of Dinalongan. The length of the area,
which extends in a northeast-southwest direction, is approximately 85 km
(53 mi). The maximum width of the area is 25 km, but the width in most
places is from 10 to 15 km. The length of the coastal shoreline is 200
km (124 mi), with about a third of this protected by coral reefs. The
mean population density, including the non-Agta lowlanders, is 51

2 2
persons per km (130 per mi ). The lowland populations tend to
aggregate in or near the three municipal towns or, increasingly since
WWII, in outlying barrios, while the Agta are widely dispersed in the
forested foothills throughout the area. (There are also some Casiguran
Agta living outside the confines of the present study area. This
subject is outlined in my definition of the Agta population in Appendix
A.)
In this thesis, when I refer to'Casiguran' or to the 'Casiguran
ecosystem,' I mean the traditional area of the municipality of Casiguran
east of the Sierra Madre ridge before it was divided up into three
municipal districts in 1959 and 1966. This definition thus excludes the
extreme western border areas of northern Aurora Province, which are on
the western side of the Sierra Madre. It includes only the area where
the Casiguran Agta are commonly found. None of the Casiguran Agta bands
normally live anywhere on the western side of the Sierra Madre, though
some individuals who have married into other Agta population groups on
that side may be found living there.
THE PHILIPPINE FOREST SITUATION
A visitor to the Philippinestoday would find it hard to believe
that the whole archipelago was once completely covered with unbroken
forest of one type or another (Dickerson 1928:127, Jocano 1975, Mendoza
1977:44). It was probably still 90 percent forested at the time of
Spanish contact, when the human population in the islands was estimated
to be still only half a million (Phil. Yearbook 1983:93). Even just a
few years ago, at the end of WWII, when the population was only 19
million (Phil. Yearbook 1977:59), the country was still about 75
percent forested (Myers 1980:95).
Today, the story is far different. With an exploding population
of some 54 million persons, there does not appear to be much time left
for the Philippine forests. During the last two decades the country's
forests have been cut down at the rate of about one hectare every three
minutes (Phil. Yearbook 1977:413, Rocero 1982:110, Segura-de Los Angeles
1982:14; see esp. Myers 1980:96-99). Some authors have suggested a
cutback rate even higher, one hectare per minute (Lynch 1982:299, Scott
1979:59, Salcedo 1970:6). This is primarily the result of the logging
industry, and the increasing thousands of landless lowland farmers who
follow the loggers into the forests to try their hand at slash-and-burn
farming.
This present rate of forest destruction is rapidly reducing the
area of Philippine forests. The results of the 1976 Landsat
measurements (i.e., satellite photographs) showed that only 38 percent
of the nation was still forested then (Myers 1980:98, 100); and one
agency, PREPF is cited in Myers (1980:99) as reporting that only 27
percent of the country was covered with densely stocked forests in
1980.1
Predictions are that, at present rates, the Philippine forests will
be gone by about the year 2000 (ibid.). One simulation model projects
that all primary forests will have been sawn off by 1993 (PREPF
1977:373). Revilla (1981:281), gives a slightly later date of 2005, at
present deforestation rates.
Only the most optimistic, then, would deny that the Philippines
today looms at the edge of ecological degradation which, when it comes,
will bring widespread hunger and hardship. In a study such as' this,
which tries to predict the present direction and future of a small
tribal group, the Agta Negritos, the above picture looms large in the
prediction. Though 71 percent of the Casiguran ecosystem is still
covered with forest of one type or another, only 44 percent is still
covered with primary dipterocarp forest(see Table 4.4), and both loggers
and immigrant homesteaders are lowering this figure at an increasingly
rapid rate, as I will show in Chapter 8. When and if the Casiguran
forests are destroyed, it will certainly bring to an end the present
lifeways of the Agta. Whether the Agta population can survivesuch a
change is an open question.
CASIGURAN LAND TYPES
The Casiguran ecosystem is comprised of eight land types, as
defined by the national government, as well as various types of ocean
areas. Five of these land types are different types of forest, while
three are of types of non-forest land areas.
Perhaps the most outstanding ecological characteristic of northern
Aurora is its large expanse of tropical rainforest. There are still wide
areas of forest in the Casiguran ecosystem. Most of these forests are
characterized by high closed canopies of broad-leaf evergreen tree
species, climbing vines, and epiphytes. Of the six formal types of
Philippine forests, five are found in Casiguran. Each of these will be
defined in Chapter 4. Here I will make some general remarks about
these forests.
7
All of the five forest types found in Casiguran come under the
general class of forest called 'tropical moist forest' (or IMF). Myers
defines this class of forest as:
Evergreen or partly evergreen forests, in areas receiving not

less than 100 mm of precipitation in any month for 2 out of 3
years, with mean annual temperature of 24+ degrees C and
essentially frost free (1980:11).
In Myers' definition, he considers TMF as synonymous with the term
'rainforest' (ibid.:15, 95). Such forests are quite different from the
seasonal 'monsoon forests' of western Luzon and western Mindanao, where
there is a marked dry season. Monsoon forests fall outside the limits
of TMF, as defined above.
Tropical moist forests .are the most complex and diverse biome on
earth. Casiguran is no exception; many of the estimated 12,000 plant
species in the Philippines are found in Casiguran. I have discussed
elsewhere the richness of the Casiguran plant world, how the Agta
interact with it, and the 603 Agta plant names I have gathered to date
(Headland 1981, 1983, 1985b). This ecosystem is also rich in fauna,
including hundreds of species of fish, and thousands of species of
arthropods.
In areas such as Casiguran, then, there is a far greater abundance
and variety of species, both quantitatively and qualitatively, than is
to be found in any other ecological zone. The biomass of lowland
rainforests ranges from 350 to 600 metric tons per ha. Another
conspicuous feature of such forests is the high number of tree species,
along with the low number of individuals of each species in a given
area. Dipterocarp forests are estimated to typically have from 40 to 100
tree species within an average hectare. (Contrast this with a similar
size plot in a New England forest with 10 species, and another in
Tennessee with 25 species [Richard 1973]).
One final point should be made concerning the delicate equilibrium
of tropical forest ecosystems. It would be a mistake to assume that the
high diversity of rainforests means high stability. As Myers' (1980)
study emphasizes, rainforest ecosystems are much more fragile than are
temperate forest ecosystems, with many of the species in the former
(including faunal species) being much more susceptible to extinction.
This is a critical point to keep in mind as we contemplate in this
thesis the possible future for the Agta. It is my argument in this study
that Casiguran is already well into the beginning of what will prove to
become a fast accelerating pace of ecological degradation. This
degradation will bring with it serious consequences for the present
growing population of 35,000 lowlanders, and the dwindling population of
600 Agta (not to mention many of the other biological populations of
flora and fauna in the area).
THE HUMAN POPULATIONS IN CASIGURAN
The people in Casiguran today may be divided into two main
population groups. These are the small population of 609 Agta, and the
much more dominant population of 35,000 non-Agta lowland peasants.
Here I will present a general introduction to both of these groups.
Many more details on both of these populations, but especially the
Agta, will be presented in the following chapters.
The Agta. Since early historic times, if not long before, the
Casiguran Agta Negritos have pursued a livelihood emphasizing one major
occupation: hunting large game with bow and arrow. They also secured
carbohydrate food from the gathering of wild tubers, the processing of
starch from the wild caryota palm and, to a lesser extent, from
occasional swidden agriculture. Since at least the turn of this century
the Agta have exchanged wild pig and deer meat, or fish, for most of
their starch foods by trading with lowland farmers, with whom they have
an institutionalized symbiotic relationship. They have always
supplemented their diet, as well, with marine and riverine resources.
In the years since WWII major environmental changes have crept over
the Casiguran area. These include rapid immigration of non-Agta lowland
homesteaders, and severe depletion of important Agta resources,
especially large game, fish, and primary forest. In the decade of the
1970s these changes became so precipitous that most Agta were forced to
give up their traditional economic lifestyle based on the hunting of
large game. What we actually have here is a case of a hunter-gatherer
society which within less than a decade finds itself no longer able to
live by hunting. Chapters 8 and 9 describe in some detail the historical
processes causing these changes.
Today the Casiguran Agta number 609 people (as of June 1984), down
from an estimated 1,000 people in 1936. The population declined in
number from 618 to 609 in the seven year period from 1977 to 1984. (The
causes of this decline will be discussed in Chapter 12). The Agta are a
band society, but not in the strict sense of the term as defined by
10
Steward (1936) or revised by Service (1971). In fact, I have despaired
of trying to isolate Agta bands, or to define what they might be. Most
Agta will claim to be from a particular rivershed, and they certainly
know who their kinsmen are, but these are not synonymous with 'band.'
Nor is there any word in their language meaning 'band.' In some of my
earlier papers I stated that there are 13 band areas in Casiguran. While
there is evidence that there may have once been more or less that many
band areas, there are too many loose ends to force such a typology
today, and too many Agta who, even though I may know their life
histories and their genealogies, I cannot be sure what band they belong
to (if indeed there is even such a thing as band membership).
Agta residence patterns. While no one would argue that the Agta
are not a band society, a term which has been recently revived by
Leacock and Lee (1982), it is not so easy to define what a 'band' is. In
this thesis, I will use the term, but only loosely, and in an etic
sense, to refer to related groups of Agta who tend to aggregate in
various riversheds. On the other hand, I refer to small family groups
living together as 'camp groups,' and to their residence sites as
'camps.' And Iconsider the term 'band society' here in the same way
that Leacock and Lee do, as something more or less synonymous with
small-scale foragers, or hunter-gatherers (1982:8). I shall define what
I mean by hunter-gatherers, and why. the Agta fit that category, in
Chapter 3.
Whatever a 'band' might be, Agta do reside in small camp groups,
and these are easy to measure, map,and census (if one can find them, a
11
task not so easy). I have personally been doing this for many years,
mostly as a hobby in the 1960s, and later to test hypotheses. Briefly,
camp groups are typically composed of from three to seven nuclear
households, all of which are kinship related. At any particular time,
the Casiguran Agta may be found living in from 25 to 40 of these widely
scattered camp groups. Agta camps may fuse and split. Most camp groups
move often, some as often as every 18 days on the average (Rai
1982:105), while a few may remain stationary for as long as ayear.
Furthermore, all camps have a high degree of ‘’flux' (i.e., individuals
and families frequently moving in and out of the camp). It is rare,
however, for a family tomove into a camp unless they have close blood
relatives there.
I should explain that though I describe Agta as living in a
tropical rainforest ecosystem, it is actually seldom that Agta camps
are situated inside the forest. That is, even though Agta camps may be
within forest areas, their houses are seldom situated under the shaded
areas of the primary forest canopy. Agta residence sites are more often
located, in fact, in ecotones, or edges, (the 'gray' areas between two
biomes), or completely outside of any of the five forest types found in
Casiguran. The favored residence locations of most Agta camp sites is
either on the open beaches, or in beach forest. The inland band groups,
however, almost neverlive on the beaches. They instead place their
houses on dry river beds, or on land fronting the rivers. (See Table
4.5 for the types of terrain where Agta camps were located in 1983-84.)
12
Most Agta houses are placed where they receive direct sunlight (on
clear days) for most of the day. Even when they are camped inside the
forests, their houses are usually found in open areas, such as on dry
riverbeds or in swiddens (often a lowlander's swidden, sometimes their
own).
So, while during daylight hours Agta may be found in the forest,
either hunting, fishing or gathering wild plant products, or just
spending the day in leisure, they do not normally live in dense forests.
The main reasons for not residing deep in the forest are four. The most
immediate reason is the mosquitos. Agta try to avoid mosquitos because
of their irritating bite. In the cooler damp forests mosquitos are more
prevalent, and are much more active during daylight hours, especially
during rainy periods. In many forest areas they are so thick that if
one stops to rest on the trail he is driven to his feet by tormenting
mosquitos within a minute or two.
A second reason why the forest is uncomfortable to live in is the
dampness. I have learned, over the years, to predict the movements of
Agta camp groups I know of which are situated deep in the forest (as
families are prone to be when they are making swiddens, or gathering
rattan). They tend to be there, away from the beaches, when there has
been little or no rain for a week or two. Then, when two or three days
of steady rain come, most of them can be expected to move out
immediately to the beaches to live until a dry spell returns.
A third reason Agta are not usually found residing under tall trees
is because of what they see as extreme danger from large falling
13
branches, especially during storms. Agta are very cognizant of this
danger, and have been quick to scold me and my family when we have
camped at times under big trees. They speak from experience. We know
of three Agta who were killed by falling tree limbs during our tenure,
all in separate incidents during storms.
The fourth reason Agta tend not to live in the deep forest is
because they have some fear of the many classes of supernatural spirit
beings which are said to live there. Though Agta do not share the
extreme dread of forest spirits that lowlanders have, they do still
fear them, and this has a significant influence on their residence
patterns. These supernatural beings are an important component in the
Casiguran ecosystem, and they will be described briefly in Chapter 4.
In the past, another nuisance in the forest, especially on rainy
days, were the leeches. There are very few leeches today, but in the
1960s it was the custom, when traveling in the forest on rainy days, to
stop every 10 or 15 minutes to spend a minute or so picking leeches off
of one's bare skin. And I can personally remember in my early years in
Casiguran picking off of my own body some two to three hundred leeches a
day on a typical rainy day's hike.
Hutterer (1982:141) suggests another reason why forager settlements
tend to be located elsewhere than in the deep forest; that is, because
the forest 'edges' have more foods available in them. I reject this as
a reason, in the Agta case, as I find no empirical evidence for it.
J. Peterson has argued, in her "merits of margins" hypothesis, that Agta
hunt in ecotones, not in the forest (1977, 1981). I am not in
14
disagreement with the "edge effect" concept (Odum 1971:157-59). I only
know that Agta believe the best hunting areas are in deep primary
forest, that they do most of their hunting in such forest, and that
their success rate in forest biomes is much higher than in 'edges.'
(See Rhoads 1978 for a critique of anthropologists' misuse of the
ecotone concept. I am presently co-authoring a paper criticizing
Peterson's hypothesis [Griffin et al. n.d.].)
Agta body size. Agta are small in size, and theyhave sometimes
been referred to as pygmies. They are taller, however, than the African
Mbuti pygmies. They are shorter than the south African Bushmen, and 10
cm shorter than the average Filipino. On the average, Agta men are 153
cm in height and weigh 46 kg. Women are 144 cm tall and weigh 38 kg
(see Table 12.16). More interesting is to compare the mean weight/height
ratios of the Agta with those of other populations, which show that the
Agta are, on the average, among the thinnest people in the world (see
Table 12.16).
Some anthropologists argue that lean body size is adaptive in
certain primitive human populations. While this may be true, I believe
that in the Agta case their thin body condition is the result of
nutritional deficiencies. There are a number of evidences that the
Agta are not a healthy people, and I will discuss these more in Chapter
12. Briefly, there are a number of demographic statistics which
indicate that the Agta population is not doing well. Their crude death
rate is 45/1,000. Their child mortality rate is 508/1,000, and life
expectancy at birth is age 21.2.Most alarming is the overall
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15
population decline of minus 0.2 percent per year since 1977. These
demographic parameters will be presented in detail in Chapter 12.
The lowland farming populations. The Agta in Casiguran do not
live alone. Non-Agta lowland farmers have lived in Casiguran at least
since the Franciscans first founded their mission there in 1588, and
2
possibly long before. The town population was listed as numbering
1,560 in the year 1649, 2,067 at the turn of thiscentury, and 9,381 at
the time of my first field work there in 1962. Today, the lowland
population of the area, including the three municipalities, is 35,000
(see Table l.'l). I will discuss in Chapter 8 the profound effect this
population explosion, most of it since 1960, has had on the Agta and
their ecosystem.
Up to the time of WWII, the majority of the lowlanders were native
Casiguranin, a population of wet rice farmers who lived aggregated in or
very near the town proper. Today, the Casiguranin people are a minority
in their own area. Literally thousands of landless homestead farmers
have migrated into Casiguran since WWII, most of them since my arrival.
Most of these immigrants are Ilokanos or Bikolanos, though there are
also Tagalogs and Visayans, and even a good number of Igorots (mostly
Ibaloi tribal people from Benguet Province). All these lowlanders,
including the Casiguranin people, are no longer confined to the town,
but have spread out throughout the lowlands of the Casiguran area.
The Agta have long interacted with the Casiguranin lowlanders in an
institutional’zed symbiotic patron-client relationship. But it must
have been different before WWII when wild game was plentiful, the
16
lowlander/Agta ratio was just two or three to one, and most of the
lowlanders lived in town. At that time, the early 1940s, the Agta had
roughly 90 percent of the area to themselves, with a population density

2
of about 1.4 people per km . Today the Agta find themselves viewed as
landless squatters on their own ancestral lands, crowded in by a
population density of 51 people per km2 and increasing daily, as more
and more lowlanders move up the river valleys to clear farms in areas
where Agta have lived and hunted for thousands of years. I will have
more to say about these issues in the chapters to follow.
The Ilongot tribespeople. Mention should be made of the Ilongot,
a tribal swidden group of some 3,500 who live on the west side of the
Sierra Madre. A few also live in southern Aurora near Dipaculao and
Baler. The Ilongot are mentioned here for two reasons. First, they
live just across the southwestern border of the Casiguran Agta area, and
second, Peterson makes a claim that "Agta have quite disruptive
relations . . . with Ilongot" (1978a:92). This is a logical
assumption, since the Ilongot are widely known as intense raiders and
headhunters. It is a "fact that headhunting was a central aspect of
Ilongot social practice until at least the early 1970s" (M. Rosaldo
1980:ix-x; see also R. Rosaldo 1980).
As a matter of fact, however, Casiguran Agta have almost no contact
with Ilongot, and in my interviewing of many Agta concerning past raids
or killings, only twice did I find people who knew of Ilongot killing
Agta. An old Agta man named Tikiman told me in 1977 (when he was
about age 76) that his mother, whose name he could not remember, was
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17
killed by Ilongot at Dibet, Casiguran, around 1910. (Dibet is between
Areas 8 and 9, in Map 2.) And Agta Doyeg (age 65) told me in an
interview in January 1984 that when he was a small child Ilongot
raiders killed three older Agta women, also at Dibet, whose names were
Pukeng, Boyan, and Sinayda. Doyeg did not himself remember the time
of the incident, but said, "My father used to tell us about it." I
suspect that both men were probably referring to the same incident.
It is inconceivable to anyone who knows the terrain of the Sierra
Madre to imagine the Ilongot having any kind of relations, disruptive or
otherwise, with the Palanan Agta, as Peterson claims, since the two
groups are separated by 90 km of rugged rainforest. Today there are two
Casiguran Agta men married to Ilongot women, with both families living
in Ilongot areas.
There may have been more interaction between the two groups in the
distant past. There is evidence that some Ilongot were attempting- to
migrate into Casiguran 250 years ago. A letter written by a Spanish
priest in Casiguran, in 1720, mentions how some Agta killed "a lot from
this town," and then went and threatened some Ilongot with their arrows
who were wanting to settle on the Calabgan River (in Area 9 of Map 2).
The letter says the Agta would not let the Ilongot settle there (AFIO
1720). Whatever the case was then, there are no Ilongot today in
Casiguran, and I am unaware of any interaction between the two groups.
THE LANGUAGE SITUATION
The Casiguran Agta speak an Austronesian language of the subfamily
called Northern Cordilleran (Tharp 1974). This language, referred to
18
henceforth in this study as Casiguran Agta, or simply Agta, is closely
related to four other sister languages spoken in northeastern Luzon.
These four languages are Palanan Agta, Agta of Southeastern Cagayan,
Paranan, and Casiguranin. The latter two languages are spoken by non-
Negrito populations. Casiguranin is the language of the indigenous non-
Negrito people of Casiguran. (For details, see Headland 1975a.)
A recent study (ibid.), based on Reid's 372 word list (Reid 1971),
shows that Casiguran Agta and Casiguranin have a shared vocabulary of 77
percent. Casiguran Agta shares 46 percent of its basic vocabulary with
Tagalog, and 43 percent with Ilokano. The respective figures for the
Casiguranin language are 52 percent for both Tagalog and Ilokano. These
latter two languages are the two main trade languages of the Casiguran
area, and of most of Luzon.
These figures should not be interpreted to mean that Agta and
Casiguranin have this high a percentage of shared cognates with
Tagalog and Ilokano. In fact, Agta and Casiguranin are both more
closely related to Ilokano, which is also a Cordilleran language
(Tagalog is not). The high number of shared vocabulary items between
the two indigenous languages, and with Tagalog, is due to the
considerable number of lexical borrowings from Tagalog in those
languages. They have also borrowed from Ilokano, but less heavily.
With respect to the local people's understanding of these two trade
languages, the results of intelligibility tests I conducted in 1975
showed the Agta then as measuring slightly below competence in their
understanding of Tagalog, while the Casiguranin people showed almost
19
perfect understanding of that language.' Neither group understood
Ilokano. Agta testees received almost perfect scores in their
understanding of Casiguranin, while the Casiguranin testees received low
but passing scores in their comprehension of Agta. For details on the
testing procedure and an analysis of the results, see Headland (1975a).
THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
The anomaly of the Agta culture. In spite of the progress and
westernization which has come to the Casiguran area since WWII, the Agta
continue to roam nomadically through the jungles, seemingly without
adequate food, clothing or shelter, refusing to send their children to
the public schools, and resisting repeated government efforts to settle
them on their own land and help them take up farming. This occurs in
spite of the apparent poverty under which the Agta live— a way of life
which appears pathetic to outside observers, and which Agta themselves
are quick to tell you is mehirap ('hardship').
Why do the Agta continually refuse, then, to "better" themselves?
Is it because they are bound by tradition? Or is there some hidden
logical rationale behind the anomalous Agta behavior? It is a goal of
the present thesis to argue that it is for this second reason that the
Agta remain in their marginal foraging niche.
Though the culture of the Agta is changing fast, it is obvious that
they, in contrast to most tribal groups in the world, are not turning to
western modernization, or moving into the national lifestyle of their
country. Though anthropologists rightfully question the value of
westernization for traditional peoples, still, many such peoples are
moving fast in this direction, by force or by choice.
The Agta are an exception.
One argument of this thesis is that the Agta are not resisting
"modernization" for themselves (including the assumed "advancement"
from foraging to agriculture) because they are ignorant, lazy, or
irrationally clinging to an out-moded way of life. Rather, this study
presents data which support the hypothesis that the Agta are intelligent
economic maximizers and that they have made a unique and sensible
adaptation to their changed environment. One contribution to this study
is its development and explanation of this argument, using ecological
and economic concepts to clarify the logic behind Agta behavior in the
1980s.
The two basic questions of the research. This thesis focuses on
answering two central questions. First, what are the Agta doing for a
living today? That is, what is their present economic strategy? And
second, why do they persist in their present economic strategy instead
of switching to something else, namely agriculture?
In short, the present thesis will describe the "coping mechanisms
that [Agta] humans display in obtaining their wants or adjusting their
lives to [their] changing milieu" (Bennett 1976:246). This is a
question which Bennett feels anthropologists need to answer, if they are
to study the kind of practical anthropology which will help humankind to
avoid the predicted disaster to which the "ecological transition" is

3
said to be leading us.
21
Besides Bennett, other anthropologists have asked questions similar
to the two basic questions of this thesis. The first of these two
questions was raised by Richard Lee in 1966, whenhe asked just what do
hunters do for a living? (Lee 1968:30). This thesis will provide an
answer to his question for a hunting society in Southeast Asia, and take
the question a step further by explaining what they do for a living when
they are suddenly— within a decade— deprived of their game resources.
As Cadelina has phrased the question in his study of a Negrito group in
the central Philippines, how do people at this technological level
"make a living when their basic source of food is drastically altered?"
(1980:94).
At the same 1966 symposium where Lee read his paper, Sol Tax made
the appeal that "we should study the reasonsfor the persistence of
these peoples all over the world in light of all the conditions
militating against their persistence" (1968:345-46). He argued that
there was surely something for us to learn concerning the determination
of such hunter-gatherers today to preserve their way of life at all
costs (ibid.). Later, Martin Wobst posed two important questions on
this same issue: How do band societies maintain themselves in a
changing environment? And what niches are filled by band societies in
an environment with dominant populations which could easily push them
out? (Wobst 1974:x). Recently, the question was raised again when
Vierich (1982:213) asked, "What accounts for [the] durability [of the
hunting and gathering way of life today]?"
22
It is my hope that my answers in this thesis to the. two central
questions of my research, and my explanation of how I sought those
answers in the field, will provide partial— if not complete— answers to
the above questions asked by Bennett, Cadelina, Lee, Tax, Wobst, and
Vierich. These are all questions which seek to understand the
persistence and unique strategy of adaptation which is followed by the
Agta, and so many of the world's remaining hunter-gatherer societies
today.
THE THEORETICAL APPROACH
A major contribution of the present study is its description and
analysis of the new economic strategy of a hunter-gatherer society which
is no longer able to live by hunting. In this study I will draw heavily
from certain ideas developed within the tradition of cultural ecology.
These ideas and concepts will be used as a basic framework to describe
the unique problems of the Agta, and how they are trying to adapt to
their fast changing ecosystem in the 1980s.
Cultural ecology is today one of the major areas of specialization
in anthropology. A growing number of anthropologists have come to
recognize that humans, like other animals, are a part of ecosystems.
Many such anthropologists are thus attempting to use the goals of
general biological ecology to better understand the problems of human
groups. The expected result of this approach is that a more inclusive
and more powerful framework for interpreting and explaining the behavior
of humans will be gained (Vayda and Rappaport 1968:476).
23
The perspective taken in this thesis, then, is that the ecological
approach is the best model for explaining the sociocultural systems of,
especially, so-called primitive groups such as the Agta. While other
theoretical approaches are useful as well for interpreting cultural
phenomena, this study takes the view that cultural ecology will carry us
farther than any other single theory in gaining an understanding of the
intricate problems of marginal small-scale societies like the Agta
(Ellen 1982:29-30).
THE DATA PRESENTATION
I am one of those who shares the view of Richard Feinberg, that
"the bottom line of anthropology— that against which all theoretical
propositions must ultimately be measured— is ethnographic data"
(1985:667). As Feinberg argues, if anthropology is to be made worthy
of the title Social Science, we must make our data available in a high
quality manner such that it can be systematically scrutinized by
interested critics. Illustrative anecdotes are not sufficient.
I know what Feinberg is talking about when he says, "Typically, in
anthropological writings, assertions are made without thorough,
systematic presentation of the evidence on which they are based . . .
Thus, readers are left with little more than the elegance of the
argument by which to judge a work's insight or accuracy" (ibid.).
I have experienced both the frustration of looking in vain for data
support for ethnographic arguments on Negritos (e.g., in the writings of
Jean Peterson [which I critique in Headland 1978 and Griffin et al.
n.d.l), and the help one can gain when such data is made public (e.g.,
24
Vanoverbergh's published Agta data [1937, 1937/38, Wastl 1957], which I
build on in this thesis). As the reader will see, then, I have
endeavored to present my data herein in such a way that it may be used
for judging the basis of my arguments.
Along with my opinion that data should be made available in
readable form, it is my conviction that the method of gathering the
data must also be made clear so that the research could be replicated
and the findings confirmed.
In this thesis, then, the reader will find a great deal of data
displayed in the appendices and tables. I make no apology for this.
These data displays, used to test my hypotheses, will now be permanently
archived in the back of my dissertation, for future scrutiny, and the
whole of Chapter 2 is given to my research design— how the data were
collected— described in a way such that it can be replicated.
PREVIOUS STUDIES ON THE AGTA
A number of earlier studies have appeared on the Agta Negritos of
eastern Luzon. For Casiguran, Vanoverbergh provides important
linguistic and ethnographic notes on the Agta for the year 1936 (1937,
1937-38), showing how the people were living then. Nicolaisen (1974-75)
provides a brief description of the same group from his visit in 1972,
and the Headlands have produced a series of works based on their years
of residence in Casiguran (see the bibliography).
The most significant body of materials on the Palanan Agta come
from the Petersons, who began their field work there in 1969. Jean
Peterson has written primarily on the interethnic symbiosis in Palanan
25
(1978a, 1978b, 1981, 1985, etc.), while Warren Peterson recently
published a paper on Agta culture change there (1981). Bennagen wrote
his 1976 Master's thesis on the Palanan Agta, and more recently a paper
on Agta change there (1977). Three other Master's theses were done, as
well, on the Palanan Agta (Simangan 1956, Zipagang 1970, and Simon
1975). The latter author has more recently completed a doctoral
dissertation on this same group, at St. Paul University in Tuguegarao,
Cagayan, which draws heavily from Peterson's 1978 book (Simon 1982).
The Griffins have begun publishing what should prove to be a
continuing series of writings on the eastern Cagayan Agta
(Estioko-Griffin and Griffin 1975, 1981a, 1981b, Griffin 1984a and
1984b, Griffin and Estioko-Griffin 1978, 1985, Estioko-Griffin 1984, and
Goodman et al. 1985). A most significant contribution of their work so
far is their documentation and description of the involvement of Agta
women in hunting pig and deer, using bow and arrow, and often without
male companions. (This is a custom not found among the Casiguran Agta
or the Palanan Agta.)
One study has been done on the Agta in San Mariano, Isabela, by
Rai (1981, 1982, 1985). Rai describes a band group from this area
which was still heavily involved in intense hunting and meat trading
during his period of residence with them in 1979-80. One of his
important findings, which speaks to the hypotheses of my thesis, is
that though the San Mariano Agta do practice some cultivation, only
four percent of their total food intake came from their own gardens
that year.
26
The single most important work to date on the Agta, composed of
papers on most of the Agta groups, is a book edited by the Griffins,
titled The Agta of Northeastern Luzon: Recent Studies (Griffin and
Estioko-Griffin 1985). It serves as a report of all Agta research to
date, and includes a complete bibliography of all published or archived
materials to date on Negritos of eastern Luzon (Griffin and Headland
1985).
There is a wealth of literature on other Negrito groups in the
Philippines and Southeast Asia, which cannot be reviewed here.
Reference should be made, however, to two recent studies of such non-
Agta Negrito groups, both of which are ecological. First, Cadelina
(1982) has recently completed a study on inter-household food sharing
practices among the Batak Negritos of Palawan, Philippines; and second,
James Eder also completed in 1981 his second period of field study on
this same group, and is now preparing a series of papers and a book on
them. Eder's most significant paper so far, for the purposes of my own
hypotheses, is his description of the Batak population decline (1977a).
He has also written a paper on their culture change (1977b) and on the
caloric returns of their alternative economic strategies (1978).
MAJOR PROPOSITIONS AND HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY
The seven propositions and twelve hypotheses of this study are
outlined in this section, along with brief conclusions of their
veracity, based on the data collected • in 1983-84. These data are
presented in detail in various chapters below.
27
'Proposition' is here defined as a statement to be proved or
explained. It should made clear here that there are two basic meanings
of 'hypothesis.' In the strict classic form, it means "a statement of
covariation between two variables." A second meaning is a metaphorical
extension of that, and refers to "an idea to check out" (Agar 1980:171-
72). The hypotheses outlined here tend towards the latter definition.
PROPOSITION 1_: THE AGTA ARE NO LONGER INVOLVED IN HUNTING AS

THEIR ECONOMIC OCCUPATION.
Hypothesis wild game in the Casiguran ecosystem has

declined significantly in the last 20 years (including wild
pig, deer, and monkey). (Null hypothesis: The game
populations have not declined.)
Hypothesis 2 : The wild game has declined to the point where

most Agta men no longer bother to hunt because their success
rate is too low. (Null hypothesis: Most Agta men secure 3
or more large game per month.)
Hypothesis 3 : Agta men today spend less than 10 percent of

their economic production time in hunting activities. (Null
hypothesis: Men spend over 10 percent of their production
time in hunting.)
Conclusion: The data directly support this proposition and

Hypothesis 3, and indirectly support Hypotheses 1 and 2. Agta
men spent only 6 percent of their days in hunting activity
during the study period, and an estimated half of the men
never hunted at all during the period. The reason for their
declined emphasis on hunting is obvious: Their hunting
success rate of commercial game (pig and deer) was only 14
percent. Evidence for this proposition, and the amount of
time Agta gave to hunting, is discussed in Chapter 10. Game
decline is discussed in Chapter 8.
PROPOSITION 2: THE AGTA ARE NOT PRACTICING INDEPENDENT

AGRICULTURE AS THEIR ECONOMIC OCCUPATION TODAY.
Hypothesis 4^ Agta adults spend less than 10 percent of their

time in agriculture (in their own swiddens, gardens, or wet
rice fields). (Null hypothesis: Many Agta do practice
independent agriculture during a significant portion of the
year).
28
Conclusion: Chapter 11 is given to explaining why I argue

that the Agta are not farmers, in spite of the fact that they
cultivate fields every year. Data presented in Chapter 10
show that adults gave only 6 percent of their days to
agricultural pursuits in 1983-84, and that 76 percent of the
families did not plant fields of their own in 1983. Looking
only at the 40 men who actually cultivated a field in 1983 (24
percent of the men in the area in 1983 [see Table 10.7]),
these 40 men gave only 12.9 percent of their PWDs to
agriculture in 1983-84. Furthermore, as we see in Chapter
11, Agta swiddens are small, the smallest on record, to my
knowledge, with the average swidden measuring less than a
fifth of a hectare. The per capita area of cropped land was
only 128 m . While rice is the main Agta food (eaten at 92
percent of their meals), the total rice grown in the 48
fields cultivated in 1983 totaled only 9 metric tons, enough
to feed the total population for only 15 days. (It should be
noted that 1983 was considered by the Agta as a successful
agricultural year. These figures are not the result of a
crop failure.) Thus, the data presented in Chapter 11 and in
Appendix E substantiate Proposition 2 and Hypothesis 4.
PROPOSITION 3_: F0R THE AGTA T0 TAKE UP INDEPENDENT

AGRICULTURE AS AN ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVE TODAY WOULD 3E FOR
THEM A NON-ADAPTIVE STEP, GIVEN THEIR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES,
AND WOULD RESULT IN FAILURE.
Hypothesis 5^: Whenever an Agta cultivates or clears a piece

of land, or claims ownership of land, he loses possession of
that land, voluntarily or involuntarily, within a few years.
(Null hypothesis: There are a significant number of Agta who
own farmland today, which they have possessed for more than 3
or 4 years.)
Hypothesis 6_: The Agta have not become agriculturalists

because of ecological constraints, and especially because the
"competitive exclusion principle" has precluded their
successful adaptation to this alternative economic lifestyle
in the 20th century.
Conclusion: Hypotheses 5 and 6 are indirectly supported by

the arguments in Chapter 13, and directly by the data
presented in Appendices F and G. As Chapter 13 shows, there
are a number of reasons Agta do not take up farming. One of
the main ones is that the dominant lowland population in the
area, mostly recent immigrants who now outnumber the Agta 57
to one, simply will not allow Agta to change from
patron-client servanthood under them to becoming independent
farmers. There are a number of other reasons, mostly
economic which preclude these people's success at
29
agriculture. These are discussed in detail in Chapter 13 and

elsewhere.
PROPOSITION 4: THE AGTA TODAY ARE IN A DEPENDENT SYMBIOSIS

WITH NON-AGTA PEASANT LOWLANDERS. THIS IS MANIFESTED BY
SERF-LIKE RELATIONSHIPS WITH LOWLAND PATRONS, AND BY THE AGTA
SPENDING THEIR WORKING TIME PRIMARILY IN SERVICE TASKS FOR
THESE LOWLANDERS, FROM WHOM THEY RECEIVE MOST OF THEIR FOOD.
Hypothesis _7: An insignificant percentage of Agta starch food

comes from wild flora, less than 5 percent. (Null
hypothesis: A high percentage of Agta starch food comes from
wild flora, more than 5 percent.)
Hypothesis j3: An insignificant percentage of Agta food comes

from their own gardens and fields, less than 10 percent.
(Null hypothesis: Over 10 percent of their starch food comes
from their own fields.)
Hypothesis 9: Agta today are completely dependent on

lowlanders for their living. Over 90 percent of their starch
food comes from lowlanders, and over three-fourths of their
production work time is done as service for lowlanders.
Conclusion: Hypothesis 7 is directly supported by data in

Appendix C, which show that in a sample of 558 meals, wild
tubers were eaten at only 1.6 percent of those meals.
Hypotheses 8 and 9 are supported by data presented in Chapter
11 and Appendix E. Specifically, we see that though the Agta
ate rice at 92 percent of their meals in 1984, they grew
enough rice in 1983 to feed themselves for only 15 days (see
Table 11.8). The data presented in Chapter 10 do not quite
support the latter statement of Hypothesis 9. As the summary
statements ofthat chapter show, Agta gave 64 percent (not
quite 75 percent) of their work time to serving lowlanders.
PROPOSITION 5_: THE CASIGURAN AGTA TODAY ARE UNDERGOING SEVERE

ECOLOGICAL STRESS, AND ARE NOT PRESENTLY ADAPTED TO THEIR FAST
CHANGING ECOSYSTEM.
Hypothesis 10: The Casiguran Agta population is declining,

and this declineis caused by a high death rate, not by a low
birth rate or emigration. . (Null hypothesis: The Agta
population is not declining.)
Conclusion: Hypothesis 10 is directly supported by data

presented in Chapter 12. Specifically, there were 184 live
births in the population, and 193 deaths, in the 7 years
following June 1977. Evidence based on a census taken in
1936 shows the population may have declined by as much as 40
30
percent in the last 50 years, from an estimated 1,000 to only

609 in June 1984. Other data indirectly support Proposition
5, including infant death rates, homicide rates, morbidity
statistics, daily income, dietary intake, loss of ancestral
lands, harassment from lowlanders, and the general ecological
degradation of their environment. These topics are discussed
in various chapters.
PROPOSITION 6: THE AGTA ARE "ECONOMIC MEN" (Schneider 1974),

MAXIMIZING INDIVIDUALS WHO MAKE RATIONAL DECISIONS IN AN
ATTEMPT TO RECEIVE MAXIMUM SATISFACTION WITH MINIMUM
EXPENDITURE.
Conclusion: This proposition is not tested with hypotheses,

but is argued as true on logical grounds, in Chapter 3, and
by describing actual economic behavior in other chapters.
The argument is that Agta behavior comes from rational
economic calculations of individuals, and not from an
irrational following of tradition, or because they are
'lazy.'
PROPOSITION _7: THE AGTA ARE NOT "FOSSILIZED" REMNANTS OF SOME

RECENT GROUP OF ISOLATED PALEOLITHIC HUNTER-GATHERERS.
RATHER, THEY HAVE A HISTORY OF INTENSE INTERETHNIC SYMBIOTIC
RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER FARMING POPULATIONS GOING BACK AT
LEAST A THOUSAND YEARS. THEY HAVE BEEN ACQUAINTED WITH
CULTIVATION AND CULTIVATED FOODS SINCE PREHISPANIC TIMES.
Hypothesis 11: The ancestors of today's Agta were involved in

intense interethnic symbiosis with non-Negrito peoples for
many hundreds of years. This was usually manifested by their
exchange of wild forest products for starch foods and other
trade goods. It also included periods when these proto-Agta
actually lived with other farming peoples. They were also
involved in trade links with mainland Asia before 1500 A.D.
Hypothesis 12:: The Agta are not incipient cultivators.

Rather they have been involved in at least part time
agriculture for many hundreds of years.
Conclusion: The veracity of Hypothesis 11 is fairly well

established on the basis of linguistic evidence presented in
Chapter 6, and early historical evidence, presented in
Chapters 7 and 8. Hypothesis 12 is supported by early
Spanish documents, showing the Casiguran Agta were doing
agriculture, both for themselves andwith lowlanders, at
least by the time of Spanish contact. This is discussed in
Chapter 7.
ENDNOTES TO CHAPTER 1
1. PREPF (Population, Resources, Environment and Philippines'

Future) is a consortium of the Development Academy of the Philippines,
the UP School of Economics, and the UP Population Institute. The
reader must understand that when other offices report that 56 percent of
the country in 1980 is made up of 'forest lands' (e.g., BFD 1982:iii)
that the term 'forest lands' includes all lands which are under the
Bureau of Forest Development, much of which is deforested or grassland
(Hyman 1983:520, Scott 1979:65). Fifty-six percent of the land may
have been 'forest lands' in 1980, but only 27 percent of the country was
forested. (Scott's [ibid.] estimate is 25 percent, while the estimate of
the NKMC [1981:32; cited in Hyman 1983:512] for 1980 is 37 percent.
Aguilar [1982:1] gives a 1976 estimate that only 30 percent of the
country was covered then by "densely stocked forests.")
2. The term "lowlander" is used here in a general sense to refer

to all non-Negrito people in the local area. A few of these people,
e.g. recent Igorot tribal immigrants from Mountain Province, are
technically not "lowlanders."
3. By "ecological transition," Bennett is referring to the

increasing tendency of humans or nations to seek ever-larger quantities
of energy in order to satisfy their demands of existence, comfort, and
wealth (1976:5). Bennett is especially thinking of the transition of
nations from a pre-industrial to an industrial state.
31
CHAPTER I I
THE RESEARCH D ESIG N : HON THE DATA HERE GATHERED
One can scarcely expect other social scientists to accept

nonreplicable findings (Gross 1984:523).
A major aspect of any properly designed research plan is to provide
sufficient information on how the data were gathered and analyzed so
that others can replicate the research and confirm the findings. With
that goal in view, I attempt in this chapter to describe my field
methodology, and especially how I gathered the data for testing the
hypotheses outlined in Chapter 1.
The field research method followed the usual anthropological
techniques: participant observation, formal and informal interviews and,
especially, measuring— of people, houses, camps, activities, swiddens,
food, wild game secured, etc. My wife, Janet Headland, assisted me
throughout the data gathering period. We are both fluent speakers of
the Agta language, and all interviewing was done in that language.
During most of the 1983-84 study period my wife and I resided in an
Agta camp in Area 4 (See Map 2). During the summers our three children
lived with us. We had never lived in Area 4 before, nor with any of the
regular members of this group. Throughout this period the group lived
in two camps about 200 m apart. Our camp was more stable, with
membership size usually ranging from 4 to 8 households (excluding the
many overnight visitors). The other camp was very unstable. Their
"normal" camp size ranged from 3 to 5 households (excluding visitors),
32
33
but often the camp was empty, as this half of the group would go away
frequently for days at a time.
Using this camp as our home base, we tried to visit every Agta camp
in the Casiguran area monthly. Our mode of transportation was by hiking
and by motorboat. We also made four survey trips of the Casiguran area
in 1983-84 by chartered helicopter, each of which were of two to three
days duration. We were absent from Casiguran for two extended periods
during the 19 months. These were from April 5 to June 6, 1983, and from
February 2 to March 25, 1984. Thus, no PWD data were collected for the
months of April and May 1983, nor for February and March 1984.
Some of the field data discussed in this thesis were collected
during our years of residence in Casiguran in the 1960s and 1970s. I
make clear in the thesis where I make use of those data.
There were five main bodies of data collected in Casiguran in 1983-
1984. The majority of my time was spent doing a "time allocation"
study— the collecting of major daily activities of Agta adults
throughout the period. A second set of data consisted of a time
allocation schedule kept on one man for372 days. A third data corpus
was the taking of a census of the total Casiguran Agta population, and a
fourth data set consisted of a body of information on the 43 swiddens
and 5 wet rice fields cultivated by Agta in 1983. Finally, we also
collected sample data on food eaten at Agta meals in 1984.
These six data sets wereall processed by computer using a program
called dBASE II (or Data BaseTwo). It was this program which helped me
in the analyses presented throughout this thesis.
34
There was a sixth major data source upon which I drew in my
building of the models presented in this thesis. This consisted of
information on Casiguran gleaned from archival research. This chapter
will outline how the five sets of field data were gathered, compiled,
and computer processed, and then- conclude with a statement on my use of
archival sources.
A MULTIPLE-WORKING-HYPOTHE SES APPROACH
Before we look at the actual techniques I used for gathering my
data, I should explain that when I returned to the Agta field in 1982 I
carried with me a set of formal hypotheses to be tested. Those
hypotheses were outlined in my research proposal, and they are also
listed herein, at the end of Chapter 1. My research design, as it was
laid out in my proposal, was for the purpose of getting the specific
data needed to test those hypotheses.
I went to the field with what may best be called a "multiple
working hypotheses" approach (Chamberlin 1890; cf. Hunt 1978). That
is, I began my field research with alternative hypotheses already in
mind, and with the view that other new and opposing hypotheses might
emerge during the course of my field work as possible alternative
explanations of phenomena which might come to my attention. This does
not mean that I did not have dominant hypotheses, but that I also had
alternative, or null, hypotheses to be tested as well.
Alternative hypotheses, for example, were that the Agta were moving
into economic niches different from those I was hypothesizing in my
proposal, or that their degrees of adaptation were better, or worse,
35
than what I had suggested in my proposal. A main substitute hypothesis
was that the Agta are working successfully towards an emphasis on
farming. Another alternative hypothesis was that the Agta are not as
homogeneous as my model was suggesting, but that some are already
successful farmers, while others are living in abject serfdom, or are
degenerating into some other destitute condition. Or perhaps some bands
were still achieving high success at hunting.
A multiple working hypotheses approach implies that every possible
alternative will be pursued in the field. This was my goal. Whether or
not neat patterns of change emerge, the goal of the study, and this
thesis, is to discover and describe what the data show.
COLLECTING THE "TIME ALLOCATION1* DATA
During the period of field work, 3,283 "person-work-days"
(hereafter, PWDs) were collected on 331 adult Agta. On the day the
data were collected each PWD was recorded in longhand in a notebook and
later (usually the next day) transferred to index cards. In late 1984
the cards were coded for transfer to computer. Each card was coded
with twelve categories, indicating the individual's name, census
number, age, sex, civil status, whether he did agriculture and (on the
day of data collection) the weather, person's location, date, day of
week, person's activity, and person's payment for work (when
applicable). The data from each of the 3,283 cards were then
computerized using the dBASE II program.
A total of 159 different types of PWD activities were recorded
during the period of field work. These are listed in Appendix D, with
36
the number of recorded PWDs of each activity noted in parentheses. These
159 "sub-categories" of activities have been clumped into several
"categories" of manageable size in Appendix D; and these were in turn
assigned into eleven clumps of "super-categories." These eleven are
displayed in Table 10.2, where they are broken down by sex, month, age,
and band area.
This section will describe how I collected the 3,283 PWDs of data
displayed in the above-mentioned tables, the analyses of which are
presented in Chapter 10.
Since the basic question of the study was to find out just what the
Agta were doing for a living in the 1980s, the present research design
was developed for getting the data needed to answer that question. The
plan was that a major part of the research would bespent in collecting
and recording the main daily activities of as many individuals as
possible.
My recording of daily Agta activities was inspired by field
methodologies outlined by Johnson (1975; 1978:86-91) and Epstein (1967).
Constraints of the Agta field situation, however, made it impossible to
collect the time allocation sample of PWDs on a strict random basis, in
the statistical sense, as Johnson attempted for his Machiguenga study.*
The Casiguran Agta are scattered over 700 square kilometers of mostly
dense rainforest. Most Agta reside in small temporary camps, some of
which required several hours of hard hiking to reach, including
overnight trips. We were also restricted in our travels by vagaries in
the weather. Coastal camps could only be visited in our motor boat when
37
the sea was calm and the tide rising (because of coral reefs), while
inland camps were inaccessible when rivers were flooded by heavy rains.
It was obviously impractical to rely on a table of random numbers to
tell me what households to visit on certain days.
My goal was for my wife or me to try to visit every Agta residence
site once a month. Whenever either of us entered an Agta camp (often
together, sometimes separately) we spent from one to four hours there.
Ideally, we interviewed every adult (over age 14) "concerning their
activities the preceding day and the day of the interview" (Yost and
Kelley 1983:207-09; these authors used the same technique for their
study of a group in Ecuador). If any adults were absent from the camp
at our time of arrival, if they had slept there the previous night we
either waited for their return, hiked to where they were, or interviewed
their family or neighbors concerning their activity. If none of these
three options were feasible, we did not record data for those absent
persons.
Basically, that was the method. Agta do not always give candid
answers, of course, so we were careful to double check responses with
other nearby adults who did not hear what their neighbors had told us
earlier. In this way I believe we caught most of the errors which could
otherwise have crept into the data corpus from those few Agta who failed
to give truthful answers. We also made it a point to stay long enough
in an Agta camp to see what people were actually doing that day. Still,
we had to rely on our interviewees' word for their activities for the
previous day.
38
It should be clear to the reader, then, that the data on PWDs were
based partly on what respondents told us they were doing, and not always
on what we saw them doing. Daniel Gross reports that it is typical for
time allocation studies based on direct observation to have to "make
some use of informants' reports of what they or other people were
doing" (1984:543). Johnson also admits he had to resort to this
indirect method at times during his Machiguenga time allocation study
(1978:89). For a recent review of the problems of informant accuracy,
see Bernard et al. 1984. I discuss elsewhere (Headland 1978:133) the
potential pitfalls in interviewing Agta.
In order to avoid one type of bias, we were committed ahead of time
to always recording the activities of any and all adult Agta in a
particular camp, whenever we visited that camp, regardless of what they
were doing when we got there. The only exceptions were if an individual
was unwilling to be interviewed (which was seldom), was absent and no
one was sure what he or she was doing, or if we went to a camp on some
other business, in which case we purposely did not record the PWDs of
anyone. We never entered a camp on some other business and then said,
"Hey, these people are doing something interesting today; let's record
their PWDs." Likewise, we never entered a camp for the purpose of
recording PWDs and decided after we got there not to, say because no one
was doing anything significant that day. If we went to a residence
area to record PWDs, we followed through with that, no matter what was
going on that day.
39
It should be noted that, because we recorded the PWDs of every
adult in the camp, this meant that some individuals had their
activities recorded more than once in a given month. This was because
we would record the activity of a particular individual in one camp on
one day. Then, when we visited another camp a few days later, that
same individual would be present there and would have his PWDs recorded
again. For this reason, as well as others, some individuals had more
PWDs recorded for them than did others.
Now, the question arises, what kinds of activities did my wife and
I record? Agta do many things in a day, everything from major economic
activity to minor activities such as pounding rice, fletching an arrow,
picking a coconut, or mashing a medicinal plant to rub on a sick child.
In this study, however, I was not trying to find out how many times
Agta chew betel in a day, how long they nap at noon, or the amount of
time women spend nursing babies (all interesting questions, but beyond
the scope of this study). Rather, the focus was on how Agta make a
living, and how much time they spend in major activities such as
agriculture, hunting, wage labor, etc. Though Agta may do many
activities in a single day, I found that they almost always gave a
single activity answer to my question, "What did you do
today/yesterday?" Though I often did ask the secondary questions,
"What else did you do?" I soon found I was running into too many
details, taking too much time in interviewing, getting more data than I
could handle, and that the secondary data were not speaking directly to
my hypotheses.
40
I soon decided to limit our recording of PWD activities, then, to
the following:
1. We recorded only what respondents told us was their major

activity or activities of that day.
2. If respondents listed two or more items of activity, we

excluded from the analysis any activity which seemed to have been of
less than one hour's duration.
3. If respondents listed two items of activity, we chose the

activity which they considered the major one, and excluded from analysis
the secondary activity (even if the secondary activity took more time).
(For exceptions, see points 4 and 5 immediately below.)
4. If respondents listed two items of activity, if one was either

'hunting' or 'agriculture (for themselves)', then that was the activity
we recorded, even if the other activity that day was of longer duration.
Only if the hunting or agricultural activity was of less than one hour's
duration did we not record it.
5. If the respondents listed two items of activity, if the longer

activity was leisure, that is, "no work," we ignored that and always
listed the secondary activity, if it was of one hour's duration or more.
For example, fishing or shellfishing were the most frequent secondary
activities mentioned in an otherwise leisured day. Thus, if a woman was
out collecting mollusks on a coral reef at low tide for two hours, but
did not work the rest of the day, we recorded her activity as
"shellfishing," not as "no work."
6. We did not record minor household chores. Thus, if respondents

said the only activity they did that day was cooking, gathering
firewood, or sweeping the ground, etc., we did not record those, but
just recorded "no work."
7. There were some minor chores Agta did, other than housework,
which took more than one hour of time, but less than two (such as women
washing clothes, or drying unhusked rice in the sun, or guarding a
grazing water buffalo). These were always recorded in the "no work"
category, but given a different one-hundred number and modified with the
statement, " . . . just washed clothes," or whatever. (See the E100
numbers in Appendix D for examples.)
8. We recorded an individual's activity as "no work— drunk"

(activity no. E108 in Appendix D), only if that person was obviously
intoxicated at or before twelve noon. Agta who got drunk in the
afternoon were not so recorded.
41
9. Throughout most of the year my wife and I lived in an Agta camp

on the Pasarubuy River (Area 4 in Map 2), with a core of six Agta
families. I decided ahead of time that we would only record the PWDs of
the Agta in this camp twice a month, and I choose the two dates for
doing this before the first of each month, so as not to bias those data.
It should be noted that even though we limited ourselves to only
the main activities of our respondents, we recorded a total of 159
different "activity" categories, all of which are listed in Appendix D.
A larger corpus of categories would have made analysis difficult, and
would not have spoken to the questions of the present thesis.
Finally, a question arises which must be asked of any study based
on quantitative data: How representative is the sample of the universe
it claims to represent? In the strict statistical sense, of course,
the present sample of 3,283 PWDs cannot be "representative," since it
was not random and is thus not a probability sample. We know, however,
2
that very few samples in ethnographic field work are random. Most
anthropological samples are, in fact, nonprobability samples, and "many
situations simply do not require probability sampling" (Thomas
1978:236).
An anthropologically oriented fieldworker selects samples to

define or diagnose a pattern. This does not mean that
representativeness . . . is of no interest, but that
representativeness is defined differently.
Representativeness is achieved through careful selection of a
sample based upon preliminary knowledge obtained through
background and foundational research. From a holistic
perspective, representation is a relative phenomenon (Dobbert
1982:220).
Though my sample was a nonprobability one, it was not a mere
"opportunistic" or "accidental" sample. Rather, the technique I used,
42
described above, is a type of stratified sample. It is what Glaser and
Strauss call "theoretical sampling" (discussed in Agar 1980:124), or
what Dobbert (1982:218) calls "status sampling." Done carefully, such
a sample can be representative of the population.
It should be clear from the above that I took care to avoid bias
as much as possible, and I believe that the sample of 3,283 PWDs is a
fairly representative reflection of Agta economic behavior. There were
many variables, however, and it was impossible to control for all of
these. I was not just sampling PWD activity. I also had to try to get
representative samples for each month of the year, for each of the ten
main "band" areas, for rainy days, for Sundays, and for age and sex
ratios. And there are probably other variables as well of which I am
not aware.
Fortunately, since we are dealing with a fairly homogenous
population, the relevant variables are few. Still, my post-field
research analysis suggests that some variables are underrepresented to
some degree. For example, I was absent from the Agta area from April 5
to June 6, 1983, when I had to fulfill a teaching commitment in Baguio
City. Thus, no PWDs were collected for the months of April and May, and
this is reflected in the tables presented with Chapter 10. (We did,
however, collect data for those months in 1984.) Also, the PWD data for
activities on days of heavy rain are underrepresented because I was
hindered from going out and collecting data in the pouring rain. More
serious, two band areas, 8 and 10, are underrepresented. There are
three reasons for this latter bias. One, since in the early weeks of my
43
field work I did not yet know the locations of these camp groups, I did
not sample them. Two, since the Agta are nomadic, I would often hike to
a distant camp only to find them gone; and three, these two band areas
are underrepresented because, in part, they are the most distant from
where we were residing. They were harder to reach. (See Table 10.4 for
a monthly breakdown of the PWDs collected in each band area.)
I had two choices when this bias became apparent after the field
work was nearly completed: either to remove completely from my data
bank the PWD samples I took of those two areas, which seemed like a
risky manipulating of the data, or to leave the data in and warn the
readers of its underrepresentativeness. The later choice was decided
upon.
Note that I concentrated on getting a representative sample of the
ten band areas, not of individuals. It would be unrealistic to try to
get an evenly spread out sample of individuals, because of their nomadic
nature. Though the sample of many individuals is evenly spread out
throughout the year, many others were sampled very sporadically, or only
three or four times. This was because of their back-and-forth migration
patterns. (In one case, for example, a whole band group moved into Area
10 from the province of Quirino after one of their men killed an Agta
in that area in April 1984.)^
So, although there were a number of variables which should ideally
have all been sampled, I chose to concentrate only on what I considered
the two most important variables. These were the 12 calendar months and
the ten general band areas where the Casiguran Agta tend to aggregate.
44
That is, I tried to get PWDs for every month of the year for each of the
ten areas where most of the Agta were living. I achieved this with
satisfactory, but not perfect, success.
This means that I did not concentrate on sampling individuals, but
rather aggregates. The result is that though I was fairly successful
in collecting PWDs from seven of the ten areas for every month, there is
wide variation on the number of times I collected PWDs from different
individuals.
One example of potential bias was suggested to me by a statistician
when he read a draft of this chapter. This was after the data had been
collected and computerized. This statistician, Arthur Gilmour, was
critical of my method of collecting PWDs from individuals for two days
in a row. He had two hypotheses. First, he hypothesized that my
"paired" PWDs (two PWDs of an individual for two days in a row) would be
the same more often than would be a sample of non-paired PWD dyads
chosen at random from the same individuals. He was right. There were a
total of 964 "paired" PWD dyads in our data. Forty-eight percent of
these dyads were of identical activities. Of the non-paired dyads I
paired together at random, only 23 percent were of the same activity.
His second hypothesis was that, if I removed from my data the first
PWD of each "paired" dyad (and there are 964 of those), thus making the
remaining 2,319 PWDs all non-paired, that there would be a statistically
significant difference between the original set of 3,283 PWDs and the
revised set of 2,319 PWDs. He was wrong. We tested this second
hypothesis with chi square tests, comparing 25 general PWD categories
45
with both sets of data. There was no significant difference at the one
percent level for any of the 25. Since there were no differences, and
thus no bias introduced by using paired PWDs, I have used the total
3,283 PWDs for the analyses in this thesis.
There are certain ways for testing for the veracity of the claimed
representativeness of a sample, whether it is a probability or a
nonprobability one. One test is to look at what Agar (1980:125) calls
"slices of data." This means that you try to gather other data which
might fit or contradict the conclusions you make based on your sample.
The main questions in the present thesis are how much time the Agta
spend in agriculture and in hunting. The sample of PWDs indicates that
time spent in both of these is extremely low. As it turns out, there
are three very strong "slices of data" which lend unquestionable
support to what the sample of PWDs indicates. These are my measurements
of the total land cultivated by Agta during the year, complete daily
records of one particular man for the entire year, and records of
hunting activity for several weeks of all the men in one camp during the
hunting season. These three "slices of data" are presented in detail
in subsequent chapters.
The two major arguments of this thesis are that the members of this
so-called hunter-gatherer population are no longer making their living
by hunting, nor are they living by agriculture (see Propositions 1 and 2
in Chapter 1). These two hypotheses are not difficult to test in the
Agta field, by myself or a future independent researcher. The PWD data
46
support them, and they are quickly confirmed by qualitative observations
and other quantitative "slices of data." *
There is nothing particularly difficult about finding out what Agta
are doing on a daily basis, provided one is able to visit the area for a
period of time. As Pelto and Pelto state in their discussion of the
sampling problems of anthropologists in the field,
Our commonsense experience in field work . . . tells us that

certain kinds of cultural data are so publicly available,
homogeneous in patterning, or otherwise apparent that random
sample of informants . . . are quite unnecessary for
establishing their veracity (1978:138).
I believe that the PWD activity of the Casiguran Agta collected in
1983-84 may be included in this statement.
RECORDING THE DAILY ACTIVITIES OF ONE MAN
From January 24, 1983 to July 16, 1984 my wife and I recorded the
main daily activities of one Agta man, Nateng Prado. The main
activities of this man were collected on 372 different days. These data
were collected just as we did the regular PWDs of other Agta, as
described above, except that for Nateng we recorded his two main
activities for each day, what he did in the morning, and then what he
did in the afternoon. Discussions of Nateng's main activities over
this 19 month period come up later, where they are used as "slices of
data" for supporting various arguments.
I also studied in some detail the main economic projects of this
man and his family, calculating especially certain input/output data.
These family projects included work in Nateng's father-in-law's coconut
47
grove, his hunting activity, their swidden and wet rice field, their
borrowed fishnet, and the domestic pigs they raised. I did not have
the nerve to try to record their food intake, a task just a little too
hard to explain to the Agta. Nor did I attempt to record the
activities of the six children of this man and his wife, though I was
aware that most of their protein was coming from the fishing activities
of their two oldest children, then aged 9 and 11.
Nateng is not a "typical" Agta man (if there is such a thing). I
chose him for our case study because he was more than willing to allow
us to observe him, and to question him about his daily activities, and
because he was our closest neighbor. His house, open sided throughout
most of the 19 months, was only 7 meters from our open window. When we
and they were at home, we were able to see them at anytime throughout
the day. I did not pay Nateng for this. He preferred to develop an
utang na loob 'debt of gratitude' relationship with us, and we became
close friends. His real name is used in this thesis, at his request,
since he is rightly proud of his work and his family.
TAKING AN AGTA CENSUS
My wife and I have been collecting census data on the Agta since
the 1960s. After several years of informal record keeping of births,
deaths, etc., we began formal interviewing with census schedules in
1976, which continued until we left Casiguran for Hawaii in 1979. We
had by that time collected census data on all Casiguran Agta, as well as
many Agta in Palanan and Madella, resulting in hundreds of pages of
kinship maps and family genealogies. Most of those data were analyzed
48
and incorporated into a formal Agta census of 361 pages (Headland and
Headland 1982). The data in that typescript are all dated to June 15,
1977. That is, even though the data may have been gathered before or
after that date, the vital statistics drawn from it are for that 1977
date. The typescript includes facial photographs of 499 Agta. We used
this census as our basic working tool in the retaking of a new Casiguran
Agta census in 1983-84. Data from both of these censuses will be
presented in detail in Chapter 12.
"Census" in this thesis means more than just a simple counting of
people with a resulting list of names. The two Agta censuses include
much more than that. They include, in fact, all the data needed for a
demographic analysis of a population: vital statistics (births,
marriages, deaths, migrations), places of birth, ages, female
reproductive histories, divorce rates, and causes of deaths.
For both of our periods of census taking (in the 1970s and in
1983-84) we used mimeographed schedules based on the "sociological
interview method" to gather the data. This was a modified use of
Rivers' (1900) genealogical method, asking interviewees the names of
their kinsmen, marriage and reproductive histories, etc.
We had two major advantages over many census takers. One was that
we did not have to do a rush job (since we spent several years
collecting the census data), and two, we were not handicapped by
language or culture (since we were familiar with both). We did, of
course, still have to deal with another problem common to field workers
when they use the interview method— that of interviewees who may give
less than candid answers (see Appell 1969). Three factors helped us to
overcome this problem of informant unreliability, at least to a degree.
One, we had, by now, actually lived with the Agta longer than most
present day Agta themselves— long enough for us to have some knowledge
of many of our interviewees' personal vital statistics.^ Many women
could not hide from us, for example, their divorce histories, even if
they had so desired. Secondly, we had, over the years, developed a
close rapport with the Agta, to the point where they knew us, trusted
us, and were usually relaxed about answering our seemingly endless
questions. Finally, we had several "key informants," leaders in their
own society, one or two of whom always accompanied us when we did our
interviewing. These Agta "research assistants" understood what we
were doing, and would often tactfully correct interviewees who gave
incorrect answers, or tell us later of incorrect data we had been
given.
All this does not mean, of course, that our census taking
methodology was free of problems. I will mention five specific
difficulties here, and how we more-or-less overcame them:
Getting names of ancestors. Casiguran Agta were usually willing
to give us the names of deceased relatives. But we did have problems
eliciting names of interviewees' grandparents. Thirty-four percent of
the Agta do not know the names of.any of their grandparents (though 29
percent knew the names of all four grandparents), and no Agta knew the
names of any of their 8 great-grandparents. We overcame this problem
to a fair extent because there were often older people around who did
50
know the names of an interviewee's grandparents, and many of our
genealogies go back into the 19th century.
Eliciting the 'correct' names of Agta. Many Agta have two first
names (sometimes 3), as well as pseudo names used as address terms by
certain affinal relatives (who are forbidden by cultural norm from
speaking some in-laws' real names). Infants usually have no names at
all, or temporary nicknames which may be changed 2 or more times before
they gain a permanent name. Some Agta have formal names used only in
dealings with outsiders. And, finally, though roughly two-thirds of the
Agta claim to have surnames, many are unsure of what they are, or gave
us different surnames at different interviews over the years.
All this creates confusion for the census taker, of course, and it
took a good deal of repetitive work for my wife and I to get everyone
properly identified in our censuses. Our problems, however, were mild
compared to Nancy Howell's problem among the !Kung Bushmen, where there
are only 82 names shared among 1,000 people (Howell 1979:229), or
Chagnon's problems among the Yanomamo, where the interviewer may be
physically attacked for attempting to elicit a taboo name (Chagnon
1977:12-13).
Eliciting females' reproductive histories. It was difficult for
us to elicit accurate data from mothers on their birth histories, and
especially past infant mortalities. Older women who had had several
pregnancies (and women who reach menopause have 6 live births apiece, on
the average), sometimes could not recall all of the neo-natal deaths of
their offspring. More frustrating was the failure of some mothers to
51
differentiate between live births of infants who died within a day or
two. and full term fetal deaths. We tried to overcome this problem by
asking mothers of perinatal dead offspring, "Did the baby ever cry or
move after it came out?" This helped, but some women persisted in
giving what I felt were rather sloppy answers to this question. My
infant death rate figures in Chapter 12 must be read keeping this
problem in mind. The perinatal rates are accurate. The infant death
rates are accurate within 3 or 4 percent.
Age estimation. Like other hunter-gatherer societies, the Agta
have no notion of their absolute age or year of birth. Nor do they have
any cultural system of reckoning relative age (such as age-grade
sodalities, etc.). One of our most difficult and time consuming tasks,
then, was trying to calculate the ages of everyone in the population.
This is no minor problem, since accurate age estimation is essential to
the demographic analysis of any society. We used three basic tools for
figuring the ages of Agta. These were, first, recording ages based on
our own visual estimation. This, used alone, is an extremely
unreliable method, of course. Secondly, we used a method called rank-
ordering, which involved the calculation of relative ages of
individuals. We did this by rank-ordering sibling-cousin sets by order
of birth from youngest to oldest. There were some problems here
because, though most everyone could give the order of births of the
sibling set to which they belonged, many Agta were vague about where
their first cousins fit in the birth order. It was usually impossible
to trust their ranking of second cousins. This method has been
52
described in detail by Rose 1960:42, and has been popularized for
anthropologists by Howell (1979:24-46).
The third method we used is called social triangulation, best
defined by Eder as, "Counting backwards and forwards in annual cycles
from events of known date, such as the outbreak of World War Two, the
arrival of a particular missionary, or other births or marriages already
fixed in this fashion" (1977a:146n). This method was the most useful
for us, and we had special mimeographed schedules for using it to
interview people. The method is described in detail in Scott and Sabagh
(1970), and in Scanland (1976). These three tools were greatly
facilitated by our own records of births, recorded in our journals over
the last 20 years, by the census taken of part of this population by
Vanoverbergh in 1936, listing 476 names (Vanoverbergh 1937-38:139-147),
and by an unpublished census list of 427 Agta names compiled by a local
agent of the Commission of National Integration in 1960 (Casala 1960).
Using these methods of calculation, every member of the population is
given an age in our 1984 census (Headland and Headland 1985).
Defining our population. We ran into the typical problem of
trying to decide who to include and who to exclude from the "Casiguran
Agta population" (and thus from our census). In the beginning, our
question seemed simple, since it is easy to distinguish a Negrito from a
lowland Filipino. But we eventually encountered three types of
individuals who were questionable as to category. These were
individuals of mixed blood, Agta immigrants who spoke a different
language, and Casiguran Agta individuals who had been adopted by
53
lowlanders in infancy, and who did not know the Agta culture or
language, and who resided in iowlander communities. We finally worked
out a definition of the "population," which is presented in Appendix A.
(Important discussions on the problem of the field worker defining his
"population" boundaries are discussed in Howell 1979:17 and in Carroll
1975).
COLLECTING INFORMATION ON AGTA AGRICULTURAL FIELDS
One of the propositions of my research proposal is that the Agta
are not agriculturalists. A major goal of the field research was,
therefore, to test my hypotheses numbered 4 and 8 (at the end of Chapter
1) that the Agta spent very little time in agriculture for themselves,
and that very little of their food comes from their own fields.
One way to test these two hypotheses was to find and take
measurements of all Agta fields. This is what I did. A good part of
the field time was spent in locating every Agta swidden and wet rice
field, and then measuring both the fields and the crops in them. It
turned out the Agta cultivated 43 swiddens and 5 wet rice fields in
1983. I visited all of these repeatedly throughout the 19 month period
of field study to measure them and to observe their changes as crops
were planted and harvested, and as fields were either replanted or left
to fallow. Maps of these 48 fields are displayed in Appendix E, along
with descriptions of those fields (including names of owners, area
sizes, crops planted, yields, etc.). Map 3 shows the locations of the
43 swiddens, and Map 4 shows the locations of the 5 wet rice fields.
The tables in Chapter 11 display data collected on all these fields. A
54
thorough discussion of the data from these fields is presented in that
chapter.
My method when visiting each field was to first measure the whole
area with a measuring tape, then to measure different parts of the
fields, such as areas cropped in rice, root crops, sugar cane, uncropped
areas, etc. I used a simple protractor for estimating the degrees of
slopes, and I recorded only the general slope of the whole field (not
all the ups and downs of each part of the field).^ The owners took
pride in their fields, and all were glad to show me their fields, and to
answer my questions.
My recorded observations included the biotopes where each swidden
was cleared, types and amounts of cultigens planted before and after
the rice harvest, degree of intercropping, what biotopes the field was
adjacent to, percentage of area planted in rice, whether field had been
weeded, whether rice straw was weeded after the rice harvest, whether
field was replanted in root crops after the rice harvest, what crops
were planted, when and how much, etc.
Using a prepared interview schedule, I elicited information on the
number of members of the swidden work group, whether a Iowlander owned
the land or supervised the work, number of rice varieties planted,
amount of seed of each variety, amount of rice the owner claimed was
harvested, etc. The significant data are presented in Appendix E, and
are discussed in Chapter 11.
My wife and I were able to measure the input/output ratio of one
swidden, swidden no. 17 of Nateng. This was the field closest to our
55
house (a 70 minute hike upriver). We recorded the number of
work-man-days put into this swidden, and we measured both by weight and
volume all of the rice as it was harvested. We did this three times,
before drying, after drying and right after it was milled. The history
of this particular swidden is discussed in Chapter 11, and in particular
detail in Appendix E.
One note of caution for future researchers who may want to
replicate this study in the future among this or another Agta
population: I found Agta interviewees less than candid when I tried
interviewing them about their agricultural activities in 1983-84. Many
Agta claimed they had swiddens in 1983 or 1984. But when I followed up
by visiting the sites I found they had either lied outright, or they
were referring to a swidden someone else had made (which they may have
done some labor in), or that they had begun swidden clearing but had
quit before the burning or planting stage. For whatever reason, Agta
chronically exaggerate their involvement in cultivation. Anyone,
therefore, wishing to collect data comparable to mine must himself
visit repeatedly every swidden through the annual cycle, and question
several people, including lowlanders, to be sure who actually made the
field. Reliance on interviews alone will badly skew this sort of data.
FINDING OUT WHAT AGTA EAT
One indirect way to test the hypotheses of this study (in Chapter
1) was to find out and record what Agta were eating at their meals, and
where they procured the food they were eating. For example, if we could
know what percent of their starch food was coming from their own fields,
R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. F urth er reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission.
56
this would help us to evaluate the importance of agriculture in the Agta
culture. Likewise, we could see indirectly how important wild plant
foods are to the Agta diet, as well as wild game and fish. Such data
should also give us some clues as to the nutritional status of the Agta
diet, something we would like to know as we search for the reasons for
their high death rate and low life expectancy.
Between January and July 1984, my wife and I recorded the food
eaten at 558 Agta meals. No data were taken in February and June.
Our method was to ask Agta, when we visited their camps, what they had
eaten for their previous three meals. It should be noted that we were
recording here what Agta told us they had eaten, not what we saw them
eating. Also, we only recorded their main starch food eaten, and their
main side dish eaten (i.e., their protein or vegetable food eaten with
rice or tubers). I felt this was all we could trust our respondents to
remember. To have asked for more details would have introduced errors
in responses.
The data on Agta meals were coded and computerized using the
dBASEII program. The results of these data are presented in Appendix
C. As the reader may see in that appendix, these data provide another
source of support for my Hypotheses 4 and 8. Only an estimated 4
percent of the Agta starch food came from their own agricultural
fields. There is some bias in my sample, of course, since none of
these data were collected for the months of October and November, when
the Agta were harvesting their swidden rice. Fortunately, we do not
have to depend on this data source to substantiate Hypotheses 4 and 8,
57
since we have much stronger data sources for that. We will use these
data on meals merely to lend indirect support to what has already been
proven by the PWD data and the data on Agta fields in Appendix E.
LIBRARY RESEARCH
There is one other important data source I must mention here, since
I leaned heavily on this source for the development of my
interpretation and prediction of the past and future evolutionary
trajectory of the Agta population. The three historical chapters in
this thesis drew mainly from this data source. This concerns the
information gleaned from library and archival research.
My search for information on the history of Casiguran began in the
1970s, and expanded in the early '80s as I became convinced that a
proper ecological study of the Agta could not be done without knowing
their past. Most cultural ecological studies of so-called primitive
peoples have been synchronic. This in fact has been a major weakness in
the methodology of cultural ecology. I was determined that my study of
the Agta would be diachronic— a study of the past as well as the present
of the Casiguran ecosystem. Such a study would be mandatory if I were
to attempt to interpret the behavior of the Agta in this ecosystem
today, and to predict their evolutionary trajectory into the 21st
century.
There were two authors who showed me how much one can learn from a
search of obscure archival resources. These are William H. Scott, and
Alex Haley. Haley is famous worldwide for his historical reconstruction
of his own ancestors. It was his methodology, described in Chapter 120
58
of his Roots (1976), that inspired me. Scott, a leading historian on
the Philippines, needs no introduction to Philippine specialists. It
was primarily from reading his Discovery of the Igorots (1974), that I
started on my own archival research. As the reader will see from
reading the three historical chapters in this thesis, we can learn a
great deal about the Agta past, and why they live as they do today, from
a search of such library resources.
It is tragic that so much valuable information on Philippine
history was lost during the Second World War. I have searched for
years, for example, for early 20th century Philippine Constabulary
reports on Casiguran. But, as one historian says, all prewar P.C.
reports "are exceedingly rare," most having been lost or destroyed
during WWII (Coats 1968:223). In Casiguran itself, most of the old
town records were destroyed when the municipal hall was leveled by
Typhoon Pitang on September 11, 1970. I spent much time searching for
the records of the now defunct CNI (Commission on National
Integration). Most of these were also "lost," although I was able to
secure copies of most of the CNI records for Casiguran from 1959 to
1962. (Significant quotes from these are presented in Appendices G and
H.) These particular records alone provide strong support for the
"competitive exclusion principle" atwork in the Agta ecosystem, as we
shall see in Chapter 13.
* * *
I have presented in this chapter my six main sources of data, and
how these data were gathered. These included the time allocationdata
59
of Agta adults, the recording of main daily activities of one Agta man,
the taking of a census, the measuring of Agta fields, the recording of
food eaten at Agta meals, and data from archival research. There were
of course other sets of data collected during the 19 month study period,
which need not be described here. These included village mapping,
measuring of houses, measuring people's height and weight, counting
rattan poles, weighing wild game, weighingcopra, recording hunting
success rates, recording what Agta were being paid for various work
activities, aerial surveys, and the mapping of old swidden sites on one
river. They included as well data gathered through interviews (eliciting
information on such matters of causes of deaths, histories of homicides,
how/why Agta lost their land, etc.). I also interviewed local
lowlanders, including farmers, rattan buyers, and various town
officials.
Presentations of these data, and how I interpret them, will emerge
as one reads through this thesis. Before we get into the data,
however, I present in the next chapter the theoretical foundation upon
which this study builds.
1. The sampled members of the Machiguenga population Johnson

studied all lived within a 45 minute walk of his field residence.
Johnson was therefore able to use a table of random numbers not only to
choose which individuals would be recorded for each day, buteven the
time of day for which he was to record each person's activity, ideally
"at the instant before they became aware ofthe ethnographers'
presence" (Johnson 1975:303). Johnson was not, however, able to keep
to the ideal of his sampling design, either (1978:89).
2. The difficulties of random sampling by ethnographers, and why

they seldom get truly random samples, are discussed in Honigmann(1970),
Brim and Spain (1974:16-17, 81), Agar (1980:120-26, 132), and Dobbert
1982:220). See also Selltiz et al. (1971:537ff).
3. Of the total Casiguran adult population of 398, we recorded PWD

data at least once from 331. The breakdown of the number of PWDs
collected on each of these 331 adults is as follows:
1 to 5 PWDs: 125 adults
4. As of June 1984, the majority of the 609 members of the

Casiguran Agta population, 50.5 percent to be exact (308/609), were born
after we began living with them in March 1962.
5. In commenting on a draft of Chapter 11, Harold Conklin was

critical of my data on swidden slopes (column 3 of Table 11.3), pointing
out how exceedingly difficult it is to estimate degree of slope by "eye"
and a protractor (Conklin, personal correspondence). I concede his
point here, and warn the reader that the data in column 3 should be
taken only as a rough estimate.
60
CHAPTER III
CULTURAL ECOLOGY: THE THEORETICAL BASIS OF THE STUDY
As nature changes under people's influence, people must change

their ways of adapting, resulting in a chain reaction of
change and response. Often before a balance is reached
between nature and a particular form of human culture, new
technological innovations are introduced which again
radically change the picture. Human adaptation is thus a
dynamic process of maintaining a viable relationship to
nature, often culminating in changing environments and
cultures. Whether humankind can maintain its successful
adaptation to nature is not certain. The study of this
interaction between people and the environment [is] sometimes
referred to as cultural ecology (Hiebert 1983:90).
This statement sums up what this study is all about. Most of the
chapters in this thesis will, in fact, focus on the many changes now
occurring in the Casiguran environment, and how the Agta are modifying
their culture in response to these changes. We will see in this thesis
how technological innovations recently introduced into Casiguran are
radically changing the Agta way of life, and how the Agta are attempting
to adjust to these changes. And we will look particularly at the
question of whether the Agta are maintaining a successful adaptation to
the now fast-changing nature in their valley.
Cultural ecology is the termwe will use for the theoretical
framework upon which the arguments in this thesis are built.
DEFINING CULTURAL ECOLOGY
Cultural ecology is today firmly established as a major theoretical
school in anthropology. It draws heavily for its theories fromgeneral
biological ecology (which is the study of the interactions between
61
62
living organisms and their environment). Its area of focus is, of
course, much narrower than that of general ecology, since it centers on
human populations in their ecosystems, and especially on how culture
articulates human populations with their environments.
In using the term "cultural ecology" in this thesis, I mean it in
the broader sense as more-or-less synonymous with what some call
"ecological anthropology." Many writers use the terms this way, while
some prefer one term over the other, even when talking about the same
thing. Some anthropologists (e.g., Ellen 1982:281) equate "cultural
ecology" solely with the work of Steward and his immediate followers,
with everything since then being "ecological anthropology" (see Vayda
and McCay 1975:294). Other ecologically oriented anthropologists,
however, argue that everything we are doing today is still "cultural
ecology," because we have not yet reached a point of having a unified
discipline containing a holistic view of the totality of human ecology.
It would be presumptuous, some say, for us to call our discipline, at
this early stage, "ecological anthropology."
A study claiming to be "ecological anthropology" means that the
research has drawn much more heavily from the biological sciences than I
do here. The term implies the inclusion of physiological, not just
cultural, adaptation to human stresses, as well as in-depth analyses of
population genetics, human morphology, nutrition and epidemiology.
Though I touch on some of these aspects in this thesis, my focus is
limited mostly to cultural change, and I make no attempt here to handle
63
all the biological variables in the Casiguran ecosystem which may affect
the humans in it.
Cultural ecology, then, refers to the analyses of the relationships
between four components in a human ecosystem. Orlove (1980) best
defines these as population dynamics, social organization, culture, and
environment, with systems of production often providing the important
links between these. In this subfield of anthropology, certain basic
premises are taken as givens, such as that humans are a part of nature,
not separate from it, and are integrated into ecosystems just as are
other animals. Further, humans are seen as influenced by their
environment, and in turn influence it. All this is especially obvious
in small-scale societies like the Agta. Thus, groups like the Agta
cannot be fully understood without looking at them through ecological
models. Finally, cultural behavior is seen in cultural ecology models
as the major device humans use to survive in, adapt to, and exploit
successfully their environment.
I argue here, then, that if the Agta are ever to be understood, one
must include ecological models in his analysis. As Keesing has stated,
"To understand change . . . we must see cultures as elements in complex
cybernetic systems of humans-in-environments" (1974:91). Using
cultural ecology as a springboard, then, the present thesis will focus
on an analysis of the intersystemic change going on today in the Agta
culture and environment, and the present strategy the Agta themselves
are using to try to adapt to these changes.
64
If one wants to come to an understanding of a culture such as that
of the Agta, one must investigate Orlove's four components, as well as
the systems of production which link them. It is also important, since
humans are a part of their ecosystems, to look at the general processes
of bioecology. Finally, it is necessary to look for adaptive behavior
in human groups, since at least some of a people's behavior is an
adaptive response to environment, and especially to environmental
change.^ We will take a look at all of these aspects in this thesis,
and we will especially see just how the Agta's behavior in the 1980s is
in response to the changes in their environment.
Now, this is not to say that cultural ecology provides a complete
explanation for human culture. Since cultures are not merely
adaptations to ecological pressures, other structuralist models may also
explain certain aspects of culture. Culture is more than just
utilitarian activity (Sahlins 1976), and humans do manifest behavior for
ideological as well as material reasons (Keesing 1981:168). Thus,
technoenvironmental influences, viewed apart from cultural ideology and
structural prescriptions, are insufficient to account for all the
complex varieties found in human societies (Netting 1977:94). Symbolic
traditions also play a role in the development of the cultures we see
around the world today. Nevertheless, to attempt to explain human
culture without taking account of the inter-systemic interplay between
man and his ecosystem is to take a shortsighted view.
I am not, then, attempting in this thesis to provide purely
reductionistic explanations for Agta culture. That is, I am not
65
proposing that Agta behavior could or should be explained as merely the
result of ecological restraints, or infracultural biological processes
(cf. Johnson 1982:18). The Agta way of life cannot be satisfactorily
explained with a materialist framework alone. Idealistic aspects of
culture must be recognized, as well, in explaining Agta behavior. As
Meighan (1982:92-93) has suggested for the native populations of
southern California during the late prehistoric period, the reason they
did not adopt agriculture may have been because of their world view and
value system. Meighan rightly questions the unicausal materialist
explanations often given for the rejection of agriculture by these
Indians. For him the reasons are as much spiritual and psychological as
they are environmental.
At the same time, however, my own personal bias, based largely on a
22 year period of intense personal interaction with the Agta, is that
ecological constraints have a heavy influence on Agta behavior. For
this reason, I have chosen cultural ecology as the best theoretical
model for viewing and interpreting the Agta. As my early mentor Kenneth
Pike has recently pointed out, theory is like a window. It provides us
with a particular view of the phenomena we are trying to understand.
Pike argues that the same phenomena can be viewed through two or more
different windows (or theories), showing different aspects of a pattern.
Likewise,
A theory must be simpler than reality if it is to be helpful.

It attempts to strip away from attention those items which are
not important to the observer ^t the moment. In this way it
helps obtain answers to particular questions on a narrow
front by simplifying the task of investigation . . . A
66
scientific theory is good only if it leaves out wisely those

materials which are relevant to other questions but not to
those immediately being answered (Pike 1982:5-6, emphases
his).
It should be further noted, as well, that ecological models do not
work equally well for analyses of all cultures. Such models are not
easily applied to complex societies. A few cultural ecology studies
have been done on such societies (e.g. Steward 1955:210ff, Geertz 1963,
Bennett 1969, and Gmelch 1977), and Britan and Denich (1976) argue that
it can be done. But most such studies have been done on small-scale
groups, where the conditional forces are fewer and more easily seen.
In macroscopic structures, such forces as stratification, market
systems, and international politics intervene between people and
resource allocations, and the systems approach has had difficulties
handling all the forces in such societies, and especially industrial
societies (Britan and Denich 1976:57, Thompson 1977:298; see also
arguments in Winterhalder and Smith 1981:ix-x, and Lee 1969a:49-50). As
Makridakis points out (1977:8, cited in Bargatzky 1984:402-03), the
direction of the ecological transition (i.e., the increasing use of
energy by humans) also leads towards increasing independence of
environmental fluctuations. For small groups, however, and especially
for very small groups like Agta foragers, who live immersed in and
dependent on their immediate environment, cultural ecology is a powerful
tool of analysis.
For this reason, the present research sought to investigate the
Agta system through a study of the four above-mentioned components;
67
that is, by looking at the Agta culture, social organization, population
dynamics, and environment, and especially at the economic links between
these. The study also uses three principles taken from general
bioecology as heuristic devices for helping to explain Agta behavior in
the 1980s. These are symbiosis, niche, and competitive exclusion.
ECONOMICS AND ECOSYSTEM THEORY
This study accepts, then, the premise of cultural ecology, that
there is a direct relationship between environment and culture. It is
especially true that, for small-scale societies like the Agta, much of
the culture revolves around food acquisition. "Food . . . is the focus
of economic life among primitive bands . . . Food is the major
enterprise . . . it is a direct confrontation of man with nature”
(Service 1966:9).
In the 1960s I formed an opinion from my readings in anthropology
that the heart of a people's culture was to be found in their religion.
Religion was said to have a causal influence on all other parts of
culture, a popular idea in the anthropology of the 1950s. I have
since rejected that view. I now, like Steward and Murphy, "see the key
to much of human culture in food-getting activities" (Murphy 1981:175;
see also Steward 1977). In short, it is economics which helps to
explain so much of the motivating force of human sociocultural
behavior.
A focus on economics, therefore, can clarify a good portion of the
motivating force of human sociocultural behavior among groups such as
the Agta. It is for this reason that the field research concentrated so
68
heavily on the investigation of Agta subsistence production; such
behavior is seen as the key for understanding Agta culture. The
economic focus in this thesis allows interconnection and investigation
of the four components of cultural ecological theory, as outlined by
Orlove. From this structure the actual means of Agta subsistence change
may be characterized, quantified, and evaluated.
This study follows Cook's working definition of economy as
" a human population's activity in which its members interact
with their physical and social environment in the calculated attempt to
acquire, directly or indirectly, a living" (1973:810). This thesis
will focus both on the substantivist's sense of 'economics' as patterns
of production, exchange and consumption of goods and services in a
society, and on the formalist's sense of maximization, or rational
calculation.
The difference between the substantivist and formalist meanings of
economics are crystallized in Polanyi (1968:139-40). Firth gives a good
formalist definition which is workable outside of a market economy,
something we need if we are to look at Agta economy through formalist
models: "... the allocation of scarce, available resources between
realizable human wants, with the recognition that alternatives are
possible in each sphere" (1951:125). This helps us to understand how
the Agta are, indeed, "economic men," practicing maximization just as
much as any industrialist (though not with the goal of capital
accumulation), as they live in and exploit their ecosystem.
69
Turning to the concept of ecosystem, in this study we will follow
Hardesty's definition of the term, where he defines it as "an
interacting group of plants and animals, along with their nonliving
environment" (1977:289). I want to emphasize that in my concept of a
human occupied ecosystem, the interdependent components include not only
such factors as demography, epidemiology, food, climate, etc., but also
religion, ideology, history, politics and, especially, economics, all
interacting together with the biotic and abiotic environment. I hope I
have made clear here that in my definition of 'ecosystem' that these
latter components in the Agta culture are, on the broader level,
ecological.
Economics, then, is an important component of the Casiguran
ecosystem. In human populations, economic activity has much to do with
the movement of energy; and in Orlove's model of cultural ecology it is
systems of production which often provide the important links between
other components in ecosystems occupied and manipulated by humans. In
Cook's above definition of economics, one important semantic component
includes the way humans interact with their environment in their
attempt to make a living. That is why economics is viewed in this
study as a subsystem of the ecosystem. (Cook has elsewhere discussed
the problems in relating economics and ecology [1973:810, 846ff].)
Using, then, concepts developed in both cultural ecology and
economic anthropology, I will attempt in this thesis to answer the two
basic questions proposed in the introductory chapter: What are the Agta
doing for a living today? and Why don't they switch to better economic
70
alternatives, such as agriculture? I will also provide my answers to
the series of questions posed by several anthropologists, already
mentioned in the Introduction: Just what do hunters do for a living?
How do they maintain themselves in a changing environment? How do they
make a living when their basic food source is depleted? Why do these
people persist in a 'primitive' foraging life style? What niches do
they fill in an environment with dominant populations which could easily
push them out?
THE AGTA AS "ECONOMIC MEN"
The model I will build in this thesis to explain Agta culture rests
squarely on the view that the Agta, and all humans, "primitive" or
otherwise, are what Schneider (1974) calls Economic Men. That is, the
Agta, as much as any people in the industrialized world, are maximizing
individuals— people who make rational decisions in such a way as to
receive maximum satisfaction with minimum expenditure. This is the key
to understanding present-day Agta behavior, which appears to so many
outsiders as irrational.
In this thesis, 'maximization' is used in the broader sense used by
Burling (1968:180) as referring to the seeking of satisfaction (e.g.,
leisure or good human relations, which are Agta goals), not merely in
the narrow sense of seeking cash, output, or utility.
It is a basic presupposition of this thesis that the Agta are not
ignorant, lazy, or roaming around the jungles without rhyme or reason.
Neither are they at some earlier, less advanced stage of evolutionary
development. It is necessary that I emphasize this point, because there
71
is a very popular myth, a myth even held by some anthropologists, and
especially adhered to by almost everyone who is acquainted with
Negritos, that these foraging types of people are irrational primitives,
stubbornly clinging to an outmoded way of life. This stereotyped view
of Philippine Negritos is typically held to by Filipinos and foreigners
alike, including many school teachers, missionaries, change agents, and
government officials. I agree with Alland's statement, that "for too
long some anthropologists, and many laymen, particularly those involved
in planned change, have been overly willing to assume that major aspects
of indigenous behavior are somehow maladaptive if not queer" (1975:67).
Vayda et al. summarize this view as follows:
A common but possibly now waning view portrays rural and

tribal people as unquestioning traditionalists, lacking in
initiative and decision-making capabilities, kept from modern
technology either by superstition and ignorance or by
cultural barriers, docile prisoners of age-old customs and
magical or mystical ideas that make them use their land
irrationally and inefficiently . . . many policy-makers,
developers, and researchers still subscribe to [this view]
(1980:182).
My view of the Agta as economic maximizers is a major proposition
of the present thesis (see Proposition 6 in Chapter 1). Humans in all
societies are constantly making decisions which involve judging a number
of elements. These elements must be balanced one against another in such
a way as to choose one or more goals and to rank these goals in terms of
some scheme of priorities. It can be a matter of choosing the morally
proper course of action, judging the aesthetic value of objects, or
picking the functionally best arrowhead. When the commitment of
72
resources (either material resources, energy, labor, capital, or time)
is involved--which occurs, for example, when a moral judgment is being
put into action— then decisions must be made as to how to allocate the
resources in order to achieve the goals. There may be moral judgments
involved in the process of choosing resources to commit and how to
commit them (for example, should I bribe an official), as well as
practical considerations of using the resources most effectively.
Economic behavior in the Formalist view is then simply that portion
of decision making which deals with how to allocate resources to
minimize expense (including moral costs, etc.), and to maximize
satisfaction in terms of the chosen goals.
This mini-max hypothesis in economics assumes that people
everywhere are capable of using rationality in making decisions. This
does not assume that the outcome is "the most rational" by some
objective criteria, however, since lack of information and various
other constraints, and simple mistakes, prevent human action from being
"perfect." This hypothesis would assume this to always be true.
"Economizing," then, is a hypothesis about human decision making.
It can be used as a heuristic device as an assumption which can help us
understand decisions and actions. In this form, it does not need to be
"proven." Rather, economic analysis takes the goals to be achieved as
givens. It is not concerned with why they are valued, simply with how
they are ranked.
73
ADAPTIVE STRATEGIES AMONG THE AGTA

Adaptation is one of the major foci of interest in cultural
ecology (Aliand 1975, Moran 1979, Frisancho 1979, Jochim 1981:12-20,
Bennett 1969). My interest in this study is limited to cultural
adaptation and, specifically, Agta cultural adaptive strategies, not on
genetic or physiological adaptations.
I hope to show in this thesis, then, how the Agta are using their
culture to attempt to adapt to their fast-changing environment. I will
also argue that the Agta reject agriculture not because they are too
'primitive' or 'backward,' but for sound economic reasons, as well as
because of certain obstacles in theirecosystem which preclude their
chance of succeeding in that mode of subsistence.
Adaptation may be defined here as ecological success. This
"success," or lack thereof, may be determined for any one group by the
measurement of three criteria: demographic, energetic, and nutritional.
But the final, firm measure of adaptation— the bottom line— would be
fitness (i.e., reproductive success). The other three criteria, of
course, are the intermediate components which lead to fitness, or lack
of it. (See Hardesty 1977:21-22, and Moran 1979:9 for details.)
The data on Agta nutrition is weak; Appendix C on Agta food, and
Table 12.16 on Agta body weights provide indirect circumstantial
evidence that the Agta are chronically undernourished. My data on Agta
energy capture show it to be minimal, at best (see Table 9.2). My
demographic data, presented in Chapter 12, provide the strongest
evidence that the Agta are not presently adapting to their changing
74
ecosystem: The "bottom line" shows lack of reproductive success:
though the Agta have a very high birth rate, their death rate is
higher, and the population is neither stable nor stationary. The
evidence is obvious: the Casiguran Agta are today not coping
successfully with the new problems imposed on them by their changed
ecosystem. They are not, at present, "ecologically successful." It is
my goal in this thesis to show why this is so.
This does not mean the Agta do not have an adaptive strategy today.
Being "economic men," they of course do. The problem is that,with the
present rush of change in their ecosystem, their best economic options
are not quite efficient enough to keep them above the threshold of what
we may call "adaptation." We may define that threshold here as having a
birth rate which is higher than their death rate. This they do not
have. (There were 184 live births and 193 deaths in the population
during the seven years following June 1977.)
THE EQUILIBRIUM CONCEPT IN CULTURAL ECOLOGY
Before we leave the topic of adaptation, I should comment on a
recent criticism of its use in cultural ecology. In a recent paper
titled "Culture, Environment, and the Ills of Adaptationism," Thomas
Bargatzky (1984) attacks the use of the concept in current theory. As
I understand Bargatzky, he is not attacking the idea of adaptation, but
"adaptationism," which is not quite the same thing. This author is
attacking what others have called "neofunctionalism." The followers of
this approach see specific aspects of culture in terms of the functions
they serve in adapting local populations to their environments. There
75
is an emphasis in the neofunctionalist view on an assumed equilibrium
for prehistoric populations. (See Orlove [1980:240-45] for a review of
this school.) I am not a follower of this school of thought (though I
use some of its concepts), and I have written critically of it elsewhere
(Headland 1984b). I still find the concept of adaptation a useful
heuristic device. In contrast to Bargatzky, I believe we can refer to
a particular human group, such as a hunter-gatherer population, as
adapted or not adapted. I remind the reader that I am using ecological
concepts here by analogy, not literally.
Neofunctionalist studies tend to be synchronic, and tend to view
small tribal populations as isolated. My study of the Agta is heavily
diachronic, with three chapters of this thesis given to a summary of
their history, and in this chapter, and in Chapter 6, I argue strongly
against the view that prehistoric tribal groups lived in isolation.
Neofunctionalists also argue for static equilibrium models for primitive
peoples, with balance and symmetry between culture and resources (Ellen
1982:186). They see customs which others would call irrational as
having some significant ecological function for keeping people in
balance with nature. "It is not difficult, with a little ingenuity, to
describe the most seemingly pointless, wasteful or exotic cultural
practice as rational or adaptive in some way. . . . But simply because a
system functions it does not make it adaptive" (ibid.:194). The Agta
have customs which are irrational and maladaptive, such as chronic
alcoholism, and one of the highest documented homicide rates in the
world. If the Agta would reject just these two customs this would
76
possibly bring their population quickly across the threshold from
maladaptation to adaptation.
I reject the neofunctionalist myth which holds that indigenous or
prehistoric peoples lived in near-perfect equilibrium with their
environments, an almost ideal state with nature. The popularization of
this myth probably can be traced to Rappaport's (1968) classic work
which attempts to demonstrate how the religion and warfare of a tribe of
New Guinea highlanders kept them in ecological balance with their
environment. Rappaport's thesis, based on 11 months of fieldwork, has
been heavily criticized; yet it continues to be taught as ’'truth" in

3
many undergraduate anthropology courses m the United States. Myths,
whether religious or anthropological, once established seem to
perpetuate themselves. This even when the originator himself of the
myth says, "I [no longer] feel very defensive about the original
interpretation" (Rappaport 1982:303).
The tendency in cultural ecology to describe traditional tribal
systems with negative feedback mechanisms, as if they were static and in
equilibrium, while at the same time neglecting to recognize that there
are often positive feedback mechanisms in such groups which are
dysfunctional, or which precipitate dynamic change, is unfortunate. As
the reader will see, the present thesis does not go in that direction.
Moran (1979:58), as well as others, has suggested that one way to
overcome the weakness caused by the tendency towards static equilibrium
models is to study how populations adapt to stress. This is precisely
the goal of the present study.
77
THE AGTA AS COMMERCIAL HUNTER-GATHERERS
The Agta are fully as "modern" as are other humans. What is
interesting is that they look 'primitive.'’ This is because of the
unique niche they fill in their ecosystem. The Agta practice a basic
production type which may be best called "commercial hunting and
gathering."
When I talk about a basic production type, I am borrowing a term
from the neofunctionalists, who in turn borrowed the concept from Marx's
concept of "modes of production." Basic production types refer to a
concept different from the neoevolutionists' levels of cultural
evolution, such as Service's (1971) band-tribe-chiefdom-state levels.
Such 'types' refer, rather, to different styles of livelihood, such as
hunter-gatherers, swidden cultivators, pastoralists, wet rice farmers,
etc. The concept is similar to Steward's (1955:89, 91) "culture type,"
where Steward sees groups in historically independent areas with similar
"cores" and at similar "levels of sociocultural integration," as being
of one "culture type." Such groups, he emphasizes, "share similar
structural patterns rather than cultural content" (ibid.:85).
Commercial hunter-gatherers, a term coined by Hayden (1981:346),
belong to one of those types. These groups are, in contrast to
traditional hunter-gatherers, characterized as being heavily dependent
on bartered foods, trading meat, furs, forest products, or labor for
starch foods. In Chapter 13 I will document how general this basic
production type is among hunters all over the world. Many of the groups
practicing this production type of subsistence receive some food from
78
governments or missions, or do minimal cultivation or pastoralism.
However, they are easily recognized as different from other basic
production types (e.g., swidden farmers, pastoralists, etc.) in that
"their relationship to their environment continues to be predatory and
opportunistic" (Keesing 1981:512), and they practice a unique "foraging
mode of production" (Lee 1981). Drawing from Lee, I describe here this
unique mode in some detail.
Are the Agta hunter-gatherers? When I refer in this thesis to the
Agta as "hunter-gatherers" or as "foragers," the question arises as to
whether they should be included in this basic production type. After
all, Philippine Negritos were excluded from this category at the Man the
Hunter Conference in Chicago in 1966, because "they practice at least a
modicum of agriculture and thus fall outside the range of our discussion
[sic]" (Murdock 1968:17). I argue here, however, that the Agta indeed
belong in the hunter-gatherer category, even though they nowadays eat
mostly rice, and most of them have planted crops for themselves at one
time or another.
Some people have defined hunter-gatherer peoples as those which eat
no domestic foods (Coon 1971:xvii), or who practice strict "Pleis
tocene economies— no metal, firearms, dogs, or contact with non-hunting
cultures" (Lee and DeVore 1968:4), or who live in patrilocal bands
(Service 1971), or who practice no agriculture of any kind (Murdock
1968:15). As Lee and DeVore have stressed (op. cit.), such ideal
definitions would effectively eliminate most, if not all, of the
foraging-type peoples described over the last century as "hunter-
gatherers." It is my view that most of the world's hunter-gatherer
societies have been involved for hundreds of years in elementary types
of food production to a much greater degree than most anthropologists
have allowed for. Campbell (1965) provides suggestive evidence that
even prehistoric Australian Aborigines practiced various types of simple
plant cultivation (including burning, seed planting, replanting of wild
yam tops, fertilization, and irrigation).
Even Lee himself discovered, when he returned for a second trip to
visit the !Kung Bushmen (earlier popularized through Lee's writings as
the classic example of 'real' hunter-gatherers), that "the !Kung were
no strangers to agricultureand pastoralism"(Lee 1979a:409). Lee now
admits, in fact, that the earlier 'pristine nature' view of the !Kung as
full-time hunter-gatherers, with no agriculture or livestock, is
incorrect (ibid.). Lee found that the reason the !Kung were doing no
planting at the time of his first visit in 1963-64 was because of a
drought, not because they were 'pristine.' When he returned for a
second period of field study in 1967-69 he found that 51 percent of the
men planted fields (ibid.; see also Lee 1976:18; 1981:16). This is a
figure much higher than the Agta's, which was 24 percent in 1983 (see
Table 10.7).
Wiessner describes, too, how some extremely acculturated !Kung
groups will move back to what appears to the outsider to be a
completely unacculturated state, which she says is a "common
occurrence" among them (1977:xx). She says, "It was impossible
... to infer anything about degree of acculturation of a family from
80
current lifestyle" (ibid.). This potential misinterpretation was the
trap Lee fell into in his earlier fieldwork, and which unfortunately
precipitated a myth, still reoccurring in the anthropological
literature today (e.g., Hayden 1981:418), of the !Kung as the archetype
example of 'real' hunter-gatherers. Gordon states the problem clearly:
"It is not that Lee is wrong in his representation of reality. Indeed
he has shown himself to be quite flexible on the issue of contact and
interaction . . . the problem lies in how others interpret Lee's
statements" (1984:219).
When we read Silberbauer's (1981) description of the neighboring
G/wi Bushmen we are tempted to characterize these people as close to a
true archetype of 'real' hunter-gatherers. Brooks, however, in his
(1982) review of Silberbauer's (1980) book, casts doubt on
Silberbauer's description of the G/wi as extremely isolated and
independent, and living only by hunting and gathering. In a personal
letter, Brooks referred me to a statement made by Tanaka that the
G/wi— the same G/wi only a yearafter the period represented by
Silberbauer's study— "do keep herds of goats and donkeys" (Tanaka
1976:100). Brooks' argument is that the G/wi were not the 'pure'
hunter-gatherers Silberbauer paints them up to be. Other authors also
question Silberbauer's depiction of the G/wi as isolated. Wilmsen
says, for example,
Accumulating evidence overwhelmingly renders obsolete any

thought of San [Bushmen] isolation even before European
colonial intrusions into their native arenas. Early Iron Age
agropastoralist economies were active in all parts of the
81
Kalahari and its surroundings at least for the past

millennium. . . . To ignore this is illusion (1983:17).
Schrire (1980), who believes that Bushmen have been practicing
sporadic pastoralism for hundreds of years, reviews a good deal of
evidence which contradicts any myths about pure hunter-gatherers
anywhere in southern Africa. She is supported by an argument by Denbow,
who presents evidence "showing that foragers and food producers have
been enmeshed in networks of interaction and exchange for 1,000 years
longer than was previously suspected. Over 1,200 years ago, these
networks reached into the heartof the Dobe [i.e., !Kung] area"
(1984:178). Finally, the most convincing evidence for long time
symbiotic trade between foragers and food producers in the Kalahari
comes from Gordon (1984). After reading Gordon's startling descriptions
of the intense interactions between African herders and Kalahari Bushmen
in the last hundred years, it is hard for me to believe the groups
described by Silberbauer (or Tanaka) were as isolated and 'untouched' as
they seemed to have thought.
In this thesis, then, the terms 'hunter-gatherers,' or 'foragers,'
are not limited to those peoples who have no acquaintance with
agriculture, or who eat only wild foods. Rather, the terms are meant
here to refer to a category of peoples who practice a basic production
type or, in Marxist terminology, a particular "mode of production."
For this thesis, I prefer to thinkof hunter-gatherers in the sense
defined by Leacock and Lee (1982:4, 7-9). As these authors emphasize,
the salient characteristics which define band-level foragers around the
82
world is not their mode of subsistence (i.e., hunting, fishing,
gathering, lack of agriculture). Rather, it is their mode of
production. The latter emphasizes the relationships involved in making
a living.
Drawing from Marxist theory, Lee (1981) has emphasized that there
is a "foraging mode of production." In his description of this mode,
Lee's definition of band foragers is superior to the rather sterile
earlier definitions cited above, because it focuses on the salient
characteristics of these small-scale societies which are found around
the world. These characteristics set these societies, including the
Agta, off from other small groups such as swidden farmers. These salient
characteristics are three: sharing, communal ownership (of land and
resources), and egalitarian political relations. Lee calls these the
'key' to the foraging mode of production (ibid.:17).
Leacock and Lee (1982:8) outline a preliminary list of six core
features that characterize the 'relations of production' among foragers.
These are listed here because all six are prevalent among the Agta, as
well as among other foraging societies with whom the Agta will be
compared in Chapter 13. These features are: collective ownership of
the means of production (i.e., land and resources); the right of
reciprocal access to resources of others through marriage ties and
visiting; little emphasis on accumulation of food or goods; access of
all to the 'forces of production' (e.g., tools, labor, resources,
knowledge, skill, and land); easy lending and borrowing of individually
'owned' tools; and total sharing within the camp and with visitors (what
83
Sahlins [1972] calls 'generalized reciprocity'). This last feature means
that among band-level hunter-gatherer societies, and in particular among
the Agta, "No one goes hungry if there is food in the camp" (ibid.).^
Thus, the chief characteristic of such societies is that they
practice what Lee calls a foraging mode of production. It is a political
component in these societies— their relations of production— which make
them distinctive, not their forces of production. The key to the
foraging mode of production, says Lee, is "the fact of sharing and
egalitarianism. . . . Hunting and gathering as productive forces are
important; but they are not the primary factors in themselves [for
defining hunter-gatherers]. The political aspect is the primary
component" (1981:17; see also Meillassoux 1973).
THREE ECOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES
In this thesis I will refer often to three particular ecological
principles. I use these as heuristic devices for better explaining Agta
behavior, and to help us to understand better the ecological
restrictions under which the Agta are forced to operate. I want to
emphasize at the outset here that I use these principles, and other
ecological concepts, by analogy. The reader is warned not to interpret
their use to the more strict literal definitions or limitations of
biology. The use of biological analogies for social phenomena is hardly
a new idea, and I will use them here in that way. (See Bennett
[1976:167-70] for details.) The three principles I will refer to in
other chapters are symbiosis, competitive exclusion, and niche. These
will be used to illustrate how the cultural activity of the Agta is
84
quite logical, and not irrational, given the severe restrictive
pressures under which they find themselves in the 1980s. They will be
especially helpful in answering the two central questions of the
thesis, What are the Agta doing for a living today, and Why do they
persist in their present economic mode of production instead of
switching to agriculture?
Symbiosis. There are many small human groups found throughout the
world who follow the particular basic production type I call here
"commercial hunter-gatherers." I will refer to several of these groups,
and show how similar their "mode of production" is to the Agta, in
Chapter 13. All of these groups live in intense symbiotic
relationships with dominant neighboring populations, usually farmers,
sometimes pastoralists. This bioecological principle has proved very
useful for explaining relationships between two such human populations,

since it was first used by Barth (1956) in this way. Jean Peterson
(1978a, 1978b) used the concept to describe the interethnic trade
relationships between the Palanan Agta and their lowland farming
neighbors in the 1960s.
Symbiosis is often, generally defined as referring to beneficial
interdependent interrelationships between two dissimilar organisms or
populations such that one cannot get along without the other (e.g.
Hutchinson 1978). Most ecologists, however, use the term symbiosis to
refer to all types of relationships between organisms, whether
beneficial or not (e.g., Odum 1971:213). Sutton and Harmon (1973:184),
for example, outline seven types of symbiosis, only one of which is
85
mutualism. The other six are cooperation, commensalism, amensalism,
competition, predation,and parasitism. Addicott (1984) outlines even
more types of symbiosis,including direct versus indirect. The term
symbiosis is preferred in this thesis, rather than mutualism, as the
Agta/non-Agtainteractions are not always of mutual benefit and, in
fact, as will become clear in subsequent chapters, any of the types may
occur at times.
As wewill see, the Agta have been involved in intense symbiotic
relationships with non-Agta farmers for many hundreds of years. Today
the relationship is usually 'mutualistic', where it has evolved into a
highly institutionalized patron-client relationship between an Agta
family and their, often serial, farmer trading partners. In the Agta
andlowland languages south of Palanan the term forthis relationship
is called ahibay, and in those languages in Palanan and north, ibay.
These symbiotic interactions between the two dissimilar
populations, Agta hunters and lowland farmers, have not always been
mutualistic. In previous centuries, and today, the relationships have
shifted back and forth between different bands and individual families
to degrees of competition, commensalism, amensalism, or even predation.
In prehispanic times 'cooperation', rather than mutualism, may have
been the norm for some bands. That is, the interaction was optional
for both populations. For other bands, there were and are periods of
competitive symbiosis (when both populations suffer), and periods of
predatory symbiosis (when one population benefits at the expense of the
other). Today the Agta are usually the ones to suffer. During the
86
Spanish periods it was usually the lowlanders, as we will see in Chapter
7. And as more and more immigrants flood into the Casiguran area, I
sense that the symbiosis is already moving from one which was usually
mutualistic to one of commensalism (where the Agta continue to benefit
from the lowlanders, but the lowlanders are unaffected by the Agta), and
even to a relationship of amensalism (where the Agta are inhibited by
the lowlanders, but the lowlanders are unaffected by the Agta). (See
button and Harmon [1973:184] for definitions of types of symbiosis
followed in this thesis; and compare Odum's definitions [1971:211, 213],
which are similar.)
Both the Agta and the non-Agta lowland farmers who interact with
them are skilled at exploiting this system for their own benefit. The
Agta have come to rely on it moreand more for providing their needs,
as their natural resources have dwindled since WWII. The neighboring
farmers depend on the Agta as well, as a cheap labor resource and for
providing them with forest products and wild meat protein (the later now
increasingly scarce). I argue in this thesis that the Agta have moved
into this dependent, serf-like relationship with the lowland farmers,
rather than becoming farmers themselves, for sound ecological reasons.
The competitive exclusion principle. In attempting to answer the
second major question of this thesis, why the Agta don't take up
sedentary agriculture, I will use a second principle, called
"competitive exclusion." This principle will help us to see how the
Agta are actually locked out of pursuing this alternative life style.
87
The competitive exclusion principle (hereafter CEP) is a term first
coined in ecological theory by Hardin (1960), though the concept goes
back to Darwin. The concept is sometimes referred to in biology as
Gause^s principle, after the Russian biologist G. F. Gause (1934), one
of the pioneer investigators of competition. Hardin defines the CEP
simply as, "Complete competitors cannot coexist." Sutton and Harmon
explain it thus: "If two populations compete for some resource that is
necessary for the survival of each and is in short supply, one of the
populations will be eliminated" (1973:280). (See Schoener 1982 for a
most recent summary of the debates on competitive exclusion theory in
biology.)
Much experimental work has been carried out which substantiates
this principle. One of the most widely cited examples is that of a
series of experiments by Thomas Park (1948) and his associates in the
1940s. Experimenting with two species of the Tribolium flour beetle,
they found that both populations could live indefinitely in a sealed
jar of flour, as long as they were kept in separate jars. But whenever
they were placed together in this homogeneous little universe, one of
the species was always eliminated sooner or later (depending on the
temperature and humidity of the jar), while the other continued to
thrive.
The ecological literature is filled with many other such
investigations of a variety of animals and plants, both in the
laboratory and in nature, with similar results. In natural ecosystems,
however, in contrast to laboratory experiments, the observed competition
88
is much more complex, and in the majority of the examples in the
literature the dominant population denies the weaker population access
to some particular resource. The weaker population is displaced from
its niche (not necessarily its habitat)., but is not usually starved out
of existence. Again, this is a close analogy of what is happening to
the weak Agta population. They are precluded from moving into an
agricultural niche in their ecosystem because the lowlanders will not
allow them access to one scarce resource, arable land.
Biologists usually apply the principle to competition between
different species, rather than within the same species. However, the
principle is applied as well to intraspecific competition (Sutton and
Harmon 1973:189, 199-200), and biologists agree that the stiffest
competition occurs within the same species. For example, a corn plant
competes for nutrients more intensely with a neighboring corn plant than
it does with any weed (Billings 1970:87, cited in Carneiro 1978:209).
Hardin notes, for example, that
As a species becomes increasingly 'successful,' its struggle

for existence ceases to be one of struggle with the physical
environment or with other species and comes to be almost
exclusively competition with its own kind (1961:220, cited in
Carneiro 1978:209).
Ricklefs (1979:247ff) discusses intraspecific competition in some
detail, showing how it leads to the .formation of different social groups
in animals and how it may lead to the evolution of cooperation and
specialization of function. This is, of course, exactly the type of
relationship which evolved between the Agta and non-Agta populations
89
after they began pressing on each other's niches at least a thousand
years ago.
Most biologists, however, when they speak of competition within a
species, are talking about competition among individuals within the
same population. Keeping in mind that I am applying these principles by
analogy, I find that the models developed by bioecologists of
interspecies competition are much more analogous to the Agta-lowlander
populations than are those of intraspecific competition. When
ecologists discuss the relationships between two closely related species
of the same genus of chipmunk in the same habitat (Heller and Gates
1971), for example, the resulting competition and niche displacement of
the stronger population by the weaker is more similar to Agta
displacement by lowlanders than are their discussions of intraspecies
competition.
Some readers may object to my use of a principle usually used for
describing competition between different species for studying conflict
between two Homo sapiens groups. I remind those readers that the
principle used in biological science, though less often, for
competition within the same species, that it does apply to competing
groups of the same species, and that I am using the concept by analogy,
not directly.
Though biologists apply intraspecific competition models to Homo
sapiens (e.g., Hardin 1961, as cited in Sutton and Harmon 1973:200), as
well as to other organisms, it is curious to note that, in contrast to
the other two principles presented here, the CEP has not been applied
90
to the study of humans by cultural anthropologists. (Carneiro, to be
mentioned below, is the only exception I know of to this.) X find this
surprising, since this principle has, for me, been a powerful heuristic
device for helping me tounderstand not only the Agta, but the many
other marginal foraging societies found in our world today.
Several physical anthropologists have invoked the concept in
regard to the question of whether more than one species of
Australopithecus existed at one time, and how these hominids could have
avoided competition fatal to one or the other. (Most of these
discussions are summarized in Winterhalder 1980. See also Birdsell
1972:302-09, and Howells 1973:25.)
Two cultural anthropologists, in a joint paper (Jacobsen and Eighmy
1980), make brief mention of the CEP as a reason horses displaced dogs
as traction animals among the 18th century Plains Indians. These
authors neither define the term nor explain their use of it, nor use it
to explaincompetition between human groups. Barth's classic (1956)
paper describes symbiotic relationships between three human groups in
North Pakistan, in which we see vividly the CEP at work. But Barth does
not explicitly relate his description to any ecological concept of
competition, not even in his 1964 paper which has the term "competition11
in the title, and which makes one vague remark about "processes of
exclusion of persons from their exploitation" in the text (1964:18).

In a recent paper, Berkes claims to analyze recent controversies
between commercial fishermen and sport fishermen in Lake Erie "in terms
of models of interspecific competition used in animal ecology"
91
(1984:413). But he fails to apply the concept. He refers to ecological
competition, but does not define what he means. He makes no reference
to the CEP, nor does he cite Gause or Hardin. And he concludes that the
Lake Erie conflict may be of cultural rather than of ecological origin.
Thomas Love (1977) does refer to and define Gause's (1934)
principle in his description of the competition between two farmer
groups in Almond Valley, California in the 1970s, and his case study is
definitely an example of the CEP in action between these two human
populations. But his emphasis is on niche theory in cultural
anthropology, and he does not carry through with the implications of
Gause's principle, nor does he mention the term -CEP in his paper
(though Eighmy and Jacobsen [1980:286] use the term once, in passing,
when referring to Love's paper).
Jochim (1981:45, 46) mentions the term CEP twice in his cultural
ecology text, stating that one advantage of the cultural ecological
approach is "that it allows the utilization of laws developed in
general ecological theory, such as the 'Law of Competitive Exclusion'."
Yet he fails to carry through with this suggestion. The CEP is never
mentioned again in his book. Hardesty's (1977:143-44) textbook in
ecological anthropology devotes only one paragraph to defining the CEP
in general biology, but curiously makes no suggestion for its
application in anthropology. Finally, the most recent text on cultural
ecology (Ellen 1982) never mentions the term, nor does the author cite
Gause or Hardin.
92
To my knowledge, Robert Carneiro is the only cultural
anthropologist to both use the term CEP, and to harness its explanatory
power to explain competitive behavior between human populations.
Carneiro first refers to the CEP briefly in a 1970 paper as an
explanation for warfare and the. evolution of chiefdoms and states
(1970:vi, n.7). He develops his use of the CEP in a later
paper (1978), where he argues that during the Neolithic, and up to the
present, neighboring human populations moved into increasing warfare
against each other over one particular scarce resource, arable land.
He calls this "a perfect exemplification in the domain of culture" of
the principle (1978:208). Carneiro refers to many cases of two groups
fighting against each other over the usual scarce resource most
important to humans, arable land. Following the principle of
competitive exclusion, one group eventually kills off, displaces, or
subjugates the other. This is exactly what is occurring today in the
Casiguran ecosystem, as I hope to demonstrate in this thesis.
Note that Carneiro uses the principle to develop his theory of
warfare and the evolution of the state. I use it to develop my theory
that marginal hunter-gatherer groups reject the adoption of agriculture
as an adaptive strategy (perhaps subconsciously), to avoid coming into
competition with a group much stronger than they. My ideas on the use
of the CEP for explaining the behavior of human foragers did not come
from Carneiro, but from my readings in general ecology. I wrote most of
the ideas in this section in my doctoral proposal in 1982. It was not
until November 1984 that I learned that Carneiro was working on the same
93
idea. I have received some helpful correspondence from him, and his
writings have refined some of my arguments presented here. He and I
differ, however, in our emphases of the manifestation of the CEP between
two human populations. He sees the natural result as warfare. I see it
more often as resulting in the weaker population avoiding or withdrawing
from a niche the dominant population wants. In the Agta case, this is
agricultural land. As Winterhalder states, "Competition may induce
extinction, but it is more likely to have a generating role in the
evolution and maintenance of intra-community diversity. . . . niche
displacement is more likely than extinction" (1980:59-60).
The Agta, a small and weak population, outnumbered today 57 to 1 by
the fast-growing non-Agta farming population, purposely (though perhaps
not consciously) avoid an occupational 'niche' which would put them in
direct competition with the lowlanders. For the Agta to become farmers
they would have to compete with the dominant Filipino population for one
valuable and scarce resource, land. The Agta sense that there is
little chance that the immigrating agriculturalists are going to allow
them to keep and farm good land. The result is that they simply avoid
that economic niche. They do not reject agriculture because they are
ignorant, lazy, or dislike hard work. Many Agta, rather, would like to
move into agriculture, at least that is what they told me, if the
opportunity was open to them. As we will see in Chapter 13, that
possibility is a door shut hard in the faces of most Agta at the present
time.
94
The niche concept. The third ecological principle I will use for
explaining Agta economic behavior, and their rejection of agriculture as
a basic production type for themselves, is that of 'niche.' Niche is
best defined as the role the organism plays in the ecosystem (Odum
1975:46). Hardesty (1977:120) defines it as the lifestyle or feeding
strategy of a human group. The important aspect of niche, then, is what
the plant or animal does in its ecosystem. In this thesis I use the
term more or less synonymously with "basic production type." All human
groups follow a basic production type, or niche role, in their
respective ecosystems. If we were to give a name to the niche the Agta
fill, we may call it by the term defined above, "commercial hunting and
gathering." It is this niche which is their "mode of production."
Barth's (1956) seminal paper was most influential in moving me to
look at ecology to find answers to Agta behavior. Barth's field work
focused on a study of the interethnic relationships of three human
groups in Swat, North Pakistan. The question is raised as to why these
three potentially competitive groups tolerated each other. Barth
answered this question using ecological models and, specifically, the
concepts of niche and symbiosis. These groups were able to coexist
together because they all exploited different niches, and because they
had well established symbiotic economic relationships. Each group,
because of its particular economic and political organization, exploited
different niches not used, or only partially used, by the other two
groups. I was immediately attracted to Barth's model, because the
relationship between the subordinate Gujar population with its dominant
95
agricultural lowland neighbors is similar to that of the Agta and their
lowland neighbors.
I do not want to attempt to carry the analogy of niche too far in
this study. Anthropologists have discussed the problem of applying the
concept to human populations (e.g., Bennett 1976:174-75, Love 1977). I
use it here only as an ecological synonym for basic production types, as
a heuristic tool for understanding Agta foraging habits, and as a way
to tie those Agta habits to the CEP. Let us use the concept here as a
practical learning device for the cultural ecological model I am
building, and not in the strict literal sense. Even ecologists cannot
agree on the use and definition of the concept in their own field of
natural science. Much less am I going to attempt such for cultural
ecology.
Niche differentiation reduces competition among populations over
scarce resources. When one understands the CEP, therefore, it is not
hard to understand why "two similar species scarcely ever occupy
similar niches, but displace each other in such a manner that each takes
possession of certain peculiar kinds of food and modes of life" (Love
1977:28). This is why the Agta avoid trying to move into a niche
already filled by another much stronger human population. In fact, the
Agta may have practiced more agriculture in the past than they have in
this century, when the non-Agta Casiguranin population numbered only 500
and the CEP was not a significant force in their ecosystem. It is for
ecological reasons that the Agta have not taken up agriculture as an
96
economic lifestyle for themselves. This is a salient theme in the
present thesis.
USING ECOLOGICAL CONCEPTS TO EXPLAIN AGTA SOCIETY
I do not claim that ecological models will explain all aspects of
Agta culture. I hope I made this clear at the beginning of this
chapter. But I do believe such models will clarify certain otherwise
"peculiar" aspects of their behavior. In the present century, numerous
change agencies (mission, government, the Panamin Foundation, U.S. Peace
Corps Volunteers, school teachers, social workers, etc.) have attempted
to help Philippine Negritos change to a "better" way of life. I have
reviewed 24 cases of such attempts elsewhere (Headland 1985c), almost
all of which ended in failure.
Filipinos and foreigners alike are prone to stereotype Negritos as
backward, lazy, and unthinking. Most of the community aid projects I
have surveyed had two primary goals in mind, to settle the 'nomadic'
Negritos onto reservations, and to make them into farmers. There are
various "surface structure" reasons why Negritos resist such forced
change (I outlined eleven in the above cited paper). But there are also
three "infrastructural" ecological reasons why these marginal groups,
and specifically the Agta, resist such change. The three bioecological
principles outlined above provide the keys for understanding these
infrastructure patterns of resistance to agriculture as a way of life.
The Agta in Casiguran do not live alone. Their small population of
609 is surrounded by a peasant farming population of 35,000. If we look
at the Casiguran valley as an ecosystem, and consider the principle of
97
competitive exclusion, it is not difficult to grasp what would happen to
the Agta if they tried to take up the same "life style or feeding
strategy" as that of their farming neighbors. As a matter of fact, Agta
do practice some marginal desultory cultivation. But, as we shall see
in Chapter 13, and in Appendices F and G, in most of these cases
lowland farmers soon move in and take over the supervision of such
cultivation, and eventually end up taking over for themselves the Agta's
cleared land. Whenever the Agta attempt to practice independent
agriculture, the symbiotic relationship quickly moves from one of
'mutualism' to one of 'competition.'
This brings us back to the concept of niche. This principle helps
to provide an explanation as to why the Agta resist changing to a
sedentary farming lifestyle, a completely different basic production
type. Outsiders consider thisas an obviously better alternative to
"roaming around in the jungle in a primitive state." The Agta
obviously see it differently, however. They have avoided moving into a
niche already occupied by another much stronger population. In fact,
the very reason the Agta have survived as well as they have in their
ecosystem is because they are filling a different niche from that of the
lowland farming population. Furthermore, their niche directly provides
energy to the lowland population which they have come to depend upon, in
the form of meat, fish, forest plant products, and cheap labor. The
lowlanders not only tolerate the Agta in their ecosystem, but actually
need them to provide certain requisites. For the Agta to try to change
to farmers would certainly cause the CEP to come into play, and it is
98
not hard to guess which population would lose in such competition. In
the past, when the CEP was not a force in the Agta ecosystem, the Agta
were theoretically free to take up full time agriculture. Though lack
of capital may have been a factor in their not doing so then, a more
logical reason was that game was then very abundant, farmers were
willing to trade starch food for it, and there was no need to go to the
hard work of clearing land to acquire food. It is quite possible that
the pre-20th century Agta were typical of Sahlins' "original affluent
societies."
Love (1977) provides a good example of what happens when two human
populations in the same habitat compete for the same niche. As the
"retirement" farmersbegan out-competing the full-time farmers in
Almond Valley, California in the 1960s, the full-time farmers gradually
adjusted their niche so as to avoid being put out of business. This is
a natural result of the CEP. The same principles can be used to explain
why the Cree Indians of Jasper, Saskatchewan, never took up agriculture
or cattle ranching, in spite of government efforts to get them to do so
(Bennett 1969). It would have put them in direct competition with the
three white populations of the area. Instead, the Cree preferred a
dependent symbiosis with those more dominant populations as their best
option for survival. And we have all read recently in the news
magazines of the violent backlash from American commercial fishermen in
Texas as Vietnamese refugee immigrants have tried to take up their
traditionaloccupation, shrimp fishing, in the same area. The
99
Vietnamese are having to cope against forces which the CEP helps us to
understand.
So, how can the Agta best survive in their delicate position in
their now fast-changing ecosystem? Whatever opinion outsiders may hold
on this question, the Agta have their own ideas. For now, their
solution has been to let themselves evolve along the path of least
resistance. This evolutionary path has led them into a particular
niche which they have found to be their best adaptive strategy, that of
developing mutualistic symbiotic relationships with their lowland
neighbors. This is manifested by their serving them as commercial
hunters and gatherers.
1. For discussions on this point, human response to change as

adaptive, see Alland 1975, Alland and McCay 1973, Frisancho 1979:3-5,
Hardesty 1977:21-46, Jochim 1981:12-20, and Smith 1979.
2. Burling (1968) gives an excellent critique of the various

definitions of 'economics' used in anthropology, and Cook (1973:808-09)
discusses the problems anthropologists have had in attempting to define
the term.
3. Some of the most powerful criticisms of Rappaport's work are

found in McArthur 1974, Ellen 1982:183-86, Peoples 1982, Samuels 1982,
Clarke 1977, Anderson 1973, Bergman 1975, Friedman 1974, Hallpike 1973,
Salisbury 1975, Bennett 1976:182, and Foin and Davis 1984. Rappaport
has justrecentlypublished his most major response to these critics
(1984).
4. It should be noted that small-scale farmers share, too. This

is especially the case with tribal swiddeners in the Philippines.
However, as is obvious when one looks into the closed and walled
storerooms in the homes of such farmers, they also save. They have
special rooms, or granaries, where they stock their year's supply of
rice. In these walled rooms, farmers are able to keep their rice out of
sight of neighbors, who might otherwise request some. Agta do not save
food, goods, or money. Nor do they normally have walls on their tiny
houses. The extreme to which Agta share is reflected in their residence
sites, which Wiessner (1982) calls 'open,' in contrast to farmer sites,
which are 'closed.' Farmers also practice reciprocity, but it is
'balanced,' not 'generalized.' (See Lee 1981:16,17; Leacock and Lee
1982:8).
100
CHAPTER IV
THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
The significance of the natural environment to our understanding of

the present evolutionary status of the Agta culture cannot be
overemphasized. These physical conditions have asserted and continue to
assert tremendous influence over the kind of adaptation the Agta have
had to make in order to survive.
The ecological forces in Casiguran include not only the natural
flora, fauna, and climate, but other critical components such as the
non-Agta human populations, introduced diseases, logging companies,
roads, money economy, the sudden importance of rattan furniture on the
Euroamerican world market, national politics, etc. Even the
assassination of political Opposition Leader Benigno Aquino at the
Manila Int'l Airport on August 21, 1983, precipitated grave ecological
consequences for the Agta culture and ecosystem, as I will make clear in
Chapter 9.
This chapter will describe the more general components of the
Casiguran ecosystem, the climate, land, and forests, as well as certain
important flora and fauna. Subsequent chapters will discuss other
critical, but less obvious, ecological components which have affected
the Agta.
THE CLIMATE
There are six critical climatic variables in the Casiguran
ecosystem. These are amount of rainfall, number of rainy days per
101
102
year, temperatures, relative humidity, seasonality, and tropical
cyclones.
Climatically, this area of eastern Luzon is classed as 'Type A Wet'
(Phil. Atlas 1975:25; Flores and Balagot 1969:200), which means that
this area has the highest amount and most evenly distributed annual
rainfall of the six climate types in the Philippines. This is based on
the popular Hernandez (1954) classification system. 'Type A Wet' is
defined as rainy throughout the year with at most one and one half dry
months. A'dry month' is defined as a month with less than 60 mm of
rainfall. In fact, during the 23 year tenure of my time in Casiguran
(from 1962 to 1984) there were only 18 months with less than 60 mm of
rainfall, or 6.5 percent of the months (18/276). None of these 23 years
had more than two 'dry months;' four of the years had two 'dry months,'
and ten of the years had one 'dry month' (see Table 4.1). The other
nine years had no 'dry months.'
The Casiguran rainfall fluctuates throughout the year and between
years, as shown in Figure 1, Table 4.2, and Table 4.1. April is the
month with the lightest average rainfall, 154 mm, while November has the
heaviest rainfall, 641 mm. The amount of annual rainfall is highly
varied, with the year of heaviest rainfall on record being 1971, with
6,878 mm (275 in). The year with the least rainfall was 1968, with
1,353 mm (54 in). The 24 hour period with the highest recorded rainfall
was on March 13, 1971, with 401 mm (16 in) (see column 7 of Table 4.1).
The average rainfall for the 34 year period of 1949-83 was 3,448 mm per
103
year (138 in). The rainfall in 1983 was 3,119 mm, just slightly below
average, as shown in Figure 1.
As has been stated before (Griffin 1984b:98), what may be more
significant than the amount of rainfall, in terms of Agta economic
behavior, is the number of days of rain per year. As is shown in Table
4.1, Casiguran averages 212 rainy days per year (defined by the national
weather bureau, Pagasa, as days with 0.1+ mm of precipitation). Using
this definition, Casiguran had 184 rainy days in 1983, somewhat below
the average (see Table 4.2).
Temperatures are mild to hot in Casiguran, and do not fluctuate far
from the mean. The annual average temperature is 26°C (79°F).
January is the coldest month, with an average of 23.7°C, while June is
the hottest month with an average of 27.6°C (see column 1 of Table
4.1). The lowest recorded temperature was 13.8°C (56.8°F) on February
3, 1962, and the highest was 36.8°C (98.2°F), on June 12, 1962 (Pagasa
1975:2).
Tropical cyclones. It so happens that Casiguran lies within the
latitude-longitude square which suffers the highest frequency of
tropical cyclones in the world (Flores and Balagot 1969:170; Kintanar et
al. 1979:4).
The area with the highest frequency of occurrence in the

Philippines [and in the world] is the latitude-longitude
square where Casiguran, Aurora, is located, where there is an
average of 6 tropical cyclones per 5 years (Kintanar et al.
1979:4).
The Philippines as a whole experiences an average of 19 cyclones per
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year, with "about 9 of them crossing the country per year" (ibid.rl).
The range varies from a minimum of 13 cyclones (in 1950) to a maximum of
29 (in 1952). Although these cyclones cause enormous losses to life and
property, they benefit the country in that they contribute greatly to
the rainfall from May to December.
Tropical cyclones are of three types: 'tropical depressions,' with
center winds up to 63 kph, 'tropical storms,' with center winds of 64-
118 kph, and 'typhoons,' with center winds of 119+ kph (Pagasa
1978:viii). From 1948 to 1978 there were 611 tropical cyclones in the
Philippines. Of these, 140 were tropical depressions, 146 were tropical
storms, and 325 were typhoons. The main- axis of these cyclones is
oriented ESE to WNW, passing through theupper half of central Luzon.
Extracting data from Pagasa (1978), I calculated that between 1948
and 1978 44 cyclones passed through the latitude-longitude square where
Casiguran is located. Of these, 9 were tropical depressions, 9 were
tropical storms, and 26 were typhoons. My family and I were present in
Casiguran for many of those typhoons, and we remember them well, and how
the Agta reacted to them. The effect of these typhoons on the Agta will
be discussedin Chapter 9. The dates and wind velocities of those 26
typhoons are presented in Table 4.3.
The tropical cyclone season in the Philippines runs from May to
December, although cyclones have occurred in every month of the year.
The only months for which there are no records of typhoons in Casiguran
are February and March. Eighty-nine percent of the cyclones occur'^from
105
June to December. "August has the greatest mean frequency with 3.7 and
September is second with 2.9" (Flores and Balagot 1969:171).
LAND TYPES
The dipterocarp forest. The predominant forest type found in
Casiguran is the 'dipterocarp tropical lowland forest.' Approximately 58
percent of the land area of the Casiguran ecosystem is of this forest
type, including both primary forest (30,487 ha) and secondary forest
(9,853 ha). Though originally all of this type was 'full-closure' forest
(or 'full-canopy'), today, because of extensive logging and shifting
swidden farming, most of the primary forest falls under the category
'partial-canopy.' Of the approximately 30,487 ha of primary dipterocarp
forest in the area, only about 16 percent is still full-closure (see
Table 4.4).
Though this forest type is 'rainforest,' as defined earlier, some,
following Holdridge (1967), would class it as 'lowland moist forest,'
rather than rainforest. This is because the area has less than 4,000 mm
of rainfall per year, and more than two months per year with less than
200 mm of rainfall.^ In this thesis, however, I will refer to the
Casiguran lowland forest as 'rainforest' in its more general meaning of
any tropical woodland with an annual rainfall of at least 2,540 mm (100
in).
The Casiguran dipterocarp forests are dominated by several tree
species of the family Dipterocarpaceae, of which there are at least 9
genera and 50 species in the Philippines. These gregarious species
occur with a mixture of many other tree species of various families. In
106
the areas where the canopy is full-closure (that is, where loggers have
not yet reached), canopy height is 30 or more meters. Trees are of
broad-leaf evergreen species that have three crown layers, or stories.
Many of the trees have large buttresses. Thick-stemmed woody climbing
vines, and epiphytes, are common. Up until 2 or 3 years ago the many
species of rattan were very abundant everywhere. Today, they have been
depleted by commercial rattan collectors.
These dipterocarp forests extend to an elevation of about 800 m,
after which they gradually succeed to the mossy type forest described
below. It should be noted that it is impossible to set these forests on
fire in the Casiguran area, even during the driest periods.
Tropical rainforests are typically characterized in the literature
as having little in the way of ground cover. Most of the Casiguran
primary forest floor, however, is thick with underbrush. I am not sure
if this is the result of logging operations in the past, or if the
descriptions of open forest floors really refer only to monsoon forests
with long dry seasons, as Merrill (1945:73) suggests.
The dominant dipterocarp species, all of which are important
commercially as export logs, are Dipterocarpus grandiflorus (apitong),
Shorea polysperma (tangile), negrosensis (red lauan), Pentacme
contorta (white lauan), Parashorea plicata, and Anisoptera thurifera.
There are six plant foods which were important to the Agta in the
recent past, all of which grow wild only in primary forest. All of these
are types of wild yams. Judging from the statements of older informants,
and the frequent mention of these six plants in folktales, these were
107
important starch foods of the Agta up until the present century, and
again during certain periods of WWII, when rice and root crops were not
available. These plant foods are, in order of importance to the Agta,
two varieties of ilos 'Dioscorea divaricata' (called gindah and
gilelos), buklog 'Dioscorea sp.', baay 'Pueraria triloba*, agakat 'P.
phaseoloides', and giwat 'Stenomeris dioscoreifolia'. In 1983-84, the
Agta ate these wild tubers at only two percent of their meals (see
Table 4.6). Photographs of specimens of these six plants appear in
Headland (1981:71-76).
Another important wild plant food of the Agta during the past, and
still served today at Agta weddings, is a starch processed from the
inner trunk of the caryota palm (age! 'Caryota cumingii'). This palm
grows wild only in primary forest. Frequent reference is made to this
tree in Agta folktales. It was evidently important in the distant
past. These palms are still prevalent throughout the forests in
Casiguran. I have seen Agta process it perhaps a dozen or so times in
the past, but I did not observe it being processed or eaten during our
1983-84 field study.
The Agta refer to primary dipterocarp forest generally as talon
'forest' or, sometimes, as katalonan 'forest area'. When contrasting
primary forest with secondary forest or "reproduction brushland" (a
land type to be defined below), they refer to the former with the term
gurang or guhang 'primary forest'. When referring to full-closure
forest with a very high canopy and a ground area relatively easy to
walk through, they use the term kapanagen.
108
The above description is typical of 'primary' dipterocarp forest.
Another category of dipterocarp forest is 'secondary forest.' This
refers to young growth forest with trees with diameters of at least 15
cm. Such forests are usually the result of regrowth of some 5 to 12
years duration following the abandonment of swidden fields. In
Casiguran, most swiddens (unless they are planted in coconuts) revert
when abandoned not to grassland but to reproduction brush within 12 to
24 months, eventually succeeding to secondary forest after about 5
years. I estimate that it takes 25 to 50 years for such land to return
to primary climax forest again.About 14 percent of the Casiguran
ecosystem was secondary forest in 1983 (7,853 ha). Agta refer to
'reproduction brush' and young secondary forest as elas. Secondary
forest in a late stage of succession they refer to merely as talon
'forest'.
Mention should be made here of a particular genera of palm which
is abundant in dipterocarp forests, and which has recently become the
single most important plant for the Agta in their environment. This is
rattan, a woody climbing vine. Worldwide, there are 13 genera of rattan
palms, with some 600 different species, all belonging to the subfamily
Lepidocaryoideae (Dransfield 1979). In the Philippines, there are 4
genera and some 60 to 70 species. Only 2 genera are used for commercial
purposes, Calamus and Daemonorops (Generalao 1981:4-5, Madulid 1980).
Agta recognize emically at least 21 types of rattan (for names, see
Headland and Headland 1974:215).
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Until the early 1980s, rattan was very abundant in the Casiguran
forests, probably yielding up to 5,000 linear meters per hectare in some
areas (cf. Arnold 1915:6). Rattan gathering was the main economic
activity of the Agta in 1983-84, as we shall see later. By the end of
1983 the mature rattans of commercial quality, and especially Calamus
caesius, had virtually disappeared fromaccessible areas of the
Casiguran forests. The reasons for this, and what it implies for the
future of the Agta, will be discussed in Chapter 9.
Molave forests. A second forest type found in Casiguran is the
molave forest. Several clumps of this forest type are found on the
eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre, and on the steep eastern sides of
the Casiguran San Ildefonso peninsula. These forest patches are found
in drier places where limestone hills are predominant, and the soil is
dry, and shallow or scanty. The forest canopy is not high, and the
trees are much less dense. The main trees are molave (Vitex
parviflora), of the family Verbenaceae. Because the canopy is open,
there is much growth on the forest floor of many kinds of shrubs, vines,
palms, and rattans. It is usually impossible to walk through molave
forests, because of the thick underbrush.
Only about 7 percent of the Casiguran area is covered with this
forest type. My impression is that these forests are not of high
importance to the Agta, except for commercial rattan collecting. The
uninitiated may mistakenly interpret these areas as secondary forests.
Agta refer to this forest type as pinomtaw, although one Agta group
called a patch of molave forest near their camp kagesan.
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Mossy forests. A third forest type is the mossy forest. This
forest type is predominant throughout the highest elevations of the
Sierra Madre, beginning gradually at about 800 m. About 6 percent of
the Casiguran ecosystem is made up of these mossy forests, all ofwhich
are located on the very western border of the area. Some writers refer
to these forests as 'oak' because of "the predominance of oaks
belonging to the genus Lithocarpus of the family Fagaceae" (Mendoza
1977:45).
These forests are uninhabited by humans. Loggers have not
exploited these areas, and there are no farming homesteads there.
These mossy forests occur on the steep sides of high mountains. I have
no knowledge of Agta ever living in or exploiting these distant and
inaccessible mossy forests. I have many times flown over these areas,
and explored both by foot and helicopter the headwaters of several
riversheds closely adjacent to mossyforests on both sides of the
Sierra Madre. Yet I have never actually been in these forests, and I
am unaware of any significant role these forests serve in the Agta
culture. To my knowledge, Agta do not normally climb up to these
heights to enter these forests. Descriptions of this forest type, which
need not be reviewed here, appear in Dickerson 1928:126-27 and Mendoza
1977:45. The Agta refer tothis forest type as pagedped. Philippine
mossy forests seem to resemble something between the two worldwide
forest categories called 'tropical premontane forest formations' and
'tropical lower montane forest formations' (see Holdridge 1967, or NRC
1982:29ff).
Ill
Beach forests. The fourth forest type found in Casiguran is the
beach or littoral forest. These narrow forest stands (25 to 60 m wide)
are found along dry sandy beaches above the high tide line. About 30
percent of the 200 km of coastline in the Casiguran area is protected by
such forests. They cover about 0.3 percent of the total land area (see
Table 4.4). In 1983-84, 27 percent of the Agta camps were located in
these narrow forests (see Table 4.5).
Mangrove forests. Finally, the fifth forest type in Casiguran is
the mangrove forest. Several of these stands are found on tidal mud
flats along the Casiguran coast, usually atthe mouths of rivers where
water is brackish. Most of the trees are ofthe genus Rhizophora (bekaw
in Agta). The largest mangrove swamp, at the mouth of the Kasalogen
River just 2 km south of Casiguran town, is thick with nipa palm (Nypa
fruticans) along its inner limits. This is a very important plant,
economically, as its leaves are used as roofing material for thousands
of homes in the area. Many lowlanders work seasonally weaving nipa
shingles for sale locally or for export to Baler, the provincial
capital. Nipa wine is also a popular drink in Casiguran, and many
lowlanders work part time distilling nipa liquor for sale. This nipa
liquor is a highly significant component ofthe Agta ecosystem, as we
shall see in Chapter 8.
Although mangrove forests make up only a very small part of the
Casiguran land area, 0.4 percent, they are very important ecologically.
They not onlyprovide income for hundreds of people who manufacture and
sell nipa shingles and nipa wine, but they provide an important food
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source for both the Agta and lowland populations. These foods are
various shellfish, especially bivalves and crabs. These mangrove swamps
are a fairly reliable source of these important protein foods, and women
of both populations may often be found gathering such foods in these
swamps at low tide.
Another ecological function of these mangrove forests is that they
provide important foods in the form of detritus at the bottom of the
food chain. The high volume of mangrove leaf litter has special
importance as the base of a food chain which supports many species of
marine fish. Mangrove forests also serve to prevent shoreline erosion,
and provide important breeding areas for fish. (For details, see NRC
1982:204, Scott 1981, Cortiguerra 1979, and Serrano 1978.) The Agta terra
for this forest type is kabekawan.
Reproduction brushland. There are three other non-forest land
types in Casiguran. The first of these is 'reproduction brush.' This
land type is defined as areas of young trees or brush at least one meter
high but less than 15 cm in diameter. Probably all of these brushlands
are man-made, the result of logging operations or in a stage of
succession between abandoned swiddens and secondary forest. These brush
areas cover some 6 percent of the Casiguran area, all in the lowlands.
The Agta term for this land type (as well as young secondary forest) is
elas. As I explain below, most swiddens in Casiguran succeed to
reproduction brush, not grassland. These reproduction brush areas, if
not recut, last only for 4 to 5 years before succeeding in turn to
secondary forest.
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Agta exploit heavily this land type, not only harvesting fruit from
domesticated trees or feral root crops planted when the land was first
cleared, but also wild plants which are not found in primary forest. An
example of the latter is the important soft-wood tree binonga
'’Macaranga tanarius'’. The trunks of these trees are used extensively
for poles in house construction, because termites will not eat it. The
leaves are used for plates for meals, or as wrapping paper. Another
example is the highly important guava trees (bayabas *Psidium
gua.java*), which spring up wild in these brushlands, providing a
nutritious snack food. Guava, introduced into the Philippines from the
New World during Spanish times, is, in fact, probably the most
important wild plant food in the Agta diet today. Children, and to a
lesser extent adults, eat the fruit almost daily from March to August,
and sporadically during the rest of the year, when the tree bears less
fruit.
Grassland. Another land type is grassland. In the Casiguran area
these patches, meadows and fields are characterized by grasses of the
genera Saccharum, Themeda, and especially Imperata. There is
surprisingly little grassland in the Casiguran ecosystem— only an
estimated 5,000 ha (7 percent of the area). This in spite of many years
of intense commercial logging, a substantial population density (44 per

2
km ), and the clearing by lowlanders of several hundred new swiddens
every year.
In many areas of the Philippines (especially in the monsoon
forests) swiddened and logged-over forest areas tend to succeed to
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grassland rather than returning to secondary forest. This is
definitely not the tendency in at least the upper two-thirds of the
Casiguran ecosystem, where such cleared areas almost always succeed to
reproduction brushland and then to secondary forest (or to coconut
groves). For reasons I do not fully understand, the abandoned swiddens
and logged over areas in the southern part of the area (the area in the
jurisdiction of the municipality of Dinalongan) often succeed to
grassland rather than brushland. Most of the grasslands,in fact, are
in this southern part of the area of this study, where an alarming
amount of previously-forested land area between there and Baler to the
south has reverted to grassland in the last 10 years.
This grass is used for roofing material, and in the Dinalongan area
all lowlander houses (except those with iron roofs) are roofed with
Imperata grass, since it is locally abundant. In the northern two-
thirds of the Casiguran valley, where Imperata is rare, houses are
roofed with nipa leaves.
The single largest grass meadow, an area of some 1,200 ha, lies
just behind and upriver from the town of Dinalongan. This grassland
completely covers an alluvial plain flowing out of the Bungo watershed.
This plain was complete grassland when we lived in upriver Bungo in
1963, when Dinalongan was a small barrio of some 200 people. (It is
today a municipal town of about 5,000 people.) If this meadow was
originally cleared by man, no one I questioned could remember it. Older
Agta men relate how, when they were boys before WWII, they used to help
lowlanders catch wild carabaos (called simahon in Agta, they were
115
surely feral) in this wide meadow, by driving them into corral-like
fenced traps. There were no wild carabaos when Iarrived in Casiguran in
1962.
In the early 1960s there was a landing strip in this meadow built
andused by one of the logging companies. Today, in the lower eastern
parts of themeadow there are several small farms with dry plowed
fields. And for the last several years a 312 ha area at the upper
western part has been used as a cattle ranch.
Up until the late 1960s some of these grasslands were usedby the
Agta for a particular type of hunting, where they drove game by setting
the grass on fire. There are two Imperata meadows on the steep eastern
side of the San Ildefonso Peninsula which two Agta bands used
periodically for special game drives, called menutod. Both of these
meadows are large (3-5 ha), and both are situated on very steep
slopes— too steep in most places for humans to walk across. My
participant observations on these hunts will be described in a later
section in Chapter 8 on game decline.
Cultivated land areas. Finally, the fifth category of land type in
Casiguran is composed of what are called 'cultivated areas.' About 16
percent of the total land area is composed of this type, with a reported
4,614 ha of this made of wet rice fields, and 6,372 ha planted in fruit
trees, almost all of which are coconut (again, see Table 4.4).
Wet rice cultivation has been the major occupation of thenon-Agta
lowland population for as long as anyone can remember, perhaps even
preceding the founding of the townof Casiguran in 1609. Only two Agta
116
families owned and cultivated their own wet rice fields in 1983.
However, many Agta work sporadically as laborers in the fields of
lowlanders, a point I will discuss in detail in Chapter 10.
The Casiguran lowlanders are not 'integral' swidden cultivators (in
Conklin's 1957:3 terminology). This includes both the native
Casiguranin lowlanders, as well as the thousands of immigrant lowland
Filipinos who have migrated into the area since my arrival there in
1962. The Casiguranin population practices a type of part-time swidden
cultivation called 'supplementary partial' (ibid.). The majority of the
immigrant groups, landless farmers from many areas of Luzon, practice
the swidden type called 'incipient partial.' At the most, only 15 to 20
percent of the some 6,000 non-Agta households in the area could be
classed as even 'partial' (i.e., part-time) swiddeners. I estimate about
400 swiddens were made by lowlanders in the area in 1983. The majority
of farmers in both groups make their living by means other than swidden
farming. These means are primarily wet rice farming followed by seasonal
work in copra production, logging (up to 1978) and, today, rattan
gathering.
Many Agta families also involve themselves in swidden activities
(20 percent of the Agta households made small swiddens of their own in
1983 [34/168, see Table 10.7]). A total of 43 swiddens were made by
Agta in Casiguran in 1983 (average size 0.18 ha) and, as I will explain
in Chapter 10, Agta adults spent an average of 4 percent of their total
daily activities in swidden work in 1983 (see the "E300" numbers in
Appendix D).
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Copra is a major cash crop in Casiguran, and it is usually the
custom for those lowlanders who make swiddens to intercrop their rice,
corn, or sweet potatoes with coconut seedlings. There is an
environmental benefit to this: Instead of the forest succeeding to
grassland, old swiddens succeed quickly to 'forests' of coconut palms
whose leaves, within a very few years, form a canopy which almost
completely shades the ground, thus providing protection to the soil
from sun and rain.
To summarize, we see that there are a total of eight landtypes in
the 70,000 ha area of what I call the 'Casiguran ecosystem.' Most of
the area— 71 percent— is composed of forest, of which there are five
types as defined above and in Table 4.4. Another 6 percent of the area
is made up of 'reproduction brush,' and 7 percent is 'grassland.' The
remaining 16 percent of the land is 'cultivated area,' about half of
which is riceland and half coconut groves.
Although almost three-fourths of the area is still forest, it
should not be assumed that these forests are 'pristine.' In fact,
except forthe remote mossy forests, almost all of the forest areas
have been heavily modified by human activity.
Mention should be made here of another series of 'land' types.
These are the ocean areas in Casiguran. These areas are not uniform.
They include areas of deep and shallow water, coral reefs, sandy
bottoms, calm bays, and rough ocean. The Agta and lowland people use
all of these in different ways, especially for fishing, for hauling
cargo by raft or boat, and for travel.
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Important to note is the fact that Casiguran Bay is the only large
harbor of safety for boats and ships on the eastern coast of Luzon. It
is customary for deep sea vessels in the area to head straight for
Casiguran Bay whenever typhoon warnings are announced in Philippine
waters (and such warnings are announced about 19 times per year).
Whenever typhoon signals are up one can expect to find one or two ships
and a half-dozen or so motor launches anchored in the Bay, waiting for
the seas to calm down.
This may have been the custom for sailors even during the Spanish
era, as well. If it was, it is not hard to imagine the influence these
ships had on the native populations of Casiguran in the past. They
probably exchanged materials and, perhaps, diseases. The shape of this
safe natural harbor is probably what led to the founding of the town of
Casiguran in 1609.
IMPORTANT CASIGURAN FAUNA
There are thousands of faunal species found in the Casiguran area.
Though all of these play roles in the ecosystem, I can only mention here
those few which are especially important to the Agta, or to our
understanding of Agta cultural ecology. The most significant point to
note is how those fauna mostimportant to theAgta have declined in
number, and how this has affected their culture. These population
declines will be mentioned here, and discussed more fully in Chapter 8.
Aquatic fauna. The mostimportant sourceof protein tor both Agta
and lowlanders alike are the aquatic fauna, especially fish. There are
hundreds of species of fish in the Philippines. My wife and I recorded
119
127 Agta lexemes for fish, 28 of which are riverine, in the early 1970s
(Headland and Headland 1974:194-95). The other important aquatic fauna
are river shrimp, octopus, snails, bivalves (44 emic varieties
recorded), marine crabs, and river eels. In 1984, some type of aquatic
fauna was eaten at 53 percent of the Agta meals, and for 37 percent of
the meals that fauna was fish (see Tables 4.7, 4.8, and 4.9). Agta
men spent 6 percent of their person-work-days in fishing or
shellfishing, and women 4 percent (see Table 10.13). This does not mean
that aquatic fauna is abundant in Casiguran today. I will discuss the
reason for the scarcity of these protein resources in Chapter 9. One
obvious evidence of the scarcity is the fact that in 1984 the Agta had
no meat/fish protein of any kind to eat at 34 percent of their meals.
This is a situation which they chronically complain about, and which
they see as one of their major hardship problems.
The large green sea turtle (CheIonia japonica) was formerly an
important food, but these have been almost exterminated in Casiguran. I
remember eating this meat often in the 1960s, but almost never in the
1970s. I did observe turtle tracks and a nest of eggs on an isolated
beach at the northern border of the study area in July 1984, indicating
that there are still a few left. But I do not know of any Agta who
secured turtle meat during my 1983-84 study period.
Three important mammals. There are three species of mammals which
are especially important in the Agta economic system. These are wild pig
(Sus barbatus philippinensis), deer (Cervus philippinensis), and monkey
(Macaca philippinensis). All three of these populations have been
120
seriously depleted since WWII, as I will discuss in Chapter 8. Agta men
are characterized by others as primarily hunters, and this is how they
appeared to me in the 1960s. They also see themselves as hunters,
although they do little hunting today.
Both today and in the past, when hunters secure meat, most of the
choice butchered portions of pig and deer are traded to lowlanders,
although small portions are also shared out throughout the Agta camp of
the hunter. There is only one species of monkey in Casiguran, Macacus
philippinensis. Lowlanders do not eat monkey meat, and Agta thus eat
all of this meat themselves. (Table 4.7 shows the percentage of meals
at which meat from these animals were eaten; Chapters 8 and 10 will
discuss Agta hunting in some detail.) Many Agta families keep pet
monkeys, which they capture when they are babies. Adults and,
especially, children immensely enjoy these pet monkeys. These monkeys
become very attached to their owners, sleeping with them, and grooming
their hair (picking out lice). Sometimes Agta women nurse them.
The avifauna. There are over 800 species of birds in the
Philippines, and many of these are foundin Casiguran. The Agta
dictionary (Headland and Headland 1974) lists names for 46 types of
birds, and the Agta recognize many more than that. A favorite pastime of
Agta children is hunting small birds with bow and arrow or, more often
nowadays, with slingshots. Those secured are plucked of their feathers,
roasted, and eaten by the children as a snack food.
The Philippine wild chicken (Gallus gallus) is a favored game
bird, and men sometimes set a type of snare (called balaybay) to trap
121
them. They also sometimes shoot them with arrows. Another important
bird is the domestic chicken. Most Agta families have a few chickens,
which are allowed to roam loose. Agta almost never eat these chickens
themselves, or the eggs. Rather, they sell or trade them to lowlanders
when they need cash or rice, or when lowlanders request them.
One of the most important avifauna is the hornbill(Buceros
hydrocorax). Agta men hunt these. They eat the meat, but the more
important contribution of this bird is the excellent feathers used for
fletching arrows. These birds were abundant in the 1960s in the primary
forest where we lived, and we saw and heard them virtually every day.
Then, for the last several years before we moved to Hawaii in 1979, we
almost never saw or heard a hornbill bird. I remember, too, that in the
1970s Agta arrows were usually fletched with soft feathers (not the
stiff feathers of hornbills), which are considered inferior by the Agta.
I had concluded that the hornbill, like so many other fauna in
Casiguran, were going extinct from being overhunted with guns by Agta,
soldiers and loggers, or because of the cutting down by loggers of the
largest forest trees, where the hornbills roost and nest.
I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, when I returned to Casiguran
in 1982, to find the hornbills had returned. While not as plentiful as
I remember in the past, we again often saw or heard hornbills in the
forest around us. Both Agta and lowlanders I have questioned about this
seemed as unsure as I am as to the cause of the decline and subsequent
recovery of the hornbill population in Casiguran. Some Agta suggested
that their disappearance was caused by the devastating Typhoon Pitang
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which smashed into Casiguran with winds of 240 kph in September 1970.
While that may be so, the equally destructive Typhoon Aring in November
1980 did not, apparently, decimate the then returning hornbill
population.
Other significant fauna. Also of some importance in the Agta
system are snakes, palm civets, monitor lizards, and fruit bats. There
is one species of snake the Agtasometimes eat. This is the python
(Python reticulatus). I have seen them kill these and not eat them,
however, including very large ones. On the one occasion when I was
present to see them butcher and eat a python, it was mainly the fat
which they wanted. They left most of the meat and ribs behind at the
kill site. (This snake was 6.96 m in length.)
The palm civet (Paradoxurus philippinensis) is sometimes caught
with snares, and eaten. Rarely, pre-adults are kept as pets. Large
tree lizards (Hydrosaurus spp., Lophura sp.) are sometimes eaten, but
Casiguran Agta do not eat the large river lizard (Varanus salvator).
Agta say they eat the large fruit-eating bat (Acerodon jubatos), though
I have never seen them do so, probably because these bats do not live
in the areas of the Agta groups with whom I have resided.
There are just two types of insects which the Agta eat. One is the
larvae of honey bees. There are only two species of honey bee in
Casiguran which the Agta exploit. Honey is a favorite food of the Agta,
but it is not found often in Casiguran, as it is in some other areas of
the country. I have never seen Agta sell or trade honey to lowlanders,
2
as they do other forest products. Most of the larvae and honey is
123
eaten right at the place of procurement by the camp group, with some
taken back to the camp to give to others.
The other insect,eaten only occasionally as a minor snack food by
Agta, is a type of grub which is found inside waterlogged driftwood
lying on tidal mud flats at low tide. These grubs bore holes in the
wood, much like termites. They are about 7 mm wide and 18 mm long. The
wood is split open and they are picked out and eaten raw.
Many other types of insects are important in the Agta ecosystem,
mostly as pests or health hazards. Examples are insects which eat
crops, or carry disease (e.g., the malaria mosquito). These details will
not be discussed in this thesis, except to mention that malaria has been
a serious health problem on and off through the years of my residence in
the area.
The ecological role of dogs. There are certain domestic fauna
which are important to the Agta in one way or another. I have already
mentioned chickens. All Agta families keep dogs, usually 1 or 2 to a
household, though it is not unusual for a household to have up to 4 or 6
adult dogs. Dogs and Agta humans live in an interesting symbiotic
relationship. Both populations benefit the other, yet both also transfer
disease to the other. Dogs serve two beneficial functions in the Agta
ecosystem. First, since they are rarely fed anything but the skimpiest
of scraps, they serve as scavengers: This keeps the camp somewhat clean
of garbage and filth. When children defecate in the camp, for example,
the excreta is immediately consumed by a mad rush of starving dogs. They
also eat leftovers from meals, such as fish bones, or a few grains of
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rice. They also eat carrion. Agta camps would be a lot dirtier without
dogs.
Though Agta seem hardly aware of the above function of dogs, they
are very well aware of their second function, serving as camp guards,
or watchdogs. In fact, this is a main reason why no Agta household
would be without a dog. Whenever a stranger approaches an Agta camp he
is usually confronted by a pack of furiously barking dogs. Especially
at night, when Agta could be attacked by raiders, it is a comfort to be
able to sleep knowing that it is next to impossible for a stranger to
approach the camp without every dog waking up and barking furiously.
Up to about 1970, dogs served a third important function in the
Agta society, in that some of them served as hunting dogs. Indeed, some
dogs were prized for hunting, and these would be fed small amounts of
rice and special scraps almost daily. Hunting dogs were also fed the
lung tissue of game animals during the butchering process.
There are two specific types of hunts where dogs are used: anop, a
type of hunting when a man goes out alone with two or three dogs, and
tabug, a type of group hunt with both men and women. On these latter
hunts the women guide several dogs in driving game towards the men, who
lie waiting in ambush. Both of these types of hunts were very common in
the 1960s, but are rarely practiced today, at least in the areas where I
resided.^
What is the ecological factor which caused this change in hunting
habit? I believe it has something to do with the game decline. When I
asked Agta, they said it was because they don't have any dogs nowadays
125
which know how to hunt. I find this answer hard to accept. Thedogs
twenty years ago had to be taught to flush out and drive game. The
question is, why don't the Agta bother to teach them today to do this?
I think it is because Agta men do not hunt often enough today to train
their dogs to become proficient in this activity.
Mention should also be made of the probable negative contribution
of dogs to the Agta ecosystem. Namely, they are probably vectors of
disease. The dogs themselves are filthy, sickly, chronically starved to
the point ofskin and bones, and often splattered with dried fecal
matter of small children which drips onto them from the cracks in bamboo
floors above. Both dogs and Agta are chronically infected with
intestinal parasites, the most obvious of which is roundworms. While
dogs are not treated as pets, except when puppies, they are allowed to
sleep with the Agta at night, often on the sleeping mats lying against
the bodies of children for warmth.
It is my assumption that dogs play a role in the epidemiology of
the Agta population. As vectors of disease, e.g. roundworms, they are
surely a factor in the high death rate of the Agta. On the other hand,
there is the possibility that mutualistic symbiotic relationships
between the Agta, their dogs, and certain parasites have evolved over
the centuries into a satisfactory balance. No evidence exists, however,
to support this doubtful idea.
Domestic pigs and carabaos. There are two other domestic mammals
which play a role of some importance in the Agta system. These are
domestic pigs, and carabaos. Agta will not eat the meat of domestic
126
animals (including dog meat; although occasionally they do eat chicken).
A good number of Agta families do, however, raise domestic pigs. Thirty
percent of the families claimed this in 1983-84 (11/37). These pigs are
usually owned by a lowlander trading partner, who askshis Agta client
to raise it for him. Later, when the lowlandersells the pig, he and the
Agta will, ideally, split the money earned fifty-fifty. A few Agta own
their own pigs; of the 11 families in the above-mentioned sample who
were raising pigs, 5 said they owned the pig they had, while 6 stated
they were caring for the pig for a lowlander.
In 1984, four Agta families owned carabaos, three of which I
purchased or helped purchase for their owners in the past. All four
families derive substantial economic gain from these animals, but not in
a way one might expect. Instead of using the animals to cultivate their
own fields, the Agta owners usually have theircarabaos leased out to
some lowlander on a long term basis in return for a share of the
harvest. Or, they may loan their carabao to a lowlander as a way to pay
off their own debts. Sometimes they rent their carabao out for the day
to lowland farmers, or use it themselves to drag rattan out of the
forest for sale to commercial buyers.
Unimportant fauna. There are other fauna in the ecosystem, which
today are of little importance to the Agta. Horses, cattle, goats, and
domestic cats . are common, but Agta have no interaction with any of
these, except that a few Agta families own cats. Older Agta tell me that
crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus, C. palustris) were very prevalent
before the 1950s, including very large ones. Today they are gone,
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apparently completely extinct in Casiguran. I have never seen one, even
in my early years of residence there. There are large populations of
species of river turtles, small lizards, land mollusks, rats and mice.
The Agta eat none of these, nor have any of them posed a particular
problem, to my knowledge, for the Agta.
Faunal Hazards. Mention should be made concerning the potential of
faunal hazards in the Agta ecosystem. With the high death rate of the
Agta, the question arises as to what possible role certain fauna may
play in this. I have already mentioned dogs above. In an interview
schedule I used in 1976, three of my questions were, "Have you ever
been bitten [that is, attacked] by a python?" "Do you know of anyone
who has ever been killed by a python?" and, "Do you know of anyone who
has ever died of a poisonous snake bite?"
It turned out that only one of the 64 women I interviewed had been
bitten by a python, but 22 percent of the men I interviewed claimed that
they had been bitten by pythons (14/63). Of these 14 men, 12 had
visible scars from python bites which they showed me, and which I noted
down. One man had been bitten onthe elbow, one on the back, and the
rest on the legs. Four of the men had multiple bite scars, where they
said they were bitten more than once by the same python.
These make for good 'Tarzan-style' stories, but are they true? I
found no reason to doubt their word.- Some of these pythons are very
4
large, up to 7 m m length. When I asked my second question, however,
only two elderly Agta could recall any instance of a Casiguran Agta
having been killed by a python. Pidela (age 64 at the time of
128
interview) claimed her 'uncle', Diladeg had been killed by a python when
she, Pidela, was a child. In the second case, Ayogyog (age 58) said a
man named Dinsiweg was killed and eaten by a python when he, Ayogyog,
was a boy. He also said that the victim's son, Sinayatan, killed this
snake the next day, cut it open, and removed his father's body. Neither
of these reports were verified by other Agta.
A more sure case occurred in 1973. Most of the 127 interviewees
told me of a Visayan man with an Umirey Negrito wife who had two
children who were killed by a python. In July 1976 I interviewed the
parents of these two children, who verified the incident. Later I heard
the same story from the Catholic priest in Casiguran who buried the
children.
According to the father, on the evening of March 23, 1973, at
Pasahabat, Casiguran, a python entered the house of this family when the
parents were out. It caught and killed two of the three children in the
house. When the father arrived home later he found the python still in
the house, with one child half-swallowed in its mouth, and the other
child lying dead on the floor. He said he then killed the python with
his bolo. He said the python was wrapped around the child and was trying
to swallow it head first.
When I asked my 127 interviewees the third question, whether they
knew of anyone who had ever died of a poisonous snake bite, none of them
could think of a single person. Though many Agta claim to have been
bitten by a poisonous 'snake,' my figures are useless here because in
their language they use the same word for 'snake' as they do for
129
'insect' or 'bug' (ulag). I do know, however, that no Agta, in the
memories of my interviewees, ever died from the bite of any kind of
ulag. One man I know of would have died, if I had not gotten him to the
hospital in Baler, where his four gangrenous toes were amputated.
I find it very interesting that in a country with 14 species of
deadly poisonous snakes, including cobras in Casiguran, I was unable to
find a single case of an Agta death by snakebite. This, among a group
who spend most of their lives walking barefooted in jungle terrain.
Another writer who did a three month survey of Philippine Negritos in
1912 also stated that he was unable to find records of any Negritos
having died from poisonous snakebites (Newton 1920:8, 22). And a study
on venomous snakebite mortality rates in the Philippines reported an
annual mortality rate from such of only 1.26 per 100,000, or 0.07
percent of all deaths (Reyes and Lamanna 1955).
Hutterer (1982:157) suggests that poisonous snakebite seems to be
extremely rare in the humid tropics; and the above provides some
evidence for that in the Philippines. However, some populations report
very high death rates from poisonous snakebites. Deaths from such are
said to be 15.4 per 100,000 in Burma (Reyes and Lamanna 1955:193), and
Chagnon (1977:20) states that 2 percent of all adult Yanomamo deaths are
due to snakebite. The population with the highest reported snakebite
mortality rate in the world is the Waorani Indians of eastern Ecuador.
Here 4 percent of all Waorani deaths (not just adult deaths) are caused
by poisonous snakebite, and almost 95 percent of the adult male
130
population have experienced snakebite at least once (Larrick et al.
1978).
Supernatural creatures. There is one other class of 'fauna'’ which
cannot be bypassed in this section because, while they are empirically
difficult to study, they are very important to the Agta. These are
the supernatural beings. Since Agta religion will not be discussed
elsewhere in this thesis, I should make some mention of it here. Agta
religion has been briefly discussed elsewhere (Headland 1975b, 1986;
Rai 1982). Briefly, the Agta are animists. They believe in a single
high god, and in a large number of supernatural spirit beings which
inhabit their surrounding natural environment. Depending on the class
of spirit, these various beings live in trees, underground, on rocky
headlands, or in caves.
There are two general classes of spirit beings in the Agta world
view. These are hayup 'creature', and belet 'ghost'. The latter are
always malignant. 'Ghosts' are wandering disembodied souls of deceased
humans. The ghosts of recently deceased adult relatives are especially
feared, as they are prone to return to the abode of their family during
the night, causing sickness and death. When an adult dies in a camp,
Agta burn down the house in which the person died, and the whole camp
group moves to another area, usually not returning for several months.
There are several varieties of hayup creatures. Though these are
non-human, they are bipedal and may appear in human form. Most types of
hayup beings are malignant; others are neutral, and a few can be called
upon for help in curing illness.
131
Agta have shown little inclination to adapt to the dominant
Catholic religion of their lowland neighbors, or to take very seriously
the Christian teachings they have heard from protestant missionaries,
including this writer, in recent years. In fact, they do not, in my
opinion, take their own religion very seriously either. Probably the
most salient feature of Agta religion is the noticeable lack of
systemization and importance it plays in their lives. Their religious
beliefs and practices are individualistic, sporadic, and of secondary
value in their ideology. Their animistic system has less control over
their daily lives, for example, than do the religious systems of other,
non-Agta tribal animistic societies in the Philippines. There are no
religious requirements or practices connected with swidden making, for
example— no augury, no magic, no prayers, no blood sacrifice, no ritual
handling of the rice seed— none of the detailed requirements we find
among other tribal swiddeners (e.g., the Manobo [Hires and Headland
1977]). They do plant a simple wooden cross in the center of their
swiddens, but it is done as sort of an afterthought, or because some
passing lowlander told them they should. If the cross falls over, they
are unlikely to set it back up. If they have a poor crop, they will
blame it on poor weather, or insects, or lack of weeding, rather than
look for a spiritual cause. (Bennagen [1985:227, 233] found a similar
lack of adherence to swidden ritual among the Dumagat Negritos east of
Manila.)
This does not mean that Agta ignore the spirits, however. They
worry a great deal about them when it comes to illness. They usually
132
try natural healing methods to cure illnesses. If these do not work,
they look for spiritual causes. At these times they will request
prayer treatment from shamans, through seances.
Eight percent of the Agta adults are shamans in Casiguran, with two
out of ten of these being women. A shaman (bunogen) is defined by the
Agta as an individual who has a familiar spirit 'friend' (bunog) who
aids him or her in diagnosing and treating disease. The primary role
of shamans is curing. They do not practice black magic, or sorcery.
Shamans may treat their patients with herbal medicines and simple
prayers to their spirit 'friend' or, for difficult cases, they may
conduct a seance. In such cases, shamans will enter into a trance
state, chanting prayers over the patient until they are possessed by
their familiar spirits. These chants are not in the normal Agta
language, but are sung in a form of glossolalia.
It would be incorrect to say that Agta worship the spirits in
their environment. Rather, they fear them, and placate them. They do
not have a sacrificial system as do other Philippine tribal groups,
though they occasionally offer small gifts to the hayup spirits if they
are taking something from the forest. These gifts may consist of a few
grains of rice, a few ounces of honey, or just a piece of thread from a
man's G-string.
Agta, then, practice their religion only haphazardly, with most of
the practices revolving around the prevention or treatment of illness.
They have only a vague interest in the afterlife, realm of the dead,
creation, immortality, or the future. They do not seek religious
133
experiences. Only the fear of death or disease seems to activate Agta
religious behavior. While it would be wrong to say that religion is
unimportant to the Agta, it does play a lesser role in their society, as
compared with other animistic groups worldwide.
CASIGURAN: A FAST-CHANGING ECOSYSTEM
In summarizing the points of this chapter which are important to
our understandingof Agta socioeconomics in the 1980s, the most salient
point is that their ecosystem is presently undergoing rapid change.
This change became serious after WWII, and is presently snowballing to
the point where Ipredict serious environmental degradation by the mid-
1990s. We have seen in this chapter how the forest structures are being
radically changed by the cutting of almost all of the mature dipterocarp
trees and the clearing of land for cultivation purposes, as well as
vigorous harvesting of rattan since 1979. I have mentioned the serious
depletion of marine and riverine resources, especially fish and shrimp,
and I have stated how the large mammal populations most important to the
Agta, wild pig and deer, have greatly declined (the deer being almost
extinct). And I have mentioned the disappearance or near-extinction of
several other fauna, the green sea turtles, hornbills, crocodiles, and
lobsters. At the same time, there has been rapid increase in some other
populations, such as the malaria parasite and, most important, lowland
immigrant homesteaders.
In Chapters 7, 8, and 9 we will consider the main historical events
in Casiguran which have affected these changes and, thus, the Agta
themselves. In this study I view these events as ecological components
134
affecting the ecosystem which are just as critical as the biological and
climatic components I have presented above. In cultural ecological
theory, we must look at the cultural components in an ecosystem, as well
as the biological ones, if we are to fully understand the humans in that
ecosystem. These include not only human economic activity, but
politics, religion, kinship, and cultural dimensions of history, human
demography, epidemiology, etc. In the following chapters we will touch
on most of these, and attempt to come to an understanding of how the
Agta are adapting (or failing to adapt) to some of these changes.
1. The Holdridge (1967) typology uses bioclimatic variables to

sub- categorize lowland tropical forests into three types, as follows:
'lowland moist forest,' where annual rainfall is 1,500-4,000 mm, with 3
to4 months with less than 200 mm of rain; 'lowland wet forest,' where
the rainfall is 4,000 to 8,000 mm, with 0 to 2 months per year with less
than 200 mm of rain; and 'lowland rainforest,' where annual rainfall is
over 8,000 mm, and there are no months with less than 200 mm of rain.
Casiguran receives an average of 3,448 mm of rainfall per year, and

averages 5.5 months per year with with less than 200 mm of rain (with a
standard deviation of 1.9).
According to Holdridge's typologythere are no 'rainforests' in

the Philippines, since there is no area in the country which receives
anywhere near 8,000 mm of rainfall. (The area with the highest rainfall
is Baguio City, with an average of 4,177 mm [Flores and Balagot
1969:181].
2. In late 1985, after this chapter was written, my wife made a

trip to Casiguran and found the Agta on the upper peninsula selling wild
honey to lowlanders. This was the first time we have ever observed
this. The only explanation she got for this from the Agta was, "There
is a lot of honey in the forest this year."
3. I was aware of only three cases of Agta hunting with dogs in

1983-84. One was a tabug game drive involving an entire camp group of
three families. The other two were both cases where Agta were
searching for pigs wounded the previous day. One was a man in my own
camp who went out with his dog, and the other a woman and her teenage
son, who went out with their two dogs, with only a bolo for a weapon.
All three hunts were unsuccessful.
4. The largest python I have seen and measured was 6.96 m in

length (22 ft 10 in), and had a circumference of 66 cm (26 in). The
snake had no food in its intestinal tract except for one hard lump of
fecal matter, the size of a person's fist, just above the anus. This
snake was killed by Agta Kekek Aduanan on June 9, 1970 at the headwaters
of the Koso River. Bion Griffin reports (personal correspondence
September 9, 1982) seeing a python shortly after it was killed by some
Agta in coastal Penablanca, Cagayan, on May 27, 1982. This python
measured 6.4 m, and had in its stomach at the time a not-yet-digested
wild pig which Griffin estimated as weighing approximately 14 kg.
135
CHAPTER V
AGTA K IN S H IP AND IT S RELATIONSHIP TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATION,
BEHAVIOR, AND THE ECOSYSTEM
This chapter will attempt to describe the salient linking
relationship between Agta kinship and Agta social life in the 1980s, and
how kinship influences so much of the "on-the-ground" daily behavior of
these people. Like several other factors in Agta ecology, I consider
kinship one of the components which influences both the flow of energy
and certain adaptive actions on the part of the Agta. Agta use their
kinship system (among other aspects of their culture) to articulate
their population with their ecosystem. As we see in this chapter, this
manifests itself in their marriage patterns, residence patterns and,
ultimately, how they share their food. Kinship, in fact, interfaces
closely with Agta patterns of production, exchange and consumption of
goods and services in their society. In other words, economics, as I
defined this term in Chapter 3.
Much of Agta behavior is governed by rules between types of
kinsmen, and between kin groups. This chapter will first describe and
map the Casiguran Agta kinship terminology, and then discuss aspects of
kin- related behavior, both as it is conceptualized ideally, and how it
is actually carried out "on the ground." Specific topics will discuss
household composition, camp structure, marriage patterns, exogamy rules,
asymmetrical alliances, widow(er) behavior, divorce, treatment of
orphans, and the delicate in-law relationships found among the Agta.
136
137
KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY
The Agta kinship system is bilateral, with the nuclear family
acting as the basic social unit. The Agta do not have lineages,
clans or cognatic descent groups. Every individual, however, is the
center point of a personal kindred, and thus that individual has
important social roles of interaction with his kindred.
The kinship terms reflect an Eskimo classification, with lineal
relatives distinguished from collaterals in the first ascending and
descending generations from an individual (whom we will refer to here
as "Ego"), as well as in his, that is, Ego's, own generation. There is
no distinction between cross and parallel cousins, conceptually or
terminologically. While Agta distinguish terminologically siblings from
cousins, they also commonly extend sibling terms metaphorically to
include cousins to whom they feel a close emotional tie. Cousin
terminology may therefore be Eskimo or Hawaiian, depending on the
context and level of contrast required.
The Agta language has a total of 15 primary kin terms of reference,
6 of which also serve as terms of address (i. e., as vocatives). In
addition, there are 7 other address terms, which are morphologically
dissimilar from their referent counterparts, making a total of 22
kinship terms. Only the 15 reference terms are described in this
section. Address terms are listed iri Section II of Appendix B. In this
chapter, Agta kin terms are defined in a non-technical manner. The
English glosses appearing here in single quotes are not precise formal
meanings of the Agta terms, since no Agta kinship term means exactly the
138
same as its English equivalent. For precise formal and componential
definitions of the terms, see Section I of Appendix B, and Headland and
Headland 1984, and for a graphic display of the 15 terms see Figure 2.
Primary terms of reference: Consanguineal. In Ego's generation,
siblings are referred to either as aka 'older sibling' or as wadi
'younger sibling'. Sex is not distinguished. Pensan is the word for
'cousin', regardless of age or sex, and the collateral distance of
'cousins' may be expressed as follows: pensan-buu 'first cousin',
pensan—ikaduwa 'second cousin', and pensan—ikatelo 'third cousin'.
In the first ascending generation the referent term for 'father' is
ama, and for 'mother', ina. Siblings and cousins of both parents are
called amay 'uncle' for males, and dada 'aunt' for females. These are
the only four kinship terms in Agta which carry a meaning component for
sex. (These are the persons numbered 1 through 4 in Figure 2 and
Appendix B.
In the first descending generation the referent term for 'child' is
anak, and for children of Ego's siblings and cousins the term is aneng
'nephew' or 'niece'.
All kinsmen two or more generations removed from Ego are referred
to as apo 'grandparent' or 'grandchild'.
Primary terms of reference: Affinal. Affinal terms include asawa
'spouse', manugeng, a reciprocal term for 'parent-in-law' and
'child-in-law'; kayong, a reciprocal for 'spouse's sibling', and for
'sibling's spouse': and idas, a reciprocal term for 'spouse of spouse's
sibling' ('co-sibling-in-law'). The consanguineal term aneng, 'nephew'
139
or 'niece', is extended affinally to refer as well to 'spouse's
sibling's child'. The consanguineal term apo 'grandparent' and
'grandchild' is not extended affinally to include 'spouse's
grandparents' and 'spouse's grandchildren', as is common in other
Philippine languages. Rather, manugeng is used for this reference (see
Figure 2).
Finally, the reciprocal term balai is used, in both reference and
address, to refer primarily to one's 'child's spouse's parents' ('co-
parent-in-law'), and is extended secondarily to include any of Ego's
consanguineals' spouses' consanguineals. Each of the two sponsoring
kindreds which enter into a relationship through a marriage of two of
their members are referred to collectively and reciprocally as
kabalaian (ka-+balai+-an).
KINSHIP AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
The kindred. Since Agta do not have lineages, clans, or cognatic
descent groups, kinship is based on the kindred. Every Agta individual
is the center point of a personal kindred, which is reckoned bilaterally
from himself, and includes all conceptually recognized descendants of
his eight great-grandparents. Thus Ego's kindred reaches laterally to
include all second cousins of whom he is cognitively aware. Each Agta,
therefore, has his own unique personal kindred, which he shares only
with his full siblings. Thus when Ego dies, his kindred group
dissolves.
The personal kindred of most Agta individuals is smaller than what
is typically found in most Philippine groups. There are two reasons
140
for this. First, the very high death rate among Agta (described in
Chapter 12) results in small sibling sets and, therefore, smaller
kindreds. Second, most Agta cannot trace out their personal kindred
as far as can members of some other Philippine groups. Only 29 percent
of Agta adults know the names of all four of their grandparents, while
36 percent do not know the names of any of their grandparents. (No
Agta I interviewed knew the names of any of their eight
great-grandparents.) Though Agta can get help from older relatives in
attempting to trace links between distant relatives, the fact remains
that Agta know their first cousins, some of their second cousins, and
occasionally a few others who they have been told are their third
cousins.
Typical of most traditional societies, an Agta individual has both
responsibilities towards the members of his personal kindred, and
privileges he may expect from those kindred. He is expected to both
receive help from and give help to the members of his kindred. These
reciprocal obligations increase or decrease in relation to the
generational or collateral distance between Ego and the alter from whom
he is giving or receiving help.
Thus, an Agta individual's personal kindred is that roster of
humans among whom he feels most secure and safe. This does not mean
that there is no friction between consanguines, because indeed there
is. But in times of stress from outside the kindred, consanguines come
together in mutual support. An Agta's best friends are the members of
his own kindred. The Agta social behavior which results from these
141
intra- kindred relationships is reflected in several aspects of Agta
society. Let us now look at some of these.
HOUSEHOLD AND CAMP MEMBERSHIP
Agta camps are found widely dispersed through the Casiguran
ecosystem. But, as I explained in Chapter 1,they are not evenly
scattered everywhere in the area. They tend to be found within a 20 to
40 minute hike up rivers from lowlander barrios, and they are seldom
found inside covered forest. In a sample of 56Agtacamps in 1983-84,
only 11 percent of the camps (6/56) were actually located under the
forest canopy. Sixty-one percent of the camps (34/56) were located in
one of the three types of forest biomes, but most of those were situated
in open sunlit areas of those biomes, such as in dry riverbeds or
swiddens. The other 39 percentof the camps were located outside of
the forest (see Table 4.5 for details). I explained in Chapter 1 why
Agta avoid living inside shaded forest areas.
Households are usually composed of simple nuclear families. In a
sample of nine traditional Agta camps, comprising 48 households and 208
individuals, the following pattern of household and camp composition
emerges: Typical Agta camps are comprised of from three to seven
nuclear households, with a mean average of six households. Mean
household size is 4.3 members. (The median and mode were both also
four.) Seventy-nine percent of the households are composed of simple
nuclear families (38/48), 17 percent of augmented nuclear families
(8/48), and 4 percent of the households are composite (2/48).^
142
Agta houses are very small (and very temporary, too, I might add).
In a sample of 129 houses measured in 1983-84, the mean floor area was
2
only 3.9 m . The per capita area of floor space, per family member,
2
averaged 1.2 m (for details, see Table 5.1). Figures like these amaze
2
the average Westerner. Their significance is that they tell us
indirectly something about the Agta. For one thing, they are poor.
Also, they live outdoors much of the time. They do not so much "live"
in their houses, as use them for shelter in wet weather, and for
sleeping. Also, they move often, and they have few belongings.
Especially significant, they have no place to store food, such as their
rice harvest which, as we shall see in Chapters 11 and 13, is usually
consumed immediately (within a month or less after they harvest).
Finally, Agta have told me that if they had bigger houses they would
just have visitors living with them more often. Agta place a high value
on food sharing but, typical perhaps of other hunter-gatherers, they
grow weary of the drain this puts upon them. I have lived with Agta
long enough to know they would sympathize with the statement an old
!Kung man once said to Richard Lee:
On one occasion [says Lee] Tomagwe asked me for a blanket and,

when I responded that he would just give it away, he replied:
'All my life I've been giving, giving; today I am old and
want something for myself' (1982:55-56).
Agta do move often, and some families very often. Rai found that
the Agta camp group he lived with in San Mariano, Isabela, in 1980
moved their camp an average of every 18 days (Rai 1982:105). While I
do not have data on just how often the average Casiguran Agta family
143
moves, I know there is a wide range. Some move as often as the group
Rai lived with, while others may live in the same house for up to a
year. The Casiguran camp groups which moved the most often in 1983-84
were those living then in Area 1 (see Map 2). Every time I visited
this area, usually once a month, their camps were situated at different
spots.
The Agta residence norm is bilocal, the couple may live with either
the husband's or the wife's parents. There is, however, a tendency
towards virilocality, and Agta informants express a conceptualized
ideal for virilocal residence. In the sample discussed above of 48
households, 48 percent of the households were virilocal, 35 percent were
uxorilocal, 8 percent were neolocal, and 8 percent were ambiguous. In
an earlier study of marriage locality preference among females (Headland
1978:131-32), I found 54 percent living virilocally, 26 percent

uxorilocally, and 20 percent neolocally in Casiguran (N=61). In Palanan
in 1979, I found 45 percent of the females living virilocally, 41
percent uxorilocally, and 14 percent neolocally (N=29) (cf. Peterson
1978a:46, 61, with whose data I take issue [Headland 1978]).
A more significant pattern of camp residence behavior emerges when
we trace genealogy links between households in a traditional Agta camp.
The outstanding feature which emerges is that, in any traditional Agta
camp, everyone living in the camp is related, either directly or

3
serially. In the eight traditional camps I mapped, only one of the 48
households consisted of members unrelated to the rest of the camp
households. (In Rai's [1982] study of another Agta group, he also found
144
that members of any camp were either in direct or serial kinship
relationship.) Unrelated Agta come together to form residential groups
only in a non-traditional setting, such as wage labor, logging
employment or on government reservations.
We may thus define an Agta camp as a social aggregate consisting of
a core of consanguineal kin together with affines from other aggregates
(cf. Steward 1968:322). It is rare for an Agta to move in and live in a
camp group where he does not have primary relatives, although overnight
visitors are not infrequent. An Agta individual will not normally
reside in an Agta camp unless he or his spouse has one or more primary
consanguines (siblings, parents or children) in that camp.
Agta visitors are often found sleeping overnight in the camps of
people to whom they are not related, and lowlanders, who do not feel
restricted by the "rule," also often sleep overnight in Agta camps. In
a camp where my wife and I resided for 42 nights in 1978 (in Area 9, on
Map 2), lowlanders slept in the camp 21 percent of the nights, and non
related Agta visitors 52 percent of the nights. In the camp where we
resided in 1983 (in Area 4), lowlander visitors slept in the camp 19
percent of the nights, and non-related Agta visitors 25 percent. These
non-related Agta were usually mere passers-by on their way home who
needed a place to sleep. These figures are doubtless higher than the
average, since both camps were on main trails leading from town, and
because ill Agta from other bands were often brought to us for medical
treatment. (For details, see Table 5.2.) The high number of non-
related Agta overnight visitors in the 1978 camp was doubtless because
145
this camp was situated just a 15 minute walk from the large Agta
resettlement "village" on the government Reservation at Calabgan. I
should stress that Agta camps have visitors who are relatives almost
4
every night of the year.
This rule against Agta living in a camp with non-relatives differs
from the data of some other hunter-gatherer societies. Gould found that
among the Australian Desert aborigines, "sentiment may at times
outweigh kinship in determining co-residence" (1980:17). Though Lee
states that a !Kung camp is composed largely of related persons
(1979a:61, emphasis mine), Yellen and Harpending emphasize that a IKung
band "may be defined in terms of its area of focus but not in terms of
its membership" (1972:246), and an individual may move freely from one
area to another much as he pleases (ibid.:247). Turnbull mentions that
the fission and fusion of Mbuti and Ik individuals or groups "does not
follow lines of kinship" (1968:137).
These examples differ from what we find among the Agta, where
individuals and families are not free to move into camp groups of
non-kin, except for overnight visits. Ideally, Agta reside only with
kin, a phenomenon found also among other groups both within the
Philippines (Fox 1977:358, Conklin 1954:45, Dozier 1967:14, Pal
1958:337, Pallesen 1985:13), and elsewhere (Kirk Endicott 1979:170, Helm
1965, and 1968:121, 124, Evans-Prichard 1940:225-226).
This does not mean that "flux" (in Turnbull's [1968] use of this
term) is not present among the Agta. Indeed, the frequent changeover in
both camp location and camp composition among the Agta is important for
146
their political and ecological adaptation (ibid.:137). But the flux is
restricted by the overriding rule requiring individuals to live only
with kin.
MARRIAGE. DIVORCE. AND WIDOWHOOD
It is important to understand that marriage among traditional
societies such as the Agta is characteristically a "contract between
corporate groups" (Keesing 1975:42). It is not simply a union of two
individuals. Only if this point is kept in mind do the aspects of Agta
social organization discussed throughout this thesis make sense.
Virtually all Agta adults marry, except for some with mental or
physical handicaps, or those few who are taken away permanently by
lowlanders (often orphan children "adopted" for use as servants). In
1984, only 4 males and 1 female over age 29 had never married. (This
count excludes the 5 members of the de jure population over age 29 who
were taken away by lowlanders eight or more years ago, whose civil
status is unknown to me.)
All present unions are monogamous. Our genealogies reveal two
cases of sororal polygyny in the past, both of which were terminated by
deaths sometime before WWII.
Agta practice strict kin exogamy, and a strong preference for group
endogamy. There are only two cases of consanguineal unions in our
genealogical records, one between first cousins who were married for
many years (they had no offspring), and a man presently married to, he
says, his parent's parent's parent's sibling's child's child's daughter.
147
There are also 12 cases known to us, 5 still ongoing in 1984, of unions
between affines.
Twenty-eight percent of the presently married adults (in 1984) were
married to outsiders (71/256). Eleven percent were married to non-Agta
lowlanders (2 men and 25 women), and 17 percent were married to Agta
from other population groups outside of Casiguran.
There was one sororate union in 1984, and one levirate union. The
genealogy records show four more such unions in the recent past. Mild
criticism is made about these unions, and the two couples presently so
married are occasionally teased. This is because such unions violate
the Agta exogamy rule.
The exogamy rule. Keesing makes explicit the difference between
incest rules and exogamy rules. "The incest taboo defines the limits of
prohibited sexual relations. . . . Exogamy defines the limits of
socially-approved marriage" (1975:42). The Agta exogamy rule includes
incest taboo prohibitions, but is broader in that it includes marriage
prohibitions even with certain Agta which are not consanguines.
The Agta have an interesting and closely followed exogamy rule:
One may not marry any person whom he already callsby anykinship term.
Peterson has described the same rule for the Palanan Agta: No one may
marry "anyone known to be a consanguineal or affinal kinsman. . . . ego
should not marry known consanguines of persons who have ever married
any of ego's known consanguines" (1978a:15). Note that this rule is
much stricter than our Western incest rules. In most Western
societies, for example, two brothers may marry twogirls who are
148
cousins, or even sisters. This is frowned upon among the Agta. This is
an interesting rule for a population of only 609.
Conklin (1959:634) describes the same exogamy rule for the Hanunoo
of Mindoro. The Hanunoo, however, often break the rule, whereas the
Agta seldom do. (Similar rules against the marriage of affines are
mentioned for groups outside of the the Philippines in Gray 1968:264,
Service 1971:81, and Barnes 1971:103.)
Asymmetrical marriage alliances. Because of this exogamy rule,
Agta are not supposed to marry any affine or former affine (since one
calls these otherwise potential spouses by a kinship term). What this
means is that ifanyone in Ego's kindred has already married someone
from, say, kin group X, Ego is thus precluded from marrying anyone in
that kin group. Onecannot marry any person he calls balai
'consanguineal'sspouses' consanguineals'. That is to say, if my
brother or cousin marries a girl named Susie, then I cannot marry any
member of Susie's personal kindred.
It is interesting to note that this standard of ideal behavior is
quite closely adhered to in normative behavior. As mentioned above, our
genealogy charts revealed only 5 marriages between affines in 1984, and
7 others in earlier years, which are now terminated (see discussion in
Headland 1978:131). It is interesting to note how this exogamy rule
seems to be followed in real, on the ground, behavior, since the Agta
population is quite small. This certainly must restrict a young
person's range of choice for a mate (a topic I will discuss in more
detail in Chapter 12, when we look at the population decline).
149
What we see, then, in this marriage pattern is a type of
asymmetrical marriage alliance system between kin groups, involving
indirect exchange (see Keesing 1975:84). For the Agta, this means that
once my kin group takes a spouse (male or female) from your kin group,
the exchange cannot be repeated nor reciprocated. Thus, if I have four
children, they should all secure their spouses from four different kin
groups.
It is at this point that we see a link between kinship and ecology.
There is an apparent adaptive function of this exogamy rule, which
serves to spread people around. The rule tends to distribute people of
any one kin group through a wide range of locales and food resource
zones. In time of need, this means any Agta has a number of widely
dispersed kinsmen with whom he can reside. These Agta mating rules
provide what Wobst calls "steady insurance at low cost [because they]
force the participants . . . to maintain close relationships with non
local [groups]. . . . These relationships can be depended on in case of
local resource stress" (1975:80). As Colson has stated, "Social links
with those outside one's immediate terrain are the ultimate insurance
against famine" (1979:23). (The physical anthropologist or geneticist
would note another ecological function of this rule, in that it keeps
the Agta genes more homogenized in this small population than would
probably otherwise be the case.) . This custom was not consciously
planned, of course, nor are the Agta aware of its adaptive function. It
can probably best be explained as a long term evolutionary result of
natural selection.
150
Barnes reports that this type of exogamy rule occurs commonly in
the highlands of New Guinea. That is, "every marriage between two
groups is an impediment to further marriages between them" (1971:103).
This contrasts with the "alliance systems" found elsewhere, where men
of group A take all their wives from group B, in turn giving sisters as
wives symmetrically back to men of group B, or asymmetrically to men of
group C. As Barnes points out, in alliance systems the intergroup
social ties are concentrated between two or three groups. But in the
Agta case, emphasis is on a multiplicity of intergroup connections.
This Agta marriage rule also supports some findings described by Cohen,
that "the widest extension of incest taboos beyond the nuclear family is
found in the least complex societies . . . [where] incest taboos extend
to many remote relatives, including in-laws and the in-laws of in-laws"
(1982:110).
The shallowness of Agta genealogical records. As we have seen
above, Agta do not keep any genealogical records in their own memories.
For them to do so, I believe, would be maladaptive and incompatible with
their wide exogamy rule. Some Philippine hill tribes do keep
genealogical records in their heads (for references, see Dozier
1967:20). Such groups as the Ifugao practice ancestor worship, are
land-owning, and have bilateral descent groups. The Agta have none of
these. The Ifugao, for example can count pedigrees back for 8 to as
many as 20 generations (Conklin 1980:38). The Agta do not have
pedigrees at all. In fact, among the Agta, memory of grandparents is
memory of a^ person, not of a_ genealogy. Those few Agta who could give
151
me the names of their grandparents were able to do so, in every case,
because they had personally lived with those grandparents when they
were children. If they didn't know the names of grandparents, it was
usually because the grandparents had died before they were born, or
were old enough to remember them.
It should be noted that, while the names of deceased individuals
are not strictly taboo, there _is some reluctance to say such names.
When recently deceased people must be referred to, a teknonymous
expression is often used (e.g., "the mother of Raiding"). This of
course results in the names of the dead being forgotten by most people
after a few year's time.
Agta, then, have a broad exogamy rule. How can they keep such a
rule, with their small population size, and still find mates? I am
suggesting that they make it easier for themselves to find eligible
marriage partners by cutting their genealogies down to exclude great-
grandparents. (They do not do this consciously, of course, but no Agta
I interviewed knew the names of their great-grandparents.) In this way,
one sheds distant cousins, thus making them eligible marriage partners.
If the Agta were ever to settle down and become farmers, with a land
inheritance system, they would likely then find it important to remember
ancestors as they formed inheritance rules. This would then put
pressure on the exogamy rule, with the probable result that the exogamy
circle would be reduced by allowing, or even preferring, marriages
between cousins (a custom found in some Philippine groups).
152
How deep can the genealogies of people in a small population be,
without forcing them to break their exogamy rule? Not very. Whether
consciously or not, the Agta find it convenient, when looking for mates,
to "forget"their dead ancestors. The more you remember, the fewer
girls you have from which to choose. From this it is quite logical to
conjecture that the Agta do not practice ancestor worship (common in
other tribal groups in Luzon), because it is not compatible with their
exogamy rule— a rule which is ecologically adaptive because it causes
the Agta to form ties with several other groups who can then be relied
on in time of need.
How to get ja spouse. There are three ways in which marriage
unions are formed. The socially approved way, and the norm, is for two
sets of parents, with their siblings, to formally arrange a marriage
between two of their children. This involves a series of usually three
formal betrothal palavers (sakad) between the two kindred groups. I
have described the sakad in detail elsewhere, and will not repeat it
here (Headland 1975b:251-52, 1978:129-30). If the marriage is agreed
upon, the boy usually begins a period of "bride service" (sehebi),
living with the parents of the girl. From this, a period of "trial
marriage" evolves.^ After the couple have been sleeping together for
some time, there is, ideally, a kasal 'wedding', in which bride price
gifts are given by the boy's kindred to the kindred of the girl.
A second way in which unions are formed is through lepwang
'elopement'. In this case, a boy and girl arrange privately to run away
together. After living together for several days alone in the forest or
153
in the home of a distant friend or kinsman, they return to the home of
either set of parents. The parents and elder kin of the couple are
usually terribly upset by the elopement, but they make no overt attempt,
that I have ever been able to observe, to separate the couple. The
couple usually remains married.
A third way in which marriage unions are formed is called paket.
This refers to a marriage in which at least one, but more often both, of
the partners is widowed from a previous marriage. In most cases which
I have observed, both partners were widowed, and both were older than
40 years of age. Such marriages come about through the consensual
agreement of the two partners, who merely begin living together. In
these cases, there is no formal event of any kind— no sakad discussion
between the two kindreds, and no kasal 'wedding'. If the man is a
widower, but the woman is not, or is young enough so that her parents
are still living, there may be a sakad discussion to arrange the
marriage. The lack of stability of such marriages (between two widowed
partners) is discussed below.
Bride service. Ideally, when a girl is married for the first
time, the male to whom she is betrothed, or with whom she elopes, is
expected to do sehebi 'bride service'.The period of bride service is
agreed upon by the two sets of parents of the couple. Sehebi (from
Spanish servir 'to serve') refers to a period of "service"in which a
young man lives with his parents-in-law, providing economic support to
their household. This period typically is said to last from three
months to a year. It takes place after the sakad 'palavers' between
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the two kindreds, and before the kasal 'wedding'(if there is one).
During this trial period the young man can still be rejected by the
girl or her family, if he seems unsuitable. And he himself can also
break off the arrangement if he changes his mind.
'Bride service', however, does not seem to be highly
institutionalized, and is a form of ideal behavior which is not strictly
carried out according to the rules. Only 44 percent of the married
males claim to have done 'bride service' when they married (28/63 males
interviewed in 1976).
Age at marriage and age difference between mates. Casiguran Agta
females today marry at the mean age of 18.4 years (see bottom of Table
12.5). A good number marry before that, however. A third are married
by the end of their seventeenth year, a few marry as early as age
sixteen, and an even smaller percentage (13 percent) at age fifteen. I
have no record of a female ever marrying at age fourteen, or earlier.
Though most girls are married by the time they finish their teens, a
significant minority, about one-third, do not marry until they are in
their early twenties. (The mean male age at marriage is 21.7 years [see
Chapter 12].)
In contrast to some hunter-gatherer groups where the husbands are a
good deal older than their wives, most Agta are married to partners
close in age. In a sample of 132 unions, 73 percent of the couples were
less than 6 years apart in age. That is, 73 percent of the married Agta
have mates which are members of their same 5 year age cohort group. In
9 percent of the unions, the couples are the same age (12/132). In most
155
marriages, 80 percent, the husband is older than his wife, while for 11
percent the wife is older.
Divorce. In June '84, 8 percent of the ever-married men and 7
percent of the ever-married women were currently divorced. Overall,
eighteen percent of the ever-married adults stated to me in 1977 that
they have been divorced at least once (23/127). Most cases of divorce
occur among two categories of couples. First, divorce is more apt to
occur among couples who are newly married, or who are still in a
"trial" period of incipient marriage (as when the boy is still living
in the home of the girl's parents doing bride service) . These
"marriages" may break up within a few days or weeks, often (I suspect)
without the union ever having been consummated. Second, divorce is
quite frequent among second marriages (paket, discussed above) of older
widowed people.
On the other hand, marriages are very stable among couples with
children. It is especially unusual for couples with dependent children
to divorce, and I can recall only two cases of this in my experience.
When divorce (hiwalay 'to separate') does occur, there is no
formal event marking such. No bride price is returned and, since Agta
marriages are not formally recorded by the government or church, no
formal "divorce proceedings" are carried out. The couple merely
separates and, if there is no reconciliation after several weeks, they
are considered "divorced" by the society.
In the 1970s, my wife and I had hypothesized that arranged
marriages (sakad) tend to be more stable, while marriages formed by
156
elopement (lepwang) were more apt to end in divorce. When we tested
this hypothesis in 1977, however, we found there was no significant
difference in divorce rates between the two types of marriage.
In a sample of 44 marriage unions consisting of couples of which
neither partner had been married before, 45 percent of the unions began
through elopement, and 55 percent were arranged. The difference is
insignificant, and suggests that marriages formed through elopement are
just as likely to succeed as those formed through sakad palavers.
Widowhood. Since an Agta marriage is between two kin groups, and
not merely between two individuals, even death itself does not terminate
an Agta marriage. When a married adult dies, certain social obligations
between the surviving spouse and his or her kindred, and the kindred of
the deceased, come into play. First of all, if no consanguines were with
the deceased at the time of death, his primary kin may blame the
surviving widow(er) of improper care of their now deceased kinsman.
This is especially so if the deceased was young, or died suddenly. I
have even seen cases where the surviving relatives spread the rumor that
their deceased kinsman was murdered by the spouse.
For this reason, the widow(er) and his kin group make efforts to
avoid such accusations in the following ways: (1) they may carry the
dying person to the camp of his own relatives, or (2) they will make
efforts to fetch the dying person's relatives, bringing them to their
camp before the death occurs, or at least before the body is buried.
Then, when the person dies, (3) the widow(er) is expected to go through
a period of overt mourning of about one year, during which he should
157
neither bathe, cut his hair, or wear clean clothing. His relatives will
also help him weave heavy strands of fiber, which he will then wear on
his wrists, arms and around his upper body for one year. The widow(er)
is not supposed to cut these cords off himself, but is to wait until a
primary relative of the deceased decides to cut them off. When this is
done, it signals the end of the period of mourning, that the widow(er)
is forgiven for letting his spouse die, and that the in-laws will not
be angry if he now remarries.
There is a fourth requirement expected of the widow(er) and his or
her kin group: They are expected to perform megbilo. The word bilo
means 'widow' or 'widower'. The verbalized form, megbilo, means, "For
the kinsmen of a widow or widower to give mandatory gifts to the
kinship group of the deceased spouse, in order to placate their anger
at them, and so that they will not continue to hold them responsible
for the death" (Headland and Headland 1974:25). The gifts (called
pagbilo) should be given within a year of the death, and these consist
of cooking pots, cloth, and bolos. I have seen aspects of this action
performed on several occasions, but it does not seem to be carried
through to completion in most cases. This megbilo requirement may be a
custom which is dying out, or it may have always been a form of ideal
behavior which was often not carried through to completion in actual
behavior. (Barton [1969:20] describes a custom similar to this among
the Ifugao. I am unaware of this custom for any other Philippine
groups.)
158
There is, finally, a fifth requirement expected of the surviving
widow(er). In Agta culture, although parents are the primary guardians
of their own children, the children are also considered as belonging to
all adult primary members of the kindred of both parents. Indeed, the
Agta language does not have a word for 'parents', but has a near
equivalent term, dedikel, which we may gloss as 'elders who raised me'.
It is a generic kinship term not only for Ego's mother and father, but
for all kin of the first ascending generation from Ego who had a part
in raising Ego. (The term itself is a derived form of the verb dikel
'to grow up'.)
Since a kindred group does have some claim on its juvenile members,
the fifth requirement of a widow(er) with two or more dependent children
is that he or she give one of the children to the siblings or parents of
the deceased spouse. This is usually the oldest child. The child will
then live indefinitely with his dead parent's kin. It was explained to
me that the widow(er) gives the child to his or her in-laws to
compensate them for the loss of their deceased kinsman. This is never
done if the widow(er) has only one living child.
ORPHANS, HALF-SIBLINGS, AND IN-LAWS
Treatment of orphans. An 'orphan' (ulila) in Agta society is
defined as a child who has lost at least one parent by death. The
previous section has outlined how orphans may be given by the surviving
parent to that parent's in-laws, to raise. Though this custom may be
viewed negatively by Western standards, there is at least one reason why
the custom is beneficial for the orphan. When a widow(er) remarries,
159
the new spouse views the widow's children as non-kin, and thus typically
shows little concern, responsibility, or affection for those children.
In short, stepparents make little effort to care for their stepchildren.
Though there are exceptions, I have seen several cases of second class
treatment of children by stepparents.
For this reason, 'orphan' children often find living with a dead
parent's kindred more favorable to living with the surviving parent who
is remarried. This is especially so if that parent is living with the
kin group of the new spouse. In that case, the child would find himself
living in a foreign camp with none of h:’s own personal kindred to
support him, except his own parent, now remarried. This is an
unfortunate situation for any Agta individual, since Agta make little
effort to aid non-kinsmen.
This is not to say that orphans receive first class treatment just
because they are living with their dead parents primary kin. In this
situation, though they are not treated as outsiders, they are still
foster children. As such, they will not always receive the same care
from their aunts and uncles as do their cousins who are lineal offspring
of those adults. Adult Agta will care for their foster nephews and
nieces but, if they have children of their own, they will favor their
own children first.
One outcome of this behavior is that orphans of marriageable age
find it difficult to marry. I interpret this as being because they do
not have the support of their own parents in arranging a marriage. In
1984, there were 16 females in the population age 18+ who were still
160
single. Twelve of these were 'orphans'. Of the seven unmarried males
age 22+, all were 'orphans' except one, who is totally blind. There is
some evidence, then, that orphans tend to marry at a later age than is
the norm. It is hypothesizedhere that this is because they do not
have both living parents to help them in arranging a marriage, and
their other senior kindred (aunts and uncles) do not make the extra
effort to assist them, as they would their own lineal offspring.
Relationships between half-siblings. The relationships found
between full siblings is a close one. Both during childhood and after
marriage, full siblings are very close. Though there may be quarrels,
for the most part there is a strong trust bond among siblings. This is
not so among half-siblings. Though half-siblings may live together in
the same camp, especially if the mutual parent is still living, there is
typically strife, friction, and distrust between them. An interesting
phenomenon occurred over and over during our years of collecting
genealogies from many informants: When my wife or I asked for names of
one's siblings, names of half-siblings were seldom listed! When we
finally realized that interviewees were failing to give us the names of
their half-siblings, we had to redo a good number of our interviews,
asking specifically for the names of any half-siblings, to complete the
genealogies.
The delicate relationships with in-laws. There is a very
noticeable form of institutionalized behavior between an individual and
all adult members of his spouse's kindred (except for their own mutual
offspring). This relationship is manifested in what Schusky (1972:61)
161
calls a "respect relationship" of Ego towards his spouse's kindred.
Ego practices very circumspect behavior towards these in-laws. He first
of all never says the names of any of his spouse's kindred. Those names
are taboo to him, and he will never repeat them even if they are not
present. This norm is closely followed today. (Affines with names taboo
to Ego are marked with asterisks in Figure 2.)
Ego is always careful to manifest deference towards his spouse's
kindred. And this is especially the case during the first year or two
of marriage. When Ego is living with the kinship group of his spouse he
is absent from all of his own kindred ( except his children), and
sometimes a severe strain is put on him as he strives to show respect
and circumspect behavior to most of those around him. There is thus a
certain amount of ambivalence between an individual and his in-laws.
Just one spiteful sister-in-law can make life miserable for Ego, and I
have seen many cases where a kin group will harass an in-law continually
until he and his spouse are forced to move out of the camp.
Because of the delicate situation of an individual living away from
his own kindred, in the camp of his spouse's group, there is often a
close relationship which builds up between him and his idas 'co-
sibling-in-law' of the same sex (e.g., two men married to sisters).
These two individuals, though not directly related, are drawn together
as mutual outsiders in a potentially hostile community. Except for his
own spouse, these other outsiders, (Ego's idas) are the only ones whose
names he can say in the whole camp. The result is thus often a close
bond relationship between idas dyads of the same sex, in the same camp.
162
They will address each other by the reciprocal vocative term idas, work
together, and support each other as needs arise. This is one of the
few cases where Agta form close friendships with non-kindred.
* * *
The present chapter has attempted to highlight the important
relationships between Agta kinship and Agta social behavior, and how
the Agta use kinship to relate with their total ecosystem including,
especially in this case, other humans in that ecosystem. I have
described here household and camp composition, marriage, and how that
fits with exogamy rules and asymmetrical alliances, widow(er) behavior,
divorce, and in-law relationships.
As in the case with most hunter-gatherer societies, Agta family and
kinship organization are of pivotal importance to the success of the
whole Agta adaptive system. Service's statement for other band
societies fits the Agta situation well:
There are no specialized or formalized institutions or groups

that can be differentiated as economic, political, religious
and so on. The family itself is the organization that
undertakes all roles. The important economic division of
labor is by age and sex differentiations. . . . the band
level of society is a familistic order in terms of both
cultural and social organization (Service 1966:8, emphasis
his).
1. In my definition, "simple nuclear households" consist of a

married couple with their offspring (or without offspring); "augmented
nuclear households" consist of a nuclear family with one or more
dependent unmarried relatives; and"composite households" are those with
two or more related married couples living together sharing the same
hearth.
2. Agta houses are tiny even by ruralFilipino standards, and even

compared to another Negrito group. Rahmannet al. report that among the
Negritos of northern Negros, "The average floor area of their houses was
about 10 sq. meters" (1973:154). Wallace says that Gaddang "houses
average an area of approximately seventy-five square feet [7.1 m ]"
(1967:117), and Pahilanga and Lynch (1972:55) report the average size of
the houses of rice farmers in Nueva Ecija in 1971 was 27 m .
3. Serially related individuals are kin of kin. That is, such

ego- alter dyads are separated by two or more marriage links, and are
thus only indirectly related. Three examples of alters serially
related to Ego are Ego's idas 'spouse's sibling's spouse', his balai
'consanguineal's spouse's consanguineal', and any spouses of Ego's
balai.
4. I have data showing the number of nights five nuclear

households had overnight guests who were relatives. (This is data for
individual households, not camps, and is based on large samples
collected in 1983.) The percentages of nights they had such guests
were, for each household, 98%, 81%, 79%, 57%, and 33%. Fifteen other
families who stayed in the camp where I was for shorter times, together
had relatives as guests an average of 42% of the nights.
5. The term "trial marriage" here is an etic concept. The Agta

themselves have no word for such, nor any emic conception of it. But
since I have observed a number of cases where young unmarried men lived
for periods with unmarried girls (usually in the home of the girl's
parents), and then separated,- I use this term to refer to that
phenomenon.
163
CHAPTER VI
H ISTO RIC AL H IG H LIG H TS: THE PREHISPANIC PERIOD
If the hunting and gathering way of life has survived in the

Kalahari, it is not because of isolation (Vierich 1982:213).
Modern foragers tend still to be viewed in most of the current

anthropological literature as sequestered beings whose very
existence is due to the fact that they live beyond the reach
of the trade routes of foreign powers. They are
[incorrectly] depicted as quintessential isolates, whose
world was merely glimpsed in passing by explorers, and who
remained remote until anthropologists penetrated their lives
(Schrire 1984:2).
As the reader will soon see, the argument of this chapter disagrees
strongly with the well-entrenched evolutionary view of hunter-gatherers
summarized in the above quote which, as Schrire reminds us, "rests on
the tacit assumption that [such peoples] have no history to speak of at
all" (ibid.).
In the theoretical approach I use in this thesis I interpret
ecological forces in an ecosystem as not just the physical components,
but other forces such as history, politics, economics, religion, and
other human cultural behavior. This chapter, and the following three,
will attempt to review some of the significant historical events in the
Casiguran ecosystem, including current events and recent political
trends. It is impossible for us to fully understand the evolutionary
trajectory of the Agta people without knowing at least some of the
history which has led, or pressured, the Agta into their present
economic niche. It is also necessary for us to see this historical
164
165
background if we are to predict the possible future direction of these
people.
In this chapter I present two alternative hypothetical models of
Agta prehistory. Data are presented which substantiate the second of
these models (and repudiate the first). These data are based on
comparative- historical Austronesian linguistics (in this chapter), and
from early historical records (in the next chapter). Following that,
Chapter 8 will discuss the significant events in the history of the
American period and up to the 1960s, and Chapter 9 will review the
important current events of last decade. All of these "events" are
viewed here as "ecological conditions" in the Casiguran ecosystem, as
we see how they have and are affecting the flow of energy units in the
Casiguran ecosystem and, specifically, the Agta population itself.
My reconstruction of Agta prehispanic economics in this chapter
will be partly conjectural. For both that period and the Spanish
period (as well as the 20th century history to be presented in Chapter
8), my review will be built around the second of my two proposed
models, which I here argue is the best and most accurate reflection of
the pattern of Agta cultural evolution since the time of Christ. I
call this model here "Model Two." To make this evolutionary-historical
model more salient to the reader, I contrast it with a more generally
believed model, which I call "Model One," or the "isolationist stance."
Model One reflects the popular view of how most lay people, many
historians, and perhaps even most anthropologists assume that
hunter-gatherer groups such as the Agta lived in the recent past.
166
It should be made clear at the start that the two models are not
one hundred percent opposed to each other. In several ways they
overlap, and sometimes even complement one another. They do, however,
diverge at certain critical points, and it is those divergent points
which I will highlight, as a heuristic tool, in order to make ray
argument, and to clarify the issues as I see them. The goal is to lay
the groundwork for answering in later chapters the main questions of
this thesis, why the Agta behave economically as they do, and why they
are not taking up agriculture as an alternative way of life.
There is little known about the history of Casiguran, especially
for the Spanish and prehispanic periods. I will, however, attempt to
outline in this and the following two chapters the historical
information I have been able to find or, since 1962, observe,
emphasizing those events which have influenced Agta culture. As the
reader will see, the historical records cited in those two chapters
provide strong circumstantial evidence in support of my Model Two which
I present in this chapter.
TWO MODELS OF AGTA PREHISTORY
Model One: The older model. Two alternative hypothetical models of
how the Agta may have been living in prehispanic times may be
delimited. The older and more generally accepted assumption, the Model
One "isolationist stance" (a term borrowed from Gordon 1984:220),
assumes that the first human inhabitants of the Philippines were some
type of Pleistocene Homo sapiens which evolved some 20,000 years ago
into the phenotypic Negrito type found in the Archipelago today.
167
(Bellwood [1985:74, 113] is one who believes that the Negritos were the
aboriginal inhabitants of the Philippines.) Solheim, for example,
proposes that
It is likely that all of the land area of the late Pleistocene

Philippines had a small and variable Homo sapiens
population. . . . The Negritos . . . were descendants of this
late Pleistocene population. . . . Though of small size,
these people would not have been classified as Negritos
and . . . they evolved locally under similar lowland
rainforest ecological conditions into the known Negrito
groups of today and the recent past (1981:25; cf. Rambo
1984:240-241).
Omoto proposes a similar microevolutionary view:
The evidence [of certain gene frequencies] . . . suggests that

there were at least two streams of migration of the
aboriginal groups in the Philippines, one being on the
western part, perhaps from Borneo via Palawan to Luzon, and
the other on the eastern part to Mindanao. The western group
represented by the Aeta [and Agta] is phenotypically the true
Negrito. They may have shared an ancestral stock with the
Semang [Negritos] of Malaysia and evolved [from a non-Negrito
Homo sapiens type] in the upper Pleistocene times, probably
during 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, in the tropical
rain-forest of Sundaland and developed phenotypic [Negrito]
peculiarities through genetic adaptation. . . . Selective
advantage of small body size in the tropical rain-forest
appears to be obvious because of smaller calorie needs, a
more efficient body cooling, and the relative ease of moving
in a dense vegetation. . . . some groups [of early humans]
entered the rain-forest and evolved phenotypically into what
we call Negritos today (1985:129-130).
This model assumes that the Negritos, then, were the aboriginal
inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago, that their original languages
were not Austronesian, and that they lived a "pure" hunter-gatherer
lifestyle well into the Spanish era. If there were non-Negrito non-
Austronesian speaking humans which migrated into the archipelago in the
168
early Holocene, the Negritos had little or no contact with them. And
when Austronesian speaking groups began migrating into the islands
around 4000 B.C.,1 the Negritos had only light contact with them.
Yet, Model One assumes, their original languages became extinct as the
various Negrito groups exchanged them for the languages of their
Austronesian neighbors.
This "isolationist" model proposes that the Agta bands living along
the eastern coast of Luzon were especially separated from non-Agta
farming populations, since even during Spanish times very few non-
Negrito people lived in that isolated and inhospitable area of Luzon,
with its rugged mountains, stormy weather, and rough seas.
William H. Scott, the leading historian today on the early
Philippines, presents an only slightly exaggerated summary statement of
this Model One view of Philippine prehistory, with which he of course
disagrees, but which is still taught in many of the nation's classrooms:
During the past 30,000 years, the archipelago experienced a

stereotyped progression of Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age
advances through the arrival of waves of migration of
racially distinct peoples, whose [customs] . . . are known in
detail. Each migration was superior . . . to the one before
it, and therefore later migrants drove earlier ones into the
less desirable mountainous interiors. . . . All these groups
remained sufficiently isolated to preserve their genetic
purity . . . Historic contacts [did not begin until]
. . . between the tenth and fifteenth centuries (Scott
1984:vii-viii, emphasis added).
The Agta, then, according to Model One, lived a 'true' hunter-
gatherer lifestyle, a near-Pleistocene economy, right through most of
the Spanish era, and perhaps even into the early part of this century.
169
Indeed, when I hiked along the isolated eastern coast of Cagayan in
1965, the Agta groups I found there, 170 km north of Casiguran, looked
pretty 'wild' compared to the Casiguran Agta. Loggers had not yet
reached this area, the present-day coastal town of Maconacon was still
virgin rainforest, and the Agta camps there were far from lowlanders.
And even today this particular Agta population is considered the least
acculturated of any Philippine Negrito group.
My initial impression of these 'wild' Agta was soon countered
however, by my recognition that these people had steel bolos and glass
diving goggles, and that they wore G-strings and wrap-around skirts of
commercial cotton. They also had small root crop swiddens, and they knew
what day of the week it was. Every camp had drying racks covered with
wild meat. But this meat was not for themselves, I soon learned. They
were preparing it for their trading partners, their non-Agta farming
neighbors living a half day's hike south. 2
In Casiguran, if Model One is carried to its extreme, the Agta
probably lived at least somewhat isolated from and independent of the
Casiguranin lowland farming population until well into the last century,
and perhaps even up to 1912, when the American Army Officer Wilfrid
Turnbull began his assignment in Casiguran to "bring [this] wild tribe
under government control" (Turnbull 1930). Not only in prehispanic
times, but up to the turn of this century, and for some bands up to the
end of WWII, the Casiguran Agta may have lived by hunting, fishing, and
gathering, with wild yams their main starch food. They had, this
170
"isolationist stance" assumes, little trade of any kind with the lowland
farming population, and they practiced no agriculture.
Some aspects of this model may not be too far from reality. It is
a reasonable argument that the Negritos were here long before the
arrival of the first Austronesian speaking non-Negrito populations
began migrating into the islands, and that their languages were not
Austronesian. I accept this part of the Model One view. Likewise, I
must emphasize, I assume that the proto-Agta, and all proto-Negritos in
the Philippines during the early Holocene, lived at that time a Model
One lifestyle of some kind. That is, I accept in my Model Two framework
that at some time in the distant past the ancestors of the present-day
Agta lived isolated, and independent of neighboring farmers (though
they may have done some simple cultivation themselves). It is hard to
know when this traditional independent hunter-gatherer lifestyle may
have ended, but there was probably a gradual changeover to a Model Two
lifestyle about the time that early Austronesian-speaking populations
begin migrating into northeastern Luzon. This was probably not as early
as 4000 B.C. (when Austronesian speakers first entered the northern
Philippines), but the Model Two changeover may have been established, or
at least have begun, by 1200 B.C., when humans which were probably not
Negritos were living in the Palanan valley. (I base this on the
archaeological work of W. Peterson in Palanan, which I discuss below.)
My point here is that my Model Two view proposes how Philippine Negritos
lived during the last 2,000 years or so. I am not hypothesizing here
171
how proto-Negritos may have lived in the archipelago 5 to 10,000 years
ago.
Though both models assume that Negritos (or proto-Negritos) were
the first human inhabitants of the Philippines.there is little
evidence— archaeological, linguistic, or otherwise— to substantiate
such an argument. Genetic studies of Philippine Negritos (Omoto 1981,
1985) likewise provide no evidence for resolving the question of the
antiquity or degree of genetic isolation of Negritos from other
populations. No evidence has ever been found of any 'residue' of an
extinct original Negrito language in the present speech of any
Philippine Negrito group. It is certainly incorrect to suggest, as
have some writers (e.g., Blumentritt 1900:15, Kroeber 1919:41-42,
Vanoverbergh 1925:417, 1937:10, Kreiger 1942:106, Keesing 1962:341,
Gagelonia 1967:108, and Lebar 1975:24), that the Negritos do not have
any languages of their own today, but merely speak the languages of
their closest neighbors. The Agta groups of Eastern Luzon all speak
their own (Austronesian) languages, which are not intelligible to their
lowland neighbors (except for those lowlanders who have learned them
through lifelong interaction with the Agta). These six or more Agta
languages are neither more nor less similar to the languages of their
3
lowland neighbors than are other Philippine languages to each other.
Model Two: The newer model. I propose here a second, more complex
model which overlaps with the first model above, but which, I argue, may
come closer to the actual history of the Agta in the prehistoric and
hispanic periods. This revised model, Model Two, agrees with some parts
172
of Model One. It diverges from it, however, at two salient points.
First, Model Two argues for a great deal more contact and symbiosis
between the Agta and their small populations of neighboring lowland
farmers, both during the early hispanic period and since at least the
time of Christ. Second, the model argues for a much earlier date for
the beginnings of agriculture in the Agta culture. A third problem
with the first model is that— and this is the case with most models— it
is too simplified. It assumes that all Agta bands were homogeneous. As
will be seen in Model Two, and later in subsequent chapters, not all
Agta bands followed the same economic life style; nor did they all have
the same degree of contact with lowland farmers.
The Model One "isolationist" view, then, assumes that the Agta
lived isolated from and independent of lowland farming populations at
least until the Spanish period. This seems logical when we realize
that there were approximately only a half a million people in the whole
archipelago in the 16th century. Though there were surely very few
lowland farming groups in northeastern Luzon at that time, early
Spanish documents do firmly establish that such groups did exist there
in the 1500s. One document dated 1582 states there were "about five
hundred Indians" in Casiguran then (Blair and Robertson 1903-09:5.99).
The Franciscan Fathers began their mission work among the lowland
populations of Baler, Casiguran and Palanan in 1578.
Going well back into prehistoric times, archaeologist Warren
Peterson (1974a, 1974b) excavated a habitation site in Palanan which he
dates at least as early as 1200 B.C. I interpret this so-called
173
"incipient agricultural site" (Peterson's term [1974b:227]) as probably
non- Negrito, since it had postholes 40 centimeters in diameter, a
highly developed earthenware assemblage with much pottery, two mortars,
and evidence of the reaping of [wild?] grain (1974b:131, 161, 162, 225,
227). It is not likely that nomadic hunter-gatherers would have left
such a residue pattern over 3,000 years ago.
There is evidence that humans were living on the western side of
the Sierra Madre, in northeastern Luzon at the end of the Pleistocene
(Thiel 1980). These people were using what Thiel calls "grass reaping
blades" in the same area at a date she proposes of around 5000 B.C.
Thiel also found a brass needle at the same site inan archaeological
level she dates as 2000 B.C., and a burial cave she dates at 1500 B.C.
Warren Peterson (1974b) also excavated a site on the west side of the
Sierra Madre just 40 km west of Casiguran. C-14 tests of his samples
indicate this site was frequented by hunter-collectors over a "probable
time span of 2110-4120 B.P." (That is, from 2000 B.C. to the time of
Christ.) It is tempting to assume that these humans were Negritos.
The circumstantial evidence points, then, to the likelihood that
there were non-Agta farming populations, as well as Negrito hunters, in
the fertile alluvial plains of Palanan and Casiguran before the time of
Christ. Model Two proposes that at least some Agta bands, whether in
these two wide valleys or in other areas on the western side of the
Sierra Madre, had significant symbiotic relationships of one type or
another with these farming populations by the eve of the Christian era.
174
THE LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE MODEL TWO HYPOTHESIS
This symbiosis may not have been continuous, and it surely had not
always been mutualistic, but it was significant. There is one strong
piece of evidence showing that there must have been heavy prehistoric
interaction between Agta hunters and lowland farmers, and this is
linguistic. Linguistic notes from the Spanish era on different Negrito
languages and dialects in various areas of the Philippines show that all
these languages were fully Austronesian. The earliest linguistic data on
the Agta languages (Baer 1907, Scherer 1909, Vanoverbergh 1937) show
them to be nothing more nor less than normal Philippine languages.
There are a few Philippine languages which are aberrant, with
vocabulary and/or grammar so different that they cannot with any
assurance be subgrouped within any of the accepted Philippine linguistic
families. (These languages are Ivatan, Blaan, Tboli, Tiruray, Bagobo,
and Sama-Bajaw.) (See Reid 1981:235 and, for details, Walton 1979.) None
of the Negrito languages are included in this deviant group (but see
Pennoyer n.d., on the Ati Negrito language). The Agta languages, for
example, fit neatly into a linguistic sub-group— called Northern
Cordilleran (NC) (Tharp 1974)— with their neighboring lowland
languages, while still being clearly distinct languages from those
neighbors.
If it is true, as virtually every writer assumes (e.g., see Blust
1981:301), that the Agta Negritos of eastern Luzon originally spoke
languages which were non-Austronesian, how is it that their languages
today are fully developed Austronesian languages? There can be only one
175
answer to this question. Hundreds of years ago the ancestors of the
present day Agta must have been in almost continuous interaction with
Austronesian speaking peoples. How else would it have been possible
for them to have lost their original languages, to the point where no
trace of them can be found today, and adopt the speech of their non-
Negrito neighbors, then end up speaking today Austronesian languages
related to but clearly distinct from those neighbors? Sporadic contact,
or no contact at all until the end of the prehispanic era, would hardly
have allowed enough time for this.
Let me review the linguistic evidence in a little more detail.
First, implicit evidence that Negritos were in contact with the
earliest Austronesians is shown by the fact that the name by which they
are commonly known, agta, is a reflex of Proto-Austronesian *qaRta
'Negrito' (Charles 1974:460),^ which contains a proto- phoneme (*R)
which did not survive the differentiation of the first language
(Proto-Philippine, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, or Proto-Extra- Formosan,
depending on one's subgroupingassumptions). In the Northern
Cordilleran languages *R went to g (henceagta); in the Central
Cordilleran languages *R went to 1 (hence alta); and in the Sambalic
languages *R went to y (hence ayta), and so on. All these terms, found
today in many Philippine languages, always meaning 'Negrito', are
reflexes of the same Proto-Austronesian word.
Second, some Agta languages appear to have retained some very
archaic features which are not found today in most other Philippine
languages, but which were in some very early daughter language of
176
Proto-Austronesian. This provides evidence that the ancestors of these
Agta speakers were once interacting with non-Negrito speakers of a
now-extinct language, let us say Proto-Northern Cordilleran (PNC), an
interaction so intense that they borrowed those features, perhaps even
adopted the PNC language itself as their own. Then later these ancient
Negritos separated themselves from these non-Negrito neighbors, but
continued to retain the language they borrowed from them, PNC. Over
time, through the normal processes of language change, the PNC language
of these two groups diverged into separate dialects, and finally into
separate daughter languages of PNC no longer mutually intelligible. The
descendents of this ancient Negrito breakoff group retained certain
features of the proto language, PNC, which most of the non-Negrito
populations lost.
I refer to such archaic features in Casiguran Agta as the di
'locative marker', and the retention of the unreduced verbal affixes
mina- and minag—, rather than their reducing to the na- and nag- forms
most commonly found in other Philippine languages. (For details, see
Headland and Healey 1974.)
In other words, these archaic forms found today in Casiguran Agta
indicate that they were first learned when such forms were present in
the Austronesian language spoken by the people with whom they were then
in contact, in this case PNC. As any historical linguist will verify,
that must have been a very long time ago. We are not talking about
just a few hundred years here. It is theoretically possible that within
a couple of generations these ancient Negritos could have taken over as
177
their own the proto-language of some Austronesian-speaking farming
group, if the interethnic symbiosis was intense enough. But it would
have taken at least a thousand years— after the two groups separated—
for the two daughter languages spoken today by the descendants of those
two groups to become mutually unintelligible. Yet the retention of the
archaic forms in present day Casiguran Agta provides evidence that this
is what happened.
A third piece of linguistic evidence showing a long period of
separate development of the Casiguran Agta language, after it was
borrowed through intense contact, is that it does not share a particular
innovation which characterizes the 15 other present-day Northern
Cordilleran languages, as well as Ilokano. That is, of gemination
following the mid close central 'pepet' vowel. (Palanan Agta does have
geminate clusters by the way.) Nor does Casiguran Agta share the
complete assimilation of heterogeneous stop clusters found in most of
the Northern Cordilleran languages (excepting Isnag and Central Cagayan
Agta). (See Tharp 1974, for details).
The linguistic evidence, then, suggests some type of cyclic
interaction between prehistoric Agta and farming populations. This
ranged from periods of intimate contact (not just trading), when
children and parents of both groups worked together for periods long
enough for bilingualism to develop, and then for the earlier Agta
language to be lost, to subsequent periods of no contact when the new
Negrito language began to differentiate, to periods of casual trading
contact when bilingualism became functional. In this third period some
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linguistic forms would be borrowed, but not enough to replace the
language of the home.
The linguistic evidence, then forces us to favor the second, newer
model I present here, Model Two, which proposes that the Agta were not
living as independent Pleistocene-type hunter-gatherers during late
prehistoric times.^ Some Agta bands possibly did live far from and
independent of non-Negrito farming populations, but even these band
groups moved at times to where they could trade with farmers. But most
Agta interacted with their Austronesian speaking neighbors to the extent
that they not only learned the languages of these 'lowlanders,' but
actually adopted them as their own languages. The interdependent
symbiotic relationships which are so salient today between the Agta and
the lowland farming populations have gone on for a lot longer than most
people have thought.
THE WILD YAM QUESTION
Although there are still some questions about this, it appears

that it is the scarcity of carbohydrates rather than protein
that represents a major limiting factor for low-density
foraging populations in rain forests (Hutterer 1984:82).
There is another body of data which could be brought into this
debate, but which data are too weak— almost non-existent— at the moment
to provide evidence either for or against either of the two proposed
models. This body of evidence could be gathered. It is out there in the
rainforests now but, except for a quick initial investigation by James
Eder, and some data from Karen Endicott on Malaya, the empirical data
179
has not yet been collected which could satisfactorily answer what I
call here the "wild yam question."
The question concerns just how plentiful wild yams are in the
tropical rainforests of eastern Luzon. The assumption implicit in the
"isolationist" Model One stance is that, since the Agta lived
independently of non-Agta agriculturalists, there must have been plenty
of wild starch foods available for them in the forest. Like many other
a priori assumptions implicit in Model One, this is also implicitly
accepted. Previously, I also had assumed this (though now I am unsure),
because the Agta have several types of wild yams— six in Casiguran—
which they exploit when they cannot get rice or root crops. (However,
only 1.6 percent of the Agta meals in 1984 consisted of wild yams [see
Table 4.6].)
Recently, however, the question has been raised as to whether there
were, in prehispanic times, enough wild plant foods, specifically wild
yams, to sustain a Southeast Asian hunter-gatherer population living
independently. The argument has been made, for example, that such wild
foods are so scarce in rainforest environments that they could not
support human foraging populations unless they supplemented their diet
by part time cultivation and/or trade with neighboring farmers. Even a
very low population density would not satisfy the conditions, if the
wild yams are not available all year around. As we know from Liebig's
(1840) "law of the minimum," it doesn't matter how abundant food is for
11 months of the year if there is none during the 12th.
180
If this yam scarcity hypothesis were correct, it would provide
strong support for Model Two, as well as explain why Agta, not to
mention other tropical forest foraging groups (e.g., the Mbuti, etc.)
are so heavily involved in exchange relationships with farmers. This
does not mean human foragers could not have lived in such areas during
the Pleistocene; but the carrying capacity would have been quite low,
and such people would have depended on other foods than yams, such as
perhaps animal fat, for their carbohydrate needs, and/or aquatic fauna.
To review the argument, Rambo believes that the Malaysian
rainforest is a "virtual desert" (1982:261) for human forager groups,
because of its scarcity, he says, of wild edible plants and animals.
He refers here specifically to the scarcity of wild yams, whose tubers
are buried beneath the soil where they are hard to get at (ibid.:263).
Karl Hutterer discusses in some detail why he thinks that tropical
rainforests are "deficient in carbohydrate plant foods for human
occupants" (1983:179). Hutterer is not quite correct, however, when he
says that tropical rainforests have been described as "green deserts"
(ibid.). To my knowledge, he is the only one who has used that term in
this context. Geertz (1963:25) uses the term, but as a reference to
tropical grasslands, and LaBastille (1979) refers to the Amazon forest
as a "desert covered with trees," but she is referring to the poor soils
of that area, not lack of starch foods. Meggers (1971) calls the Amazon
a "counterfeit paradise" for the same reason. Schalk (1981:67) refers
to temperate zone coniferous rainforests of the American Northwest Coast
as a "food desert" for foragers living there; and Chagnon and Hames
181
argue against the view that the Amazon is a "protein desert" (1979:913)
because of a supposed scarcity of wild game.
To my knowledge, no one except Hutterer and Rambo, who are
colleagues, has argued that Southeast Asian rainforests lack sufficient
plant foods to sustain independent human foraging groups.
Estioko-Griffin and Griffin, who have had extensive field time with
foragers in rainforest environments far from agriculturalists, suggest
they may be correct. They suggest that "wild roots and
vegetables . . . are probably not available in quantities adequate to
support the present density of Agta" (1981b:143). On the same line,
Estioko-Griffin has hypothesized that "the Agta forest environment is
plant food poor" (1984:211). The Griffin's statements are not based on
any specific data, however. Richard makes mention that there is a
shortage of edible plants in tropical rainforests, and "this is why
jungle hunter-gatherers have very low population densities" (Richard
1973:62).
If these authors are correct, this would give strong support to
Model Two, which I support, because it would mean that Agta would have
found it difficult, if not impossible, to have ever lived in the Model
One "isolationist" lifestyle outlined above. Such a lifestyle would not
have provided enough food, at least starch food, to eat. Hutterer, in
fact, argues that the supposed lack of plant foods is the primary reason
we find Southeast Asian foraging societies living in symbiosis with
neighboring farming populations today.
182
At this point, however, the data for giving us a definitive answer
to this question on- wild yams is insufficient. As Hutterer admits,
"Nobody has ever counted the number, or measured the productivity of
wild edible roots occurring per hectare in a seasonal rain forest"
(1982:135).
On the other hand, there is some circumstantial evidence (which
does not support my argument) which suggests that Rambo and Hutterer
may be wrong in believing that there are not enough wild starch foods in
the forest to sustain an isolated, independent band of foragers. Dunn
(1975:56) describes areas of the Malayan rainforest as having many
varieties of flora and fauna exploited by human foragers there,
including over 2,000 species of plants. Karen Endicott (1979:41)
furnishes data showing ample harvests of wild tubers by Batek Negritos
in Malaya. The Batek, she says, average 2 lbs of wild tubers per hour of
work, or an average of 10 lbs for each collecting trip. She says 70
percent of their starch food is wild tubers, with the other 30 percent
being rice gained by trading rattan (ibid.:54). The use of Endicott's
data as a base for contradicting the Hutterer-Rambo hypothesis is shaky,
however, both because of the great amount of rice the Batek eat and
because Endicott's sample is very small.
A third set of data indicating that wild tubers may be abundant in
Philippine rainforests comes from James Eder (1978). Eder claims that
the Batak Negritos of Palawan, Philippines, ate a good deal of wild yams
during his 37 day study in 1975. These Batak harvested an average of
183
1.85 kg per hour of work of one type of wild yam, and 0.52 kg per hour
for a second type (including travel time and processing time).
There are so many problems with Eder's data, however (and he
acknowledges some of these, and emphasizes that his findings are
preliminary), that they simply cannot be used for trying to disprove the
Hutterer-Rambo hypothesis. The "data were obtained during a single 1
month period . . . [and] the dispersed settlement pattern limited,
unfortunately, the number of food-collecting forays [Eder] could observe
firsthand" (ibid.:60). Eder mentions, too, that he did some "estimating
[of] the approximate returns to these activities" (ibid., emphasis
added).
Most important to note was that during this period 15 percent of
the Batak's caloric intake was from their swiddens (ibid.:60), and
throughout the year about 50 percent of their caloricintake comes from
rice bought with money earnedfrom collecting Manilacopal (ibid.:59).
Eder estimates that about half of Batak calories come from wild yams
(and half from rice). But ina one year field study in 1979 on Batak
food sharing, Cadelina found thatonly 11 percent of their caloric
intake was wild plant foods that year (84 percent was rice) (Cadelina
1982:245).
Both of these Batak studies suggest that there may be more wild
yams in Philippine forests than Hutterer and Rambo allow for. But
these Batak data give us no information as to whether there are enough
such yams in £he Batak area to sustain them indefinitely if they had no
rice.
184
It should be noted that Eder presents the recent past of the Batak
in a Model One "isolationist" framework. He says, for example, that
they "once lived in self-contained isolation" (ibid.:55) and, quoting a
1964 thesis on the Batak, that they "began cultivating rice only during
the latter part of the 19th century" (ibid.:58). There is not a shred
of evidence for either of these assumptions about the Batak. It is also
yet to be proven (though Eder assumes it in his 1978 paper), that the
Batak ever "subsisted entirely on collected [wild] forest foods,
particularly wild yams, honey, and wild pig" (ibid.:55-56) ?
In evaluating this argument, we must not fail to note a point made
by Robert Fox, who conducted a one yearpost-doctoral study of the
material culture of one Philippine Negrito group in Zambales in
1947-48. Fox argues that the many wild food plants he collected and
identified in the environment of these Zambal Ayta indicate that "the
pygmies were once able to live without recourse to cultivation"
(1953:245). The catch comes, however, in a statement two pages later,
where he says, "The association of the Negritos with cultivated plants
must be reckoned in a few hundred years— excepting perhaps the taro and
yams (ibid.:247, emphasis added). In other words, if I read Fox right,
he allows that these Ayta may have been cultivating taro and yam, if
nothing else, previously to the "few hundred years ago" date when, he
estimates, they became associated with other cultigens.
OTHER MODEL TWO ARGUMENTS
There are three authors whose writings have influenced me in my
development of the Model Two argument, proposed above. These are Roger
185
Keesing, Fredrick Dunn, and Karl Hutterer. All three describe the
prehistoric world, or parts of it, as a world where tribal peoples have
been in intense interaction with one another for a very long time. All
these authors, writing independently, reject this Model One
"isolationist stance," that ancient tribal groups lived neatly separated
from one another, in environments that were isolated and self-contained.
Keesing calls this Model One view "the mosaic stereotype", and critiques
it in detail (1981:111-122).
Keesing argues instead for a "systemic view" of the prehistoric
tribal world, a view which sees simple tribal societies, complex
societies, and even states, coexisting and evolving together. Keesing
believes that most prehistoric foraging groups were parts of complex
regional systems, tied together through trade, exchange, and politics.
His systemic view argues that "for several thousand years the
'environments' of most hunters and gatherers have included surrounding
agriculturalists, pastoralists, and in many cases kingdoms and empires"
(ibid.:122). The mosaic view (what I call Model One), on the other hand,
is a view "of a world that never existed" (ibid.:114). It continues,
however, to be taught to anthropology students, and to the public. A
recent issue in Newsweek depicts the San Bushmen as untouched hunters
until "early in this century, they [first] encountered Civilization"
(Newsweek January 28, 1985, p. 66).' Further, in a new human ecology
text by anthropologist Bernard Campbell, the view is perpetuated by
statements such as, "San [Bushmen] lifestyle [has] probably changed
186
little over the course of hundreds of thousands of years [sic]"
(1983:124).
We shouldnot, then, limit this Model Two argument just to Asia. I
have already reviewed in Chapter 3 the argumentsof Brooks, Schrire,
Wilmsen, and others, that the African Bushmen were involved in
interethnic trade many hundreds of years ago. As Parkington says, "We
know now . . . that all hunter gatherers in southern Africa have shared
the landscape for at least 1500 years with pastoralists or
agriculturalists" (1984:172). Wilmsen cites a wealth of data to support
this Model Two view for the Kalahari, and says, "Inthe nineteenth
century, the !Kung homeland was already laced by a network of trade
routes supplying local products to the European market (1983:16). As
Denbow points out, though anthropologists (specifically, Lee,
Silberbauer, and Tanaka) have tried to find independent foraging groups
to study in the Kalahari Desert, "in fact there has probably been no
such thing here, in an historical or processual sense, for almost 1500
years" (Denbow 1984:188). Bahuchet and Guillaume (1982) argue the same
for the West African pygmies. There are several papers in a volume
edited by Francis et al. (1981) showing the complexity of long range
trade networks in Amazonia in prehistoric times. Finally, Schrire
(1984:14-17) reviews the writings of others who argue or show evidence
for interethnic trade in North America long before the arrival of
Europeans, including Eskimo interchanges across the Bering Strait.
Turning specifically to Southeast Asia, Fredrick Bunn (1975)
describes a prehistoric system of extensive exploitation and trade in
187
Malaya which fits perfectly Keesing's systemic view. Dunn provides
evidence that trade of Malay peninsula forest products for export
(mostly to China) has gone on since the 5th century. He argues that the
collecting of these products was obviously done by aboriginal forest
peoples, and that these forest aborigines played a highly significant
role in Malay economic history as collectors and primary traders
(ibid.:108).
A recent paper by Hoffman (1984) argues specifically that the
hunter- gatherer groups in Borneo are former agriculturalists who
switched to a different economic niche in order to supply forest
products to Malay middlemen. This specialized economic adaptation
slowly spread in Borneo as trade with China developed. This is not a
recent phenomenon. Hoffman hypothesizes that Chinese sailors were
trading in Borneo even earlier than the 5th century date Dunn gives
above for Malaya. And by the beginning of the present millennium,
Hoffman argues, intense trade was going on in Borneo with Indians,
Arabs, Persians, and Chinese. According to Hoffman, not only did
today's forager groups in Borneo evolve into their present niche in
order to supply the constant demand for forest goods, but that they may
even have played a crucial role in the formation- of complex states.
This suggestion comes from the theory that certain kingdoms in Sumatra
and Borneo developed into statehood' because of their roles as supply
centers for the China trade.
When we look specifically at the Philippine context, Karl Hutterer
provides us with a further Model Two-type "systemic view" of extensive
188
prehistoric trade in these islands (1974, 1976, 1977, 1983). Hutterer
reviews the evidence for intensive and extensive prehistoric trade
between agriculturalists and foragers, and the widely distributed
pottery which was imported from other countries in Asia. Hutterer
emphasizes that the export items were mostly forest products (1974:295,
296), and suggests that Negrito populations were in a "specialized
adaptation to commercial forest exploitation in connection with foreign
trade" (ibid.:297). He rejects the notion that the trading
relationships found among all hunter-gatherers in Southeast Asia today
with their farming neighbors is a recent situation. Rather, this intense
symbiosis has gone on for a very long time (1976).
While it is unlikely that Chinese trading vessels were plying the
eastern coast of Luzon in the 5th century, as Dunn argues they were in
Malaya and Borneo, it is a well established fact that there was
extensive long distance trade in the Philippines with China by at least
the time of the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) (R. Fox 1967, Jocano
1975:145ff, Scott 1983, 1984:63ff). Furthermore, trade within the
Philippines was surely going on long before that. As Scott points out,
the Filipinos were not just passive customers of foreign traders:
"Visayan [ships] were on the Fukien coast in the 12th century. . . . in
982, Mindoro merchants appeared on the Canton coast with merchandise for
sale" (1981:23). "By the time of the Spanish advent, Filipino
merchants and mercenaries were spread all over Southeast Asia: . . .
Luzon shipping was plying the waters . . . that includes all of insular
Southeast Asia" (Scott 1984:80-81). Mindoro was part of the
189
international Asian trade route by 972 A.D. (Scott 1983:1), and by 1270
A.D. Mindoro "was itself the central port for the exchange of local
goods on a Borneo-Fukien route" (ibid.:15).
The writings of Dunn, Hutterer, and Scott show clearly how
widespread and continuous trade was in prehistoric times in Southeast
Asia, and how willing aboriginal peoples were to participate in such
trade. I suggest that the ancestors of the present day Agta also sought
ways to trade and interact with other societies (perhaps even Chinese
sailors, or at least their middlemen), long before the Spanish era. As
Scott has stated, "The most impressive demonstration of Filipino
merchandising [on the eve of the Spanish arrival] was the delivery of
imported trade porcelains to every Filipino language group from Bontoc
to Bohol, from Manila to Marawi" (1981:25). Anyone still tempted to
take a Model One "isolationist" viewpoint of the Philippine prehispanic
period would do well to read William Scott's descriptions of the wide
extent of capitalistic commerce and trade throughout the Philippines in
the late prehispanic period. One summary of his argument states:
The picture of Philippine domestic trade . . . is . . . every

community "traded with other communities, . . . The
inter-barrio feuding which appears as endemic in Spanish
accounts might suggest at first reading that such barrios
were perforce isolated from one another and therefore
self-sufficient [the Model One view]. But the same accounts
specifically name the betrayal of amicable intercourse as the
major cause for war . . . If there were any Filipino
communities which supplied all their own food, clothing,
tools, and weapons, Spanish accounts do not describe them.
Rather, the total impression is one of continual movements of
rice, camotes, bananas, coconuts, wine, fish, game, salt, and
cloth . . . to say nothing of iron, gold, jewelry, porcelain,
and slaves [the Model Two view] (Scott 1981:24).
190
Turning our attention to the history of "agriculture” among the
Agta, I have been forced at this point to rethink my earlier Model One
ideas (that the Agta did not do any cultivation until this century) by
the writings of Hutterer. Hutterer takes Model Two a step further than
the other three authors in arguing for the antiquity of plant
cultivation activities among Southeast Asian foraging societies (1976,
1983). The traditional, Model One, interpretation of agricultural
activities among Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers says the phenomenon
is a recent 'contamination' brought about through contact with
agriculturalists and under the pressure of shrinking hunting territory
(Hutterer 1976:226).
This is a reflection of theModel One "isolationist
stance,"— Keesing's "mosaic stereotype." Hutterer criticizes this
view, and considers it more likely that "this pattern of occasional
agricultural activities among SoutheastAsian hunters is of great
antiquity" (ibid.). Actually, the shrinking of Agta territory may
militate against the chance of their changing over to a successful
farming lifestyle. We will pick up this point in detail in Chapter 13.
My argument here is that in late prehistoric times all Agta and, in
fact, all Philippine Negritos were well acquainted with plant
cultivation, that most bands at least sporadically planted small gardens
of their own, and that many bands assisted their lowland farming
neighbors in both swidden and wet rice agricultural work. It was only
the rare bands which may have lived independently and alone in isolated
areas, neither trading nor participating in part time cultivation of one
191
type or another. I believe the Model Two concept I have proposed here
offers us a much more realistic hypothesis of how prehistoric Negrito

g
foragers lived on the eve of the Spanish conquest.
Perhaps the whole argument of this chapter may be best summarized
by a statement made by Rambo, in his recent review of Dunn's (1975)
thesis:
If . . . the very great role that trade with settled

agriculturists plays in the survival of the contemporary
Semang [Malaysian Negritos] is recognized, then the
conventional assumption that they are surviving remnants of
Paleolithic hunters and gatherers is called into question.
The Semang may not, in fact, be primitive hunters and
gatherers at all but instead may be something very
different— specialist forest collectors who have evolved to
fill a niche created by the overseas demand for Malayan
forest products following the beginnings of maritime trade in
Southeast Asia some 5,000 years ago (Rambo 1981:140).
1. The latest archaeological and linguistic evidence today favors

the view that the original homeland ofProto-Austronesian was Formosa,
and that migrations of people speaking daughter languages of Proto-
Austronesian entered the northern Philippines from Formosa beginning
around 4000 B.C. (See Pawley and Green 1973:52-54, Blust 1978:220,
Harvey 1981, and Reid 1981:14. A condensed layman's summary of this
view appears in Scott 1984:38-39, 52. A more technical summary may be
found in Bellwood 1985:107-121, 130.)
2. Not all visitors to the Agta would agree with my Model Two
argument presented in this chapter, of course. It is exasperating to me
how others continue even today to perpetuate the Model One myth in the
popular literature. A French jouriialist who visited an Agta band in
Isabela for a week in 1979 published an article on them in a popular
magazine with first class color photographs. This journalist depicted
them in an extreme Model One stereotype: "No evidence that the tribe
practiced any kind of agriculture," and described their supposedly acute
fear of his mirror, tape recorder, and camera— "obviously the first they
had everseen. And I was the first white man to intrude upon them
[sic]" (Evrard 1979:38, 39).
Even worse was a 1981 report by the government appointed

Commissioner to the Non-Christian Tribes for the Province of Cagayan,
who describes the Agta as a "Newly Found Tribe" of "cannibal[s] in the
upper Sierra Madre." He defines them as "the most primitive, wild,
fierce, anddangerous group . . . ageneration from the Stone
Age . . . having no clothes. . . . Fond of eating raw food such as
meat . . . [their] children unwanted and unloved . . . ignorant of days,
weeks, months, as well as years . . . idolatry and adultery are supreme
[sic]," and even quoting one Agta as saying, "The most delicious meat is
the liver of human beings [sic]" (Cortez n.d.).
3. Douglas Pennoyer, a 1983 Fullbright scholar to the Philippines,

has recently completed a historical-comparative study on the Ati Negrito
language of Panay, titled "Inati, The Hidden Negrito Language of Panay"
(n.d.). Pennoyer's major finding is that Inati is a distinct Philippine
language that is separate from and unintelligible to all other languages
of the Central Philippines. It is not a Bisayan language, and it has a
high number of linguistic innovations not found in other Philippine
languages.
4. The linguistic evidence I present here in support of my Model

Two hypothesis was developed over many years of discussion and
correspondence with Lawrence Reid. Though I am responsible for my
interpretation of the evidence, it was Reid who helped me find that
192
193
evidence and to recognize its potential for reconstructing Agta

prehistory.
5. There is no question that *qaR£a was a word in the original

Proto-Austronesian language (Blust 1972). There is some question as to
its original meaning at that time. Charles (1974:460) says it meant
'Negrito'. Blust suggests it may have meant 'outsiders, alien people',
probably later coming to mean 'slave'; and he concurs with Zorc that in
a language Zorc calls "Proto-Philippine" (that is, the supposedly
original Austronesian language in the Philippines, *qaR£a already meant
'Negrito, black person' (Zorc n.d., cited in Blust 1972:168).
6. Model One, the more generally accepted model, could be argued

for here. But to do so one would have to hypothesize either that the
Negritos were not the original inhabitants of the Philippines, but
rather immigrated here concurrently with the various groups of
Austronesian immigrants some 6,000 yearsago, or that the homeland of
the Proto-Austronesian language was actually in the Philippines. The
latter hypothesis would then argue that there have always been both
Negrito and non-Negrito peoples in the islands, with both groups
evolving biologically from some earlier type of Homo sapiens, or
perhaps even Homo erectus, and that their earliest language was
Proto-Austronesian.
7. Eder seems to have moved from his 1978 "Model One" view of the
Batak to, by 1984, a partial "Model Two" view. At least he acknowledges
that the Batak may have been trading with Chinese, directly or
indirectly, a thousand years ago (see Eder 1984a:839).
8. It should be noted here that Rai's (1982) thesis presents the

Agta as being "relatively isolated" in prehispanic and early Spanish
times, with only "marginal" or "peripheral" trade with outsiders until
very recently, within the last two or three centuries (ibid.:139-40,
145-46, 152, 154), and with formal trade relationships being "at most
only as old as the beginning of this century" (ibid.:156). Rai's
model also proposes that Agta agriculture is also recent, about two
centuries old (ibid.:166). His model of Agta prehistory is, then,
diametrically the opposite of mine here.
CHAPTER VII
HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS
THE SPANISH PERIOD: 1609 TO 1911
In the last chapter I proposed a hypothetical model which argued
that the prehispanic Agta were far from being the isolated stone age
hunters so many seem to assume. Rather, these Negritoswere heavily
involved in symbiotic relationships with their farming neighbors long
before the arrival of Magellan. I also argued in that chapter that
most Agta bands practiced sporadic agriculture for at least a few
hundred years preceding the Spanish conquest.
This chapter will attempt to bring together a number of references
from several early Spanish, German, American, and Philippine documents
which provide evidence that the Agta were, indeed, involved in both
symbiotic trade and part time agriculture throughout the Spanish period.
The archival evidence for both of these institutions among the Agta for
that 350 year period is so striking that it should persuade the reader
that they did not just suddenly spring up when the Spanish missionaries
waded ashore on the eastern coast of Luzon in 1578. Rather, they must
have already been widely practiced before the end of the prehispanic
era, if not long before.
In other words, this chapter provides strong ethnohistorical
evidence for the argument in the previous chapter that the prehistoric
Agta lived a Model Two "systemic" lifestyle, not a Model One "mosaic
stereotype," an incorrect mythical view which has been perpetuated for
so long that it is now firmly entrenched in both the historical and
194
195
even the anthropological literature. As Cadelina states, in his
mention of studies on Negritos on Negros Island by contemporary
anthropologists, "Most of the reports dwelt on the isolation of the
[Negrito] people and their seemingly self-sufficiency. The Negritos .
. . were presented as self-contained, non-integral to the larger
Philippine society" (1983:94). Furthermore, all Philippine Negritos
are stereotyped as "people without cultivation" even into this century
(e.g., Borrows 1908:45-46). The present chapters will attempt to
dismantle that mythological "isolationist stance" viewpoint.
THE SPANISH DOCUMENTS
There are some records concerning the Casiguran area for the
Spanish period. These are sparse, but what we have does provide
important glimpses into that period, including some highly significant
pieces of information on the Agta.
Of the many questions we have concerning what the Agta culture may
have been like during the Spanish period, two of the most important, for
purposes of this study, are whether the Agta were involved in
agriculture, and whether they were involved in symbiotic relationships
with the lowland Casiguranin farmers. As we shall see in this section,
the Spanish records provide answers to both of these questions.
In this section I will cite from the Spanish documents I have found
which help us to reconstruct a more accurate historical picture of
Casiguran from the 16th to the 19th century. I will also comment on my
interpretation of these documents, and what they tell us about the Agta
of that period. I will specifically highlight those points which show
196
how the Agta conform to either of the two models outlined in the first
part of this chapter.
As far as we know, the first European to see the eastern coast of
Luzon (called the "eontracosta" by the Spaniards), was Juan de Salcedo,
the grandson of Miguel de Legazpi. In 1572, after exploring the west
and north coast of Luzon, Salcedo sailed down the whole "uninhabited"
eontracosta with fifteen companions in two open boats of shallow draft,
to the area opposite Polillo Island, from whence he hiked west to
Manila. Unfortunately, there is next to no information on this trip. If
Salcedo kept a diary of this trip, I was unable to find any reference to
it. The one very short description of the trip, a letter written by a
Francisco de Ortega to the viceroy of Neuva Espana on June 6, 1573,
gives information which is misleading, if not incorrect:
In all the length of that coast there was not a single village
nor one Indian [sic], for the whole country is desolate where
they supposed there would be a great many people (translated
in Blair and Robertson, Vol. 34:258 [hereafter B&R 34:258]).
There were, of course, both Negrito and non-Negrito populations on
the eontracosta in 1572. The fact that there were "Indians" (i.e.,
non- Negritos) there then is plain from a document written in June 1582
by a Spanish soldier named de Loarca. In his geographical treatise of
the islands, he says this about the eontracosta:
The coast between Vicor [Bikol, in southeastern Luzon] and

Babuyanes [Islands] is rugged. . . . Not all this land is
inhabited, but only three districts of it, namely the
province of Valete [Baler] with about eight hundred Indians;
ten leagues farther, that of Casiguran, with about five
hundred Indians . . . and, farther on, the province of Alanao
197
[Palanan?] River. This last is well peopled, and produces

gold and cotton; its native Indians resemble those of Valete
and Casiguran. Besides these three districts, no other .
settlement on this coast is encountered until the cape of
Babuyanes is reached (de Loarca 1582; translated in B&R
5:99).
Loarca does not give the source of his information, it may have
come from a Capt. Don Juan de Arze who, apparently, was the second
Spaniard to sail around Luzon, in 1580 (B&R 34:376). It is puzzling
that Salcedo missed seeing any "Indians" on his trip. Both the Palanan
and Casiguran plains are shielded by mountains from the view of boats
passing on the open sea. But it is hard to believe these explorers
would miss seeing the farming sites which were in Baler. In any case
there were non-Agta populations in Palanan, Casiguran, and Baler whom
Salcedo evidently by-passed and, as we shall see, were soon to be
missionized by the Franciscans, who opened their stations there just
six years later.
The Spanish Missions. Catholic missionary work began with the
arrival of the Franciscans on the eontracosta in the late sixteenth
century. There is some confusion as to just when this work began, and
especially when it began in Casiguran. Some documents say 1578, some
say 1588, and other historians refer to 1609. The work was opened by a
P. Esteban Ortiz who started at Binangonan (today, Infanta), on the
Pacific coast straight east of Manila, and 170 km south of Casiguran.
This was in 1588, according to de Assis' Historia General (1756
[translated in B&R 41:94]), who mentions a second priest who went with
Ortiz, named P. Juan de Porras). This date is almost surely incorrect.
198
The correct year was probably 1578. First of all, Franciscan records
show that both Ortiz and Porras died in 1582 or 1583 (Bruce Cruikshank,
personal correspondence). Perez (1927:307) gives the opening date as
1578; Huerta (1865:279) gives the same date, and so does the 1978
Catholic Directory of the Philippines (CDP 1978:567). Further
confirmation of the earlier date comes from a statement from Perez which
says that Ortiz left the work to others in 1579. This statement says
that P. Ortiz
founded the mission stations of Binangonan de Larapon, Baler

and Casiguran, which he left in the charge of P. Francisco de
Santa Maria . . . when in 1579 he [Ortiz] went to take care
of the missions founded by the Fathers Lucarelli and Baeza
(Perez 1927:307-08, emphasis added; cf. B&R 41:94).
The 1579 date in the Perez document is significant. (It is not in
the B&R translation of de Assis.) It not only leads us to accept the
1578 date, rather than 1588, but it implies that the Franciscans began
in Casiguran, too, in 1578, and not just in Binangonan (Infanta). The
reference by de Assis, on the other hand, seems to imply that Ortiz
never reached Baler and Casiguran, and that these missions began later—
and the date is unclear— under P. Santa Maria. If we follow de Assis,'
the date of the opening of the Casiguran mission could have been in
1588, 1609, 1616, or some date in between.
Another document says the town' of Casiguran was 'founded'* in 1609
by a P. Bias Palomino "and his six companions" (Huerta 1865:282), and
this is the date given in the local oral history (on June 13, in fact).
Also, the 1978 Catholic Directory of the Philippines says the
199
Franciscans "established the first centers of Faith in Binangonan de
Lampon (now Infanta) in 1578; Baler in 1609 [and] Casiguran in 1609"
(CDP 1978:567). (Palanan was also founded by Franciscan P. Bias
Palomino, who went there in 1609 [Perez 1927:308].)
To complicate the picture even further, Perez says "the first
missionary to . . . Casiguran was Fr. Francisco de Fuenciscla, on the
30th of April, 1616" (1927:309-10), while Huerta (1865:282-83) says the
first priest (permanently?) assigned there was a Fr. Pascual Serrano, in
1616. Probably the best way to interpret this is to assume that
Casiguran did not have a permanent parish priest until 1616.
In any case, whatever the exact date, Catholic mission endeavors
were heavy and influential in Casiguran from early Spanish times up to
the present. Their influence on the Agta, of course, was much less than
it was on the lowland farming population, as we shall see below. It
should be mentioned here that the Franciscans turned their work on the
eontracosta over to the Augustinian Recollects in 1658 (Huerta 1865:283,
Perez 1927:290; the Blair and Robertson editors [B&R 41:13-14] state the
date incorrectly as 1662). Then, 46 years later, in May of 1704, the
Augustinians turned the three missions (Baler, Casiguran, and Palanan)
back over again to the Franciscans (Perez 1927:310).
While the Spanish priests put most of their efforts into
Christianizing the non-Negrito lowland population in Casiguran, they by
no means neglected completely the surrounding Agta. Throughout the
Spanish period the Agta were probably at least equal in number to the
Christianized "Indians," and they perhaps outnumbered them by as much as
200
three to one in the sixteenth century (see Table 1.1). The Franciscans
had a zeal to reach the Agta, as can be seen from a reading of their
records, but this zeal was hindered both by geographical distance and by
the passive resistance of the Agta to "coming under the bells"—
submitting to the hispanization process— an attitude which is still
prevalent among the Agta today. Today, almost all of the lowlanders in
Casiguran are practicing Catholics. The Agta remain animists, showing
little interest in Christianity of any type. True, some Agta have their
infants baptized today, and 32 percent of the Agta adults claim they
have been baptized by the Catholic church. (Forty-one of 127 adults
answered yes to this question asked by me or my wife in 1976.) Agta
culture and world view have been influenced by almost 400 years of
interaction with Christianized farmers. But few, if any, Agta today are
practicing Catholics, nor claim to be such.
Still, there are frequent references in the Spanish mission
documents of efforts to reach the Agta. There are several scattered
references to the baptizing of Agta in the 1700s, and there are two
lists of names of Agta who were baptized by a P. Bernardo de Santa Rosa
in 1742. Some priests went to the effort to study the Agta languages.
Santa Rosa (who lived in Casiguran from 1727 to 1750) evidently learned
to speak some Agta, as well as the local Casiguranin language of the
townspeople. P. Domingo Martorell is reported to have composed a
catechism in the Palanan Agta language when he lived at the headwaters
of the Palanan River in 1754 (Perez 1927:294). Also, an Agta vocabulary
was compiled by an anonymous priest, which was said to have been given
to Ferdinand Blumentritt in 1844 by a P. Teodoro Fernandez (Perez
1927:295; 1928:86).
Summarizing two Franciscan reports written in 1746, Perez
(1927:317) briefly outlines a special evangelistic effort of the
Franciscans to concentrate on subjugating the Agta all along the coast
from Binangonan (Infanta) to Palanan. This special mission effort went
on from 1719 to 1754. It is worth quoting from part of this document:
Thus the [Franciscan] missionaries preceded to reduce the

Aetas . . . from Binangonan [Infanta] of Larapon to the head of
Engano [the northeast point of Luzon], and the Ilongots,
Italones and Ibalaos of the slopes of the Caraballo Oriental
[the Sierra Madre]. . . . they did not leave a mountain or a
valley that they did not pass through, from Baler, Casiguran
and Palanan to the Pampanga, Pangasinan, Ituy [the upper
Cagayan Valley] Paniqui and Cagayan. In this time, that is
from 1719 to 1754, they subjugated the inhabitants of
Dipaculao, Ditali, Damag, Bangog, Tambaguen, Labang, Comblan,
Langotan, the [Casiguran] peninsula of San Idelfonsa [sic],
Dibenbilan of Palanan, and Umirey, which was between
Binangonan of Lampon and Baler. In all these places they
constructed their churches and convents, noted the topography
of each one of the subjugated towns, made note of many other
towns and hamlets, studied their rites and customs, and wrote
catechisms in their dialects (Perez 1927:317).
AGTA-FAKMER RELATIONSHIPS DURING THE SPANISH PERIOD
The Spanish records make references to various customs, etc. of the
Agta, which are of secondary interest, but do not speak specifically to
the questions of the present thesis. We must bypass those for now, and
concentrate our attention on the documents which give us clues as to
whether the Agta of the Spanish period conformed to Model One or to
Model Two, as these were presented in the last chapter. Specifically,
we are interested in knowing what kind of interaction the Agta were
202
having with their farming neighbors during the Spanish period, if any,
and whether they were doing any agriculture. Let us see first what the
mission records tell us about Agta-farmer relationships.
As it turns out, the records show plainly that the Agta-farmer
interactions follow Model Two, and not Model One. During the earliest
century for which we have data, the 1700s, there were strong symbiotic
relationships between the two groups of both a mutualistic and
competitive nature, both types running concurrently. That is, while
there were some Agta living with lowlanders in or near the town, and
working for them, and others living in friendly trading relationships
further away, there were still other Agta groups who kept the
townspeople living in fear, sometimes even cutting the town off from
interaction with Baler and Palanan. The Casiguranin townspeople lived in
peaceful and friendly relationships with some Agta groups, while
remaining at the same time mortal enemies of other Agta. We will see in
the next chapter that this historical situation, resembling Model Two,
continued right on into the American period. But for now let us limit
ourselves to the Spanish era.
References to hostile relationships. The earliest reference we
have of the Agta is a 1649 document which mentions that the area near
Casiguran has "thickets and mountains inhabited by savage 'cimarrones'"

2
(translated in B&R 35:318). Another document, written in 1788, but
referring to conditions in Casiguran in 1663, also refers to "the
extensive mountains near by [which were] filled with Aetas, blacks, and
Calingas heathen" (in B&R 41:97). Huerta, speaking probably of the
203
17th and 18th century periods says, "The roads [from Casiguran] for
communicating with the town of Palanan and the one with Baler are very
bad and, more, dangerous because of the multitude of infidels who
surround the town, whose ferocity offers little confidence" (1865:282).
P. Bernardo de Santa Rosa, speaking of conditions in Casiguran in a
1746 report, also refers to hostile Agta disrupting communication
between Casiguran and Baler, and making travel difficult. Speaking of
both friendly and hostile Agta during his 23 year assignment in
Casiguran in the second quarter of the 18th century, Santa Rosa says,
Among the many hamlets of Aetas which are found on the beaches
and in the mountains of the Caraballo [Sierra Madre], some
are peaceful, docile and gentle, not taking
vengeance . . . but there are others, such as the Dumagats,
who live between this town [Casiguran] and Baler who are
extremely bloodthirsty. . . . the most vile rascals . . . Some
of the Aetas . . . are happy to see the Padres, but these
that live between this town and Baler . . . they are surely
killers . . . who disturb all the vicinity . . . because of
such things this distance between Casiguran and Baler is very
painful [to travel through]; . . . In the time of Father
Fulano (Father Doe) they killed so many Aetas and
Indians . . . and in my time . . . they have [killed] was it
nine or ten Indians and Aetas? (cited in Perez 1927:293-94).
In an earlier unpublished letter written by another priest, P. Juan
Torres, dated February 10, 1720, he mentions some Agta (in Area 8 of
Map 2) who did the following:
Just then it happened that thfe negro Aetas, all pagans and an
accursed rabble . . . killed a young unmarried man of this
town [Casiguran]; and then they went with their bows and
threatened the Ilongots [who were starting to build a pueblo
at Calabgan, near Casiguran]. These, seeing that they
couldn't be sure of finding a living in those steep places
and that the Aetas wouldn't let them live there, decided to
return to Comblan (AFIO MS 89/62).
204
Father Torres closes this letter by saying,
The Negros who inhabit the site of Dimataben [Area 8 of Map 2]

are a bad cast of unbelievers and according to my information
are not good for anything but to persecute and kill the
Christians. From this point [of San Ildefonso peninsula] four
or five Christians have already died, whom have been deprived
of life with their arrows (ibid.).
In another report Santa Rosa wrote in 1746, he makes some vague
mention of a "massacre" and "slaughter of many Christians" by Agta in
Casiguran. He then states that he sent the Agta five bags of hulled rice
and some tobacco, "In order that this chief and his people eat and
don't do bad things to the town" (cited in Perez 1928:96-97). He
further refers here to
the poor Casiguran people, so oppressed and afraid of these

[Agta] savages or monsters of hell . . . [Killing], it is a
never-ending story. . . . The Indians [i.e., the lowlanders]
are always loaded down with their shields and lances and
arrows everywhere they go. . . . These miserable
[towns]people, so oppressed and harassed and fenced-in (ibid.;
original dated 1746).
A hundred years later, Semper provides yet another example of Agta
hindering lowlanders from traveling at will:
A short time before I came to Casiguran [in 1860] several

Negritos from near there who were suspected of having stolen
buffaloes were arrested and taken to Baler. On the way, one
of them died; and since that time his friends and relatives
who had up to that time been in very good relationships with
the village [of Casiguran] were at war with the Christians.
The Agtas retreated into the mountains . . . where they
settled into two hamlets. These I always had to avoid in my
excursions . . . beccuse I could not cure my companions from
Palanan of their fear of those feared archers (1861:255).
205
And three pages earlier in the same report, Semper says,
In some cases, specifically the Negritos between Baler and

Casiguran, they even live in a state of continual warfare with
their Christian as well as non-Christian neighbors
(ibid.:252).
In another 19th century report, a Father Pedro de Medio says,
concerning the Agta of the Sierra Madre,
Robbery, also, is for them a very useful method of maintaining

themselves, and they may well be counted as among the plagues
which the agriculturalists in the neighboring towns have to
fear (Medio 1887, cited in Report 1901:390).
It is hard to imagine the lowlanders being so intimidated by the
Agta during the Spanish period (since the situation is often reversed
today). Yet records show that even in the early decades of this
century the Casiguran townspeople were, at times, living in fear of
Agta raiders. When a Philippine Constabulary detachment went to
Casiguran in 1911 to try to put a stop to the interethnic killing, they
found that
The town was then patrolled by the citizens at night, as they

feared reprisal on the part of the Dumagats, especially by
setting fire to the houses (Turnbull 1930:782).
And as late as 1925, we learn, the Casiguranin people went through a
period when they were apparently so' afraid of the Agta that they wrote a
petition to the president of the Philippine Senate requesting military
protection so they could go out and work their fields without fear of
attack by Agta. This petition, signed by eleven members of the
206
Casiguran municipal council, requests the reassignment of the
Constabulary company to Casiguran again. The document says, in part,
From the time this Company arrived at Casiguran [i.e., when it

was first assigned there], peaceful conditions have always
prevailed. Fearful conducts of the Non-Christian people
which we, Christians, previously look upon as hindrances to
our progress and growth . . . [were] automatically suspended
on account of the moral influence and presence of this
[military] company. Previously many of us would not dare to
stay and cultivate our lands or homesteads even within a short
distance from the town on account of the fear that we would be
attacked by these benighted people.But thanks to the
presence of this Company, we can do our agricultural work
with full assurance that our properties and lives are
safe . . . recalling this Company from its present post [in
Casiguran] will not only effect [sic] our advancement and
progress, but it will also resume the savage and unpeaceful
conditions of the Non-Christian people among us (Petition
1925).
Vanoverbergh, speaking for theyear 1936,also mentions that the
Casiguran townspeople were also at this time said to be "firmly
convinced, through mere autosuggestion, that they were in continual
danger on account of the Negrito settlements by which their town was
surrounded" (1937-38:157). Though Vanoverbergh considers their fears
exaggerated, he does describe five case studies of Agta allegedly
killing lowlanders in the early 1930s (ibid.:155-56).
Lukban also tells us how, in the first decade of this century, the
"merchants of Casiguran dealing in livestock for Echague are molested
most of the time, and assaulted or killed [by Ilongot and Agta, when
trying to pass through the Sierra Madre with livestock]" (1914:5-6).
Speaking for the year 1906, the late PhilippinePresidentQuezon, who
207
was then governor of Tayabas (of which Casiguran was then a part),
states,
This race is generally peaceable, and it is only [at] the

pueblo of Casiguran that there are some sanguinary individual
Negritos living at Mount Simbaan [Area 10 of Map 2] within
the jurisdiction of [Casiguran] municipality. . . . I have
endeavored to bring the Negritos under the influence of
civilization. . . . Even the sanguinary Negritos of Casiguran
now go down to the pueblo and rub shoulders with the
townspeople (Quezon 1906, cited in Seventh Annual Report
1907:467).
There is also one report of the Palanan townspeople living in fear
of Agta, in the second decade of this century. Speaking for around the
year 1915, one writer says,
[The Agta] were very dependent upon the [Palanan] townspeople

for existence, and . . . the townspeople relied upon the
nearby Itas [i.e., Agta] for protection from the more distant
and more wilder ones. In order to encourage dependency upon
the part of these [Agta], they provided them with corn and
other necessities in exchange for what work they chose to do.
One notorious group of mountain people was much feared by the
inhabitants of the town, as even the women of the family were
armed with bow and arrow and were reported as responsible for
several killings on the trail to Ilagan (Turnbull 1930:38).
Though some of the above statements may reflect stereotyped
exaggeration, they recur often enough in the records for us to know that
the symbiotic relationships between the Agta and the farmers was not
always mutualistic, but that they ranged as well to competitive and even
probably predatory symbiosis, as defined in Chapter 3. Also, as we will
see in Chapter 12, the homicide rate among the Casiguran Agta today is
one of the highest in the world. Killing was obviously a way of life,
both in the past and right up into the 1980s.
208
It is hard to know, from what little historical data we have,
whether there were any Agta bands living independently of non-Agta
populations in the early Spanish period, not even engaging in trade.
Personally, I doubt it. I found only two references suggesting this,
both written by a German naturalist named Carl Semper, who spent three
months traveling from Baler to Palanan and on to San Mariano in 1860.
In his 1869 book Semper mentions that the Agta live "without
significant trade [and] without agriculture [sic]" (1869:51). Yet on
the very next page he refers to their trading forest products to the
Christians for rice (ibid.:51-52). In an earlier publication, Semper
says the Agta who live "further up from Palanan and south of Casiguran
as far down as Mauben live completely independently, far from the
Christian villages" (1861:252). Yet he says on the same page,
referring to these same "independent" Agta, that they make temporary
moves "to the west side of the Cordillera in order to seek work and
food there among the Tagalog tribes" (ibid.). Referring to the Agta
bands closer to Casiguran and Palanan, he says, "They have already
taken on much [linguistic and cultural borrowing] from the Tagalogs and
other tribes . . . with whom they always live in close proximity. Some
of them . . . have become farmers" (ibid.).
The Agta were hardly living "completely independent," then, or
without cultivating, as Semper seems to want to suggest. Fr. Santa
Rosa, for example, describes what sounds like a type of almost "silent
trade" he had with these so-called "independent" Agta south of Casiguran
120 years before Semper's visit:
209
The conquest and winning of the will of those [Agta] of the

inlet or port of Dinariaban [about 60 km SSW of Casiguran]
remains; but this place belongs to Baler. [Author here says
the Agta here are enemies of the Baler people, and that the
'Aetas' say they will kill any that come there with
arrows.] . . . Only twice in more than a hundred times that I
have been there have I put down anchor, but away from the
land. . . . It is very difficult to know [the Agta's]
intentions for certain, and there are now many
Aetas. . . . In my time they have killed with arrows
there . . . although they are somewhat distant, they plunge
into the water and they kill with arrows [evidently shooting
at people offshore in boats] . . . One leaves here . . . to
arrive there [by boat], call with a steel drum and wait to
speak to [the Agta] from the boat, watching their manner when
they come out, and if by their words and deeds their good or
bad will is perceived. When an Aeta leaves his weapons and
goes to swim until the bank, this is a good sign, but when
they call and show something, saying this is wax, or a hog,
and only one or two come out, you must not trust them,
because there may be many hiding, and if the one who appears
turns his back to you, the others shoot their arrows (Santa
Rosa 1746; cited in Perez 1928:104-05).
There are statements, of course, made by people giving second hand
opinions on degree of 'primitive isolation' of Agta Negritos. Dean C.
Worcester, for example, who was U.S. Secretary of the Interior of the
Philippines from 1901 to 1913, and perhaps did more than any other
single individual to perpetuate the Model One myth, made this statement
after a quick steamer trip down the east coast of Luzon in 1909: "In
this region, and in this region alone, the Negrito . . . has had little
or no contact with white men or with Christian Filipinos" (Worcester
1912:833).
I, of course, discredit this Model One statement. If these Agta
along the coast north of Palanan were so independent from Christian
Filipinos, how is it then that Worcester says he found in their
abandoned lean-tos coconut shells, clay pots, steel fishhooks, steel
210
arrowheads, steel bolos, and cotton cloth (ibid.:841)! Two other items
Worcester found, and photographed, in these Agta camps, and which are
shown in one of his published photos "taken on the northeast coast of
Luzon" (Worcester 1912:837), are a wooden mortar for pounding corn or

3
rice, and a tin can! In 1909 the Agta bands of the eastern Cagayan
coast were probably the most isolated and remote hunter-gatherer group
in the Philippines (and this was still the case when I visited them in
1965). Isolated? Yes. Living independently from lowland Filipinos?
Hardly.
Friendly relationships. We also learn from the mission records
that, while the Casiguranin townspeople had hostile relationships with
some Agta, they at the same time had very friendly and continuous
interaction with other Agta bands, including trade. The same priest who
has just described for us above the trouble between the 'savage' Agta
and the Christianized farmers, Father Santa Rosa, now tells us the
following about other Agta. We see first of all that
the [Casiguran Agta of the 18th century] don't think about

anything except about killing, tobacco, rice, knives and,
those of the beaches, clothing" (original 1746, cited in
Perez 1928:106).
This statement provides us with an important clue concerning what must
have been a heavy symbiotic trading system, a system of some type which
I believe went on, perhaps not always in the same form, both before and
during the Spanish period. This is what Model Two proposes. It is not
hard to believe that the Agta were desiring the above-mentioned goods in
early Spanish times and, in the case of knives and rice, in the
211
prehispanic period as well. With this felt need for goods, symbiotic
relationships naturally evolved between the two populations, the Agta
giving in exchange wild meat and other forest products and, by the
Spanish period, serving as part time agricultural laborers at peak times
(such as planting and harvest). Santa Rosa goes on to say,
The [Agta] get resin, wax . . . rattan, [Livistona] anahaw

palm, etc. for the Indians [i.e., the lowlanders], and the
Indians pay them either with food [probably rice] or with
glass beads, or some kind of arrow andpots, etc. . . .These
[Agta] people are not killers, and are friendly with everyone
(1746, cited in Perez 1928:87).
Semper describes the same trading system going on 120 years later, after
his trip through Casiguran and Palanan in I860. He says the Agta then
had metal bolos "which they receive from the Christians," and that they
were then trading beeswax to the Christians "for glass beads, straw
mats, some rice, and their most coveted item, tobacco" (1869:52).
Referring to the institutionalized symbiotic patron-client system
which we find today among the Agta (best described by Peterson 1978b),
Santa Rosa describes what must have been a similar system in the 1740s:
The [Casiguran Agta] make use of the Maguinoo [master,

patron], and by this we have entered [into relationships]
with them. They become relatives [with the townspeople] and
they call themselves brothers with those of the town, and so
with him who is their friend. And they say to their friend
[when they come to town] . . . How is our mother,
Brother? . . . All this is forvanity . . . to become
relatives with the ones of the town . . . since they want to
walk around dressed like the Indians, and thiswithout paying
for the clothing, but asking for it (1746, cited in Perez
1928:94, see also Perez 1927:294).
Here we have a partial description of a fully developed symbiotic
212
patron-client institution between the Agta and farmers of Casiguran in
the early 18th century! Like today, it sometimes included the forming
of ritual kinship relationships, an institution practiced since early
Spanish times throughout the Christianized Philippines between 'big and
little people' (Lynch 1975). (For details, see Hart 1977 and, for
Casiguran, see Headland 1975b:250-51). The two uses of the term
'friend' in the above quote are probably Santa Rosa's gloss of the word
ahibay, which in both the Agta and Casiguranin languages means
'trading-partner-friend-of-the-other-ethnic-group' (see my discussion of
this term in ibid.:251). Of the Agta on the Casiguran peninsula, Santa
Rosa says,
These people are very gentle, very docile, and very obliging
in everything; and all want to be Christians. The majority
have grown up in the town, and afterwards, with the motive of
marriage, they go away to the cape (orig. 1746, cited in
Perez 1928:87).
In another unpublished letter he says of these same Agta,
Those who live in what is called Point San Alifonso are

permanently settled there. . . . These Dumagas do not go away
from there, nor do they desire to leave because of the
attachment they have with the town, since many of them grew
up in the town and then went there to live because it was
their own land (AFIO MS 89/60).
Incidentally, Santa Rosa mentions that although "each hamlet of
these Aetas has a distinct language . . . all of them understand the
language of the town" (1746, cited in Perez 1927:294). This tells us
something about the high degree of interaction between the Agta and
their farming neighbors in the early 1700s, as the languages of the two
213
• ( t 4
groups are not similar enough to be mutually intelligible. If the
18th century Agta could understand the Casiguranin language, as they do
today, it was learned intelligibility gained through long-time
interaction with the townspeople.
There are other brief mentions of cooperative relationships
between Agta and lowlanders. John Garvan describes a type of
relationship between the Agta in Camarines Sur and their Tagalog
neighbors in a letter to the Director of the Philippine Bureau of
Science, dated March 12, 1913 (published in Worcester 1913a:105-07). We
may presume that Garvan's description refers to a system prevalent in
some Agta areas by the end of the Spanish period, if not before. In
this case, the Agta were being used by the lowlanders as servants and
laborers, "astate of economic servitude on the land of Tagalogs." It
was a typical patron-client relationship which we find today in most
Agta areas, in one form or another, where each family or camp group had
their Tagalog 'owner,' or ahibay.
Frank Lynch (1948) provides a later report for these same Agta, for
the year 1947, saying that they were then involved in hunting,
agricultural labor, and upland cultivation. And a recent SIL report
says these same Agta are today, 1984, working as laborers and practicing
some swidden farming, but doing no hunting (Blair et al. 1984).
Another variation of this relationship at the turn of this century,
in contrast to the one in Camarines, is described in the Eighth Annual
Report of the Philippine Commission: "The Negritos [on the east coast
of Isabela] . . . engage only in hunting and fishing, the products
214
whereof they exchange for rice or maize with the Christians"
(1908:334). Segovia also mentions this same thing for the Agta in both
Casiguran and Palanan, when he passed through these areas in 1901:
These 'negritos' . . . were not savage. They frequent

Casiguran and exchange the products of the forest, and chase
[hunt], for rice and Indian corn (1902:103).
Semper (1861:255-56) also states that about one-half of the hamlets of
the Irrayas, a non-Agta tribal people living in San Mariano, Isabela,
had Agta living with them when he spent a month there in 1860.
In the 1901 Report of the Philippine Commission, two 19th century
undated reports by different priests are cited, which further illustrate
the heavy Agta-farmer symbiotic interaction during Spanish times. The
first, written originally in 1887 by a Father Pedro de Medio, referring
to Agta in the mountains of Cagayan (which included Isabela and Aurora
then), says
There are Negritos who go to live near some Christian town in

order to carry on in the houses of its inhabitants, or in
their fields, some little work, such as pounding rice, caring
for crops, or other affairs of the sort; but this is only
temporary, and when they have need of corn, with which the
Christians are wont to pay them, or a few yards of cloth,
brightly colored (Medio 1887, cited in Report 1901:391).
The second cited report on the same page, by a Father Eusibio Platero,
says this about the Agta of Camarines Sur:
When they get hungry on account of the lack of game, they

present themselves to cultivate abaca or to aid in harvesting
rice, and they work in the abaca plantations for their food
and for a few handfuls of recently cut rice (ibid.).
215
Lukban, after his short visit to Casiguran in 1914, describes the
following for the Agta there, a situation which I hope I have convinced
the reader of by now was prevalent in the Spanish period:
[Concerning] the Dumagat residents in all the hamlets of

Casiguran . . . almost all have had and still have commercial,
living-together relationships . . . in daily labor . . . in
partnerships with the Christian inhabitants of the town, with
a feeling of brotherhood being observed among
them. . . . The Dumagat that goes to the house of a Christian
in the town of Casiguran is a person of confidence, where he
will have his meals and a placeto stay. These Dumagats we
call civilized, in order not to confuse them with the
hostiles (Lukban 1914:6-9, emphasis added).
In this manner the civilized Dumagats live together with the

Christians of Casiguran, coming on many occasions looking for
palay [rice] or tobacco. . . . These Dumagats supply
themselves with palay in the town, leaving it in the houses
of their respective Christian friends, after the harvest
(ibid.:2).
The [Dumagats] have merchant and social relations as laborers

and daily-wage-laborers, or as partners with those of the
town of Baler; and this is the same with the Dumagats of
Casiguran (ibid.:9). The daily wage of these Dumagat is more
or less ten cantavos a day, with two meals for the whole
family (ibid.:4).
Then, concerning the "uncivilized" Agta, he has this to say:
From this point of view we should call the uncivilized ones

those which include half of the inhabitants of the hamlet of
Dinalongan and almost all of the inhabitants of the hamlets
of Simbaan and Dinadyawan [these three Agta band areas are
all in Area 10 of Map 2], [These Agta] are very hostile and
don't have life in common with the Christians, nor with the
civilized Dumagats (ibid.:2).
From these references it seems obvious that Model Two depicts more
realistically the Casiguran situation during the Spanish period, if not
long before. We see here that, contrary to the traditional and more
216
popularly believed assumptions of Model One, Agta were not living alone
and isolated at all. Rather, they were heavily involved in prehispanic
times, just as they are today, in various types of symbiotic trading
relationships with their lowland neighbors. These relationships ranged
from outright living with the lowlanders, to discontinuous trade, to
chronic warfare. Let us see now what we might learn from the early
records concerning Agta participation in agriculture.
REFERENCES TO AGTA PRACTICING AGRICULTURE
We come now to our second question concerning the Agta culture
during the Spanish period: To what degree, if any, were they involved
in agriculture? For our earliest references to this, we again turn to
Father Santa Rosa. In an unpublished letter by Santa Rosa dated on March
10, 1745, he definitely establishes for us that there were Casiguran
Agta making their own agricultural fields (sementeras)~* in the first
half of the 18th century. He says,
And now I add that those[Agta] of the seacoast which runs

from this town to midway between Baler and Casiguran live in
two hamlets, make theirfields [sementeras] and have their
little houses like the Indians. . . . each of them finds it
convenient for making their little fields any time they feel
like making them, and more convenient for just sitting around
and hunting in the mountains . . . because it is their native
land and, though nothing but mountains, they love it (AFIO MS
89/60).
Note that this particular area (Area 10 of Map 2) was very distant from
lowland settlements, and was the area of the "hostile"Agta referred to
in several references quoted above. Here were Agta living far from
217
lowlanders and practicing independent agriculture in the 18th century.
In another 1746 document, the same priest refers in passing to the
Agta on the cape of San Ildefonso (Area 1 in Map 2) also practicing
agriculture, this time under his supervision: "I made them dig up a
piece of land for them to sow seed" (Santa Rosa, cited in Perez
1928:87). This same group, he says, previously "had their own sown
land extended well onto the road going to Palanan . . . which they
abandoned" (ibid.). He also mentions that the Agta worked for
lowlanders in agriculture: "They help the Indians with their sowing"
(ibid.). This statement is repeated again, referring to another Agta
band group northwest of town(Area 8 of Map 2) who were still non-
Christian "infidels," and who did not come to town, but who "help the
Indians sow their fields" (ibid.:88). Then, a few pages later he
refers to yet another Agta band which abandoned their hamlet and
fields to move to Dinalongan (ibid.:92-93, emphasis added). And still
another reference later in the report mentions an Agta camp with houses
"like the Tagalogs . . . and also their own fields" (ibid.:96). (Note
that all these references were written in the first half of the 18th
century.)
Semper gives us some clues concerning Agta participation in
agriculture in 1860 when, referring to the Palanan Agta, he says, "Some
of them have become farmers" (1861:252) and, referring to the Agta in
San Mariano, he says that about one-half of the sitios of the Irrayas
had Agta attached to them, and that these Agta "had accepted their
[Irraya neighbors'] farming practices" (ibid.:255-56).
218
Looking again at the 1887 letter cited above by Father Pedro de
Medio, he has this to say about Agta cultivation practices in
northeastern Luzon:
There are a few settlements far within the large forests whose
[Agta] inhabitants take the trouble to cultivate tiny fields
near streams, but the cultivation is conducted on so small a
scale that it seems like play. Indian corn is almost the
only thing which they plant, but there are those who do not
even know this, and they are, perhaps, in the majority. Even
when they have cleared a small field, it is fashionable to
abandon it in a short time (Medio 1887, cited in Report
1901:390).
As we will learn in Chapter 11, this statement, except for the
reference to corn, is a fair description of the type of agriculture
being done Dy the Casiguran Agta in the 1980s. Concerning the 19th
century Agta of Camarines Sur, Father Eusibio Platero mentions that
"they do not cultivate the fields nor sow anything but a few sweet
potatoes" (ibid.:391, emphasis added).
EARLY 20th CENTURY RECORDS
When we come to the records of the early years of this century,
there are a number of references to Agta symbiosis and Agta involvement
in agriculture. These are cited here to reinforce what should by now
be quite obvious— that these two institutions, found among Agta groups
throughout the Sierra Madre from the northern tip of Luzon to Camarines
Sur, are not new; they have been practiced, I argue, for hundreds of
years.
I have already mentioned several pages back how Secretary
Worcester, on his steamer trip down the east coast in August 1909 found
219
Agta that, though they certainly appeared at first glance to be living
independently of interaction with other Filipinos, had trade goods such
as steel utensils and cotton cloth. In the same article Worcester says
that these Negritos told him— this was in 1909— that "during the rainy
season they went back into the mountains, where they sometimes planted
yams, upland rice, or corn" (1912:841).
The Governor of Tayabas Province, Lukban, writing in 1914, tells us
that after the Agta spend their weekends in Casiguran,
They return to their hamlets to work their own

lands. . . . They were almost constantly going to town on
Saturday, in the afternoon, to remain all day Sunday, and
returning to their agricultural tasks on Monday (Lukban
1914:2).
There are two business letters, written nine years apart,
describing the commercial buying of large amounts of rattan from
Casiguran Agta in 1914 and in 1923 (Whitney 1914, Report 1923:39).
In this same letter by Whitney, dated March 15, 1914, written from
Calabgan, Casiguran, he says, referring to the Agta living on the newly
formed reservation for them,
All of those [Agta] men who refused to come to Calabgan have

since arrived and are at work clearing their fields . . . At
present there are some hundred and twenty men at Calabgan,
most of whom have bukids [i.e., fields]. . . . There are also
some five negritos from the interior who have settled in
Calabgan and as soon as they have finished their fields I am
going to send they [sic] to their old rancherias [i.e.,
hamlets] to bring in more people (Whitney 1914).
It is difficult to interpret just what was happening on this reservation
in 1914. But we can be sure that Capt. Whitney, an American P.C.
220
officer, was putting pressure on the Agta at this time not only to live
on the reservation, but to cultivate the land. In any case, I include
it as an example, though a deviant one, of Agta farming in 1914.
Looking at Agta outside of the Casiguran area, Paul Schebesta,
referring to his visit to the Agta in San Mariano in 1939, says that
"they lived by catching fish which they traded for corn, tomatoes and
pomelo [a citrus fruit]" (1954:60; see also p. 64). For Palanan, in a
1951 article on the Christian peoples of the Philippines, the author
states that the Palanan lowlanders get part of their subsistence by
"trade with the Negrito and other forest pagans" (Tangco 1951:85).
Speaking for the Agta of the Baler area shortly before WWII,
Amazona refers to their making swiddens, but says, "Their greater
occupational emphasis seems to be on hunting, fishing and gathering
sikag (a root) . . . rather than on cultivation" (Amazona 1951:24).
Referring to symbiosis by the same group, he says,
It has become customary to exchange . . .wild food for

cultivated foods and clothing with their Tagalog
friends . . . in exchange they receive rice, palay, salt,
tobacco, bolos, steel for arrow heads, pottery, and
cloth. . . . They would then stay away for another few weeks
until they would again have sufficient dried meat and fish to
exchange. . . . Occasionally they might accept the invitation
of their Tagalog friends to work for them and cultivate their
farms (ibid.).
Some especially important information, both on Agta interethnic
relationships andon Agta cultivation, are provided by the reports of
Wilfrid Turnbull, the American Army officer who began working with the
Casiguran Agta in 1911, and who lived in Casiguran intermittently for
221
ten years or so. Turnbull provides a clear description of Agta economic
behavior and Agta-farmer symbiotic relationships in the second decade of
this century. Here is a part of his description:
Dating back to the original settlement of the Kasiguran

valley, the Dumagats [his term for the Agta] had been in the
habit of helping in the work [of the lowland farmers] and,
with the lapse of time, had become the peons, and the
Christians had become the landed gentry . . . dependent upon
the wild people for labor. These [Dumagats] had always
procured cloth, booze, cooking pots and other necessities from
the people of the town in exchange for game, forest products,
or labor. . . . During the planting and harvest seasons labor
was much in demand. . . . A few Christians did a thriving
business advancing booze or tobacco [to the Dumagats]
(Turnbull 1930:732).
Later in the same article Turnbull continues his description of
this mutualistic symbiosis. He mentions that at the end of a day's
labor the Agta, in "probably most cases, got gloriously drunk"
(ibid.:783). He goes on to say,
A few of the townspeople never employed Dumagats; others

treated them as members of the family. Most of the wild
people who visited Kasiguran had Christian arribay [a local
word, meaning 'trading partner'] and dealt chiefly with
these. In many cases . . . there was not only mutual profit
but also mutual assistance and regard. . . . The arribay is a
legacy from the early days of the settlement when every
Christian had a Dumagat friend and partner in his work. Each
was the arribay of the other. When in the settlement the
Christian protected the Dumagat; when outside, the situation
was reversed . . .
There was, however, no general' liking or confidence between

the two peoples— only between individuals. The majority of
the wild tribe did not feel comfortable in Kasiguran and
there was but a small fraction of one per cent of the
townspeople who would go alone or sleep a few miles out of
town (ibid.).
222
Turnbull also refers in another article to the Casiguran Agta working as
guides and carriers for lowland travelers, and also that the Agta
collected copal (a tree resin) for trade (1929:237-38).
It is most interesting to see what Turnbull has to say about Agta
agricultural practices, in this second decade of the present century.
Although he makes several mentions to Agta doing agricultural labor for
lowland farmers, he makes two references to them making fields for
themselves. He refers first to an Agta campsite "some forty miles up
the coast, [which would be about halfway between Casiguran and Palanan,
which] when seen by the writer [Turnbull], had quite a few coconuts
planted" (1930:110). He also says that a "large proportion" of the
Casiguran Agta who did not come to live on his reservation [established
in 1912] "started small settlements in their own country, built regular
houses, and planted crops" (ibid., emphasis added).
Turnbull seems to imply that all these Agta, scattered along 180 km
of coastline from Baler to Palanan, "started" agriculture only then,
under his inducement. I, of course, argue that these Agta had been
practicing desultory cultivation for hundreds of years before Turnbull's
arrival.
Probably it was in 1912 when Turnbull contacted what he calls the
'wildest' Agta (in Area 10 of Map 2) and got them to agree to make a
settlement at the mouth of the Dinalongan River, which he calls "their
favorite camping place." Here he says they then cultivated "a small
piece of land planted with seeds supplied by the Government"
(1930:794). Turnbull does not tell us if these Agta made this field on
223
their own, or under his order. But he does say, several pages later,
that these same "people of Dinalungan had become so prosperous in trade
that they neglected their farm" (ibid.:32).
He does tell of a great deal of agricultural work the Agta did on
the Calabgan reservation he established for them near Casiguran in
1912, but this work was done under his more-or-less forced supervision
(ibid.).
Morice Vanoverbergh, a Belgium priest who spent two months studying
the culture of the Casiguran Agta in 1936, also provides us with some
excellent data on how the Agta were living then. We are not surprised
to learn that, in 1936, "Rice is the staple food among the [Casiguran]
Negritos," (Vanoverbergh 1937-38:922), since we have read several
references inferring this for the Spanish period, and Turnbull, speaking
for the 1910s, says
Many [Agta] living within easy reach of the towns [of

Casiguran and Palanan] depend more or less on rice or corn
for food. Some of those who live permanently near town can
not get along without it (1929:177).
What is interesting is what Vanoverbergh has to say about how these
Agta obtain this rice they need. Continuing Vanoverbergh's above quote,
he goes on to say that
. . . very few of them raise rice, and even when they do, they
never raise it in sufficient quantities . . . therefore they
largely depend on the Malays for their daily bread
(1937-38:922).
Vanoverbergh here refers to their exchanging fish or venison for rice.
224
He states several pages later, that "Economically, they are slaves, as
they depend almost entirely on their Malay neighbors, who furnish them
most of their rice" (ibid.:149). Vanoverbergh also states that the
Agta secure rice by
cutting timber and gathering forest products under the

direction and for the benefit of other people, and helping
the Malays with the rice harvest. [These activities] have
become almost general among the Pygmies (ibid.:928).
Vanoverbergh does not fail to mention Agta agricultural pursuits,
however. He makes several references to their doing small scale
cultivation in 1936. He states in one place, for example,
Whenever I met Negritos I could observe that the practice of

tilling the soil seemed to be very much on the increase.
Most of the Pygmies who live in the southern part of the
district of Casiguran have their own small
homesteads . . . [although] their chief pursuits continue to
be hunting and fishing. They plant sweet potatoes, maize,
bananas and a certain amount of sugar cane; also, to some
extent, rice, tomatoes, taro, beans, manioc, papaws [papaya]
and several kinds of squashes and other Cucurbitaceae. In
the northern part of the district and at Baler, agriculture
was less prominent (ibid.:927).
This does not mean all Agta were involved in agriculture during the
historical period, much less the late prehispanic era. Model Two allows
that some bands may have gone for periods without making swiddens, and
even that a few bands may never have made them. I found only one piece
of evidence for this in the records. In an unpublished letter by a P.
Juan de Ocana, dated March 6, 1754, he says,
There are many Aetas on the beaches as we go to Palanan [from

Casiguran], but some are Aetas which today are here and
225
tomorrow are to the mountains, since they do not plant nor

cultivate the land, because all the mountains are their •
lands, resting places. And that is where they maintain
themselves and are fat (AFIO MS 89/61).
* * *
In this chapter we have seen that the prehispanic Agta did not live
as 'pure' hunters, in isolation from agriculturalists. I have tried to
establish that the Agta, at least by the eve of the Spanish conquest,
were heavily involved in various types of trading relationship with non-
Negrito lowland populations, and that most Agta bands were practicing at
least some type of part-time small-scale cultivation. There is no
question that the ancestors of the present-day Agta were at onetime
paleolithic hunter-gatherers. What I am arguing here is that this
stone-age lifestyle ended long ago, possibly in the early Holocene, and
that the Agta probably moved into the neolithic at more-or-less the same
time as did their Asian neighbors.
Now, as we turn to Chapter 8, I review the historical highlights
of the 20th century, as they affected Agta evolutionary change. We will
see that their symbiotic interchange with agriculturalists, and their
desultory agricultural practices have continued not only through the
Spanish period, but right up to the present day. In later chapters we
will see how these economic institutions have adjusted to changing
forces in the Casiguran ecosystem', including historical forces, as the
Agta have tried to adapt to the changes resulting from these.
1. The 'founding' of a town, in the ecclesiastical terminology of

the time, "does not mean there was no previous settlement there, only
that now it is incorporated into Spanish civil empire and Roman
Catholic ecclesiastical organization" (Bruce Cruikshank, personal
correspondence).
2. 'Cimarrones' is a Spanish term of "reference to wild natives or

Negritos" (B&R 54:217). It is important to remember, when trying to
interpret the Spanish mission records, that there were non-Negrito
Ilongot tribal people living on the southwest border of the Casiguran
Agta area, and 'runaway' Casiguranin people living at times in the
mountains, often doubtless with Agta, because they wished to escape from
the mission domination or, in the Cagayan Valley, Spanish taxation or
forced labor (see Perez 1927:290). For details of the latter, see
Keesing (1962:179, 206). Often the mission letters refer to the
'infidels' in the mountains without specifying whether they are
referring to Negritos, Ilongot, or merely fugitive lowlanders. The Agta
are variously referred to in the records by terms such as 'Aetas',
'negros','Dumagats', and 'Dumagas'.
3. The original of this particular photo was taken on August 30,

1909, and is archived in the Worcester Photographic Archives at the
Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, file no. I-Z-l. The
original photo also shows a small clay pot to the right of the mortar,
which was cut from the photo reproduction published in Worcester
1912:837.
4. There are two reasons for arguing that the Agta and Casiguranin
languages are not mutually intelligible. One, the shared vocabulary
between the two languages is only 77 percent, slightly below the 80
percent threshold score by which two languages would be considered
mutually intelligible, and two, the intelligibility tests I conducted in
Casiguran in 1975 showed that those Casiguranin townspeople who had
never interacted with Agta could not understand Agta. The scores of
those five lowlanders were 80, 80, 70, 69, and 65, with the averajge
being 73 percent. (For details see Headland 1975a.)
5. Sementera means 'a place where seed is sowed,' from the

Spanish, sementar 'to s.ow'. The 18th century friars had no word for
slash-and-burn -swidden fields, and they thus referred to any type of
field as sementera. Some students of Philippine history have
mistakenly limited the meaning of the word to pond fields (Wm. H. Scott,
personal correspondence).
226
CHAPTER VIII
HISTO RICAL H IG H LIG HTS: THE AMERICAN PERIOD UP TO POST-W W II
NEW ECOLOGICAL INFLUENCES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Kasiguran consists of a stone church with priest's residence

attached, both somewhat delapidated [sic], and.also about 100
houses built in the usual way with rectangular streets. The
town was absolutely deserted, but we found dogs, pigs and
chickens about the houses and a clock going and showing
correct time. We saw three men all of whom fled at our
approach. . . . Confidence seemed to be spreading about the
Bay, as several strange natives [Agta?] came aboard [the
steamer USS Vicksburg]. . . . There seems to be no money used
here. . . . I saw several extensive rice fields and a few
little patches of corn, beans and other vegetables (Barry
1901, describing a visit by 16 U.S. sailors to Casiguran on
March 18, 1901).
In Chapter 6 I proposed a model of how I believe the ancestors of
the present-day Agta lived in late prehistoric times. In contrast to
the more popular "isolationist stance," or "mosaic stereotype" view,
that Philippine Negritos at the time of the Spanish arrival were living
a more-or-less paleolithic style of life, divorced from farmers and
farming, I argued that such foraging societies, and Agta in particular,
had been involved in interethnic trade, as well as small scale part-time
cultivation, long before the 16th century. In the last chapter I cited
a good deal of mostly Spanish period sources demonstrating how
widespread both of these economic institutions were among the Agta
throughout that 300 year period, presenting this as circumstantial
evidence that these two economic institutions were almost surely well
established before the Spanish arrival.
227
228
This "Model Two" view of Agta prehistory will take us a long way in
understanding why the Agta live as they do today, still carrying on
these same two institutions, with not a great deal of modification from
what the cited documents describe. Before we go into those questions,
however, there are still some 20th century historical highlights— new
ecological forces— introduced into the Casiguran ecosystem in this
century, which have and are affecting the Agta today. It is necessary
for us to be aware of these more recent historical events if we are to
come to an adequate understanding of why the Agta behaveas they do
today.
In this chapter I will review the critical historical events of the
American period, from the arrival of the American Capt. Turnbull in 1911
up to the 1960s. These events include such influences as the entrance
of logging and mining industries into the area, the introduction of
firearms and its effect on game populations, the Agta school, commercial
liquors, government agencies assigned to control the Agta, and WWII. We
will look especially here at the program of Capt. Turnbull himself, and
we will review what is probably the most crucial force of all, the
national population explosion. In the next chapter we will look at the
more current events, forces which entered the Agta ecosystem after my
arrival, and especially after 1970. (These latter include the
influences resulting from the building of the national road, the mass
media, foreign missionaries, the world demand for rattan furniture, the
NPA guerrilla war, Martial Law, the Aquino assassination, etc.) Not all
of these "ecological" forces fit neatly into one period or the other.
229
I have attempted to put them in this or the next chapter according to
whichever period I think they made the heaviest impact. Those forces
which played an influence during both periods will be made clear from
the context.
THE AGTA RESERVATION AT CALABGAN. CASIGURAN
The arrival of the American Capt. Turnbull. If there is any one
event which we could single out as precipitating traumatic and long-
lasting culture change among the Casiguran Agta, it would be the arrival
of Capt. Wilfrid Turnbull to Casiguran in 1911. There have been several
other culture-changing historical events which brought upsetting change
to the traditional Agta way of life, as we shall see in this and the
next chapter; but none of them, in my opinion, could have caused as much
stress (and the beginning of Agta deculturation) as Turnbull's arrival,
with his orders in hand to "bring [the] wild [Agta] tribe under
government control" (Turnbull 1930).
Turnbull was born in England in 1869, and emigrated to the United
States, where he became a medical doctor. He joined the U.S. Army, and
came to the Philippines as an Army doctor in 1899. He was discharged
from the Army in 1901, with rank of captain, but remained in the country
and joined the Philippine Constabulary in August of the same year. He
was assigned to the Baler-Casiguran area in September 1911 to assist the
provincial governor as supervisor of wild tribes. His first job there
was just what the title of his 1930 article states, to bring the
troublesome Casiguran Agta under government control. Though he was
assigned to Baler, and was in and out of Casiguran until at least 1917,
230
he also spent considerable time working with the Ilongot, and with other
tribal groups in Mountain Province. He evidently lived as a civilian in
Baler throughout the 1920s, buying rattan and shipping it to Manila.
Turnbull was living in retirement in Muntinlupa, near Manila, when the
war broke out. Perhaps because of his age he was not interned at the
Santo Tomas Internment Camp until October 1942. He died there of a
heart attack on November 1, 1944, at the age of 75.^
History of the Calabgan Reservation. Turnbull probably arrived in
Casiguran in September or October of 1911. By early 1912 a plan was
put into operation to establish an Agta land reserve near the mouth of
the Calabgan River, 14 km southwest of the town. The primary goals were
two: to change the Agta from "wandering nomads" into sedentary
villagers, and to make them into farmers. A secondary goal was to
bring all Agta together where they could be policed in such a way that
they would stop harassing the Christian farming population. Overall,
the government wanted this "wild tribe" brought under "control;" in
short, to "civilize" them. Originally, the plan was to bring all Agta
onto the Reservation, from as far south as Infanta, Quezon to as far
north as Palanan, Isabela. This never worked out in practice, except
for a few Palanan Agta families who visited the Reservation for a short
time in 1914. In Turnbull's discussion of his "work of taming" the
Agta, he says,
In order to get control of the various groups— impracticable

so long as they were scattered— the Secretary of the
Interior, the Honorable Dean C. Worcester, issued an order
obliging the Dumagats to take up residence on a certain tract
231
of land which was later to be set aside by the Government as

a reservation for the tribe (1930:31).
Worcester himself comments on this plan, commending Turnbull at the same
time:
Conditions [in 1912-13] among the peculiarly wild and

primitive Ilongot and Negrito inhabitants steadily improve.
Capt. Wilfrid Turnbull, P.C., who has charge of the work for
the Ilongots and Negritos on the Pacific slope of the eastern
mountain range of this province [Nueva Vizcaya, of which
Casiguran was then a part], has succeeded in establishing and
holding together two [?] flourishing Negrito villages, a
thing which, so far as I am aware, has never before beer. done.
Captain Turnbull has lived with his Negritos and Ilongots
throughout the year. Whether the villages which he has built
up can be brought to sucha state of development that they
will not disintegrate if their inhabitants are not under the
immediate control of a white man remains to be seen
(1913c:13).
As we will see, the Calabgan reservation plan did "disintegrate," but
not for the reasons Worcester predicted.
Turnbull was not the only American to work with the Casiguran Agta.
There was an unnamed American school teacher whom Turnbull says "was
assigned to Calabgan just as the writer [Turnbull] went on leave"
(1930:32), and there was another American military P.C. officer who came
to Calabgan in 1913 as Turnbull's "relief" (ibid.), a Capt. Francis A.
Whitney (who is mentioned in the military records of Elarth [1949:184]).
Turnbull mentions his "success" at the Calabgan Reserve, stating that
there were "about" 150 Agta families living there, that the settlement
was well laid out with new houses, that most Agta were busy at farming,
and that the school was built and class attendance was high. Yet he
also refers continually to the problems of trying to keep the Agta on
232
the Reserve. He mentions four times the use of leg irons, and other
punishments to "runaway" Agta, and to having to chain gang men together
to get them to clear their fields.
The provincial governor, Lukban, also wrote in 1914 about ths
chronic problem of the Agta leaving the Reserve to go off into the
mountains whenever the lieutenant governors were away from the Reserve
(Lukban 1914:2-3; these It. governors were Whitney and Turnbull, as
Lukban states on page 11 [where he spells Turnbull's name as
Thrombole].) Capt. Whitney also writes, in a letter to the governor
dated March 15, 1914, of the problem of getting the Agta to live on the
Reserve, and asking permission "to use force in making them come
in . . . if other means fail" (Wh'itney 1914). This obviously chronic
problem of getting the Agta to live at the Calabgan Reserve was still
going on in 1923 (see Sanvictores 1923) and, as we will see, in the
1980s as well.
Nevertheless, Turnbull gives a fair list of accomplishments. By
the siimmer of 1915, he says, 30 ha had been planted in various crops,
including coconuts, and 15 ha of irrigated wet rice fields. There was
an "Exchange," store, office building, school, soldiers' barracks,
athletic grounds, and "some seventy houses belonging to Dumagats"
(1930:114). One optimistic report says that, by 1915,
The Negrito settlement at Calabgan, on the east coast,

continues successful, and it has been proved that the
Negrito, under proper supervision, can be persuaded to till
the soil and give up his nomad life (Report 1916:127).
233
As the reader may suspect by now, however, the Agta did not see
'his resettlement scheme in the same light. These Agta had at the time
exclusive free reign of 700 square kilometers of land, all to
themselves. The government's plan was to put all these Agta onto an
2
area of just 1.53 km , and there contain them. It should not be hard
to understand why the Agta objected to this. As my older informants
recall those prewar years, they continued to alternate back and forth
from playing games with the soldiers— by showing up on the Reservation
for free meals while they played at farming, to hiding from soldiers
who would hike to Agta camps at the end of the summers to round up
children for the boarding school. Though the Calabgan resettlement
efforts went on sporadically right up to December 8, 1941, there was a
decision made at least once to close the Reservation "due to
the . . . expense involved and the small number of Negritos that could
be kept in this reservation" (Annual Report 1926:63). It should be
noted, however, that the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes proposed the
same year to give the "adult inhabitants of the reservation permanent
homesteads within the reservation of not to exceed 4 hectares"
(Sanvictores 1923).
It was not until 1934 that a document was drawn up formally
declaring this reservation land as for the Agta. That year the
Calabgan Reservation was formally declared as "for the exclusive use of
the non-Christians" by Governor General Proclamation No. 723. This
document (Governor General 1935:955-57) was signed and sealed by
234
Governor General Frank Murphy on August 21, 1934. It defines in detail

3
the exact borders of the 152.60 ha Reservation.
After the War, there were no further efforts to either move the
Agta onto the Reservation again, or to acknowledge their rightful and
now legal claim to this land, until 1963. That year, a Mr. Macaraya,
an agent of the (now defunct) Commission on National Integration came
to Casiguran and undertook serious efforts to evict the many non-Agta
squatters from the Reservation and move the Agta on in their place.
This program was a dismal failure.
Then, in 1975, a major project was again attempted to establish the
Agta on this land, the same land cleared by their own grandparents many
years before. The 55th Philippine Constabulary Battalion, in
cooperation with agents from the government Office of the Presidential
Assistant on National Minorities (PANAMIN), moved the many lowlander
farmers off this land (literally sawing through their houseposts with
chain saws and dragging their houses off the Reservation with logging
trucks), and then moved a reported 50 Agta families onto the same area
in order to begin farming. The optimism of the military and Panamin was
high, but again, the Agta themselves saw it in a different light.
Things went well for awhile. Under supervision, the Agta built a
"village," complete with streets and houses all in neat rows, and took
up farming (more or less) while the Panamin agency supplied them with
free rice.
By this time, the Agta were skilled at exploiting such situations
for their benefit. However, at about the same time the free rations
235
began to run out, social relationships also began to deteriorate, both
between the different bands and between the Agta and the Panamin
agents. By July 1977 only 22 families remained at Calabgan. And in
March 1978 it was down to 7 families (plus 8 lowlander men who had
gained access to the reservation land either because they were married
to Agta women, orhave a part-Agta ancestry themselves). Finally, at
the time of my last visit to the Reserve, in July 1984, there was only
one Agta family living there.
I will discuss in Chapter 13 why the Agta have so resisted this
settlement scheme. Suffice it to say it is for sound economic and
ecological reasons. It is not because they are "primitive," "ignorant,"
or too low in mentality for civilization. What sad to see is that,
after forcing the Agta to clear this wide area of fertile land during
the pre-war years, and seeing it today covered with naturally irrigated
rice paddies and productive coconut groves (all being cultivated by
lowlanders), there are still no Agta with deeded land there today.
Theboarding school for Agta children. Over the years, my wife
and I have listened to older Agta tell stories of their sporadic periods
of attendance at the Calabgan Reservation school before the War. A few
of the stories were of hiding from Filipino soldiers, or being caught by
them and taken to the boarding school (from where they often ran away
and returned to their families). But mostly the stories were of fun
times at the school. None of the story tellers seemed to have bad
memories of their school experiences there. They were evidently well
fed, and supplied with clothes and school supplies from America. The
236
school continued to function intermittently from 1914 to December 9,
1941. A number of Agta remember the day the school closed, and they
were sent home, when word came of the Japanese attack on the
Philippines.
In our formal questioning of Agta adults in 1976, we found that 65
percent of those who were of school age between the years 1921 and 1941
attended the Calabgan school for at least a short period (31/48). All
but 3 of these attended for at least one year (they said), 7 claimed to
have finished grade 3, and 1 finished grade 6.
Emphasis in the school was on learning to read, write, and speak
English. There were classes as well in simple gardening, and in rice
and corn agriculture. They were also taught both Filipino and American
history. (There was never an American teacher at the school, in the
memories of my informants.) The results of these lessons were not
apparent to us. None of the Agta we knew could speak English (although
there were three men who thought they could, whenever they were
drinking). There was one man who died in 1968 who was fully literate in
Tagalog, and several who could write their names. There were a dozen or
so who could sing English folk songs, and several who knew the names of
various Filipino and American folk heroes. One of the important things
they learned was to count, using Tagalog, Spanish, and English numbering
systems.
In spite of the obvious ethnocentric bias we see in the way this
school was run, we should not underestimate the powerful acculturative
force it played upon the Agta. Though it would be difficult to know
237
just how to measure that influence, we can be sure it had a profound
effect on the whole Agta culture, as Agta children were brought into
intense interaction with lowland teachers and, later, carried new ideas
home to their families and relatives.
THE EFFECT OF THE PHILIPPINE POPULATION EXPLOSION
If the program of Capt. Turnbull was the first and biggest catalyst
of Agta acculturative change, certainly a close second was the national
population explosion which began at the turn of this century. At the
beginning of the Spanish conquest, the archipelago was estimated to have
a total population of only a half million people, and in 1903 it was
only 7.64 million. In 1939 it was 16 million, by 1960 it was 27
million, and today, 1985, it is 54 million.
Since WWII, this tremendous population explosion has pushed a fast
accelerating number of immigrant Filipino homesteaders into the
Casiguran area, especially since 1960. Four hundred years ago the Agta
outnumbered the lowland farmers by at least 2 to 1. (I estimate that the
Casiguran Agta population numbered between one and two thousand in 1582,
when the Casiguranin farming population was reported to be 500 [B&R
5:99].) By 1900 the ratio had reversed to 1 to 2 (i.e., for every Agta
there were 2 lowlanders). When I arrived in Casiguran in 1962 the ratio
was about 1 to 12.5 (about 800 Agta and 10,000 lowlanders). Today, June
1984, there are 609 Agta and 35,000 lowlanders, a ratio of 1 to 57!
(See Table 1.1.)
Not only were the lowlanders few in the past but, until the 1920s,
virtually all of them lived in or very near the town. The maps of the
238
Casiguran barrios in both the 1903 and 1918 national censuses show that
the then eight barrios were all adjacent to the town central. In short,
we see that, just as my older informants recall, the pre-war Agta had
2
virtually the whole 700 km of the Casiguran ecosystem pretty much to
2
themselves, with a population density of about 1.5 persons per km ,
except for the area in and around the town, where the lowlanders
4
lived. Today these same Agta are vastly outnumbered by the fast
expanding farming populations, most of whom are immigrant homesteaders.
These non-Agta lowlanders no longer live aggregated in the municipal
towns (of which there are now four in the area). Instead, they are
spread widely throughout most of the area, moving every year further up
the rivers as they clear forest land for cultivation, rechannel whole
rivers for irrigation purposes, denude wide areas of mountainsides in
open strip mining (at Dinapigui in the 1960s), bulldoze logging roads,
cut lumber and, since 1979, collect rattan.
When I returned to Casiguran from Hawaii in 1982, one aspect of my
research plan was to measure the distances from all Agta camps to the
nearest non-Agta residence sites. My estimate was that the distances
during my earlier years there ran in the range of 20 to 120 minutes
walking time, but I had never collected the quantitative data to be
really sure. When I got back to Casiguran, however, I found this goal
impractical, because there were now so many lowlanders residing up and
down the rivers that many Agta camps had lowlanders living upriver from
them, a phenomenon unheard of even in the 1970s. Moreover, many Agta
camps had lowlanders living right with them, usually to buy their
239
rattan as it was collected each day. Almost every Agta camp in 1983-84
had lowland families living within a hundred meters. Besides this there
were, on any given day without heavy rain, somewhere between one
thousand and two thousand lowlanders scattered throughout the forests
collecting rattan themselves for commercial sale. Even in the late
1970s most Agta groups had their upriver areas mostly to themselves,
except when loggers were working the area, but upon my return in 1982 I
found that every Agta band area now had lowlanders living in it.
Indeed, as I spent most of the next 19 months hiking back and forth
throughout these areas, it was a rare hour of hiking when I did not
hear the sound of voices or choppingin the distance, as lowlanders cut
down rattan to sell at the coast.
Now, as an ecologically trained anthropologist, I cannot help but
feel a sense of sadness as I see a way of life, which proved highly
adaptive for thousands of years, fast coming to an end. As the reader
will recognize as he reads through this thesis, I consider the Casiguran
area, and indeed the whole Philippines, as living on the precipice of
ecological disaster. I fear the ecological degradation of Casiguran
will continue at an accelerating rate, and that the Agta will come out
as the biggest losers. In fact, the Agta's inability tocope now will
be quite plain to see when we look at their demographic statistics in
Chapter 12.
What is most interesting is that the Agta do not look at their
changed circumstances in the same light as do I. In 1983 I asked a
number of older Agta to compare their life now with their life before
240
the War, and for which period they felt their life was best. A few of
the respondents said their life was better before; but in these cases,
every one of them was focusing on some individual problem of their own
at the presenttime, either their present poor health or the death of a
spouse. One woman, for example, told me, "Life was better before
because my husband was still alive, and he always brought me food."
But otherwise, virtually every Agta to whom I asked this question said
that life is better now than it was in the past.
Here is an example of a conversation I had with a man named
Budegdeg (not his real name),age 61 when I interviewed him on June 27,
1983. This was typical of the responses I got. Budegdeg grew up in a
river valley just 8 km from the town of Casiguran. According to
lowlanders with whom I have discussed Casiguran history, up until 1928,
when a Japanese logging company began work in the area, no lowlander
would dare to enter this rivershed area, (except the Guerrero family,
since Mr. Guerrero was the ahxbay trading partner with Budegdeg's
father and his band). In those days this Agta band group were lords in
their own domain, a band of about 6 families, living alone in a river

2
canyon covering some 30 km , teeming with fish and game, and a few
small gardens they planted in alternate years.
As we discussed the history of his life,Budegdeg first told me of
how a certainIlokano named Silaw (a pseudonym) cheated him out of his
land (somewhere between 1961-64), and about the Japanese soldier he
killed during WWII. When I finally asked him if he thought life was
better now or before, he said, "Oh, it is much better now." When I
241
asked why, he answered, "Lowlanders! We have lots of lowlanders here
now." I asked, "And how is that better?" He muttered something about
what a dumb question, then said, "Look, Tomas, before, we were always
having hunger problems, no rice! And no tobacco either, and no liquor.
We seldom could get these things, and we had to hike all the way to
town. Now," he said, "we can get rice all the time from these
lowlanders living right here. And we can get drunk anytime we want."
So there you have it. I asked this question to many other Agta.
All who spoke to the general situation, not to some specific personal
problem, gave virtually the same answer, focusing usually on the
availability of rice. Agta, like other Filipinos, use the same word for
'cooked rice' as they do for 'food' and for the verb, 'to eat'. They
also, like other Filipinos, do not consider that they have eaten if they
do not have rice with a meal. I have been many times in Agta camps
when rice was not available. Even if there were root crop foods, and
they were eating them three times a day, they all claimed they were
starving. As we see in Table 4.6, the Agta ate rice at 92 percent of
their meals in 1984. In January of that year, when there was a rice
shortage, I grew weary of listening to their chronic complaints that
they were starving and without food. Yet they still had rice at 86
percent of their meals that month. (This is not to say Agta have
enough rice to eat, their thin body' size suggests they do not [see
Table 12.16], but to emphasize how important it is to them.)
For better or for worse, the Agta have a quite different attitude
to the invasions of their lands by outsiders than do most other tribal
242
peoples. While there are many Agta who complain of exploitation from
lowlanders, the fact is that they are more concerned about having rice
in their cooking pots for that day than they are about long range loss
of their lands. Their rice comes from the lowlanders, and perhaps we
have here a case of a group of people who know better than "to bite the
hand that feeds them." Doubtless, my Agta respondents here were, like
other humans elsewhere, more interested in individual opportunism than
in systemic stability and adaptation at the population level. In any
case, whatever the Agta may think of the flood of lowland Filipinos
moving into every area of their traditional hunting grounds, this
population explosion is without question a highly significant
independent variable in their ecosystem, a variable which is today the
single greatest force for Agta change and deculturation.
WORLD WAR TWO
Compared with most of the Philippines, the Casiguran valley
remained, throughout the four years of WWII, in relative peace. Life
became harder, to be sure, for both Agta and lowland farmers, but there
was next to no direct warfare in the area. For most of the period,
until mid 1945, there was just one platoon of Japanese stationed in the
area. This was a part of the Kamba Co. (the rest of whom were
stationed in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya), of the 178th Battalion, 108th Army
Infantry Division (Takamiya 1975:89-90). The leader of the platoon in
Casiguran was a Capt. Nishizaka. According to my informants, this
captain was fair and kind to the local people in Casiguran. In fact,
the relationship between these Japanese and the local people, Agta and
243
lowlanders, was apparently cordial throughout the War. According to
Takamiya (ibid.), all the men of this platoon died in Casiguran in mid
1945.
It was hard for me to sift out the facts from the myths which are
told in Casiguran today about the war years. Now, 40 years later,
stories of the war tend to be idealized and exaggerated.. According to
my informants, some Agta lived near the town and had no trouble with
the Japanese, while others withdrew, at least periodically, to distant
areas in the forest to avoid trouble. According to informants, all
Agta were able to continue in their traditional trade relationships,
except for the disruptive period from June to September 1945. And many
of them developed friendly trade relationships with Japanese. Agta who
lived in the distant areas said they ate wild yams more often than they
had in the prewar years, and also were more conscientious about making
root crop gardens, since their normal food, traded rice, was less
reliable. Not surprising, several Agta were said to have worked
periodically for the Japanese as guides, hunters, and casual laborers.
According to official records in Casiguran, the following U.S. Army
units were in the Casiguran area at the end of the War:
May 1944 to March 6, 1945: the Allied Intelligence Bureau,

under the command of a "Captain Ball."
March 7 to June 30, 1945: the 16th 1st Infantry Regiment of

the 25th Division, in Dilasag and Casiguran.
June 30 to July 31, 1945: 103rd Infantry Regiment, 43rd

Division, in Casiguran and Dinalongan.
August 1 to August 7, 1945: 172nd Infantry Regiment, 43rd

244
August 15 to October 2, 1945: 149th Infantry Regiment, 48th

Most Agta do not look back on the war years as especially
difficult, though they recall periods of time when they could not get
rice, and of having towear bark cloth (poorer lowlanders in the
barrios also said their own clothing in those days was made of bark
cloth). They were obviously well treated by the American forces when
they arrived. Older Agta can still relate with excitement about the
times in 1945 when GI C rations were dropped to them by parachute, and
about the American sailors who gave them blankets in exchange for live
baby monkeys. And my wife and I well remember their excitement in 1962
when they first heard we wanted to live with them. We thought a fight
was going to break out between two of the band groups over who was
going to get the 'Amerikanos' to live with them. The matter was
decided by thelocal government agent in charge of Agta affairs at the
time. (I might add, therewas some disillusionment when they found out
we didn't give out free blankets and C rations.)
A few Agta men claimed to have killed Japanese at the end of the
war, but I could substantiate only one of these claims after so many
years. Budegdeg's claim that he killed a Japanese soldier is
supported by other Agta. Two other Casiguran Agta men, Gahang and
Bulitug (now deceased) both told me they killed one Japanese each in
Falanan, and my informants support that claim. There are 3 Palanan
Agta men (Kirispin, Tanyet, and Rumines, all now deceased) who were
245
said to have kiiled Japanese, also in Palanan. I never knew these
latter 3 men.
There is one clear reference in the Japanese war records to Agta
killing Japanese soldiers in the Sierra Madre. This occurred on or
shortly before September 11, 1945. The reference appears in a first
hand report describing the retreat of a company of Japanese troops
reorganized from remnants of the Cavite Naval Arsenal. This group
departed from Minuri (on the Dibuluan River in southern Isabela) on
August 8, fleeing east through the mountains until they came out on the
coast at Dinapigui, at the southeastern corner of Isabela Province (see
Map 1). At that time, the report states, "At the seashore there were
no houses nor any trace of human footprints. It had taken us over a
month [to hike through the Sierra Madre from Minuri], and four-fifths
of our number died [along the way]" (Nis’

nida 1984:157). Most of these
died from starvation, exhaustion and sickness. But some died at the
hands of Agta:
On the way we were attacked by Negritos and lost a few of the

soldiers. This was because some soldiers had stolen a
fishnet/trap which the Negritos had put in the river. This
was our first time to see any people other than ourselves.
These people looked very primitive. We saw one or two
traces of their living on our way along the River Q, the
places they made fires, leg tips of burned reptiles, or the
tools for making fires. So we were cautious of possible
attack. This is because those who were a little bit behind
the main troops were attacked. On the next day [after the
attack?], September 12, we departed from camp no. 20
(ibid:154).
A scale map in this report shows clearly the path of this retreat.
"River Q" runs northwest down the western side of the Sierra Madre, and
246
empties into the Pinacauan de Ilagan (thelocal name is Pinacanuan de
Ilagen) River at grid coordinates 16° 37' N by 122° 03' E.^ The
"attack" by Negritos occurred somewhere between there and "camp no.
20," (which was located at coordinates 16° 33' N by 122° 08' E).
It is interesting, but not particularly surprising, to find Agta
killing Japanese soldiers. A more important question to ask is, How
many Casiguran Agta were killed by Japanese during the war?
As we will see in Chapter 12, there was apparently a high Agta
population decline between Vanoverbergh's 1936 Agta census, and my
wife's and my census of 1977. Perhaps this was the result of a high
number of Agta being killed by Japanese. We know that hundreds of
desperate Japanese troops retreated into the Sierra Madre after their
terrible defeat at Balete Pass (also called Dalton Pass), at Santa Fe,
Nueva Vizcaya, in early June, 1945; and thousands more fled in the same
direction when American Paratroopers of the 11th Airborne Division
parachuted into Aparri on June 23:
By the end of the period [late June of '45] the remnants of

the Yuguchi Force were in full flight eastward into the
untracked wilderness of the Sierra Madre, separating the
Cagayan Valley from Luzon's coast. . . . The 37th [U.S.]
Division . . . now began mopping up and patrolling eastward
into the Sierra Madre, where perhaps as many as 10,000
Japanese, the bulk of them service personnel, hid out (Smith
1963:569, 571; italics in the original).
Many of these Japanese troops passed directly through Agta areas in
Casiguran, as they attempted to flee towards Palanan. Many of these
retreated first to the headwaters of the Cagayan Valley, where they
regrouped at Pinapagan (now the town of Madella, Quirino Province), 45
247
km straight west of Casiguran, with the rugged Sierra Madre in between.
In June and July groups of these sick and starving soldiers were fleeing
east again into Casiguran:
The ones who went to Casiguran were the ones /no had stationed
themselves in Pinapagan. From the end of June many different
troops of the Japanese 4th Air Division were at Pinapagan.
Then other groups of the Japanese 10th Infantry Division came
at the beginning of July. One platoon of Takahashi Company
of the 127th Battalion (of Major Shitami) was sent to
Casiguran to guard, but it seems that most of them died of
sickness and by the attacks of guerrillas. This 127th
Battalion arrived at Pinapagan on March 20 to gather rice.
About the beginning of April they sent one platoon to
Casiguran. Then, on June 20, 700 Americans landed at
Casiguran, and 300 guerrillas joined them. Only one orderly
made it back to Pinapagan (Soeda 1985).
Many Japanese perished, as well, in the mountains of Palanan in
1945. An American missionary who hiked into Palanan in 1947 mentions
"dozens of piles of Japanese bones we saw along the trail . . . [where]
hundreds died from starvation and sickness . . . there were dozens upon
dozens of piles of whitened bones along the trail" (Spottswood
1961:40).
There are records of one particular Japanese "scouting party"
hiding in the Casiguran hills from July 28 to August 17, a group of
about 30 men led by a First Lieutenant Mitsuo Matsuoka from the 52nd
Independent Squadron (Kimura 1976:59). The diary of one man in this
group states, in part,
After 8 days of difficult travel from Pinapagan we arrived at

the east coast [at Caoiguran]. On the sea shore we found
lots of big squid, and tried to shoot them, but we could not
get them. On the beach there was a settlement [possibly
Agta], but there were no people. . . . A little ways inland
248
we found a native's nipa house, and no one was there. So we

decided to stay overnight. But that night we were attacked by
guerrillas. Sergeant Uchida was shot to death and also others
were killed; and only a few were able to make it back [to
Pinapagan] on August 17 (Mr. Soma, cited in Kimura 1976:60).
A diary of another man in this same scouting party mentions their
attempt to get help from an Agta:
On the east coast, when we came to a settlement, there were

only women and children there, except for one small [Negrito]
man about 4 feet high. We asked him to guide the way so we
could go and get salt. But on our way he went into the
jungle, and we lost him (Mr. Kodama, cited in ibid.:61).
Other groups of sick and desperate Japanese were still wandering
between Casiguran and Palanan weeks after the war was over.^ Nishida
describes his experience, as he was hiking south towards Dilasag (which
is 12 km NE of Casiguran town) in late September:
We met an army officer, Mr. Oohara. They had been staying in

one of the settlements near Dilasag, about 10 soldiers. They
told us that they plan to go to Palanan, because the
guerrillas in Casiguran are more cruel than the ones in
Palanan (Nishida 1984:162). . . . So we also decided to go to
Palanan to surrender (ibid.:164). . . . A U.S. Navy LST boat
came to Palanan on October 4 [and took us aboard]. We were
about 1500. The boat went south along the coast. Near
Dilasag we noticed a fire, and some American soldiers went to
check, and brought back 3 Japanese soldiers. The next
morning we stopped at Casiguran and found another 10 Japanese
soldiers (ibid.:176-77).
From the following, which refers to a different campaign than the
above, and in the area immediately south of Casiguran, we get a glimpse
from the American side of how these Japanese stragglers were picked up
all along the east coast:
249
The 2nd [U.S.] Battalion, 161st Infantry Regiment, at Dingalan

Bay from 1 June to 30 June 1945 conducted an extensive
prisoner taking campaign. . . . numerous leaflets were
dropped all along the coast from Infanta to Baler Bay and
broadcasts made from an LCM plyingthe coast line. From
prisoners, locations of other groups of enemy were
determined, and patrols dispatched to capture or destroy the
enemy. A landing was also made at Baler Bay when it was
determined that many small groups of enemy were in that area.
In this operation a total of 252 prisoners were
taken. . . . No casualties were suffered by the 2nd
Battalion . . . in this operation (Operations 1945:78).
Renato Rosaldo has documented the devastating effect this Japanese
retreat had on the Ilongot tribespeople as these starving soldiers fled
through their area just before reaching Casiguran. Rosaldo estimates
that "a third of the Ilongot population died during that month of June"
(1980:36, 40, 113, 132-33), most killed directly by Japanese desperate
for food, and the rest from disease and starvation as they fled from
their homes and hid in the forest without food or shelter
(ibid.:120-34).
It is reasonable, then, to assume that a good number of Casiguran
Agta may have been killed by these same Japanese, who were by this time
wandering throughout the mountains from Casiguran to Palanan in extreme
dire straits— those who were still alive— from starvation, exposure,
and sickness, and terrified of the advancing Americans and the local
Filipino guerrillas, who shot them on sight. It was my hypothesis, in
the mid 1970s, thatthe difference between my census figures and those
of Vanoverbergh's was possibly the result of a high number of Agta
being killed during the War. In pursuit of an answer to this
hypothesis, I asked 127Agta adults in 1976, "Do you know the name of
250
any Agta who was killed by Japanese during the War?" I did not get a
single positive answer. Though several knew, however, of 2 Agta
teenage girls, sisters named Diteng and Dumilya, who were killed by
Filipino guerrillas. They were traveling at the time with the mayor of
Casiguran, Antonio Angara, and his wife, when all four were ambushed and
killed at Dinadyawan in 1945. No one had a relative killed by Japanese
during the War, nor could anyone remember any Agta having been killed.^
There were evidently very few lowlanders killed by Japanese, either,
during the War. I know of only 3 cases of such, after asking this
question to many lowlander friends. One was a man in Dinalongan named
Simion, married to an Agta woman named Oriyeng at the time; another was
an Ilokano man at Dilasag named Gurigul; and the third was a Visayan
visitor whom the Japanese executed after he was caught stealing in the
town of Casiguran.
I accept this as incontrovertible evidence that no Agta were killed
by Japanese during WWII.
LOGGING AND MINING OPERATIONS
The logging companies. Logging has been a major industry in the
Casiguran ecosystem for almost 60 years, until it was temporarily banned
by Presidential decree in November 1978. The first commercial logging
operations in Casiguran began in 1928, with the establishment of a large
sawmill at Dibakong, seven km west of the town. This was the Philippine
Lumber Exportation Co., managed by two Japanese who local people
remember as Mr. Tutu and Mr. Noe. Some photographs of this company's
logging operations in Casiguran Bay appear in a 1930 issue of National
251
Geographic (Goddard 1930). Also, in an extract from the minutes of the
Casiguran Municipal Council meeting dated December 29, 1928 (Casiguran
Municipal Council 1928), the company is mentioned by name, and that it
was building a sawmill. Local people say this company moved their camp
across the Bay to Pasarubuy (Area 4 in Map 2) about 1937. According
to other local Casiguran people, there was a logging company managed by
Spanish expatriates at Dialang (Area 1) from 1949-51, and a Chinese-run
logging company somewhere on the lower peninsula in the early 1950s.
Logging continued at a heavy pace throughout my tenure in
Casiguran, until the 1978 ban, and I have lived in Agta camps when they
came under intense disruption, in my view (but not necessarily the
Agta's), from encroaching loggers. The extent of the logging industry
in the 1970s is reflected in one report, which says,
Before all logging licenses were suspended [in November 1978],

close to10,000 persons were engaged in logging [in all of
Aurora, not just Casiguran], and more than 40 [logging] firms
operating over 1214 sq. km. of forest produced 638,000 cubic
meters of timber (Parumog 1982:4).
While I suspect the figure of 10,000 employees may be inflated, the fact
is that logging was heavy in the Casiguran area throughout most of my
tenure. According to one BFD report (Mina 1983:19), the amount of
timber cut in1978in the three municipal areas (excluding Dinapigui,

3
which is in Isabela) totaled 52,109 m . There were four logging
companies working the area at this time, until the ban in November
(Casiguran Bay Timber Corp., Industries Development Corp., RCC Timber
Co., and Pacific Timber Export Corp. [popularly known as PATECO]).
252
PATECO, based at Dilasag, has been allowed to continue their operation
in spite' of the ban, since their cutting is all done just north of the
Aurora border, in the Dinapigui river valley in Isabela. This is in the
northern corner of the "Casiguran ecosystem." According to the annual
reports of the Casiguran office of the Bureau of Forest Development (BFD
Reports n.d.; Mina 1983:19), the logs harvested "in whole" for this
area by PATECO were 2,826 m^ in 1980, 5,813 m^ in 1981, and 9,977 m^ in
1982.
During my years, the main logging campswere much more modernized
than the three towns in the area. In 1969 the camp at Lawang, 6 km
northwest of Casiguran, had 24 hour electricity, running water, flush
toilets, their own medical doctor, private airplane service and, of
course, their own vehicles. In some logging camps in the early 1970s
the managers' offices were air-conditioned, and guests were served
Magnolia ice cream flown in from Manila. The Acoje Mining camp at
Dinapigui flew in supplies weekly during the early 1960s in DC3
aircraft.
The Acoje Mining Corporation. A major change came to the economic
life of most of the Agta in northern Casiguran and southern Palanan in
1960, and especially to the Agta band group at Dinapigui. This was
the year the Acoje Mining Co. began work to open a magnesium open pit
mine at Dinapigui. (The name "Acoje" stands for the names of the five
families who founded the corporation: Aurora, Cuyogan, Osmena,
Jacinto, and Elizalde.) I estimate that during the first half of the
decade of the'60s between 200 and 300 Agta lived at Dinapigui for
253
periods of time, where the adults were employed as laborers for Acoje,
at 4 pesos a day (then equivalent to $1.00 U.S.), which was almost four
times the standard days's wages in Casiguran. I visited twice the Agta
settlement site during those years, and twice more in the late 1960s,
after most of the Agta had left the area, and twice in 1983- 84.
I cannot say much about this situation, since I never lived at
Dinapigui. The most obvious effect of this industry, which closed down
in the early 1970s, was that it brought in large numbers of Ilokano and
Igorot workers, many of whom remained as permanent homestead farmers,
and that it denuded much of the mine area of trees. The Dinapigui
rivershed was almost all primary forest when I saw it in the early
1960s; today it is almost all cleared of trees, with farms dotting the
whole area. In 1960 the Agta band group there had the valley for
themselves. They were reportedly driven from their land, and their
houses and crops destroyed when the mining company arrived, to make room
for the company buildings. (For details, see paragraph no. 19 in
Appendix G.) Today they are displaced (though I found two extended
family groups there in 1983-84, employed as hunters and guards for the
PATECO logging company).
Any final chance for the Agta to gain rights to this, their
traditional area, was probably lost in the summer of 1984, when the
governor of Isabela awarded 200 Igorot families 500 ha of agricultural
land in Dinapigui (Times Journal, June 5, 1984). This was a settlement
project done under the land distribution program of the government
254
Panamin agency (who forgot that the land really belongs to the Agta,
not to the Igorots).
Effect on the Agta ecosystem. What effect has this all had on the
Agta, and their environment? Although it is hard to answer this
question with empirical data, the effect was probably substantial. In
Rai's study of socio-ecological change among the Agta in San Mariano,
Isabela (a separate Agta sociolinguistic group 70 km NNW of Casiguran),
he concluded that "the logging industry is undoubtedly the most
important of the many catalysts of change in the [San Mariano] Agta
life" (1981:48; see also Rai 1982). While I am not sure if logging has
precipitated as much change in Casiguran as has the effects of the
national population explosion, it does play a major role in the undoing
of the traditional Agta way of life. Loggers, and to a lesser extent
miners, have affected the Agta culture not only through their removal of
most of the high forest canopy in all of the Agta areas, but in many
other ways. Some of these are the hiring ofAgta as guides, laborers,
and equipment guards, the using of stream beds as their main roads (thus
cutting off the Agta aquatic resource base, since the streams became
flows of mud), depletion of fish through the loggers' practice of
fishing with dynamite, pesticides and electricity, and the opening of
Agta areas to lowland swidden farmers.
Estioko-Griffin describes her impression of the dramatic
environmental change of an Agta area in a remote area of Eastern Cagayan
after the loggers arrived in 1983. This was after she and her husband
had lived for almost two years with these Agta in 1980-82. She says,
255
We again visited the Nanadukan [Agta] people in . . . 1984.

The building of roads, cutting of trees, and other
construction resulted in new erosional surfaces and siltation
of the river and streams due to water run-off. Nanadukan
river became unfishable. In addition to murky waters, the
loggers killed almost all fish and shell fish by battery
operated electrocution devices (1984:221).
This was not the only effect of the coming of the loggers. She
describes on the previous page the introduction of liquor to these Agta,
the crisis in October 1983 when the leader and senior male of this Agta
group was killed, while drunk, when he was run over by a logging truck,
and that the Agta have now all left the area because of the loggers
(ibid.:220-21).
It is interesting to note that most Agta do not themselves see the
logging companies as something 'bad.' Most in fact, focusing on short
term gains, see the loggers in a favorable light. Agta developed
favorable relationships with new trading partners in the logging camps
who were more affluent and thus gave a better exchange on, especially,
wild meat; they eagerly sought and were always granted free
transportation on passing trucks; they were supplied unlimited rations
of diesel fuel, etc. I have to say that, though I deplored the
ecological consequences of the loggers when they came through, I never
saw loggers directly abuse Agta. I know of no cases, for example, of
loggers coming around at night to molest Agta women (though the presence
of my family may have had an inhibiting effect on this kind of
behavior). On the other hand, I do remember how when they drove home
down our muddy river late at night with their truck bed covered with
fish (from dynamite fishing at the sea), they would stop, honk their
256
horn, and give a large fish to every Agta household (and to us).
Indeed, I found the loggers to be, for the most part, gentlemen, and I
g
became close friends with some of them.
The fact of the matter is that, for better or worse (and we cannot
ignore the Agta's opinion on this), the logging industry has affected
tremendously the Agta way of life. Their timber harvesting has
irreversibly upset the delicate ecological equilibrium of the Casiguran
forests, they have precipitated heavy immigration of outsiders, their
heavy machinery has driven away the wild game from Agta hunting grounds,
and they have disrupted traditional trading relationships. In short,
the logging industry is bringing ultimately to Casiguran, and to the
whole nation, irreversible changes which will lead to denudation, soil
erosion, flooding, and climatic changes. The multinational logging
companies today serve as leading forces in bringing catastrophic
alterations to both sides of the Sierra Madre. This can only result in
making all Agta populations displaced and homeless persons in their own
territory by the end of this century.
GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN CHARGE OF THE AGTA
Agta have been under the direct control of various national
agencies, more or less, since the arrival of Capt. Turnbull in 1911.
Many Agta individuals and families, and on rarer occasions whole bands,
can and do resist these authorities (usually by hiding in the Sierra
Madre, or by emigrating to Palanan, or to Madella, in Quirino Province).
Still, 1911 marks the major watershed in Casiguran Agta culture change.
257
Since that date most Agta, most of the time, have lived under the
constraints of Philippine national law.
Institutions which have exerted control over Agta behavior
throughout most of this century, and thus are major agents of Agta
acculturation, have been the Philippine Constabulary, local town
mayors, and local police forces. Agents of these institutions arrest
and punish Agta for alleged crimes and misbehavior, tell Agta where to
live, and make them serve as guides, hunters, errand runners, etc.
Most of the time this irregular rule over the Agta is kept to a
tolerable level. Agta are quite good themselves at avoiding or
escaping from any authority which goes too far. There have been cases
of abuse. (I know of three times when Agta women and children were
rounded up and kept in the local jail as hostages until wanted Agta
murderers were apprehended, in 1957, '65, and '66.) I also know of
many instances where authorities were of genuine assistance to Agta in
need.
Besides these above-mentioned institutions, there have been three
government agencies in this century whose assignments in Casiguran were
specifically to work with Agta. These were the Bureau of Non-Christian
Tribes, the Commission on National Integration (CNl), and the now
defunct Panamin agency. All three of these had, at various periods in
this century, full time agents in charge of handling problems among the
Casiguran Agta.
Most of these agents are stereotyped by Agta and lowlanders as
"corrupt." I was personally on hand to observe the activity of only two
258
of the various agents who came and went over the years prior to my
tenure. The first, a Mr. Tomas Casala of Casiguran, served as an agent
for the CNI from January 1960 to January 1964. Casala certainly was not
corrupt in any way. He was well liked by the Agta, and he is still one
of the most highly respected men in Casiguran. Casala worked
continuously for four years, under the constraint of a pitiful financial
budget, trying to help the Agta with their problems. These were mainly
problems of health, land, hunger (after a series of typhoons), and
conflicts with lowlanders. Casala also investigated mysterious cases of
deaths, alleged crimes, constant complaints either by or against Agta,
and the securing of agricultural equipment, including six carabaos, for
Agta wanting to farm. Much of Casala's time was spent in trying to help
Agta gain legal titles to their ancestral lands, and he apparently spent
even more time in trying to help Agta who were continually having their
land taken from them by lowlanders. (The extent of this is well
illustrated in Appendix 6.) He also attempted to organize the Agta
politically, by appointing from among men in each band area a
"presidente," vice-president, and "konsiyal." Casala also worked
vigorously trying to "teach" the Agta to cultivate land. The time,
effort, and frustration Casala put in on this alone is reflected in his
daily journal. I have quoted in Appendix H sections of that journal
where he refers to his efforts to teach agriculture to the Agta. (For
details on the kind of acculturative influence this CNI agent hadon the
Agta in the early '60, see Appendices G and H.)
259
After the CNI went defunct in Casiguran in 1964, the Agta had no
"agent" over them until 1976, when Panamin entered the scene. I have
already described earlier in this chapter Panamin's role in supervising
the Agta after they were put on the reinstituted Calabgan reservation in
1976. In contrast to Casala, the Panamin agent quickly developed a
notorious reputation. This is not the place to discuss the many
fiascos of this agent's programs, and her alleged crimes against the
Agta. We have already seen how the Agta, now quite skilled themselves
at overcoming exploitation, left the reservation when circumstances
became intolerable. The Panamin office was dissolved in 1983, and this
9
agent no longer lives in Casiguran.
FIREARMS, HUNTING PRESSURE, AND GAME DECLINE
Agta are primarily hunters. They are seen as such by outsiders,
and they themselves claim, and take pride in, this as their chief
characteristic. While hunting was their most salient activity in the
early 1960s, it was not their most frequent activity. They, and perhaps
most Agta bands in the '60s, gave slightly more of their time to fishing
than to any other single economic activity. And in certain seasons of
the year some Agta families, then and now, assist their lowland trading
partners at agricultural labor for weeks at a time. Nowadays in
Casiguran, of course, the Agta spend little time in hunting (only 6
percent of the adult male person-work-days were spent in hunting in
1983-84). While I do not have records of just how much time Agta spent
hunting in the early 1960s, I do remember that it was much more than
now. In the two different camps where we resided in the early '60s,
260
someone was out hunting almost every day, and we usually had more wild
meat than we could eat in our house. The Griffins found that, among a
band of Eastern Cagayan Agta in 1980-81, men went hunting on 43 percent
of their person-work-days (for at least part of the day) (Griffin et al.
n.d., Table 12; see also Griffin 1981:38, and Estioko-Griffin 1984:169).
In Rai's study of a remote San Mariano Agta band group in 1980, he found
that men spent 74.6 percent of their work time in hunting (1982:88, 158,
232). This gives us some clue as to the amount of time Casiguran men
may have spent in hunting in the past. The Agta in the two camps where
we resided in the early '60s, however, did not spend that much time in
hunting. The percentage of days the men went hunting then was somewhere
between an estimated 20 and 30 percent.
Though it is not hard to guess the reason for the decline in
hunting activity, I will review the question here, since it is
important for understanding the present socioeconomic change among the
Casiguran Agta. Agta hunting activity has declined because the game
populations have dwindled to the point where Agta can no longer make a
living by hunting. Wild pig and deer were once extremely abundant in
the Philippines. This is evident both from documentary references and,
for Casiguran, from statements by my older informants.
Looking first at some Spanish references translated in the Blair
and Robertson volumes (1903-09), one source, dated 1586, states, "There
is in the land great store of swine, goats and fowl, and excellent
hunting of buffalo and deer, which are so common that two thousand
large casks . . . of meat can be brought down in a few days" (B&R
261
6:205). Another source dated 1618 states that game was so abundant in
Pangasinan that "within a space of only twenty leagues over 60
thousand, and sometimes as many as 80 thousand, deer are killed every
year," the skins of which were traded to Japan (B&R 18:98-99). Other
references to abundance of wild game may be found in B&R (21:197), Reed
(1904:44-45), Wm. Jones (1907-09:146-47), Rosaldo (1980:283) and, for
Casiguran, Goddard (1930). As to the abundance of wild pig in another
area of SE Asia, one study estimates that in Peninsular Malaysia more
than 132,000 wild pigs, representing 6.5 million kg of pork, were
killed in 1971 (Yong 1979:68, cited in Rambo 1980:1-21).
Older people in Casiguran, Agta and non-Agta alike, are unanimous
in their opinion that game was very abundant in the area in the past.
In 1976 I interviewed a Mrs. Calangitnan Salsedo, then age 77. She
claimed she was the first lowlander to settle at Calabgan, arriving
there with her husband on August 3, 1919, as new teachers at the Agta
boarding school at the Reservation. She described how, whenever they
wanted fresh meat, they would just call over to their nearby Agta
neighbors and, according to her, it took them about 20 to 30 minutes to
deliver a pig or deer to her door. On August 8, 1983 I interviewed a
Mrs. Susie Angara, then age 69. She said she moved with her parents to
Calabgan in 1917, when her father, a Mr. Urbano Obaldo, was assigned to
help "tame" the Agta there. She said that there were so many wild pig
and deer there then that they would buy a quarter of an animal, and
sometimes a whole animal for one leaf of tobacco.
262
Older Agta also tell in glowing terms of the abundance of meat in
the past. One day the oldest Agta in the population was reminiscing to
some of us about the past. This was Pidela, a woman aged about 71 then
(September 9, 1983). She said, "When I was a child we got all the pigs
we wanted. My father would leave our house at 7 o'clock in the morning,
and return after just one hour with three pigs." I was also personally
impressed at game abundance when I visited very remote Agta camps north
of what is now Maconacon, Isabela, in 1965, and observed racks covered

#
with drying meat in every Agta camp, and listened nightly to the cries
of deer on the mountainsides.
In Chapter 4, where I described grasslands, I mentioned how two
Agta band groups used two steep grassland meadows on the San Ildefonso
Peninsula for game drives. I participated three times in these drives,
before they were discontinued in the late 1960s. The first time was on
December 30, 1962, when they got two deer and one pig; the second time
on June 7, 1964, when they got two pig and one deer, and the third time
in 1965, when no game was secured (although I was with an Agta who shot
at and missed a pig which ran almost right into us).
The method was for the men to lie in wait in ambush, scattered
along a line at the top of the ridge (almost a cliff) and just inside
the forest. The women would string themselves out in a line along the
beach at the bottom of the meadow, and then set the grass ablaze. As
the fire swept up the slope it drove the game before it and, ideally,
into the line of waiting men at the top. Lowlander men were with the
Agta on all three of these overnight trips and, I was told, always went
263
along on these important game drives. They did not, however, on the
three trips I witnessed, participate with the men in the ambush. They
remained in the camp or, perhaps, went with the Agta women to set the
grass on fire. One lowlander, a close friend, told me that on the
game drives he went on in the 1950s the Agta would secure up to 20 head
of game in a single drive. The point here is that this type of hunting
has not been practiced for at least 16 years.^ When I asked why, the
answer was, "There are no pigs there now."
Unfortunately for the Agta, game, like rattan, has grossly
diminished in the Casiguran ecosystem today. There are several reasons
for this. The first and most obvious is the population explosion.
Not only do the thousands of new immigrants in the area continually
pressure the Agta to hunt for them, but they have introduced new types
of efficient hunting tools (including helicopters, for a time in 1975).
At the same time these immigrants have cut back, and continue to cut
back, the forest, the natural home of wild game. It all leads to
overhunting and degradation of an ecosystem in which the wild game
evolved.
Some Agta were hunting with borrowed homemade shotguns when we
first came to Casiguran in 1962, and the availability of guns gradually
increased right up to September 1972, when all firearms were confiscated
by the authorities when Martial Law was declared that month. The Agta
did not own these shotguns. Rather, they were made and owned by
lowlanders, who loaned them to Agta under a standard arrangement where
the lowlander was given half of the meat of all game shot. (In actual
264
practice, I found by observing these arrangements, and by weighing
dressed meat, that the gun owners seldom receive a full half of the
butchered game, but between 30 and 40 percent.)
By the mid '70s Agta were again back to hunting with firearms, this
time with high powered rifles borrowed from soldiers or policemen. In
1983-84, only 17 percent of the hunting was done with bow and arrow,
while 83 percent was with carbines, M-16 armalites or M-l Garand rifles
(see column 1 of Table 10.5).
There are two other items which are contributing to the depletion
of game in Casiguran. One is the introduction and now widespread use
of homemade "pig bombs," constructed from match heads. I am unaware of
any Agta using this method. Some Agta have, however, adopted another
method of catching pig and deer, introduced in the mid '70s. This is
the setting of rope snares, using commercial nylon rope. This
innovation is not widespread among Agta (it is more widely practiced
among immigrant swidden farmers). Agta spent only 0.36 percent of their
work days in rope-snare activity in 1983-84.^
The population death rate for pig and deer must be very high in the
Casiguran area today. In fact, the hunting data show that deer are
almost extinct in Casiguran today. In my 1983-84 sample of 176 hunts
for which I know the outcome, 37 of those hunts were successful.
Twenty-eight of those 37 hunts got a pig, 8 got monkey, and only 1 got a
deer (see Table 10.5).
We see, then, that the introduction of several new ecological
forces into the Casiguran ecosystem— firearms, helicopters, pig bombs,
265
nylon rope, timber cutting, thousands of new immigrants wanting meat
protein— have all worked together to bring wild game close to
extinction, and to undermine the most important economic activity, of the
Agta. It is this accumulation of new forces, compounded with the many
other catalysts of change outlined in this and the next chapter, which
is fast bringing the Agta people to a state of deculturation— the end
of a way of life which, if it was not pleasant, was at least highly
adaptive for many hundreds of years.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ALCOHOL
I am unsure just when the drinking of alcoholic beverages became a
element of major value in the Agta economic system. But it has been an
item of extreme importance throughout my tenure. Agta do not make such
beverages themselves. Traditionally, they acquire nipa or coconut wine,
or liquor, from their farming neighbors or, increasingly since the '70s,
they buy commercial imported liquor in the towns. I found no mention of
Agta drinking in the Spanish records, but by the time of Turnbull's
arrival in 1911 the consumption of locally brewed wine was obviously
prevalent among the Agta, since Turnbull mentions drunkenness as a
problem several times in his articles. Vanoverbergh also mentions it as
a serious problem in 1936 (1937-38:924). Anthropologist Robert Fox also
told me how surprised he was at the prevalence of drunkenness of the
Agta when he visited them in 1956 (personal communication in 1968).
Also, another anthropologist, Nicolaisen, saw it as a problem during his
short visit to Casiguran in 1973, saying, "It is the cause of a serious
decline of the Negrito population" (1974-75:407). An American
266
historian who hiked with some Agta from Casiguran to Palanan in 1982
refers to his problems with Agta drunkenness (Bain 1982:257, 267-70),
and I have also discussed it elsewhere as a problem (Headland 1975b:249-
50).
There is no question that the Agta value on getting drunk has
created a serious situation in this population. While it is
undoubtedly one of their chief enjoyments, there are just no adequate
mechanisms in the Agta culture to control its use. In 1983-84, my data
show, Agta adults were found drunk before noon 4.4 percent of the time.
(For men the figure was 5.3 percent, and for women, 3.4 percent.) By
nightfall the figures would be much higher (though I do not have data
on that). As we shall see in Chapter 12, 6 percent of the Agta adult
deaths are attributed to sickness from overdrinking and, as we shall
see also in that chapter, it is a key causal factor in the high
homicide rate we find in this population.
THE USE OF AGTA GIRLS AS HOUSEMAIDS
Casiguran lowlanders, like Filipinos everywhere, typically have
maids in their homes. Even many peasant farming families, and most
homes in the town centers, have maids. These are often relatives, and
are usually teenage girls. Agta teenage girls, then, and sometimes
boys, are frequently found living in the homes of lowlanders as domestic
servants. Sometimes they work in a home of one of their parents'
lowland trading partners in town, or a local barrio. Most often,
however, these girls are taken to Manila to work in the homes of
Casiguranin people who have migrated to the Capital. In fact, 39
percent of the adult females (interviewed in 1976) said they lived for a
time in Manila when they were teenagers, usually as housemaids (25/64).
And our 1984 jle jure census shows that in June of that year fully 31
percent of the Agta females aged 13 to 24 were then living outside of
Agta communities in the homes of lowlanders (26/84). Contrast that with
males in the same age cohort, where 9 percent were living with
lowlanders (7/75). Table 8.1 lists all Agta livingwithlowlanders away
from Agta communities in June 1984 (not just those aged 13-24), a total
of 11 males and 32 females. As the Table shows, 70 percent of these
were living completely outside theCasiguran area, most of them in
Manila, while the rest lived in one of the towns or lowland barrios in
Casiguran.
My wife and I have wondered how these girlsfare in such servant
situations. Is it a form of slavery? Are they abused? Do they ever
come home pregnant? Do they find their Manila experience satisfactory?
Do they ever end up in prostitution? Certainly the potential for abuse
is there. Taking a tribal girl straight from the forest to the big city
of Manila must be quite an experience for her. Anthropologists have
reported on how similar situations in other countries have resulted in
cruel exploitation (white slavery in Chiengmai Province, Thailand
[Thitsa 1983], and the exploitative misuse of Amuesha Indian girls as
maids in Peru [Smith 1983]).
My impression is that in the majority of Agta c^ses, the girls are
well treated, and that they eventually return home feeling satisfied
with their experiences. To my knowledge, none have been taken away
268
against their will, though some may regret theiraction later. There
have been a few bad experiences. We know one girl who came home
pregnant, and another who had an illegitimate child while working as a
maid in Mindanao, then came home without the child (who the father
insisted upon keeping, according to the girl's relatives). We also know
of two other girls who have not been heard of for many years, and whom I
suspect may never return, and yet another middle age Agta woman who was
taken away many years ago as a five yearold child. (My wife was able
to locate this woman, a maid in Manila, in 1978. She does not remember
how to speak Agta, and she did not wish to return with us to Casiguran.)
We also found two pre-teenage Palanan Agta girls in Solano, Nueva
Vizcaya, in April 1975, whom we returned to their relatives in Palanan.
These two children, though well treated by the Ilokano family with whom
they were living, had been kept against their will— they claimed— for
two years in Solano.
The human drama of these cases is interesting enough. The question
is, what ecological effect, if any, does this have on the Agta
population? Probably a fair bit. I have known for some time that the
mean age at first marriage for Casiguran Agta females' is later than
would normally be expected for a hunter-gatherer society, 18.4 years.
Women in such societies usually marry earlier than this: age 16.9 years
among the !Kung (Howell 1979:174-77), and between ages 11 and 14 among
Australian Aborigines (Birdsell 1975:378). And data gathered by the
Griffins for the Ea.*tern Cagayan Agta, who are less acculturated than
the Casiguran Agta, show that females there marry no later than age 17
269
(Estioko-Griffin and Griffin 1981b:138; Goodman et al. 1985). It is my
hypothesis that the reason we find a later mean age at marriage among
the Casiguran females is because those that leave the area, most for
more than 2 years, thus postpone the time of their first marriage to the
extent where they skew the average figure upward by at least one year.
Theoretically, this could be maladaptive in a population which is
declining, as this one is. But the population decline of the Agta is
not the result of a low birth rate, as we shall see in Chapter 12, but
a high death rate. Enough Agta babies are being born, it is just that
half of them die before puberty (Table 12.1). The problem is not so
much the girls that leave, since most of them return after a year or
two and marry Agta men, but with the girls that never return at all, or
who do not return for several years. There are quite a number in this
category. One reason the population is declining is because some of
their otherwise reproducing members, young unmarried females, emigrate
for long periods of time. I will pick this up again when I discuss the
population decline in Chapter 12.
THE OUT-MARRIAGES OF AGTA WOMEN
Another factor closely related to this is the increasing number of
Agta women who are marrying out; that is, who lowlander immigrants take
as wives. Our 1977 census shows 21 Casiguran Agta married to lowlanders
then (3 men and 18 women). Our 1984 census shows there were 28 Agta
married to lowlanders that year (2 men and 26 women). The number of
women married to lowlanders increased 44 percent in that 7 year period.
Today, 1984, we find 18 percent of the presently married Agta women are
270
12
married to lowlanders (26/141), and this trend is increasing fast.
This has even more serious demographic implications than the temporary
removal of Agta women as domestic maids, since many of these Agta women
who marry out are permanently eliminated from their role of helping to
reproduce the next generation of Agta. This trend is highly maladaptive
for a population already declining, as is this one.
The most obvious and harmful result of all this, in terms of
population survival, is that productive female members of the population
are being removed from fulfilling their needed role in keeping this
group from declining. A more immediate frustration for some individuals
is that some young unmarried men cannot find potentially eligible
wives. In most hunter-gatherer societies, men tend to marry by the time
they reach age 20. Looking at a 5 year cohort group of males in their
mid twenties in this group, we find that 20 percent of those age 23-27
were unmarried in June 1984 (6/30, all healthy normal men). Beyond
this, there were 10 olderunmarried men in the population between the
ages of 30-59 (excluding 4 handicapped men). I asked some of these men,
or their relatives, about this. For example, I asked the uncle of one
never- married man namedNalowadinang, then age 26, why his nephew was
not married. The uncle answered, "Because he can't find a girl to
court who is a non-relative; they are all his cousins." (Or they are
all in Manila, he could have added.) Incidentally, this man did marry
a girl, Inggel, in early 1984, within a few weeks after she returned
from a two year period in Manila. When I last saw them, in August '84,
she was already pregnant.
271
In this chapter we have reviewed a series of new and powerful
influences which entered the Agta ecosystem after the turn of this
century. Working together, these forces have and are precipitating
major ecological and cultural change in the area today. Wehave seen
how an American Army Captain began these series of changes in 1911, with
his program to "tame" the Agta; and I have shown how the Philippine
population explosion worked to bring the Agta from a time just 80 years
2
ago when their population density was 1.5 per km to a state today
where they are becoming landless serfs in a crowded valley with a

2
population density of 51 per km . We have looked at the potential
effects of WWII on the Agta population, and saw that it did not play a
role in the decline of the Agta population. We saw the ecological
changes caused by multinationalcorporations, how government agencies
have attempted to change the Agta, the role of firearms on game
populations, the effect of alcohol, and how the use of Agta house maids
may affect the population's birth rate by delaying reproductive females
from marriage and motherhood.
In the next chapter we will look at more recently introduced
forces, some of which are having an even more powerful acculturative
effect on the Agta. Then, in the following chapters we will see how the
Agta are attempting to adapt to these forced changes, with mixed degrees
of success.
1. Unfortunately, there is little information available on

Turnbull. I have searched libraries and archival sources for years
looking for the monthly reports he surely wrote as a P.C. officer. But,
like most prewar records, his were lost or destroyed during the War. A
brief one page biography was compiled on Turnbull by the editor of the
Bulletin American Historical Collection (see Turnbull 1974:33). This
editor is not quite right when he says "he was never married."
Turnbull was married for a time to an Agta woman named Lipong. After he
moved to Baler, Lipong married an Agta man named Magnu. She never bore
a child by either man. Other brief references appear on Turnbull in OCR
(1916:39), Elarth (1949:181), Hartendorp (1967:296-304), and Stevens
(1946:496). His early work among the Agta is mentioned and commended by
Worcester (1913c:13). Turnbull's published articles are cited in
Saito's (1972) bibliography.
2. The Ilongots were not at Calabgan, but on a reservation near

Baler. The second village Worcester refers to was either the Agta
Turnbull got to settle at the mouth of the Dinalongan River in 1911, or
the Ilongot village near Baler.
3. Another large area of land in Casiguran was set aside for the
Agta as well, at Kasapsapan Bay (Area 7 on Map 2). This area,
comprising 62.69 ha, was formally reserved for the exclusive use of the
non-Christian Agta by Presidential Proclamation No. 467, signed by
President Manuel L. Quezon on October 9, 1939 (Quezon 1939:748-49). No
Agta live on that reservation today.
4. In a few places, lowlanders were beginning to homestead in

areas distant from town by the mid 1920s. The Vargas family founded
Barrio Simbaan in the mid '20s, the Salcedo's at Calabgan in 1921, and
the Dugu and Veriones brothers, Ilokano migrants from Panggasinan,
settled at Bilasag in 1926. A government school was said to have been
opened at Dinalongan in 1926, so there must have been some lowlanders
settlers there then.
5. There are Agta living in this area today, still one of the most
isolated and remote areas in the Philippines. In fact, my doctoral
advisor, Bion Griffin, and Thomas Nickell (an SIL colleague of mine),
visited an Agta camp on this exact spot, the mouth of "River Q," on May
14, 1981. (The Agta name for this river is Dinalawan.) Casiguran Agta
from "band" area 8 often reside on another tributaryof the Ilagan
River, just 24 km in a straight line directly south of this spot (at
coordinates 16° 24' N by 122° 02' E). I visited and mapped two
recently abandoned Agta camps in this area, each with a swidden, on July
272
273
8, 1983. Neither loggers nor lowland fanners live anywhere near these
areas.
6. MacArthurdeclared the formal end offighting in the

Philippines on July 5, 1945. The surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay was
on September 2, and the commanding general of Japanese forces in the
Philippines, Yamashita, surrendered a day later, September 3. About 30
Japanese continued to live in various homes in Casiguran until March
1946, when they were finally taken away by American forces.
7. I never pursued this question concerning the Palanan Agta

population, but I know of one Palanan Agta, a man named Salayan who, it
is claimed in Palanan, was killed and eaten by Japanese in 1945. His
own son, Mansay Dunato, stated to me in a routine interview in 1979 that
this was the cause of his father's death. (Usually the first stereotype
statements you will hear in Casiguran about the Japanese was that they
ate hermit crabs [which is despicable to the Agta], and their own dead.)
8. My life was directly threatened once, however, by a group of

loggers who successfully called my bluff when I tried tostop them from
bulldozing through an Agta camp. That was in September 1966. The Agta
pushed me forward as their spokesman, then backed off from supporting me
when the confrontation got tough and the Ilokano loggers pulled out
weapons.
9. When rumors were circulated in 1983 that this agent was to be

reinstated in an authority position over the Agta, the Agta went as a
body to the local commander of the P.C. and, with his assistance, wrote
a petition requesting that this woman not be put over them again. The
petition, dated April 2, 1983, was signed by 21 Agta family heads.
Witnesses signatures were those of the P.C. commander Major Panfilo E.
Ovejas and P.C. Corporal Hernando C. Castillo. I was not present for
this meeting, but have a copy of the petition in my possession.
10. There is one reported exception to this. A group of Agta

visiting from another area burned this meadow in a game drive in 1980,
but did not secure any game (Anne Rueffer, personal correspondence).
11. Two or three Agta men are said to be living now primarily by
setting rope snares for pig and deer, in Area 10. Mariyaning claimed to
have 270 snares set in December '83, and that it takes him a week to
check his "trapline." (This is probably a gross exaggeration.) He has
a non-Agta partner who furnished the nylon rope, and who is given half
the meat. He does not accompany Mariyaning in the work.
12. This contrasts with data on the less acculturated Palanan Agta
women, where I found that only 3 Agta, all women, were married to
lowlanders, out of a sample of 97 adult Agta censused in April '79. Of
the 39 women then married in that sample, 8 percent were married to
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lowlanders, slightly less than half the 18 percent figure for Casiguran
Agta women in 1984.
CHAPTER IX
CURRENT EVENTS: NEW ECOLOGICAL INFLUENCES SINCE 1970
In Chapters 1 and 3 I made the point that in cultural ecology we
define ecological components as not just those in nature, as assumed in
biological ecology— weather, organisms, population dynamics, trophic
levels, etc.— but that we go beyond these to consider as well other
environmental forces pertaining especially to humans. I refer here to
such forces as historical and political events, international economic
systems, incoming roads, radios, religion, foreign missionaries,
transnational corporations, and even such apparently inconsequential
innovations as matches, baby bottles, flashlight batteries, or the
building of a hospital. In human-occupied ecosystems, these
"ecological" components may play roles just as crucial as do those
assumed in natural bioecological studies. They, like nature's forces,
may influence both the directions and rates of energy flow, and other
processes in human ecosystems. This is especially so as such
ecosystems come more and more under the control of the humans living in
them who have learned, perhaps to their own eventual detriment, to
harness those sources of energy for their own use. This is a historical
movement on our planet which John Bennett (1976) calls the "ecological
transition." The Casiguran valley is an excellent example of what
Bennett is talking about, warning us of the eventual consequences for
our whole planet.
In the last chapter we reviewed some of these new influences in the
first 60-70 years of this century— the Philippine population explosion,
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logging companies, government agents, WWII, etc.— and how they serve as
major forces of Agta culture change. This chapter will look at the more
current events, influences which have entered the Casiguran ecosystem
within the last couple of decades, and which serve today as catalysts of
Agta deculturation. We will look here at the effect of foreign
missionaries, the Martial Law era, the guerrillawar of 1974-76, the new
road in 1977, the drop in the world market price of copra in 1980, the
sudden popularity of rattan furniture in Japan in the 1970s, the Aquino
assassination, the tiny transistor, etc. This chapter will show how all
these, working together, have affected energy flow into the Agta
population and, thus, Agta adaptation. In subsequent chapters we will
see how the Agta are attempting to adjust to these many forces by
modifying their economic behavior. Let us begin this chapter by looking
at three particular influences which are affecting Agta epidemiology.
INTRODUCED DISEASES, WESTERN MEDICINES, AND THE HOSPITAL
There have been at least three ecological elements introduced into
the Casiguran ecosystem in this century which have had important
epidemiological effects on the Agta population. The most obvious is the
widespread prevalence of tuberculosis. This is a highly contagious
disease (two of our own three children had it), which I presume was not
present until recently among the Agta, at least to the extent to which
we find it today. As we will see in Chapter 12, tuberculosis is today a
major killer in this population, with 12 percent of the adult deaths
being attributed to this disease.
Ill
Leprosy is also prevalent among the Casiguran Agta. There were 82
adult (age 15+) deaths in the 7 year period between our two censuses.
Four of these, 5 percent, were from leprosy. Probably this disease,
like tuberculosis, was introduced in this century.
There was one flu epidemic among the Agta, that I remember, in
January 1976, when four infants died on the Calabgan Reservation.
The Philippines suffered smallpox epidemics at various periods
during the Spanish era. Because I was searching in 1977 for possible
causes for the Agta population decline since Vanoverbergh's 1936
census, I asked nine older Agta, using a formal interview schedule, if
they could remember any peste ('epidemic') ever occurring among them in
the past. Six of the respondents gave negative answers (though they
did mention a year before WWII when many wild pigs died of a strange
disease). Two of the men, however, gave positive answers. Doyeg, born
in 1919, told me on May 12, 1977 that his parents told him about a
bulutung ('smallpox') epidemic which occurred before he was born. A
month later, on June 16, old Pekto, who was born about 1902, told me
there was a smallpox epidemic long ago before he was bom.
The Spanish records refer to smallpox epidemics in Casiguran in the
17th and 18th centuries. A document cited in Blair and Robertson refers
to three vessels which entered Casiguran in June 1622, "And all the
vessels suffered from a plague that'was like to finish them. All the
Franciscans died. . . . The rest recovered" (B&R 24:121). Another
document refers to three or four epidemics in the Baler-Casiguran-
Palanan areas in the the early 1700s, which "occasioned the death of an
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excessive portion of the old Christians" (B&R 41:98). Perez (1927:316)
also cites a reference mentioning a smallpox plague in the
Casiguran-Baler area in 1721. Finally, Turnbull mentions that he tried
to get the Agta to submit to vaccinations in 1912, "There being a few
sporadic cases of mild smallpox in the mountains" (1930:32).
It is quite possible that smallpox affected Agta demography in any
or all of these centuries. According to Dominican mission records two
smallpox epidemics swept through the Ilongot area, just west of
Casiguran, in 1883 and 1889, which "decimated" this tribe (documents
cited in R. Rosaldo 1980:240-41). Perhaps the disease spilled over into
Agta camps then. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure. If such
an epidemic ever occurred there is no remembrance of it in Agta oral
history, except for the vague recollections of the two old men mentioned
above.
I found one reference to a cholera epidemic in Casiguran in 1846,
in an unpublished letter by a Narcisio Claveria, written from Manila:
"The cholera in Baler and Casiguran continues. The Rev Father Cura Fr.
Antionio Soper, the Governor, and some leading people have died in the
last month" (AFIO MS 299/16-3). This disease may not have affected the
stability of the 19th century Agta population, however, because of their
widely dispersed residence pattern.
There have been minor cholera 'epidemics in Casiguran during my
tenure, with Agta attributing a few of the deaths of their family
members to this disease. Cholera alone is probably not prevalent enough
to aggravate the present Agta population decline. In combination with
279
the other introduced diseases, however, it is a serious factor
inhibiting Agta population stability. For example, the most serious
epidemic to hit Casiguran during my tenure, occurred immediately after
the annual June 12 town fiesta in 1985. No less than 8 Agta died from
what the Agta call eltor 'cholera' in the month following that fiesta,
as well as about 30 lowlanders, according to reports. My wife happened
to be in Casiguran at the time, and recorded the 8 Agta deaths in our
census. Four of these Agta were in-migrant visitors, and 4 were
members of the de jure population. Tragically, 3 of the 8 were Agta
mothers with nursing infants. Not only were 3 young women (ages 26, 31,
and 35) eliminated from this small population before they could produce
their full complement of offspring for the next generation, but their 3
infants may now also die, since they were all still nursing.'*'
Mention should be made of a report by W. Peterson of a cholera
epidemic among the Palanan Agta in 1975, in which, heclaims, the
percent of Palanan Agta who died were between 30 and 50 percent, "and
not lower than 30 percent" (1981:52, see also page 59). In a recent
paper his wife makes the same claim, "25-35 per cent" (J. Peterson
1985:137-38). This information is simply incorrect. There are about
800 Agta in the Palanan valley. Thirty percent would mean 240 Agta died
of cholera in 1975! J. Peterson quotes Bion Griffin, who was in this
Agta area through 1974 and 1975, as informing her (in personal
communication) that "about 11-13 Agta died" at this "resettlement camp"
(ibid.:144, n.9). (I also lived at this camp for 12 days in May 1975.
The "epidemic," if there was one, occurred after I returned to
Casiguran.
The growing popularity of Western medicines. Most Agta were only
vaguely acquainted at best with modern medicines in 1962. My wife and
I probably were the main, but not the only, introducers of this
alternative way of treating disease. There were two western trained
physicians in Casiguran before our arrival and, soon after, a medical
doctor at Dinapigui employed with the Acoje MiningCo. My wife and I
carried on a medical program among the Agta throughout our tenure.
Agta, of course, have their own folk healers, along with a complex of
traditional treatments for various diseases. It is my impression that
these traditional treatments, and the number of shamans, have declined
quite a bit over the last decade or more, as Agta have turned
increasingly to modern medical help for illness. These medicines have
doubtless slowed somewhat the high death rate we find in the Agta
population today.
The Casiguran hospital. It is not only modern medicine which has
affected Agta morbidity and mortality. Another important innovation
came to the area when the government built a badly needed hospital in
Casiguran, opened in April 1973. In 1983 this hospital had a capacity
of 25 beds, electricity, operating room (minor surgery only), delivery
room, X-ray machine (not working), simple laboratory, 8 nurses, 2
midwives, and 1 doctor. Unfortunately, medicines cannot usually be
included in the above list. Furthermore, the hospital is seriously
handicapped by a lack of fully trained personnel, an inadequate budget,
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and equipment. Nevertheless, many lives have been saved here in the
last ten years; and this includes Agta, who increasingly go there for
medical help. The hospital is today playing a role in slowing down, at
least somewhat, the Agta death rate.
TEE FOREIGN MISSIONARIES
There have been three Christian mission organizations that have
worked in the Casiguran area in this century. The first to arrive were
a rotating series of American priests of the Discalced Carmelite Order,
beginning in 1947 (CDP 1978:567). These had little direct effect on the
Agta, since their ministry was exclusively with the Christian lowland
population. One of their main contributions in Casiguran was the
establishment of a private high school, which is run very efficiently
today.
The second missionaries to work in the area, this time exclusively
with the Agta, were my wife and I, under the auspices of the Summer
Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and the Wycliffe Bible Translators. It
is necessary, in an ecological study such as this, to at least raise the
question of what effect the Headlands, as missionary-linguists, may have
had on the Agta. It would be presumptuous of me to try to answer that
question here, but I will give some background, and then leave the
question open for some future investigator.
SIL, and Christian missionaries in general, have received a good
deal of attention from anthropologists in the last few years, much of
it negative, and much of it focusing on the subject of "ethnocide."
Either missionaries are accused of direct or indirect destruction of
282
native ways of life or, less often, of saving a primitive group from
certain extinction (as was stated about one missionary in a 1984 issue
of American Anthropologist [Vol. 86, p. 648, n.3]). Probably one of
the more objective anthropological critiques we can find of SIL is one
by Robert Taylor. Though Taylor is a secular critic of missionaries,
his basic definition of SIL is more or less correct:
Summer Institute of Linguistics and Wycliffe Bible Translators

personnel are both linguists and Bible Translators who expect
their efforts to result in conversion of indigenes to
Christianity. . . . The translators may encourage their
language informants to become Christians and, when several
members of a language group have been converted, encourage
them to form Christian groups. . . . The basic technique is to
make portions of the Bible available in the people's language
in anticipation that some will become Christians as a result
of reading it (Taylor 1985:93).
This is a fair description of the. goals my wife and I have, though
as yet there has been very little response from the Agta. We had also
hoped to be able to introduce literacy as a community value among the
Agta. We were not successful in this. We wanted to tell the Agta that
Jesus of Nazareth is alive, is the savior of the world and the Lord of
the universe, and that he meets people's needs. Many Agta say they
believe this now, though it has not resulted in a great deal of change
in the lives of most of them. My wife and I first went to Casiguran
with the conviction that traditional peoples can become Christians
within the context of their own culture (a view which we still hold).
We believed that God could make the Agta "better” Agta within their own
emic moral code, if they turned to him, read the Bible, and applied for
themselves the sayings of Jesus through their own cultural grid. We
283
also wanted to help the Agta with their material needs. Here we were
more successful, especially in the medical area.
In any case, the point to be noted here is that we were doubtless
one of the many catalysts of Agta culture change, as we lived, along
with our three children, for so many years in intimate relationship
with Agta in their camps. We do not, however, believe we had a role in
the deculturation we see among the Agta today; and we certainly slowed
their demise with our medical work.
A third group of missionaries which has attempted to work with the
Agta in Casiguran are of the New Tribes Mission, a protestant mission
with its headquarters in Sanford, Florida. The first family from this
mission, Colin and Eileen Law from Ireland, moved with their two small
children to Calabgan, Casiguran, in February 1973. They left the area in
April 1974, returned to Ireland, and resigned from the mission. The
Agta especially remember with fondness Eileen, a registered nurse who
spent most of her time giving the Agta medical help. Later, in June
1980, a second couple from this mission, Glen and Liz House, moved to
Casiguran to take up where the Laws had left off. They withdrew,
however, about a year later. They were replaced by two single women
missionaries of the same mission, Iris Harrison and Anne Kueffer. These
women are assigned as literacy workers whose goal is to teach Agta to
read their own language. They continue today living with the Agta in
Casiguran, where they have learned to speak Agta. They give most of
their time to giving reading lessons to those Agta who show an interest,
and in medical treatment of the sick.
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THE MARTIAL LAW ERA
One of the major events of Philippine history was the declaration
of Martial Law in September 1972. Interestingly, this did not cause a
major upset in the Agta way of life, except in one crucial area. This
was hunting. The use of firearms for hunting after WWII gradually
increased until, by 1972, most of the hunting was done this way. I did
not keep records in my early years of the amount of hunting done with
firearms, but I estimate it was about 20 percent in the early '60s, and
something like 80 or 90 percent by 1972. (Mostly homemade shotguns were
used, which were loaned to Agta by lowlanders in return for half of the
meat.) On the eve of Martial Law wild game was very scarce, and the
chances of success with a bow and arrow were slim by then. (This is my
general assumption, and is not based on any data. I assume that
firearms are more efficient than bows for hunting, though my 1983-84
data displayed in Table 10.5 does not support me here.)
Thus, when Martial Law began, and all firearms were confiscated in
Casiguran, the result was an immediate drop in hunting activity by Agta.
This was not just because bows and arrows were also confiscated, because
the Agta were soon, within two months, allowed to make new ones.
Rather, the game had been so reduced by heavy hunting with shotguns
that to now go hunting with a bow and arrow was usually fruitless. A
positive result of this was that game populations, especially wild
pigs, were able to increase again. In the short run, the Agta suffered
at losing their most important and enjoyable occupation for a couple of
years. But in the longer run the game populations got some chance to
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replenish themselves (although, as I make clear elsewhere, this was
only temporary).
THE GUERRILLA WAR OF 1974-1975
While the Aquino murder (to be discussed below) precipitated much
economic hardship throughout the Philippines, including Casiguran, the
most traumatic event to hit the Casiguran area itself during my tenure
was the movement of anti-government guerrilla forces into the valley in
1974. These forces were members of the New People's Army (NPA), a
military force which is still alive and well, and very strong in other
areas of the Philippines today.
I was absent from Casiguran during the worst period of this
conflict. (We were in the United States from May 1973 until our return
to the Philippines in September 1974.) I did not realize the
seriousness of this war until I arrived in Casiguran on September 16,
1974. All non-Agta civilians were then confined to the three town
centers under a dusk to dawn curfew, and after sundown people in the
homes neither lit lights nor talked above whispers. I was not allowed
to leave the Casiguran town, but I could visit the Agta who were living
in temporary camps just a kilometer south of town. The NPA definitely
had the upper hand in 1974.
By early 1975 the Philippine government had appointed P.C. Major
Ceferino Tannagan as mayor of Casiguran, and had moved in their elite
55th P.C. Battalion, under the command of Colonel Orlando Dulay. At the
same time the Philippine Air Force conducted bombing raids with jet
aircraft on suspected NPA strongholds in the valley. By early spring
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the government troops clearly had the NPA on the run, and we were
allowed to move back to the forest to live with the Agta on May 9, with
the condition that we stay on the peninsula. Frequent skirmishes
continued during that summer (two of which we heard from our house).
The conflict did not cease until the end of 1975, and heavily armed P.C.
troops continued to patrol the area through 1976.
How were the Agta affected by this conflict? The first question
the reader might ask is, how many Agta were killed, and by which side,
during those two years of trouble? Whether by choice or government
order, most of the Agta moved next to one of the local towns during the
conflict, where they remained under the protection and authority of the
municipal and military authorities. Virtually all of the local farmers
did the same (most of the NPA forces were made up of outsiders, not
local people).
There were 22 Casiguran Agta who lived with and assisted the NPA
(as guides and hunters), for various periods of time. Nine of those
were women, and one was a small child named Merli. Though most of
these eventually surrendered to the military, and were pardoned, I will
not list the names of those still living. Two of those, both men, were
wounded by P.C. soldiers in separate attacks on P.C= Another
man, Akal, was executed by P.C. soldiers the day after he was caught
burglarizing a warehouse to get food. The child, Merli, was shot and
killed by soldiers in a skirmish on the western side of the Sierra
Madre, in Isabela, in January 1979. She was then age 6.
287
Those were the only two Casiguran Agta killed by government
soldiers during the NPA conflict. No Agta were killed by NPA forces.
One other Casiguran Agta, Toteng, died while a prisoner of the
military. He had been captured at Palanan on May 7, 1978, while
hunting game for the NPA there, and was imprisoned at the P.C.
headquarters at Echague, Isabela. His death certificate (which I have
in my possession) says he died of "congestive heart failure" on
February 8, 1979. He was about 55 years old. Toteng was the
grandfather of the above-mentioned Merli. His daughter, Merli's
mother, and another Casiguran Agta teenage girl were also prisoners at
the Echague headquarters, where I finally located them in February
1979. After working through some red tape, the girls were released to
my wife and me on April 2, 1979. Two of the 22 Agta who were with the
NPA have been missing for years. They were rumored killed by soldiers,
but on a trip to Palanan in 1985 some Agta there told me they are alive
and living in San Mariano, Isabela.
Agta life was, of course, drastically affected by the entrance of
both of these military forces into their ecosystem. Most of them
became, for periods of time, refugees, as they moved out of the forest
and lived next to the towns to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
They did not avoid involvement even then, of course, because they were
called on by the P.C. troops to serve in the same roles for which the
NPA tried to use them— as guides, servants, and hunters. Many of the
young Agta men, both married and single, joined the newly organized
paramilitary CHDF unit (Civilian Home Defense Forces), where they were
288
armed with M-l Garand rifles and assigned to guard duties and jungle
patrols. Several of them were involved in skirmishes with NPA, and I
know of two Agta men who were rewarded for killing NPA guerrillas while
serving with CHDF units. Other Agta worked as hunters for the
military, where they were sometimes taken to distant areas in turbojet
helicopters to hunt. I saw many bundles of dried wild meat exported to
Manila by helicopter from the P.C. camp in 1975.
Other Agta who did not move to the towns on their own in 1974 were
eventually rounded up and brought in by the P.C. This probably was for
the best, since it doubtless saved at least a few Agta lives.
Eventually, Col. Dulay moved most of the Agta onto the long defunct Agta
Reservation at Calabgan, with the goal of "settling" them and getting
them to take up agriculture. I have already discussed that resettlement
program in the last chapter.
EFFECTS OF THE AQUINO ASSASSINATION
Without a doubt the most significant and traumatic historical event
to occur in the Philippines since World War Two was the assassination of
political Opposition Leader Benigno Aquino as he deplaned at the Manila
Int'l Airport on August 21, 1983. No other event, in the lifetime of
most present-day Filipinos, has brought so much political and,

3
especially, economic upheaval in this country. The Casiguran area,
and the Agta themselves, have not been spared economic suffering, which
they began to feel within a month after the crisis began in Manila in
August '83.
289
While I am not prepared to argue a macroeconomic interpretation of
the controversial chain of events which has thrown the Philippine people
into their present economic trauma, I do have data showing the
microeconomic hardship this national crisis brought to Casiguran, to
both Agta and lowlanders alike. These data are displayed in Tables 9.1
and 9.2. As we see in Column 2a of Table 9.1, the first effect of the
crisis to be felt in Casiguran was a rise in the price of rice, an event
which was bound to happen as the peso dropped in value. Unfortunately
for the Agta, as well as non-Agta laborers in Casiguran, the daily wage
of laborers did not rise along with the rising price of rice. In fact,
as we see in Table 9.2, while the price of rice rose 108 percent in the
eleven months following the August tragedy, wages to Agta laborers rose
only 50 percent. Even worse was that Agta income from a day of rattan
collecting did not rise at all, but actually declined 29 percent in peso
income. In dollar equivalents the decline in income was 64 percent.
In rice equivalents, the most reliable source of comparative
measurement, their income declined 68 percent! (That is to say, their
income from an average day's rattan collecting in July 1984 could only
buy 68 percent as much rice asthey were able to buy the previous
August, when the crisis began in Manila.)
One wonders what members of the labor unions in Europe and America
would do if they had to take a 68 percent cut in income in one year!
But all the Agta did were tighten their belts, and work longer hours.
Unfortunately, the Agta have neither unions nor group solidarity. Their
ability to adjust to this economic trauma in their lives is all the more
290
remarkable when it is realized that even at the best of times they
probably live just a hair above the level of starvation. Indeed, while
the minimum wage for rural non-plantation workers in the Philippines in
July 1984 was P33.50 pesos a day (including a "cost of living allowance"
of P7.50 a day), the Agta wages were 55 percent below that, only P15.00
a day (see Table 9.2). Of course the question remains whether or not
the Agta did adjust to this 1983-84 hardship. As we will see in Chapter
12, the Agta death rate is higher than their birth rate already, and
this added trauma, resulting from the national economic instability
following the Aquino assassination, may have raised the Agta death rate
even higher in 1984 and 1985.
It should be noticed, here, that as of November 1985 this economic
crisis seems to have passed in Casiguran. Five Agta who visited us at
Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya, in October-November 1985 reported that the local
government authorities in Casiguran put a strict ceiling on the selling
price of rice in August '85, while at the same time daily wages for farm
laborers rose in October to an all time high of U.S.$1.38 a day. This
gives Casiguran laborers slightly more buying power than they had before
the crisis began two years before (see the 2 bottom rows of Table 9.1).
This is indeed good news. The point to note, still, is that for many
months the poor in Casiguran suffered hardship while they waited for
prices to stabilize back to normal.
THE ROAD
There are two particular conditions which have kept Casiguran, and
all of northeastern Luzon, relatively isolated from the rest of the
291
Philippines until the years following WWII. These are the Sierra Madre
mountain range which extends like a large protruding backbone along the
eastern side of Luzon, and the northeast monsoon winds which keep the
eastern seacoast unsafe for boat travel during much of the year. It is
these two factors which have isolated the Casiguran area from the rest
of the nation, even up to the 1970s, and which have partially inhibited
landless Filipinos from immigrating into the area.
In 1977, however, a major new ecological component entered the
Casiguran ecosystem, a government road. For many years government
planners had talked of building a road into Casiguran. But the rugged
Sierra Madre made this goal impractical. Until recently.
Actually, in the early '70s a private logging company pushed a
temporary road through the Sierra Madre from Madella, Quirino, to the
coast, where it connected up to logging roads already in Casiguran. But
this road was temporary, and often closed because of rain damage.
People and cargo came into the area either by motor launches with
outriggers from Baler or, less often, by hiking or private plane.
Logging companies brought their trucks and bulldozers in by ship.
Then, in 1977, the national government succeeded in opening a
government road from Baler, the provincial capital, to Casiguran, thus
connecting this ecosystem directly with the rest of the country. It is a
long and winding single-lane dirt road, twisting and turning along the
rugged eastern slope of the Sierra Madre for 118 km from the provincial
capital of Baler to Casiguran (Baler is 82 km straight distance from
Casiguran. It is only passable to 4-wheel drive vehicles (usually
292
weapons' carriers) and motorcycles, and it is often closed after heavy
rains. Busses do not pass on it.
This road will probably prove to be the major change-causing agent
to be introduced into the Casiguran ecosystem over the last 20 years.
It has already brought a great deal of change to the area by providing
a relatively accessible funnel through which may pass immigrant
homesteaders, and all kinds of goods (and perhaps disease) triiich were
4
absent from Casiguran in the '60s, and rare in the '70s. Perhaps more
significant, it has provided an easy path out for cash crops, which
were hard to export before in open boats over rough and dangerous seas.
I estimate that somewhere between 5 and 10 motor vehicles per day passed
between Baler and Casiguran over this road in 1983-84 (not counting
motorcycles).
There were some startling changes to be seen in Casiguran when we
returned from a four year absence in December 1982. The road plays the
major, but not the sole, role in these changes. Some of the most
salient new innovations I noted in the three towns in 1983 were: motor
tricycles, a drugstore, a movie theater, several homes with
refrigerators, new electric poles, part time electricity in many homes
(provided by a businessman with a private generator, for which he
receives monthly payments from users), television sets, rice mills (no
one hand-pounds rice anymore), piped water in the town (but not in
private homes, only public faucets on street corners), greatly improved
graveled roads, a few cement roads, a new public market with galvanized
roof and stalls and, lots of food for sale which was seldom available
293
before (e.g., eggs imported from central Luzon). The Casiguran farmers
are now much more into cash cropping, especially peanuts, which are
growing everywhere, and which I never noticed in the '70s. The flow of
cash is much more heavy in Casiguran in the 1980s than it ever was in
the '60s and '70s. Of course the biggest change, discussed in detail in
the last chapter, is the massive movement of immigrants now flowing into
the area over this road.
One startling example of the kind of acculturative changes coming
to the Agta in the 1980s was when my wife and I went on November 4,
1983 to visit an Agta camp at Dimagipo. When we arrived at the camp,
at 9:30 that morning, 12 of the 24 Agta adults in the camp were roaring
drunk. This in itself was no surprise, of course. What did seem
unusual was the mood the Agta were in, including the children. It
turned out they had been up all night. One of their former trading
partners, a Casiguranin townsman, had recently returned from atwo-year
employment stint in Saudi Arabia. He was sharing his homecoming
celebration with his former Agta clients with a complete 'blowout'— a
feast, liquor, and especially a night of watching hard core pornographic
video tapes on his Betamax TV set, which he and his cronies had carried
up to the camp along with a generator! Such is an example of culture
change among Philippine tribal people today.
COCONUTS AND THE COPRA MARKET
There is one major export cash crop in Casiguran which long
preceded the opening of the 1977 road. This is copra, a dried coconut
meat from which oil is extracted. For many years, long before my time
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in Casiguran, Agta have worked part time in the coconut groves of their
lowland patrons. The most common role they fill here is cutting down
the brush in the coconut groves, a hard task which must be done about
twice a year, always necessary before the nuts can be harvested. This
2
is usually a contract labor job, where Agta cut the brush of a 100 m
area for a set payment usually pegged to the price of a ganta of milled
rice (a 3 liter measure costing the equivalent of 68 U.S. cents in
1983). Agta men, women, and children work together in this task which,
at least, is done in the shade of tall coconut palms. Agta fulfill an
important role in this needed chore which no one else likes to do; and
this necessary task is also important in the Agta economic system,
since it provides income for them in slack periods where there would
otherwise be no work available for them. This source of employment was
especially important to the Agta before rattan collecting became an
option for them in 1979. I predict that it will be even more important
to them when the rattan runs out, probably in the next year or two.
During the 19 month study period, Agta gave 3.8 percent of their
daily activities to wage labor in coconut groves (124/3,283 days [see
paragraph no. "E580" of Appendix D]), although in most previous years I
estimate they spent between 10 and 15 percent of their time in this
activity. What I want to point out here are two outside ecological
forces which greatly influence copra work in Casiguran. Normally, this
work should go on evenly throughout each year, since coconuts are not a
seasonal fruit. As it turns out, these two outside forces can stop the
work of copra making for long periods, even up to two years, and this
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causes severe problems for the Agta, for the reason mentioned in the
paragraph immediately above. These two forces are typhoons, and the
world market price for copra.
The problem of typhoons can be dealt with quickly here. A severe
typhoon can not only knock down all the growing coconuts, but also
damage the trees so badly that it can take up to two years before the
trees will produce mature coconuts again. (Of course strong typhoons
can also completely kill coconut trees, too, especially tall ones, but
most coconut trees in Casiguran survive even the worst of typhoons.)
Although Casiguran experienced 13 typhoons during our tenure there,
there were only two which did damage to the extent that all copra work
was stopped for at least 2 years. These were Typhoon Pitang on
September 11, 1970, and Typhoon Aring, on November 5, 1980. These
typhoons brought in their wake economic tragedy for the many lowland
farmers who own coconut groves and who depend on copra for a small but
steady source of income. They also caused economic problems for the
Agta, who were deprived for a year or two of this source of part time
income as laborers for copra makers.
A much more complex problem, and one which recently occurred
throughout the Philippines, was when the bottom dropped out of the copra
market in 1980.^ The national decline in the market price of copra did
not just affect the Casiguran farmers, of course. The Philippines is
the world's largest exporter of coconut products, and it is their
leading export commodity. Table 9.3 shows both the official annual
value of coconut products exported in 1977-83, and the selling price of
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copra in Casiguran during those years andin early 1984. As this table
shows, there was a drastic drop in the market price of copra in
Casiguran in 1980. This was a blow to the coconut farmers, and created
some economic strains on most Agta as well.
As it turned out, it did not much matter what the price of copra
was in 1981, because there were no coconuts to harvest anyway— they had
all been blown down by Typhoon Aring the previous November. There were
nuts again by mid 1982. But with a selling price of copra averaging
only the equivalent of ten U.S. cents per kg, (a drop of 88 percent
from the 1977 price), the farmers did not bother to harvest. It would
have taken far more work than it wasworth to make copra to sellat
that price. Thus, the Agta were deprived of a work opportunity.
In our first months back in Casiguran in 1983, there was
practically no copra making. As we see in Column 4 of Table 9.3, the
Agta spent less than a half of a percent of their work time in
coconut-copra labor. Not until the latter months of '83, when the
price for copra began to increase (and rattan began to get really
scarce), do we find Agta again, after a four year absence, working at
wage labor in coconut groves. Note, however, that there was a drop in
the percentage of days Agta spent in this labor after April 1984.
There were two reasons for this. First, as described below, rattan
buyers began accepting inferior quality rattans at this time from Agta
collectors. This caused Agta to again move back into intensive
collecting of these previously unacceptable rattan varieties. And
second, as shown in Column 3 of Table 9.3, the real price of copra (in
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rice value) dropped at the same time, thus discouraging farmers from
bothering to make copra.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE WORLD MARKET DEMAND FOR RATTAN
We learned in the last chapter that there was a period in the
second decade of this century when the Agta were involved in collecting
rattan on a commercial basis for the national market. This was in
1914, when the American Capt. Whitney had the Agta collecting rattan
and selling it to him to help finance the Calabgan Reservation program
(Whitney 1914). It is not known how long this period of commercial
rattan collecting lasted, or how intense it was.
I do know that the Casiguran Agta were not involved in rattan
collecting for commercial buyers during my tenure in the 1960s or '70s,
until 1979, at least to my knowledge. Nor do my Agta informants recall
commercial rattan buyers hiring them in the past. Agta were of course
involved often in the '60s and '70s in gathering rattan for their
trading partners, but this was for local use, and it was only an
occasional economic activity.
A marked change came to the Casiguran area, and to the Agta
culture, when commercial rattan buyers entered the area, beginning in
1978. This started on a small scale, and began with these middlemen
bringing Agta up from south of Baler to collect rattan for them, rather
than their hiring Casiguran Agta. These so-called Umirey Agta speak a
language which is so different from Casiguran Agta that the two groups,
when they meet, converse in Tagalog. The Umirey Agta did not
intermingle with the Casiguran Agta in 1978, and they left the area
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after about a year. Then, in May of 1979, I left the Philippines for
Hawaii, not realizing until I returned in December 1982 that the Agta
were right on the verge of a major change in economic lifestyle when I
left.
I was shocked to find, on my return in 1982, that not only the
Agta, but also hundreds of lowlanders in Casiguran were involved in
what seemed like a rush to collect every piece of rattan in the whole
forest before someone else beat them to it! Indeed, as we shall see in
Chapter 10, Agta men in 1983-84 spent 33 percent of their
person-work-days in rattan collecting, and women 17 percent. Middlemen
rattan buyers were everywhere, plying the coast in motor boats, hiking
up rivers, even living in Agta camps, or transporting whole groups of
Agta in large boats or trucks to collect rattan in remote areas. Also,
lowlander rattan collectors were all over in the forest, too, cutting
rattan to sell, many of them dragging it out to the coast with
carabaos. The Agta were making a good living in early 1983, by their
standards, more than triple the income they made during the 1960s and
'70s, as middlemen buyers competed against each other to gain access to
Agta labor. This improved income declined greatly in 1984 (see Table
9.2), for two particular reasons: the Aquino assassination in August
1983, and the decline in rattan resources in the area.
Rattan furniture, the new Euroamerican fashion. What was the cause
of this new change in the Agta ecosystem? It will come as no surprise
to economic specialists to learn that rattan furniture hadsuddenly, in
the decade of the 1970s, become the "in" thing in America, Europe, and
299
Japan, and that this had precipitated a tremendous economic demand for
rattan on the world market. One cannot help seeing this as a phenomenon
analogous to the fur trade in North America, and how a simple change in
fashions in Europe in the late 16th century— the .popularity of a single
item: the beaver hat— did so much to change the ecology of northern
North America, not to mention the deculturation of the Indians there.
The Philippines has, of course, been exporting rattan for a long
time. But the annual export of rattan more than doubled after 1978 (see
Table 9.4), as rattan furniture became popular in the industrialized
countries. At about the same time, the late '70s, the rattan supply
began to run out in the more accessible areas of the Philippines. It
was the combination of these two factors which precipitated the sudden
appearance of rattan buyers in Casiguran. In fact, the Philippines
could easily sell a lot more rattan furniture if it were not for the
number one problem of the rattan industry: "The [dwindling] supply of
raw materials" (Generalao 1981:4). "Our problem is depleted rattan
reserves" (Bulletin Today March 19, 1984).
In early 1983 I gradually came to realize the fast rate at which
thousands of workers were involved in exporting tons of rattan each day
from Casiguran. I began to wonder how long the forest ecosystem could
sustain this phenomenon, and how long it might be before the last stick
of mature rattan was cut, and what the Agta would do after that. True,
the depletion of rattan, perhaps, would not affect a tropical forest
ecosystem much, at least compared to what loggers can do. But when I
began to research this question, I found that no one really knows much
300
about the ecology of rattan. In corresponding with the leading Filipino
specialist on rattan, Domingo A. Madulid, he stated that "unregulated
collection of rattans will surely affect the ecological stability of the
forests" (personal correspondence March 30, 1984). But he too did not
have the data to know just how this might happen. Weinstock (1983)
provides some information on both the ecology of rattan and its
depletion fromoverharvesting in some areas of Borneo in the late '70s.
But he, too, shows how little is known of rattan ecology.
I had hoped during my 19 months of field work to be able to
document just how long it would take to deplete the Casiguran forests
of rattan. I guessed, in 1983, that by mid 1984 I would be able to
indirectly quantify the decline in rattan supply, as I clocked Agta
work activity, and counted and measured rattan poles. (See column 5 of
Table 9.1 for data). I expected, for one thing, that the monthly
percentages of work time the Agta spent in rattan collecting would
decline during the study period. But as section 5 of Table 10.2 shows,
there was absolutely no decline in such activity during my period of
field study. There were other signs that the rattan was getting
scarce, however. The cut vines, before they were cut into three meter
poles, were shorter in 1984, and the Agta were working longer hours
and, by July, bringing in 64 percent less rattan (see Table 9.1, Column
5). The rattan buyers, in early 1983, were only buying certain
varieties ofrattan, and only very mature poles. But then, beginning
in April 1984 the buyers were willing to buy almost any type of rattan,
and were accepting less than fully mature poles. Moreover, as we see
in Column 4a of Table 9.1, they were willing to pay much more in 1984
for these poorer-quality rattans.
I suspect that within a year or two, say by 1987, rattan collecting
will no longer be a viableoption for the Agta in Casiguran. I think I
need not belabor the point that when this comes we will find the Agta
moved another step closer to deculturation, hardship, hunger, and
possible disappearance as a viable population. As I discussed in the
last chapter, their main traditional livelihood based on hunting is, for
all practical purposes, a thing of the past. Now another of their main
livelihoods, rattan collecting, is almost gone too. The most immediate
measurable change we will see, when the rattan is depleted, I
hypothesize, is a significant drop in Agta income. Indeed, Tables 9.1
and 9.2 show this is already occurring. Other changes may not be so
easyto measure. But I predict that when the mature rattan is gone that
Agta adults will be back to working for the equivalent of one ganta of
husked rice per day of labor, an income which keeps them just a hair
above the starvation level.
And what will the Agta do then? Many change agents and government
planners have already decided that question: They think the Agta will
become agriculturalists. Probably a few families may be able to move
securely and permanently into this sedentary economic mode of
production, and such families should be encouraged and helped if they
wish to do this. Two families, in fact, are moving this way now with
apparent success. But, as I argue in this thesis, there are at present
in the Casiguran ecosystem very strict ecological constraints which
302
preclude the Agta's successful adaptation to an independent farming
lifestyle. Most of these constraints come under one particular
ecological principle, the Competitive Exclusion Principle. This has
already been defined in Chapter 3, and examples of this principle in
action in Casiguran will be presented in Chapter 13.
OTHER NEW INFLUENCES
There are of course many other forces which have been introduced
into the Casiguran ecosystem, and which have precipitated changes. I
will make just brief mention here of those of which I am aware.
Effects £f the infant formula campaign. I never cease to be
surprised at the new innovations Agta adopt. One of my big surprises
was, upon our return to Casiguran in 1983-84, to find several mothers
bottle feeding their babies! In fact, at least 10 infants were being
bottle fed in 1983, about 20 percent of the 54 suckling children in
1983.6
I asked all of these mothers why they were using baby bottles
instead of breast feeding their infants. Their answers were either
that they didn't have enough milk themselves, or some lowlander told
them canned milk was better. Two mothers said their breast milk was
"yellow," and that their previous infants had died from being breast
fed "weak" milk. I believe there is also a secondary underlying
reason for this trend. Prestige. A good number of lowlander mothers,
especially from the higher class homes, now bottle feed their babies.
I believe the Agta mothers have been influenced by this Philippine
trend in the '70s; and I blame this trend on the advertising in the
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past of corporations which market infant formulas. (For a discussion
of this issue, see Lappe and Collins 1978:336-348.)
What is so sad about this, beyond the fact that it usually spells
the kiss of death for the infant, is that these Agta mothers have
neither the expertise, the equipment, nor the money to support such a
fad. Not being followers of the "germ theory" of disease, they do not
properly wash the bottles and nipples, let alone sterilize them, they
cannot refrigerate the cans of milk once they open them, and it takes
100 percent of a father's wages just to buy enough milk (more, if the
father doesn't work seven days a week).
The result is that these mothers buy the cheapest canned "milk,"
which is not milk at all, but a heavily sugared "filled milk" (the term
for a coconut and vegetable oil product, or a mixture of such with a
small amount of "non-fat skim milk," depending on the brand bought).
These brands are condensed, to be diluted with water (which the mothers
never boil). The problem is aggravated because the mothers add more
water than they should, to make it last longer. Then, when they run out
of this "milk," they substitute their formula with milky-colored water
poured from a pot of boiling rice. All Agta babies are thin, but most
of the bottle-fed ones have the look of chronic starvation, such as we
see in photos of children in the famine areas of north Africa. It is my
hypothesis that the infant death rate of bottle fed babies is
significantly higher than among nursing infants (which is high enough,
as we shall see in Chapter 12). Our small sample of 10 is of course not
large enough to test that hypothesis. It is worth noting, still, that 3
304
of the 10 had died by June 1984, and 3 more had died by September 1985.
If my hypothesis is correct, which hardly anyone would argue (except the
milk manufacturers), this small, seemingly inconsequential, event
introduced into the Agta system, though used by only a small minority of
mothers, aggravates significantly the population decline of these
people.
Insecticides, batteries, dynamite, and the fish decline. I have
observed a noticeable decline in aquatic resources over the years. Agta
eat much more fish than they do wild meat (see Table 4.7). Up to the
year 1976 we lived inland most of the time, away from access to marine
resources, and were as dependent as the Agta on riverine protein.
(Well, almost as dependent; we could afford to buy canned meat.) This
resource, especially fish and shrimps, was readily available in our
early years. Today, the supply is skimpy, and often non-existent in
downriver areas. Likewise, marine resources are less today. There are
three factors, all introduced recently, which have precipitated this
crisis: dynamite, insecticides, and electric rods which work off of
batteries. All of these are used for fishing. The result is the
decline of aquatic fauna in all areas. I have never seen Agta use
dynamite or insecticides (though they do sometimes catch fish with a
local plant poison, tube ^Croton tiglium'). I have twice, in 1983-84,
seen Agta fish with borrowed battery rods.
The commercial collecting of Raphidophora vines. In November
1983, eleven months after I had returned to Casiguran, a man came up the
coast in a motor boat, set up a camp in Area 4 on the peninsula, and
305
invited people to collect for him the wild forest vine called in
Casiguran Tagalog luknuy (Agta: amulong) 'Raphidophora merrillii*'. He
offered to pay two pesos a kg for fresh peeled rolls of this vine.
Soon two other rattan buyers, that I knew of, also began buying this
vine from local collectors.
Many Agta began to collect this vine to sell, as did several
lowlanders, since it is much easier to collect than is rattan, which had
gotten scarce by this time anyway, and it is easy to peel off its outer
bark. In November Agta spent 2.9 percent of their person-work-days in
gathering this vine, 2.3 percent in December, and 6.5 percent in
January. I did not collect economic data for the next three months. In
April the collecting of Raphidophora vines had dropped off (1.4 percent
in April, and 0.5 percent in May). Unfortunately, I failed to find out
the reason for this. Perhaps because in March 1984 rattan buyers began
accepting for the first time inferior quality rattan varieties from
collectors, and people were back to collecting rattan again.
Radios, television, and Betamax. I have already mentioned above
the day we found a whole camp full of Agta in the forest watching
pornographic movies on Betamax TV. Long before, as early as the 1960s,
when Japanese transistor radios began to spread into Philippine rural
areas such as Casiguran, Agta increasingly began listening to this
powerful acculturative innovation'. I remember how, when we first came
to Casiguran, there were Agta who did not know they lived in the
Philippines, thought Manila and Amerika were the same place, or thought
MacArthur was their president.
306
No longer today. By the '70s a few Agta owned radios, and others
borrowed them from lowland friends, or listened to them when in their
homes. In 1983-84, 32 percent of the Agta households claimed they had a
working radio in their homes.^ Agta now not only know the name of
their country and its president, but many would discuss with me such
current news events as the latest Arab-Israeli conflict, etc. And I
remember the bright moonlight night in July of 1969 when several Agta
sat with my family and me around a tiny fire, with my radio on to a
Tagalog news station— all of us looking straight up as Neil Armstrong
made his "giant leap for mankind" onto the lunar surface. The powerful
effect of a tiny Japanese product, the transistorized radio, on our
world's tribal peoples can hardly be overstated.

* * *
What we have seen in this and the last chapter is an intricate
intersystemic interplay between many different ecological components,
all affecting one another and the living populations in the ecosystem.
Typhoons, wars, international capitalistic copra managers, political
assassinations, peasant farmers, jungle foragers, missionaries,
furniture fashions, baby bottles, roads, etc., all pressuring and
influencing each other in the flow of cash and energy in a particular
human-occupied ecosystem.
At this point we have reviewed enough of the historical background
of the Agta to know that these are a people which have undergone a good
deal of acculturation in this century, that they are being increasingly
squeezed into a small economic niche in their now changed ecosystem, and
307
what the major forces causing this are. We have also grasped by this
point something of the evolutionary path of the Agta from prehistoric
times up to the 1980s, and seen that they have not recently emerged from
some paleolithic stage of evolutionary development. (And, as Chapter
13 will argue, neither are they moving into some "higher" stage of
sedentary farming.)
The question before us at this point is, then, just what economic
strategies are the Agta pursuing today in this new and severely
restricted niche in which they find themselves in the 1980s? We will
pick up this question in the next chapter. Following that, we must
still ask, How well are the Agta doing in this 1984 niche? Are they
adapting? Are they going to be able to make a successful change which
will allow them to survive, as a population and unique ethnic group,
into the 21st century? Or do we have here a case of ethnocide or,
worse, genocide? Chapters 12 and 13 will attempt to answer that
question. First, however, let us look at just what the Agta were doing
in 1983-84.
1. The 8 Agta who died of what the people said was 'cholera' in
late June and early July 1985 were as follows: Only one was a male,
Kutey, a 60 year old visitor from Palanan. The 7 females were the 3
young mothers of nursing infants, Nora (census no. 2021 age 26) Ekdet
(no. 174 age 31), and Elpoh (no. 186 age 35). The other 4 were Siding
(no. 471 age 47), Lawdeng (no. 2012 age 51), Doring (60 year old
visitor from Ilagen), and an unnamed one year old daughter of Ninyeng
(no. 418).
2. The Petersons did not return to the Philippines until 1978, 3

years after the "epidemic," when they spent 2 months in Palanan.
Incidentally, W. Peterson did not do research in Palanan from 1967 to
1970, as he states in the opening sentence of his 1981 paper. He began
his work in Palanan in July 1969, to March 1970 (W. Peterson 1974:7).
(I have other misgivings of J. Peterson's Palanan research, which I have
outlined elsewhere [Headland 1978, and Griffin et al. n.d.3. Rai has
also discussed his reservations concerning Peterson's work [Rai 1982:63,
100, 112-13, 115-17, 157, 159, 184-87, 190, 196-97, and 240].)
3. The first year of the Martial Law era runs a close second in
historical importance to the Aquino assassination. But in most areas of
the country the poor were affected far more by the latter event than by
the former. Both events caused major hardship for the Agta.
4. Though malaria is not a new disease in Casiguran, the malaria

control officer in Casiguran told me that, in his view, the high
increase of incidence of malaria in the area in the last two years is
the result of the many new immigrants who carried the malaria parasites
in their own bodies when they came from other areas of the country.
5. The simplest explanation for the drastic drop in the selling

price of copra, and the official government explanation, was the result
"from depressed [world] prices due to oversupply" (Philippine Yearbook
1983 1983:248). More critical explanations are found in other sources
(e.g., the radical left-of-center authors Poole and Vanzi
[1984:244-251], and somewhat more objective sources such as Far Eastern
Economic Review [January 8, '82 and February 23, '84 issues]). The
government response to the accusations of the critics appears in the
November-December '81 issue of Cocofed Report (Vol. 6, No. 11). The
reader not acquainted with the politics of Third World economics would
do well to read first Lappe and Collins (1978:209-15).
6. There were 58 live births between January 1, 1982 and December

31, 1983. Four of these died in 1982, leaving 54 alive and suckling
during some part of 1983. Ten of these 54 were being bottle fed during
308
309
some part of that year, or 20 percent. Six of these 10 were still alive
in June 1984. By September 1985, when my wife made a visit to
Casiguran, 3 more had died, leaving 3 of the 10 still alive.
7. This 32 percent figure seems slightly high to me. It is based

on a sample size of 37 households to whom I asked this question. True,
many Agta have been able to secure radios from commercial rattan buyers
in the last 2-3 years, paying for them afterwards with rattan. But a
more accurate figure would probably be between 20 and 25 percent.
CHAPTER X
WHAT AGTA DO FOR A L IV IN G
A TIM E ALLOCATION STUDY OF AGTA A C T IV IT IE S IN 1 9 8 3 -1 9 8 4
I explained earlier, in Chapter 2, how my wife and I collected and
compiled information on daily activities of Agta adults over a 19 month
period of field work in 1983-84. At the end of the period I had a data
sample of 3,283 person-work-days (PWDs) of 331 different adults, male
and female. Each PWD datum consists of a record of the person's name,
age, sex, civil status, date for which the PWD activity was recorded,
person's location that day, the weather and, most important, the main
activity the person did on that day.
When we compiled and computerized these data, the 3,283 records
were arranged into 159 different categories of PWD activities, and
these in turn were clumped into 11 general time-allocation categories
(no work, agriculture, hunting, rattan collecting, etc.). These 11
categories, along with the 159 sub-categories, are displayed in outline
form in Appendix D. The 11 general categories are also displayed in
Table 10.1.
I remind the reader that a PWD record consists of the main
activity of an individual for the day recorded. Agta usually do several
things in a typical day. I recorded, however, only one activity per
person per day, and that was what he (or I, depending on the situation)
considered his main activity that day. The nine rules I followed in
doing this are outlined in Chapter 2.
310
311
The compiled results, displayed in Tables 10.1 and 10.2, and in
Appendix D, and discussed below in this chapter, give us a fairly
accurate and detailed picture of the general daily activity of the
Casiguran Agta people in 1983-84. The data do not give us the details
of everything Agta do in a day, but only their main activities. We are
especially able to see here what their major economic activities were
during those 19 months, how much time they gave to agriculture, wage
labor, hunting, etc., how often Agta are ill, and what percentage of
their days are spent in complete leisure.
The PWD data were collected in such a way that they could be used
for testing several of the formal hypotheses of this thesis (outlined
at the end of Chapter 1). This chapter will discuss several, but not
all, of the activity categories, and draw conclusions from what the
data show concerning them. Where appropriate, I will discuss where the
data speak to the hypotheses.
GENERAL ACTIVITY NO. 1: "NO WORK"
One of the most interesting topics in hunter-gatherer studies is
just how hard such people have to work to make a living. Specifically,
the question is whether our early human ancestors lived a precarious
existence during the paleolithic, chronically struggling at the edge of
starvation and extinction, or whether they were actually the "original
affluent society," characterized by an abundance of food and leisure.
Marshall Sahlins (1968, 1972:1-39), of course, popularized the latter
idea (though he did not originate it), to the point where this view is
now practically canonized today in the anthropological literature.
312
There is more truth than error to this "affluent society" model, of
course, and we do well to set aside the outdated view that the life of
prehistoric hunters was "nasty, brutish, and short." But Sahlins' model
has carried us too far in the other direction.Though Sahlinsdrew on
reports from several hunter-gatherer societies, he was most heavily
influenced by the !Kung studies, and especially by Richard Lee's famous
(1969a) paper, first read in Chicago in 1966. To everyone's surprise,
Lee reported that these desert hunters were able to supply their needs
by spending only 2 to 3 hours per day in direct subsistence work.
This is indeed impressive. But there are weaknesses in trying to
use Lee's data as a model for hunter-gatherers in general. First, the
superabundance of mongongo nuts in the Dobe !Kung environment (their
main staple) makes these people atypical of hunter-gatherers in general.
Second, Lee's time allocation data is drawn from such a tiny sample—
only 21 days, all within a one month period— that it is virtually
useless for testing Sahlins' theory. And third, Lee did not include
"housework" in the time !Kung spent working. There is more to work than
food gathering. Food processing and tool manufacture must also be
included (and !Kung women spend 3 to 4 hours a day just processing
mongongo nuts). Lee corrected for this in his 1979 book, and he now
informs us that !Kung spend an average of 43 hours a week in "work"
activity, not just 12 to 19. (Lee 1979a:278). Not so affluent after
all.
In describing Agta "leisure" time in this section, the reader must
be warned that these data cannot be used, except perhaps indirectly, to
313
speak to Sahlins' argument. For one thing, the Agta are hardly
paleolithic foragers. However much leisure they may have had in the
past, the data presented here is for the 1980s. Also, the PWD data was
not collected to test Sahlins'hypothesis. These data do tell us the
number of days per month the Agta spend in no work at all, but they do
not tell us how many hours they work per day. One qualitative statement
I can make about Agta is that they, like most hunter-gatherers, do value
leisure. While theyare not lazy, they are not followers of the
protestant work ethic, either.
So, I do not use the data in this first activity category to argue
for or against the "original affluent society" theory. I do point out
what these data tell us about Agta culture, economic and otherwise.
When we first look at the data, it does seem that Agta have a fair
amount of leisured days. As we seein Table 10.1, men spent 23 percent
of their days throughout the year in "no work," and women 49 percent.
This was not all spent in "leisure," however. Fourteen percent of their
"no work" days were due to sickness, injury or acute infection
(164/1163). This is high, surely higher than average for most Western
societies. It indicates that the "average" Agta adult is sick18 days
out of a year. This concords with epidemiological data I will present
in Chapter 12, which showsthat the Agta are very obviously not, on the
whole, a healthy people.
Also, though women appear to have twice as many "leisure" days as
do men, 14 percent of the women's "no work" PWDs were of women with
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infants, or who had just given birth, or were in their last month of
pregnancy (108/775).
I have mentioned earlier the chronic alcoholism among the Agta.
The PWD data show that for 12.5 percent of the "no work" days
(145/1163) Agta adults were found drunk before noon. Overall, the data
show that Agta adults may be found drunk, before noon on a typical day,
4.4 percent of the time (145/3283). The figure is only slightly higher
for men (5.3 percent) than for women (3.4 percent). Not all Agta are
heavy drinkers, of course, and there are a few-very few— who never get
drunk. For example, looking only at my sample of the 52 men from whom
15+ PWDs were collected during the field work period, slightly over
half of these, 29, were never recorded as drunk in the morning. The
other 23 were recorded as drunk before noon at least once. Of the
accumulated total of 437 PWDs for these 23 "morning drinkers," 45 of
those PWDs are recorded as "no work— drunk." That is, these 23 men, on
the average, were found drunk in the morning 10 percent of the time.
The figure for women "morning drinkers" is just half that. Of the
42 women with 15+ PWDs in my data, 12 were found drunk at least once.
Of the total 225 PWDs of these 12 women, 19 of their PWDs were recorded
as 'drunk.' These women, then, were found drunk in the morning 5
percent of the time.
The reader interested in alcoholism will be disappointed to find
that I cannot state how many Agta adults get drunk on an average day
(say, by sundown), which would be more interesting than just knowing
how many are drunk in the morning. But it was logistically impossible
for me to collect the data needed to answer that question. My
conservative estimate would be that the figures would be at least
double, and probably triple those for the "morning drinkers." The
above figures reveal enough, at least, to tell us that the Agta do a
lot of heavy drinking.
Alcohol consumption is not of course always detrimental in itself.
There are human groups, primitive and otherwise, who have built-in
social mechanisms for controlling the use of alcohol in their societies.
We will see, however, when we get to Chapter 12, that alcohol use is
very debilitating in the Agta society. In that chapter we will see that
Agta informants attribute 6 percent of the deaths of their adult
relatives to peginom 'drunkenness', and that the high homicide rate
among the Agta is associated, in almost every case, with heavy drinking.
The most general conclusion we can make from these data are that
the Casiguran Agta have some leisure, but certainly not enough to call
them affluent, in Sahlins' terminology. If we look just at men under
age 60, and exclude the PWDs of those men when they were sick or
otherwise incapacitated, we find that healthy Agta adult males work an
average of 6 days per we.ek (1,303 out of 1,538 PWDs). While not all of
these are full work days, most of them are. One man, for example,
Nateng (the only man for whom I kept records of number of hours of work
per day) worked throughout the year an average of 6.1 days per week,
averaging 6.8 hours of work per work day. (This sample [N=146 days]
excludes from its calculation the days when this man did no work at
all.) Women have more "no work" days, but are busy with more domestic
316
work than are the men, such as child care, washing clothes, etc. We
also see from the data that there is a high rate of sickness among the
Agta, and a high rate of drunkenness.
GENERAL ACTIVITY NO. 2; HUNTING
Hunting has traditionally been the chief pursuit and most salient
activity of Agta men for centuries. This does not mean it was their
most frequent activity; fishing, particularly among bands living on the
beaches, may have consumed more time than hunting. Still, Agta males
consider themselves primarily "hunters," and this is also how they are
viewed by the lowland farmers. Rai, in his 1980 study of an Agta band
group in San Mariano, Isabela, found that men there gave a very high
amount of their economic activity— 74.6 percent— to hunting (Rai
1982:88, 158, 232). The Griffins also found that, among the remote Agta
band group they lived with on the eastern coast of Cagayan in 1980-81,
men went hunting on 43 percent of their person-work-days, for at least
part of the day (Griffin et al. n.d., Table 12;cf.Griffin 1981:38,
and Estioko-Griffin 1984:169). In this section wewill see how these
figures compare with those of the Casiguran Agta.
I have already stated in Chapter 8 theheavy degree towhich
Casiguran Agta men were involved in hunting when I first went to live
with them in the early 1960s. I estimated that men at that time spent
20 to 30 percent of their days in hunting, and my hunch— based on years
of listening to the stories of older Agta— is that the figure was closer
to 50 percent before WWII. As we now look at the data on Casiguran Agta
hunting in 1983-84, I refer the reader to a major proposition of this
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thesis, Proposition 1, which states that "the Agta are no longer
involved in hunting as their economic occupation," and the 3 hypotheses
which go with that proposition (see the end of Chapter 1).
A quick look at Table 10.1 substantiates this proposition. We see
there that Agta men gave only 6.2 percent of their PWDs to hunting
(106/1709 [this includes 12 PWDs which were "trapping," that is, setting
or checking rope snares for wild pigs]). Furthermore, we see from Table
10.3 that, in the sample of 52 men for whom I recorded 15+ PWDs, 58
percent of them I never found hunting in 1983-84 (30/52). Many of those
30 men may have hunted a few times during our 19 month period of field
work, but never on the days when I recorded their PWDs.
There are a number of other questions of interest we may ask of the
data. Specifically, I will discuss here success rates, and whether time
given to hunting varied by individuals, band areas, weather, season, or
day of the week. We will also look here at types of game secured, and
the subject of women hunters. (This latter is a topic recently brought
to the forefront in hunter-gatherer studies by the the startling
discovery, in the late 1970s by the Griffins, ofCagayan Agta women who
hunt large game with bow and arrow.)
Let us look first at several small, but possibly significant,
variables which may affect the time men give to hunting. Turning to
Section 2 of Table 10.2, we see displayed seven sets of independent
variables, and how they relate to PWDs given to hunting. These are
ages of Agta men, band area, months of the year, men with and without
318
cultivated fields, rainy versus non-rainy days, single versus married
men, and weekday hunting versus Sunday hunting.
There are few significant variables, at least that we can see in
this table. My impression over the years is that Agta tend to hunt more
often on rainy days, or during the "rainy season." Agta say they do
this because it is easier to follow fresh game prints after a heavy
rain, and that the pigs are "lazier" during the cold months of December
and January. The rain versus no rain data in Section 2 of Table 10.2
do not, however, support my impression. This is probably due to the
small sample size (N=106). Hunting activity did increase in September
and October of '83, when the rainy season began, but it is unclear
whether this was precipitated by more rainfall, or some other causal
variable of which I am unaware. The rain was also heavy in November
'83, yet the PWD time given to hunting that month was not high. (For
details of monthly rainfall in 1983-84, see Table 4.2).
I tested this hypothesis (that increased rainfall leads to
increased hunting activity) by looking at another arrangement of the
data. Fifteen percent of the total PWDs recorded were for "rainy
days" (defined as days with 16+ mm of rain) (479/3283). Only 10
percent of the hunting PWDs, however, were on rainy days (10/99,
excluding the 12 cases of "pig snare work"). This suggests that Agta
tend not to go out hunting while it is raining (and this is weakly
supported by the "rain vrs. no rain" variable in Section 2 of Table
10.2). But what about the day after a rainy day? That is when pig
tracks would be fresh, and yet wouldn't be washed away by rain. Here I
319
found that Agta tend to go hunting more often than would be expected by
chance on a clear day following arainy day— 19 percent of the hunting
PWDs were on such days (19/99).
What about the question of whether young men hunt more often than
older men. Again, there is only weak support for this hypothesis, as
shown in Section 2 of Table 10.2.
Another question is whether men in some bands hunt more frequently
than those in other bands. In fact, I expected that the further Agta
men live from the three towns in the area, the more often they would be
found hunting. Section 2 of Table 10.2 shows that, indeed, men in some
band areas do hunt more often than those in other areas (see Map 2 for
locations of the 10 areas). Men in band areas 4, 7, and 8 hunt more-or-
less twice as often as do those in the other seven band areas. This
does not correlate, however with distance from lowland centers, as we
might expect. Again, we would need a much larger sample before definite
patterns would emerge. The Agta living in band area 7, for example,
camped most of the time very near to the town of Dilasag. This was a
small group of Agta (that is why only 164 PWDs were recorded for this
group throughout the year [see Table 10.4]). One man in this group,
Kandeg, is recognized as the best hunter in the whole Casiguran Agta
population. Now age 57 (in 1984), his high number of recorded "hunting"
PWDs, six, doubtless skewed the data for this area.
Another question concerns whether men who had their own swiddens or
wet rice fields did less hunting than did those without fields. As we
see in this same section of Table 10.2, the case is the very opposite.
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Those with fields did over twice as much hunting as did those who did
not plant. I have no explanation for this.
I had also suspected that Agta did more hunting on Sundays, than on
weekdays (since they are more often working for the Christianized
lowlanders on weekdays). The last two rows of section 2 of Table 10.2
shows, however, no difference at all between weekday hunting and Sunday
hunt ing.
Another question is whether all Agta men hunt, or only some. It
turns out there is a wide range here. Looking at the 52 men for whom I
recorded at least 15 PWDs each, 30 of these had zero PWDs spent in
hunting. This suggests that 58 percent of Agta males never, or at least
rarely, go hunting. Overall, the sample of 52 men gave 5.9 percent of
their total PWDs to hunting (59/993). (These men had an average of 19
PWDs each, with a range from 15 to 26.) For details, see Table 10.3.
Another question to ask, more important than some of the above, is
what was the hunting success rate in 1983-84? Looking at column 3 of
Table 10.5, we see that individual men secure game (deer, wild pig, or
monkey) 17 percent of the time (N=103). (This sample counts number of
men who went hunting, not number of hunting trips. That is, if 2 men
hunt together, that counts as two "hunts," not one, in this sample.
Thus, in this sample, 17 head of game were secured in my recorded cases
of 103 men who went out hunting throughout 1983-84. This is the average
success rate of hunters, not of hunting trips.) When we consider only
commercial large game (pig and deer, excluding monkey meat which
lowlanders will not buy), the success rate was only 14 percent (see
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column 3 of the Table) N<pte also that, as shown in Table 10.6, the
hunting success rates among individuals ranges very widely.
The PWD data on hunting directly support Proposition 1 Cat the back
of Chapter 1), which states that Agta are no longer involved in hunting
as a primary economic occupation today. Men went hunting on only 6
percent of their days in 1983-84, and secured commercial game (excluding
monkey) on only 14 percent of their hunting trips. These data also
support, directly or indirectly, Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3.
With such a poor hunting success rate, the question arises as to
why Agta bother to hunt at all. There are at least three reasons for
this. First, Agta nren enjoy hunting. They refer to hunting as their
pagkaagta, their 'human characteristic'. They are oriented towards the
forest, and most men not only like to hunt, but show keen excitement
when sighting or stalking game. One would not expect people who have
hunted for a living all their lives to manifest the same degree of
excitement we find among, say, urban American males when deer hunting
season opens. Yet Agta men do find hunting exciting, and I have seen
experienced Agta hunters get "buck fever" at the sight of approaching
game. Agta plainly like to hunt.
A second reason is that Agta seem to be what Marvin Harris calls
(in what he now says was an overstatement) "starving for protein"
(1984:187). Wild pig and deer meat are a sought after food. The Agta's
craving for such food, when they haven't had it for a time, is analogous
to the typical Americans' love for a T-bone steak.
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A third reason Agta hunt, of course, is because they are pressured
to do so by their lowland neighbors. Agta feel obliged to hunt
especially for their trading partners when so requested.
Before we conclude this discussion on Agta hunting, mention should
be made of the unusual phenomenon of women hunters in some Agta
populations. It is not unusual, of course, among foraging societies to
find women assisting men in hunting. This was quite common among the
Casiguran Agta in the 1960s, when women would drive game towards the
men waiting in ambush, either with dogs or fire. In fact, 4 of the 99
hunts in the PWD data are of women (two cases of women together with
their husbands in a game drivewith dogs, and two separate cases of
women helping men track wounded game shot the day previously).
Among some Agta bands north of Palanan, and especially on the
eastern coast of Cagayan, however, we find the very unusual situation
of Agta women who hunt large gamewith bow and arrows, and without male
companions. This wasfirst reported by the Griffins in the late '70s
(Estioko-Griffin and Griffin 1981b, Estioko-Griffin 1984, Griffin
1984a). The discovery of women involved so intensely in hunting,
without men, is so diametrically opposed to the traditional "Man the
Hunter/Woman the Gatherer" model that it has created a bit of a stir
among students of hunter-gatherer societies, not to mention students of
women studies.
I myself was skeptical of the Griffins' report, when I first heard
about it (since the custom is unknown among the Casiguran Agta). I was
so skeptical, in fact, that during a field trip in Palanan in April 1979
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I interviewed 50 Agta concerning the question (27 men and 23 women).
Thirty-two of these denied knowing of such a custom, but 18 of the
interviewees did have some knowledge of women hunters in areas north or
west of Palanan. Four of these 18 were women who claimed they had
themselves hunted pigs with bow and arrow in the past. Finally, when I
was on a field trip to the east coast of Cagayan in 1965, my companion,
Roy Mayfield, saw several women and children drive a deer right into the
ocean, whence it was caught and stabbed by one of the women with an
arrow. While the Griffins are careful to point out that only a few Agta
women in eastern Cagayan hunt frequently, there is no question but that
we have here the unusual case of some Agta women involved intensely in
hunting large game without men.
GENERAL ACTIVITY NO. 3: FISHING
Aquatic food is the most important protein source in the Agta diet.
As we see from Table 4.7, such foods are eaten at 53 percent of Agta
meals (61 percent if we include store-bought pickled or canned fish).
Agta have many techniques for fishing, which we cannot go into here.*
The percentage of PWDs given to fishing in 1983-84 was 5 percent. This
includes shellfishing. Both men and women participate in this activity
(men, 6 percent, and women, 4 percent). Children are even more active
in fishing activities, and adults depend heavily on children to supply
the household with this food, especially when they, the adults, are
busy at wage labor or other work.
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GENERAL ACTIVITY NO. 4: OWN AGRICULTURE
The PWD data for this activity provide strong support for
Proposition 2, which states that the Agta are not practicing
independent agriculture as their economic occupation today (see end of
Chapter 1). Hypothesis 4, under this Proposition, is supported by the
data, since Agta allocated only 6 percent of their PWDs to agriculture
for themselves in 1983-84. Men and women participate equally in
agricultural activities, both 6 percent (see Table 10.1).
The Casiguran Agta cultivated 43 swiddens and 5 wet rice fields of
their own in 1983. In the next chapter we will look at these 48 fields
closely, as well as discuss in detail the overall pattern of Agta
agriculture and the results of their agricultural work in energy output.
Here I will limit the discussion to what the PWD data show.
Not all Agta participated equally in agriculture activities of
their own, of course. In fact, there was a wide range in the time
given to agriculture among individuals, as well as among the seasons of
the year, and among different band areas.
As we see in Table 10.7, 24 percent of the Agta men cultivated
their own fields in 1983 (40/168). A few others, 12 men, assisted Agta
relatives part time in swidden clearing, and 6 men worked part time in
agriculture as sharecroppers for lowlanders. Looking at the 94 Agta
adults on whom 15+ PWDs were collected (see Table 10.8), we get a
picture of the wide range in amount of time different Agta gave to
agriculture. Almost half of those 94 adults did not have a single PWD
which was "agriculture" (44/94). Another 27 percent gave between 1 and
325
10 percent of their PWDs to agriculture; 20 percent gave 11 to 20
percent of their PWDs to agriculture; 4 percent gave 21 to 30 percent
of their PWDs to agriculture; and 2 percent gave 31 to 36 percent of
their PWDs to that activity.
The amount of PWDs given to agriculture varied with the annual
season. Looking at the swidden work, we see that the amount of days
Agta gave to such work was highest during the swidden clearing phase of
the cycle. Agta gave 10 percent of their PWDs to swidden work in April
'84 (see Table 10.9). In January, the slack season for swidden work,
the amount of PWDs given to such work dropped to its lowest, zero
percent in January '83 and 2 percent in January '84 (see Table 10.9).
Likewise, the amount of PWDs given to agriculture varied among the
band areas. The Agta in band areas numbered 2 and 5 gave high amounts
of their PWDs to agriculture, 13 percent (46/346) and 14 percent
(53/382), respectively, in 1983-84. The Agta in band area no. 2 made 6
swiddens in 1983, and in area no. 5, 5 swiddens and 1 wet rice field
were made that year. As one might guess, in the band areas where no
fields were made, there were few or no PWDs given to agriculture.
Area 3 had a total of 0.4% of their PWDs given to agriculture (1/225),
and Area 6, adjacent to the town of Casiguran, had none (0/223).
Perhaps the main point to note from the above, and from the PWD
data on hunting presented earlier, is that, while the Casiguran Agta
may be quite homogenous as compared with more complex societies, they
do not all do the same thing. A few Agta hunt intensely, while most
today hunt very seldom. While a few Agta could perhaps be called
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farmers, most practice cultivation sporadically or not at all (see
Tables 10.8 and 10.3).
GENERAL ACTIVITY NO. 5: RATTAN WORK FOR LOWLANDERS
Rattan collecting for commercial sale was the most salient and most
important economic activity of the Agta in 1983-84. Agta gave almost as
much time to rattan work as to all other income-generating activities
combined. The overall PWD time given to rattan collecting through the
18 months was 25 percent. Both men and women participated intensely in
this occupation, but with the men giving twice as much of their time to
it as the women (33 percent versus 17 percent; see Table 10.1).
There was some fluctuation in amount of time given to rattan
collecting among the months, and among the band areas. Agta do not like
to work in the forest in rainy weather. Indeed, the percentage of PWDs
given to rattan work on rainy days dropped to 12 percent, while on non-
rainy days it rose to 28 percent. During the rainiest month, November
1983, the percentage of PWDs given to rattan work that month dropped to
15 percent. The month with the highest percent of time given to this
work (39 percent) was the dry month of May '84. This may have been
partly due, however, to the increased pressure put onthe Agta to work
at that time by commercial rattan buyers. (For details on this and the
next paragraph, see Section 5 of Table 10.2.)
The band area with the highest percentageof PWDs given to rattan
collecting throughout 1983-84 was Area 1 (33 percent). The Agta in this
area did not do any agriculture in 1983. The band area with the lowest
percentage of time given to this occupation was Area 2, where 6 Agta
327
swiddens were made in 1983. I am unsure of the variables causing this.
We might hypothesize here that those Agta who cultivated that year
spent less time in rattan gathering in order to give time to their
fields. But the Agta in Band Area 5, where 8 Agta fields were located,
gave a high proportion of their time to rattan work as well (32
percent). Overall, those Agta with cultivated fields in 1983 gave 22
percent of their time to rattan work, and those without fields 28
percent.
Throughout 1983 I listened to Agta complain about their increasing
problem of locating rattan to harvest, while I at the same time noticed
the decreasing amount of rattan harvested each month. (This is shown in
column 5 of Table 9.1.) About midway through my field work, I
hypothesized that by the end of my planned time in Casiguran the rattan
in the area would be overharvested to the point of near depletion. I
predicted I would be able to clock this decrease in rattan by finding in
my PWD data a marked decrease in time given to rattan collecting by mid-
1984. This never happened. Instead, the last month for which I
collected PWDs, May 1984, had the highest percentage of time given to
rattan work for any of the 13 months for which I had such data (39
percent). There is no doubt that rattan was getting very scarce by that
time, but the commercial rattan buyers merely compensated for this by
moving whole Agta camp groups to distant areas by truck or motor boat,
where they supplied them with rice, salt, canned fish, liquor, and
tobacco, while the Agta collected rattan for them.
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GENERAL ACTIVITY NO. 6: NON-AGRICULTURAL WORK FOR LOWLANDERS
We come now to a type of work activity which has been very
prevalent among the Casiguran Agta throughout my tenure: wage labor.
The time Agta give to this occupation, in fact, decreased soon after I
left Casiguran in 1979 for Hawaii, as Agta moved into more and more
commercial rattan collecting beginning right after I left. I predict
this economic option will increase again as the harvestable rattan
declines in Casiguran.
I have divided Agta wage laborinto two general categories,
agricultural, and non-agricultural. Let us look first at non-
agricultural labor.
One major sub-category here is that of collecting various types of
forest products for lowlanders, or to sell to lowlanders. Lowlanders
frequently request Agta to secure such products for them (other than
wild meat and rattan, discussed above). Such products are Imperata
grass or palm leaves (used for roofing), poles or houseposts (for house
construction), firewood, wild honey, etc.
Another type of work, perhaps better called "cottage industry" than
"wage labor," is that of mat weaving. In a typical Agta camp one will
usually find one or two women weaving sleeping mats, either for
themselves or, more often, for trade to lowlander trading partners.
This work is underrepresented in the PWD data (only one percent of the
women's PWDs) because it is, timewise, usually a minor activity. Much
of the mat weaving is done in the evening.
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There are a wide variety of work tasks, minor chores, and errands
that Agta do for lowlanders. Some of the all-day type-tasks are listed
in Appendix D (under PWD categories numbered E440), and need not be
repeated here.
GENERAL ACTIVITY NO. 7: AGRICULTURAL WORK FOR LOWLANDERS
Nine percent of the PWDs fall under this wage labor category. Agta
men gave 12 percent of their PWD time to this work, and women 6 percent.
As we learned from Chapter 7, this option of earning a living is not
new to the Casiguran Agta. The Spanish documents show clearly that Agta
250 years ago were doing seasonal agricultural labor for Casiguranin
farmers. I also remember in the 1960s when, during the planting and
harvest seasons for wet rice, approximately half of the adult Agta
population could be found living temporarily in the homes of lowlander
friends near or in town. Here they would work for about a month each
season at helping to prepare wet fields for planting, or helping to
harvest rice. Only a few families were choosing this economic option in
1983-84, probably because they preferred to collect rattan. Only 3
percent of the Agta PWDs were given to labor in the wet rice fields of
lowlanders during the study period, and 2 percent to such labor in
lowlanders' swiddens.
Another type of "agricultural" labor for lowlanders is what I call
"copra work." Agta gave 4 percent of their PWD time to this labor.
Most of this work involves cutting down overgrown brush in coconut
groves. In an "average" year in Casiguran, this economic activity would
have been much higher, probably consuming 10-15 percent of their PWD
330
time. I already explained in Chapter 9 why so little time was given to
this type of work in 1983-84. It was not only because the Agta now had
a more favorable way to gain income, rattan collecting,but also because
the devastating Typhoon Aring in November 1980 damaged the coconut trees
then. Furthermore, at the same time the world market price for copra
fell to the point where coconut grove owners werenot bothering to
harvest their nuts, anyway. (For details, see Table 9.3.)
OTHER PWD ACTIVITIES
A number of other minor PWD activities were recorded, which I will
not discuss in this chapter. These are listed in Appendix D, following
the activity number E590. A word should be said about "travel," however
(PWD activity no. E600). Agta spend a great deal of their waking hours
in this activity, usually hiking, but also often hitching rides on the
motor boats of lowlanders. The data show they gave 7.5 percent of their
PWDs to travel in 1983-84. This of course only included travel when it
was their major activity on the day recorded. I have estimated that the
average Agta spends far more time than just 7.5 percent of their time in
travel. When one observes their frequent, almost daily, hikes downriver
to visit lowlanders, usually to request rice, tobacco, or liquor, the
walking time they give to "hiking" alone must be around 15 to 20
percent. When we think of it, this may not be much different than the
amount of time the average American spends in his automobile per day.
* * *
What do we learn rrom the data presented in this chapter? Plainly,
we get a pretty good picture of the on-the-ground daily life of the
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Casiguran Agta in the first half of the 1980s. In short, we learn here
a great deal about Agta culture. Specifically, we see just how the Agta
are making their living today. We see how much time they gave to not
only variouseconomic activities, but also their percentage of
"leisured" days. The Agta, it turns out, are not "affluent," though
they may not work much harder than do blue collars in America. We also
learn that they have an abnormally high amount of morbidity, and a high
rate of alcoholism. We also find that they are not as homogeneous as
one might assume. Some Agta hunt, others never do. Some are involved
in at least small-scale desultory agriculture, while three-fourths of
the men did not plant at all in 1983.
Especially interesting, we see how little time these huntersspend
in hunting, and how low their success rate is. We also see howlittle
time they spend in agriculture for themselves, preferring, it seems, to
work for lowlanders rather than take up farming for themselves. In
fact, it turns out that almost all Agta work is done as service tasks
for lowlanders. Wage labor for lowlanders, both agricultural and non-
agricultural, comprises 13 percent of their PWDs. When we add rattan
collecting to this (also done for lowlanders), the percent of their PWD
time given to serve lowlanders jumps to 38 percent. If we add hunting
(which is almost always done to provide lowlanders with meat), the
percent of time given to serve lowlanders comes to 41 percent. Then, if
we subtract the "no work" PWDS, so that we just look at the actual
production time— the days when Agta were doing some kind of "work"— we
332
find that the Casiguran Agta gave 64 percent of their "work" time to
serve lowlanders in one way or another in 1983-84.
This 64 percent figure reveals an important fact about Agta
culture. They are very tightly tied, symbiotically, to the dominant
farming populations in the Casiguran ecosystem. We have already
learned, in Chapter 7, that this relationship between the two
populations has gone on for hundreds of years. It is a deeply
entrenched institution in the Agta culture, which the Agta favor, and
which is unlikely to change. This is a fact which must be
considered, but has usually been ignored, by those attempting to do
so-called community development work with Agta, or to settle them on a
reservation to take up independent farming (see Headland 1985c).
Finally, and perhaps most important for the purposes of the present
study, the data provide solid empirical support for 3 of the 7 major
propositions of the thesis (nos. 1, 2, and 4), and for the formal
Hypotheses 1, 2, 3, 4, and 9. That is, the Casiguran Agta are no longer
involved in hunting as a major source of livelihood today (Proposition
1). Neither are they practicing agriculture as an economic option
(Proposition 2). Rather, they are involved in a very intense symbiotic
patron-client relationship with lowlanders, manifested by most of the
Agta work going to serve those lowlanders (Proposition 4).
In the next chapter we will find further empirical support for
these propositions, as we look at Agta agriculture in some detail.
1. The Agta dictionary (Headland and Headland 1974) gives 31

different verbs, all meaning 'to fish', all of which refer to different
fishing methods. The language does not have any generic verb, meaning
'to fish', but only many specific verbs for types of fishing. (The 31
verbs are listed together in the index to the dictionary [ibid.:195].)
333
CHAPTER X I
ARE THE CASIGURAN AGTA FARMERS?
A DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF TH EIR C ULTIVATIO N PRACTICES IN 1983
As we saw in Chapters 6 and 7, the Casiguran Agta have been
involved in agriculture for hundreds of years and, as they have done
every year since I have known them, they grew crops again in 1983. In
fact, in 1983 they cultivated for themselves 43 new swiddens and 5 wet
rice fields. For any reader who has read this far, then, a central
question must be why I call the Agta hunter-gatherers, especially in
view of the fact that they do very little hunting today, and why I argue
that they are not agriculturalists, in spite of their practice of
cultivating fields year after year?
Indeed, it is a major proposition of this thesis that the Casiguran
Agta are not practicing agriculture as their economic occupation today.
(See Proposition 2 and Hypothesis 4 at the end of Chapter 1.) In short,
I argue, they are not farmers. This chapter will attempt to provide
support for that proposition.
I first review here briefly the seven main stages of the Agta
swidden cycle, and the absence of certain traits in the Agta swidden
system which are found among other swidden cultivators. I then
describe the characteristics of Agta swiddens and wet rice fields, such
as size, biotope, number of cultigens, etc. I also discuss the total
area of cultivated land per person, and the rice yields from that land.
From there I will compare Agta swiddens with those of other swidden
farmers in SE Asia. We will see at this point how very different Agta
334
335
fields are from the fields of any other groups yet studied in SE Asia.
The chapter will conclude with a discussion of why Agta cannot be
called farmers, in spite of their yearly involvement in this activity.
THE AGTA SWIDDEN CYCLE
Typical of most swidden societies in Southeast Asia, the Casiguran
Agta swidden cycle goes through seven main stages. These are briefly
described below. The number of actual work days allotted to each stage
in the cultivating of one swidden, swidden no. 17, is also given. (This
was a rice swidden made in primary forest by my closest neighbor,

2
Nateng, which measured 1,551 m . A map and description of this
swidden, and of all 48 Agta fields, may be found in Appendix E.)
1. Marking (megagtas): This task involves the choosing and

cutting of a boundary path around the area to be cleared. It
may be done any time between November and February, or not
done at all. Nateng, the owner of swidden 17, said hedid
this in November 1982. Ittook him, he said, one day.
2. Cleaning (megsikaw, from the Agta word sikav

'swidden' ): This involves the cutting of underbrush and
small trees. Women usually help the men in this task, and
Agta swidden makers help each ether in reciprocal labor
exchange groups. Often lowlander swidden makers are members
as well of such groups. This stage, the actual beginning
step in clearing a new swidden, is done in February and March.
Nateng cleared this part of his new swidden in late March '83,
working just one day with 5 other Agta men, a total of 6 work
days. (Four of these Agta helpers were exchanging labor with
Nateng; the fifth, a 15 year old boy, was paid money.)
2a. Felling (megpukan): Thisis an emic subcategory of

stage 2, 'clearing', and refers to the cutting down of the
larger trees. This is one of the few Agta tasks which are
strictly done by men only, using axes. Agta swidden makers
often hire experienced lowlander swiddeners to cut the very
large trees for them, paying them in cash or labor. This
stage always occurs after the 'clearing' stage, usually in
March. Nateng felled most of the trees in his swidden on or
336
about April 14, working with 3 Agta hired men. Five days
later, on April 19, he and one lowlander (who worked with
Nateng on a labor exchange basis) felled the rest of the
trees (except one in the center of the field which was never
cut). A total of 6 work days.
2b. Lopping (megtadtad): Also a subcategory of stage 2, men

and women work through the now completely felled field lopping
off many branches of fallen trees. This is done mainly to
hasten the drying of the woody growth for burning. This is
usually done in March. Nateng did this lopping of the big
trees in his field on April 20, working one day alone. One
work day.
3. Burning (megtutod): Swiddens are usually burned in late

April or early May. Nateng burned his swidden on June 2,
working with just his 9 year old son as a companion. One
work day.
4. Cleaning (megekwat): This stage involves the clearing

away ofunburned debris. These half-burned branches and
leaves are put into piles and reburned. This is supposed to
be done a day or two after the field is burned. Nateng
waited 6 days, then worked for one day on June 8, with his
nephew. Ten days later, on June 18, Nateng and his nephew
did further cleaning and reburning of piles of debris in the
field in themorning. Thistask was never completed, but
that is all they did. Nateng also planted 2 cuttings of
sugar cane on June 18. A total of three days of labor.
5. Rice planting (meghasik): Swidden rice is usually

planted in Casiguran in May. After lunch on June 18 Nateng,
with the help of 3 relatives of his wife, all men, planted
part of his field in rice. Then, 2 days later, 2 old women
planted the rest of the rice, finishing at 1:30 p.m. Nateng
was not present that day. A total of 3 days of labor.
6. Weeding (meglamon): Ideally, SE Asian swidden farmers

are said to weed their rice fields 3 times during the rice
growing season. Throughout SE Asia it is reported as
normally the most time consuming and labor consuming task in
the swidden cycle. Not so with the Agta. Of the 151
person-work-days (PWDs) recorded of Agta working in their
swiddens, only 13 percent (19/151) were given to weeding. For
example, the Tiruray, a swidden tribal group in the southern
Philippines, average from 95 to 220 hours of labor per
hectare in weeding (Schlegel 1979:52). Nateng worked only
part of one day, about 5 hours on August 10, in weeding his
rice field (also planting 2 coconut suckers and 2 banana
suckers the same day). No other weeding by him or his family
337
was ever done in that swidden. Five hours in this swidden is

equivalent to 32 hours per hectare.
7. Rice harvesting (megladey): The swidden rice harvest

time is from late September to early November. Nateng
harvested some of his rice on October 26, working alone, and
then finished the harvest on October 31, this time with help
from his wife, his nephew (an adult male), 2 of his small
children, and myself. Our combined labor came to only 7
hours. One work day. Another day's work was given to
cleaning and drying of that rice.
There are other swidden tasks besides the above seven, of course.
The sporadic planting of other crops is the most important, and this
goes on between, during, and after the above-outlined stages. (Some
cultigens are even planted before the burning stage.) Nateng did no
significant secondary cropping in 1983, except for the 2 sugar cane, 2
coconuts, and 2 bananas mentioned above. Fencing is generally found to
be a very time consuming task in SE Asian swidden work, but the Agta
almost never bother to do it. Only one of the 43 swiddens was fenced in
1983, done to keep out carabaos, not wild game. Guarding is another big
task (especially from birds, when the rice is ripening). I have often,
over the years, seen Agta put scare-bird devices in their rice swiddens.
This year, 1983, I found only one swidden (no. 20) that had two sticks
with palm leaves hanging on them, to frighten birds, and only one
swidden (no. 37) with rattan lines strung over the rice, with leaves and
tin cans hanging on it (used to scare birds by pulling on the lines).
Fire breaks, made by many swidden groups in SE Asia to prevent forest
fires when a swidde" is burned, are never made, or needed, in Casiguran,
since the rainforest is too damp, even in the dry season, for there to
be any chance of it accidentally catching on fire. Pollarding of some
338
trees, instead of cutting them down, a practice reported for some SE
Asian swidden groups, is never done by the Agta.
Most interesting is the complete lack of religious ritual in
connection with Agta swidden practices. In SE Asia virtually all
traditional tribal swiddeners practice a great deal of ritual when they
mark, clear, burn, plant rice, and harvest rice in their swiddens.
These rituals involve magic, augury, divination, sacrifices, ceremony,
etc. (See, for example, our description of such among the Manobo in the
southern Philippines [Hires and Headland 1977].) Throughout my years
with the Agta I have seen none of this. The only exception is that Agta
implant a small bamboo cross in the middle of their swiddens after they
burn, a custom borrowed from the Christianized lowlanders. The Agta do
this without accompanying ceremony, and when the cross falls over they
seldom bother to set it back up.
A DESCRIPTION OF AGTA SWIDDEN CHARACTERISTICS
Detailed descriptions are given of each of the 43 Agta swiddens,
with maps of each, in Appendix E, and statistics of these swiddens are
displayed in outline form in Tables 11.1 through 11.11. Here I will
summarize what we may learn about general Agta swidden characteristics.
Drawing from the data summarized in Table 11.1, we note that 42
percent of Agta swiddens were cut in primary forest, 35 percent in
secondary forest, 7 percent in mixed primary and secondary forest, and
16 percent in brushland. Forty-two percent were made on level ground,
12 percent on very steep slopes, and the rest, almost half, on moderate
slopes of from 10 to 39 degrees.
339
The most striking characteristic of Agta swiddens is their small
size. I think "tiny" would be the appropriate word here. They
average less than a fifth of a hectare in size. More significant, the
cropped area of their swiddens average only a seventh of a hectare,

2 2 2
1,417 m (with a range of from only 52 m , to 4,030 m , which is still
2
less than half a hectare; the standard deviation was 1,052 m [see
Table 11.1]). To my knowledge, these are the smallest swiddens on
record for SE Asia, and perhaps for anywhere in the world.
This did not surprise me. What I did find surprising was the
discovery that Agta leave large parts of the cleared and burned areas of
their swiddens uncropped: 18 percent (see Table 11.2)! (These
unplanted areas are displayed on the 43 swidden maps in Appendix E.) I
searched the literature looking for another example of this, without
success. I then wrote several swidden specialists (and advertised in
both Current Anthropology and the Anthropology Newsletter), seeking
information on this phenomenon elsewhere. Those that responded said
they had never heard of it, and that the groups they studied had
cropped their total swidden areas. One anthropologist suggested to me
that perhaps the Agta do this forsome sound ecological reason, perhaps
keeping open edges along the swidden borders to lower the incidence of
pest encroachment (Harold Olofson, personal correspondence). A logical
idea, but a look at the maps do not .support it. When I asked Agta
themselves for an explanation, theyall gave virtually the same answer:
"We didn't have enough seed (or cuttings)." What is apparent is that
Agta begin seeding rice at the lower edge of their fields and work
340
uphill until they run out of rice. What burned area is left they say
they will plant in root crops. But in most cases they never got to it.
I did interview Agta as to where their rice seed came from. In
every case but one, according to their responses, they secured their
seed from a lowlander friend. Only one swidden family claimed their
seed came from their previous year's rice harvest. True swidden
farmers, of course, are described in the literature as carefully
selecting their rice seed each year from their own fields, and saving
it for 7 months until the next planting season. It is hard to imagine
Negrito hunter- gatherers as ever doing this. The saving of food is not
tolerated in Agta culture. Thus their lack of sufficient rice seed is
a major reason why they do not crop completely their burned fields.
It is my impression that Agta more-or-less "abandon" their swiddens
after they have planted them in rice, not returning to their fields
until later when it is time to harvest. For example, after the owner of
swidden no. 17 had planted his rice on June 20, he did not visit his
swidden again until he weeded it on August 10. He next visited it on
October 3, and again on October 24. In other words, he only visited his
swidden three times during the four months of the rice growing season!
(His house was a 75 minute hike from his swidden.)
In an effort to try to quantify the percent of swiddens which were
"abandoned" like this, I measured the hiking time from all of the
swiddens to the residence sites of their owners (during the period
between planting and near-harvest time). If we may use this as a rough
gauge of whether swiddens were cared for (defining "cared for" swiddens
341
as those within 30 minutes walking time of the owners' houses), then

2
most swiddens— 63 percent— were not cared for (Table 11.10). This is
what we might expect from people who are not farmers.
As I mentioned in Chapter 4, I have never seen a fallowed Agta
swidden revert to grassland. This may happen in the southern part of
the area, where I have never lived, and where there are areas of
imperata grassland, but in most of the Agta area their swiddens succeed
quickly, within 18 months, to brushland and then to secondary forest.
This is probably due in part to the fact that most Agta fields (84
percent) are cleared in primary forest or mature secondary forest, where
grass seeds cannot easily reach (Table 11.3). A bigger reason,
however, is because Agta abandon their swiddens to fallow much sooner
than do other swidden farmers. In fact, most Agta swiddens (57 percent
in 1983 [24/42]), are left to fallow within 7 to 8 months after they are
burned, with no secondary crops planted in them after the October rice
harvest (see Table 11.4). Other fields are planted in root crops, which
will be sporadically harvested throughout the year after the swidden was
made. But even those fields, with few exceptions, will be abandoned to
fallow within 18 to 20 months after they are burned.
One may ask, then, what becomes of the few tree seedlings Agta
plant in some of their new swiddens each year? Most of them die. That
is a harsh statement to make, but the mortality of seedling cultigens
in Agta swiddens is high. Domestic tree seedlings in Casiguran need
frequent weeding, and sunlight, if they are to grow into healthy trees.
Agta do not normally provide that needed care. Only one Agta has his
342
own producing coconut grove, on land owned by a lowlander who is his
half- brother.
There is one domestic "seedling" which does grow high and
fast— fast enough to keep above the shade of wild plant growth— and
which provides Agta with food even 3 to 4 years later, after the rest
of the swidden has turned to brushland. That is bananas. This
cultigen was planted in 55 percent of the swiddens in 1983 (23/42).
Agta do sometimes plant a few cultigens in places other than in
their new swiddens, such as in a portion of a previous year's swidden,
a small patch in the swidden of a lowlander after the lowlander has
harvested his rice, or in a "house garden" next to their own house. I
observed the following instances of this in 1983:
In December the owner of swidden no. 7 planted 9 coconut

seedlings in his previous-years swidden.
In November thg owners of swidden no. 11 weeded the rice straw

from a 436 m area in the swidden of a lowlander friend, and
planted it in sweet potatoes intercropped with 29 sugar cane
cuttings.
In August Pompoek planted 3 taro cuttings near her house (in

Area 1).
Along the edges of a swidden of a lowlander named Andong

Balensia (in Area 8), the extended family group of Pangel
planted in 1983 (before the rice was harvested) about 50
cassava cuttings, 22 sweet potato cuttings, and 5 squash.
In December '83 or January '84 tip owner of swidden no. 20

planted in his 1982swidden a . 90 m plot with 42 cassava
cuttings and 4 sugar cane.
In December '83 the old w^dcw Kasting, with the help of her
son-in-law, cleared a 128 m patch near the side of the house
of the lowlander who buys their rattan (in Area 3), and
planted many sweet potato cuttings, 3 cassava cuttings, and
343
12 sampernando taro cuttings. They will share the produce of

this plot with the lowlander.
Liyanita, the old widow ownerof swiddens numbered 37 and 38,

made several "house garden" plots around her house in early
1983, with the help of her widow daughter and grandchildren.
I noted these plots, but failed to measure what was growing
in them.
I have no doubt that there were many other instances of Agta doing
such planting of a few cultigens here and there which escaped my notice.
I am sure I did not miss anything major, but incidental cases of Agta
planting went, for the most part, unobserved and unrecorded.
Another set of data one may look at to help decide whether Agta are
farmers or not is to find out how many of them were working under the
supervision of a lowlander. True farmers should hardly need
supervision. My hypothesis was that the majority of Agta swidden makers
were not- working independently, but under a lowland farmer. In this
case, the data do not support the hypothesis: Only 21 percent of the
Agta swiddens were made under lowlander supervision (Table 11.10). I
think we can assume from this that Agta can, if they want to, do
independent agriculture.
Traditional SE Asian swiddeners plant an impressively high number
of different crops in their swiddens. Among the Hanunoo in the
Philippines, for example, Conklin found an average of 45 cultigens in
each swidden, and among the Tiruray, also a Philippine group, Schlegel
found an average of from 45 to 75 in each swidden (Table 11.9). In
contrast, the average number of cultigens per Agta swidden was only 7.5
344
(Table 11.4). The highest number of cultigens found in a single Agta
swidden was 27. The mode, however, was one cultigen per swidden.
What is especially interesting is that so many of the Agta swiddens
had certain cultigens planted in them in such an insignificant number as
to seem almost ridiculous. The actual number and types of crops found
in each swidden are listed in Appendix E. The reader may note the
following, for example: 14 of the swiddens had corn planted in them in
1983; but the amount was as follows: 7 swiddens had corn planted in
high amounts, 50+ stalks. Corn found in other swiddens in
"insignificant" amounts were as follows:
swi dden 5 7 stalks

swi dden 11 14 stalks
swi dden 26 1 stalk
swidden 32 4 stalks
Many fields were found with other cultigens planted in tiny amounts, as
well. For example, by the spring of 1984 there were fields which had
certain cultigens planted in them in amounts such as 1 sugar cane
cutting, 1 banana sucker, 2 mustard greens, a sweet potato patch only

2
3.9 m in size, etc. Swidden no. 35, for example, one of the more
impressive swiddens, with 20 different cultigens growing in it had,
among those 20, 1 okra, 1 mustard plant, 1 yam cutting, and 1 balsam
apple.
345
How are we to explain this? Could there be some hidden
"functional" explanation for planting one stalk of corn (or 14 stalks)
in a swidden? Or are these people just not serious farmers? The
answer to that will, I trust, be quite obvious by the time we reach the
end of this chapter.
A total of 47 different cultigens were found growing in the 43
swiddens made in 1983 (listed in Table 11.5). No cultigens were found
universally in all 43 swiddens. Rice was the most frequent cultigen,
planted in 32 swiddens. A total of 10 rice varieties were planted by
Agta in all swiddens, but the mean number of varieties per rice swidden
was only 1.47. Cassava, sweet potato, banana, and sugar cane are the
other 4 popular cultigens (cassava in 31 swiddens, sweet potato in 23,
banana in 23, and sugar cane in 20). Two varieties of taro, coconut
seedlings, and corn were next in importance, planted in half the
swiddens. Cultigens found growing in from 7 to 10 swiddens were string
bean, eggplant, pineapple, onion, okra, and mustard. The other 32
cultigens were found growing in 5 or less swiddens.
THE AGTA WET RICE FIELDS
Five Agta families cultivated wet rice fields in 1983. Two of
those families also made swiddens that year. All five of these fields
were irrigated, and all were planted with hybrid varieties of "miracle
rice." These conditions would easily have allowed two crops to have
been harvested from these fields in 1983; but in every case only one
crop was harvested. (See Appendix E for details on these 5 fields.)
346
The combined rice-cropped areas of these 5 fields was, by Agta
standards, large: 2.6 ha (see Table 11.6). The average size of the 5
fields was one half hectare each. Two of the fields were very large,
2
almost a hectare each. The smallest field, 1,532 m , was still larger
than the size of the mean cropped area of Agta swiddens.
None of these families have legal titles to these fields. Erning,
the "owner" of wet field no. 1 has applied for a 25 year forest lease
from the Bureau of Forest Development. This has been pending now for
three years. He and his extended family also made five swiddens in 1983
right next to this field. Wilson rented from a lowlander the field on
which he made his wet field (field no. 2). He is said to also legally
own another wet field, but does not cultivate it because it has no
irrigation. The other three families cultivated plots on the Agta
Reservation assigned to them by the Panamin government agent. All five
of these families used carabaos borrowed from lowlanders, under a
standard arrangement where they pay the owner 3.5 units of rice at
harvest time for each unit of rice seed planted. In other words, the
lowlander carabao owners got something between a fourth and a third of
the rice harvest from these 5 Agta fields.
As shown in Table 11.7, I estimate that the total amount of rice
produced by Agta on these 5 fields was about 4.4 metric tons. I base
this estimate on my calculation of the yield from wet rice field no. 1,
the equivalent of 1.7 t/ha (shown in Table 11.6). It was from this
347
field that I harvested and later measured two sample plots of one
square meter each. We will have to give the Agta the benefit of the
doubt here and and assume that the other 4 Agta wet fields produced
more or less the same yield, since I did not harvest sample plots from
those fields. This 1.7 figure is slightly higher than what reliable
lowlander friends told me is a "good" yield in Casiguran for wetland
rice, "around 25 to 40 sacks per hectare" (33 sacks would be about 1.4
t/ha). The Agta yield figure here is slightly higher than the
traditional yield in tropical Asia before the Green Revolution, "the
yield for centuries [of which] was from one ton to 1.5 tons per
hectare" (Swaminathan 1984:63). It is lower, however, than the present
Philippine national average for wetland rice yields, which is reported
to be 2.12 t/ha (Philippine Yearbook 1983 1983:267).
It should also be mentioned here that there are five other Agta
families who are said to "own" wet rice fields on the Reservation, and
who in 1983 had lowlander sharecroppers cultivating these fields with
rice. The Agta are supposed to receive one third of each harvest from
these fields.
PER CAPITA CULTIVATED LAND AND RICE YIELDS
Another way to measure empirically the degree to which Agta are
living by agriculture is to calculate their per capita area of
cultivated land, the size of the crop yields they get off that land, and
just how long those yields would feed the population. As we see from
348
Table 11.10, the Casiguran Agta grew rice on a total of 7.8 ha of land
in 1983. Sixty-six percent of this was on swiddened land, and 34
percent in wet porid fields. When we divide this area by the total
2
population of 609, this gives a per capita area in rice of only 128 m .
(See also Table 11.11 for details of per capita cropped land for each
of the 34 agricultural work groups.)
We must not lose sight here of the fact that the Agta planted
another 0.8 ha of land in other crops, mostly cassava and sweet potato
(a per capita area of 13 m ). Though this may seem ridiculously tiny
to a lowland farmer, I see it as a highly adaptive custom, since the
Agta depend on these tiny root crop patches to provide them with
"famine food" when rice is unavailable (e.g., when rivers become so
flooded from rain that Agta may be cut off for three to five days at a
time from reaching their lowland trading partners, from whom they
secure most of their rice). Quantitatively, however, these root crops
are not important, since the Agta ate them at only 5 percent of their
meals in 1984, while they ate rice at 92 percent of their meals (see
Table 4.6).
The next question is, how much rice did these 7.8 ha of land
produce, and how long would this rice feed the people who produced it?
As we see from Table 11.8, the Agta harvested about 9.1 metric tons of
rough (dry unhusked) rice in 1983. Four point seven tons of this came
from the 32 rice swiddens, and another 4.4 t from the five wet rice
fields. If the 37 percent of the population who were members of
349
agricultural work groups did not share their rice harvests with any of
their relatives or visitors (that is, if they kept their rice just for
themselves), and if they ate it at every meal until it was gone, it
would have lasted them 43 days (Table 11.8). If the rice had been
shared out equally with everyone in the population, it would have
lasted only 15 days. (As we will see in Chapter 13, the Agta didshare
their rice harvest generously and widely.)
Before we go on to compare Agta swiddens with swiddens made by
other shifting cultivators in SE Asia, the reader should know that 1983
was considered by the Agta as a successful agricultural year. The
weather was dry in Casiguran during the swidden burning season,
rainfall was ideal during the rice growing season, there were no
typhoons, and there were no significant predator pest problems such as
rats, birds or insects.
COMPARING AGTA SWIDDENS WITH THOSE OF OTHER SE ASIAN FARMERS
We come now to the main point I want to make in this chapter, that
the Agta are not agriculturalists. The most convincing way I can do
this is to compare several statistical variables between Casiguran Agta
swiddens and those of other swidden societies in SE Asia.
Some readers may look askance at efforts to "type" groups into
categories. After all, it is not easy to find a sharp line between
hunter-gatherers and swidden farmers. Some traditional swidden groups
may do more forest foraging, even more hunting, than do present-day
Casiguran Agta. Nevertheless, there are differences between the modes
350
of production of hunters and farmers, as I brought out in Chapter 3,
and I find it heuristically useful here to compare as well the
differences between the cultivation practices of Agta hunters as against
those of "real" swidden farmers. Such a comparison will, I trust,
confirm for the reader the veracity of Proposition 2 and Hypothesis 4 of
this thesis.
Thirteen swidden variables are displayed in Table 11.9, showing for
each of these how the Agta compare with 19 other swidden societies in SE
Asia. Not all of these 19 societies are traditional tribal full-time
swiddeners, by any means. Some of the data come from lowlanders
recently forced into part-time swidden cultivation, and other data come
from groups like the Gaddang, traditional swiddeners who have been
pushed into marginal lands by deforestation and other outside forces.
Still, as Table 11.9 shows, all of these groups have much more
impressive swidden statistics than do the Agta. This does not mean, by
the way, that the Agta are ignorant, when it comes to farming, but just
that their mode of subsistence, and their mode of production, are
different. Agta economic emphases are placed elsewhere than on
farming.
I should make clear, by the way, that I include in my table all of
the pertinent cross-cultural data I found in my library research on SE
Asian swidden systems. I did not leave out data on any groups of which
I had access to reliable published reports, either because they did not
conform to my hypothesis, or for any other reason. The only data I
351
found on groups other than the present 19 which I did not include were
several groups referred to in a table in Kunstadter et al. (1978:14),
because I did not have access to the primary sources from which that
table drew. When data is missing from some of the 19 groups in my
table, then, it is because the authors I cite did not give information
for their groups on all of the 13 variables displayed in that table.
In comparing the variables, I have chosen to mention specifically
in each paragraph the data, when known, for the Hanunoo, since
Conklin's (1954, 1957) study on this group in the early 1950s is the
seminal work inspiring virtually all subsequent studies of shifting
cultivation. (Citation references from which the figures in the
following paragraphs were drawn are listed, with page numbers, at the
bottom of Table 11.9.) Looking at the 13 variables of Table 11.9, we
see the following:
VARIABLE 1— Swidden size: To my knowledge, the Casiguran Agta

have the smallest swiddens on record. Whereas swiddens in
general in the Philippines are estimated to be about 0.8 ha
in size (DNR n.d.:19), the mean cropped area of Agta swiddens
is only 0.14 ha. Hanunoo swiddens are also small (though
still over two and a half times larger than Agta swiddens);
however, most Hanunoo families made two swiddens each.
VARIABLE 2— Per capita area in rice: Here again, the Agta

have the smallesjj figure by far. The range for other group^
runs from 3,300 m of rice-cropped area per person to 60^ m
for the marginal Gaddang. The Agta figure is a mere 85 m .
VARIABLE 3— Percent of households with their own rice

swiddens: Here again, the Agta figure of 22 percent is far
lower than any of the others. For most groups the figure is
100 percent. Many of the Tiruray, the group with the lowest
figure (68 percent), have recently been forced to take up
plow agriculture because of deforestation, immigration of
lowlanders, and other outside influences (Schlegel 1979).
352
VARIABLE 4— Number of rice swiddens per family; Again, the

Agta have the lowest figure, only 0.3. Most swidden groups
have one swidden per family. As mentioned above, the Hanunoo
have 1.8 per family.
VARIABLE 5— Swidden/population ratio: Again, the Agta ratio

is far lower than that of any other group, 1 to 14. The
Tiruray has the next lowest, with a ratio of 1 swidden per 6
people. The Hanunoo ratio is 1 to 2.4 people.
VARIABLE 6— Amount of rice seed planted per hectare:Here the

Agta figure is roughly similar to other groups, 66 kg/ha.
VARIABLE 7— Seed/yield ratio: Here the Agta figure is low,

1:15, but not the lowest, which is 1:10 for the Skaw Karen of
Thailand. The Hanunoo figure is 1:48.
VARIABLE 8— Rice yield per hectare: Here of course we have

the most critical variable, how bountiful was the harvest?
If I may believe my Agta informants, the Agta did fairly well
in 1983, with a harvest of 0.9 t/ha of rough rice. Still,
this is well below what specialists consider the average
productivity of traditional long fallow shifting cultivation
in SE Asia, in a normal year (i.e., when there is not a "crop
failure" due to some weather condition or faunalpredator).
Conelly (1983:175) figures the normal swidden yield is about
1.6 t/ha. Freeman (1955:96-99) calculated it to be from 0.85
to 2.1 t/ha, and Spencer (1966:21-22) gives the average
figure for rice yields "on first year cropping of mature
forest lands in good years" at 1.1 to 2.8 t/ha. Most of the
groups in Table 11.9 with yields lower than the Agta had some
kind of problem during the year the data was collected. The
Gaddang, for example, had a yield of only 0.4 t/ha in 1965,
the year of a drought, but they had a high yield the year
before of 1.3 t/ha. The Hanunoo have the highest reported
yield, 2.3 t/ha. In the one Agta swidden for which I myself
measured the rice harvest, swidden no. 17, the yield figure
was 0.7 t/ha.
VARIABLE 9— Number of rice varieties per swidden: Here the

Agta is the lowest again. Fifty-seven percent of the Agta
rice swiddens had only one rice variety planted in them
(17/30). The mean number per. swidden was 1.47, and the
maximum was 3 varieties, found in 4 swiddens. (For 2 rice
swiddens I failed to collect this information.) Only four
other researchers report number of varieties for the people
they studied (that I could find in my reading). Those
reported figures are all higher than that of the Agta. The
Hanunoo averaged 4 to 5 per swidden, with a maximum of 10.
353
VARIABLE 10— Number of cultigens per swidden: Again, the Agta

are the lowest, with an average of 7.5 different cultigens per
field. The lowest reported figure is that of the Kenyah of
Borneo with from 10 to 20 per field. The highest is the
Tiruray, with 45 to 75 per field. The Hanunoo had 45 per
field.
VARIABLE 11— Number of person-hours of labor/ha/rice swidden:

Here the Agta seem about average. The labor put into Agta
swidden no. 17, the only swidden for which I was able to
collect such data, calculates to the equivalent of 1,232
hours/ha. Other figures range from a high of 3,750 hours for
the highland Mandaya (who do not burn their swiddens), to the
Kenyah, only 810 hours/ha. The Hanunoo figure was 2,100
hours/ha.
VARIABLE 12— Rice production per hour of labor: Again, the

Agta have the lowest figure, only 0.35 kg of rice per hour of
labor. This is astonishingly low. Again, my figure here is
based on only one swidden, no. 17 (see my note at the bottom
of Table 11.9); I am sure of my data for that one field, but
unsure how confidently we can extend this to all Agta rice
swiddens. The household of the makers of swidden no. 17
consisted of 9 persons: one man, his wife (who did no work in
the swidden), the wife's infirm grandmother, and his six
children, the oldest of whom was only 11. This man took a
significant economic loss in making this swidden. He put in
26 days of labor, and produced only 55 kg of rough rice.
This would be enough to feed his family for only 10 days!
The group with the next lowest figure is the Iban, with 0.77
kg per hour of work. I remind the reader that, according to
Freeman (1955), the Iban had a crop failure that year. The
group with the highest yield is the Hanunoo, with a figure of
2.5 kg of rice per hour of labor input, 7 times higher than
the Agta figure.
VARIABLE 13— Time allocation to rice swidden work: There is

little cross cultural data available here, that I could find.
The Kenyah gave a reported 40 percent of their days to rice
swidden work, and the Napsaan gave a reported 12 percent of
their daylight time to such work. The Agta gave only 4
percent. All three researchers used different methods for
collecting these data, and the figures are only roughly
comparable.
354
WAS 1983 A "TYPICAL" AGTA YEAR?
The discerning reader has raised the question by this time as to
whether the present description of Agta economic life reflects an
average or "typical" year. Perhaps the Agta "usually" do a lot more
agriculture than they did in 1983. This is an important question, and
needs to be faced squarely.
Actually, 1983 and 1984 may not have been average normal years.
The point I want to make, however, in responding to this question is
that I am not sure if there is such a thing as a "typical," or normal
year for the Agta. Certainly, during the last 23 years (my period of
tenure in Casiguran), there were very few "normal" years (however that
may be defined). So many fluctuating ecological variables— outside
forces— have come and gone in the last two decades, with the Agta
adjusting back and forth to them as they occur, that it is hard to
imagine what a normal year would be like. Which of the last few years
would we want to consider as "typical"? For example:
In 1970 the devastating Typhoon Pitang swept through Casiguran, in
the process eliminating a major economic activity of the Agta for the
next two years (clearing coconut groves for lowland copra producers).
In 1972 the decade of Martial Law was instituted, causing some abrupt
changes in Casiguran, including the confiscation of all firearms. This
resulted in a major change in Agta hunting— actually eliminating it for
at least a year. In 1974 anti-government guerrilla forces gained
control of most of the valley, and this was soon followed by a major war
of two years' duration as government troops slowly regained control.
355
Agta were forced to move back and forth throughout this period, as they
were settled and resettled into "strategic hamlets" by various
government and military agents. In 1975 the Philippine military
resettled almost all of the Agta on the old Agta Reservation at
Calabgan, where they all were "taught [again!] how to become farmers."
In 1976 the then-powerful government agency, Panamin, began a major
"community development" project to permanently settle the Agta. In late
1978 commercial rattan buyers invaded the area, precipitating another
major change in Agta economic patterns which did not begin to wane until
1983. Then, in 1980, another terrible typhoon, code named Aring, ruined
the coconut crop a second time. Finally, in late 1983 abrupt economic
hardship came to the Agta as aresult of the infamous assassination of
political Opposition Leader Aquino in Manila in August.
And we may mention many other less-abrupt //forces (but no-less
significant), in the last few years, to which Agta have had to
constantly adjust: the population explosion, the coming and going of
logging and mining companies, the opening of the road into Casiguran in
1977, and other events described in Chapters 8 and 9. Then, in 1985,
loggers again entered the area, after an absence of 5 years, while at
the same time the bottom again dropped out of the coconut market, after
a hopeful rise in 1984.
My answer to the above question, then, is No, I don't suppose 1983
and 1984 were "typical." But they were probably as close to "average" as
any other years in the last decade or two.
356
WHY AGTA CANNOT BE CALLED FARMERS
It is quite obvious by now that the Agta are not living by
agriculture. For whatever reason, and no matter how we measure the
viability of Agta swidden productivity, Agta swiddens come out looking
not only the weakest, but far worse than groups even like the Gaddang,
whose data were taken the year of a crop failure. Agta swiddens are
tiny, they produce only enough food to last a month or so, their rice
yield per hectare is low, and their labor input appears so high that
they don't even get back enough food to feed their families for the days
of work they put into the rice production. We note too that their lack
of guarding, fencing, and weeding of their swiddens, and the small
number and variety of secondary crops and rice varieties, suggest their
lack of emphasis and interest in swidden cultivation.
The Agta apparently do not even practice as much cultivation as do
the !Kung Bushmen, the group that is depicted as the archetype of "real"
hunter-gatherers. Lee reports, for example, that 51 percent of the
!Kung men planted fields in 1967-69, when the drought ended in the
Kalahari Desert (Lee 1979a:409, 1976:18, 1981:16). As we see from Table
10.7 in this thesis, only 24 percent of Agta men planted fields in 1983
(40/168). Hitchcock and Lee (1984:344) list reports on average field
sizes among Kalahari Bushmen. The !Kung average is 0.53 ha, and the
average overall for several Bushmen groups is 0.50 ha. This is triple
the size of the average Agta swidden.
There are a number of plausible reasons for the Agta's lack of
interest and emphasis on agriculture, and their surprising neglect of
357
this as a possible alternative economic strategy for them in the 1980s,
in spite of their inability to live nowadays by hunting. I will discuss
these reasons in detail in Chapter 13. But first we will look in the
next chapter at Agta demography, using these population data to measure
just how well the Agta are doing under their present ecological
limitations.
1. Some Agta limit the word sikaw to new swiddens only, referring
to a swidden after it is well cropped as nma. Others refer to both new
and old swiddens as sikaw. All Agta referto abandoned swiddens, that
is swiddens 2+ years old, as elas, which isalso their term for
brushland and young secondary forest.
2. My choice of "30 minutes" walking time,fromhouse to swidden,

as a threshold point between "cared for" swiddens versus "abandoned
swiddens," was somewhat arbitrary. My years of experience among the
Agta leads me to conclude, however, that Agta living more than a half
hour's hike from their fields visit their fields much less often than do
those who live closer to their fields.
358
CHAPTER X II
CASIGURAN AGTA DEMOGRAPHY
THE CASE OF AN UNSTABLE POPULATION
"Demography is destiny" (Time. Sept. 2, 1985)
This chapter will focus on Proposition 5 of this thesis, which
states that the Casiguran Agta are presently undergoing severe
ecological stress, to the extent that they are in a maladaptive state,
at the population level, to their present circumstances. We will
specifically test Hypothesis 10 in this chapter, which states that this
population is presently declining in number, and that this decline is
the result of a high death rate, not because of a low birth rate or
out-migration. If this hypothesis is shown to be correct it will
provide support for the veracity of Proposition 5.
The chapter will not only provide us with a measuring stick for
seeing if the Agta are adapting to their fast-changing ecosystem, but
will provide at least a partial answer to the following question asked
by demographers of so-called primitive populations:
There is a lurking fear in the minds of many anthropological

demographers that we are seriously wrong in many of the very
basic assumptions about the lives and deaths of primitives.
There are too many things which we do not know . . . Perhaps
the greatest problem is the overall mortality structure
reported in most studies of primitives. The death rates are
almost always reported to be very high relative to our own
experience. primitives die so young, what is it that kills
them?" (Weiss 1973:78, emphasis added).
359
360
In attempting to answer Weiss' question, I will first describe here
the vital statistics of the Agta population, looking especially at those
variables which speak to Hypothesis 10. These statistics include child
death rates, rate of natural "increase," life expectancy at birth,
migration, the question of infanticide, etc. I will present evidence of
the population decline, and then speak directly to Weiss' above question
by describing what the causes are of this decline and, specifically,
what the main causes of death are. One of these causes is homicide, a
topic I will discuss in some detail. We will also look at the role of
disease in Agta mortality, the increase in out-marriages in the last
decade, divorce and widowhood, and other topics. At the end of the
chapter we will see how well the data support or fail to support
Hypothesis 10, and Proposition 5.
THE CASIGURAN AGTA DE JURE POPULATION IN 1984
A detailed definition of the Casiguran Agta de jure population is
presented in Appendix A. The data and analysis in this chapter will be
primarily on that population as it stood on June 15, 1984. Some data on
the same population in June 1977 will also be presented for comparative
purposes, as well as a brief description of the Agta de facto population
in June 1984.
In June 1984 the de jure population numbered 609 persons. One-
hundred- and- three of these were absent from the area on this date, and
another 17 whose location could not be established on this date may or
may not have been absent. Included in this count of 103 out-migrants
were 11 persons who have been gone from the area for 5 or more years who
361
were apparentlytaken permanently fromthe area by outsiders. Also in
the same month, June '84, there were present in the area 75 in-migrant
Agta from other populations. Thus the de facto population numbered, in
June '84, 581 Agta people.
The Agta population pyramids. Figures 3 and 4 display the
population pyramids for the de jure population in June 1977 and in June
1984. The first data to note here is that the population declined in
that seven year period from 618 to 609, a decline of 1.5 percent, or
0.21 percent per year. Note that this figure concords with the Agta
rate of natural decrease figure stated below, which was calculated
differently (seebottom of Table 12.1). Note also that the percentage
of dependents was 37.6 percent in 1984, with 35 percent being under age
15 and 2.6 percent over age 64. (See Table 12.1; for comparisons of
this with other populations see column 9 of the same table.) In both
pyramids the male:female sex ratio is the same, 101:100.
The mean age of the 1977 population was 24 years for males and 25
for females. In 1984 the mean male age was 23 years, and the mean
female age was 26 years. The median age for males in 1977 was 20
years, and for females it was 21 years. In 1984 the median age of
males was 18, while for females it was 24 (see Table 12.2). (My method
for calculating Agta ages is outlined in Chapter 2.)
The question of female infanticide. When we look at the sex
ratios of the children, we see that males greatly outnumber females in
both pyramids, 124:100 in the 1977 population, and 145:100 in the 1984
population. In a large population, one would immediately guess this to
362
be the result of female infanticide; and it is a plausible hypothesis
that the Agta may practice this custom, especially with the child sex
ratios we see here, and because this is a practice commonly reported for
hunter-gatherer societies in general (Denham 1974). The main argument
against this hypothesis, however, is that my wife and I have never known
of a single case of infanticide. If female infanticide was an
institutionalized practice among the Agta we almost certainly would
have come across cases of it during our years of living with them. We
never did. This includes cases of passive neglect, as well as overt
killing of an infant. Furthermore, I have found no reliable
documentation of infanticide, as a cultural practice, for any Philippine
group, either past or present.*' Agta value their children, and value
having children. The 3 sets of Agta twins born since our arrival were
all cared for as lovingly as any other infants (though 5 of the 6 twins
eventually died). The most logical explanation, then, for the high
ratio of Agta male children over female is that it is nothing more than
an unusual natural fluctuation which may occur on occasion in any small
population.
SOME VITAL STATISTICS
Births. The Agta crude birth rate (CBR) is 43 births per 1,000
population per year. This is a high figure. The average for the world
in general is low by comparison, 29/1,000. The U.S. figure is only 15,
and the figure for the total Philippines is 34. The Agta CBR is
slightly higher than the rate for the !Kung Bushmen, which is reported
as 41. (For sources of these figures, see Table 12.1; the Agta figure
is based on the 184 infants born alive in the population during the
seven year period following June 1977, all of whom are listed in Table
12.3). Agta women have a high total fertility rate, an average of 6.3
2
live births produced by women who live to age 45.
Deaths. The Agta crude death rate (CDR) is extremely high with a
figure of 45 deaths per 1,000 persons per year. The nation with the
highest CDR, worldwide, is Afghanistan, with a figure of 23/1,000. The
U.S. figure is 7/1,000, and in the Philippines it is 8/1,000 (see Table
12.1). The reasons for the high Agta death rate will be discussed in
some detail below.
Rate of natural increase. To my knowledge, the Casiguran Agta are
the only human population for which data is available on this
statistical variable which show a rate of natural decrease, rather than
increase. There are a number of tribal populations which are described
as declining in number in the anthropological literature, of course,
but none to my knowledge provide the vital data needed for computing
just what that rate of decline is. For the Agta we have that data for
a 7 year period. With a CBR of 43, and a CDR of 45, the Agta yearly
rate of natural decrease is presently running at minus 0.2 percent per
year. The population with the closest comparable figure on this
variable is that of the Yanomama: In spite of a CDR even higher than
that of the Agta, 49/1,000, the Yanomama have, because of a CBR of
57/1,000, a rate of natural increase of 0.8 percent per year (see Table
12.1). It is this Agta figure of -0.2 percent which causes me to label
the Agta population as "unstable."
364
It was mentioned above that 11 members of the 1984 population were
taken away "permanently" by outsiders 5 or more years ago. All of
these, 9 of whom are females and all of whom were orphans, were taken to
be used as domestic servants (some might say "slaves"). I do not know
the whereabouts of most of these 11, nor even if they are still alive.
I considered counting these 11 "missing" or "permanently gone" Agta as
"dead," since the chances of their ever returning after being gone so
many years is not high. However, in fairness to the data, and to keep
to my definition of the population in Appendix A, I have chosen to
count these "missing" individuals in my count of living members of the
1984 population. Four of them were missing at the time of our 1977
census, and those 4 are also counted as alive in that census. There are
of course several other persons included in both censuses who have been
away for 5+ years, but who are not in the same category as these 11
because I know they are alive and where they are.
Infant mortality. There have doubtless been other populations
throughout human history and prehistory who have had infant and child
mortality rates higher than that of the Agta. But I know of no -
documented cases with reliable figures. The Agta infant mortality rate
(IMR) is 342 deaths per 1,000 life births. Afghanistan has the highest
IMR of any nation, 205/1,000. Worldwide, the figure is 84/1,000; in the
Philippines it is 54/1,000, and in the U.S.A., 10/1,000. Two tribal
populations are reported to have very high death rates, the Semai with
244/1,000, and the Yanomama with 250/1,000 (see Table 12.1).
The percentage of Agta children who die before reaching age 15 is
even higher: 51 percent (see Table 12.1). Again, this is higher than
3
any population for which I have found data.
Life expectancies. Average Agta life expectancy at birth is only
21.2 years. The figure for males is 22.3, and for females, 19.8. This
is the mean age at death of all individuals who died between 1977 and
1984, a total of 193 (see bottom of Table 12.4). This is an almost
unbelievable figure. Mean life expectancy at birth, worldwide, is age
62. In Afghanistan it is only age 40. The U.S. figure is age 74, and
the Philippines, age 62. The figure for the !Kung is age 40 (see Table
12. 1).
Because of the extremely high number of infant deaths among the
Agta, life expectancy at age 1 rises considerably, to age 32.2 years,
average. At age 15 the mean life expectancy for males is age 47.2,
and for females age 48.9 (see bottom of Table 12.4). These figures
appear extreme, but when we compare them with estimates of other
hunter-gatherer populations we find Agta life expectancy not especially
low, after all. Mean life expectancy at age 15 for prehistoric
populations (including Neanderthals) has been estimated by one author at
about age 32 (Hassan 1981:118). For seven present-day hunter-gatherer
populations, Weiss has calculated life expectancies for people who have
reached age 15 at 41.4 years of age at death (Weiss 1973, cited in
Hassan op. cit.) Agta life expectancies at age 15 are even higher than
the estimate
for England in the fourteenth century, as determined from
4
tombstones by Russell (1958), which was age 41.
366
Still, the figures for Agta life expectancy at . birth are
impressive. As Lee has stated, "One indicator of the harshness of a
way of life is the age at which people die" (1968:35). Using the
present life expectancy figures, it is apparent that the Agta are not
having an easy time of it. It is just one of severaldemographic
measurements presented in this chapter which, taken in combination,
indicate something is wrong, ecologically, in the Agta population.
Marriage. As was pointed out in Chapter 5, all Agta adults marry,
except for those few who are physicallyhandicapped or who have been
taken away permanently by lowlanders to Manila or elsewhere.
Females do not enter their first marriages at as young an age as is
reported (or assumed) for other hunter-gatherer societies. The mean age
at first marriage for Casiguran Agta females is 18.4 years (see bottom
of Table 12.5). We do not know of any girls who married before age 15.
Our sample of the ages of 51 women at marriage suggests that 12 percent
of the females marry at age 15. By the end of their 16th year 27
percent have married, by the end of their 17th year 41 percent, by the
end of their 18th year 55 percent, and by the end of their 19th year 65
percent. Thirty-five percent of the females are still single on their
20th birthday, and in our sample (displayed in Table 12.5), all of
these marry before they reach age 23 (but for exceptions see Table
12.6, which data are from a different sample).^ This is higher than
the mean age at first marriage for females among the !Kung which is
16.9 years (Howell 1979:175). As was mentioned in Chapter 8, the later
age of marriage for Casiguran Agta women may be the result of the high
367
number of teenage girls who leave the area for a year or two to work as
servants in Manila or elsewhere. (For example, 31 percent of all
females in the population aged 13-24 were away working as housemaids in
June 1984 [see Table 8.1].)
Readers may want to know at this point what the mean age of
menarche is for Agta females. It is not easy to collect accurate data
on this question. (Agta do not mark a girl's first menstruation with a
ceremony, as do the !Kung, where Howell [1979:177-78] found it
relatively easy to record dates of menarche.) I do not have an
empirical answer to this question for the Casiguran Agta (though I did
estimate it as age 17 in an earlier paper [Headland 1975b:252]). The
Griffins, however, do have such data for the Cagayan Agta, where they
found the mean age at menarche to be age 17.14 years (Goodman et al.
1985). I think we may assume this same figure for Casiguran Agta women.
Looking at all females in the population aged 15 to 29 in 1984, we
see that in the first cohort (ages 15-19) 40 percent have been married
(12/30), in the second cohort, 74 percent (29/39), and in the third
cohort, 97 percent (31/32) (see Table 12.6).
Males marry at a slightly later age, 21.7 years on the average.
The mean, median and modal age of Agta males when they marry are all
the same, 22 years. The range is 17 to 31 years, and the standard
deviation is 3.22 years (N=46).
Age differences between mates♦ In some hunter-gatherer groups
husbands are often found to be several years older than their wives.
For example, among the !Kung, "Men are often 7 to 15 years older than
368
their wives" (Lee 1979a:452), and among Australian aborigines "young
girls are typically married to old men" (Birdsell 1975:378). This is
not the case with the Agta. Most Agta are married to partners close in
age. In a sample of 132 unions, 73 percent of the couples were less
than 6 years apart in age. In 9 percent of the unions, the couples were
the same age. In most unions, 80 percent, the husband is older than his
wife, while in 11 percent the wife is older. In 8 of the 132 cases the
husband was 10 or more years older than the wife, and in 2 cases the
wife was 10 or more years older than the husband.
Divorce and widowhood♦ The sociological aspects of divorce and
widowhood were discussed in Chapter 5. As we saw there, divorce is not
high among Casiguran Agta. In June 1984, 8 percent of the ever- married
men and 7 percent of the ever-married womenwere currently divorced.
At the same time, there were 9 current widowers and 22 widows in the
population. Two of the widowers and 9 of the widows were under age 50.
Marrying outside the population. It is not easy for one to find a
spouse in a population as small as that of the Casiguran Agta. This is
especially so in the present case, since Agta do not marry
consanguines, and are not supposed to marry affinal kin either.
Even if there were no restrictions on mate selection, an unmarried
Agta adult does not have a very wide choice of selection if he is going
to marry endogamously. For example, in June 1984 there were only 21
unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 29 in the population, 6 of whom
were absent from the area at the time, leaving only 15 single men
available for marriage. At the same time, there were 38 single women
369
between the ages of 15 and 29 in the population. But 14 of these were
also then gone from the area, leaving 24 available marriage choices for
the 15 available single men. Now theoretically, sexual attraction acting
as it does, most of these individuals should find and mate with each
other sooner or later (though I estimate the Agta exogamy rules
(described in chapter V), exclude about a third of an average
individual's potential mates). But in actual practice it is not easy
for an Agta to find a spouse, and it is not surprising to find a good
number of them today acquiring mates from outside the population.
This question of Agta mate selection may be looked at through a
theoretical question being asked today in population genetic studies.
The question is concerned with how small a population can be and still
maintain itself. That is, at what point does a population find itself
so reduced in numbers that it cannot provide enough mates for its
members, and is thus in danger of extinction? Or, more practically, at
what numerical size does a declining endogamous population have to find
mates for its members from outside, or allow those members to marry
consanguines?
A number of authors have discussed this question. McFarland's
(1970) computer simulation shows that the unavailability of marriage
partners becomes substantial for small groups, even when there are no
restrictions. When constraints, are added to this— such as the
restriction of the Agta marriage rule against marrying affines— it is
even more difficult to find mates. Adams and Kasakoff (1976) look at
the relationship between percentages of endogamy and population size for
370
21 societies. Their data show that the smaller a group's size, the
lower the percentage of endogamous marriages. Wobst (1975:80)
hypothesizes that the adoption of an incest taboo will not take place
under conditions of low population density (under 500) or high
mortality, because it too heavily restricts mating partners. Wobst
elsewhere estimates by simulation that a foraging population with a life
table similar to that of the San Bushmen would need a minimum breeding
pool of 475 persons for every adult to find a mate (1976, cited in
Wiessner 1977:40). Yengoyan (1968:198) emphasizes the lack of marriage
rules in small Australian groups as an adaptive response to population
decline. Hammel et al. (1979) point out the disadvantage posed on small
populations by their incest rules, which incur a restriction on
available mates; and Dyke (1971:37) discusses a study which suggests
that isolated populations of only 300 to 500 individuals have a high
probability of dying out. Finally, there is one clear case study of
this hypothetical model actually being played out in another Philippine
Negrito population, the Batak of Palawan, which has suffered a severe
decline in this century, numbering less than 360 in 1975. The results
are as the model predicts. Eder (1977a) presents data showing marked
increase in marriages between consanguines, and with outsiders, in the
last few years.
Assuming, then, that these authors' models are correct, it is of
interest to see how the Casiguran Agta are adjusting to their small and
declining population size. As it turns out, there has been change in
mate partner choosing among the Agta in the past several years. Rather
371
than relaxing their strict marriage rule, however, or choosing to just
not marry at all, Agta are finding mates from outside of their own small
population. In 1984, 17 percent of the currently married adults were
married to Agta from other populations (44/256; 15 individuals were
married to Madella Agta, 15 to Palanan Agta, 9 to Ilagan River Agta, and
2 to Baler Agta).^ It is not possible for me to know if this is an
increase over the past, but I do know that marriages to lowlanders have
greatly increased in the last several years. I already stated in
Chapter 8 that the number of Agta women married to lowlanders jumped
from 18 to 26 in just 7 years, a 44 percent increase in that short time.
Today, 1984, 18 percent of the currently married women are married to
lowlanders. (There are also 2 Agta men presently married to lowlander
women.) Most current marriage unions, however, are still endogamous, 71
percent in 1984.
Another indirect sign of increased mating patterns between Agta and
lowlanders (some of it probably from extramarital sexual relationships)
is the appearance of a particular phenotypic genetic change in the
population since the 1950s. I refer here to a change in the hair
texture of the youngest cohort groups. In 1977 my wife and I recorded
the hair texture type of 422 Agta. Overall, 84 percent of these people
had "Negrito" hair (kinky, bushy, fuzzy or tightly curled), while 16
percent had straight or wavy hair. But the number of adults (those born
before 1957, or age 20+ in 1977) with "Negrito" hair in that sample was
very high, 92 percent (242/262), while among those then aged 10-19 only
372
82 percent had "Negrito" hair (75/91), and among those aged 0-9 the
number with "Negrito" hair was only 54 percent (37/69).
For whatever reasons, it seems obvious that some type of gene flow
is occurring in the population at the present time, as the result of
increased mating with non-Negrito lowlanders. Our genealogies show that
8 percent of the population are half-bloods, and another 6 percent
quarter-bloods. There may be a few more than these, but probably not
many more. It is not hard to recognize half-bloods, and in an open
society such as theirs it was not usually possible for individuals to
hide from us their true parenthood. (Our figure on the percentage of
quarter-bloods is less reliable, since they are not always recognizable,
and many Agta do not know their grandparents or who they were.)
If gene flow is increasing in the population, as the change in hair
texture suggests, then the percentage of half-bloods in the youngest
cohort groups must be higher than in the older cohort groups. The data
do not, however, support this hypothesis. Eleven percent of those aged
0-19 are half-bloods (30/278), the figure drops to just 3 percent among
those aged 20-39 (6/205), but then rises again to 9 percent among those
over age 39 (11/126); and 5 of the 33 individuals age 60 and over are
half-bloods. The sample is too small, and the risk of subconscious bias
too great, for this data to prove very much. Also, Agta have been in
contact with non-Agta for hundreds of years. A good number of Agta,
perhaps a majority, likely carry genes introduced into the population by
lowlanders in the distant past.
373
Out-migration and in-migration. As I stated at the beginning of
this chapter, the present analysis is of the de jure population, not of
the de facto population. In June of 1984 there were 75 in-migrant^
Agta from other populations residing in the Casiguran area, and 103 of
the Casiguran Agta'were out of the area at the same time (including the
11 Agta mentioned earlier who have been gone or "missing" for 5 or more
years). There were also 14 Casiguran Agta who were in the area at the
time, but who were living either in town or in a lowland barrio, rather
than with other Agta. (These were all servants in lowlander homes.)
(See Table 12.7 for breakdown by sex.) In June 1977, according to our
census taken then, there were 34 in-migrant Agta in the area, who were
from other populations, and 93 members of the then de jure population
were absent from the area. The latter figure is probably trustworthy,
but the figure on number of in-migrants in 1977 is almost surely low,
since my census collecting did not then focus on Agta from other
population groups.
Most of the 75 in-migrants, 78 percent, had close relatives who
were members of the de jure population (i.e., parent, sibling or
child). This is what we would expect, because Agta do not normally
enter band areas of other Agta unless they have kinsmen there.
Sixty-five percent of these 75 in-migrants were temporary visitors in
the area (defined as persons who have been in the area less than one
year). A few, 15 percent, are long time residents, 7 years or more.
The other 19 percent have resided in Casiguran between 1 and 7 years
(see Table 12.7). The in-migrant Agta come from eight different
374
ethnolinguistic Agta populations, with the highest number coming from
Madella and Palanan (25 percent and 23 percent, respectively). (For
the number of in-migrant Agta from other population groups see Table
12.7.)
EVIDENCE OF THE POPULATION DECLINE
Empirical evidence was presented earlier in this chapter showing
that the Agta population has declined over the last 7 years following
June 1977. Though this decline may appear slight, only 0.2 percent per
year, it is significant, and it signals that something has probably
gone wrong in this population, since human populations, even those with
high death rates, usually grow, not decline (for example the Yanomama,
or the national population of Afghanistan, whose figures are displayed
in Table 12.1). In fact, when a small tribal population shows a rate
of decline, this can usually be taken as a sign that the group is in
some kind of maladaptive state with its ecosystem, and is in danger of
extinction. This is the way I interpret the Casiguran Agta today. As
one group of authors state, "Depopulation is perhaps the most telling
index of maladjustment [of a human population]" (Harrison et al.
1977:399).
Evidence from informant testimony. The first question which may
be raised, of course, is whether the Agta population decline is a
phenomenon which has been going on for a long time, say the last 60
years or so, or is this just something which occurred in the last 7 year
period. There is some indirect circumstantial evidence that this
decline has been going on since before WWII, at least. One of these
375
pieces of evidence is the actual testimonies of both older Agta and
older Casiguranin lowlanders. In 1977 I interviewed 24 older Agta,
asking them, "How many Agta were there when you were young? Were there
more then, or less, or just the same?" I still have their answers on my
schedules. All of them, without a single exception, stated there were
more Agta in the past. I havealso asked this question to many older
lowlanders. There answers are the same. (Both groups, by the way,
gave the two reasons for the decline as "diseases" and "overdrinking.")
The emphatic testimonies of so many older people in Casiguran, both
Agta and lowlanders, is enough to convince me that there were a lot
more Agta in Casiguran before WWII than there are today.
Reproducing enough reproductive daughters. Another set of
evidence which may provide an indirect measurement of whether a
population is stable or not is to look at the average number of adult
daughters produced by a sample of women who have completed their
childbearing years. Demographers say that all a population needs to do
to remain stationary is for each woman to produce one daughter each who
lives to reach age 15.
As we see from Table 12.8, mean completed parity is 6.3. Table F9
shows that the average woman age 45+ produces 2.88 offspring who live
to reach age 15. The question is, how many daughters does each woman
who lives to age 45 produce which live to reach reproductive age (i.e.,
age 15)? We would assume the figure would be half of 2.88, or 1.44. If
this is correct it would indicate that the population is not only
stationary, but stable (i.e., growing), since each woman (who lives to
376
reach age 45) produces, on the average, more than one daughter each.
Looking at Table 12.10, we see that the data does show this to be the
case. Agta women age 45+ produced 1.41 daughters each who lived to age
15.
Why, then, with such a high reproduction rate of daughters who in
turn reach reproductive age, is the population not stable? My answer to
this question is that though a group of, let us say, 100 women produce a
generation of 140 daughters who live to reproductive age (age 15), it is
a mistake to assume that these 140 daughters will in turn produce 197
granddaughters (140 X 1.41 = 197). This is because not all of these 140
women will survive to the end of their childbearing period. The mean
life expectancy of females at age 15 is age 49 (see bottom of Table
12.4). This means that a high number of these 140 daughters, roughly
half, will die before they reach menopause. Only those who survive to
age 45 will produce 1.4 daughters each who live to reach age 15.
Another question to ask then, is how many granddaughters are
eventually produced in the female line only? Fortunately, with
Vanoverbergh's census we have a sample of such women from whom we can
draw data to answer that question. Table 12.11 displays a sample of 62
women's names who were ever married adults in 1936, and who are listed
by name in Vanoverbergh's census. These are all the women in his
census for which I have genealogical information from my own informants.
These women together produced 75 daughters who lived to age 15, an
average of 1.21 daughters each. This is slightly fewer than the 1.4
average mentioned above. The question is, how many daughters did these
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75 women produce? Not 105, as we would expect if they produced 1.4
daughters each (75 X 1.4 = 105), but only 64! These data suggest that
women are not producing enough daughters to keep the population
stationary, let alone stable.
It must be admitted that there are several problems in interpreting
these data. First, we do not know how many of the original62 women
Vanoverbergh lists lived to reach age 45. We also do not know how many
of the 64 daughters listed in column 4 of the table, some ofwhom are
still infants, will live to reach age 45. The data are illustrative,
and suggest that, though enough daughters are being produced, most of
them are dying before they in turn can reproduce enough daughters to
keep the population from declining. It must be kept in mind, of course,
that the Vanoverbergh data is too problematic to be definitive at this
point. Alone, it cannot be used to "prove” the population is declining.
In combination with other supporting data, it provides further
circumstantial evidence in support of Hypothesis 10 of the present
thesis.
Evidence fromVanoverbergh*s census. Another important source of
indirect evidence supporting the population decline argument is the Agta
census taken by Vanoverbergh in 1936, which he fortunately published
(Vanoverbergh 1937-38:139-147, 149). Vanoverbergh states that he
censused "in the Casiguran district 787 [Agta] individuals (small
children not included)" (ibid.:149).
There are certain problems in attempting to interpret
Vanoverbergh's census. My goal in this section will be to attempt to
378
reconstruct an estimate of what the Casiguran Agta de jure population
was in 1936. In doing this, I will also outline thethree problems I
found in reconstructing his census count. These were, first of all, he
did not count "small children." Second, while he counted the Agta in
10 Casiguran band areas (and he names those areas and the number of
Agta in each [1937-38:151-52]), he failed to census the Agta in three
other traditional areas in Casiguran, Bakyad, Dilasag, and Dinapigui.
And third, Vanoverbergh's census is a de facto count, not a de jure
count. Let us look at these one at a time, and how I attempted to solve
them in my effort to come to what I believe is an accurate and
conservative estimate of the de jure population in 1936.
Vanoverbergh's statement that he did not include "small children"
in his count createda problem for me, because I did not know how
Vanoverbergh defined "small children." I made a special trip to Baguio
City in 1979 to visit Vanoverbergh, and to ask him what he meant by
"small children." Father Vanoverbergh was then 94 years old (he died in
Baguio on November 2, 1982, at the age of 97.) Frail, hard of hearing,
and almost blind, he told me at first in our interview, on April 1,
1979, that he could not remember. The next day he came back to the
question and said, "As I recall, I did not count infants under one year;
those who did not have names."
I assume, then, that Vanoverbergh's census count should be 787 plus
whatever number of infants there were in the population at the time.
How many infants could this have been? If the ratio of infants to the
rest of the population then was the same as it is now, then there would
379
g
have been 124 infants whom Vanoverbergh declined to count. Thus, if
Vanoverbergh had counted infants his census count would be 787 plus 124
infants, for a total of 911.
Our second problem is to attempt an estimate as to how many Agta
may have been living in the three Casiguran band areas Vanoverbergh
failed to census in the summer of 1936. It should be noted first, that
his reason for bypassing these locations is obvious— they are distant
areas which he failed to reach during his short ten week period in
Casiguran (ibid.:908). They are all north of the town, and he simply
failed to hike to those areas. All three of these are long-time
traditional Agta band areas. There is some possibility that the Agta
weretemporarily absent from one or more of these three places in 1936,
but the weight of evidence is that Vanoverbergh simply neglected to
visit them because they were distant from where he was living (which
was south of the town), and because he could not reach there by boat.
If he had censused those three locations, I estimate his census
would have had at least 100 more names, and possibly over 200 more
names. In my estimation of the correct population size of the
Casiguran Agta in 1936, I will stay on the conservative side and assume
he missed counting only 100 Agta who were then living in these three
distant areas, including the infants in those three groups.
My estimate then of the de facto number of Agta in Casiguran in
1936 is 787 (his de facto count, which included a small number of Agta
from other populations, a point I will pick up below), plus 124
infants, plus 100 Agta who were living in areas distant from Casiguran
380
whom Vanoverbergh failed to count. This sums to a total of 1,011
persons. I feel fairly confident of this figure, plus or minus 100
persons. I cannot, however, be positive that we have the right figure
here. The evidence is circumstantial, but not conclusive.
My reconstruction, then, of the Agta de facto census in 1936 was,
let us say, about 1,000. One problem still remains. To avoid
"comparing apples with oranges," we need toestimate what the de jure
Casiguran Agta population may have been in 1936, since my main census,
which I am comparing with his, is a de jure count. (Note, though, that
I have a de facto count for June of '84 as well, which was 581, only 28
persons less than my de jure count.)
The problem is that Vanoverbergh's de facto count could possibly be
inflated if there were a high number of Agta visitors in the area from
other Agta populations, when he made his count. However, Vanoverbergh
lists by name most of the Agta he counted, and I have worked through
those names and found almost all of them tobe in my own genealogy
charts of Casiguran Agta. I found eight names in his census of Baler
Agta (i.e., non-Casiguran Agta), and about a dozen other names of
individuals whom I could not locate in my records of Agta genealogies,
and whom none of my informants knew. These latter may have been
temporary in-migrant visitors from another Agta population in 1936. In
any case, I found no evidence that Vanoverbergh's census was
significantly inflated by the presence of temporary in-migrant Agta
visitors from other Agta populations. Furthermore, there were almost
certainly some members of the Casiguran Agta 1936 de jure population who
381
were not in the area then, and who Vanoverbergh thus did not include in
his count. We do not know how many people these may then have been,
though we can be sure it was some. It would be tempting to guess, based
on our figure of 103 Casiguran Agta out-migrants in June of '84 (Table
12.7), that the out-migrants in 1936 could have' been as many as a
hundred. But to stay on the conservative side, let us assume there were
no out-migrants in 1936.
Coming back to our question, then, what was the probable de jure
count of the Casiguran Agta in 1936? My answer is that it was probably
just about the same as the de facto count. That is, about 1,000
persons. If this figure is correct, it means that in the 48 year
period between 1936 and 1984 there was a population decline of 40
percent, from 1,000 persons to 609. This is the figure I will hold to
in the present study: A 4£ percent decline, from 1,000 to 609, over a^
half century period ending in 1984.
There is one factor here which makes this 40 percent figure look
suspicious. If there are 402 less people in the population now than
there were 48 years ago, this means there was a decline of 8.4 persons
per year, on the average. But in the last 7 year period the decline
averaged only 1.3 persons per year. What may account for this
discrepancy? There are three possible answers: Either we have here
nothing more than a temporary aberration from a general population
decline (a statistical feature common in very small populations), or my
estimate of the Agta population size in 1936 is inflated, or some new
influence has recently entered the Agta ecosystem which has slowed their
382
death rate. (It may also be possible that any two, or all three, of
these possibilities may account for the discrepancy.)
I personally believe, however, that the death rate has dropped in
recent years from the third answer; that is, by a new factor now found
in the Agta system. This factor is the increased availability of
western medical help. This help includes the hospital in Baler, the
Casiguran hospital (opened in 1977), the two medical doctors in
Casiguran, the medical program of my wife and I, and the medical program
of the missionaries of the New Tribes Mission, who began working with
the Agta in 1973. It is impossible for me to know how many Agta lives
my wife and I may have saved during our tenure there since 1962, but I
think a conservative estimate would be 4 or 5 Agta per year, average, or
about a hundred Agta lives by 1984.
If we, in combination with the medical work of the other
missionaries, plus the services of the doctors at the hospitals at
Casiguran and Baler, had saved an average of 7 Agta lives per year
during the 7 year period between the two censuses (a total of 49 lives),
that would have changed the annual population decline from an otherwise
8 persons per year to its actualtrue figure of 1.3 per year. That is,
if western medical help had not been available during the 7 years
following 1977, more Agta would have died during that time. Just how
many more is an open question. But it would only take a few more, just
7 deaths more per year above the actual average of 28 deaths per year
since 1977 (Table 12.4), to bring the death rate up to the estimated
g
total yearly average decline of 8.4 per year since 1936.
383
If there were, indeed, around a thousand Agta in Casiguran in
1936— and the data reviewed here, including informant testimony,
support this figure— then we have a startling population decline, 40
percent over a 50 year period. But the decline was much less during
the last 7 years. I have presented here what I believe is the reason
for this recent slowing of the decline, namely, the availability today
of modern medicines.
In concluding this section, I want to leave the question open as to
whether the population decline has really been as high as 40 percent,
over the last half century. It may have been only 30 percent, even
possibly (though not likely) as low as 20 percent. Whatever the exact
figure was, the evidence is solid that there was and is a decline, and
that this decline has been high. Even a decline of only 1.3 persons a
year, as has occurred for the last 7 years, is significant in a
population of only 600 people. Proposition 5, and Hypothesis 10, are
fully supported by the data— the Agta are in a maladaptive state today.
While the recent introduction of modern medicines has, at least for the
time being, apparently reduced the decline, it has not brought the Agta
population back to the level of stability. They still are, it must be
emphasized, still declining. If modern medical help continues to be
made available to the Agta, and if the Agta find a way to adjust to the
many new ecological pressures being .put upon them, they may survive.
Without those opportunities, they may be on the road to disappearance.
384
LOOKING AT THE CAUSES OF THE POPULATION DECLINE
Assuming, then, that the population has suffered this high rate of
decline over the last 50 years, the most obvious question to be raised
next is Why? There are only four possible answers to this question.
Either the decline was caused by a high death rate, a low birth rate,
out-migration, or some combination thereof.
The above discussion has pretty well eliminated three of these four
possible answers. The Agta birth rate is very high, not low, and the
out-migration question does not matter in this case because we are
dealing here with a de jure population, not a de facto one.*^ The
correct answer, then, is obvious. The decline has been caused solely by
a very high death rate.
This brings us, then, to the next question, the question asked by
Weiss at the opening page of this chapter: What are all these people
dying of?
The question of climactic events. Before we look at the
statistics of various causes of death, we should consider the hypothesis
that the decline in population size between 1936 and 1984 may have been
caused by one or more climactic events. We have already discussed in
Chapter 9 the possibility of some epidemic killing off a portion of the
population after 1936. We concluded there that there have been no major
epidemics since that year. But could there have been any other major
events which may have caused the deaths of a large number of Agta all at
once? The first thing which comes to mind here is WWII. Surely the
Agta were affected by the War. But how? It is a logical hypothesis
385
that a significant number of Agta may have been killed during WWII.
However, as I explained in detail in Chapter 8, not a single Casiguran
Agta was killed by Japanese during the War. We can thus rule out that
possibility as a factor in the population decline. There may have been
times of severe hunger during the War which were severe enough to
affect mortality, but if such was the case Agta today do not remember
it.
There are no remembrances, either, of any major accidents (say of a
boatload of Agta drowning in a storm). There have been severe typhoons,
but we know of only two Agta who were killed during separate typhoons
(both by falling trees). There have been Moro slave raids into
Casiguran,*-* but these occurred long before 1936. The guerrilla war in
Casiguran in 1974-75 has been the major event in the area since WWII,
but as I stated in Chapter 8, only two Agta died directly as a result
of that conflict.
Intra-Agta raiding. What about the possibility of intra-Agta
raids? Could there have been a large number of Agta deaths from some
attack or series of attacks by Agta raiders? The danger of Agta raiding
parties must have been a chronic problem for Agta in the past. Their
folklore refers often to this custom (called ngayo in Agta), and to
hear them talk about it, one would assume it was once a frequent danger.
But when I have tried to get Agta to tell me about actual raids in
Casiguran, I was able to elicit cases of only four raids where Agta were
killed. Only one of these occurred in the heart of the Casiguran area.
386
This was in 1950, and it resulted in the death of one man (individual
no. 10 in Table 12.14).
Two other raids occurred on the northern edge of the Casiguran
area. The first raid was at the mouth of the Dinapigui River, about
1938, in which about 20-25 Agta were reported killed, most of whom were
said to have been children. Only one of these victims is listed in
Table 12.14 (no. 2), since my informants could not remember the names
of the other victims. The other raid occurred at the mouth of the
Dibulo River, just south of Dinapigui, about 1947. Between 8 and 10
Agta were killed in this raid, though I only list in Table 12.14 those
5 victims my informants can remember by name (nos. 3 through 7, in that
table).
The fourth raid occurred in an Agta camp on the west side of the
Sierra Madre, in an area near Madella. This is completely outside of
the Casiguran area. As near as I can fix the date, it was probably in
the late 1940s (though one of my Agta sources, who was not an eye
witness, insisted it happened before the War). In this case, the
attackers were not Agta, but Ilokano lowlanders allegedly led by a man
named "Rafael,” alias "Paeng." This incident is known by some, but not
all, of the older Agta who live inthe southwest area of Casiguran.
Two of the four men who related the story to me (in three separate
interviews, on June 26, July 8, and October 23, 1978) were present in
the camp when it was attacked. Both were then teenagers, and they were
among the few who escaped. One of them, Bunaw, was badly wounded in
the left buttocks by a bullet, where he still has a deep scar.
387
This incident was said to have occurred at a place called Dabugo,
Madella, in Quirino Province, near Sitio Bantay Sur (previously called
Niyarien), a part of Barrio Bergunesa. I am not familiar with these
place names. "About 30" Agta were killed, they said. The list of
victims' names my four informants gave me came to 42, but only 9 of
those names were given by more than one informant. I don't know if 42
Agta were actually killed, but the fact that 9 of the names matched when
I interviewed Bunaw almost four months later adds credibility to the
story. I am sure those 9, plus others, were killed, but it may have
been less than 42.
As best I can place these names, however, only two of the victims
were members of the Casiguran Agta population. These were children,
younger siblings of Bunaw, named Meri and Hokem (nos. 43 and 44 in
Table 12.14), whose father was a Madella Agta and whose mother was a
Casiguran Agta. My informants say the camp was composed of Madella Agta
from the Ngilenen River band group. Of my two eyewitness informants,
one was a Madella Agta and the other, Bunaw, also grew up in Madella
(though his mother was from Casiguran).
The question we want to ask here is, What role did these 4 raids
play in the population decline, and especially inthe significant
decline in number of Casiguran Agta since Vanoverbergh's census? The
first thing to note is that, with the exception of the lone victim in
the 1950 raid (Molina), not a single one of the victims of the raids
12
whose names I have are listed in Vanoverbergh's census. The terrible
raid in Madella probably did not affect the Agta population, since
388
those victims were Madella Agta, not Casiguran Agta. (Only 2 of those
victims are listed in Table 12.14, nos. 43 and 44.) The 2 raids in
1938 and 1947 certainly affected the population stability of the
Casiguran Agta, but they do not contribute to the high rate of decline
since 1936, since Vanoverbergh did not include in his census the
Casiguran Agta living at Dinapigui and Dibulo.
I want to make the point, then, that the high Agta death rate since
1936 is the accumulation of many individual disconnected deaths. There
is no record of a number of people dying in the same incident, or from
the same event, except forthe two raids in 1938 and 1947. (And these
victims were not a part of Vanoverbergh's census, anyway.) The only
other two exceptions, both minor, were when two men drowned when their
dugout canoe turned over in 1963 (they were both drunk), andthe time
when four Agta infants died of the flu in January 1976, on the Panamin
Reserve at Calabgan. (The case of the 8 Agta who died of 'cholera' in
June-July of 1985, described in Chapter 9, is not applicable here since
it occurred after the closing of our 1984 census.)
THE MAIN CAUSES OF AGTA DEATHS
Let us turn then and look at what the causes of all the deaths
were.
There are two sets of data we will look at here to answer this
question. The first data set consists of an analysis of thereported
causes of death of the 193 members of the population who died between
1977 and 1984. We will here call these people members of "Population
2." The reported causes of deaths of those 193 deceased individuals in
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Population 2 is listed in column 6 of Table 12.4, and these data are
arranged in matrix form in Table 12.12. The second set of data
consists of the reported causes of deaths of 249 Agta in the 50 years
preceding 1977. These 249 individuals were members of what I will
refer to as "Population 1." Their causes of death are displayed in
column 3 of Table 12.13. (The causes of death of those who died in
Population 2 are also displayed in this table, in column 4.)
Accidents. One of the first things we want to ask of the data is
whether the high death rate is the result of a high number of deaths by
accidents. Both data sets show this cause of death to be not
particularly high (4 percent for Population 1 and 3 percent for
population 2). The breakdown of the 17 accidental deaths in the two
samples were as follows: 2 cases of children who fell into a fire, 2
cases of men who drowned, 2 separate incidents of drunk men who fell out
of coconut trees while attempting to fetch coconut wine, and 1 case each
of the following: infant dropped by sister, woman killed by falling tree
in a typhoon, man killed by tree he cut down while making a swidden,
sick man who fell from a cliff, woman who cut herself, boy who fell from
a tree, another boy who fell, small girl who died from overdose of worm
medicine, small child who fell from floor of house, man who accidentally
shot himself with a shotgun, and a man who died from eating a poisonous
shellfish.
Other minor unusual deaths shown in Table 12.13 were: one case of
suicide (a young man who drank some commercial insect poison when the
390
girl he was to marry eloped with a lowlander man), 1 case of a man who
disappeared in the forest, and 4 cases of death from tunor 'cancer.'
Maternal deaths from childbirth. A surprisingly high percentage
of adult female deaths are the result of childbirth complications, 14
percent in the sample of Population 1, and 12 percent in Population 2.
This seems high even for primitive populations. I suspect that the high
number of deaths attributed to this cause is either because pregnant
women are in weak health to begin with (from poor nutrition), or because
of some particular unsanitary obstetric practice, or both. The Agta
maternal mortality rate is an appalling 2,174 maternal deaths per

13
100,000 live births. Compare this with the 1982 Philippine rate of
90 per 100,000 (WHO 1983:15), and the U.S. rate of 19 per 100,000 in
1971, or of 165 per 100,000 in 1935. (Howell does not give a !Kung rate
for this variable, except to say that "death in childbirth is not a
common event [among the !Kung]" [1979:58].)
These deaths have a serious positive effect on the Agta population
decline for, as epidemiologists point out, "Maternal deaths represent
particularly tragic losses because they affect young adult [reproductive
females], often at the peak period of family responsibility" (Mausner
and Bahn 1974:195). The population loses two members at each maternal
death, since the fetus or infant usually does not survive, not to
mention the future offspring these women would have produced if they had
not died.
Alcohol-related deaths. A high number of deaths are also emically
attributed to peginom 'drunkenness', 6 percent of the adult deaths in
391
both populations. (Again, these causes of death are what surviving
relatives gave to me during interviews.) Not all of these people died
directly as a result of drinking. One man, for example, passed out
drunk on the beach in the morning and lay all day in the direct
sunlight. He never regained consciousness. His direct cause of death
was probably sunstroke, but his family attributed it to 'drunkenness'.
Beyond the high number of adults who die directly from overdrinking,
alcohol contributes indirectly in other ways to the population
instability. I have already mentioned in Chapter 8 the role alcohol
plays as a critical component in the Agta ecosystem, and in Chapter 10
we saw the high incidence of recorded drunkenness among the Agta in
1983-84. And we will see in the next section below that alcohol also
plays a major role in the high Agta homicide rate.
As I will discuss below, the single biggest cause of death is
saket 'disease'. But before we look at the role of disease in the high
Agta death rate we should look first at what is the most surprising and
salient cause of deaths, and especially deaths of adult males. These
are deaths caused by homicide.
The factor of homicide. As we see from Table 12.13, homicide is
very much a major feature in Agta demography. In Population 1, 12
percent of the adult male deaths were attributed to homicide and in
Population 2, 21 percent. The overall homicide rate for the Casiguran
Agta, based on 7 years of data of Population 2, is 326 (that is, 236
homicides per 100,000 people per year). The 14 homicides on which this
14
calculation is based include only homicides of members of the de jure
392
population (those whose names are preceded by an asterisk in Table
12.14). There were 6 other Agta homicide victims killed during the
period (nos. 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, and 52 in Table 12.14), but these are
not included in the rate calculation because they were not de jure
members, and only 1 of the 6 was killed inside the Casiguran area.
(Three of the 53 homicide cases listed in Table 12.14 were accidental,
i.e., manslaughter, and these are marked with the word "yes" in column
11 of that table.)
A homicide rate of 326 is extremely high for a human population, as
we see by looking at comparative rates for other groups in Table 12.15.
The population with the highest homicide rate for which I have found
data is the Qolla, with a reported rate of 55/100,000/year (Bolton
1984:3). There are doubtless tribal populations with rates as high as
the Agta, but empirical data on this is unavailable for such groups
because ethnographers do not usually stay in the field long enough to
collect such data.
There is another way, however, of comparing the frequency of
homicides cross-culturally other than by "rates." This is by finding
out the percentage of a sample of deaths which were by homicide. This
is something ethnographers can do within a year's field work, usually by
using interview schedules. Column 4 of Table 12.15 compares the
percentage of adult males who die of homicide in certain tribal
populations. Using this method of figuring, I know of three tribal
populations where the percent of adult male deaths from murder is higher
393
than the Agta. These are the Yanomamo, the Dani, and the Waorani (see
Table 12.15).
There are a few interesting points to note about these Agta
homicides. With the lowlander immigrants now pouring into the Agta
ecosystem, it is a logical question to ask whether most of these murders
were committed by lowlanders. As it turns out, of the 31 Agta deaths by
homicide since my arrival in 1962, of which I am aware, only 26 percent
were killed by lowlanders. Of the 14 Agta homicides in the de jure
population since 1977, only 5 were killed by lowlanders. The majority
of homicides, then, are committed by other Agta, not by lowlanders. It
should be noted here also that Agta kill lowlanders, too. I know of 24
cases of Agta killing lowlanders since 1930, and 15 cases since my
arrival in '62.^
A second question concerns what role alcohol may play in all these
killings. Of the 38 cases in my records of Agta killing either
lowlanders or other Agta since 1962, the killer and/or the victim were
drunk at the time of the incident 50 percent of the time (19/38).
The Agta homicide rate, then, is extremely high. A population
could probably sustain such rates (since only 15 percent of the victims
since 1962 were females) and remain stable if there were no other
factors causing a high number of deaths. But with the high number of
Agta deaths from disease, malnutrition and alcohol, the homicide rate
in this population only aggravates what is already a deplorable case of
population instability.
394
The role of disease in Agta mortality. As we see in the bottom
row of Table 12.13, the major cause of Agta deaths is disease, with 80
percent of the deaths being attributed to this cause. In many cases,
especially for "Population 2," I did not record the specific disease
which may have caused deaths, so I cannot give here definitive
statistics on just what diseases are most prevalent in the population.
It is my hypothesis that the single biggest killer among Agta adults is
tuberculosis and, for all age groups, pneumonia. Probably a third
leading cause of death is from gastro-intestinal diseases, specifically
diarrhea.^
These, however, are direct causes of death. There are indirect
causes of Agta deaths, which probably play even bigger roles in the
morbidity and mortality of the population than the above-mentioned
diseases. These are malnutrition and undernutrition, drunkenness,
malaria, intestinal parasites, and unsanitary living conditions. These
indirect factors, working together, wear down the health levels of
individuals, and of the population as a whole. It is, I believe, the
malnutrition and general poor health of the Agta which makes them so
susceptible to major diseases such as tuberculosis, etc. Though few
Agta die directly from malaria, for example, most Agta suffer at times
from chronic malaria, thus weakening them even more and making them more
susceptible to other diseases. I already mentioned the extremely lean
body size of Agta in Chapter 3. As we see from Table 12.16, the
weight/height ratio of the Agta shows them to be among the thinnest
people on record.
395
How do the Agta compare in weight with other populations?
Comparing them by Western and Filipino standards, the average Casiguran
Agta adult male at 153 cm and 45 kg weighs only 80 percent of the
Western standard weight of 56.1 kg for that height (Jelliffe 1966:238),
and only 88 percent of the Filipino standard weight of 50.9 kg for that
height (Cordero et al. 1956:429). Likewise, the average Casiguran Agta
woman at 144 cm and 38 kg weighs only 81 percent of Western standard
weight of 47.0 kg for that height (Jelliffe 1966:240), and only 83
percent of the Filipino standard weight of 45.6 kg for that height
(Cordero et al. 1956:435) (cf. Table 12.16).
More interesting is a comparison of the mean weight/height ratios
of different populations. (This is the standard way of measuring the
relative thinness of a population with other populations.) As we see
from column 4 of Table 12.16, the Agta are quite thin. In fact, they
are thinner than any human population for which I have data.
One salient way of showing just how thin the Agta are is to compare
their mean weight/height ratios with those of the young men used in the
"Minnesota experiment" during WWII. In this study of experimental
starvation, the weight/height index of these men at the beginning of the
experiment was 38.8. After six months of semi-starvation it fell to
29.5, a loss of 25 percent of their body weight (Keys et al. 1950:146).
Note that this ratio figure of these American men, after six months of
semi-starvation, is still one-tenth higher than the normal index of
Casiguran Agta men in 1983-84.
396
While a nutritional study was not a part of the research of this
thesis, the extreme thinness of the Agta, seen in conjunction with their
extremely high death rate, leads us to the conclusion that Agta body
size is not the result of physiological or genetic adaptation to
environment, but is rather the result of poor nutrition and poor health.
In fact, several of the data sets presented in this chapter— the infant
death rates, maternal mortality rate, life expectancy at birth, endemic
diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy, the high homicide rate,
etc.— lead us to conclude that there is little doubt but that the Agta
population is no longer in an adaptive state in their now fast-changing
ecosystem and is, indeed, actually in danger of extinction.
* * *
The data presentedin this chapter provide strong support for
Proposition 5, in that we see here that the Casiguran Agta population is
indeed suffering severe demographic and ecological stress. The bottom
line of measurement of this stress is seen in their population decline,
which is shown to be just as Hypothesis 10 proposed. This decline
measured at minus 0.2 percent per year during the last 7 years, and
circumstantial evidence shows the population declined perhaps as much as
40 percent over the last 50 years. As we have seen, the decline has
been caused solely by a high death rate; neither low birth rates or out
migration played any role in the decline.
We may conclude this chapter by raising the question as to how long
the Casiguran Agta havebeen sustaining their present high death rate.
Have child mortality and maternal mortality rates always been this high?
397
Have diseases always plagued them as they are at present? Has life
expectancy always been as low as it is today?
I believe the answer must be no to these questions. If the answer
were yes, the Agta population would have died out long ago. While I am
not as optimistic as Wirsing (1985), who argues for an almost "Garden
of Eden" bliss for prehistoric populations, we can be sure the Agta
lived well enough for thousands of years to keep their population
stable. The mounting evidence presented throughout this thesis leads us
to only one conclusion: The Agta have only recently— within this
century— been thrown badly out of balance by the many new acculturative
forces introduced into their ecosystem. That is what this thesis is all
about. I think the points Dunn made so well at the seminal hunter-
gatherer conference at Chicago in 1966 (Dunn 1968), while referring to
prehistoric hunter-gatherers in general, apply well to the Agta case.
That is, before this century Agta malnutrition was rare, chronic disease
was infrequent, and Agta had a degree of adaptive stability which is
absent today. Unfortunately, the Agta today would fit easily into John
Bodley's (1982) model of how traditional societies become "Victims of
Progress."
1. There are a few vague references to the killing of newborn

twins in the Philippines (Jenks 1905:60, for the Bontoc; Vanoverbergh
1936:100-02, for the Isneg; Vanoverbergh 1933:29, for Filipinos in
general; and Garvan 1964:126, who indirectly quotes the statement of a
Negrito claiming such), and this may have been a custom among some
Philippine groups in the past. Other references deny the practice of
infanticide for particular groups (Nimmo 1970:257, for the Sama Bajau;
Vanoverbergh, for Negritos [as cited in Garvan 1964:256]; and Newton
1920:15, also for Negritos). The only clear reference to infanticide as
an institution in the Philippines is from Pennoyer 1975:116, where he
states that, among the Taubuid of Mindoro, "There are many instances
where infanticide is practiced. The couple's first baby is always
killed." When I wrote Pennoyer questioning him about this, he admitted
that this was the ideal, but not necessarily normative, behavior among
the Taubuid, and that he did not know personally of a single case of
infanticide (Pennoyer, personal correspondence dated Sept. 9, 1980).
There are no references in the literature to the practice of

female infanticide in the Philippines except one vague mention of its
possible practice among immigrant Chinese (Hart 1954:178). I have
talked with Pagan Gaddang tribal friends from Paracelis, Mountain
Province, who say they remember their parents and neighbors burying
newborn infants alive.
2. !Kung women who live to age 45 have an average of 4.69 live

births each (Howell 1979:123). Some readers may want to know how long
Agta women nurse their children (since nursing is believed to extend the
period of postpartum amenorrhea of the mother). Casiguran Agta women
wean their children gradually at about the time they reach their second
birthday. (In a sample of 20 cases we observed, the mean age was 24.9
months, with the standard deviation being 6.21 months.) !Kung children,
by contrast, are nursed for 3 years or longer (Draper 1976:215; Lee
1979:310).
3. It is interesting to note that my earlier calculation of the

child death rate, based on a completely different sample (of children
born in the '70s), was 48 percent (Headland 1981:12). My count of the
children listed in Father Morice Vanoverbergh's 1936 census of the
Casiguran Agta (1937-38:139-47), for which he tells whether each was
alive or dead at the time of his visit, showed 369 children, 143 of whom
were deceased. This suggests that, if Vanoverbergh succeeded in
eliciting the names of all dead children (unlikely), and if none of the
then living children died after 1936 before they reached age 15 (also
unlikely), the child death rate at that time was 39 percent (143/369).
398
399
4. My figures here refer to mean ages at death since birth, not

since age 15, which are the figures used by demographers drawing from
life tables. To get actual age at death, I have added 15 in my text to
Hassan's figures.
5. The percentage figures given here were calculated by dividing

the number of females in Table 12.5 who married before age n by all 51
females in that table. For example, 21 of the 51 females in the table
married before age 18 (21 / 51 = 41%). Thus, 41 percent were married
by the end of their 17th year of age. The percentage figures in the
far right column of Table 12.6, though taken from a different sample,
would be the same as those given here if the population was large.
Most of the comparable figures are similar, but not the same. This is
because we are dealing here with very small samples.
6. This sampleincludes all adults in the population except 19,

whose civil status of which I was unsure in June of 1984.
7. The term "migrant" in this thesis is meant to include persons

who have moved temporarily to another area (visitors and quasi
migrants), as well as permanent migrants.
8. Combining the 1977 and 1984 populations (for the purpose of

getting an average of the two) gives a hypothetical population size of
1,227, with 167 of these being infants under age 1. Subtracting these
167 infants leaves a population size of 1,060. The equation 1,060 X
15.75% = 167, the number of infants actually in the two combined
populations. Thus we multiply Vanoverbergh's census figure of 787 by
15.75 percent to get the estimated number of infants he chose not to
count, which would be 124.
9. I should make clear that the medical work of my wife and I

consisted of more than just dispensing a few pills from time to time,
we both had paramedical training before we went to the Philippines, and
we have treated many hundreds of Agta patients with various drugs,
including antibiotics, frequently by injection, over the years. Many of
these patients had minor illnesses, but there were also acute emergency
cases, and many Agta whose lives were saved through our medical
intervention. There were also many cases of Agta whose condition was
critical enough for us to take them by boat or logging truck to the
local hospital, or by plane to the hospital in Baler. We also had
several patients with chronic tuberculosis who received long-time
treatment from us. And almost all Agta today under the age of around 20
have received medicine from us for roundworms, many of them yearly
throughout their childhood. In fact, I am told by lowlanders, Agta
characterize me as magamot 'a healer'.
10. When I first began to investigate the question of the

numerical decrease between my census count and Vanoverbergh's in the
mid '70s, one of my hypotheses was that some out-migration movement
400
after 1936 may account for the difference. Perhaps a large number of
Casiguran Agta out-migrated to the west side of the Sierra Madre after
1936 and are still over there somewhere. To check this hypothesis, I
made trips to Madella and to Jones (a municipal area in Isabela), as
well as to Palanan, to collect census data on the Agta in those areas.
I specifically went to see if I could find out-migrant Agta from
Casiguran in these areas. I found very few. Most of the Agta in these
three areas were born there, and their parents were born there. I
rejected that hypothesis.
11. The oral history of the Casiguranin lowlanders states that a

major problem of the townspeople in the past was attacks by Moro raiders
(i.e., Filipino Muslim pirates from the southern Philippines). One
documented reference to a raid states, "In 1798 a fleet of 25 moro
bancas passed up the pacific coast of Luzon and fell upon the isolated
towns of Baler, Casiguran, and Palanan, destroying the pueblos and
taking 450 captives. The cura of Casiguran was ransomed in Binangonan
[Infanta] for the sum of 2500 pesos" (Barrows 1924:222).
12. Molina, the victim of the 1950 raid (victim no. 10 in Table
12.14), is probably the same Molina listed in Vanoverbergh 1936-37:145.
Vanoverbergh also lists 2 different women named Ugay in his census, but
neither of these are the Ugay murdered in the 1947 raid at Dibulo
(victim no. 6 in Table 12.14).
13. The maternal (puerperal) mortality rate was calculated by

dividing the number of maternal deaths (4) during the 7 year period by
the number of live births (184) during that same period, and multiplying
the quotient by 100,000 (4 / 184 X 100,000 = 2,174). I know of one
maternal death since the closing of our census. A 25 year old woman
named Sining (census no. 11) bled to death after delivering a live born
infant on November 6, '85 (Anne Kueffer, personal correspondence). This
death is not included in the above rate calculation.
14. The homicide rate was calculated as is normally done by

demographers, as follows: There were an average of 2 homicides per year
from June 1977 to June 1984: 2 divided by 614 (the average population
during the 7 years) times 100,000 equals the "cause-specific death rate"
(in this case, homicide), which is 326.
15. I should make clear here that there have doubtless been more
homicides than those I report here. I have records of other cases
reported to me which I do not include here because they fall into the
category of "rumors;" and there are almost surely a few other cases I
have never heard about.
16. Nationwide, the 5 leading causes of death in the Philippines

are, in order from 1 to 5, pneumonias, tuberculosis, gastroenteritis and
colitis, heart diseases, and cardiovascular accidents (WHO 1983:15).
(But note that NEDA [1984:463] ranks tuberculosis third, rather than
401
second.) In the Casiguran municipality, the 5 leading causes of death

are reported to be tuberculosis (3.9/1,000 deaths), pneumonia
(3.3/1,000), diarrheas (3.1/1,000), malaria (1.3/1,000), and cardio
vascular (0.4/1,000) (data copied by the author from a wall chart in the
Casiguran office of the Bureau of Public Health, on March 24, 1983).
CHAPTER X I I I
WHY D O N 'T THE AGTA TAKE OP AGRICULTURE?
Hunting may well be unable to develop into any other mode of

production and the origins of agriculture should be looked for
among other activities (Meillassoux 1973).
This chapter attempts to explain why the Casiguran Agta are not
moving into a lifestyle characterized by sedentary farming. With the
wild game now so scarce in the Agta ecosystem, and with the heavy
cutting back of primary forest, the Agta can no longer make a living by
hunting, fishing and gathering. The question is— and this is one of the
two central questions of the present thesis— -why are they not changing
their basic production type from that of their traditional foraging
lifestyle to that of agriculture? Certainly they are not doing well in
their present economic niche, as the previous chapters clearly
demonstrate. If these people are really economic maximizers, and not
"ignorant primitives," as I have argued earlier, why do they persist in
a way of life which is driving them to extinction? Farming seems the
logical alternative for these people to take, at least in the opinion of
most outsiders. Why have the Agta not gone in this direction, even
after 75 years of repeated government development programs in Casiguran
to help them do so?
This chapter will argue for a major proposition of this thesis,
Proposition 3 (presented at the end of Chapter 1), which states, "For
the Agta to take up independent agriculture as an economic alternative
today would be for them a non-adaptive step, given their present
402
403
circumstances, and would result in failure." We will also test the two
hypotheses which, if correct, support this Proposition. These are
Hypothesis 5, which says that whenever Agta attempt to farm a piece of
land, they lose possession of it within a few years, and Hypothesis 6,
which says that it is because of certain ecological constraints that the
Agta have not become successful farmers.
One finds various reasons given in the literature as to why modern
band-type hunter-gatherer societies seem unable to succeed at becoming
farmers. These explanations come from both idealist-oriented and
materialist-oriented anthropologists, as well as from missionaries,
community development experts, and government officials. Some of these
explanations have merit, and some provide partial answers to the Agta
case, as well as tohunters in general. I will review some of these
explanations in this chapter.
There is one particular principle, however, an ecological "law,"
which has never been used to help explain why so many band-type
societies, worldwide, are unable to make a successful adaptation to
agriculture when they are forced out of their traditional foraging
niche. I argue in this chapter, and in Chapter 3, that this "law,"
called the competitive exclusion principle in ecological theory, is one
of the major reasons, if not the major reason, why the Agta, and many
other hunter-gatherers, fail to become successful agriculturalists.
The Agta are not alone, as we will see in this chapter, in
manifesting this anomalous behavior. John Bennett recognized the
widespread occurrence of this rejection of agriculture by hunter-
404
gatherers when he asked why we find in so many places in the world
"cases of cultural stagnation or • . • restraint of . . . economic
development," groups who have remained at a food-collecting level of
subsistence for thousands of years (1976:134). This chapter will
attempt to answer that question by showing that the competitive
exclusion principle has played at least a partial role in guiding the
evolutionary trajectory of modem foragers. Such foragers as we find
today are being kept in their marginal niches by their more powerful
agricultural neighbors, for whom they supply indispensable raw
materials. Bennett partially answers his own question when he says a
page later,
There is a hint that the key factor in the process may well be
social stratification, with its accompanying process of
exclusion and suppression . . . the explanation . . .
involves the social exclusion of a relatively low-energy
society by a relatively high- energy one (ibid.:135 emphases
added).
We will see several examples of this later in this chapter.
Earlier, in Chapter 3, I outlined in some detail how the
competitive exclusion principle (CEP) is used in biological ecology,
and how I use theprincipleby analogy to help explain Agta behavior in
the 1980s. Thisprinciplehelps us to see and understand that a major
reason the Agta are not successful farmers is because they are
virtually locked out of pursuing this alternative lifestyle. They are
precluded from moving into an agricultural niche in their ecosystem
because the lowlanders will not allow them access to one scarce
resource, arable land. It is mv theory that marginal foraging groups in
405
many areas of the world reject the adoption of agriculture at least
partly to avoid coming into competition with other human groups much
stronger than they.
In this chapter, then, I will document some actual cases in
Casiguran wherewe may seethe CEP come into play between Agta and
lowlanders. Wewill see howthese cases occur when particular Agta
families or camp groups attempt serious agriculture, and how they
eventually lose out in the resultant competition that arises between
them and their neighboring lowland farmers.
COMMERCIAL HUNTER-GATHERERS AS A BASIC PRODUCTION TYPE
The first thing I want to make clear in this chapter is that the
Agta socioeconomic system described in the preceding chapters is hardly
unique among modern hunter-gatherers. In fact, the most salient
economic characteristics among the Casiguran Agta are found almost
universally today wherever we find small band-like foraging societies
following the basic production type I called "commercial hunting and
gathering" in Chapter 3. This is especially the case with such foragers
in the tropics, but it also includes some groups in non-tropical
regions. (See Table 13.1 for a list of groups which have the
characteristics of "commercial hunter-gatherers.")
What are these characteristics? Besides the general features we
find in all band-level foraging societies, which were outlined in
Chapter 3 (total sharing, collective ownership of land and resources,
strict egalitarianism, etc.), there are at least six diagnostic
characteristics unique to so-called "commercial hunter- gatherers."
406
These are, first, symbiotic relationships between the foragers and
their agricultural (or pastoralist) neighbors, usually with the
foragers in the subordinate position in the relationship, and with the
dominant feature being an exchange of forest products (usually wild
meat) and labor from the forager groups for starch foods from the
dominant groups. Second, such forager societies, in probably all cases,
practice sporadic desultory cultivation or pastoralism. Third, most of
the plant food eaten by the forager groups is cultivated, not wild, and
most is secured by trade, not from their own fields. Fourth, the
forager groups typically fail to evolve into successful
agriculturalists. A fifth characteristic is that most of these
"commercial hunter-gatherer" societies have been subjects of repeated
government attempts, usually unsuccessful, to resettle them onto
reservations and teach them to take up agriculture. Finally, a sixth
characteristic, the larger- food-producing populations typically resist
attempts by the foragers to take up independent agriculture. This
analogical example of the CEP may become especially visible if foragers
try to gain legal ownership to arable land.
The more I read in the hunter-gatherer literature the more I was
struck by the parallels among modern foraging societies. It is
increasingly difficult to ignore or dismiss these same cross-cultural
regularities in all these widely separated societies. The socioeconomic
similarities among these many groups, so widely dispersed on our planet,,
is striking. Why, we are forced to ask, are these peoples so similar in
culture? Is there some particular ecological constraint(s) found
407
universally in their ecosystems which has led them all to evolve into
the same type of niche?
To my knowledge, no one has typologized today's hunter-gatherers
into a separate sociocultural category (e.g., in contrast to "isolated"
traditional hunter-gatherers, or swiddeners, etc.). However, several
authors have used similar terms for particular foraging band groups they
have studied which were in symbiosis with outsiders: "purchase society"
(Helms 1969), "hunters for hire" (Fawcett, source unknown),
"professional primitives" (Fox 1969), "professional hunters"
(Silverwood-Cope 1972:103), and Hayden's term, "commercial hunter-
gatherers," which I use here.
MULTILINEAR EVOLUTION AND COMMERCIAL HUNTER-GATHERERS
There is one model which may be used to explain this striking
similarity among most of today's hunter-gatherers. This is the theory,
developed by Julian Steward in the 1950s, called multilinear evolution.
Steward believed that societies which are historically unrelated,
but living under similar ecological situations, and having similar
technological regimes, would have common features of social structure
(1955:11-29). Marvin Harris, influenced by Steward, argued the same
point in strict materialist terms:
Cultures represent adaptive solutions to the material

circumstances of life. . . . peoples with similar
technologies in similar environments will tend to evolve
similar modes of social groupings (1968:4).
The surprising similarities, or "cross-cultural regularities" in
408
Steward's terminology, found among today's remaining hunter-gatherers,
and the almost universal reluctance of these groups to take up farming,
fits Steward's theory and lends support to it.
The so-called "methodology" of multilinear evolution looks for
geographically separated groups in similar environments, which are at
the same level of "sociocultural integration" (i.e., at the same
subsistence level, e.g. hunter-gatherers). If these groups have common
features of structure, that is, if some unique "culture type" is found
reoccurring repeatedly and independently in such widely separated
populations (and I can think of no "type" more striking than the
"commercial hunter-gatherer" one proposed here), then we have an example
of "multilinear evolution." The question then becomes, Why?
Steward argued that similar environments tend to produce in the
cultures of those who exploit it, a common ecological adaptation. That
is, similar ecosystems on different continents necessitate distinctive
forms of adaptation, to the point where different human groups in these
similar ecosystems should exhibit similar patterns of development. For
example, if different groups of traditional foragers were to have moved
into forests where there were powerful agriculturalists (or if such
agriculturalists moved into the forests where traditional foragers
were), either the foragers would have modified their "culture type" from
traditional to "commercial" foragers, or they would have perished.
Steward's ideas are heavily criticized today, and I would not want
to use his model to carry my explanation of Agta culture too far. But
he was able to show that similar sociocultural forms represented
409
convergent adaptation to similar environmental variables. If he had
had the data to work with which we have today (such as those data cited
in Table 13.1), I believe he would have recognized a better example of
convergent evolution among modern foragers than any he used. He and
Murphy were on the right track when they wrote their classic paper on
"tappers and trappers" (1956). They were correct in seeing an emerging
"culture type" among hunter-gatherers who had become dependent on trade
goods, which they exchanged for forest products. The shortcoming of
this paper, however, was that Murphy and Steward failed to see the more
important changes occurring in such societies, and instead focussed on a
minor change they called a "reduction of the local level of integration”
(ibid.:335-6). If they had had the cross-cultural data we have now,
they would have certainly noticed more important regularities, namely,
some of the six diagnostic characteristics of commercial hunter-
gatherers I listed above. The result would have been a more acceptable
model for multilinear evolution.
In any case, Steward was suggesting that natural phenomena play
some role in determining human behavior and evolution. I am arguing
here that one particular "law," namely the competitive exclusion
principle, does indeed explain much, though of course not all, of this
similar socioeconomic form of commercial hunter-gatherers. I should
emphasize that I am proposing here .only limited parallels of cultural
evolution. I am not suggesting general evolutionary rules for all
modern foragers. There are foraging societies today which do not fit
410
into the "commercial hunter-gatherer" type, and those should not be
forced into this mold.^
For "commercial" foragers, however, a major force inhibiting their
success at agriculture is the CEP. I will present several cases of this
principle in action in the Agta ecosystem. But before we look at those
cases, let us look at some other reasons why hunters do not become
farmers. As I stated in Chapter 3, I am not trying to argue here for a
unicausal materialist explanation for Agta culture. There are probably
several reasons why Agta fail to adapt to a sedentary farming
lifestyle, and I review those here.
WHY FORAGERS DON'T BECOME FARMERS
Making foragers into farmers. Let us begin this section by
clarifying first the frequency and intensity of efforts by government
and private agencies to get nomadic foragers to settle down, usually on
some type of reservation, and to take up sedentary agricultureas a way
of life.The literature is full of references of such efforts, and very
few of them have ever succeeded. It is beyond the scope of the present
study to review the worldwide references to these, but looking just at a
few of those programs geared to Southeast Asian Negritos will give some
idea of the intensity of such efforts.
A number of authors report unsuccessful attempts to settle Negritos
onto reservations and teach them to farm. Unsuccessful farm
resettlement projects among Philippine Negritos are reported as follows:
Maceda (1975b) reports a faltering program for the Mamanua, as does
Reynolds (1976) for the Negritos in northern Negros Island. Maturan
411
(1978:134) describes a 1968 effort sponsored by Silliman University to
settle the Negritos in Negros Oriental, with little success. Estioko-
Griffin and Griffin (1981a:68) document two attempts in 1973 to settle
the Palanan Agta into permanent "villages." I found both of these
projects abandoned in my trip to this area in May 1975. Eder
(1977a:145) reports that four reservations established for the Batak in
Palawan in the 1920s have long since dissolved. Reed (1904:68-71)
describes past unsuccessful attempts of the Spanish to settle Zambales
Negritos onto reservations; Garvan noted around 1920that "in most
provinces . . . efforts are made . . . to induce the neighbouring
Pygmies to settle down to village life (1964:153). And Vanoverbergh
states, "Government officials do their utmost to introduce agriculture
among the pygmies, but . . . the results are far fromsatisfactory"
(1937-38:927). Several more references of such projects among
Philippine Negritos are listed in Headland 1985c.
For West Malaysia, Kirk Endicott (1979:183-88) describes the
attempts of the government there to persuade the Negritos to settle and
take up farming, and reports four Negrito resettlement projects which
were complete failures. Carey (1976:117-24) also presents four case
studies of failure in projects to settle Malaysian Negritos. And Rambo
(1982:279) mentions the problems the Malaysian government is having in
grouping Negritos into permanent villages where they are expected to
become farmers. A very recent update on the situation of W. Malaysian
Negritos (Hashim and Faulstich 1985) repeats exactly the same situation,
government efforts in 1984 to again move these groups onto a "relocation
412
settlement," and get them to take up cultivation, and— again—
unsuccessfully.
The earliest mention of attempts to induce the Casiguran Agta to
undertake farming is in a 1746 Spanish document, when a Spanish priest
in Casiguran writes, "I made [the Agta] dig up a piece of land for them
to sow seed" (Santa Rosa, cited in Perez 1928:87). Throughout the 20th
century there have been repeated efforts to get the Casiguran Agta to
take up agriculture, which I already reviewed in Chapters 7 and 8. (An
example of the intensity of these efforts is well illustrated in
Appendix H.) At the time of this writing (December 1985), yet another
program has been instigated, this time by the newly appointed national
agency called OMACC (Office of Muslim Affairs and Cultural
Communities). OMACC's plan is to again try to move the Casiguran Agta
onto the old Calabgan Reservation to begin farming. Reports from
friends in Casiguran are that four carabaos have been loaned to the
Agta, and that several Agta families were moved onto the Reserve in
September and October, 1985, instructed to build houses in a laid out
village square, and were set to work plowing fields for planting wet
2
rice.
We come, now, to the question, Why don't these nomadic foragers
settle down and take up farming as a way of life?
We can be sure there is more than one reason for this. Let us look
at some of them. On the surface, it should not be hard to understand
why the Casiguran Agta, who up until WWII were the sole possessors of
2
700 km of rich forest teeming with fish and game, would be resistant
413
to invitations to leave all that to go and live on the tiny Calabgan

2
Reservation of only 1.53 km . It is amazing, in fact, to continually
meet development workers, change agents, and local members of the
educated elite who fail to see this. Many such people continue to be
perplexed as to why the Agta would prefer their traditional way of life
to sedentary peasant farming.
Some unacceptable explanations. Let us lay aside, first, some of
the classical stereotyped explanations as to why hunter-gatherers do not
become farmers. Such reasons as low intelligence, at a lower
evolutionary level, lazy, etc., are not worth arguing about here. The
suggestion that it is due to their "nomadic nature," or that they have
no genetic disposition for agriculture (Darlington 1969, cited in Morris
1982:200), are equally ridiculous.
Another argument says it is their lack of aptitude; they don't know
how. They haven't yet invented or discovered agriculture. The Agta
contradict this view. They are skilled at plant manipulation, and know
how to do both swidden and wet rice cultivation. I agree with Cohen
that prehistoric hunter-gatherers avoided agriculture by choice rather
than from failure to "invent" it. As Cohen argues, the knowledge of
cultivation techniques has always been universal with Homo sapiens
(1977:26). And I disagree with Fox, for example, who argues that one
reason the Pinatubo Negritos of western Luzon have not taken up
agriculture is because "the Negritos still lack the knowledge of the
proper techniques of food production, the 'know-how'" (Fox 1953:247).
414
Idealist explanations for disinterest in agriculture. There are
some good idealist reasons which help to explain why foraging groups
resist a sedentary farming life style. No doubt some of these reasons
play a role in the Agta's persistent holding to their traditional way of
life, though it is difficult to measure such explanations empirically.
The idealist argument is that the entire social structure of foragers is
built around hunting and food gathering. This would need to be
completely restructured before they could become successful sedentary
farmers.
This is certainly true, for example, when we think of the extreme
food sharing customs found among all band foragers (about which I have
more to say below). Also, sedentary farming just does not fit the world
view, values, religion, and traditions of foragers. As one author well
states it, '''Negritos [in W. Malaysia] never regarded farming as anything
but a temporary expedient. . . . Negritos prefer to barter for or to
purchase their food rather than grow it themselves" (Benjamin 1973:x).
In other words, following the idealist argument, "Mental templates fit
them for one way of life, hunting and gathering, which is seen as the
proper sort of life for humans to live" (Calhoun 1979:257; see also
Meighan 1982:93). When the Ik of Uganda were herded onto a reservation
and told to take up farming, for example, this imposed "sedentary
farming way of life made irrelevant the Ik's entire repertoire of
beliefs, habits and traditions. Their guidelines for life were
inappropriate to farming" (Calhoun 1979:257). The tragic results of
this case are now well known (Turnbull 1972).
415
An example of what Calhoun is talking about becomes clear when we
study the kinship structure and residence patterns of band societies.
Such people not only live only with kinsmen, but they typically resolve
conflicts by moving away. When they are put into resettlement villages,
houses are arranged by government agents without regard for kin
structure or cultural residence arrangement patterns. Not only are
conflict situations greatly increased when foragers are made to live
next to people of other bands, but their main conflict solving
mechanism— moving away— is taken away from them.
Here is another example of how the Agta value system hindered one
man in his agricultural pursuits in 1983. On September 13 Bukek (all
Agta names in this chapter are pseudonyms), the only man in our camp
who made a swidden that year, invited several Agta men to work forhim
clearing back the brush around some coconut seedlings he had planted
several months before in his 1982 swidden site. They together arranged
to do this work on the 17th, and Bukek paid them all in advance.
However, when the day came, not one of these men showed up. When Bukek
hiked to their nearby camp to get them, they all gave excuses as to why
they could not come. Two of the men later explained to me privately
that they did this on purpose, to put Bukek in his place for trying to
get ahead of them. As one man said to me, "Who does Bukek think heis,
to hire Agta to work for him, as if he were a lowlander. Only
lowlanders have coconut groves." I interpret this as a deliberate
block by other Agta to keep Bukek from getting ahead. These men
416
evidently achieved their purpose, because Bukek never again attempted
to clear this field in 1983.
The point here is, one reason Agta fail at agriculture is because
other Agta hinder any of their fellows who behave in a way they
interpret as "trying to get ahead." This behavior is not unusual among
traditional peoples. Lee describes such among the !Kung Bushmen
(1969b), and Foster (1965) argues, in his "image of limited good"
model, that such behavior is common among all traditional peoples, and
especially peasant farmers. This is probably not a major reason why
Agta avoid agriculture, but it plays a partial role in what we see among
the Agta, and all modern hunter-gatherers, today.
Some positive reasons for rejecting agriculture. There are, of
course, attractions to the commercial foraging life style. It is not
hard for us to understand why so-called "pure" hunter-gatherers might
have preferred their way of life. Though they may not have lived quite
as "affluent" as Sahlins (1968) once suggested, their lifestyle was
highly adaptive, and it is assumed that this modeof production was
followed by all humans for many thousands of years without the need for
agriculture. Today's "commercial hunter-gatherers," and Agta in
particular, may not have such an easy time of it as did their ancestors.
Still, there are some positivefactors which make them favor this
lifestyle. Let us look at some of .those before we look at the negative
factors which preclude their movement into successful agriculture.
One obvious reason, in many cases, is that foragers can make a
better living by foraging than by farming (Kirk Endicott 1979, Morris
417
1982:200- 202). Rai found, for example, that the Agta band he studied
in SanMariano, Isabela, in 1980, got a much higher calorie return per
hour of hunting than they they could by growing their food (Rai
1982:158). The bottom line is that, generally, foragers get more food
per hour of foraging labor than they could by farming. (For a review
of the literature on this, see Cohen 1977:27-35.) Also, the foraging
mode of production provides more protein in the diet than does farming,
although this may no longer be the case among the Casiguran Agta.
Kirk Endicott (1979) points out another reason why foraging may be
more attractive than farming to Southeast Asian Negritos. "Commercial"
foraging allows hunter-gatherers to obtain money and trade goods more
easily by trading forest products than by farming. Morris (1982:202)
also points out that nomadic forest life offers these peoples a degree
of independence and freedom, and a way to avoid harassment from
outsiders merely by disappearing in the forest.
Some negative reasons for rejecting agriculture. There are
probably more negative reasons contributing to foraging people's
disinclination to full-time farming. Let us look at the simple ones
first.
Kirk Endicott (1979) mentions their dislike of working in the sun,
their fear that their children will be forced to attend school, and that
not enough food rations were supplied when the government first put them
on farm settlements. Two other problems with farm resettlement projects
are that when outside agencies attempt to get foragers to take up
farming, they often establish them on poor quality land unsuitable for
418
profitable agriculture. When the foragers fail, then, to harvest a
suitable crop, guess who is blamed? The second problem is a sanitation
one. Forced resettlements of foragers into permanent villages usually
results in unsanitary living conditions and an increase in disease
(Gomes 1982:37). There are at least three reasons for this: Foragers
are prone to succumb to village diseases outside the forest to which
they have low immunity (Turnbull 1963:37); their villages become fouled
with refuse because foragers normally clean their residence sites by
moving, not by sweeping; and they soon deplete the surrounding area of
animal and fish protein, thus lowering their nutritional status.
Another very major problem is lack of capital. Nomadic hunter-
gatherers just do not have the capital necessary for moving into a
farming lifestyle. By capital, I include here draft animals, plows,
fertilizers, insecticides, seed, expertise, money, and especially a
several months' supply of food to eat until the first harvest. It was
sad to listen to the Panamin agents complain about the Agta's laziness
and inability to farm after they settled 50 families of them on the
Calabgan Reserve in 1975. The Agta told me repeatedly that they could
not cultivate the wet rice fields there because the carabaos promised by
the Panamin agents had not yet been given, or because they were too busy
looking for food to have time to plow a field which would not produce
food for another several months. Yet when the head agents made their
twice-yearly visit from Manila they were disgusted at the Agta for
letting their assigned plots lie idle, or for hiring lowlanders to till
their plots for them on a sharecrop basis.
419
Another problem is that "commercial" hunter-gatherers are already
employed under some outsider patron. "Commercial" foragers have patron-
client obligations to outsiders which interfere with their own
agricultural labor requirements. They are reluctant to leave the
security and protection of their patrons. They are so busy working for
these patrons that they have little time for their own fields. For
example, on April 23, 1984, an Agta family left our camp to move upriver
for a few days to finishing clearing their new swidden site. On the
way, however, they met a group of lowlanders who needed a guide to take
them to the seacoast for a weekend fishing trip. They hired the only
adult male member of this family on the spot. The rest of the family
returned that afternoon to our camp, while the man served as the guide
for these lowlanders for three days. It turned out this Agta family
never burned their swidden that year. They just had too many
obligations to various lowlanders. As Bronson (1976) has suggested,
foragers today persist not in spite of but because of their contacts
with surrounding food producers. The high commercial demand for forest
products is a main reason for the continued existence of "commercial"
foragers (see Hoffman 1984).
Agta reasons for not cultivating. We would be amiss if, in a
study such as this, we did not try to find out the emic reasons why the
Agta practice so little agriculture. What do Agta themselves have to
say about the question posed in the title of this chapter? We cannot,
of course, get a complete answer to the question solely by interviewing
Agta, because they themselves, like humans everywhere, are not cognizant
420
of many of the materialistic infrastructural pressures which cause them
to behave as they do. Nevertheless, they do know some of the reasons
why they abandon agricultural pursuits, and I mention some of those
here. I interviewed a number of Agta concerning this question in 1983-
84. Here are some of their answers to my question, "Why didn't you make
a swidden this year?" (Each quote is by a different interviewee.)
"I am too busy collecting rattan [to bother with farming this
year]." [This was the single most frequent response.] "I
didn't have any rice seed." "I have to work for my ahibay
('lowlander patron') first to pay off my debt." "Where would
I make a swidden around here? All this land is claimed by
lowlanders." "I was going to make a swidden this year, but
when I started to clear my old swidden site the Bikolano
[immigrants] there told me to move away."
When I asked interviewees why they didn't cultivate a wet rice field on
the Agta Reservation at Calabgan, here were some answers:
"There is too much fighting and quarreling going on there, and

the lowlanders and half-blood Agta there harass us, and won't
let us farm." "I have no ahibay 'lowlander patron' there
from whom I can borrow. If I have no money there, no one
will loan me rice, nor even give me a piece of tobacco."
"There is no sida ('meat/fish protein') there. It is too
hard to get sida." "I could not find [labor] work there.
People would not hire me to work for them. It is too hard
thereto make a living." "How can I do any rice farming
there? Every time I got my [assigned] plot plowed, the agent
moved me to another place!" "The crops we planted there
always got stolen. Also things in our house would disappear
[i.e., be stolen]. And when I was away someone burned my
house down." "How can I farm there? I have no carabao, no
plow, and no harrow!" "I hate the government agent there!
She abused us, cheated us, and withheld government rations
from us." "Do youthink I would trust the "X" Agency there,
after six years of repeated broken promises?"
421
These responses reveal a lot about Agta problems in trying to
plant. More important, the answers reflect many of the reasons
foragers worldwide resist farming, and especially why they reject
imposed efforts by outsiders to make them into farmers. Unfortunately,
outside agencies often fail to ever ask the people themselves what
their problems are, much less allow them to participate in working to
help solve such problems.
The problem of food sharing. Earlier in this chapter I made
mention of theconflict between food sharing as we find it among band
societies, and farming. We must look atthis now in a little more
detail, because it is a major hindrance to hunter-gatherers who may try
to adapt to a successful farming way of life when their foraging economy
is destroyed by ecological change. I use the term "problem" in the sub
title of this section etically, and with reservation. I am not sure if
the Agta see this as any kind of a problem, though those that attempt
serious rice growing appear at times to have some ambivalence about
their society's emphasis on sharing. In any case, generosity is a very
high value in Agta society, and one gains prestige by sharing. The
worst thing one can call an Agta is medeaot 'stingy'.
A chief hindrance, then, to successful Agta agriculture, is that a
major feature of the foraging mode of production is total food sharing,
while farming requires saving of food, Food sharing precludes the
saving of capital necessary for successful farming (This has been
discussed by Fox 1953:248, Lee 1981, Meillasoux 1973, and Wiessner 1982;
422
cf. Rai 1982:171). As Woodburn reports, Hadza hunter-gatherers in
Tanzania who make attempts at agriculture
are unable to restrain their kin and affines from coming to

eat the harvested grain. [Hadza who] obtain a good
crop . . . are under relentless pressure to share it with
other Hadza rather than to ration its use so that it will
last until the next harvest (1982:447).
Lee also reports what happened when a few !Kung families planted one
year. When they harvested their crops, these crops "were rapidly
consumed by kinfolk and neighbors" (1979b:313). Lee also states
elsewhere, "The food brought into a !Kung camp is shared out immediately
throughout most of the camp, whereas . . . for farmers to do the same
with harvested grain would quickly put them out of business" (1981:16).
Some examples from Casiguran show the same food sharing custom
among the Agta. Let us look at the case of one family who lived next
door to us in October 1983, who did no cultivation of their own that
year. On October 18 I hiked with the woman, Dokdoek, and her married
son, when they went to visit a distant relative, Kiyakin, whom they had
heard was then harvesting his swidden rice. Several weeks earlier,
Kiyakin had invited Dokdoek to come at the harvest time, so he could
give her some rice. Dokdoek and her son arrived while Kiyakin's family
and five other Agta were cutting rice in the swidden. They joined in
and harvested for one hour. When they said they were going to go,
Kiyakin handed them a sack and told them to take some rice home for his
'uncle' (Dokdoek's husband, who is related by marriage to Kiyakin.)
Dokdoek said, "Oh, no, we'd be ashamed to take your rice. We have
423
plenty at home.” But when Kiyakin insisted, the woman and her- son
stuffed the sack full of unthreshed rice, much more than they had
harvested. I measured this rice when we got home, after it was
threshed, and before and after it was dried. Undried it measured 54
liters, and dried it came to 48.6 liters. This was worth 57 pesos, the
equivalent of six day's wages for agricultural laborers! Kiyakin was
very generous to his wife's uncle's wife, Dokdoek.
Then, on November 4, this same woman, Dokdoek, and both of her
grown sons were given some more rice by another relative of her
husband. I cite this directly from my journal for November 5, 1983:
This last week has been the height of the [swidden rice]
harvest season, and those Agta who did not make rice swiddens
this year are going around this week requesting rice from
those who did, and are helping them harvest. Yesterday, for
example, I went with Dokdoek and her two adult sons to
Dimagipo, where she said she was going to get their share of
rice from [her husband's brother's son-in-law, Deloy]. They
came home carrying 27.4 gantas of [rough] rice [which measured
24 gantas, or 72 L after drying, worth96 pesos, the
equivalent of ten day's wages for laborers].
Then, on November 15, my wife againaccompanied the same woman to
Dinipan, where she was given 62 L of rough rice by four different Agta
families there who were just harvesting. This would be worth 83 pesos,
or eight day's wages. My wife wrote down the following conversation
between Dokdoek and a woman named Dedek, who gave her (Dokdoek) 3.6 L
of glutinous rice on this date:
After an exchange of betel quid ingredients and several

minutes of conversation, the host, Dedek, said, "Oh, I am
going to go find something to put some rice in for you."
"Never mind that," said Dokdoek, "I didn't come here for that.
424
I only came to get a little rice from my 'niece' Paming."

"That's okay," said the host, "I haven't got much rice,
anyway, but I want to give you something. We want you to at
least taste our rice."
In all, this woman alone was given rice by six different Agta
swidden owners— the equivalent of almost a month's income in rice in
October and November!
Here is another example of how everyone seems to show up at harvest
time, just in time to help harvest, and eat, the rice. Citing from my
journal for November 13, 1984,
Erning and his married son, Teming, have been growing rice in
both of their swiddens at Ages. Throughout the rice growing
season, just these two families lived at this camp. But when
the harvest began, several Agta moved right in with them.
This last week, in fact, there have been eight families
staying with them, where they are being very well fed!
Agta share their field produce all year around, not just at harvest
time. I have noted for years that when Agta pass through the swiddens
of other Agta, they help themselves to the fruits of various cultigens.
It seems to be quite acceptable to freely harvest small amounts of
whatever is growing in other Agta swiddens when the owners are not
there, and without asking permission. This includes major starch foods
such as cassava and sweet potato. (At the same time, Agta seem to never
do this in the fields of lowlanders, without permission.) I would
interpret this as "adaptive behavior," in that it provides food access
to those in need. However, it works against incentives towards serious
agriculture because, as we have seen from the above examples, the
incentive to grow food for one's own family is absent.
425
There is one path an Agta can take, however, if he really wants to
move into a full-time farming lifestyle. This is to divorce himself
from his own society. Interestingly enough, there is one Agta family
which has done this. This is the family of the old widower, Timpladen.
While this family is poor, even by Casiguran lowlander standards, they
are successful farmers. I have seen little of Timpladen, age 58 and
his wife, Akobina (who died in 1978) over the years. They have lived
for many years, with their six children, at Amuhawen, Casiguran, very
far from any other Agta. They own a carabao, wet rice land, a small
producing coconut grove, and they were the cultivators of the second
largest wet rice field (field no. 2) in 1983. There are a number of
indications showing how this family has divorced itself completely from
its own culture (presumably in order to succeed as farmers). Their
house, clothing and general customs are that of lowlanders, they donot
cut their hair in the Agta style or have any of thebody decorations of
Agta (ear plugs, filed teeth, etc.) and, especially significant, theydo
not speak Agta in their home. Timpladen can speak Agta, but none of
his children can. Their mother tongue is the lowland Casiguranin
language. Also, though Timpladen's two daughters are married to Agta,
his sons refuse to court or show interest in Agta girls, hoping to marry
lowlanders someday (The ages of the four sons of Timpladen— all still
single— were, in 1985, 31, 27, 17, and 15.)
I would say this is quite a price to pay, just to become a poor
farmer. But this family, for some reason, choose to go this route.
None of the four adult sons, all strong and good looking, but with the
426
kinky hair and black skin despised by lowlanders, have yet to
successfully court a lowlander girl. I describe this case here to
illustrate the extent to which Agta, and probably all band foragers,
would need to change their culture before they could become successful
peasant agriculturalists.
As the reader may guess by now, I am personally very unsure, not to
mention skeptical, whether this is a desirable route for nomadic
foragers. Most seem uninterested in becoming settled farmers, and I see
no reason for pressuring these to do so. However, if there are any
which might want to move in this direction there is another seemingly
almost insurmountable obstacle for them to try to overcome. This is the
competitive exclusion principle. To that topic we now turn.
THE COMPETITIVE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE; A MAJOR OBSTACLE
How does this CEP work out in actual behavior? Hardin, the
bioecologist who first coined the term, says, "Roughly [like] this:"
(i) if two noninterbreeding populations "do the same

thing"— that is, occupy precisely the same ecological
niche . . . — and (ii) if they are "sympatric"— that is, they
occupy the same geographic territory— and (iii) if population
A multiplies even the least bit faster than population B,
then ultimately A will completely displace B, which will
become extinct (1960:1292) . . . or the two species are (or
must become) ecologically different— that is, they must come
to occupy different ecological niches (ibid.:1296).
Hardin is a biologist, of course, not an anthropologist, and was
talking here about general interspecies competition. He probably did
not have in mind how the CEP might manifest itself when two neighboring
but distinct human societies evolve right next to each other. This
427
section shows how I see this biological principle being played out
between Agta foragers and Casiguran agriculturalists.
Local agriculturalists do not want foragers to move into full-time
farming. It is as simple as that. They are dependent on their forager
"clients" as suppliers of protein food, forest products and laborers,
and will, one way or another, try to block any attempts of foragers to
become independent farmers.
Organizations like Survival International in London, and Cultural
Survival at Harvard, report repeatedly in their literature case after
case analogous to the CEP, where strong groups push weak ones off their
land. (For a most recent example, see the Fall '84 issue of Cultural
Survival Quarterly, a special issue titled "Hunters and Gatherers: The
Search for Survival," which has several articles describing displacement
of foragers by more powerful societies.)
Looking at a few references, worldwide, Peacock mentions that in
cases where Mbuti Pygmies in Zaire have attempted to take up sedentary
agriculture "they have not been able to successfully compete for access
to enough land to support themselves" (1984:17).
Referring to the Paliyan hunter-gatherers of India, Gardner
reported that
In a restudy of bands [in 1978] which had been settled at the

forest's edge in 1962-64, it was found that in response to
recent harassment all but a few people had fled back into the
deep forest. Other instances of such flight were documented
during the earlier research (1982:463).
428
Gomes describes a small group of Temuan in West Malaysia, less than
100 people, who live by growing rice, rubber tapping, and gathering
forest products for sale. Gomes provides an example of what I call the
CEP when he says,
Occupying a niche rather similar to their Malay neighbors has

put [the Temuan] into direct competition with their
neighbors. This competition has led to . . . a general
dislike . . . sometimes expressed in fighting and violence
(1982:14).
Looking at a Negrito example from the Philippines, Eder says this
concerning the Batak:
I have observed lowland settlers . . . intimidate the Batak

about their allegedly illegal swidden-making— e.g., with
stories about how a certain government forester, having
spotted the illegal swiddens from his helicopter, is enroute
to make arrests. I have known such efforts to be successful,
with the Batak thus intimidated abandoning their swiddens and
retreating to the forest for a spell (1984b:20).-
There is little question but that Eder's observation is typical. Two
documents published in 1913, one by Cox and another by Garvan (both
quoted in Worcester 1913a:105-06), report in the same way how lowlanders
inCamarines Sur inhibited Agta there from clearing land for themselves
by telling them they were forbidden to do so by the government. The
second document states that the Tagalogs in the area
repeatedly advised [the Agta] not to [clear land], assuring

them that they would be punished by the monteros or forestry
officials. . . .the only motive that those Tagalogs can have
in thus misinforming the Negritos is that the latter may be
obliged to remain in economic dependence on them (Garvan,
quoted in Worcester 1913a:106).
429
There are a number of instances of the CEP coming into play when
Casiguran Agta attempt serious cultivation, and I mention some of these
here as illustrative examples. I refer here to cases where the dominant
lowland peoples interfered with Agta farming. Even as far back as the
second decade of this century we have references to the problem. The
American officer, Wilfrid Turnbull, who was then trying to make the Agta
into farmers, reports the following: "There was quite a little
opposition on the part of a few Kasiguran people to this work with the
wild [Agta] people— some fearing a lack of labor, others a loss of trade
as a consequence (Turnbull 1930:32)."
This was correct, but it was not the only reasons the lowlanders
were against Turnbull's project. The townspeople were also against the
land the Agta were being given. Exactly ten years after the project
began, the Casiguran Municipal Council wrote a formal resolution,
titled Resolution No. 71 and dated July 14, 1923 objecting to the land
given to the Agta because, the Resolution says, it gave "them greater
area of land than the Christian people residing at Casiguran." The
final paragraph of this document petitions the Provincial Board, the
Provincial Governor Filemon Perez, the President of the Philippine
Senate, and Senator Antero Soriano to "suspend the advance" of Agta
farmland at the Reservation (Casiguran Municipal Council 1923, emphasis
added).
As I mentioned in Chapter 8, there were successive government
agents in charge of overseeing the Casiguran Agta during most of this
century. I have searched for years for the written reports of these
430
various agents. I was unable to find most of those records. I did,
however, find the records of the last appointed agent for the
Commission on National Integration in Casiguran, from 1960 to 1963.
There are several references therein to lowlanders attempting to take
over Agta farms— examples, actually, of the CEP in action. In Appendix
G I quote no less than 39 different references I found in the the CNI
records, for just this four year period alone, which are examples of
CEP behavior between Agta and agriculturalists. One wonders how many
more examples I might have found, if I had had access to all the CNI
records for Casiguran for this century. Possibly hundreds. In any
case, the cases we have for just the years 1960 to 1963 are quite
adequate for illustrating the problem, and these are displayed in
Appendix G for the reader.
Another example of the CEP being acted out in the Casiguran
ecosystem comes when we look at the history of swidden making over the
last 50 years in one particular area, the Koso rivershed (see Map 5).
This area, the traditional band area of one of the main Agta groups,
ranges from the SSE edge of Area 6 (in Map 2) into most of Area 5. As
one way of testing Hypothesis 5 of this thesis, I mapped and collected
the history of all the field sites on this river which my informants
knew about. Since I myself lived with the Agta on this river for many
years, I had personally observed much of th*. -:g~icultural history
myself since 1962. (See Appendix F for a description of my
methodology.) There were 32 field sites in this rivershed, that my
informants and I knew of, several of which had been swiddened more than
431
once. Nineteen of the sites were made by lowlanders, almost always
with Agta labor, and 13 of the sites were made exclusively by Agta.
Two of those 13 were cleared by Agta under the supervision of agents of
the Commission on National Integration (CNI). These 32 sites are shown
on Map 5, and the history of each site is described in Appendix F.
I have personally watched as lowlanders have slowly taken over the
Koso rivershed, clearing swiddens on this Agta land (with seldom any
objection from the Agta), and taking over, one way or another, all but
one of the 13 field sites cleared by Agta. (The one exception is Field
No. XXIX). Five of the 13 field sites were usurped by force from the
Agta, in 3 cases the Agta owners sold their site to lowlanders, and in 5
of the cases lowlanders just moved in and took over the land after the
Agta had "abandoned" the sites. My informants disagreed as to whether
these latter 5 sites were taken by dishonest means. (See Appendix F
for details.) The point here is that what we see occurring in this
rivershed supports Hypothesis 5, and illustrates how the CEP works in
the Agta ecosystem.
Let us now look at some particular examples of the CEP, to further
illustrate the problem, and to help us understand the question as to why
the Agta are reluctant to move into major farming. These are just a
few of the case studies with which I am personally familiar.
Case No. 1 ): After I hiked to Nateng's swidden two days ago,

I got to wondering why he made his field so far upriver.
There is plenty of forest near his camp on the beach; why
make his swidden a 70 minute hike upriver rather than near
his house? So I asked him this morning. He said, because
the lowlanders forbade him when he tried to pick a swidden
site closer. Every potential site he chose some lowlander
432
said, "No, you can't clear here; that is my place." Even

when Nateng chose a site on Gileng Creek, far upriver, this
year, he was scolded by a lowlander named J.R., who said it
was his. 1 asked Nateng about several other good looking
sites, but he said they are all claimed by lowlanders. (From
my field notes dated 6/22/83.)
Case No. 2_: Nateng also told me of a swidden he and Iben

began clearing in 1980 (or '79), also at Gileng Creek. After
they had it half cleared, a Bikolano lowlander named Simo
came in and cleared the rest of the hillside of big trees
with a chain saw. According to Nateng, they had lengthy
arguments with this man, with both sidesmaking threats to
kill. In this case Ibenand Nateng won out, and the Bikolano
backed down and abandoned his claim to the site. (From my
field notes dated 6/22/83.)
Case No. 3_: On Sunday I was able to ask Nati why she and
Hayme made their swidden so far upriver. She gave virtually
the same answer as had Nateng, the lowlanders all claim the
forest spots along the seashore. (From my field notes dated
6/26/83.) [Old man Binong [Agta] also told me in an
interview on 9/27/83 that the reason the Agta at Gumanineng
make their swiddens so far upriver is because the lowlanders
claim all the land nearby.]
Case No. 4: Visited Calabgan today. Learned that Hempok's

wet rice field was usurped by lowlander named M.P. in
December [This is Wet Rice Field No. 5 in Appendix E). That
is why he said he will not plant in '84. Also learned that
Melanio pawned his field [Wet Rice FieldNo. 3] last monthto
a lowlander, so he cannot plant in '84 either. (From my
field notes dated 1/11/84.)
Case No. 5: Hiked to Busok-busok for [lowlander] barrio

meeting this morning. . . . I was surprised to hear vigorous
public debate from two Agta men, Erning and Iben, who
presented their problems at Ages [Area 5 of Map 2] of a
Bikolano lowlander who began clearing a swidden last month on
land these two Agta claim is theirs. The discussion was
emotional, but diplomatic, except when, near the end, I.S. [an
Agta woman], who was drunk, stood up and began yelling [in
the Casiguranin language], "Yeah, never mind the 'Dumagats'
[the lowlander word for Agta], they are easy to beat! You
can just kick them like this." She continued her yelling, in
a singsong fashion, while she danced back and forth in front
of the crowd, kicking at the air. No one interrupted her,
and the meeting continued when she tired out after about five
minutes. (From my field notes dated 2/5/83.)
433
Case No. 6_: Went yesterday by boat to Simbaan . . . Stopped

at Dilepsong to visit [Agta camp there]. They were having a
'meeting' with K.K. [Agta leader] about their land being
taken from them by E.G. [lowlander]. K.K. is supposed to
leave today for Manila to bring the problem to the Panamin
agency. (From my field notes dated 2/25/83.) [This is the
same land case as is described in paragraph 2 of Appendix G.]
Case No. 7: Interviewed old man Binong in depth. He told me

about the Ilokano [lowlander] I.L. who took over his land at
Lawang [Area 8] in the early '60s. He and Norma, along with
P.R [a lowlander friend], told me how the Agta Labaw
(deceased grandfather of Ruming) lost his land to lowlanders
after WWII. [This land, a traditional Agta band area, was
first surveyed by the Bureau of Lands on March 21-22, 1938.
It was surveyed again on September 9, 1979. The subdivision
plan, Map No. H-71330, shows a 6 ha area owned by "Labaro
Nigreto" (actually, the above named Labaw), and another 6 ha
plot owned by "Tomas Nigreto" (the son of Labaw, long
deceased).] According to my informants (both Agta and local
lowlanders), this land was cleared by Labaw before WWII. A
lowlander moved onto the land after WWII, after Labaw had died
and his son, Sibero was away, and planted it in coconuts. A
lowlander named "Karing" then allegedly "sold" this Agta land
to Pilipe Molina sometime around 1978-80. Molina, of course,
sees himself today as the rightful owner. The Agta have a
different interpretation. (From my field notes dated
6/27/83.)
Case No. 8: Three adult Agta sisters (Isling, Layding, and

Adilin) told me how their land was taken from them. When
Isling was about age 12 [around the year 1943], soon after
her father, Sadsoy, had died, a lowlander named A.A.
allegedly took over their family land and coconut grove at
the mouth of the Dinipan River [Area 2]. A.A. claimed it was
government land, not theirs, and that he had paid Lisiday
[Agta] for the coconut trees. But Lisiday [who was then
deceased] had no ownership rights to the trees, according to
these three sisters. (From my field notes dated 1/22/84.)
Case No. J): In January 1984 several Agta families made a

group decision to form themselves into an an incorporated
organization as a first step in attempting to gain secure
land rights. The goal was to form into a formal body,
recognized by the government, and then to work together in
applying for 50 year forest leases from the Bureau of Forest
Development. The first thing the charter members of this Agta
Foundation needed, before they could get their constitution
notarized by the judge in Casiguran, was to register their
names at the municipal hall in town, pay their residence tax
434
for the year, and be given Residence Certificates. (All

adults in the country are required to buy yearly Residence
Certificates, though of course the Agta seldom do so.)
On January 24, I accompanied the 14 leaders, those chosen to

be the "charter members," to get their Certificates. To my
surprise, they were turned away at the municipal hall with
the words, "Sorry, we are out of certificate forms right now.
Come back tomorrow." This was a frustration to the Agta, of
course, because some of them had hiked for a day or more to
get to town, and they were anxious to get their business done
and return home. It wasn't until this continued for three
more days that I became suspicious that my friends were
getting the run-around. I then went to one of my close
lowland friends in town, a former town official, and asked
for help. The next day, after I was back home, he sent me a
letter saying, "You can come to town now. I have 14
Certificates reserved for you." The Certificate forms were
there all along! Certain town officials had heard somehow of
the Agta plan, and for some reason tried to block it from the
start.
The next weekday, January 30, the 8 Agta who were still
patiently waiting (6 had already returned home), and I, went
to town, got their Certificates, and were able to get their
Constitution notarized. Today the Agta Pundasyon ng
Casiguran ('Agta Foundation of Casiguran') is a formal
corporation, incorporated by the Securities and Exchange
Commission in Manila on February 22, 1984, and by the Bureau
of Rural Workers, on January 23, 1985. Several Agta families
have since applied for "individual forest leases" (which are
supposed to include an area of 7 ha per family). According
to the President of the Pundasyon, 42 families have applied
as of November 1985 . It will be interesting^to see when and
if these leases are ever granted to the Agta.
All these cases in Casiguran illustrate what goes on all over the
world when small weak human populations, and especially hunter-
gatherers, come into competition with larger more powerful human
populations. The American government recognized this problem in the
Philippines at the beginning of this century:
In 1913, the United States Secretary of the Interior wrote

about the loss of ancestral land in his annual report to the
435
American President. 'As soon as they have cleared the land

and brought it under cultivation they are driven from it by
false claims of ownership on the part of their civilized
neighbors' (Lynch 1982:268-69).
Foragers on a worldwide basis are fraught with this problem, and it
is my hypothesis that they, in contrast to small-scale swidden groups
who typically fight losing battles over their land, merely back off when
they are imposed upon by expanding agriculturalists. I see this is an
adaptive device which has evolved among many foraging groups, and
certainly among the Agta. That is, instead of trying to compete with
more powerful populations over the critical scarce resource— arable
land— they have evolved into an economic niche called "commercial
hunting and gathering." This not only allows them to avoid what would
otherwise happen— elimination (according to the CEP)— but provides them
with a way to make a living in the same ecosystem dominated by
agriculturalists. The result serves both them and the agriculturalists.
In short (in systems theory models), the forager group serves a vital
function in the ecosystem by helping kilocalories of energy to pass
more smoothly through the food chain to both their own stomachs and
those of the agriculturalists. As the CEP shows, the two groups can
coexist in the same ecosystem precisely because they occupy different
niches.
Blackburn (1982:293) raises an .interesting question when he asks
why the Maasai, a powerful tribe of pastoralists in Kenya, who "have
for centuries been the terror of the plains— defeating, driving off,
even annihilating any group that got in their way," allowed the Okiek
436
hunter-gatherers to survive and prosper in the same environment with
them? His answer is that the Okiek do not hold things the Maasai covet.
That is, the two groups are not competing for the same resources.
Further, the two groups are mutually dependent on each other, each
trading goods to the other they could not otherwise have. In other
words, mutualistic symbiosis. Some ask, why don't the Okiek keep
livestock? As Blackburn points out, if they attempted that, "the cattle
would undoubtedly be stolen from them by the Maasai" (ibid.:296). In
other words, the CEP would immediately come into play and, if continued,
would eventually eliminate the Okiek hunter-gatherers. Note, too, that
when confrontations do arise between members of these two populations,
the Okiek "are wisely passive and slip back into the shadows of the
forest when confronted by Maasai warriors" (ibid.:293).
This is, of course, just how Agta behave. They avoid the
agricultural 'niche' because they know the consequences— to attempt to
enter that niche would throw them immediately into competition with
their powerful neighbors. No one knows better than the Agta who will
lose in such competition. Thus, when lowlanders move in on. their tiny
desultory swiddens, the Agta usually give them up without resistance,
passively slipping back into the forest, to use Blackburn's
terminology. As we see, this is exactly what happened in the Koso
rivershed example described above and in Appendix F, as well as in the
other Casiguran examples outlined above.
This does not mean some Agta would not take up agriculture if given
the chance, or that they will not stand up for theirlandrights if
437
someone they know and trust would seriously lobby for them, as Tomas
Casala did for four years in the early '60s. But since they seldom have
this chance, and since even Casala's efforts ended in failure (not to
mention my own, overthe years), most Agta merely give up immediately
and move elsewhere when some outsider challenges them over a piece of
arable land.
* * *
Cross-cultural workers in the Philippines have often desired to
help Negritos break free from the patron/client ties they have with
their non-Negrito overlords, who seem to keep them in perpetual debt,
and to help them to move into serious full-time agriculture. I am
not against such efforts, provided the change agent works in full
cooperation with the Negritos, and provided this is something the
Negritos themselves want. However, as this chapter shows, such a
program would likely throw the Negrito society into direct competition
with their much more powerful neighbors, the lowland farmers, over
certain scarce resources, especially arable land.
At present, the lowland peasant farmers are very satisfied to share
their ecosystem with the Negrito populations around them. The
mutualistic symbiosis which has evolved over hundreds of years provides
important forest products for the farmers at low cost (e.g., meat,
rattan, laborers, etc.). At the same time, the Negritos do not compete
with the farmers for that one resource the farmers consider so precious,
arable land. If Agta Negritos, or hunter-gatherers anywhere in the
world, were to break their interdependent ties with their farming
438
patrons (an idea completely unthinkable to the Agta, at least), and if
on top of this they were to try utilizing the prime resource in thearea
(viz. land), the two groups would quickly become enemies. It is not
hard to predict which group would lose in such a situation.
1. Examples of known 20th century forager groups which apparently

were isolated enough to not fit into the "commercial hunter-gatherer"
type are the Guayaki/Ache (Clastres 1972), the Heta (Kozak et al.
1979), and possibly the Siriono (Holmberg 1969, but cf. Isaac 1977, and
Stearman 1986) (all in South America); the G/wi Bushmen (Silberbauer
1981, but see Brooks 1982); the Tasaday of the Philippines (Nance 1975);
and a few aboriginal groups in Australia (e.g., Gould 1969). Few, if
any, of these "isolated" foragers were "pure" or "traditional" hunter-
gatherers, in that most of them were so-called "devolved" breakaway
groups who were formerly agriculturalists or commercial hunter-gatherers
who fled into the forests or deserts to avoid persecution. At the 1966
Man the Hunter Conference in Chicago, Deetz argued that on the eve of
European expansion there were only three areas of the world where
hunters lived beyond the influence of food producing populations
(Australia, eastern Brazil [but see papers in Part One of Francis et al.
1981], and California). "All other hunting peoples of which we have
ethnographic knowledge were subject in some way or another to influences
from developing Neolithic peoples from as early as the eighth millennium
B.C. in many cases" (Deetz 1968:283).
2. Note, I do not object to these programs, as long as force is

not used, nor do the Agta, if the benefactor is kind. Usually the Agta
are fed for a time (though this time, in September '85, only the men
were given daily rations of rice), and Agta usually more-or-less
cooperate as long as this food resource lasts.
3. The Agta President and I spent two days going from office to
office at the Bureau of Forest Development building in Manila in
November '85. The director of the BFD for Region IV told us not to
worry, the lease applications were in process now, and would eventually
be granted. I will believe it when I see it. I have received a great
deal of assistance in this project from PAFID (Philippine Association
for Intercultural Development), a private lobby group in Manila working
for the rights of Tribal Filipinos. It would have been impossible for
me to have cut through the red tape without their help.
439
CHAPTER XIV
CONCLUSION: WHAT OF THE AGTA FUTURE?
The reader may recognize by now that I am sadly pessimistic about
the future for the Agta. Most of the data presented in this thesis
leads to the same conclusion: the Agta are in a bad way. The
pertinent statistics— economic, nutritional, demographic— and the
accelerating degradation of the physical environment, all point
unquestionably in that direction. After 22 years of watching these
people go from bad to worse, it is difficult for me to believe that
their situation will soon improve.
While it is risky to predict what the future may hold for this
population— and I would be relieved if later events prove me wrong
here— it is probable that within the next decade the Casiguran
environment will be increasingly degraded, immigrants will pour into the
area at an ever faster tempo, the important protein foods of the Agta
will be practically extinct, the Agta death rate will remain high, and
their population will continue to decline.
Unlesssome outside agency, government or private, takes radical
steps to protect the Agta, the usurpation of Agta land and the abuse of
Agta human rights will be worse in the next decade than it was in the
last. It is highly unlikely that, without such protection, the Agta will
ever move into successful independent farming. Rather, and this seems
almost certain from my perspective, they will continue in their present
evolutionary direction, with increased servanthood to lowlander farmers
in the area. Here they will be seen serving as casual laborers,
440
441
domestic servants, and collectors of forest products. The latter role,
however, may decrease as the most important forest products, meat, fish,
and rattan, are practically depleted already.
The population itself will probably not go extinct. Rather, what I
predict will be greatly increased hybridization as more and more Agta
women are taken as wives, mistresses, or temporary sexual partners by
lowlander men.
It will probably take more than a decade but, if the present trend
continues, within the next several years the Agta will reach a point of
deculturation where their ethnic solidarity, their culture, and their
language will be a thing of the past. I am not talking here just about
culture change (which I am not against), but rather the actual decay of
a people's total way of life as the result of abusive outside forces on
an ecological system. This includes that ecosystem's aboriginal
inhabitants— a case where whole institutions are lost to a group without
replacement of functional equivalents.
CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY
The present thesis is not meant to be the final word on the Agta,
or on the ecology of foragers. Most scientific studies, by themselves,
are small and seemingly almost inconsequential, with results often
inconclusive. Many such studies, however, when taken together,
represent important research findings, and often help to solve important
questions. I have attempted here to build on the research of others in
such a way that we might gain a better understanding of today's hunters
and gatherers, how they live, why they live as they do, and what
442
accounts for their persistence. The present thesis deals with those
questions, and brings new light on how we may answer them.
The commercial hunter-gatherer niche. Perhaps the main
contribution of the study, then, is in its detailed documentation of a
hunting society which is no longer able to live by hunting, yet is not
taking up agriculture as an economic alternative. Instead, these people
remain firmly entrenched in their traditional, though now modified,
nomadic foraging niche. Why and how they are doing this is probably the
major contribution of the thesis.
A strong data base. The present thesis certainly adds to our
understanding of hunter-gatherer studies. There is, first of all, a
wealth of data presented here which can be used for future cross-
cultural comparative studies. This includes data on the Agta time
allocation study, Agta demographic data, and data on Agta swiddens. The
demographic data is especially valuable because it is on a hunter-
gatherer population. There is no other hunter-gatherer group for which
we have such data, except for the excellent work of Howell (1979) on the
!Kung Bushmen. The Agta population data give us something for
comparison against . the !Kung data. (Interestingly enough, the
statistics on the two groups are not thesame.) The Agtaswidden data,
on the other hand, is quite startling— though perhaps not too surprising
since the Agta are, after all, foragers and not farmers— because many of
their swidden statistics are anomalous when we compare them with similar
variables for other swidden societies for which data are available.
(This is strikingly demonstrated in Table 11.9.)
443
Using the competitive exclusion principle in anthropology. I have
applied here a new concept, an ecological principle which has not been
used before for explaining a major reason, perhaps the major reason,
why foragers do not change to farmers. This is the competitive
exclusion principle, a heuristic tool which helps us to see that even if
foraging-type peoples want to change their economic lifestyle to that of
agriculture they are usually hindered from carrying this out
successfully. This is because attempts at such change bring the
foragers into direct competition with the dominant surrounding
populations over the primary scarce resource needed by all successful
farmers— arable land.
There are other reasons foragers do not switch to farming— lack of
capital, egalitarianism, etc. But a primary reason, which has usually
been overlooked by agencies trying to "settle the nomads," is that the
more powerful food producing populations simply will not allow a small,
weak population in their same habitat to compete with them for the same
economic niche.
This ecological principle helps us to see, then, that foragers do
not reject farming because they are "lazy," "backward," or "frozen by
tradition." As I have argued in the present thesis, such peoples can
and do reason economically just as do humans in other societies,
including industrial societies. Being economic maximizers, small weak
groups like the Agta know better than to abandon a lifestyle which
serves their dominant agricultural neighbors, as well as themselves, in
444
order to attempt a new way of life which will change that symbiotic
relationship from one of mutualism to competition.
I am not suggesting here that so-called community development
agencies abandon efforts to help marginal foraging-type peoples. But
such plans must include long-time fully guaranteed land security for
those peoples, in areas the people themselves have chosen, if there is
to be any chance of success. The usual politically initiated,
ethnocentrically imposed plans are by now, for me, a rather sick joke.
I have observed many of these over the last 20 years, and I think I know
by now what I am talking about.
The diachronic perspective. A major emphasis of this study was
given to reconstructing the history of the Agta. This was not done just
to give a lesson in Philippine history. If we are ever to understand
the Agta it is imperative that we study them in the context of their
past. We must grasp a perspective on the evolutionary path of these
people if we are to correctly interpret their culture today. With this
in mind, one of my first goals was to dispel the naive and grossly
incorrect "isolationist stance" many people hold concerning the Agta—
what I call the Model One myth in Chapter 6. This view, when carried
to its extreme, sees Southeast Asianhunter-gatherers as fossilized
remnants of a Pleistocene way of life which by some freak of nature
(probably 'isolation') managed to survive into the 20th century (as
Cooper (1941), for one, implies for Negritos). Reports on Negritos, for
example, are filled with statements such as the following, made by
followers of this myth:
445
The Negritos belong to the most miserable representatives of

the human race and that, but for the noble gift of speech,
one might hesitate to reckon them among the humans (anonymous
author, cited in Rahmann and Maceda 1955:811).
These [Negrito] people are probably the lowest type of human

beings known and have been described as "not far above the
anthropoid apes" (Worcester 1913b:1180). Their intelligence
is of an exceptionally low order (Worcester
1912:847) . . . they stand at or near the bottom of the human
series, and they are believed to be incapable of any
considerable degree of civilization or advancement (Report
1900:11).
When these [Casiguran] Dumagats want to celebrate their

weddings, they have the custom of renting a band of
musicians, inviting their Christian friends from the town [of
Casiguran] and their non-Christian ones. Isn't this,
although small, a step towards civilization? (Lukban 1914:4).
. . . people less advanced in civilization than the wild

tribes of Central Africa. They are not even abreast of the
apelike dwarfs in the wilds of the Dark Continent (Bryan
1899:559).
Their hair is curly andmatted . . . features generally for

bidding. . . . The women fade early, and a Negrito matron past
thirty is one of the least attractive specimens of humanity.
They are a spiritless and cowardly race. . . . The
Negrito . . . runs with great speed after the deer, or climbs
the tallest tree like a monkey, which he greatly
resembles. . . . The Negritos are of very low intellect. . . .
They cannot be trusted to do anything requiring an exercise of
judgment. At times the Negrito's mind seems to wander from
all social order. . . .They never make any attempt to clear
the land, but merely scratch the surface of the earth with
their primitive stick plows, throw in the seed and let the
result take care of itself (ibid.:609-10).
The Andamanese and the Semang are Negritos. There is no

future for such; and their past has been millennial
stagnation (Burkill 1951, cited in Bellwood 1985:133).
While ethnocentric statements such as these appear less often in
print today, the opinion continues as strong as ever. While few if any
anthropologists today would accept any part of the 19th century
446
evolutionary theories of Tylor and Morgan, many lay people continue to
believe in the myth these two men introduced (or at. least codified)—
that human peoples have evolved culturally from savagery to barbarism to
civilized status. There are still students of Negrito societies whosee
these foragers as needing to be lifted from their low estate to one of
"civilization" (and these include educators, missionaries, government
community development workers and, until recently, even some
anthropologists).
It is beyond the scope of the present study to attempt to go into
the reasons such ethnocentric views are are still so strongly held in
the 1980s about' tribal peoples. The fact is, this "isolationist" Model
One view is widely held by the Western world, including many
anthropologists. This view is not limited to Philippine tribal peoples,
but it applies to all 'primitives,' worldwide. Keesing points this out
well in his (1981) text. More recently, two anthropologists have
written separate volumes where they attempt to explain why the mythof
the "Savage Other" is so strongly held in the Western mind— viewing
tribal people as if they exist in a pristine state of a prior
evolutionary stage (Fabian 1983; Pandian 1985). Pandian reviews the
history of Western thought, showing how it has led us to view other
peoples in this way. Part of his emphasis is that the "psychological
needs of people are met by the symbol of the wild man" (Pandian
1985:63). Fabian takes a more political position, showing how
anthropology tends to view contemporary tribal cultures as if they are
separate from us in time and place. He sees this as a political use of
447
anthropology which maintains and reinforces a relationship between
dominant and dominated societies. What I call a Model One myth he sees
as an ideological tool for exploitation and oppression, what he calls
"intellectual imperialism" (1983:164).
There is also a paper by Michael Dove which criticizes one aspect
of this myth, that view which holds that swidden cultivation is
primitive and wasteful, and that swiddeners (no less than
hunter-gatherers) live in isolation, "completely cut off from the rest
of the world" (1983:85). Dove asks why this myth persists when the
facts today so easily dispell it (ibid.:95). Like Fabian, Dove sees
the answer as political: "These myths . . . have been used since
colonial times to justify the exploitation of a . . . vulnerable
peasantry by . . .[a] more powerful urban and governing elite"
(ibid.:96).
Sponsel also provides us with a clue as to why anthropologists in
particular perpetuate the Model One myth: The high value that they
place on the"primitiveness of the culture studied. . . . on the
traditional in 'primitive' culture. . . . cultural purity . . . [the
depiction of the group as] 'our contemporary ancestors'" (1981:96-97).
Whatever the historical-philosophical reasons are for holding to
the . "isolationist" Model One myth of the the 'primitive,' it is quite
obvious that it is the view held by .many agents of change who have
repeatedly attempted to "lift" SE Asian Negritos from their "primitive"
status to one of "modernization" (as I have well documented in a
separate paper [Headland 1985c]). I have grown increasingly saddened
448
and dismayed over the years as I have watched program after program
attempted by various change agents for Philippine Negritos. Virtually
all of these have failed, partly because the agents failed to understand
my Model Two viewpoint I presented in Chapter 6. I showed there that
the Agta are as fully modern as any 20th century human group, that they
have been involved in cultivation for many hundreds of years, and that
they were participating in interethnic and even international trade long
before the Spaniards arrived.
Foraging groups do not remain in their "primitive" state because
they are "backward" at all, but because they are kept there by the
exploitative forces of their more powerful neighbors, and because it is
economically their most viable option in their very restricted
circumstances. Typically, the goals of change agents working among
nomadic peoples may be reduced to two— always the same two— to settle
them and to get them to take up farming. These are goals which are
doomed to failure as long as the present economic niche of such groups
like the Agfa remains as it is.
Change agents of Negritos have chronically failed to understand
them because they continue to see them as fossilized hunters of the
Model One myth variety, rather than seeing them as "commercial
foragers," carrying on a lifestyle not in spite of, but because of,
their particular economic role in the larger national society.
TABLE 0.1 A CONVERSION TABLE OF METRIC, U.S. AND PHILIPPINE
UNITS OF MEASURE
AREA
Hectare (ha) = 10,00^ sq m = 2.47 acres
Square kilometer (km ) = 100 ha = 0.39 sq miles
Acre = 43,560 sq ft = 4047 sq m = 0.405 ha
LENGTH
Centimeter (cm) = 0.39 inches
Meter (m) = 39.37 inches
Kilometer (km) = 0.62 miles
Inch = 2.54 cm
Foot = 30.48 cm
WEIGHT
Kilogram (kg) = 2.2046 lb
Ton (metric) = 1,000 kg = 2,2046 lb
Pound (lb) = 0.373 kg
VOLUME
Liter = 1.06 quarts = 0.33 ganta
PHILIPPINE VOLUME UNITS OF RICE MEASUREMENT, WITH METRIC EQUIVALENTS

(National standards, as stated in Philippine Yearbook 1977:ix, and
in Lynch 1972:128.)
One chupa= 0.375 liters
One ganta= 3 liters = 8 chupas
One baldi (5 gal. kerosene can) = 7 gantas
One cavan= 75 liters = 2.128 bushels= 200 chupas = 25 gantas
= 44 kg of rough rice (or57.5 kg ofcleaned rice)
Weights of rough (unhusked) and cleaned (husked) rice:

1 gantaroughrice weighs 1.72 kg
1 gantacleanrice weighs 2.30 kg
1 cavanroughrice weighs 44.0 kg
1 cavancleanrice weighs 57.5 kg
Note 1. According to Philippine national standards, dry rough rice

(unhusked) when hand pounded or milled has a volume reduction of about
50 percent and a weight reduction of 36 percent. The rice we measured
in Casiguran actually reduced after milling 54 percent in volume and 31
percent in weight.
Note 2. In this thesis, the Philippine chupa and cavan measurements

follow the national standard, not the local Casiguran standard. (In
Casiguran, a local chupa measures to 0.333 liters, rather than 0.375,
and the local cavan measures 150 liters rather than 75.)
449
TABLE 1.1 POPULATION FIGURES FOR CASIGURAN AREA FOR VARIOUS YEARS*
population in 1582 500 (Blair & Robertson 5:99)

population in 1640 1200 (ibid. 35:282)
population in 1649 1560 (ibid. 35:287)
population in 1735 1700 (ibid. 28:160; see 28:11 for date)
population in 1850 1399** (Huerta 1865:283, 287)
population in 1887 1730 (Report of the U.S. 1901:602)
population in 1896 1804 (ibid.:591, 602)
population in 1903 2067*** (Integrated Census n.d.:l,CPI 1905:423)
population in 1918 2567 (CPI 1918:109)
population in 1939 6397 (ibid.)
population in 1960 9381 (ibid., Census of the Phil. n.d.:45-4)
population in 1970 22700 (ibid. Quezon 1974:416, 419)
population in 1975 19886**** (Integrated Census n.d.:l,
Provincial Profile)
population in 1980 26647 (Census 1980, NCSO 1983:7)
population in 1984 35000 (from interviews with local officials)
*These figures are for the total Casiguran area, including the
municipalities of Dilasag, Dinalongan, and Dinapigui,Isabela.
**This 1850 date is approximate, as Huerta does not give the year
for which his population figure refers.
***"A11 brown (no blacks counted)" (CPI 1905:244, 310).
****There was a rapid decline of the population in 1974-75 because

of heavy emigration of people fleeing the guerrilla warfare then going
on between the dissident New People's Army and government military
troops.
Dilasag created into a municipal district June 21, 1959, and

converted into a regular municipality June 18, 1966. Dinalongan created
into a municipal district June 18, 1966. Dinapigui created into a
municipal district June 21, 1969 (Listing n.d.).
450
TABLE 4.1 CRITICAL CLIMATE VARIABLES AT CASIGURAN
latitude 16 deg. 17 min. N

longitude 122 deg. 08 min. E
elevation 3 meters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Jan 23.7 226.4 20 89 56/NNW 10/72 126.6 09/64

Feb 24.0 153.7 15 87 56/NE 24/68 164.1 23/60
Mar 24.9 202.7 16 87 56/ENE 28/72 401.0 13/71
Apr 26.4 135.4 15 86 65/S 08/67 228.9 21/56
May 27.2 236.0 17 86 41/SW 06/66 244.9 28/66
Jun 27.6 232.2 16 86 93/SW 15/71 185.2 15/71
Jul 27.4 253.2 17 86 67/SSW 20/71 242.6 11/66
Aug 27.2 234.4 13 87 74/SSW 16/72 151.9 13/63
Sep 27.0 282.8 16 88 221/NE 27/70 217.2 30/71
Oct 26.5 385.1 21 89 145/SW 17/67 274.2 10/71
Nov 25.5 640.8 23 87 93/E 19/70 393.4 11/57
Dec 24.3 451.4 23 90 48/NE 28/71 328.9 29/66
annual
Casig. 26.0 3447.8 212 87
Luzon 26.8 2724.4 168 80
Philip. 27.0 2533.4 180 82
EXPLANATIONS OF COLUMNS:
1. Mean monthly and annual temperature (C), 1948-62 (data extracted

from Flores and Balagot 1969).
2. Mean monthly and annual rainfall (mm), 1949-83 (data from Pagasa
1975:11 and from Casiguran Pagasa Weather Station); for a display of the
mean and range of monthly rainfall, see the histogram in Figure 1.
3. Mean monthly and annual no. of rainy days (defined as days with
0.1+ mm of precipitation). Based on 9 year average, between 1948-62
(data extracted from Flores and Balagot 1969).
4. Mean monthly and annual relative humidity (%), 1948-62 (data
extracted from Flores and Balagot 1969).
5. Highest wind speed and direction ever recorded up to 1972 (KPH)
(from Pagasa 1975:12).
6. Date of data in column 5 (day/yr).
7. Greatest 24 hr period of rainfall ever recorded up to 1972 (mm)
(from Pagasa 1975:8).
8. Date of data in column 7 (day/yr).
451
TABLE 4.2 RAINFALL DATA IN CASIGURAN IN 1983-1984
month/yr amount of no. of rainy no. of days with

rainfall days (0.1+ mm) 16+ mm of rain
JAN '83 374 mm 21 days 9 days

FEB '83 99 mm 4 days 2 days
MAR '83 247 mm 16 days 7 days
APR '83 46 mm 16 days 1 day
MAY '83 240 mm 15 days 5 days
JUN '83 160 mm 9 days 3 days
JUL '83 411 inn 15 days 7 days
AUG '83 123 mm 15 days 4 days
SEP '83 229 mm 16 days 4 days
OCT '83 888 mm 23 days 11 days
NOV '83 233 mm 18 days 3 days
DEC '83 102 ran 16 days 2 days
JAN '84 358 mm 22 days 8 days

FEB '84 96 mm 13 days 2 days
MAR '84 173 ran 17 days 5 days
APR '84 320 mm 13 days 4 days
MAY '84 179 mm 22 days 4 days
TABLE 4.3 TYPHOONS WHICH PASSED THROUGH CASIGURAN LATITUDE-LONGITUDE
SQUARE IN THE THIRTY/YEAR PERIOD 1948 TO 1978
name of typhoon* date other information
1. typhoon Aug 31, 1948

2. typhoon Dec 08, 1948
3. Camila Dec 11, 1949 104 kph at Cas.
4. Ossia Oct 02, 1950
5. Della Nov 25, 1952
6. Judy Jun 03, 1953 112 kph at Cas.
7. Cora Nov 17, 1953
8. Ruby Nov 08, 1954 152 kph at Cas.
9. Sally Nov 17, 1954 153 kph at Cas.
10. Thelma Apr 21, 1956 225 kph at Cas. rain
11. Lucille Nov 15, 1956 104 kph at Cas. rain
12. Olive Nov 29, 1956 at Baler mainly
13. Wendy Jul 15, 1957 at Palanan mainly
14. Freda Nov 17, 1959 257 kph at Cas.
15. Hope May 18, 1962
16.
17.
Luding
Dorang/Clara
Aug
Oct
14
05,
, 1963
1964 145 kph at Cas.
18. Pitang/Kate/G Sep 11, 1970 240 kph over water,
19. Ludy/Freda Jun 15, 1971
20. Edeng/Susan Jul 06, 1972
21. Bisang/Dinah Jun 10, 1974 120 kph at Baler
22. Iliang/Ivy Jul 20, 1974 169 kph at Baler
23. Tering/Carmen Oct 16, 1974 110 kph at Cas.
24. Herming/Alice Sep 17, 1975 115 kph at Baler
25. Didang/Olga May 22, 1976
26. Huaning/Ruby Jan 25, 1976
(data extracted from Pagasa 1978)
*A11 of the above 26 are classed as "typhoons, None are "tropical

depressions" or "tropical storms."
453
TABLE 4.4 LAND TYPES IN THE CASIGURAN ECOSYSTEM
(1) (2) (3)
dipterocarp full closure 4,927+ 7.0%

primary
forest partial closure 25,560+ 36.5%
(lauan type) second;iry 9,853+ 14.1%
molave forest (molawii? type) 5,000+ 7.1%
mossy(oak) forest (or mid-mountain type) 4,000+ 5.7%
mangrove forest 288 0.4%
beach forest 200+ 0.3%.
reproduction brush 3,926+ 5.6%
grassland 5,000+ 7.1%
cultivated rice 4,614 6.6%
area fruit trees(mostly coconut) 6,372 9.1%
other 260 0.4%
TOTAL LAND AREA (in hectares) | 70,000+ | 100%
Column 1 gives the names of the 12 land types, including the five forest
types. Column 2 gives the approximate area in hectares of each land type
in 1983. Column 3 gives the percentages of each land type in the total
area. The figures followed by a plus symbol in column 2 mean those
figures are rough approximations. These 12 land types are defined in
Chapter 4.
SOURCES OF DATA IN COLUMN 2: These figures were calculated from five

sources. These were (1) unpublished 1982 records from the BFD (Bur.
For. Dev.) office in Casiguran; (2) Mina 1983; (3) a 3 page typewritten
report prepared for me by the Region IV office of the BFD in Manila,
dated 2 February 1984. (This report was compiled from "planimeter
readings on Forest Resource Condition Map of 1969 by Photo Interpre
tation, sheet Nos. 3368-1, 3368-11, 3369-11, 3468-III, 3468-IV
and 3469-III)." (4) The data in rows 10 and 11 [cultivated area] are
from Parumog 1983:3. (5) The fifth data source is from my own
estimations of the areas of the 12 land types, based on extensive (but
not measured) ground surveys over a period of many years, extensive
aerial surveys, and map interpretation.
454
TABLE 4.5 TYPES OF TERRAIN WHERE AGTA CAMPS WERE LOCATED IN 1983-84
\----- --------------
\general land types: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
\ (macro) pri sec bea rep grs cul TOTALS
\ for for for brs land tiv
\\________________
-- ------
micro\
land \
types \
shaded forest 5 1 4 10
riverbed 3 3 2 8
new swidden 2 1 2 5
last year's swidden 2 2 1 5
open beach 9 9
grass area 1 1 1 4 7
repro. brush area 1 3 1 5
mature coconut grove 7 7
TOTALS 12 7 15 9 1 12 56
*Based on a sample of terrain types for 56 camp locations

recorded in 1983-84.
Columns numbered 1-6 represent six of the 9 general (macro) land types
found in Casiguran (as described in Chapter 4). These are primary
forest, secondary forest, beach forest, reproduction brush, grassland,
and cultivated areas.
The 8 rows represent micro terrain types which may be found within any
of the macro land types.
455
TABLE 4.6 MAIN STARCH FOOD EATEN AT AGTA MEALS*
starch no. of percent

food meals of meals
rice 511 91.6%

cassava 18 3.2%
sweet potato 10 1.8%
wild yams 9 1.6%
plantains 8 1.4%
ubi yam 2 0.4%
TOTALS 558 100.0%
*Based on a sample of 558 household meals from

all "band" areas for 5 different months in 1984.
456
TABLE 4.7 MAIN SIDE DISH FOODS EATEN AT AGTA MEALS*
(1 ) (2 )
AQUATIC RESOURCES
fish 171 37.2%
river shrimp 31 6.7%
snails 22 4.8%
octopus 10 2.2%
crabs 5 1.1%
bivalve shells 7 .7%
sub-totals 242 52.6%
WILD MEAT
pig 16 3.5%
chicken 3 .7%
monkey 2 .4%
deer 0 .0%
sub-totals 21 4.6%
PLANT FOOD ONLY

fruit 24 5.2%
vegetable 32 7.0%
sub-totals 56 12.2%
PRESERVED FOOD BOUGHT IN STORE

pickled fish sauce 32 7.0%
canned fish 8 1.7%
soy sauce 1 .2%
sub-totals 41 8.9%
NO SIDE DISH
salt only 58 12.6%
coffee 4 .9%
sugar 6 1.3%
rice only 32 7.0%
sub-totals 100 2.1.7%
T O T A L S 460 100.0%
*Based on a sample of 46.0 household meals in all

band areas for 5 months in 1984.
Column 1: Number of meals at which the item in the row was the main
side dish.
Column 2: Percentage of times this item was the main side dish out
of total sample of 460 meals.
457
TABLE 4.8 NUMBER OF MEALS RECORDED FOR EACH MONTH, AND PERCENT
OF THOSE IN WHICH RICE WAS THE MAIN STARCH FOOD
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Jan 1984 198 171 86% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Mar 1984 30 30 100% 1 3 4 5
Apr 1984 173 161 93% 1 2 4 6 7 8 9 10
May 1984 130 123 95% 1 2 3 4 6 7 9 10
Jul 1984 27 26 96% 3 4 7
TOTALS 558 511 92% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Column 1:
date.
Column 2:
number of meals recorded.
Column 3:
number of meals in which rice was main food,
Colum.. 4:
percent of meals which had rice (column 3 divided by
column 2).
Column 5: numbers of the band areas from which data was taken
(e.g. meals data were collected in March from band areas
numbered 1, 3, 4, and 5 on Map 2).
458
TABLE 4.9 NUMBER OF MEALS RECORDED FOR EACH BAND AREA, SHOWING NUMBER
AND PERCENT OF THOSE WHICH HAD RICE AS THE MAIN FOOD*
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Area 1 42 36 86% Jan Mar Apr May

Area 2 58 53 91% Jan Apr May
Area 3 84 77 92% Jan Mar May Jul
Area 4 54 41 76% Jan Mar Apr May Jul
Area 5 24 23 96% Jan Mar
Area 8 33 33 100% Jan Apr
Area 10 80 70 88% Jan Apr May Jul
TOTALS 558 511 92%
*Based on a sample of 558 household meals.
Column 1: Number of "band" areas (see Map 2 for locations and

boundaries of the 10 areas).
Column 2: Total number of meals collected from each area.
Column 3: Number of those meals which at which rice was the
main food.
Column 4: Percentage of meals in each area at which rice
was main (column 3 divided by column 2).
Column 5: Names of months in which meal data were gathered
from each area. (All months were in 1984).
459
TABLE 5.1 AVERAGE MEASUREMENTS OF AGTA HOUSES
(1) (2) (3) (4)

(sq. m) (cm) (sq. m) (cm)
houses with m=3.7 m=140 m=l.1 m= 7.3

single floor sd=2.1 sd= 38 sd=0.8 sd= 4.0
N=94 N=40 N=91 N=13
houses with m=6.9 m=185 m=1.6 m=10.6

two floors sd=2.4 sd= 38 sd=0.8 sd= 2.2
N=10 N=5 N=10 N=3
all houses m=4.0 m=145 m=l.2 m= 8.0

except sd=2.4 sd= 40 sd=0.8 sd= 3.9
lean-tos N=104 N=45 N=101 N=16
r=3.2-17.8
single-sided m=3.4 m=178 m=l.0

lean-tos sd=0.9 sd= 21 sd=0.3 NA
N=22 N=14 N=12
double-sided m=5.0 m=l 93 m=l .3

lean-tos sd=l.4 sd= 7 sd=0.2 NA
N=3 N=3 N=3
m=3.9 m=155 m=l.2

ALL HOUSE sd=2.2 sd= 39 sd=0.8 NA
TYPES N=129 N=62 N=116
r=1.2-13.3 r=86-244 r=0.4-3.7
Explanation of symbols: m=mean, sd=standard deviation, N=sample

size, r=range, NA=not applicable.
Column (1): mean floor area;
Column (2):mean height from floor toinside crown of roof;
Column (3):per capita floor space;
Column (4):diameter of smallest corner house post 45 cm
above the ground;
Example: The bottom box of Colimn 1 reads that for Agta houses of
all types, the mean floor area is 3.9 square meters, with
a standard deviation of 2.2 square meters. The range
spreads from the smallest house which was 1.2 square
meters to the largest which was 13.3 square meters. The
data in this box is based on a sample of 129 houses measured.
460
TABLE 5.2 PERCENTAGE OF NIGHTS VISITORS SLEPT IN AGTA CAMPS
1978 camp 1983 camp both camps

N=42 nights N=118 nights N=160 nights
% of nights adults 17% ( 7/42)** 19% (23/118) 19% (30/160)

lowlanders minors 5% ( 2/42) 0% ( 0/118) 1% ( 2/160)
slept in camp* total 21% ( 9/42) 19% (23/118) 20% (32/160)
% of nights non adults 19% C 8/42) 15% (18/118) 16% (26/160)

related Agta minors 48% (20/42) 16% (19/118) 24% (39/160)
slept in camp total 52% (22/42) 25% (30/118) 33% (52/160)
*No lowlander female adults slept in the camps on nights data were
collected.
**The denominators in this table are the number of nights data were
collected; the numerators are the number of those nights in which
visitors slept in the camp who were not blood relatives to anyone in the
house in which they slept.
461
TABLE 8.1 AGTA LIVING IN LOWLAND COMMUNITIES AS HOUSE SERVANTS
IN JUNE 1984
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
name census sex age civ time location no . parents
no. '84 sta gone in 6/84 living
Delning 365 M 15 S ? town(Cas) 2

Eleng 557 M 14 S 1+yr town(Dil) 0
Hose 342 M 10 S 1+yr Manila 0
Kortal 274 M 32 D 2+yr town(Dil) 0
Lakson 181 M 18 S 1 yr Aparri 2
Laieng 306 M 21 S 1 yr Laguna P. mo alive
Losio 328 M 36 S 5+yr barrio 0
Nani 322 M 23 D 2 yr Bulacan P. mo alive
Omi 340 M 15 S 3+yr Baler 0
Ruben 167 M 11 S 2+yr town(Cas) mo alive
Wesli 194 M 21 S 1 yr Laguna 2
Aleng 310 F 20 ? 5+yr Manila 0
Alili 349 F 15 S 1+yr Laguna mo alive
Anali 190 F 11 S 7 yr Manila 0
Bebilita 474 F 15 s 9 9 2
Berhinya 87 F 19 s 2 yr Manila fa alive
Bilma 211 F 21 s 3 mo Baler 2
Dolmeg 477 F 21 s ? ? mo alive
Emili 356 F 24 s 4 yr barrio 0
Eng-eng 292 F 15 s 7 mo Cabanatuan mo alive
Geling 75 F 12 s ? ? mo alive
lies 215 F 15 s 1+yr Manila mo alive
Inggel 297 F 19 s 1+yr Manila 2
Raring 536 F 18 s 1+yr Manila mo alive
Kuneng 486 F 24 ? 7 yr Mindanao mo alive
Linda 242 F 23 s 1+yr Manila mo alive
Mari 448 F 16 s 3 mo barrio 2
Milagrin 520 F 19 s ? Manila mo alive
Naliakas 90 F 22 s 5+yr town(Dpgi) mo alive
Nayling 161 F 21 s 2 yr town(Cas) 2
Nengr.eng 284 F 18 ? 9 ? mo alive
Nengneng 401 F 23 s 6 mo town(Cas) 2
Nini 69 F 14 s 1+yr Manila 2
Oyok 151 F 16 s ? barrio 2
Pepek 83 F 23 s 2+yr Manila fa alive
Peti 95 F 32 s 10 yr ? 0
Rosing 515 F 51 s 46 yr Manila 0
Saleling 230 F 21 s ? Bulacan 2
Senayda 449 F 22 D ? ? 2
Sepa 91 F 18 s 5?yr Manila mo alive
Telma 309 F 28 s 4?yr Bulacan 0
Tesi 164 F 26 9 8+yr AustraliaC?) mo alive
Waynalin 198 F 16 s 2 yr Manila 2
TABLE 9.1
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS
• (P **P h ilip p in e pesos; $=*U.S. d o l l a r s ; g“ 'g a n t a '[ 3 l i t e r s ] . )
Column 2 : P r ic e o f m ille d ric e in low lan d b a r r io s p er " g a n ta " (a common

P h ilip p in e measure o f volume e q u a l to 3 l i t e r s , and w e ig h in g , when m i l l e d , 2 .3 k g . ) .
Column 2a is p r ic e in pesos, and column 2b is p r ic e i n U .S . d o l l a r e q u iv a le n ts . P r ic e
o f m ille d r i c e in b a r r io s averages 10 to 1 2 .5 p e rc e n t h ig h e r th an th e p r ic e i n town.
Column 3 : Average d a y 's wages f o r A g ta f o r manual la b o r , e x c lu d in g c o s t o f fr e e

noon meal s u p p lie d by em plo yer. Column 3a is wages in pesos, 3b is U .S . d o l l a r
e q u iv a le n t, and 3c is e q u iv a le n t i n m ille d r i c e . The fig u r e s in Column 3c in d ic a t e
both the number o f g antas o f m ille d r i c e w hich co u ld be bought w ith th e cash earned
fo r a d a y 's la b o r th a t month AND th e number o f days t h a t amount o f r i c e would feed a
fa m ily o f fo u r (s in c e th e mean d a i ly consumption o f m ille d r i c e f o r a f a m ily o f 4 is
one g an ta [3 l i t e r s ] ) . The fig u r e s in Column 3c were c a lc u la te d by d iv id in g th e
fig u r e s in Column 3a by those in Column 2 a .
Column 4 a : Shows th e mean m o n th ly s e l l i n g p r ic e i n pesos f o r 100 r a t t a n p o les of

3 m eters i n le n g th . Column 4b shows th e U .S . d o l l a r e q u iv a le n ts .
Column 5: Shows th e e s tim a te d mean number o f p o les c o lle c te d by A g ta men in an

averag e 8 hour w ork day f o r each m onth. The fig u r e s ex clu d e d a ta on r a t t a n c o lle c t e d
b y women, c h ild r e n , and 2 o ld e r men i n poor h e a l t h .
Column 6a: Shows th e e s tim a te d mean amount earned i n pesos by A g ta men in an

averag e 8 hour work day o f r a t t a n c o l l e c t i n g , f o r each m onth. Column 6b shows th e
U .S . d o lla r e q u iv a le n t, and Column 6c shows th e amount o f r i c e (a g a in , in g a n ta s )
which co u ld be bought w ith t h a t amount o f ca sh . The fig u r e s in Column 6c were
c a lc u la te d by d iv id in g th e fig u r e s i n Column 6a by th ose i n Column 2 a . Q u e s tio n marks
f i l l c e l l s f o r p e rio d s f o r w hich d a ta a re la c k in g on amount o f r a t t a n c o l le c t e d .
Column 7: N o te s .
N o te 1 . The v a lu e o f th e P h ilip p in e peso a g a in s t th e d o lla r from J a n u a ry to

August 1983 averaged peso 9 .5 0 to US$1.
N o te 2 . The peso d evalued tw ic e (o n S e p t. 29 and on O c t. 5 ) f o r a t o t a l -

d e v a lu a tio n o f 47 p e rc e n t, from 9.50:U S $1 to 14:U S$1.
N o te 3 . The peso devalued 29 p e rc e n t on June 6 , 1984 from 14:US$1 to 18:U S$1.
N ote 4 . D a ta c o lle c te d by J a n e t Headland d u rin g v i s i t to C a sig u ra n i n June 1985.
N ote 5 . D a ta c o lle c t e d from 4 A g ta who v i s i t e d th e w r ite r at Bagabag, Nueva

V iz c a y a , l a t e O ctober 1985.
EXAMPLE: Row one reads as fo llo w s : Column 1 shows t h a t th e d a ta i n t h i s row is

f o r Janu ary 1983. Column 2a shows t h a t th e p r ic e o f m ille d r i c e in t h a t month was
6 .5 0 pesos, which Column 2b shows was e q u iv a le n t th en to US$ 0 . 6 8 . Column 3a shows
th a t th e mean d a i l y wage t h a t month was 10 pesos, w hich Column 3b shows was e q u iv a le n t
to $ 1 .0 5 . Column 3c shows t h a t t h a t would buy 1 .5 g an tas o f r i c e , enough to fee d a
fa m ily o f fo u r f o r 1 .5 days. Column 4a shows t h a t 100 poles o f r a t t a n s o ld t h a t month
f o r 38 pesos, which Column 4b shows was th en e q u iv a le n t to $ 3 .9 9 . Column 5 e s tim a te s
th a t A g ta men were a b le to c o l le c t an av erag e o f 55 r a t t a n p o les i n an 8h ou r day o f
work in J a n u a ry 1983. .Column 6 shows t h a t th e av erag e man c o l le c t i n g 55 p o le s i n a
d a y 's w ork th a t month would e a rn 21 pesos on t h a t d a y , e q u iv a le n t to $ 2 .1 9 , or 3 .2
g an tas o f m ille d r i c e (enough to fee d a f a m ily o f 4 f o r 3 . 2 d a y s ).
463
TABLE 9.1 MONTHLY MEAN AGTA INCOME IN 1983-84
(From Daily Wage Labor and Rattan Collecting, Measured in Pesos,
U.S. Dollars, and Rice Equivalents)
1 2 ' 3 4 5 6 7
p r ic e r ic e d a i l y wage p r ic e fo r e a r n in g o f r a t .
d a te per g a n ta f o r la b o r e r s 100 p o le s p o ls g a t h e r e r s / d ay
(a ) (b ) (a ) (b ) (c ) (a ) (b ) day (a ) (b ) (c )
P . $ P $ g P $ P $ g
01/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 38 / 3.99 55 21 / 2.19 / 3.2 n .l

02/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 40 / 4.20 55 22 / 2.31 / 3.4
03/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 40 / 4.20 52 21 / 2.18 / 3.2
04/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 40 / 4.20 ??
05/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 41 / 4.31 ?? 1
06/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 42 / 4.41 43 18 / 1.90 / 2.8
07/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 42 / 4.41 52 22 / 2.29 / 3.4
08/83 6.50 / .68 10 / 1.05 / 1.5 43 / 4.50 ?? •>
BENIGNO AQUINO ASSASSINATED IN MANILA AUGUST 21, 1983
09/83 7.00 / .74 10 / 1.05 / 1.4 46 / 4.83 ?? ?

10/83 7.50 / .53 10 / 0.71 / 1.3 47 / 3.34 ?? 9 n.2
11/83 8.00 / .57 10 / 0.71 / 1.3 46 / 3.27 33 15 / 1.08 / 1.9
12/83 10.00 I .71 10 / 0.71 / 1.0 47 / 3.34 ?? 9
01/84 12.00 / .85 10 / 0.71 / 0.8 48 / 3.41 31 15 / 1.06 / 1.3
02/84 11.00 J .78 12 / 0.85 / 1.1 48 / 3.41 ?? 9
03/84 11.00 / .78 12 / 0.85 / 1.1 50 / 3.55 ?? 9
04/84 11.00 / .78 15 / 1.07 / 1.4 55 / 3.91 25 14 / 0.98 / 1.3
05/84 11.00 / .78 15 / 1.07 / 1.4 55 / 3.91 ?? 9
06/84 12.00 / .66 15 / 0.82 / 1.3 60 / 3.30 ?? 9 n.3
07/84 13.50 / .74 15 / 0.82 / 1.1 75 / 4.13 20 15 / 0.83 / 1.1
06/85- 17.00 / .95 20 / 1.11 / 1.2 ? ? *>•> 9 n.4
10/85 16.00 / .89 25 / 1.38 / 1.6 ? ? ?? ? n.5
(d a ta fro m a u t h o r 's fie ld n o te s )
464
TABLE 9.2 PERCENT OF RISE-DECLINE IN COST OF RICE, DAILY INCOME
FROM WAGE LABOR, AND DAILY INCOME FROM RATTAN COLLECTING
IN CASIGURAN, 11 MONTHS AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF POLITICAL
OPPOSITION LEADER BENIGNO AQUINO OIN MANILA ON AUGUST 21, 1983
in pesos in US$ equivalents in rice
% change in +108% + 9% NA
cost of rice P6.50 to P13.50 $0.68 to $0.74
% change in pay + 50% - 22% - 27%

for daily labor P10 to Pi5 $1.05 to $0.82 1.5g to l.lg*
% change in in - 29% - 64% - 68%

come from rattan P21 to PI5 $2.29 to $0.83 3.4g to l.lg
(calculated from data in Table 9.1)
* "1.5g to l.lg" means that the average Agta could buy, before the
economic effects of the Aquino assassination reached Casiguran, 1.5
gantas of milled rice with his day's wages (enough to feed a family of 4
for 1.5 days). But 11 months after the assassination the amount of rice
he could buy with his day's wages declined 27 percent to only 1.1
gantas.
465
TABLE 9.3 YEARLY PHILIPPINE EXPORT OF COCONUT PRODUCTS, 1977 TO 1983
AND YEARLY MARKET PRICE FOR COPRA IN CASIGURAN, 1977 TO 1984
year -1- -2- -3- -4-
1977 $761 million $0.80 1.20 g *

1978 $908 million $0.53 0.80 g *
1979 $1024 million $0.40 0.60 g *
1980 $811 million $0.07 0.08 g *
1981 $750 million N.A.** N.A. ** *
1982 $590 million $0.10 0.10 g ic
1983 $680 million
Jan * * 0.0%
Feb * * 0.7%
Mar $0.12 0.17 g 0.0%
June * * 0.0%
July $0.16 0.23 g 7.4%
Aug $0.18 0.26 g 2.4%
Sept $0.23 0.31 g 3.8%
Oct $0.21 0.40 g 2.9%
Nov $0.28 0.50 g 7.3%
Jan '84 $0.41 0.48 g 5.7%
Apr '84 * * 2.6%
May '84 * * 3.5%
Jun '84 $0.32 0.42 g *
July '84 $0.34 0.44 g *
* No data were collected for these periods.

** No coconuts were harvested in Casiguran in 1981, due to the
effects of Typhoon Aring in November 1980.
Column 1: Amount of yearly Philippine export of coconut products, 1977-

83, FOB value in millions of U.S. dollars (from NEDA 1984:406-07).
Column 2: Yearly average prices of copra in Casiguran 1977-83, per kg

(in U.S. dollar equivalents), and prices for certain months in 1983 and
1984. Casiguran copra is all lower grade smoke-dried. The market price
of the same grade of copra in Baler ranges from 15 to 25 percent higher.
(Source of data from author's personal field notes.)
Column 3: This column shows the real buying power of one kg of copra
during the various periods, in equivalents of gantas of milled rice.
The first figure in Column 3, for example, 1.20 g, means the market
price of one kg of copra in 1977 would buy 1.2 g (=gantas) of milled
rice (equal to 3.6 liters), enough to feed a family of 4 for one day.
Column 4: Monthly percentage of PWD (person-work-days) Agta spent in

copra wage labor for lowlanders, for selected months (includes cutting
brush in coconut grove, harvesting, husking, and splitting of nuts, and
smoking, packing, and moving of copra to buyer).
466
TABLE 9.4 FIGURES ON EXPORT OF RATTAN FROM THE PHILIPPINES
FROM 1970 TO 1982
1 2 3
1970 2,008,334 kg 354,778 pieces

1971 1,930,537 kg 219,124 pieces
1972 2,875,726 kg 140,994 pieces
1973 2,254,016 kg 241,581 pieces
1974 2,278,234 kg 184,301 pieces
1975 1,854,029 kg 183,997 pieces
1976 2,553,317 kg 308,019 pieces
1977* 153,479 kg 700,024 pieces
1978 66,030 kg 813,925 pieces
1979 0 kg 1,524,803 pieces
1980 40 kg 1,872,259 pieces
1981 0 kg 1,873,130 pieces
1982** 7,375 kg 1,810,851 pieces
Data compiled from NCSO (1970-82). See PHIL. YEARBOOK

1983:321 for slightly different figures.
column 1: year
column 2: annual amount of rattan poles and split rattan exported
(in net kilograms),
column 3: annual amount of rattan furniture exported (in pieces,
including 'chairs,' 'seats,' 'furniture')
* The reason for the decline of raw rattan at the end of the 1970s,
as shown in Column 2, is because the government restricted its export at
that time, and to the present. This rule is called Ministry of Natural
Resources Administrative Order No. 5, titled "Regulations Governing
Rattan Resource" (Generalao 1981). This order outlawed the export of
unworked (raw) or semiworked rattan from the country.
** Unfortunately, for the Philippine economy, the U.S. government

forced the Philippines to partially lift their export ban on rattan
poles (a law implemented to protect the raw material supply of local
rattan furniture manufacturers). The forced trade came with the U.S.'s
offer to drop their newly imposed 30 percent tariff on imported rattan
furniture if the Philippines would lift their ban and allow the export
of a specified number of rattan poles for American rattan craft makers.
The Philippines thus allowed the initial export of 80,000 poles in 1982,
with ten percent more to be exported each year (Constantino 1984:51-52).
467
TABLE 10.1 BREAKDOWN OF 3283 PWDs INTO 11 MAIN ACTIVITY CATEGORIES
(for all areas for total 18 month period, by no. and %)
Males Females Total

No. Percent No. Percent No. Percent
NO WORK 388 22.7% 775 49.2% 1163 35.4%
HUNTING 106 6.2% 5 0.3% 111 3.4%
FISHING 103 6.0% 61 3.9% 164 5.0%
OWN AGRICUL 102 6.0% 94 6.0% 196 6.0%
RATTAN WORK 564 33.0% 268 17.0% 832 25.3%
LABOR, NON- 72 4.2% 56 3.6% 128 3.9%

AGRICUL
LABOR, AGRI 196 11.5% 89 5.7% 285 8.7%
TRAVEL 105 6.1% 140 8.9% 245 7.5%
EQUIP. MAKING 65 3.8% 60 3.8% 125 3.8%
GATHER FOREST 4 0.2% 17 1.1% 21 0.6%

PRODUCTS
OTHER 4 0.2% 9 0.6% 13 0.4%
TOTALS 1709 100.0% 1574 100.0% 3283 100.0%
468
TABLE 10.2
The following 8 page table shows the breakdown of the complete

sample of 3,283 PWDs (person-work-days) collected in 1983-84 when
measured against 37 variables. The breakdown of these PWDs is shown by
both number and percentage of PWDs in each of the 37 categories for each
sex and for the sexes combined.
Each page of the table shows the breakdown for one of the eleven
general PWD activities shown in Table 10.1, except for the three bottom
activities in that table which are of less importance. (Those three
excluded activities are "equipment/house making," "gathering forest
products,", and "other."
There are thus 8 sections in this table, with one section displayed
on each page of the table. Each section measures the number and
percentage of the general activity of that section against 37
independent variables. These variables compare potential differences
between PWDs for various age cohorts, band areas, for individuals who
cultivated fields in 1983 versus those who did not, rainy versus non-
rainy days, married versus never married people, and weekday versus
Sunday activities.
Looking at the first section of the table, for example, one may
check any of various hypotheses he may have (Do old people work less
than young people? Do Agta in Band Area X work more than those in other
band areas? Do Agta work less on Sundays, or on rainy days? etc.)
The value of this 8 page table is its usefulness to the reader in

testing some particular hypothesis in which he may be particularly
interested, which is not covered in the text, as well as providing a
useful tool to which the reader may quickly refer when some particular
subject or question is discussed in the text to which something in this
table pertains.
469
TABLE 10.2 BREAKDOWN OF 3,283 PWDs BY 37 DIFFERENT VARIABLES
(by sex, number, and percent of 8 general PWD categories)
variable activity males females total

no. percent no. percent no. percenl
Section 1: General PWD Category "NO WORK":
AGE 16-19 NO WORK 55 21.2% 57 60.0% 112 31.6%

AGE 20-29 NO WORK 72 18.5% 330 60.8% 402 43.1%
AGE 20-39 NO WORK 156 18.0% 463 53.5% 619 35.7%
AGE 40-59 NO WORK 98 23.8% 198 40.0% 296 32.6%
AGE 40-79 NO WORK 177 30.4% 255 41.6% 432 36.1%
AGE 50-59 NO WORK 46 31.3% 79 35.3% 125 33.7%
BAND 1 NO WORK 58 20.5% 127 52.5% 185 35.2%

BAND 2 NO WORK 70 39.5% 79 46.7% 149 43.1%
BAND 3 NO WORK 29 24.6% 57 53.3% 86 38.2%
BAND 4 NO WORK 57 23.9% 120 53.6% 177 38.3%
BAND 5 NO WORK 19 10.0% 66 34.4% 85 22.3%
BAND 6 NO WORK 22 17.7% 52 52.5% 74 33.2%
BAND 7 NO WORK 20 22.7% 32 42.1% 52 31.7%
BAND 8 NO WORK 43 30.3% 73 55.3% 116 42.3%
BAND 9 NO WORK 44 22.0% 92 46.7% 136 34.3%
BAND 10 NO WORK 26 17.4% 77 56.6% 103 36.1%
JAN '83 NO WORK 12 21.1% 32 65.3% 44 41.5%

FEB '83 NO WORK 38 26.4% 82 57.7% 120 42.0%
MAR '83 NO WORK 14 13.0% 41 50.0% 55 28.9%
JUN '83 NO WORK 13 21.7% 22 37.9% 35 29.7%
JUL '83 NO WORK 8 14.5% 18 34.0% 26 24.1%
AUG '83 NO WORK 29 25.9% 58 58.0% 87 41.0%
SEP '83 NO WORK 25 23.1% 41 40.6% 66 31.6%
OCT '83 NO WORK 28 25.0% 46 45.1% 74 34.6%
NOV '83 NO WORK 57 29.1% 105 55.6% 162 42.1%
DEC '83 NO WORK 34 25.2% 68 51.9% 102 38.3%
JAN '84 NO WORK 59 29.9% 93 53.8% 152 41.1%
APR '84 NO WORK 42 19.2% 86 42.4% 128 30.3%
MAY '84 NO WORK 29 14.1% 83 43.5% 112 28.2%
NO CULTV NO WORK 187 22.5% 384 54.0% 571 37.0%

YES CULTV NO WORK 111 21.7% 218 42.3% 329 32.0%
NO RAIN NO WORK 295 20.2% 631 47.1% 926 33.0%
RAIN NO WORK 93 38.0% 144 61.5% 237 49.5%
NEVER MAR NO WORK 55 21.4% 22 56.4% 77 26.0%
MARRIED NO WORK 275 20.3% 654 50.0% 929 34.9%
SUNDAY NO WORK 47 22.2% 108 54.5% 155 37.8%
WEEKDAY NO WORK 341 22.8% 667 48.5% 1008 35.1%
(continued)
470
TABLE 10.2 (cont.)

no. percent no. percent no. percent
Section 2: General PWD Category "HUNTING":
AGE 16-19 HUNTING 17 06.6% 0 00.0% 17 04.8%

AGE 20-29 HUNTING 20 05.1% 0 00.0% 20 02.1%
AGE 20-39 HUNTING 67 07.7% 5 00.6% 72 04.2%
AGE 40-59 HUNTING 20 04.9% 0 00.0% 20 02.2%
AGE 40-79 HUNTING 22 03.8% 0 00.0% 22 01.8%
AGE 50-59 HUNTING 7 04.8% 0 00.0% 7 01.9%
BAND 1 HUNTING 9 03.2% 0 00.0% 9 01.7%

BAND 2 HUNTING 6 03.4% 2 01.2% 8 02.3%
BAND 3 HUNTING 1 00.8% 0 00.0% 1 00.4%
BAND 4 HUNTING 25 10.5% 1 00.4% 26 05.6%
BAND 5 HUNTING 12 06.3% 0 00.0% 12 03.1%
BAND 6 HUNTING 1 00.8% 0 00.0% 1 00.4%
BAND 7 HUNTING 10 11.4% 0 00.0% 10 06.1%
BAND 8 HUNTING 15 10.6% 2 01.5% 17 06.2%
BAND 9 HUNTING 17 08.5% 0 00.0% 17 04.3%
BAND 10 HUNTING 10 06.7% 0 00.0% 10 03.5%
JAN '83 HUNTING 3 05.3% 0 00.0% 3 02.8%

FEB '83 HUNTING 11 07.6% 0 00.0% 11 03.8%
MAR '83 HUNTING 4 03.7% 0 00.0% 4 02.1%
JUN '83 HUNTING 0 00.0% 0 00.0% 0 00.0%
JUL '83 HUNTING 3 05.5% 0 00.0% 3 02.8%
AUG '83 HUNTING 3 02.7% 0 00.0% 3 01.4%
SEP '83 HUNTING 13 12.0% 3 03.0% 16 07.7%
OCT '83 HUNTING 12 10.7% 1 01.0% 13 06.1%
NOV '83 HUNTING 12 06.1% - 0 00.0% 12 03.1%
DEC '83 HUNTING 7 05.2% 1 00.8% 8 03.0%
JAN '84 HUNTING 17 08.6% 0 00.0% 17 04.6%
APR '84 HUNTING 10 04.6% 0 00.0% 10 02.4%
MAY '84 HUNTING 11 05.3% 0 00.0% 11 02.8%
NO CULTV HUNTING 34 04.1% 0 00.0% 34 02.2%

YES CULTV HUNTING 48 09.4% 3 00.6% 51 05.0%
NO RAIN HUNTING 94 06.4% 5 00.4% 99 03.5%

RAIN HUNTING 12 04.9% 0 00.0% 12 02.5%
NEVER MAR HUNTING 17 06.6% ' 0 00.0% 17 05.7%

MARRIED HUNTING 83 06.1% 4 00.3% 87 03.3%
SUNDAY HUNTING 14 06.6% 0 00.0% 14 03.4%

WEEKDAY HUNTING 92 06.1% 5 00.4% 97 03.4%
(continued)
TABLE 1 0 .2 Ccont.)

Section 3: General PWD Category ,,FISHING,,:
AGE 16-19 FISHING 12 04.6% 3 03.2% 15 04.2%

AGE 20-29 FISHING 32 08.2% 19 03.5% 51 05.5%
AGE 20-39 FISHING 70 08.1% 27 03.1% 97 05.6%
AGE 40-59 FISHING 14 03.4% 23 04.6% 37 04.1%
AGE 40-79 FISHING 21 03.6% 31 05.1% 52 04.3%
AGE 50-59 FISHING 6 04.1% 13 05.8% 19 05.1%
BAND 1 FISHING 28 09.9% 4 01.7% 32 06.1%

BAND 2 FISHING 9 05.1% 3 01.8% 12 03.5%
BAND 3 FISHING 6 05.1% 6 05.6% 12 05.3%
BAND 4 FISHING 8 03.4% 11 04.9% 19 04.1%
BAND 5 FISHING 17 08.9% 10 05.2% 27 07.1%
BAND 6 FISHING 5 04.0% 7 07.1% 12 05.4%
BAND 7 FISHING 5 05.7% 8 10.5% 13 07.9%
BAND 8 FISHING 6 04.2% 2 01.5% 8 02.9%
BAND 9 FISHING 11 05.5% 6 03.0% 17 04.3%
BAND 10 FISHING 8 05.4% 4 02.9% 12 04.2%
JAN '83 FISHING 4 07.0% 2 04.1% 6 05.7%

FEB '83 FISHING 12 08.3% 6 04.2% 18 06.3%
MAR '83 FISHING 0 00.0% 4 04.9% 4 02.1%
JUN '83 FISHING 6 10.0% 4 06.9% 10 08.5%
JUL '83 FISHING 4 07.3% 3 05.7% 7 06.5%
AUG '83 FISHING 15 13.4% 4 04.0% 19 09.0%
SEP '83 FISHING 9 08.3% 1 01.0% 10 04.8%
OCT '83 FISHING 6 05.4% 2 02.0% 8 03.7%
NOV '83 FISHING 9 04.6% 6 03.2% 15 03.9%
DEC '83 FISHING 6 04.4% 3 02.3% 9 03.4%
JAN '84 FISHING 4 02.0% 9 05.2% 13 03.5%
APR '84 FISHING 15 06.8% 6 03.0% 21 05.0%
MAY '84 FISHING 13 06.3% 11 05.8% 24 06.0%
NO CULTV FISHING 61 07.3% 32 04.5% 93 06.0%

YES CULTV FISHING 21 04.1% 13 02.5% 34 03.3%
-NO RAIN FISHING 94 06.4% 52 03.9% 146 05.2%

RAIN FISHING 9 03.7% 9 03.8% 18 03.8%
NEVER MAR FISHING 12 04.7% ' 0 00.0% 12 04.1%

MARRIED FISHING 87 06.4% 44 03.4% 131 04.9%
SUNDAY FISHING 25 11.8% 11 05.6% 36 08.8%

WEEKDAY FISHING 78 05.2% 50 03.6% 128 04.5%
(continued)
TABLE 10.2 (cont.)

no. percent no percent no. percent
Section 4: General PWD Category "OWN AGRICULTURE":
AGE 16-19 OWN AGRIC 19 07.3% 4 04.2% 23 06.5%

AGE 20-29 OWN AGRIC 17 04.4% 25 04.6% 42 04.5%
AGE 20-39 OWN AGRIC 50 05.8% 47 05.4% 97 05.6%
AGE 40-59 OWN AGRIC 30 07.3% 35 07.1% 65 07.2%
AGE 40-79 OWN AGRIC 33 05.7% 43 07.0% 76 06.4%
AGE 50-59 OWN AGRIC 11 07.5% 15 06.7% 26 07.0%
BAND 1 OWN AGRIC 5 01.8% 9 03.7% 14 02.7%

BAND 2 OWN AGRIC 25 14.1% 21 12.4% 46 13.3%
BAND 3 OWN AGRIC 1 00.8% 0 00.0% 1 00.4%
BAND 4 OWN AGRIC 11 04.6% 5 02.2% 16 03.5%
BAND 5 OWN AGRIC 32 16.8% 21 10.9% 53 13.9%
BAND 6 OWN AGRIC 0 00.0% 0 00.0% 0 00.0%
BAND 7 OWN AGRIC 4 04.5% 2 02.6% 6 03.7%
BAND 8 OWN AGRIC 10 07.0% 7 05.3% 17 06.2%
BAND 9 OWN AGRIC 10 05.0% 25 12.7% 35 08.8%
BAND 10 OWN AGRIC 4 02.7% 4 02.9% 8 02.8%
JAN '83 OWN AGRIC 0 00.0% 0 00.0% 0 00.0%

FEB '83 OWN AGRIC 10 06.9% 4 02.8% 14 04.9%
MAR '83 OWN AGRIC 12 11.1% 5 06.1% 17 08.9%
JUN '83 OWN AGRIC 9 15.0% 4 06.9% 13 11.0%
JUL '83 OWN AGRIC 2 03.6% 2 03.8% 4 03.7%
AUG '83 OWN AGRIC 4 03.6% 4 04.0% 8 03.8%
SEP '83 OWN AGRIC 3 02.8% 3 03.0% 6 02.9%
OCT '83 OWN AGRIC 8 07.1% 17 16.7% 25 11.7%
NOV '83 OWN AGRIC 11 05.6% 21 11.1% 32 08.3%
DEC '83 OWN AGRIC 3 02.2% 8 06.1% 11 04.1%
JAN '84 OWN AGRIC 6 03.0% 5 02.9% 11 03.0%
APR '84 OWN AGRIC 28 12.8% 18 08.9% 46 10.9%
MAY '84 OWN AGRIC 6 02.9% 3 01.6% 9 02.3%
NO CULTV OWN AGRIC 16 01.9% 13 01.8% 29 01.9%

YES CULTV OWN AGRIC 66 12.9% 55 10.7% 121 11.8%
NO RAIN OWN AGRIC 90 06.1% 77 05.7% 167 06.0%

RAIN OWN AGRIC 12 04.9% 17 07.3% 29 06.1%
NEVER MAR OWN AGRIC 20 07.8%' 6 15.4% 26 08.8%

MARRIED OWN AGRIC 80 05.9% 70 05.4% 150 05.6%
SUNDAY OWN AGRIC 14 06.6% 7 03.5% 21 05.1%

WEEKDAY OWN AGRIC 88 05.9% 87 06.3% 175 06.1%
(continued)
473
TABLE 10.2 (cont.)

Section 5: General PWD Category "RATTAN COLLECTING WORK""
AGE 16-19 RATTAN WK 96 37.1% 14 14.7% 110 31.1%

AGE 20-29 RATTAN WK 156 40.0% 64 11.8% 220 23.6%
AGE 20-39 RATTAN WK 316 36.4% 133 15.4% 449 25.9%
AGE 40-59 RATTAN WK 115 27.9% 108 21.8% 223 24.6%
AGE 40-79 RATTAN WK 152 26.1% 121 19.7% 273 22.8%
AGE 50-59 RATTAN WK 28 19.0% 43 19.2% 71 19.1%
BAND 1 RATTAN WK 121 42.8% 50 20.7% 171 32.6%

BAND 2 RATTAN WK 26 14.7% 14 08.3% 40 11.6%
BAND 3 RATTAN WK 36 30.5% 20 18.7% 56 24.9%
BAND 4 RATTAN WK 80 33.6% 39 17.4% 119 25.8%
BAND 5 RATTAN WK 81 42.6% 41 21.4% 122 31.9%
BAND 6 RATTAN WK 28 22.6% 5 05.1% 33 14.8%
BAND 7 RATTAN WK 25 28.4% 12 15.8% 37 22.6%
BAND 8 RATTAN WK 43 30.3% 18 13.6% 61 22.3%
BAND 9 RATTAN WK 64 32.0% 40 20.3% 104 26.2%
BAND 10 RATTAN WK 60 40.3% 29 21.3% 89 31.2%
JAN '83 RATTAN WK 25 43.9% 6 12.2% 31 29.2%

FEB '83 RATTAN WK 47 32.6% 28 19.7% 75 26.2%
MAR '83 RATTAN WK 41 38.0% 8 09.8% 49 25.8%
JUN '83 RATTAN WK 16 26.7% 15 25.9% 31 26.3%
JUL '83 RATTAN WK 22 40.0% 12 22.6% 34 31.5%
AUG '83 RATTAN WK 41 36.6% 17 17.0% 58 27.4%
SEP '83 RATTAN WK 37 34.3% 26 25.7% 63 30.1%
OCT '83 RATTAN WK 29 25.9% 11 10.8% 40 18.7%
NOV '83 RATTAN WK 39 19.9% 18 09.5% 57 14.8%
DEC '83 RATTAN WK 36 26.7% 19 14.5% 55 20.7%
JAN '84 RATTAN WK 54 27.4% 18 10.4% 72 19.5%
APR '84 RATTAN WK 71 32.4% 43 21.2% 114 27.0%
MAY '84 RATTAN WK 106 51.5% 47 24.6% 153 38.5%
NO CULTV RATTAN WK 308 37.1% 130 18.3% 438 28.4%

YES CULTV RATTAN WK 145 28.3% 83 16.1% 228 22.2%
NO RAIN RATTAN WK 522 35.7% 251 18.7% 773 27.6%

RAIN RATTAN WK 42 17.1% 17 07.3% 59 12.3%
NEVER MAR RATTAN WK 94 36.6% ' 6 15.4% 100 33.8%

MARRIED RATTAN WK 456 33.6% 224 17.1% 680 25.5%
SUNDAY RATTAN WK 64 30.2% 33 16.7% 97 23.7%

WEEKDAY RATTAN WK 500 33.4% 235 17.1% 735 25.6%
(continued)
474
TABLE 10.2 (cont.)

no. percent no percent no. percent
Section 6: General PWD Category "NON-AGRICULTURAL WAGE LABOR":
AGE 16-19 LABOR,NO-AG 15 05.8%. 4 04.2% 19 05.4%

AGE 20-29 LABOR,NO-AG 15 03.8% 12 02.2% 27 02.9%
AGE 20-39 LABOR,NO-AG 38 04.4% 24 02.8% 62 03.6%
AGE 40-59 LABOR,NO-AG 14 03.4% 22 04.4% 36 04.0%
AGE 40-79 LABOR,NO-AG 19 03.3% 28 04..6% 47 03.9%
AGE 50-59 LABOR,NO-AG 6 04.1% 16 07.1% 22 05.9%
BAND 1 LABOR,NO-AG 9 03.2% 6 02.5% 15 02.9%

BAND 2 LABOR,NO-AG 4 02.3% 7 04.1% 11 03.2%
BAND 3 LABOR,NO-AG 12 10.2% 6 05.6% 18 08.0%
BAND 4 LABOR,NO-AG 17 07.1% 11 04.9% 28 06.1%
BAND 5 LABOR,NO-AG 11 05.8% 13 06.8% 24 06.3%
BAND 6 LABOR,NO-AG 11 08.9% 7
/ 07.1% 18 08.1%
BAND 7 LABOR,NO-AG 2 02.3% 2 02.6% 4 02.4%
BAND 8 LABOR,NO-AG 2 01.4% 1 00.8% 3 01.1%
BAND 9 LABOR,NO-AG 3 01.5% 2 01.0% 5 01.3%
BAND 10 LABOR,NO-AG 1 00.7% 1 00.7% 2 00.7%
JAN '83 LABOR,NO-AG 1 01.8% 0 00.0% 1 00.9%

FEB '83 LABOR,NO-AG 1 00.7% 8 05.6% 9 03.1%
MAR '83 LABOR,NO-AG 3 02.8% 4 04.9% 7 03.7%
JUN '83 LABOR,NO-AG 3 05.0% 3 05.2% 6 05.1%
JUL '83 LA30R,NO-AG 2 03.6% 0 00.0% 2 01.9%
AUG '83 LABOR,NO-AG 3 02.7% 1 01.0% 4 01.9%
SEP '83 LABOR,NO-AG 1 00.9% 1 01.0% 2 01.0%
OCT '83 LABOR,NO-AG 4 03.6% 3 02.9% 7 03.3%
NOV '83 LABOR,NO-AG 10 05.1% 6 03.2% 16 04.2%
DEC '83 LABOR,NO-AG 5 03.7% 7 05.3% 12 04.5%
JAN '84 LABOR,NO-AG 22 11.2% 13 07.5% 35 09.5%
APR '84 LABOR,NO-AG 10 04.6% 6 03.0% 16 03.8%
MAY '84 LABOR,NO-AG 7 03.4% 4 02.1% 11 02.8%
NO CULTV LABOR,NO-AG 38 04.6% 19 02.7% 57 03.7%

YES CULTV LABOR,NO-AG 21 04.1% 26 05.0% 47 04.6%
NO RAIN LABOR,NO-AG 61 04.2% 47 03.5% 108 03.9%

RAIN LABOR,NO-AG 11 04.5% 9 03.8% 20 04.2%
NEVER MAR LABOR,NO-AG 14 05.4% 1 02.6% 15 05.1%

MARRIED LABOR,NO-AG 56 04.1% 40 03.1% 96 03.6%
SUNDAY LABOR,NO-AG 13 06.1% 5 02.5% 18 04.4%

WEEKDAY LABOR,NO-AG 59 03.9% 51 03.7% 110 03.8%
(continued)
475
TABLE 10.2 (cont.)

Section 7: General PWD Category "AGRICULTURAL WAGE LABOR":
AGE 16-19 LABOR,AGRI 27 10.4% 2 02.1% 29 08.2%

AGE 20-29 LABOR,AGRI 39 10.0% 20 03.7% 59 06.3%
AGE 20-39 LABOR,AGRI 81 09.3% 39 04.5% 120 06.9%
AGE 40-59 LABOR,AGRI 67 16.3% 31 06.3% 98 10.8%
AGE 40-79 LABOR,AGRI 88 15.1% 48 07.8% 136 11.4%
AGE 50-59 LABOR,AGRI 23 15.6% 20 08.9% 43 11.6%
BAND 1 LABOR,AGRI 27 09.5% 11 04.5% 38 07.2%

BAND 2 LABOR,AGRI 19 10.7% 19 11.2% 38 11.0%
BAND 3 LABOR,AGRI 22 18.6% 7 06.5% 29 12.9%
BAND 4 LABOR,AGRI 18 07.6% 12 05.4% 30 06.5%
BAND 5 LABOR,AGRI 6 03.2% 4 02.1% 10 02.6%
BAND 6 LABOR,AGRI 47 37.9% 13 13.1% 60 26.9%
BAND 7 LABOR,AGRI 6 06.8% 2 02.6% 8 04.9%
BAND 8 LABOR,AGRI 10 07.0% 6 04.5% 16 05.8%
BAND 9 LABOR,AGRI 21 10.5% 7 03.6% 28 07.1%
BAND 10 LABOR,AGRI 20 13.4% 8 05.9% 28 09.8%
JAN '83 LABOR,AGRI 6 10.5% 1 02.0% 7 06.6%

FEB '83 LABOR,AGRI 12 08.3% 3 02.1% 15 05.2%
MAR -'83 LABOR,AGRI 9 08.3% 4 04.9% 13 06.8%
JUN '83 LABOR,AGRI 7 11.7% 5 08.6% 12 10.2%
JUL '83 LABOR,AGRI 10 18.2% 8 15.1% 18 16.7%
AUG '83 LABOR,AGRI 5 04.5% 3 03.0% 8 03.8%
SEP '83 LABOR,AGRI 9 08.3% 5 05.0% 14 06.7%
OCT '83 LABOR,AGRI 13 11.6% 11 10.8% 24 11.2%
NOV '83 LABOR,AGRI 37 18.9% 10 05.3% 47 12.2%
DEC '83 LABOR,AGRI 26 19.3% 14 10.7% 40 15.0%
JAN '84 LABOR,AGRI 24 12.2% 7 04.0% 31 08.4%
APR '84 LABOR,AGRI 26 11.9% 10 04.9% 36 08.5%
MAY '84 LABOR,AGRI 12 05.8% 8 04.2% 20 05.0%
NO CULTV LABOR,AGRI 102 12.3% 37 05.2% 139 09.0%

YES CULTV LABOR,AGRI 45 08.8% 32 06.2% 77 07.5%
NO RAIN LABOR,AGRI 160 10.9% 80 06.0% 240 08.6%

RAIN LABOR,AGRI 36 14.7% 9 03.8% 45 09.4%
NEVER MAR LABOR,AGRI 26 10.1% 1 02.6% 27 09.1%

MARRIED LABOR,AGRI 168 12.4% 68 05.2% 236 08.9%
SUNDAY LABOR,AGRI 15 07.1% 6 03.0% 21 05.1%

WEEKDAY LABOR,AGRI 181 12.1% 83 06.0% 264 09.2%
(cont inued)
476
TABLE 10.2 (cont.)

Section 8: General PWD Category "TRAVEL":
AGE 16-19 TRAVEL 14 05.4% 8 08.4% 22 06.2%

AGE 20-29 TRAVEL 22 05.6% 46 08.5% 68 07.3%
AGE 20-39 TRAVEL 48 05.5% 81 09.4% 129 07.4%
AGE 40-59 TRAVEL 35 08.5% 50 10.1% 85 09.4%
AGE 40-79 TRAVEL 43 07.4% 51 08.3% 94 07.9%
AGE 50-59 TRAVEL 11 07.5% 22 09.8% 33 08.9%
BAND 1 TRAVEL 13 04.6% 14 05.8% 27 05.1%

BAND 2 TRAVEL 7 04.0% 12 07.1% 19 05.5%
BAND 3 TRAVEL 5 04.2% 8 07.5% 13 05.8%
BAND 4 TRAVEL 12 05.0% 13 05.8% 25 05.4%
BAND 5 TRAVEL 7 03.7% 21 10.9% 28 07.3%
BAND 6 TRAVEL 6 04.8% 9 09.1% 15 06.7%
BAND 7 TRAVEL 12 13.6% 15 19.7% 27 16.5%
BAND 8 TRAVEL 9 06.3% 20 15.2% 29 10.6%
BAND 9 TRAVEL 22 11.0% 19 09.6% 41 10.3%
BAND 10 TRAVEL 12 08.1% 9 06.6% 21 07.4%
JAN '83 TRAVEL 6 10.5% 6 12.2% 12 11.3%

FEB '83 TRAVEL 11 07.6% 7 04.9% 18 06.3%
MAR '83 TRAVEL 18 16.7% 8 09.8% 26 13.7%
JUN '83 TRAVEL 4 06.7% 4 06.9% 8 06.8%
JUL '83 TRAVEL 2 03.6% 5 09.4% 7 06.5%
AUG '83 TRAVEL 6 05.4% 9 09.0% 15 07.1%
SEP '83 TRAVEL 6 05.6% 16 15.8% 22 10.5%
OCT '83 TRAVEL 6 05.4% 6 05.9% 12 05.6%
NOV '83 TRAVEL 10 05.1% 11 05.8% 21 05.5%
DEC '83 TRAVEL 5 03.7% 5 03.8% 10 03.8%
JAN '84 TRAVEL 6 03.0% 20 11.6% 26 07.0%
APR '84 TRAVEL 12 05.5% 21 10.3% 33 07.8%
MAY '84 TRAVEL 13 06.3% 22 11.5% 35 08.8%
NO CULTV TRAVEL 51 06.1% 63 08.9% 114 07.4%

YES CULTV TRAVEL 29 05.7% 45 08.7% 74 07.2%
NO RAIN TRAVEL 88 06.0% 124 09.3% 212 07.6%

RAIN TRAVEL 17 06.9% 16 06.8% 33 06.9%
NEVER MAR TRAVEL 15 05.8% ' 3 07.7% 18 06.1%

MARRIED TRAVEL 87 06.4% 125 09.6% 212 08.0%
SUNDAY TRAVEL 13 06.1% 21 10.6% 34 08.3%

WEEKDAY TRAVEL 92 06.1% 119 08.6% 211 07.3%
477
TABLE 10.3 BREAKDOWN OF AMOUNTS AND PERCENTAGES OF PWDs GIVEN TO
HUNTING ACTIVITY (based on a sample of the 52 adult
males from whom 15+ PWDs were collected in 1983-84)
no of adult males % of each man's PWDs

in each % category given to hunting
30 men 0%
9 men 4% to 6%
4 men 7% to 10%
3 men 11% to 13%
1 man 17%
3 men 27% to 29%
1 man 33%
1 man 54%
52 men total
478
TABLE 10.4 NUMBER OF PWDs GATHERED EACH MONTH/FROM THE TEN BAND AREAS
band 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 tota!
month
JAN 83 1 8 0 46 6 7 2 0 34 2 106
FEB 83 52 52 14 51 13 23 16 1 28 36 286
MAR S3 28 24 0 6 17 15 11 36 45 8 190
JUN 83 0 6 12 40 24 15 2 16 3 0 118
JUL 83 1 2 0 35 21 7 7 16 19 0 108
AUG 83 79 20 9 35 7 12 5 0 45 0 212
SEP 83 59 25 8 32 16 17 2 13 37 0 209
OCT 83 26 17 32 28 34 16 6 0 35 20 214
NOV 83 94 45 27 41 26 29 6 53 42 22 385
DEC 83 8 31 47 42 32 28 0 20 26 32 266
JAN 84 78 24 40 44 26 29 26 16 63 24 370
APR 84 63 60 14 33 64 17 36 65 16 54 422
MAY 84 36 32 22 29 96 8 45 38 4 87 397
totals 525 346 225 462 382 223 164 274 397 285 3283
TABLE 1 0 .5
1. Data in column 1 are from all hunting trips of individual males

which we recorded in 1983-48, a total of 193 crips, (If 3 men went out
together to hunt, we counted this as 3 "trips," not 1 "trip.") This
sample of 198 includes the trips reported in all of the other 4 columns.
All data in this table exclude snaring/trapping activities.
2. Data in column 2 are taken from the95 cases of male hunts in

our sample of 3,283 person-work-days (PWDs). Excluded here are the 4
instances of female hunts in that PWD data.
3. Data in column 3 include all of the 198 hunts we recorded

except the 95 PWD hunts (198 - 95 = 103).
4. Data in column 4are of the hunting trips of one individual,

Toteng, a single man aged 20, who lived discontinuously in our camp in
1983-84.
5. Data in column 5are of the hunting trips of another
individual, Nateng, who lived right next door to us throughout 1983-84.
6. Data in row 1 tell the percentage of hunting trips which were

successful (i.e., the percent of trips where the individual brought home
a pig, deer, or monkey).
7. Data in row 2 tell the percentage of hunting trips in which the
hunter secured commercially-sold game (pig or deer, but not monkey).
8. Data in rows 3 and 4 compare the frequency of hunts where bow

and arrows were used, in contrast to firearms.
9. Data in rows 5 and 6 compare the efficiency of bow and arrow

hunting versus hunting with firearms.
10. Data in row 7 show the type and number of game killed.
11.We recorded the hunting tool used (bow or gun) for only 176 of
the 198 hunting trips. Also, for only 175 of the 198 trips do we know
the outcome, whether successful or not. The percentage calculations in
the Table are based on those data where these variables are known, not
on the total sample. The actual sample sizes used for calculations are
shown in each cell of the table.
12. I distrust the high success ratefigure shown in row 1 of

column 2 (which is 27%). For most of the 103 hunts shown in columns 3,
4, and 5, I was present when the hunter returned, and thusI did not
have to rely on informant recall to tell me if those hunts were
successful or not. For almost all of the 95 hunts listed in column 2,
however, I had to depend on what I was told concerning game secured. A
few hunters may have claimed they secured gaiuu whenthey didnot.I
consider column 3, then, the most reliable reflection of thetrue
hunting success rate of the Casiguran Agta in 1983-84 (17%), and it is
that figure which I use in the body of the present thesis.
480
TABLE 10.5 HUNTING SUCCESS RATES (males only)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

all hunts male hunts all hunts recorded recorded
from PWD except hunts of hunts of
data PWDs Toteng Nateng
N=1S8 N=95 N=103 N=61 N=30
1. % succ. 21% 27% 17% 23% 20%

37/176 20/73 17/103 14/61 6/30
2. % succ. 16% 21% 14% 21% 13%

(pig/deer) 29/176 15/73 14/103 13/61 4/30
3. % hunts 17% 31% 6% 5% 0%

w/ bow 30/175 24/78 6/97 3/58 0/30
4. % hunts 83% 69% 94% 95% 100%

w/ gun 145/175 54/78 91/97 55/58 30/30
5. % succ. 26% 35% 0% 33% NA

w/ bow 6/23 6/17 0/6 1/3 0/0
6. % succ. 22% 30% 18% 24% 20%

w/ gun 30/138 14/47 16/91 13/55 6/30
7. no. pig 28 14 14 13 4
no. deer 1 1 0 0 0
no. monk 8 5 3 1 2
481
TABLE 10.6 HUNTING SUCCESS RATES OF ELEVEN MEN FOR WHOM 4+ HUNTS
WERE RECORDED IN 1983-84 WHERE OUTCOME IS KNOWN
name no. of hunts % successful % successful

successful/recorded (all game) (pig/deer only)
1. Deloy 2/4 50% 50%

2. Esmeneng 0/9 0% 0%
3. Hempok 0/4 0% 0%
4. Iben 1/9 11% 11%
5. Kandeg 4/6 67% 50%
6. Madeng 2/5 40% 20%
7. Nateng 6/30 20% 13%
8. Norping 0/4 0% 0%
9. Sinen 0/5 0% 0%
10. Teming 1/10 10% 10%
11. Toteng 14/61 23% 21%
TOTALS 30/147 20% 17%
TYPES AND NUMBER OF GAME SECURED BY THE ABOVE MEN:

wild pig 24
deer 1
monkey 5
TOTAL 30
482
TABLE 10.7 NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF 168 AGTA MEN INVOLVED IN
VARIOUS TYPES OF AGRICULTURE IN 1983
(1) (2) (3)
HAD OWN FIELD IN 1983 (see Note 1 below) 40 24%

had root crop swidden (7 men)
had rice swidden (23 men)
had wet rice field (6 men)
had both swidden and wet rice field (4 men)
DID NOT PLANT OWN FIELD IN 1983 128 76%

did no cultivation (83 men)
was part-time helper in Agta field (12 men)
was wet rice sharecropper for lowlander (5 men)
was rice swid. sharecropper for lowlander (1 man)
out-migrants (see Note 2 below) (27 men)
TOTALS 168 100%
source: author's field data
Explanation of columns:
Column 1: No. of men in each sub-category.
Column 2: Totals
Column 3: Percentages.
Notes:
1. These 40 men cultivated a total of 48 fields in 1983.
Maps of these 48 fields are displayed in Appendix E.
2. The 27 "out-migrants" refer to men who were absent from the area
for part or all of 1983, or who lived in the homes oflowlanders
in the area, or who died during the first half of that year.
483
TABLE 10.8 BREAKDOWN OF AMOUNTS AND PERCENTAGES OF PWDs GIVEN TO
AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES (based on a sample of the 94
adults from whom 15+ PWDs were collected in 1983-84)
no. of adults % of each person's PWDs

in each % category given to agriculture
44 adults 0%
10 adults 1% to 5%
15 adults 6% to 10%
10 adults 11% to 15%
9 adults 16% to 20%
3 adults 21% to 25%
1 adult 26% to 30%
1 adult 31% to 35%
1 adult 36%
94 adults total (52 men and 42 women)
Notes:
1. The range of PWDs collected on these 94 adults was
15 to 26.
2. The 3 adults in the bottom 3 rows, those who gave

between 26% and 36% of their PWDs to agriculture,
were all members of the same nuclear family, Erning,
his wife, Isling, and their dependent 18 year old son,
Saniboy. The number of their PWDs were 23, 25, and
25, respectively.
484
TABLE 10.9 AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT BY AGTA IN SWIDDEN WORK
(for 13 months during 1983-84)
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Jan 83 0 106 0.0%

Feb 83 11 286 3.8%
Mar 83 17 190 8.9%
Jun 83 11 118 9.3%
Jul 83 3 108 2.8%
Aug 83 7 212 3.3%
Sep 83 3 209 1.4%
Oct 83 11 214 5.1%
Nov 83 17 385 4.4%
Dec 83 10 266 3.8%
Jan 84 7 370 1.9%
Apr 84 40 422 9.5%
May 84 9 397 2.3%
TOTALS 146 3283 4.4%
1. Column(1): Date.
2. Column(2): Number of recorded days (PWDs) Agta spent in
swidden work (excluding swidden labor for lowlanders) each
month.
3. Column (3): Total number of PWDs recorded each month.
4. Column (4): Percentage of PWDsspent each month in swidden
work (column 2 divided by column 3).
TABLE 1 1 .1
Explanation of columns in Table l'l.l (and Table 11.5)

Column 1: Field number.
Column 2: Size of field, in square meters.
Column 3: No. of square meters of field which was cropped in 1983
up to May 1984.
Column 4: No. of square meters of field which was cropped in rice.
Column 5: No. of kilograms of rice seed planted (as reported by
field owners).
Column 6: No. of kilograms of rice harvested (as reported by field
owners, except for swidden no. 17, the complete harvest
of which was measured by the Headlands, and wet rice
field no. 1, from which samples of rice were cut from
the field and measured by the Headlands).
Column 7: No. of kilograms of rice seed planted per hectare (cal
culated by dividing the figure in column 5 by that
in column 4 and multiplying by 10,000).
Column 8: No. of metric tons of rice harvested per hectare (calcu
lated by dividing the figure in column 6 with that in
column 4, multiplying that quotient by 10,000, and then
dividing that product by 1,000).
Column 9: The seed harvest ratio.
Notes:
1. All rice measurements here refer to dried rough rice.

2. Cells with question marks indicate lack of data information.
3. Cells with "NA" indicate that the data is not applicable for
this field.
4. Swidden no. 38 was not cleared until October 1983. It was
burned in November, and planted with various crops, but not
rice, in December and in early 1984. (See Appendix E for
details.)
486
TABLE 11.1 DATA ON 43 AGTA SWIDDENS, SHOWING FIELD
SIZES AND CROP YIELDS
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

field field area area rice rice rice rice seed/harv
no. size cropped in rice seed harv. seed harv. ratio
sq.m sq.m sq.m kg kg kg/ha t/ha
SW 01 747 747 747 ? 9 9 9 9
SW 02 354 354 0 •NA NA NA NA NA

SW 03 535 535 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 05 1927 1760 1760 12.6 ? 71.3 9 9
SW 06 983 827 827 ? ? 9 9
SW 07 1790 1790 1790 8.6 192.6 48.0 1.1 1:22

SW 08 1368 1368 1368 8.6 9 62.9 9
SW 09 1266 1123 1123 10.8 9 96.5 ?

SW 10 2373 1858 1858 10.8 180.6 58.3 1.0 1:17
SW 11 1927 1720 1571 7.7 9 49.3 9
SW 12 5274 3806 3701 17.2 550.4 46.5 1.5 1:32

SW 13 1237 718 718 2.6 75.7 36.2 1.1 1:29
SW 14 1527 1360 1360 8.6 72.2 63.2 0.5 1:8
SW 15 1836 1686 1638 8.6 108.4 52.5 0.7 1:13
SW 17 1551 769 769 6.9 55.0 89.9 0.7 1:8
SW 18 1486 1135 967 5.2 67.1 53.8 0.7 1:13
SW 19 838 703 625 4.3 27.5 68.8 0.4 1:6
SW 20 2012 1934 1903 10.3 9 54.2 9 9
SW 21 5476 3881 3881 36.1 9 93.1 9 9
SW 22 398 328 328 1.7 24.1 52.4 0.7 1:14

SW 23 1645 858 783 5.2 9 65.9 9 9
SW 24 696 422 422 3.4 9 81.5 ? 9
SW 25 424 52 52 ? 9 9 9 ?
SW 26 2048 1703 1659 12.0 135.9 72.6 0.8 1:11
SW 27 2841 2694 2634 12.0 146.2 45.7 0.6 1:12
SW 28 1260 1260 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 30 4030 4030 4030 9 9 9 9 9
SW 31 3109 3109 3109 9 ? 9 9 9
SW 33 1259 936 0 NA NA NA NA NA
SW 35 2154 1639 1509 9 9 9 9 9
SW 36 3687 2162 2162 ? ? 9 9 9
SW 37 4371 3571 2952 24.1 192.6 81.6 0.7 1:8
(continued)
487
TABLE 11.1 (coat.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

no. size cropped in rice seed harv. seed harv. ratio
SW 38 3780 . NA* NA* NA NA NA NA NA

SW 40 2126 1676 1464 13.8 7 94.0 1 7
SW 41 650 528 432 7 7 7 7 7
SW 42 1772 1629 1368 6.9 132.4 50.3 1.0 1:19

SW 43 2706 2418 2069 17.2 289.0 83.1 1.4 1:17
totals 76807 59508 51579 255.2 2249.7 1571.6 12.9 15:229
N 43 42 32 24 15 24 15 15
mean = 1786 1417 1612 10.6 150.0 65.5 0.9 1:15
s .d. = 1300 1052 1022 7.3 127.1 17.2 0.3 7
range= 354- 52- 52- 1.7- 24.1- 36.2- 0.5- 1:6-

-5476 -4030 -4030 -36.1 -550.4 -96.5 -1.5 -1:32
* (See Note 4 of facing page for this table)
488
TABLE 11.2 PERCENTAGE OF BURNED AREAS LEFT UNCROPPED, OF 43 SWIDDENS
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

swidden swidden burned cropped area never % of area
no. owner area area cropped never cropped
(sq.tn) (sq.m) (sq.m)
01 TERSING 747 747 0 0%

02 TERSING 354 354 0 0%
03 UDAD 535 535 0 0%
04 B0RSEG 640 604 36 6%
05 BORSEG 1927 1760 167 9%
06 NERSI 983 827 156 16%
07 NADOY 1790 1790 0 0%
08 DELOY 1368 1368 0 0%
09 DANDING 1266 1123 143 11%
10 HINER 2373 1858 515 22%
11 ILEN 1927 1720 207 11%
12 ENDING 5274 3806 1468 28%
13 ENDING 1237 718 519 42%
14 SANDER 1527 1360 167 11%
15 LAKAY 1836 1686 150 8%
16 EDYOR 530 369 161 30%
17 NATENG 1551 769 782 50%
18 HAYME 1486 1135 351 24%
19 LAYDING 838 703 135 16%
20 IBEN 2012 1934 78 4%
21 ERNING 5476 3881 1595 29%
22 ERNING 398 328 70 18%
23 TEMING 1645 858 787 48%
24 TEMING 696 422 274 39%
25 LORDE 424 52 372 88%
26 GIBSON 2048 1703 345 17%
27 RUPIN 2841 2694 147 5%
28 KANDEG 1260 1260 0 0%
29 DOSE 476 144 332 70%
30 UYA-PUTE 4030 4030 0 0%
31 UYA-PUTE 3109 3109 0 0%
32 PIDYONG 570 174 396 69%
33 LALONG 1259 936 323 26%
34 KULUT 480 480 0 0%
35 BUNAW 2154 1639 515 24%
36 MARNING 3687 2162 1525 41%
(continued)
TABLE 11.2 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

swidden swidden burned cropped area never % of area
no. owner area area cropped never cropped
(sq .m) (sq.m) (sq.m)
37 LIYANITA 4371 3571 800 18%

38 LIYANITA 3780 NA* NA* NA*
39 MELANIO 648 648 0 0%
40 SITOK 2126 1676 450 21%
41 MAMING 650 528 122 19%
42 ISON 1772 1629 143 8%
43 TONING 2706 2418 288 11%
TOTALS = 76807 59508 13519 839%
N 43 42 42 42
mean = 1786 1417 322 20%**
s .d. = 1300 1052 400 21%
* The data for Swidden 38 is "NA" (not applicable) here, since

it was not burned until November 1983. See Appendix E for details.
** Note that, although the mean of the sum of the percentage of

never cropped areas of Column 6 is 20 percent, the percent of the total
burned areas left uncropped (taking the sums of Columns 3 and 5) is 18
percent (13519 / 76807 = 18%).
Column 3: Total burned area of swidden, in square meters.

Column 4: Total cropped area of swidden.
Column 5: No. of square meters of burned area which was never
cropped (Column 3 minus Column 4).
Column 6: Percent of burned area which was never cropped (Column 5
divided by Column 3).
490
TABLE 11.3
This table displays seven environmental variables for each of the

43 swiddens made in 1983.
Column 2: Tells biotope type where swidden was made. (The code symbols
for this column, and for Column 5, are as follows: BR=brushland; CG=
mature coconut grove; GR=grassland; NS=new 1983 swidden; OS=old 1982
swidden; PF=primary forest; SF=secondary forest.) (Example: Swidden 1
was cut from primary forest.)
Column 3: Tells general overall degree of slope of swidden. These data

are based on author's visual estimation with the aid of a protractor.
Column 4: Tells the distance, in minutes walking time, of the swidden

from the swidden owners' usual residence site up until the last month
before rice harvest time (at which time most of the Agta with rice
swiddens moved to the swidden site).
Column 5: Tells the biotope(s) to which each swidden was contiguous.

(See paragraph above on Column 2 for definitions of the code symbols in
Column 5.) (Example: Swidden 1 was directly adjacent to 5 different
biotopes: primary forest, secondary forest, another new swidden, an old
swidden made one year earlier, and a mature coconut grove.)
Column 6: Tells whether swidden land was recognized by Agta as owned by

a lowlander.
Column 7: Tells whether lowlander supervised Agta work on swidden.
Column 8: Tell number of varieties of rice which were planted on

swidden.
491
TABLE 1 1 .3 ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES OF THE 4 3 AGTA SWIDDENS MADE IN 1983
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

swidden biotope degree distance biotope(s) to low low no.rice
no. where of from which swidden lander lander var.
cut slope house is contiguous owner suprv. planted
01 PF 35 180 min PF/SF/NS/0S/CG yes yes 1

02 PF 3 180 min SF/NS/CG yes yes 0
05 PF 25 55 min PF/SF no no 3
06 SF 20 45 min PF/SF/NS yes yes 1
07 PF/SF 20 45 min PF/SF/NS no no 2
08 PF 20 45 min PF/SF/NS no no 2
09 SF 30 60 min PF/SF/NS yes yes 1
10 PF 35 10 min PF/OS no no 2
11 SF 25 0 min SF/CG yes no 3
12 PF/SF 20 120 min PF/NS no no 3
13 PF 25 120 min PF no no 1
14 PF/SF 20 150 min PF/NS no no 1
15 SF 15 120 min PF/SF no no 1
18 SF 5 90 min PF no no 2
19 SF 3 115 min PF/SF/NS no no 2
20 PF 3 120 min PF/SF/OS no no 2
21 PF 10 3 min SF/NS/OS no no 1
22 SF 3 1 min SF/OS no no 1
23 SF 30 4 min PF/NS no no 1
26 PF 20 35 min PF/NS no no 1
27 PF 15 35 min PF/NS no no 1
28 BR 0 0 min SF/BR/OS yes yes 0
29 SF 0 30 min PF/GR no no 0
30 SF 3 15 min PF no yes 1
31 SF 20 40 min PF/SF no yes 1
32 SF 0 100 min PF no no 0
33 BR 0 5 min SF/OS/GR no no 0
34 BR 0 0 min SF/GR yes no 0
35 PF 30 0 min PF/NS no no ?
36 PF 40 0 min PF/NS no no ?
37 BR 0 45 min SF/NS/BR yes no 3
38 BR 0 45 min SF/NS/BR/GR yes no 0
39 BR 0 15 min SF/BR/GR yes no 0
40 SF 25 40 min SF/NS/OS/GR yes no 2
41 BR 0 40 min SF/BR/GR no no 1
42 SF 10 1 min SF/BR no no 1
43 SF 20 0 min PF/SF/NS/CG no no 2
492
TABLE 11.4 LIST OF 43 SWIDDENS, SHOWING NUMBER OF CULTIGENS PLANTED
IN EACH FROM EARLY 1983 UP TO MAY 1984
(1) (2) (3) (4) no. of cultigens planted in (5)

swidden had % of significant amount insignificant amount total
no. rice rice (4a) (4b) (4c) (4d) cultgns
straw before after before after planted
weeded Oct.1st Oct. 1st Oct. 1st Oct. 1st
1 no —
1 0 0 0 1
2 no — 1 0 0 0 1
3 no — 1 0 0 0 1
4 no — 3 0 0 0 3
5 yes none 2 0 6 0 8
6 yes 60% 1 4 0 0 5
7 yes 50% 4 8 0 0 12
8 yes all 6 12 0 5 23
9 yes 40% 1 6 1 1 9
10 yes all 4 10 0 0 14
11 yes none 4 6 3 4 17
12 yes 8% 20 1 6 0 27
13 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
14 yes 15% 3 3 0 5 11
15 yes none 5 0 2 0 7
16 no — 3 0 2 0 5
17 yes none 1 0 3 0 4
18 yes none 6 1 2 1 10
19 yes none 3 2 1 2 8
20 yes none 3 0 3 2 8
21 yes none 1 1 0 0 2
22 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
23 yes none 2 0 0 0 2
24 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
25 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
26 yes none 3 0 3 0 6
27 yes none 2 0 1 0 3
28 no — 3 0 2 0 5
29 no — 2 0 4 0 6
30 yes none 1 0 0 0 1
31 yes none 1 0 2 0 3
32 no — 4 0 4 0 8
33 no — 2 0 1 0 3
34 no — 4 0 0 0 4
35 yes 30% 3 10 0 7 20
36 yes 25% 2 13 0 3 18
37 yes none 9 0 3 0 12
38 no — NA* NA* NA* NA* NA*
39 no 5 0 3 0 8
(continued)
493
TABLE 11.4 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) no. of cultigens planted in (5)

swidden had % of significant amount insignificant amount total
no. rice rice (4a) (4b) (4c) (4a) cultgns
straw before after before after planted
weeded Oct .1st Oct. 1st Oct. 1st Oct. 1st
40 yes 9% 2 3 2 0 7
41 yes none 2 3 0 0 5
42 yes all 4 2 6 1 13
43 yes none 4 2 0 4 10
totals = 132 + 87 + 60 + 35 314
N = 42 42 42 42 42
mean = 3.1 2.1 1.4 0.8 7.5
median =
2 0 0 0 6
mode = 1 0 0 0 1
s .d. = 3.2 3.5 1.8 1.7 6.3
range = 1-20 0-13 0-6 0-7 1-27
* The data for Swidden 38 is "NA" (not applicable) here, since

it was not burned until November 1983. See Appendix E for details.
Column 2: Tells whether rice was planted in swidden.
Column 3: Tells what percent of the area cropped in rice was

weeded of rice straw after the harvest (a necessary step
in the replanting of a swidden with secondary crops).
Column 4: Column 4a tells the number of different cultigens

planted in the swidden in a "significant" amount before
the October rice harvest season; Column 4c tells the
number planted before October in an "insignificant"
amount; Column 4b tells the number planted during or
after October '83 in a "significant" amount; and
Column 4d in an "insignificant" amount. (What is
"significant" is defined by the numbers in column 5 of
Table 11.5, and is explained in the text.)
Column 5: Tells the total number of different cultigensplanted in

each swidden from early 1983 to May 1984.
494
TABLE 11.5
Note 1. This table lists the 47 cultigens found growing in the 43

Agta swiddens made in 1983. These are the new cultigens which the
author found growing in these swiddens from the time the swiddens were
first cleared in early 1983 up to May 1984. (These data based on
author's personal observation.)
For each cultigen, this table gives the English common name, Latin
name, and Agta name, the primary use(s) of the cultigen, the total
number of swiddens in which it was found, the number of swiddens in
which it was found in a significant number, and the number of swiddens
in which it was found in an insignificant number.
Note 2. Of the 19+ varieties of swidden rice recognized by the

Agta (Headland and Headland 1974:108), a total of 10 varieties were
planted in the Agta swiddens in 1983 (information based on interviews
with swidden owners). The names of these 10 varieties, with the number
of swiddens in which each was planted is as follows: binaret (2
swiddens), galo (1), inuwak (1), kadela (1), kapirit (2), karidyu (1),
malagkit, the term for glutinous rice (10), minindoro (1), palawan (29),
and pinilit (2). Eleven of the 43 swiddens did not have rice planted in
them in 1983.
Explanation of Columns in Table 11.5:

Column 1 Common English name of plant.
Column 2 Scientific Latin name of plant.
Column 3 Agta name of plant.
Column 4 Principle use(s) of plant (E=economy & trade, F=food,
M=medicine, N=none recorded, P=personal beautification,
R=ritual, S=social activities, T=technology, X=marks
swidden ownership during fallow period).
Column 5: Number of hills, stalks, seedlings, or vine cuttings
considered as being of "significant" number in a
swidden, as based on author's decision.
Column 6: Number of swiddens in which the plant was found growing
in a "significant" number.
Column 7: Number of swiddens in which the plant was found growing,
but only in a very small "insignificant" number.
Column 8: Total number of swiddens where plant was found growing.
495
TABLE 11.5 47 CULTIGENS FOUND GROWING IN THE 43 AGTA
SWIDDENS IN 1983-84
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

English scienti fic Agta use sgnf. no. no. to
name name name no. is sig. ins. tal
1.asparagus beanPsophocarpus tetra. pellang F 6+ 1 0 1

2.avocado Persea americana abukadu F 1+ 2 0 2
3.balsam apple Momordica charantia parena F 6+ 1 2 3
4.banana Musa sp. biget F 6+ 16 7 23
5.breadfruit Artocarpus altilis rimas F 1+ 2 0 2
6.calamansi Citrus microcarpa sintones F 1+ 4 0 4
7.cassava Manihot esculenta kamoting-ka.F 10+ 31 0 31
8.chili pepper Capsicum frutescens sili F 1+ 4 0 4
9.coconut Cocus nucifera niyog FXT 6+ 7 9 lb
10.coffee Coffea arabica kape E 6+ 0 1 1
11.common gourd Lagenaria leucantha upu F 2+ 0 1 1
12.corn Zea mays maes F 12+ 7 7 14
13.croton poison Croton tiglium tube T 1+ 1 0 1
14.derris poison Derris elliptica tubli T 1+ 1 0 1
15.eggplant Solanum melongena talung F 6+ 6 3 9
16.garlic Allium sativum bawang FMR 6+ 2 0 2
17.ginger Zingiber officinale laya FMR 6+ 2 1 3
18.impatiens Impatiens balsamina kamantigi P 6+ 1 0 1
19.jackfruit Artocarpus heterop. nangka F 1+ 3 0 3
20.kaempferia Kaempferia galanga dusol M 1+ 1 0 1
21.lemon grass Andropogon citratus tanglad F 1+ 3 0 3
22.loofa gourd Luffa spp. patola F 6+ 0 2 2
23.marigold Tagetes sp. amarilyu PM 1+ 2 0 2
24.mung beans Phaseolus aureus munggu F 12+ 2 0 2
25.mustard Brassica integerif. mustasa F 12+ 4 3 7
26.okra Hibiscus esculentus okra F 6+ 5 2 7
27.onion Allium spp. sebuyas F 12+ 5 2 7
28.oregano Oreganum vulgare oregano M 1+ 1 0 1
29.papaya Carica papaya apaya F 6+ 2 O 5
30.peanut Arachis hypogaea mane FE 12+ 2 0 2
31.pineapple Ananas comosus pinya F 6+ 3 5 8
32.pomelo Citrus maxima lokban FX 1+ 1 0 1
(continued)
496
TABLE 11.5 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

English scientific Agta use sgnf. no. no. to
name name name no. is sig. ins. tal
33.rice* Oryza sativa beges F 1+ 32 0 32

34.screw pine Pandanus sabotan sabutan T 2+ 0 1 1
35.silangan ? silangan M 1+ 1 0 1
36.sincamas Pachyrrizus erosus singkamas F 12+ 2 0 2
37.squash Cucurbita maxima kalabasa F 6+ 1 2 3
38.string bean Phaseolus spp. si taw F 6+ 7 3 10
39.sugar cane Saccharum officina. talad F 6+ 15 5 20
40.sweet potato Ipomoea batatas kamoti F 12+ 18 5 23
41.taro(l) Colocasia sp. sampernando F 6+ 8 8 16
42.taro(2) Colocasia esculenta ganet F 12+ 8 8 16
43.tobacco Nicotiana tabacum tabaku SMR 6+ 1 3 4
44.tomato Lycopersicon escul. kamatis F 6+ 1 1 2
45.watermelon Citrullus vulgaris pakwan F 6+ 1 0 1
46.yam Dioscorea alata ubi F 6+ 2 2 4
47.zacate grass ? lagikway N 1+ 1 0 1
* (See Note 2 of facing table for this table)
497
TABLE 11.6 DATA ON FIVE AGTA WET RICE FIELDS, SHOWING
FIELD SIZES AND CROP YIELDS
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

no. size cropped1 in rice seed harv. seed harv. ratio
WET 01 2375 2375 2375 36.1 403.8 152.1 1.7 1:11

WET 02 9180 9180 9180 ? ? ? 9 ?
WET 03 1532 1532 1532 ? ? ? ? ?
WET 04 7046 3532 3532 ? ? ? 9 ?
WET 05 13720 9672 9672 ? ? ? ? 9
totals 33853 26291 26291
N 5 5 5
mean = 6771 5258 5258
s .d. = 4493 3465 3465
range= 1532- 1532- 1532-

-13720 -9672 -9672
(For explanation of columns see the facing page for Table 11.1.)
498
TABLE 11.7 ESTIMATED TOTAL AMOUNT OF RICE PRODUCED BY AGTA IN 1983:*
total rough riceyield from 32 rice swiddens: 4.7 t

(5.2 ha X 0.9 t/ha = 4.7 metric tons = 4700 kg)
total rough riceyield from 5 wet rice fields: 4.4 t
(2.6 ha X 1.7 t/ha = 4.4 metric tons = 4400kg)
total rough (unhusked) rice produced by Agta in1983: 9.1 t
EQUIVALENTS OF 9.1 t OF ROUGH RICE:

= 9100 kg rough rice (X .64)
= 5824 kg clean rice (/ 57.5)
= 101.3 cavans clean rice (X 25)
= 2532.2 gantas clean rice (X 8)
= 20257.4 chupas clean rice (X 0.375)
= 7597 liters clean rice
*Data taken from Table 11.10. For Philippine measurement

equivalents see Table 0.1.
499
TABLE 11.8 ESTIMATED NO. OF DAYS RICE PRODUCED BY CASIGURAN AGTA
IN 1983 WOULD FEED THE POPULATION
Estimated total amount - 9.1 metric tons rough rice

of rice produced:* = 5824 kg clean rice
No. of days this rice would feed the 224 members

of the 34 agricultural work groups (including
children) if they did not share the rice with
others and if they ate rice 3 meals a day: 43 days **
No. of days this rice would feed the total

population of 609, if they all ate this rice
3 meals a day: 15 days ***
* Data from Table 11.7.
** When Agta have enough rice they typically measure out and cook
one letsean (a milk can used as a standard unit of measure throughout
Casiguran, which holds 33 L, or 256 g of husked rice) for each adult
present, regardless of sex, for 3 meals a day. Children (ages 0-14) are
calculated here as averaging half the rice consumption rate of adults.
Thus the 127 adults who were members of the 34 work groups would
together eat a total of 33 kg of clean rice per meal, or 98 kg per day,
and the 97 children in the same work groups would together consume 12 kg
per meal, or 37 kg per day. This totals 135 kg of rice consumption per
day. The total rice harvest of 5824 kg of clean rice, divided by 135
kg, equals 43 days.
*** Using the same calculations as the above, the 398 adults in the
total population would eat 306 kg of rice per day, and the 211 children
would eat 81 kg per day. This totals 387 kg per day. Dividing the
total rice harvest of 5824 kg by 387 kg, equals 15 days.
500
TABLE 11.9 A COMPARISON OF AGTA SWIDDEN DATA WITH OTHER GROUPS
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
variable Agta data* data from other groups**
1. average swidden size Kantu' 2.00 ha

(in hectares) 0.14 ha Kenyah 1.83 ha
(cropped area only) Bangon 1.68 ha
Skaw Karen 1.60 ha
Lua' 1.60 ha
Napsaan 1.13 ha
Tiruray 0.90 ha
Pwo Karen 0.82 ha
Phil, general 0.80 ha
Cuyunon 0.65 ha
Tagbanwa 0.63 ha
Hanunoo 0.39 ha
Gaddang 0.29 ha
2. area of swidden land Lua' 3300 m2

cultivated in rice 51579/609 Iban 3200 m2
per capita per year Kenyah 3200 m2
(in sq. meters) = 85 m2 Lamet 3100 m2
of total population Skaw Karen 2700 m2
Tiruray 2400 m2
Hanunoo 1739 m2
Pwo Karen 1573 m2
Cuyunon 1100 m2
Gaddang 606 m2
3. % of households in Bangon 100%

population who made 22% Hanunoo 100%
their own rice swidden Kantu' 100%
in the year of Napsaan 100%
field study Kenyah 100%
Tagbanwa 98%
Pwo Karen (est.) 95%
Skaw Karen 90%
Lua' 85%
Cuyunon (est.) 80%
Gaddang 75%
Tiruray 68%
* (See end of table for explanatory notes.) (continued)
501
TABLE 11.9 (cont.)
4. average no. of rice Kantu' 2.5

swiddens per family 0.3 Hanunoo 1.8
Tagbanwa 1.7
Kenyah 1.6
Bangon 1.2
Cuyunon (est.) 1.0
Skaw Karen 1.0
Napsaan (est.) 0.9
Gaddang 0.9
Lua' 0.9
Pwo Karen 0.9
Tiruray 0.7
5. swidden/population Kantu' 1:1.6

ratio 1:14 Hanunoo 1:2.4
Tagbanwa 1:3.4
Pwo Karen 1:5.2
Lua' 1:5.3
Napsaan 1:5.4
Skaw Karen 1:5.9
Kenyah 1:5.9
Tiruray 1:6.0
6. mean amount of rice seed Lua' 89 kg

planted per ha of swidn. 66 kg Skaw Karen 84 kg
(rice-cropped area only) Hanunoo 57 kg
Pwo Karen 56 kg
Tiruray 55 kg
Bangon 44 kg
Napsaan 22 kg
Kenyah 20 kg
7. seed/yield ratio Kenyah 1:60

Hanunoo 1:48
1:15 Tiruray 1:40
Pwo Karen 1:26
Bangon 1:13
Lua' 1:10
Skaw Karen 1:10
(continued)
502
TABLE 11.9 Ccont.)
8. rice yield/ha of rough Hanunoo 2.3 t/ha

rice (of area cropped Tiruray 2.3 t/ha
in rice only, in metric Dayak 1.6 t/ha
tons per hectare) Kenyah (sw 1) 1.6 t/ha
Pwo Karen 1.5 t/ha
0.9 t/ha Lamet 1.4 t/ha
Mandaya (lowland) 1.4 t/ha
Gaddang (1963-64) 1.3 t/ha
Lahu Nyi 1.3 t/ha
Lua' 1.1 t/ha
Cuyunon 1.0 t/ha
Skaw Karen 0.9 t/ha
Tagbanwa 0.9 t/ha
Iban 0.8 t/ha
Thai lowland 0.8 t/ha
Kenyah (sw 2) 0.8 t/ha
Kantu' 0.7 t/ha
Bangon 0.6 t/ha
Napsaan 0.6 t/ha
Mandaya(highland) 0.6 t/ha
Gaddang (1965) 0.4 t/ha
9. average and maximum no. Tagbanwa 7-12 (max. 20)

of rice varieties/swidn. 1.47 (max. 3) Manobo 7 (max. 13)
Hanunoo 4-5 (max. 10)
Napsaan 3-8 (max. ?)
10. average no. of cultigens Tiruray 45-75

planted per swidden 7.5 Hanunoo 45
Kantu' 20
Kenyah 10-20
11. person-hours of labor Mandaya(highland) 3750 hrs

spent in a new rice 1232 hrs Tiruray 2500 hrs
swidden in one year, (N=l) Hanunoo(rice wrk) 2100 hrs
per hectare Dayak 1663 hrs
Lahu Nyi 1175 hrs
Thai lowland 1134 hrs
Iban 1035 hrs
Kantu' 991 hrs
Kenyah 810 hrs
(continued)
503
TABLE 11.9 (cont.)
12. kg of rough rice pro Hanunoo(rice work) 2.50

duced per hour of labor 0.35 kg Kantu'. (rice work) 1.22 kg
(rice work) Lahu Nyi 1.10 kg
(N=l)*** Tiruray 1.04 kg
Dayak 0.95 kg
Napsaan 0.80 kg
Iban 0.77 kg
13. % of adult-person-days Kenyah 40%

spent in swid. work(total 4% Napsaan 12%
days include rest days)
*Agta data is taken from Tables 11.1 and 11.10.

**Sources of data from other groups in SE Asia, with country where
groups are located in parentheses: Bangon (Phil.), Pennoyer 1978:51;
Cuyunon (Phil.), Eder 1977b:8, and personal correspondence; Dayak
(Borneo), Clark and Haswell 1964, as cited in Conelly 1983:174); Gaddang
(Phil.), Wallace 1970; Hanunoo (Phil.), Conklin 1957:30, 48, 85, 92, 97,
119, 133, 145-46, 150-52; Iban (Sarawak), Freeman 1955:94-99; Kantu'
(Borneo), Dove 1983:90, and Dove 1984:99, 101, 105; Kenyah
(Borneo), Chin 1984:262-63, 315, 350, 353, 472-73, 478-79; Lahu Nyi
(Thailand), Walker 1976, as cited in Conelly 1983:174; Lua' (Thailand),
Kunstadter 1978:110-13; Lamet (Laos), Izikowitz 1951; Mandaya (Phil.),
Yengoyan 1971:364-65, and Yengoyan cited in Geertz 1963:22; Manobo
(Phil.), Lopez 1968; Napsaan (mixed Tagbanwa, Phil.), Conelly 1983:146,
181, 183, 192, 204, and personal correspondence; Phil, general, for
average swidden size in the country, DNR n.d.:19; Pwo Karen (Thailand),
Hinton 1978:194-96; Rhade (S.VietNam), average of 12 data sets for
various Rhade groups, as summarized in Kunstadter et al. 1978:15; Skaw
Karen (Thailand), Kunstadter 1978:110-13; Tagbanwa (Phil.), Warner
1979:59, 66, 120, 124, and Warner 1981:17, 21; Thai lowland (Thailand),
Chapman 1978:230; Tiruray (Phil.), Schlegel 1979:39, 43, 165.
Many of the figures drawn from these sources require some
qualification because of the various techniques employed by the
researchers, the wide range of cultural and environmental variables
which affect yields, and the present writer's manipulation of the
various authors' data in an effort to make it comparable. The
comparative usefulness of the table is thus restricted and is meant to
be illustrative rather than definitive. Many of the original data were
transposed into metric units by the writer.
***The figure of of Agta rice production per hour of labor is
based on a single sample, swidden 17, from which input/output data were
empirically collected throughout the 18 months. The owner's rice
harvest was 55 kg of rough rice. His labor input for rice workonly was
26 days. Figuring a 6 hour work day, not counting hiking timeto and
from the swidden (which was 75 minutes away from the owner's house),
that would be 156. hours of rice labor input. Thus we have:
55 kg/156 hours = 0.35 kg of rice per hour of labor.
504
TABLE 11.10 SUMMARY OF DATA ON CASIGURAN AGTA AGRICULTURE IN 1983*
DATA FOR SWIDDENS:
no. of swiddens made in 1983 43
total area of the 43 swiddens [see Table 11.1]:* 76807 m2 (7.7 ha)
total cropped area [11.1]: 59508 m2 (6.0 ha)
total swidden area in rice [11.1]: 51579 m2 (5.2 ha)
total burned area never cropped [11.2]: 13519 m2 (1.4 ha)
% of burned area never cropped [11.2 footnote]: 18% (1.4/7.7)
mean swidden size [11.1]: 1786 m2 (0.18 ha)

mean swidden size (cropped area only) [11.1]: 1417 m2 (0.14 ha)
% of 43 swiddens with rice [11.4]: 74% (32/43)

average size of the 32 rice plots [11.1]: 1612 m2 (0.16 ha)
% cut from primary forest [11.3]: 42% (18/43)

% cut from secondary forest [11.3]: 35% (15/43)
% cut from brushland [11.3]: 16% (7/43)
% cut from both pri. and sec. forest [11.3]: 7% (3/43)
% of swiddens on level ground (0-9 degrees) [11.3]: 42% (18/43)

% of swiddens on slopes from 10 to 39 degrees: 47% (20/43)
% of swiddens on very steep slopes (40-50 degrees): 12% (5/43)
% of swiddens which were "guarded" by owners

throughout most of the year (defined as those
swiddens which were within 30 minute's walking
time of the residence site of the owners) [11.3]: 37% (16/43)
total no. of rice varieties planted in all swiddens [11.3]: 10

mean no. of rice varietiesper rice swidden (N=32) [11.3]: 1.47
range of no. of rice var. found in rice swiddens [11.3]: 1-3
% of swiddens on land "owned" by lowlanders [11.3]: 30% (13/43)

% of swiddens on Agta reservation land [Map 3]: 7% (3/43)
% of swiddens made under lowlander supervision [11.3]: 21% (9/43)
total no. of cultigens planted in all swiddens [11.5]: 47

mean no. cultigens/swiddenin significant amount [11.4]: 5.2
mean no. cultigens/swiddenin insignificant amount [11.4]: 2.2
average total no. of cultigens in each swidden (N=42) [11.4]:
mean: 7.5
median: 6
mode: 1
range: 1-27
sta. deviation: 6.3
(continued)
505
TABLE 11.10 (cont.)
DATA FOR ALL FIELDS, (SWIDDENS +• WET RICE FIELDS):
total area cropped of all 48 fields [11.11]: 85779 m2 (8.6 ha)

total swiddened area in rice [11.1]: 51579 m2 (5.2 ha)
total wet field area in rice [11.6]: 26291 m2 (2.6 ha)
total area in rice of all 48 fields [11.11]: 77870 m2 (7.8 ha)
total adult members (age 15+) of agri. work groups [11.11]: 127
total children in agri. work groups [11.11]: 97
total members of agri. work groups [11.11]: 224
per capita area of land cultivated by Agta in 1983 [11.11]:

of cropped land/person in work groups: 383 m2 (85779/224)
of rice area/person in work groups: 348 m2 (77870/224)
of cropped land/person in total population: 141 m2 (85779/609)
of rice area/person in total population: 128 m2 (77870/609)
of Agta men who cultivated own fields in 1983 [10.7]: 24% (40/168)
mean swidden size (cropped area only) [11.1]: 1417 m2 (0.14 ha)
mean size of wet fields(cropped area only) [11.6]: 5258 m2 (0.53 ha)
mean rough rice yield/ha of 32 Agta swiddens (N=17) [11.1]: 0.9 t/ha
mean rough rice yield/ha of 5 Agta wet fields (N=l) [11.6]: 1.7 t/ha
♦Numbers in brackets refer to table no. from which data were taken.
506
TABLE 11.11
This table shows the breakdown of the 48 fields cultivated by Agta in

1983 into the 34 Agta "agricultural work groups" in Casiguran that year.
This table included both the 43 swiddens and 5 wet rice fields. Each
column displays the following data:
Column 1 Names of the leaders of the 34 work groups.

Column 2 No. of fields cultivated by each group.
Column 3 No. of adult members in each group (including sick and
elderly), plus the number of children, and the total
members of the group.
Column 4: Total area cropped by the work group.
Column 5: Total amount of the area in Column 4 which was cropped
in rice.
Column 6: Per capita cropped area for each work group.
Column 7: Per capita area cropped in rice for each work group.
The totals at the bottom of the table show that 48 fields were
cultivated in 1983, that the sum total number of Agta who were members
of these 34 work groups was 224, that the sum total of all land cropped
by Agta that year was 73,352 square meters (or 7.3 ha), and that the sum
total of land planted in rice by Agta in the same year was 65,423 square
meters (or 6.5 ha).
507
TABLE 11.11 DATA SHOWING PER CAPITA NO. OF SQUARE METERS OF CROPPED
LAND IN 1983, AND TOTAL LAND CULTIVATED BY ALL AGTA IN 1983
(of the 34 Agta agricultural work groups that year)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

name of no. no of members total total per cap. per cap
field of in work group cropped cropped cropped cropped
group fields (ad + ch = total) area in rice total in rice
leader cropped (sq.m) (sq.m) (sq.m) (sq.m)
TERSING 2 (2 + 0 = 2) 1101 747 551 374

UDAD 1 (2 + 0 = 2) 535 0 268 0
BORSEG 2 (2 + 3 = 5) 2364 1760 473 352
NADOY 2 (4 + 6 = 10) 2617 2617 262 262
DELOY 1 (4 + 3 = 7) 1368 1368 195 195
DANDING 1 (2 + 0 = 2) 1123 1123 562 562
HINER 1 (2 + 0 = 2) 1858 1858 929 929
ILEN 1 (2 + 0 = 2) 1720 1571 860 786
ENDING 2 (2 + 3 = 5) 4524 4419 905 884
SANDER 1 (2 + 4 = 6) 1360 1360 227 227
LAKAY 1 (3 + 3 = 6) 1686 1638 281 273
EDYOR 1 (5 + 4 = 9) 369 0 41 0
NATENG 1 (3 + 6 = 9) 769 769 85 85
HAYME 1 (3 + 4 = 7) 1135 967 162 138
IBEN 2 (6 + 2 = 8) 2637 2528 330 316
ERNING 6 (10 + 2 = 12) 7916 7841 660 612
GIBSON 1 (2 + 5 = 7) 1703 1659 243 237
RUPIN 1 (2 + 1 = 3) 2694 2634 898 878
KANDEG 1 (7 + 2 = 9) 1260 0 140 0
DOSE 1 (2 + 3 = 5) 144 0 29 0
UYA-PUTE 2 (9 + 9 = 18) 7139 7139 397 397
PIDYONG 1 (4 + 3 = 7) 174 0 25 0
LALONG 1 (4 + 5 = 9) 936 0 104 0
KULUT 1 (3 + 3 = 6) 480 0 80 0
BUNAW 2 (6 + 2 = 8) 3801 3671 475 459
LIYANITA 2 (7 + 5 = 12) 3571 2952 298 246
MELANIO 2 (5 + 4 - 9) 2180 1532 242 170
SITOK 1 (2 + 3 = 5) 1676 1464 335 293
MAMING 1 (5 + 1 = 6) 528 432 88 72
ISON 1 (4 + 4 = 8) 1629 1368 204 171
TONING 1 (4 + 1 = 5) 2418 2069 484 414
WILSON 1 (3 + 2 = 5) 9180 9180 1836 1836
KEKEK 1 (2 + 2 = 4) 3532 3532 883 883
HEMPOK 1 (2 + 2 = 4) 9672 9672 2418 2418
o\ 1
totals = 48 (127 + 224) 85779 77870

l 1
l
i
508
TABLE 12.1 A COMPARISON OF AGTA VITAL STATISTICS WITH OTHER POPULATIONS
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

population CBR CDR %nat. IMR % of TFR life % of pop
incr. chil. die expec. '15 / '64
world 29 11 1.8% 84 3.9 62 34/6

U.S.A. 15 7 0.8% 10 1.8 74 23/11
Afghanistan 48 23 2.5% 205 6.9 40 45/2
Philippines 34 8 2.7% 54 4.8 62 41/3
Phil in 1800s 27
Semai 39 30 1.9% 244 42.5% 5.7 30 36/0.5
Yanomama 57 49 0.8% 250 50% ? 8.2 20? 45/0.3
SKung 41 16? 202 40.4% 4.7 40? 29/4.7
Casiguran town 197
Casig. Agta 43 45 -0.2% 342 50.8% 6.3 21 35/2.6
Palan. Agta 285 43.2% 5.9
E.Cag. Agta 35.4% 6.5
EXPLANATIONS OF COLUMNS:
2. CBR = crude birth rate; annual number of births per 1,000 popu.
3. CDR = crude death rate; annual number of deaths per 1,000 popu.
4. Yearly rate of natural increase (%).
5. IMR =infant mortality rate; number of deaths to infants under
one year of age per 1,000 live births per year.
6. percent of children who die before reaching age 15. These
figures for the small tribal groups are deflated because many of
the children still alive will die before reaching age 15.
7. TFR = total fertility rate; average no. of live births born to
women who live to age 45.
8. Life expectancy at birth (in years).
9. Percent of population under age 15 and over age 64 (i.e. in the
"dependent" ages).
SOURCES OF DATA:
Data on populations of the world in general, United States,
Afghanistan, and the Philippines are from WPDS 1983; the CDR on the
Philippines in the 19th century is the average of the 39 figures in
Table IV of Smith 1978; Semai data (a swidden group in Malaysia) are
from Fix 1977:45, 48, 52, 55-57, 69, 79, 81; Yanomama data are from Neel
and Weiss 1975; IKung data are from Howell 1979:45, 81, 87, 89, 95, 103,
114-15, 120, 123, and from Howell 1976:141; data on Casiguran lowland
population infant death rates are for the years 1977-81, and came from a
posted chart in the town's Health Center building; Palanan Agta data are
from Headland field notes (the Palanan data in columns 6 and 7 are based
on interviews with 15 Palanan women age 45+ in 1979, and the data in
column 5 is based on interviews with 32 Palanan women during the same
509
month); Eastern Cagayan Agta data are from Goodman et al. 1985 and from
Table 19 of Griffin et al. n.d. Sources of the Casiguran Agta data are
given below.
GENERAL NOTES:
Statistics on Afghanistan are compared here because it is the
nation with the highest figures, worldwide. Crude statistical rates of
small tribal populations over short periods of time must not be taken as
reliable indicators of the overall long-term population dynamics of such
groups, since random differences from the underlying true rates from
year to year, and even decade to decade, may be quite large. The !Kung
CDR of 16 is from Howell 1976:141; but see Howell 1979:103-04 for her
later doubts about the accuracy of this figure.
HOW THE CASIGURAN AGTA FIGURES WERE COMPUTED:

The Casiguran Agta statistics are averages from the seven year
period from 1977 to 1984, and are taken from Headland and Headland
(1985). These were computed as follows:
2. CBR: There were 184 births during the 7 year period, or an
average of 26.3 births per year; the average size of the population was
613.5. Thus, CBR = 26.3 / 613.5 X 1,000 = 43 births per 1,000 people
per year (see Table 12.3).
3. CDR: There were 193 deaths during the same period, for an
average of 27.6 deaths per year. Thus, CDR = 27.6 / 613.5 = 45 deaths
per 1,000 people per year (see Table 12.4).
4. The annual rate of natural increase (actually, decrease, in

the Casiguran Agta case), is the birth rate minus the death rate,
(or 43 - 45 = -2), or a population decrease of two persons a year per
1,000 people.
5. IMR: There were 184 live births in the Agta population during
the 7 year period, and 63 of those died before reaching age 1. Thus, the
IMR = 6 3 / 184 X 1,000 = 342 infant deaths per 1,000 infants per year
(see bottom of Table 12.3).
6. Percent of Agta children who die before reaching adulthood (age

15): There were 111 child deaths, including infants, during the 7 year
period, and there were an average of 218.5 children in the population
during those years; thus, 111 / 218.5 = 50.8%. If no more of these
children die (highly unlikely), the child death rate will stand at 50.8
percent. Note that another sample shows the child death rate is 49
percent (see Comments at bottom of Table 12.8).
7. Based on a sample of 48 women (listed by name in Table 12.8)

over age 44 who were interviewed as to their reproductive histories.
These 48 women had an average of 6.3 live births each (see Comments at
bottom of Table 12.8).
8. The life expectancy at birth figure is taken from the bottom of
Table 12.4.
9. Percent figures of Agta in the age dependent categories is taken
from the 1984 population triangle (see Figure 4).
510
TABLE 12.2 MEAN AND MEDIAN AGES OF THE POPULATION IN 1977 AND 1984
mean age of 1977 population (14977/618)* 24.2

mean age of 1977 male pop. (7376/310) 23.8
mean age of 1977 female pop. (7601/308) 24.7
mean age of 1984 population (15110/609) 24.8

mean age of 1984 male pop. (7134/306) 23.3
mean age of 1984 female pop. (7976/303) 26.3
median age of 1977 population 20.0

median age of 1977 males 20.0
median age of 1977 females 21.0
median age of 1984 population 22.0

median age of 1984 males 18.0
median age of 1984 females 23.5
(data is from Headland and Headland 1985.)
*The means were calculated by dividing the sum of the ages of

all those in the population by the number of individuals in the
population.
511
TABLE 12.3 LIST OF THE 184 MEMBERS OF THE DE JURE POPULATION BORN
ALIVE BETWEEN JUNE 16, 1977 AND JUNE 15, 1984
(listed in order of births by year)
(1) (2) (3) (4)* (5) (6) (7) (8)

name census sex half- year of deceased age at cause of
no. blood birth in 6/84 death death
AYRIN 1108 fem Q 1977+/-0

BENGBENG 1140 fern Q 1977+/-0 dead 4 sickness
DYEMARI 1099 fem 1977+/-0 dead 1 (no information)
ELISABET 1088 fem H 1977+/-0 dead 5 sickness
infant 1044 fem 1977+/-0 dead 0 died age 2 weeks
IPEL 1137 fem Q 1977+/-0 dead 0 sickness
MARILIN 1097 fem 1977+/-0 dead 0 (no information)
MARILU 1096 fem 1977+/-0 dead 3 sickness
NENENG 1039 fem 1977+/-0
DYERI 1080 mal 1977+/-0
infant 1009 mal 1977+/-0 dead 0 (no information)
LARI 1035 mal H 1977+/-1
RENI 1092 mal 1977+/-1 dead 0 (no information)
WIRNER 1042 mal 1977+/-1
ANE 1167 fem 1978+/-0
DYOSILIN 1129 fem H 1978+/-0
ELISABET 1105 fem E 1978+/-0 dead sickness
HUANA 1016 fem H 1978+/-0
infant 1061 fem 1978+/-0 dead 0 sickness
infant 1078 fem 1978+/-0 dead 0 sickness
NEKNEK 1052 fem 1978+/-0
NORALIN 1116 fem 1978+/-0
DAL'ENG 1048 mal H 1978+/-0
infant 1004 mal 1978+/-0 dead 0 homicide
infant 1030 mal 1978+/-0 dead 0 sickness
LONLIBOY 1075 mal 1978+/-0 dead 2 sickness
MARIO 1163 mal 1978+/-0
NOKNOKAN 1025 mal 1978+/-0 dead 0 sickness
ORLAN 1150 mal 1978+/-0
RAMEL 1153 mal H 1978+/-0
infant 1002 fem 1978+/-1 dead 0 (no information)
KLARITA 1119 fem 1978+/-1
NANSI 1132 fem 1978+/-1
DYAKILIN 1093 fem 1979+/-0 dead 3 sickness
EMA 1085 fem H 1979+/-0 dead 0 sickness
infant 1089 fem 1979+/-0 dead 0 died age 4-10 days
(continued)
512
TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4)* (5) (6) (7) (8)

MAYTA 1020 fern 1979+/-0 dead 2 sickness

NENE 1013 fem 1979+/-0
NORALIN 1109 fem Q 1979+/-0
infant 1086 mal H 1979+/-0 dead 0 died age 4-10 days
LONI 1038 mal 1979+/-0
REGAN 1169 mal 1979+/-0
WERNEL 1071 mal 1979+/-0 dead 3 sickness
infant** 1094 fem H 1979+/-1 GONE ? taken by lowl.father
MAHALI 1102 fem 1979+/-1 dead 3 sickness
MARINA 1160 fem 1979+/-1
MERIGRES 1024 fem 1979+/-1
MERLI 1157 fem 1979+/-1 dead 0 (no information)
MILISA 1143 fem H 1979+/-1
PANEK 1106 fem H 1979+/-1
SANTA 1019 fem 1979+/-1 dead 0 (no information)
ALAN 1072 mal Q 1979+/-1
DYERI 1118 mal 1979+/-1
GANTI 1174 mal H 1979+/-1 dead 0 died age 0-3 days
LEBI 1180 mal 1979+/-1
PRANGKI 1122 mal 1979+/-1 dead 3 sickness
DESI 1031 fem 1980+/-0
DYEMARI 1125 fem 1980+/-0
infant 1036 fem H 1980+/-0 dead 0 (no information)
MERLINA 1155 "em 1980+/-0
ARMANDU 1046 mal 1980+/-0
CHILD 1007 mal H 1980+/-0
DANI 1087 mal H 1980+/-0
DYOMAR 1141 mal Q 1980+/-0
DYONATAN 1084 mal 1980+/-0
ELISARDO 1113 mal H 1980+/-0 dead 0 sickness
infant 1056 mal 1980+/-0 dead 0 died age 4-10 days
KALOY 1003 mal 1980+/-0
PUNU 1005 mal 1980+/-0
RENIBOY 1146 mal 1980+/-0
RODYEL 1147 mal 1980+/-0
HELEN 1081 fem 1980+/-1
infant 1067 fem 1980+/-1 ' dead 0 sickness
ROSI 1133 fem 1980+/-1 dead 1 (no information)
ALBING 1027 mal 1980+/-1 dead 0 (no information)
ARIEL 1053 mal 1980+/-1
(continued)
TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4)* (5) (6) (7) (8)

DYONATAN 1120 mal 1980+/-1

DYUNDYUN 1130 mal H 1980+/-1
LOLIBOY 1151 mal 1980+/-1
SANIBOY 1058 mal 1980+/-1 dead 1 (no information)
DALAGA 1127 fem 1981+/-0
DELIA 1040 fem 1981+/-0
DYOSI 1010 fem 1981+/-0 dead 0 sickness
MARILIN 1171 fem 1981+/-0
MERIAN 1158 fem 1981+/-0
PRODILIN 1110 fem Q 1981+/-0
SESIL 1022 fem 1981+/-0 dead 2 sickness
ARIS 1095 mal 1981+/-0 dead 1 homicide
BORDIGUL 1021 mal 1981+/-0
DARI 1104 mal 1981+/-0
DYOI 1076 mal 1981+/-0
DYONATAN 1063 mal 1981+/-0 dead 0 sickness
DYUN 1043 mal 1981+/-0
DYUNYOR 1175 mal H 1981+/-0
ELMER 1112 mal 1981+/-0
infant 1049 mal H 1981+/-0 dead 0 died age 4-10 days
OTOY 1014 mal 1981+/-0 dead 1 pneumoni a
PERNANDO 1098 mal 1981+/-0
ROBERT 1154 mal H 1981+/-0
RUNEL 1073 mal Q 1981+/-0 dead 1 sickness
LANI 1173 fem 1981+/-1 dead 1 accid.Cdied from fall
MARTES 1161 fem 1981+/-1
RIBEKA 1181 fem 1981+/-1 dead 0 died age 4-10 days
ANDI 1090 mal 1981+/-1 dead 0 died age 4 weeks
DANI 1107 mal H 1981+/-1 dead 1 sickness(measles)
NELSON 1138 mal Q 1981+/-1 dead 0 sickness
DANGDANG 1144 fem H 1982+/-0
HUSALITA 1055 fem 1982+/-0 dead 0 sickness
LANEA 1057 fem 1982+/-0
LISA 1131 fem H 1982+/-0
MAYA 1149 fem 1982+/-0
MELODYIN 1028 fem H 1982+/-0
MERLITA 1156 fem 1982+/-0 dead 0 sickness
NEKNEK 1026 fem 1982+/-0 ‘
NISA 1152 fem 1982+/-0
PANGGALO 1023 fem 1982+/-0
ABRAHAM 1184 mal 1982+/-0
BALADONG 1034 mal 1982+/-0
(continued)
TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4)* (5) (6) (7) (8)

BERNI 1134 mal 1982+/-0 dead 1 (no information)

BIPER 1168 mal 1982+/-0
BUBUT 1059 mal 1982+/-0 dead 0 (no information)
DYODYO 1047 mal 1982+/-0 dead 0 died age 8 weeks
DYOI 1123 mal 1982+/-0 dead 0 sickness
DYUN 1135 mal 1982+/-0 dead 0 sickness
DYUNDYUN 1018 mal 1982+/-0
EDI 1064 mal 1982+/-0
EDLIN 1017 mal 1982+/-0
HUSALITO 1054 mal 1982+/-0 dead 0 sickness
infant 1082 mal 1982+/-0
infant 1179 mal 1982+/-0
KENTIN 1050 mal H 1982+/-0
PERDINAN 1126 mal 1982+/-0
RIKI 1001 mal 1982+/-0
RIKI 1165 mal 1982+/-0
PULURITA 1177 fem 1982+/-1
ROSMARI 1100 fem 1982+/-1 dead 0 died age 4 weeks
infant 1008 fem H 1983+/-0 dead 0 died age 3 weeks
infant 1079 fem H 1983+/-0 dead 0 died age 4-10 days
infant 1124 fem 1983+/-0
infant 1139 fem Q 1983+/-0
LILIA 1183 fem 1983+/-0
NEKNEK 1128 fem 1983+/-0
NONILIN 1148 fem 1983+/-0
ROS 1091 fem 1983+/-0
AKINO 1117 mal 1983+/-0
B0N6B0NG 1051 mal 1983+/-0 dead 0 sickness
DYUNDYUN 1142 mal Q 1983+/-0
HILUG 1006 mal 1983+/-0
infant 1012 mal 1983+/-0
infant 1065 mal 1983+/-0
infant 1068 mal 1983+/-0 dead 0 died age 5 weeks
infant 1077 mal 1983+/-0 dead 0 died age 4-10 days
infant 1101 mal 1983+/-0
infant 1159 mal 1983+/-0
(continued)
515
TABLE 12.3 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4)* (5) (6) (7) (8)


TOTOY 1111 mal Q 1983+/-0
WINDEL 1045 mal 1983+/-0
infant 1015 fem 1984+/-0
infant 1041 fem J.984+/-0 dead 0 died age 2 weeks
infant 1069 fem 1984+/-0
infant 1114 fem H 1984+/-0 dead 0 died age 4 weeks
ALBERT 1011 mal 1984+/-0 dead 0 died age 7 weeks
infant 1029 mal 1984+/-0
infant 1083 mal 1984+/-0
infant 1136 mal 1984+/-0
RUBEN 1074 mal Q 1984+/-0
(Data from Headland and Headland 1985)
* In Column 4 half-blood Agta are indicated by the symbol 'H', and

quarter-bloods by 'Q'. Empty cells indicate person is a full blood
Agta, according to author's genealogies.
** Female infant with census no. 1094 was fathered by a lowlander

when mother was working as a maid in Cotobato City, in Mindanao. The
father's family kept the child when they returned the Agta mother to
Casiguran. This child is counted as 'deceased' in the data analysis
below, since she is permanently removed from the population.
SUMMARY OF VITAL DATA FROM TABLE 12.3:
No. of males born during 7 year period: 101

No. of females born during 7 year period: 83
% of total 184 who died before June 16, 1984: 46% (84/184)
% of males who died before June 16, 1984: 43% (43/101)
% of females who died before June 16, 1984: 49% (41/83)
% of total who died before reaching 365 days of age: 34% (63/184)
(those showing age 0 at time of death in Column 7)
% born during 7 yr period who are half-bloods: 16% (29/184)

% born during 7 yr period who are quarter-bloods: 7% (13/184)
% born during 7 y* period who are half or qrtr bloods: 23% (42/184)
516
TABLE 12.4 LIST OF THE 193 MEMBERS OF THE DE JURE POPULATION WHO DIED
BETWEEN JUNE 16, 1977 AND JUNE 15, 1984
(listed in order by age at death)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

name census sex year of age at cause of
no. death death death
infant 0615 fem 1977+/-0 0 sickness

infant 1115 fem 1977+/-0 0 died at age 4 weeks
infant 0550 mal 1977+/-0 0 sickness
infant 1044 fem 1978+/-0 0 died at age 2 weeks(harelip)
IPEL 1137 fem 1978+/-0 0 sickness
MARILIN 1097 fem 1978+/-0 0 sickness (a twin of 1096)
DINGK'EL 0057 mal 1978+/-0 0 (no information)
infant 1009 mal 1978+/-0 0 sickness (starvation)
NOKNOKAN 1025 mal 1978+/-0 0 sickness
infant 1002 fem 1978+/-1 0 (no information)
RENI 1092 mal 1978+/-1 0 (no information)
infant 1089 fem 1979+/-0 0 died at age 4 to 10 days
infant 1004 mal 1979+/-0 0 homicide
infant 1086 mal 1979+/-0 0 died at age 4 to 10 days
MERLI 1157 fem 1979+/-1 0 died at age 4-10 days)
SANTA 1019 fem 1979+/-1 0 sickness
GANTI 1174 mal 1979+/-1 0 died at age 0 to 3 days
EMA 1085 fem 1980+/-0 0 sickness
ALBING 1027 mal 1980+/-1 0 sickness
DYONATAN 1063 mal 1981+/-0 0 sickness
ELISARDO 1113 mal 1981+/-0 0 sickness
AND I 1090 mal 1981+/-1 0 died at age 4 weeks
DYOSI 1010 fem 1982+/-0 0 sickness
DYODYO 1047 mal 1982+/-0 0 died at age 8 weeks
DYOI 1123 mal 1982+/-0 0 sickness
(continued)
TABLE 12.4 (coat.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

RIBEKA 1181 fem 1982+/-1 0 died at age 4 to 10 days

ROSMARI 1100 fem 1982+/-1 0 died at age 4 weeks
infant 1182 mal 1982+/-1 0 (no information)
NELSON 1138 mal 1982+/-1 0 sickness
HUSALITA 1055 fem 1983+/-0 0 sickness (a twin of 1054)
infant 1079 fem 1983+/-0 0 died at age 4 to 10 days
MERLITA 1156 fem 1983+/-0 0 sickness
BONGBONG 1051 mal 1983+/-0 0 sickness
BUBUT 1059 mal 1983+/-0 0 sickness
DYUN 1135 mal 1983+/-0 0 sickness
HUSALITO 1054 mal 1983+/-0 0 sickness (a twin of 1055)
infant 1068 mal 1983+/-0 0 died at age 5 weeks
ALBERT 1011 mal 1984+/-0 0 died at age 7 weeks
infant 1037 mal 1984+/-0 0 (no information)
LIDINA 0005 fem 1977+/-0 1 sickness
POPIN 0395 mal 1977+/-1 1 sickness
MERNA 0533 fem 1978+/-0 1 sickness
DYEMARI 1099 fem 1978+/-1 1 sickness
ARNEL 0264 mal 1978+/-1 1 (no information)
ROSI 1133 fem 1981+/-1 1 (no information)
SANIBOY 1058 mal 1981+/-1 1 sickness
LANI 1173 fem 1982+/-0 1 accident (fall, dropped)
OTOY 1014 mal 1982+/-0 1 sickness (pneumonia)
RDNEL 1073 mal 1982+/-0 1 sickness
DANI 1107 mal 1982+/-1 1 sickness (measles)
ARIS 1095 mal 1983+/-0 1 homicide
BERNI 1134 mal 1983+/-0 1 (no information)
LORI 0542 mal 1978+/-1 2 sickness (measles)
NIMPA 0271 fem 1979+/-0 2 sickness
KIRITONG 0527 mal 1979+/-0 2 sickness
ELISABET 1105 fem 1980+/-1 2 sickness
LONLIBOY 1075 mal 1980+/-1 2 sickness
(continued)
518
TABLE 12.4 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

MAYTA 1020 fem 1981+/-0 2 sickness

SESIL 1022 fem 1983+/-0 2 sickness (vomiting)
BUSOY 0027 mal 1980+/-1 3 sickness
MARILU 1096 fem 1981+/-0 3 sickness, (a twin of 1097)
DYAKILIN 1093 fem 1982+/-0 3 sickness
MAHALI 1102 fem 1982+/-1 3 sickness
PRANGKI 1122 mal 1982+/-1 3 sickness
WERNEL 1071 mal 1983+/-0 3 sickness
OP'ET 0558 fem 1977+/-0 4 sickness
ROSALINA 0582 fem 1977+/-0 4 sickness
MERLI 0416 fem 1979+/-0 4 homicide
DYUNYOR 0538 mal 1979+/-2 4 sickness
LOYDAPE 0426 fem 1981+/-1 4 (no information)
BENGBENG 1140 fem 1982+/-0 4 sickness
BETI 0331 fem 1981+/-0 5 sickness
ELISABET 1088 fem 1982+/-1 5 sickness
RANI 0421 mal 1982+/-1 5 (no information)
DIBINA 0056 fem 1977+/-0 6 (no information)
PEKPEK 0150 mal 1978+/-0 6 sickness
DYENIPER 0076 fem 1981+/-1 6 sickness
WILNOR 0394 mal 1981+/-1 6 sickness (measles)
SOKSOK 0453 fem 1984+/-0 6 sickness (pneumonia)
ALEK 0070 mal 1982+/-1 8 sickness (measles)
RIBIKA 0537 fem 1981+/-0 9 accident (fell in fire)
ARNOL 0540 mal 1984+/-0 12 (no information)
KIL'ENG 0154 mal 1979+/-2 14 (no information)
HOS'EG 0483 fem 1984+/-0 15 sickness (malaria)
NOLER 0514 mal 1980+/-0 17 homicide
MON'EG 0212 fem 1982+/-1 17 homicide
WAYTSEL 0008 mal 1980+/-1 18 sickness (tuberculosis)
DUWAYNING 0224 mal 1978+/-0 19 sickness
DOLSING 0595 mal 1980+/-1 21 suicide
BERTING 0021 mal 1983+/-0 23 sickness
ERNING 0519 mal 1983+/-0 23 sickness (pneumonia)
HEDLAN 0457 mal 1983+/-0 24 sickness
EMILI 0195 fem 1980+/-1 26 childbirth complications
BINGO 0084 mal 1980+/-2 26 sickness
LOSI 0325 fem 1981+/-1 27 childbirth complications
POK'ES 0016 mal 1984+/-0 28 homicide
DARBING 0118 mal 1980+/-0 29 homicide
TENGAN 0586 fem 1982+/-1 29 childbirth complications
MARIO 0361 mal 1984+/-0 29 sickness
ALE 0012 mal 1977+/-0 30 homicide
HELEN 0605 fem 1982+/-0 30 sickness (tuberculosis)
(continued)
TABLE 12.4 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

TAHATAD 0137 mal 1983+/-0 31 hoaicide

LULITA 0339 fem 1979+/-0 35 childbirth complications
NARSING 0406 fem 1982+/-1 35 sickness (leprosy)
BILYESA 0077 mal 1983+/-0 35 sickness
EDYOR 0185 mal 1984+/-0 35 homicide
DOMING 0148 mal I980+/-1 37 sickness
LAKAY 0281 mal 1980+/-1 38 homicide
ILE 0240 mal 1981+/-0 39 sickness (tuberculosis)
REKREK 0060 fem 1978+/-0 40 sickness (tuberculosis)
BILYANTIN 0072 mal 1980+/-0 40 sickness
MAMORA 0338 mal 1979+/-0 41 accident (drowned)
AG'EY 0355 fem 1980+/-1 41 sickness
ALUN'ET 0017 mal 1983+/-0 41 sickness (liver disease)
WILSON 0285 mal 1983+/-0 42 sickness
DUB'ENG 0162 mal 1977+/-0 43 accident (drowned)
MADY'EK 0106 fem 1982+/-0 44 accident (falling tree)
TIYONSON 0177 mal 1978+/-0 45 sickness (leprosy)
DARNING 0122 fem 1978+/-0 46 drunkenness
KARNASION 0042 fem 1982+/-0 48 sickness (pneumonia)
MINAY 0397 fem 1980+/-1 49 (no information)
ADILING 0316 fem 1984+/-0 49 sickness
NINGNING 0417 fem 1977+/-0 50 (no information)
MANINTING 0345 mal 1979+/-0 50 sickness (leprosy)
BASIERTO 0618 mal 1977+/-0 51 sickness
SULIDAD 0036 fem 1980+/-0 51 sickness
MILA 0555 fem 1982+/-0 51 sickness
LIGAYA 0156 fem 1978+/-0 52 sickness (tuberculosis)
MINDOSA 0398 mal 1980+/-1 52 drunkenness
UP'EK 0439 fem 1978+/-0 53 sickness
SALAYAN 0518 mal 1977+/-0 54 homicide
ADILING 0006 fem 1978+/-0 54 drunkenness
TOT'ENG 0600 mal 1979+/-0 54 sickness (tuberculosis)
SUWAR 0554 mal 1982+/-0 54 accident (fell from cliff)
LUDING 0465 fem 1982+/-1 54 (no information)
MANUSING 0354 mal 1978+/-2 56 homicide
PETANG 0469 fem 1981+/-2 56 drunkenness
MANTI 0335 fem 1977+/-0 60 sickness
DAMY'EK 0113 fem 1977+/-1 60 (no information)
OLIBIA 0375 fem 1983+/-0 60 drunkenness
LIYONIDA 0323 fem 1978+/-0 61 sickness
'EBET 0092 fem 1978+/-1 61 (no information)
BONTOY 0093 mal 1980+/-0 61 sickness
PILISA 0360 fem 1980+/-1 61 sickness (beriberi)
ADILING 0512 fem 1983+/-0 61 sickness
(continued)
520
TABLE 12.4 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

PIRENTE 0484 mal 1979+/-0 63 sickness (tuberculosis)

IPOY 0245 mal 1980+/-0 63 homicide
AY0GY0G 0040 mal 1981+/-0 63 sickness
BANGHUL 0045 mal 1979+/-0 64 sickness (tuberculosis)
MANDOSA 0343 mal 1982+/-1 64 sickness (leprosy)
PEPE 0464 mal 1977+/-0 65 (no information)
MENES 0390 mal 1978+/-0 65 sickness
ARNES 0033 mal 1982+/-0 65 (no information)
MANODSE 0350 mal 1982+/-0 65 sickness (pneumonia)
TIRAY 0015 fem 1981+/-0 66 sickness
ALONSO 0014 mal 1980+/-0 68 sickness
MILITON 0396 mal 1980+/-0 68 sickness (tuberculosis)
MAGNU 0112 mal 1983+/-0 68 sickness
SENIKA 0534 fem 1977+/-0 71 sickness
NANEK 0405 mal 1982+/-1 71 sickness
MALENSIAN 0337 fem 1978+/-0 73 sickness
PELIMON 0462 mal 1980+/-0 73 sickness
PEKTO 0461 mal 1978+/-0 75 sickness
UPILA 0608 fem 1977+/-0 76 sickness
TIKIMAN 0592 mal 1983+/-0 81 sickness
Sum of numbers of column 5: 4087
life expectancy:: at birth: 4087 / 193 = age 21.2

at age 1: 4087 / 127 = age 32.2
at age 2: 4073 / 113 = age 36.0
at age 3: 4059 / 106 = age 38.3
at age 4: 4041 / 100 = age 40.4
at age 5: 4017 / 94 = age 42.7
at age 10: 3955 / 84 = age 47.1
at age 15: 3929 / 82 = age 47.9
at age 20: 3843 / 77 = age 49.9
at age 30: 3558 / 66 = age 53.9
at age 40: 3213 / 56 = age 57.4
life expectancy of males at birth: 2345 / 105 = age 22.3
life expectancy of females at birth: 1742 / 88 = age 19.8
life expectancy of males at age 15: 2267 / 48 = age 47.2
life expectancy of females at age 15: 1662 / 34 = age 48.9
Example of how life expectancy at any certain age is calculated:

To get life expectancy at age 15, sum the ages off the 82 individuals in
the above table who died after reaching the age of 15. Then divide that
sum (which is 3929) by the number of individuals in the sample (which is
82). The quotient, 47.9, means that the "average" Agta who lives to age
15 can be expected to live to the age of 48.
521
TABLE 12.5 LIST OF FEMALES SHOWING AGES AT FIRST MARRIAGE (from a
sample of 51 females whose ages and dates of marriage are known)
name census year of age at 1st

no. marriage marriage
1 NUNUK 0197 1965 15

2 EDNA 0234 1975 15
3 PEPEK 0013 1980 15
4 ILISIN 2043 1981 15
5 UKEL 0466 1982 15
6 IMELDA 0269 1984 15
7 KALIWENG none 1978 16
8 KEDEK 0143 1978 16
9 LOYDA 0602 1978 16
10 KULUT 0472 1979 16
11 LINDA 0307 1981 16
12 MARILYN 0473 1982 16
13 RULES 0482 1983 16
14 DYEMA 0166 1983 16
15 DENGDENG 2015 1964 17
16 RESI 0549 1971 17
17 LITA 0128 1976 17
18 MARINENG 0382 1978 17
19 KARMEN 0442 1979 17
20 DYOSELIN 0364 1983 17
21 PELOK 2064 1983 17
22 UTET 0609 1961 18
23 PERING 0467 1965 18
24 HELEN 0605 1970 18
25 NARING 0378 1977 18
26 PEPOT 0478 1981 18
27 MAYENG 0402 1983 18
28 KALINENG none 1983 18
29 NENENG 0531 1971 19
30 LENI 0370 1975 19
31 LIDINA 0314 1976 19
32 MERNA 0258 1979 19
33 NOYME 0132 1981 i9
34 LITA 0581 1971 20
35 ISID 0236 1977 20
36 SINING 0011 1977 20
(continued)
522
TABLE 12.5 (cont.)
name census year of age at 1st

no. marriage marriage
37 ABEY 0383 1984 20

38 NENENG 0413 1980 21
39 PIRIDIN 0046 1981 21
40 NALENGNENG 0283 1982 21
41 SENAYDA 0449 1982 21
42 SIPOK 0450 1982 21
43 WISAY 0203 1982 21
44 NENENG 0020 1982 21
45 NORSENG 0051 1982 21
46 INGGEL 0219 1984 21
47 LODI 0098 1963 22
48 PERLA 0491 1976 22
49 DINGDINGAN 0117 1977 22
50 NORMITA 0266 1978 22
51 NAYLING 0161 1985 22
sum: 937
mean age at firstmarriage: 937 / 51 = 18.4 years

median: = 18 years
mode: = 2 1 years
range: = 15 to 22 years
sta. dev.: = 2.29 years
(data fromHeadland and Headland 1985)
523
TABLE 12.6 FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF NUMBER OF AGTA MARRIED
FROM AGE 15 TO 29 IN JUNE 1984 (N= 78 men, & 101 women)*
age no. men no. men % men** no. women no. women % worn.
never mar. ever mar. ever mar. never mar. ever mar. ever m.
15 9 0 0% 7 1 13%
16 9 0 0% 5 3 38%
17 2 0 0% 1 1 50%
18 7 1 13% 2 3 60%
19 3 2 40% 3 4 57%
20 2 3 60% 0 3 100%
21 2 0 0% 4 2 33%
22 0 1 100% 1 7 88%
23 0 5 100% 3 10 77%
24 0 3 100% 2 7 78%
25 0 7 100% 0 7 100%
26 3 3 50% 0 4 100%
27 0 8 100% 0 2 100%
28 0 5 100% 1 9 90%
29 0 3 100% 0 9 100%
totals 37 41 29 72
(data from Headland and Headland 1985)
* This sample includes all men in the 1984 de jure population aged
15-29 except 3, and all women aged 15-29 except 7. These 10 were
excluded because their civil status in June 1984 was unknown to the
writer.
** The percentage figures tell the percent of men (or women) age n
who were ever married in 1984. For example, in row 4 it is shown that
there were 8 men age 18, 1 of whom was married. One is 13 percent of
8. Thus, 13 percent of the 18 year old men were ever married.
524
TABLE 12.7 INFORMATION ON AGTA OUT-MIGRANTS AND IN-MIGRANTS
IN JUNE 1984
(Locations of all members of de jure population June 15, 1984)
males females both
present in area 248 (41%) 227 (37%) 475 (78%)

living in town 6 ( 1%) 8 ( 1%) 14 ( 2%)
out-migrants 41 ( 7%) 51 ( 8%) 92 (15%)
gone permanently 2 ( 0%) 9 ( 1%) 11 ( 2%)
location unsure 9 ( 1%) 8 ( 1%) 17 ( 3%)
i
i
1 u>
ro 1
V
O' 1
O 1
O 1
TOTALS (50%) (50%)
O 1
(100%)
1w
1 o
I
i
i
1
•
1
1
i
1
1
1
1
1
(sums may not equal 100 due to rounding)
(Information on 75 Agta in-migrants from other areas

present in Casiguran area on June 15, 1984)
number of males: 36
number of females 39
number of married males: 18

number of married females 21
number of widowers: 2
number of widows: 1
number of divorced persons: 0
number with close relatives among Casiguran Agta: 56

number with no close relatives among Cas. Agta: 16
number where this data is uncertain: 3
number resident in Casiguran less than 1 year: 34

number resident in Casiguran 1 to 6 years: 10
number resident continuously at least 7 years: 8
number where this data is uncertain: 23
number from Bakyad-Ilagan area: 5

number from Baler-Dibut area: 1
number from Dinapigui-Pagsanghanarea: 1
number from Hag an River area: 13
number from Made11a area: 19
number from Palanan area: 17
number from Pinamakan River area: 12
number from San Mariano area: 7
(data from Headland and Headland 1985)
525
TABLE 12.8 NUMBER OF LIVE BIRTHS PER WOMAN AGE 45+ *
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

name of census no.years no. of no. who no. who no. all live
woman no. since live died in survivd still offspring
woman's births child to age alive are
birth hood 15 in '85 age 15+
1 DODENG none 78 0 0 0 0 yes

2 ROSING 0515 52 0 0 0 0 yes
3 TALENGADE 0559 65 0 0 0 0 yes
4 ADILING 0512 62 1 0 1 0 yes
5 EBET 0092 67 1 1 0 0 yes
6 TIKA 0050 58 1 1 0 0 yes
7 LIYONIDA 0323 67 2 2 0 0 yes
8 PIDELA 0391 72 2 0 2 2 yes
9 TANENG 0151 67 2 2 0 0 yes
10 ANDITA none 56 3 1 2 2 yes
11 LAWDENG 2012 50 3 3 0 0 yes
12 LIMINIDA 0041 50 3 1 2 2 yes
13 ERMINYA 0192 51 4 2 2 2 yes
14 MENSIANG 0616 69 4 2 2 1 yes
15 UDAD 0241 46 4 3 1 1 yes
16 PILISIN none 74 5 5 0 0 yes
17 ELI 0380 49 6 0 4 6 NO
18 KONSITA 0295 45 6 2 4 4 yes
19 OLIBIYA 0375 61 6 3 3 3 yes
20 PANSING none 50 6 2 3 4 NO
21 POMPOEK 0130 53 6 3 3 3 yes
22 TIRAY 0015 70 6 3 3 1 yes
23 BIDING 0115 52 7 5 2 2 yes
24 LUNINGNIN 0455 53 7 3 3 3 NO
25 PINOSA 2063 65 7 3 4 4 yes
26 GOLBIENG 0169 55 8 3 4 5 NO
27 ILEN 0163 47 8 4 3 4 NO
28 ISTING 0591 61 8 5 3 3 yes
29 LAYDING 0305 57 8 3 5 3 yes
30 LUNINGNIN 0268 45 8 5 2 3 NO
31 MILA 0555 53 8 6 2 2 yes
32 PILISA none 65 8 3 5 1 yes
33 SABILITA 0289 45 8 3 3 5 NO
34 SARING 0346 48 8 5 3 3 yes
35 SIDING 0565 46 8 4 4 4 yes
36 SULIDAD 0036 58 8 3 5 5 yes
37 ISLING 0202 53 9 5 4 4 yes
38 ISTRING 0253 69 9 3 6 4 yes
39 KARNASION 0042 50 9 6 2 3 NO
40 REKREK 0400 49 9 5 3 4 NO
(continued)
526
TABLE 12.8 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

name of census no.years no. of no. who no. who no. all live
woman no. since live died in survivd still offspring
woman's births child- to age alive are
birth hood 15 in '85 age 15+
41 TILOKEN 0179 50 9 2 5 6 NO
42 AWAY 0159 65 10 6 4 4 yes
43 ISTRING 0485 66 10 1 9 6 yes
44 NURING 0018 48 10 4 6 5 NO
45 INELTENGA 0136 55 11 6 5 4 yes
46 LODI 0103 51 11 7 2 3 NO
47 PILISA 0360 65 11 4 7 6 yes
48 LIYANITA 0320 67 12 7 5 3 yes
totals 300 147 138 130
* EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
1. These are the names of all women in the census over age 44 for
whom records of their complete birth histories are known. These
48 women include 5 who died before 1977, and who therefore do
not have a census number in column 2.
2. Census numbers from Headland and Headland 1985.
3. Numberof years in 1984 since the births of the 48 women.
4. Numberof live births for each woman, the sum of which is 300.
5. Numberof those 300 offspring who died before reaching age 15.
6. Numberof those 300 who lived to reach age 15.
7. Numberof those 300 who were still alive in September 1985.
8. The symbol "NO" indicates those 12 women who have children who
have not yet reached age 15.
COMMENTS:
The combined sums of columns 5 and 6 do not equal the sum of column
4 because 12 of the 48 women (those marked with "NO" in column 8) have
live children who have not yet reached the age of 15.
The important data from this table are two: One, this sample of 48
women who have completed their childbearing years indicates that Agta
women have a total fertility rate (TFR) of 6.3 live births per woman,
(300 / 48 = 6.3). Two, since 147 of the 300 offspring died before
reaching age 15, the child mortality rate (CMR) ofthe Agta, or at least
from this sample of Agta women, is 49 percent (147/ 300 = 0.490).
Since there are 15 children still under age 15 included in the 300
figure total of column 4, some of whom may die before reaching that age,
the actual child mortality rate of the Casiguran Agta may be slightly
higher than 49 percent. Table 12.1 column 6, give another figure for
this rate, 50.8 percent, which was calculated from a different sample.
527
TABLE 12.9
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
1. These are the names of all 81 women in the census who reached
age 45.
2. Census numbers from Headland and Headland 1985.
3. Number of years in 1984 sincethe births of these 81 women.
4. Number of live offspring of each woman in 1984, including both
children and adult offspring of each woman.
5. For 59 of the 81 women, the number of their offspring who
reached age 15 is known, and these 59 women had no children under that
age in 1984. The total number of offspring of each of these women who
reached age 15 is listed in column 5. The sum is 170. Some of these
170 persons were deceased by 1984, but not before they reached age 15.
The statement "(NA, some under 15)" means that some of the offspring of
the women in those rows are still under age 15. Since it is unknown
whether those children will reach age 15, the offspring of those women
are not included in the sum of column 5.
COMMENTS
The important data from this rabie are two: One, it shows that
Agta women who had completed their child bearing by 1984 had an average
of 2.81 offspring each who were alive in June of that year (228 / 81 =
2.81). And two, it shows that Agta women produce an average of 2.88
offspring each who survive to reach adulthood, age 15 (170 / 59 = 2.88).
528
TABLE 1 2 .9 NUMBER OF OFFSPRING A L IV E IN 1 9 8 4 PER WOMAN AGE 4 5+
U>
(1) (2) (4) (5)
name of census no.years no. of no. of offspring
woman no. since offspring alive or dead
woman's alive in who reached
birth 1984 age 15
1 DODENG NONE 78 0 0
2 EBET 0092 67 0 0
3 LAWDENG 2012 50 0 0
4 LIYONIDA 0323 67 0 0
5 MANTI 0335 67 0 0
6 PILISIN NONE 74 0 0
7 ROSING 0515 52 0 0
8 TALENGADEN 0559 65 0 0
9 TANENG 0151 67 0 0
10 TIKA 0050 58 0 0
11 ADILING 0512 62 0 1
12 GAHET 0134 70 1 1
13 KASTING 0265 52 1 1
14 LUDING 0465 56 1 1
15 UDAD 0241 46 1 1
16 MENSIANG 0616 69 1 2
17 ADILING 0006 60 1 3
18 INEK NONE 75 1 3
19 TIRAY 0015 70 1 3
20 PILISA NONE 65 1 5
21 ANDITA NONE 56 2 2
22 BIDING 0115 52 2 2
23 BITA 0089 61 2 2
24 ERMINYA 0192 51 2 2
25 LIMINIDA 0041 50 2 2
26 MILA 0555 53 2 2
27 NENA 0094 61 2 2
28 NINGNING 0417 57 2 2
29 PIDELA 0391 72 2 2
30 PANGKUY 0243 57 2 3
31 PETANG 0469 59 2 3
32 SAGED 0517 73 2 3
33 LODI 0098 46 3 (NA, some under 15)
34 DORANG 0153 46 3 (NA, some under 15)
35 MUNING 0351 52 3 (NA, some under 15)
36 KARNASION 0042 50 • 3 (NA, some under 15)
37 LODI 0103 51 3 (NA, some under 15)
38 LUNINGNING 0268 45 3 (NA, some under 15)
39 UPEK 0439 59 3 (NA, some under 15)
40 ISTING 0591 61 3 3
(continued)
TABLE 1 2 .9 (c o n t.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

name of census no.years no. of no. of offspring
woman no. since offspring alive or dead
woman's alive in who reached
birth 1984 age 15
41 KULUDING 0601 52 3 3
42 LUNINGNING 0455 53 3 (NA, some under 15)
43 OLIBIYA 0375 61 3 3
44 P0MP0EK 0130 53 3 3
45 ROSITA 0480 46 3 3
46 SARING 0346 48 3 3
47 SENIKA 0534 78 3 3
48 RUSING 0594 55 3 4
49 LAYDING 0305 57 3 5
50 LIYANITA 0320 67 3 5
51 PINYANG NONE 69 3 5
52 UPILA 0608 83 3 6
53 ADILING 0316 49 4 (NA, some under 15)
54 ILEN 0163 47 4 (NA, some under 15)
55 PANSING NONE 50 4 (NA, some under 15)
56 REKREK 0400 49 4 (NA, some under 15)
57 SANING 0135 52 4 (NA, some under 15)
58 AWAY 0159 65 4 4
59 ISLING 0202 53 4 4
60 KONSITA 0295 45 4 4
61 LUNING NONE 66 4 4
62 MAMING 0246 63 4 4
63 PINOSA 2063 65 4 4
64 PORMING 0561 54 4 4
65 SIDING 0565 46 4 4
66 DEBYENG 0209 47 4 (NA, some under 15)
67 INELTENGAN 0136 55 4 5
68 ISTRING 0253 69 4 6
69 SABILITA 0289 45 5 (NA, some under 15)
70 SIDING 0471 46 5 (NA, some under 15)
71 GOLBIENG 0169 55 5 (NA, some under 15)
72 MENSIANG 0257 52 5 (NA, some under 15)
73 AMPARING 0108 52 5 5
74 SULIDAD 0036 58 5 5
75 NURING 0018 48 5 (NA, some under 15)
76 ELI 0380 49 6 (NA, some under 15)
77 LIGAYA 0156 58 . 6 (NA, some under 15)
78 TIL0KEN 0179 50 6 (NA, some under 15)
79 MALENSIYAN 0337 79 6 7
80 PILISA 0360 65 6 7
81 ISTRING 0485 66 6 9
totals 228 170
530
TABLE 1 2 .1 0
1. These are Che names of Che same women lisCed in Table 12.9,
excepC chac here 10 of Chose 81 women are eliminaCed because Chose 10
have daughCers who are sCill under age 15. All living daughCers of Che
71 women in Chis Cable are age 15+.
2. ToCal number of daughCers who reached adulChood (age 15)

produced by Chese 71 women. The sum CoCal of 100 will noC increase,
because none of Chese 71 women have any daughCers under age 15.
3. Number of granddaughCers of any age alive in 1984 of Chese 71

women, produced by Che 100 daughCers in column 2. This CoCal of 75 will
increase as more female children are born Co Che 100 women in column 2.
4. Number of granddaughCers born Co Che 100 women in column 2 who

have reached age 15 by 1984, some of whom died afCer reaching ChaC age.
This CoCal of 25 will increase as more females are born Co Che 100 women
in column 2, and as more children now in column 3 reach adulChood.
5. Ages of each daughCer in 1984 who was alive in 1984.
COMMENTS
The one imporCanC piece of informaCion in Chis Cable is ChaC ic

shows ChaC AgCa women who live Co Che end of Cheir childbearing years
produce an average 1.4 daughCer each who live Co reach age 15 (100 / 71
= 1.41).
531
TABLE 12.10 NO. OF DAUGHTERS PRODUCED BY WOMEN AGE 45+
WHO LIVE TO AGE FIFTEEN
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

name, census no • no. of no. of no. of ages of
& no. yrs since daughters grand grand daughters
woman's birth who reached daughters daughters now alive
age 15 now alive age 15+
1 ADILING 0006 60 0 0 0 NONE

2 ADILING 0512 62 0 0 0 NONE
3 DODENG NONE 78 0 0 0 NONE
4 EBET 0092 67 0 0 0 NONE
5 ERMINYA 0192 51 0 0 0 NONE
6 GOLBIENG 0169 55 0 0 0 NONE
7 INEK NONE 75 0 0 0 NONE
8 KARNASION 0042 50 0 0 0 NONE
9 LAWDENG 2012 50 0 0 0 NONE
10 LIYONIDA 0323 67 0 0 0 NONE
11 LODI 0103 51 0 0 0 NONE-
12 LUNINGNIN 0455 53 0 0 0 NONE
13 MANTI 0335 67 0 0 0 NONE
14 MENSIANG 0616 69 0 0 0 NONE
15 MILA 0555 53 0 0 0 NONE
16 NENA 0094 61 0 0 0 NONE
17 PIDELA 0391 72 0 0 0 NONE
18 PILISIN NONE 74 0 0 0 NONE
19 ROSING 0515 52 0 0 0 NONE
20 TALENGADE 0559 65 0 0 0 NONE
21 TANENG 0151 67 0 0 0 NONE
22 TIKA 0050 58 0 0 0 NONE
23 TIRAY 0015 70 0 0 0 NONE
24 ADILING 0316 49 1 1 0 31,
25 GAHET 0134 70 1 2 2 55,
26 ISTING 0591 61 1 3 0 30,
27 KASTING 0265 52 1 0 0 28,
28 LUDING 0465 56 1 0 0 16,
29 MAMING 0246 63 1 2 1 38,
30 MUNING 0351 52 1 2 0 32,
31 NINGNING 0417 57 1 ?* ?* 35,
32 PANSING NONE 50 1 0 0 15,
33 PILISA 0360 65 1 1 0 24,
34 PINOSA 2063 65 1 0 0 18,
35 POMPOEK 0130 53 1 0 0 23,
36 RUSING 0594 55 1 0 0 23,
37 UDAD 0241 46 1 0 0 23,
38 UPEK 0439 59 1 1 0 24,
39 ANDITA NONE 56 2 0 0 28,24,
40 AWAY 0159 65 2 1 0 33,21,
(continued)
532
TABLE 12.10 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

name, census no no. of no. of no. of ages of
& no. yrs ;
since daughters grand grand daughters
woman's birth who reached daughters daughters now alive
age 15 now alive age 15+
41 BIDING 0115 52 2 1 0 29,25,

42 BITA 0089 61 2 0 0 24,21,
43 ILEN 0163 47 2 0 0 29,
44 INELTENGA 0136 55 2 1 0 29,20,
45 ISLING 0202 53 2 5 0 29,22,
46 ISTRING 0253 69 2 2 1 39,
47 KULUDING 0601 52 2 0 0 32,24,
48 LIMINIDA 0041 50 2 1 0 28,24,
49 LUNING NONE 66 2 2 1 41,29,
50 OLIBIYA 0375 61 2 ?* ?* 38,34,
51 PANGKUY 0243 57 2 2 0 37,32,
52 PILISA NONE 65 2 0 0 52,
53 SABILITA 0289 45 2 0 0 24,15,
54 SAGED 0517 73 2 1 0 32,
55 SANING 0135 52 2 0 0 22,19,
56 SARING 0346 48 2 2 0 25,15,
57 SENIKA 0534 78 2 7 4 52,45,
58 SIDING 0565 46 2 1 0 28,20,
59 KONSITA 0295 45 3 1 0 28,23,19,
60 LIYANITA 0320 67 3 5 4 48,24,
61 PETANG 0469 59 3 3 0 36,26,
62 PORMING 0561 54 3 3 0 27,25,
63 REKREK 0400 49 3 4 0 28,23,19,
64 ROSITA 0480 46 3 1 0 26,21,19,
65 UPILA 0608 83 3 1 1 63,
66 AMPARING 0108 52 4 ?* •>* 30,29,21,15
67 ISTRING 0485 66 4 2 2 44,30,
68 LAYDING 0305 57 4 1 0 33,19,
69 MALENSIYA 0337 79 4 6 4 52,47,44,38
70 PINYANG NONE 69 4 8 5 49,36,
71 SULIDAD 0036 58 4 2 0 31,28,24,16
totals 100 75 25
* Note that for 3 of the women (rows 31, 50, and 66) information on
their number of granddaughters and great-granddaughters is uncertain.
Those categories are marked with question marks for those women.
533
TABLE 1 2 .1 1
1. Sample list of about 75% of the names of older women (around 35-
40+ years of age) in tho 1936 census of Vanoverbergh (1937-38:140-47).
This sample is not representative. I took from the list the names of
all women of whom I was sure were mature adults— Vanoverbergh does not
give ages— and for which I had complete genealogies in my own data.
Women without offspring are probably underrepresented, since they did
not leave descendents from whom I could elicit genealogies.
2. The paragraph number in Vanoverbergh's census where each name is

listed.
3. Number of daughters of the 62 women who probably reached the age

of 15.
4. Number of daughters of the 75 women summed in column 3, or the

total number of granddaughters in the maternal line produced "so far."
(Some daughters of 4 of the 62 original women (rows 37, 49, 58, and 60)
are still of reproductive age and may produce more granddaughters in the
future. The 64 "granddaughters" summed in this column include infants
and children if still alive in 1984. Some of these may die before
reaching age 15.
5. Number of daughters of the 64 women summed in column 4, or the

total number of great-granddaughters in the maternal line produced "so
far." Many of these 34 females are still infants, or children of repro
ductive women counted in column 4.
The term "so far" (in columns 4 and 5) means that the number in
parentheses may increase because one or more of the women in the
preceding column is still of reproductive age. The numbers, then, in
parentheses are especially liable to increase. And any of the numbers
above zero in columns 4 and 5 could decrease as some of the female
infants and children included in the counts of these two columns may die
before reaching age 15.
An example of how to read the table: In the row numbered 62 of

the table is the name of a woman named Pinyang, who is listed in
paragraph no. 35 of Vanoverbergh's census, with the name of her husband
in 1936, and one daughter, unnamed. My detailed genealogies of this
woman's family show she eventually had 4 daughters (column 3) who
reached age 15. Those 4 produced 9 daughters (column 4) before they
ceased bearing (2 are deceased and the other two have reached
menopause). "So far," none of those 9 granddaughters of Pinyang have
produced a daughter which has survived, thus the zero figure in column 5
of row 62.
534
TABLE 12.11 WOMEN LISTED AS EVER-MARRIED IN VANOVERBERGH'S
CENSUS OF 1936 (showing no. of female descendants in
3 generations through the female lines)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

names of no. m no. of no. of no. of
52 older Vanover daughtrs daughtrs daughtrs
women m bergh to reach of women of women
Vanoverbergh census age 15 in col.3 in col.4
1 EPPANGE 05 0 0 0
2 VALENTINA 05 0 0 0
3 SIDEG 14 0 0 0
4 SINDINA 17 0 0 0
5 TIRAY 17 0 0 0
6 ANATOLIA 17 0 0 0
7 KIDADAYAN 17 0 0 0
8 LITTAY 17 0 0 0
9 ANTIKINA 17 0 0 0
10 TIMAY 19 0 0 0
12 DAMPILENG 22 0 0 0
13 TEPOR 32 0 0 0
14 SADOK 33 0 0 0
15 TITAY 33 0 0 0
16 TINANG 39 0 0 0
17 MARSIANA 46 0 0 0
18 ISAY 47 0 0 0
19 TALOKTOK 51 0 0 0
20 KANDIDA 52 0 0 0
21 KONSING 53 0 0 0
22 MAYENA 54 0 0 0
23 DEDEK 56 0 0 0
24 AGUSTINA 15 1 0 0
25 TOTIEK 15 1 0 0
26 ULITA 18 1 0 0
27 APALIA 21 1 0 0
28 MANENG 32 1 0 0
29 FELISA 36 1 0 0
30 PULUMENA 37 1 0 0
31 LAGAYAN 26 1 0 0
32 ALODIA 11 1 1 0
1
33 NEYENG 15 1 A 0
34 ANAKASIA 14 1 1 (1)
35 PUTUT 17 1 (1)
36 BILANGEG 32 1 1 1
37 MARIA 17 1 (1) so far (2)
38 MEME 24 1 1 4
39 MONGGEY 36 1 2 (0)
40 MANING 32 2 0 0
(continued)
535
TABLE 12.11 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

names of no. in no, of no. of no. of
62 older Vanover daughtrs daughtrs daughtrs
women in bergh to reach of women of women
Vanoverbergh census age 15 in col.3 in col.4
41 AKILINA 36 2 0 0
42 ASIONA 36 2 0 0
43 ABUNDIA 45 2 0 0
44 FELISA 59 2 0 0
45 MALINAY 17 2 1 (0) so far
46 SA6ED 55 2 1 0
47 MIYA 14 2 1 (1) so far
48 IKIT 17 2 2 0
49 ANENA 17 2 (2) so far (1) so far
50 INGGEK 17 2 2 (2) so far
51 DONGGASILAN 17 2 2 (2) so far
52 PAKENENG 17 2 2 (3) so far
53 BIYA 33 2 3 1
54 ALIMANIA 17 3 0 0
55 FRANSISKA 49 3 1 0
56 UPILA 33 3 1 (2) so far
57 MALAKANIA 48 3 1 (3) so far
58 PALADING 25 3 (7) so far (2) so far
59 PAYES 17 4 6 1
60 KANORA 44 4 (7) so far (1) so far
61 DINDAY 58 4 7 (6) so far
62 PINYANG 35 4 9 (0) so far
totals 75 (64) so far (34) so far

N= N=62 N=62 N=62
means 1.21 (1.0) so far (0.6)so far
TABLE 12.12 CAUSES OF THE 193 DEATHS IN THE POPULATION
FROM 1977 TO 1984*
(listed in order from most frequent cause to least frequent
cause, showing number and percent of deaths by each cause)
(These people are called "members of Population 2" in the text.)
cause of infants children adult males adult feml. totals

death (age 0) (age 1-14) (age 15+) (age 15+) (all ages
N=66 N=45 N=48 N=34 N=193
SICKNESS ** 98% 91% 69% 71% 84%

65/66 41/45 33/48 24/34 163/193
HOMICIDE 2% 4% 21% 3% 7%
1/66 2/45 10/48 1/34 14/193
ACCIDENT 4% 6% 3% 3%
2/45 3/48 1/34 6/193
DRUNKENNESS 2% 12% 3%
1/48 4/34 5/193
CHILDBIRTH 12% 2%
4/34 4/193
SUICIDE 2% 1%
1/48 1/193
* Data is taken from column 6 of Table 12.4. A total of 105 males

and 88 females died during the 7 year period. Causes of death are based
on interviewee responses.
** The "sickness" category includes the 22 cases in Table 12.4 where

cause of death was not known (marked in column 6 as "no information"),
since most of those were probably due to sickness, as well as the 23
infants in that table who died within the first 8 weeks of birth, and
the 99 cases in the same table whose cause of death is listed as
"sickness."
537
TABLE 12.13 COMMON CAUSES OF DEATHS IN THE FIFTY YEARS BEFORE 1977*
(1) cause (2) cohort (3)% of cohort in Pop.l (4)% of cohort in Pop.2
of death measured who died of this cause who died of this cause**
(before 1977) (after June 11, 1977)
HOMICIDE adult 12% 21% (from Table 12.12)

males 9/77 10/48
ACCIDENT all 4% 3% (from Table 12.12)

ages 11/249 6/193
DRUNKEN adults 6% 6% (from Table 12.12)

NESS 10/155 5/82
CHILDBIRTH adult 14% 12% (from Table 12.12)

females 11/78 4/34
SUICIDE all 0% 1% (from Table 12.12)

ages 1/193
DISAPPEARED adult 1% **
IN FOREST males 1/77 none recorded
UNKNOWN all 31% **

SICKNESS ages 77/249 115 recorded
TUBERCULOSIS adults 12% **

19/155 9 adults recorded
PNEUMONIA all 12% **

ages 30/249 5 cases recorded
GASTRO all 5% irk

INTESTINAL sample 13/249 none recorded
BERIBERI adult 6% **
females 5/78 1 woman recorded
LEPROSY adults 0% 5%
4/82
FLU all 2% **
ages 5/249 none recorded
TUMOR adults 2% **
4/249 none recorded
MALARIA all 1% **
ages 3/249 1 case recorded
(continued)
TABLE 12.13 (cont.)
(1) cause (2) cohort (3)% of cohort in Pop.l (4)% of cohort in Pop.2
of death measured who died of this cause who died of this cause**
(before 1977) (after June 11, 1977)
HOT/COLD all 1% irk

SYNDROME ages 2/249 none recorded
OPEN SORE infants 5% **

3/65 none recorded
VOMITING infant & 1% **

children 1/94 1 child recorded
MEASLES infant & 3% **

children 3/94 4 children recorded
EAR children 3% **
INFECTION 1/29 none recorded
MENSTRUAL adult 1% **
females 1/78 none recorded
SORCERY adults 1% **
2/155 none recorded
MOLESTED all 2% irk

BY GHOST ages 5/249 none recorded
BY FOREST all 6% **
SPIRIT ages 14/249 none recorded
ALL DEATHS all 76% 84% (from Table 12.12)

BY SICKNESS ages 188/249*** 163/193***
* Data for "Population 1" in column 3 are based on a sample of 249

Agta deaths over a 50 year period up to 1976 (65 infants, 29 children
aged 1-14, 77 adult males, and 78 adult females). These data were
gathered by the author in 1976 using a formal schedule, where 49
Casiguran Agta interviewees were asked the causes of deaths of the
deceased members of their immediate family (father, mother, siblings,
and children).
** "Population 2" data in column 4 refer to the 193 Agta who died in
1977-84, all 193 of whom are listed in Table 12.4. Cells in column 4
marked with a double asterisk give only the number of persons in
"Population 2" KNOWN to have died of the cause in the left hand cell of
that row. There may have been others of those 193 who died of that
cause, but whose deaths were recorded by the author only as "sickness,"
or "no information."
*** "Sicknesses" in the bottom row include molestation by ghosts or
forest spirits, but exclude drunkenness and childbirth complications.
539
TABLE 1 2 .1 4 AGTA HOMICIDE V IC T IM S * * *
/-" N
r—t
(2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
victim's sex killr alleged sex year no. of weapon drunk pre acci
name & was killer's Agta used medi dent
age Agta name killed tated
(Agta killed by other Agta)

1 DINANO M-ad yes AGNANAY M 1930 1 BOLO ? ? no
2 MAKEN'ENG F-17 yes raiders M 1938 20+ ? NEIT PRE no
3 MINDOSA M-ad yes raiders M 1947 9 ? NEIT PRE no
4 SANDOBAL M-16 yes raiders M 1947 9 ARROW NEIT PRE no
5 USTINA F-ad yes raiders M 1947 9 ? NEIT PRE no
6 UGAY F-ad yes raiders M 1947 9 9 NEIT PRE no
7 child M-ch yes raiders M 1947 9 9 NEIT PRE no
8 DEWENG M-ad yes GIMPEDEN M 194? 1 ARROW 9 PRE no
9 MANWEL M-ad yes LOPES M 1950 1 GUN ? ? no
10 MOLINA M-ad yes raiders M 1950 1 ARROW NEIT PRE no
11 SUMALIAT M-18 yes AYO M 1955 1 BOLO ? ? 9
12 HUWANING M-40 yes BENDING M 1960 1 BOLO ? 9 no

13 B0NT0Y M-30 yes BESTIAN M 1966 1 GUN NEIT PRE no
14 BENDING M-30 yes anon.** M 1970 1 BOLO BOTH SPO no
15 KARMELITA F-20 yes GITAD 208 M 1970 1 GUN ? ? no
16 KOLOT F-ad yes EDI M 1970 4 HANDS NEIT PRE no
17 child M-ch yes EDI M 1970 4 CLUB NEIT PRE no
18 child M-ch yes EDI M 1970 4 CLUB NEIT PRE no
19 infant F-00 yes EDI M 1970 4 CLUB NEIT PRE no
20 BULITUG M-55 yes anon.** M 1974 1 ARROW ? PRE no
21 BALONSE M-47 yes anon.** M 1976 1 GUN NEIT SPO yes
22 SISAR M t 32 yes anon.** M 1976 1 CLUB BOTH SPO no
23*ALE 12 M-30 yes BESTIAN M 1977 1 GUN NEIT PRE no
24*SALAYA 518 M-54 yes anon.** M 1977 1 GUN KILL ??? no
25*INFANT 1004M-00 yes anon.** F 1979 1 NONE NEIT SPO yes
26 EDI M-ad yes anon.** M 197? 1 GUN ? PRE no
27*DARBIN 118 M-29 yes anon.** M 1980 1 CLUB BOTH SPO no
28*N0LER 514 M-17 yes anon.** M 1980 1 CLUB BOTH SPO no
29*MONEG 212 F-17 yes anon.** F 1982 1 BOLO NEIT PRE no
30*ARIS 1095 M-01 yes anon.** M 1983 1 FIST KILL SPO yes
31 BESTIAN M-41 yes anon.** M 1983 1 GUN NEIT PRE no
32 ITUG M-ad yes anon.** M 1983 1 GUN NEIT PRE no
33*TAHAT 137 M-31 yes anon.** M 1983 1 BOLO BOTH SPO no
34 ANSETA M-47 yes anon.** M 1984 1 CLUB BOTH SPO no
35*EDYOR 185 M-35 yes anon.** M 1984 1 BOLO BOTH SPO no
36 PANGEL M-30 yes anon.** M 1984 1 ARROW BOTH SPO no
37 WATIK M-26 yes anon.** M 1984 1 ARROW ? ? no
(Agfa killed by lowlanders)
38 DIALEP M-ad no soldiers M 1933 3 GUN ? PRE no
(continued)
TABLE 12.14 (cont.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
victim's sex killr alleged sex year no. of weapon drunk pre- acci
name & was killer's Agta used medi dent
age Agta name killed tated
39 KOLIDEY M-ad no soldiers M 1933 3 GUN NEIT PRE no

40 TANGKAD M-ad no soldiers M 1933 3 GUN NEIT PRE no
41 DITENG F-19 no lowlander M 1945 2 GUN NEIT PRE no
42 DUMILIA F-16 no lowlander M 1945 2 GUN NEIT PRE no
43 HOKEM M-ch no lowlander M 1946 25+ GUN NEIT PRE no
44 MERI F-ch no lowlander M 1946 25+ GUN NEIT PRE no
45 PINEDA M-ad no lowlander M 1960 1 ? 9 9 9
46 LUSING M-17 no lowlander M 1970 1 BOLO 9 9 no
47 AKAL M-19 no soldiers M 1974 1 GUN NEIT PRE no
48*MANUSI 354 M-56 no lowlander M 1978 1 ? 9 9 no
49*MERLI 416 F-04 no soldiers M 1979 GUN NEIT PRE no
50*IPOY 245 M-63 no lowlander M 1980 1 STONE BOTH SPO no
51*LAKAY 281 M-38 no lowlander M 1980 1 CLUB 9 9 no
52 PAITU M-42 no lowlander M 1984 1 GUN NEIT PRE no
53*POKES 16 M-27 no lowlander M 1984 1 BOLO BOTH 9 no
(Data from Headland and Headland 1985 and Headland field notes.)
* The 14 members of the de jure population who died of homicide

between 1977 and 1984 are marked with a single asterisk before their
names. The census numbers of these follow their names.
** The names of the alleged killers who are still alive are not
listed in column 4, but are marked with "anon.**" (anonymous).
***EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS:
Column 2: Sex and ages of victims. In cases where age is unknown, age
is marked with "ch," for child, or "ad," for adult.
Column 7: No. of Agta killed in the incident.
Column 9: Indicates whether the drinking of alcohol was associated with

the homicide. NEIT indicates neither victim nor killer was drunk at the
time of the incident; BOTH means both were drunk; KILL means the killer
was drunk, but not the victim; question mark means no information.
Column 10: Indicates whether the homicide was premeditated (PRE), or

spontaneous (SPO).
Column 11: Indicates whether homicide was accidental (i.e.,

manslaughter, marked with "yes"), or on purpose ("no").
(Other columns are self-explanatory.)
541
TABLE 12.15 COMPARISONS OF HOMICIDE RATES FOR SEVERAL POPULATIONS
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

population location homicide % of adult male source of
rate deaths by homic. data
U.S. general USA 10.3 USBC 1985:74

(1981)
"large cities" USA 18.3 Vital Stat. 1975
Detroit, Mich, USA 49.3 USBC 1985:168
(1981)
Philippines Phil. 10.9 BCS 1972:104
!Kung Botswana 29.3 Lee 1979:398
Qolla Peru 55.0 Bolton 1984:3
Sebei E. Africa 11.6 Bolton 1984:2
Jivaro Ecuador 21.8 Ross 1976:129
Campa Peru 7.2 Bodley 1970:117
Agta Casiguran 326.0 21% (See Table 12.13)
white men USA 0.53% TIME Sep 16/85:24
black men USA 3.45% TIME Sep 16/85:24
black males USA 64.8 USBC 1985:78
Navajo (1960s) USA 4.9 Levy et al. 1969
Yanomamo Amazon 24% Chagnon 1977:20
Dani W. Irian 29% Heider 1972, cited
in Harris 1983:135
Waorani Ecuador 64%* Larrick et al. 1979
*Waorani figure includes all males, not just adult males.
542
TABLE 1 2 .1 6
Column 4 displays Che mean weight/height ratios of males and

females for those groups for which data is available. The formula for
calculating these is 100 X weight / height. This ratio formula is the
standard used for cross-cultural comparison.
My wife and I weighed a sample of 76 adult males and 68 adult

females. We measured the heights of 57 adult males and 58 females.
"Adult" here refers to people aged 18+. Pregnant women were not
weighed, nor were the ill. We used two spring bathroom scales for
weighing.
All Agta were measured by having them stand on a spot in our house
where two footprints were painted on our floor, with their backs against
a wall on which we had made measurement marks using a steel ruler. The
computed mean weights of both men and women were reduced in Table 12.16
by 0.6 kg. This was our estimation, based on our weighing of some of
their clothes, of the average weight of the clothing worn by both sexes
when we weighed them. Thus the 1983-84 Casiguran Agta weights here are
presented as nude equivalents.
SOURCES OF DATA:
1. Headland field notes; 2. Wastl 1957; 3. Goodman et al. 1985, and
field notes of Bion Griffin; 4. Mika Hanna 1975 field notes; 5. Omoto
et al. 1978:190; 6. Rahmann and Maceda 1955:819; 7. James Eder
personal communication; 8. Schebesta 1952:326; 9. Newton 1920; 10.
Lee 1979:285; 11 and 12. Tanaka 1980:15; 13. Harrison et al. 1977:192;
14. Larrick et al. 1979:152; 15. Matawaran and Gervasio 1971; 16.
Claudio et al. 1976:192, 280; 17. IRRI 1979:68; 18. Conklin 1957:10;
Conklin notes, cited in Estel 1950:55-56; Rappaport 1968:16-17; 20.
Polunin 1953:85; 21. Diem 1962:623-24, cited in Truswell and Hansen
1976:173. (US measurements were of people wearing indoor clothes and
shoes.)
543
TABLE 12.16 A COMPARISON OF AGTA HEIGHTS AND WEIGHTS
WITH THOSE OF OTHER POPULATIONS
(1) (2) (3) (4)

population mean heights mean weights mean ratios
male female male female male female

cm cm kg kg
1. Cas. Agta* 153 144 45 38 29.4 26.4

(1983-84)
2. Cas. Agta 153 145 41 34 26.8 23.4
(1936)
3. Cag. Agta 151 141 43 37 28.5 26.2
(1982)
4. Pal. Agta 152 43 28.3
(1975)
5. Neg. of 151 142
Pampanga
6. Neg. of 154 137
Negros Is.
7. Batak Neg. 153 143 47 41 30.7 28.7
of Palawan
8. Phil. Neg. 149 138
general
9. Phil. Neg. 147 138
general
10. !Kung 160 150 49 41 30.6 27.3
Bushmen
11. G/wi 159 150 55 50 34.6 33.3
Bushmen
12. G//ana 164 152 54 51 32.9 33.6
Bushmen
13. Mbuti 144 137
(Zaire)
14. Waorani 157 147 60 50 38.2 34.0
(Ecuador)
15. National 163 152 53 46 32.5 30.3
Philippine
16. 165 151 56 49 33.9 32.5
17. 56 48
18. Hanunoo 153 146 48 31.4

(Philip.)
19 Tsembaga 148 138 47 38 31.8 27.5
(N. Guinea)
20. Malay Neg. 154 144
(Malaysia)
21. U.S.A. 39.4 36.2
* Casiguran Agta weights for 1983-84 are in nude equivalents.
544
TABLE 13.1 LIST OF HUNTER-GATHERER SOCIETIES WITH MOST OF THE SIX
CHARACTERISTICS OF "COMMERCIAL HUNTER-GATHERERS" *
name of group country/region sources
AFRICA
Okiek/Dorobo Kenya Chang 1982, Blackburn 1982
Boni Kenya Harvey 1978
Bambote Zaire Terashima 1980
Mbuti pygmies Zaire Hart 1978; Turnbull 1965
Ichikawa 1978; Tanno 1981
Aka pygmies W. Africa Bahuchet & Guillaume 1982
Bushmen (gener.) Botswana Guenther 1977; Silberbauer 1966
Bushmen. River Botswana Cashdan 1979
Bushmen, !Kung Kalahari Gordon 1984; Denbow 1984; Lee 1979
Schrire 1980,1984; Howell 1979:12-16
Bushmen, "Basarwa" Kalahari Vierich 1982
INDIA
Paliyan India Gardner 1982
Hill Pandaram India Morris 1982
Birhor India Williams 1974; Sinha 1972
India in gener. India Fox 1969
NORTH & SOUTH AMERICA

Shoshoni Nevada/Utah Steward 1955:57-58,121
Maku Colombia Silverwood-Cope 1972; Milton 1984
Cuiva (Guahibo) Colombia/Ven. Morey & Morey 1973
Siriono Bolivia Isaac 1977; Stearman 1986
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Punan/Penan Borneo Hoffman 1984; Kedit 1982;
Needham 1972
Negrito, Satek W. Malaysia Evans 1968:33ff,60-61; Endicott '79
Negrito, Semang W. Malaysia Rambo 1982
Negrito, Batak Philippines Miller 1905:184; Venturillo 1907
Warren 1964; Eder 1978,1984a
Negr, Agta, Palanan Philippines Peterson 1978a, 1978b
Negr, Agta, S.Mar. Philippines Rai 1982
Negr, Agta, E.Caga. Philippines Estioko-Griffin & Griffin 1981a;
Griffin 1981, 1984b
Negr, Agta, Casig. Philippines Headland (this volume)
Negr, Mamanua Philippines Maceda 1975a:46-48
Negr, Ata, Negros Philippines Cadelina 1980
*The 6 characteristics are: symbiotic relationships with outsiders;

sporadic desultory cultivation or pastoralism; most plant food is
cultivated rather than wild; failure of the groups to evolve into
successful agriculturalists; a history of unsuccessful government
attempts to resettle the groups onto reservations and teach them to take
up farming; and examples of the competitive exclusion principle at work.
545
APPENDIX A
D EFININ G THE POPULATION
In this thesis we follow Pianka's definition of population as "a
cluster of individuals with a high possibility of mating with each other
compared with their probability of mating with a member of some other
population"(1978:97). The Casiguran Agta population numbered 609 in
June 1984. This is a de jure count, (not a de facto count. The figure
includes all Negritos who fit the following four criteria: (1)
individuals who claim to be taga Kas iguran 'from Casiguran';
(2)individuals who have at least one parent from Casiguran;
(3)individuals who are mother tongue speakers of the Casiguran Agta
language; and (4) individuals who were alive on June 15,1984. A person
must fit all four criteria to be counted in the population.
This definition thus includes only those Agta born and raised on
the eastern watershed of the Sierra Madre range, within the Casiguran
area. (This includes the municipalities of Casiguran, Dilasag,
Dinalongan, and Dinapigui.) It excludes some 300 Agta who live on the
western watershed in Quirino Province who speak a subdialect almost
identical to that of the Casiguran Agta, but who do not identify
themselves as "from Casiguran." This definition also excludes 75
immigrant Agta who were living in the Casiguran area in June 1984 who do
not fit all of the above four criteria. I excluded as well those mixed
blood Negritos who have lived most of their lives in lowland Filipino
communities. These are people who do not speak Agta as their mother
tongue, and are, culturally, lowlanders. I have, however, included
546
547
those mixed bloods who were raised by Agta in Agta communities, who are
culturally and linguistically (if not genetically), full Agta.
Thus, we included all Negritos meeting the above four criteria,
regardless of whether or not they were living within the confines of the
Casiguran area in June 1984 (and 17 percent were living outside of the
area at that time [103/609]).
Note that the population is not, therefore, equivalent to a census
of a geographical area, because we did not include the 30,000 lowland
Filipinos who lived in the area at the time. Also, if Agta were married
to lowlander spouses, we counted those Agta, but not their spouses.
Eleven percent of the then-married adults were married to lowlanders in
1984 (28/257, 2 men and 26 women). The children of such unions were
counted as Agta only if they are or were raised as Agta, and grew up in
Agta camps. (For a discussion of the problem of who to include in a
small population in a census, see Howell 1979:17, and Carroll 1975:3-
19.)
The population is, therefore, what Carroll calls an ethnic
population (ibid.:5), and individuals can leave or enter it only
through birth or death (never by migration). It should be added that
the above definition of the population complies with the emic definition
of the people themselves. Thus, people we included were seen by our
informants as "one of us."
We were forced to make some minor deviations from this strict de
jure definition of the population. For example, there are a few
Casiguran Agta who have been gone from the area for many years, on whom
548
we have very little information. We have the names of 11 Casiguran Agta
in this category, most of whom were probably alive in 1977, and possibly
still alive in 1984. Though their names turn up in our genealogy lists,
we cannot be sure whether they are still alive, nor do we know their
marriage status or number of offspring. These 11 names are thus
catalogued in our computerized census data as 'gone,' rather than as
'alive' or 'dead.' (These 11 individuals are included in the total of
609 members in the de jure population in 1984. We must presume for now
that they are alive, even though some of them may not be.)
APPENDIX B
FORMAL DEFINITIONS OF CASIGURAN AGTA KINSHIP TERMS
SECTION 1. The following is a list of the 15 'primary' kinship

terms in the Casiguran Agta language, with their formal semantic
components in code form. The formal symbols used in Column 2 follow the
format developed by Merrifield (1980). The latter part of this appendix
lists the corresponding address (vocative) forms to these 15 terms. A
graphic display of the 15 terms is presented in Figure 2.
By primary kinship terms we refer to what Berlin (1978) calls

"primary lexemes," and Conklin (1962:122) calls "unitary simple
lexemes." that is, single word expressions which are linguistically
unanalyzable (i.e., monomorphemic and unsegmentable). Secondary kin
terms also occur in Agta (lexemes which are polymorphic or of two or
more words)— what Nida (1975:55) specifically refers to as compound
kinship terms (e.g., 'stepfather', 'third cousin' in English). These
are not listed in this appendix.
2 3 4
Agta primary formal componential analysis
kinship terms analysis
(with Eng. gloss) components listed components listed
symbolically numerically
1. ama Pm G+l Sm C Li Ae 21121

'father'
2. ina Pf G+l Sf C Li Ae 22121
'mother'
3. amay PPCm(Gm) G+l Sm C/A La Ae 21311
'uncle'
4. dada PPCf(Gf) G+l Sf C/A La Ae 22311
'aunt'
5. aka ePC(G) G+0 So C La Ae 10111
'elder sibling'
6. wadi yPC(G) G+0 So C La Ay 10112
'younger sibling'
7. pensan PPCC(G) G+0 So C La Ao 10110
'cousin'
8. anak C G-l So C Li Ay 20122
'child'
9. aneng PCC(G,-S) G-l So C/A La Ay 20312
'nephew' , 'niece'
10. apo PP(1,-S) . G+2 So C/A Li Ae 30321
CC(1,-S) G-2 So C/A Li Ay 30322
'grandparent', 'grandchild'
549
11. asawa S G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'spouse'
12. kayong SPC(G) ■ G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'sibling-in-law'
13. idas SPC(G)S G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'co-sibling-in-law'
14. manugeng SP(1) G+l So A @ Ae. 20201
C(-1)S G-l So A @ Ay 20202
'parent-in-law', 'child- flaw'
15. balai C(0/)SP(0/) G+0 So A @ Ao 10200
'co-parent-in-law'
Of the several Agta dialects, two are mutually intelligible with

Casiguran Agta. These are San Mariano Agta, and Palanan Agta. These
two dialect areas are both 90 km north of Casiguran and 25 km from each
other. The kinship terms between these three sub-dialects are the same,
with the following exceptions: asawa 'spouse' is kabanga in both of
the northern dialects, and manugeng 'parent-in-law' is katugngan in
both of the northern dialects.
Meaning of symbols in Column 2:
C = child
e = elder ego
(G) = primary meaning extends to include all other consanguines of
that generation
m- = male ego
-m = male alter
P = parent
S = spouse
(-S)= primary meaning extends to include affines of the same
corresponding position
y- = younger ego
(1) = primary meaning extends horizontally (up) and vertically,
without limit
(-1)= primary meaning extends horizontally (down) and vertically,
without limit
(0/)= primary meaning of previous symbol extends in all three
directions, horizontally (up-and down), and vertically,
without limit
Meaning of symbols in Column 3:
G+l = first ascending generation from ego

G+2 = second ascending generation from ego
551
G+0 = same generation as ego

G-l = first descending generation from ego
G-2 = second descending generation from ego
Sm = male sex
Sf = female sex
So = either sex
C = consanguine
A = affine
C/A = consanguine or affine
La = lateral kin
Li = lineal kin
Ae = age senior to ego
Ay = age junior to ego
Ao = may be older or younger than ego
@ = neither lineal nor lateral (because kin is affine)
In Column 4, each digit refers to a value of one of the following five

conceptual dimensions in order from left to right. Zero (0) in any
position indicates that the associated conceptual dimension is
irrelevant to the componential definition of the term in question.
1. Genealogical distance
1.1 Alter is of ego's generation
1.2 Alter is one generation removed from ego
1.3 Alter is more than one generation removed from ego
2. Sex of alter
2.1 Alter is male
2.2 Alter is female
3. Type of relation between ego and alter

3.1 Cons anguineal
3.2 Affinal
4. Lineality
4.1 Alter is a non-lineal kinsman
4.2 Alter is a lineal kinsman
5. Seniority
5.1 Alter is ego's senior— in age if of ego's generation,
otherwise of an ascending generation.
5.2 Alter is ego's junior— in age if of ego's generation,
otherwise of a descending generation.
552
SECTION II: List of Casiguran Agta terms of address (vocatives):
referent terms as listed corresponding terms

above in Section 1: of address
1. ameng (used by older children and adults)

mameng (used by younger children)
2. ina in£ng (used by older children and adults)
nan£ng (used by younger children)
3. amay (same)
4. dada (same)
5. aka akeng
6. wadi wadeng
7. pensan akeng (if older than ego)*
wadeng (if younger than ego)*
8. an air (none)
9. aneng (same)
10. apo boboy
11. asawa (none)
12. kayong (same) (used infrequently)
13. idas (same)
14. manugeng (none)
15. balai (same)
*Note that Agta follows Eskimo terminology in differentiating

siblings from cousins with their reference terms. But in their terms
of address for these kin they follow the Hawaiian system of equating
siblings with cousins.
APPENDIX C
FOOD TYPES EATEN AT AGTA MEALS
Between January and July 1984, my wife and I recorded the starch
food Agta ate at 558 household meals, and the main side dish food eaten
at 460 of those same meals (i.e., non-starch food, such as meat, fish,
fruit, vegetables). (See Chapter 2 for our methodology of collecting
these data.) There were a number of reasons for wanting to know what
types of food Agta were eating. I was interested in knowing what
percent of the food of these hunter-gatherers was from wild sources. I
wanted to know what percent of their starch food was rice, and how much
of this rice came from their own agricultural fields. And I
specifically wanted to know the contribution of wild game to their diet.
I was also interested in knowing the degree to which diet imbalance
might play a role in the high death rate and low life expectancy of the
Agta.
Answers to these questions would help me to test at least
indirectly the main propositions and hypotheses of this study.
Specifically, the data would speak to Hypothesis 7, which asserts that
the Agta eat almost no wild starch foods today, to Hypothesis 8, which
asserts that less than 10 percent of their food comes from their own
swiddens, to Proposition 2, which asserts that the Agta are not living
by agriculture today, and to the hypotheses of Proposition 1, which
assert that the Agta are no longer living by hunting wild game.
The reader will find these data less than ideal for answering the
above mentioned questions. Most noticeably disappointing is that we did
553
554
not actually weigh (or even see) the food people were consuming. But
onecan only do so much in the field, and I could not bring myself, even
if I had had the time, to intrude intothe privacy of these families by
asking to see and weigh all their food just before they ate it. Another
shortcoming was in our failure to ask, most of the time, the source of
procurement of theirstarch food. It was not until the data were
computerized that I realized that we failed to ask and record the source
of their starch food at 83 percent of the 558 meals. This means we have
this source recorded for only 97 meals. Finally, the data covers only 5
of the 19 months we were in the field, with very small samples for2 of
those months (see Table 4.8).
We may consider these data suggestive, then, but not conclusive,
for telling us more-or-less what the Agta diet is like. I will use
these "slices of data" (Agar's 1980 term, discussed in Chapter 2) only
to indirectly lend support to my hypotheses. Other, stronger, data are
used in this thesis for actually substantiating them.
We do learn some interesting things about the Agta from these data.
Most surprising is how little wild starch food they eat, only 2 percent
in my sample (see Table 4.6). Even more surprising is that rice is
their main food at 92 percent of their meals (Table 4.6). This high
degree of rice consumption was general for all the months (Table 4.8),
and for all 10 band areas (Table 4.9). If they only grew enough rice
in 1983 to feed themselves for 15 days (as Table 11.8 suggests), where
do they get all this rice? That question is not hard to guess, and
5 55
this thesis shows that they trade for it, using wild game, rattan, and
labor as their own exchange items.
It is even more surprising to see that these people, whose main
livelihood is said to be hunting, ate wild meat at only 5 percent of
their meals (Table 4.7). This of course lends indirect support to my
Hypothesis 2, that the changed ecology of Casiguran has precluded the
Agta's ability to make a living any longer by hunting.
A formal weighing of Agta food before it was eaten would have
shown, I believe, just how bad off nutritionally these people are.
These data will not take us that far, but they do suggest that the Agta
have some degree of nutritional lack in their diet. This is reflected
in the fact that, according to these data, they had no meat protein,
fruit, or vegetables at 22 percent of their meals (see Table 4.7). For
another 7 percent of the meals sampled they had nothing but pickled
fish sauce for their side dish. This is little more than a flavoring,
and eaten in such small amounts that it provides next to no nutritional
contribution to their diet. This kind of died almost surely plays a
significant role in their high death rate and low life expectancy.
Of the small sample of 97 meals for which I recorded their source
of the starch food, such food came from their own swiddens for 16 of
those meals. It would be a mistake to assume from this that 20 percent
of their starch foods comes from their own fields. Thirteen of these
meals were for January, right after the rice harvest, and the other 3
meals were from the same family in July, when they were harvesting
their cassava. Also, the food was rice at only six of the meals (all
556
in January), the other ten meals being sweet potatoes, cassava, and
plantains. My estimate is that less than 4 percent of their starch
food comes from their own fields, and of rice, only about 2 percent. A
much larger sample of meals, collected throughout a calendar year, would
show that, I believe. I have no empirical support for the 4 percent
figure, but Table 11.8 lends support to the 2 percent figure for rice.
APPENDIX D
OUTLINE OF CODE CATEGORIES 07 AGTA ECONOMIC DATA
of 3,283 PWDs (person—work-days)
During the 1983-84 period of field data collecting, 3,283 "person-

work-days" (PWDs) were collected on 331 adult Agta. At the time the
data were collected each PWD was recorded in longhand in a notebook and
later (usually the next day) transferred to index cards. In late 1984
the cards were coded for transfer to computer. Each card was coded with
twelve categories, indicating the individual's name, census number, age,
sex, civil status, whether he cultivated a field in 1983, and (on the
day of data collection) the weather, person's location, date, day of
week, person's activity, and person's payment for work (when
applicable). The data from each of the 3,283 cards were then
computerized using a program called dBASE II. Many of the analyses and
interpretations in the present thesis are based on these data.
A total of 159 different PWD activities were recorded during the

period of field work. This appendix lists below each of those
activities, with the computer code number of each, followed in
parentheses by the number of PWDs recorded for each. Note that there
are actually a total of 182 sub-categories of activities in the list,
but for 23 of these no PWDs were collected (182 - 23 = 159). These
activities are clumped below into several general categories, written in
capital letters, and then into 11 major categories, also written in caps
and coded with rounded numbers as follows:
E100+ = NO WORK 1163 PWDs

E200+ = HUNTING 111 PWDs
E280+ = FISHING 164 PWDs
E300+ = OWN AGRICULTURE 196 PWDs
E400+ = WORK FOR LOWLANDER (RATTAN WORK) 832 PWDs
E420+ = WORK FOR LOWLANDER (NON-AGRICULTURAL) 128 PWDs
E500+ = WORK FOR LOWLANDER (AGRICULTURAL) 285 PWDs
E600+ = TRAVEL 245 PWDs
E700+ = REPAIR OR MAKING OF EQUIPMENT FOR SELF 125 PWDs
E800+ = GATHERING FOREST PRODUCTS FOR SELF 21 PWDs
E900+ = OTHER 13 PWDs
TOTAL PWDs 3283 PWDs
activities are sub-categorized below into 11 major categories, each of

which are typed below in caps. Breakdowns of the 11 major categories by
sex, month, age, and band area are displayed in Tables 10.1 and 10.2.
557
558
The detailed breakdown of the categories and sub-categories is as

fo1lows:
E100 = NO WORK (total PWDs:1,163)
E101 = no work - rain (51)

E102 = no work - baby (75)
E103 = no work - just washed clothes (58)
E104 = no work - playing cards (gambling) (13)
E105 = no work - attended funeral (18)
E106 = no work - attend wedding or fiesta of lowlander (16)
E107 = no work - drunk all day (145)
E108 = no work - took care of sick family member (26)
E109 = no work - attend barrio meeting of lowlanders (7)
E110 = no work - other (24)
Elll = no work - just accompanied spouse while he worked (7)
E112 = no work - no reason given (502)
E121 = no work - sick (either acute or chronic) (154)
E122 = no work - pregnant (20)
E123 = no work - just gave birth/miscarriage (last 14 days) (13)
E124 = no work - blind (1)
E125 = no work - crippled (6)
E126 = no work - paralyzed (17)
E127 = no work - acute infection (6)
E128 no work - accident/injury (4)
E200 = HUNTING OR FISHING (total PWDs:279)
E210-E274 = HUNTING (total PWDs:111)

E210 = with bow ■
- outcome unknown (9)
E211 = with bow - no luck (10)
E212 = with bow ■
- got pig (5)
E213 = with bow ■
- got deer (0)
E214 with bow -got monkey (1)
E220 = with armalite - outcome unknown (1)

E221 = with armalite - no luck (10)
E222 = with armalite - got pig (3)
E223 = with armalite - got deer (0)
E224 = with armalite - got monkey (0)
E230 = with carbine - outcome unknown (4)
E231 = with carbine - no luck (14)
E232 = with carbine - got pig (4)
E233 = with carbine - got deer (1)
E234 = with carbine - got monkey (0)
E240 = with Ml - outcome unknown (2)
E241 = with Ml - no luck (7)
E242 = with Ml - got pig (2)
E243 = with Ml - got deer (0)
E244 = with Ml - got monkey (3)
559
E250 = with shotgun - outcomeunknown (1)

E251 = with shotgun -no luck (1)
E252 = withshotgun - got pig (0)
E253 = withshotgun - got deer (0)
E254 = withshotgun - got monkey (0)
E261 = researcher failed to record weapon - outcome unknown (7)

E262 = researcher failed to record weapon - no luck (9)
E263 = researcher failed to record weapon - luck (0)
E264 = with pellet gun - shot monkey (1)
E265 = no weapon usedexcept dogsand/or bolo (4)
E270 = PIG SNARE WORK (total PWDs:12)

E271 = set pig snares (3)
E272 = check pig snares - outcome unknown (2)
E273 = check pig snares - no luck (5)
E274 = check pigsnares - got pig (2)
E280 = FISHING (total PWDs:164)
E281 = fishing - hook and line (29)

E282 = fishing - with net (8)
E283 = fishing - with spear and goggles (64)
E284 = fishing - gather shells or snails on coral reef (15)
E285 = fishing - gather shellfish/crabs in mangrove swamp (21)
E286 = fishing - using plant poison in stream (8)
E287 = fishing - for octopus on coral reef (11)
E288 = fishing - with electric rod in stream (4)
E289 = fishing - for shrimp with hands in stream (4)
E300 = OWN AGRICULTURE (total PWDs:196)

(ie. agri. done by Agta for themselves)
E305 = helpclear swidden of lowlander ononglon basis (4)

E306 = helpclear swidden of Agta ononglon basis (10)
(onglon = to work for another in a work exchange)
E310 = SWIDDEN CULTIVATION ACTIVITY (OWN SWIDDEN) (total PWDs:50)

E311 = marking (2)
E312 = cutting brush & small trees (16)
E313 = cutting big trees (19)
E314 = burning (0)
E315 = lopping branches (6)
E316 = clearing debris (7)
E320 = SWIDDEN RICE WORK (OWN SWIDDEN) (total PWDs:40)

E321 = plant rice (4)
E322 = weed rice (10)
E323 = guard rice from birds (0)
560
E324 = harvest rice (21).

E325 = thresh rice (5) -
E330 = SWIDDEN ROOT CROP WORK (OWN SWIDDEN) (total PWDs:42)

E331 = weed up rice straw (2)
E332 = plant sweet potato cuttings (7)
E333 = plant cassava (2)
E334 = plant sweet potato & cassava (0)
E335 = plow 1982 swidden for planting crops (1)
E336 = harvest sweet potatoes (6)
E337 = reslash 1981 swidden for planting crops (1)
E338 = harvest other crops (2)
E339 = weed root crop garden (9)
E340 = planting other crops in own swidden (0)
E341 = plant banana suckers (1)
E342 = plant coconuts (1)
E343 = plant various crops (5)
E344 = plant corn (1)
E345 = plant own crops in swidden of lowlander (4)
E350 = COPRA WORK (OWN) (total PWDs:4)

E351 = harvest coconuts (1)
E352 = make copra (3)
E353 = cut brush in own coconut grove (0)
E360 = RICE PADDY WORK (OWN PADDY) (total PWDs:23)

E361 = dig out tree stumps (3)
E362 = repair dykes (1)
E363 = irrigation canal work (3)
E364 = plow and/or harrow (3)
E365 = uproot and tie seedlings into bundles (2)
E366 = plant paddy rice (1)
E367 = other (guard from birds, spray poison) (2)
E368 = harvest rice (5)
E369 = thresh/winnow/store rice (3)
E370 = AGRICULTURAL WORK FOR OTHER AGTA (for pay) (total PWDs:23)
(or for share of harvest)
E371 = cutting brush in swidden (1)
E372 = plant swidden rice (1)
E373 = weed swidden rice (0)
E374 = harvest and/or thresh swidden rice (17)
E375 = plow or harrow rice paddy (0)
E376 = plant rice in paddy (0)
E377 = harvest or thresh rice in paddy (1)
E378 = uproot seedlings & tie in bundles (3)
E400 = WORK FOR LOWLANDER (NON-AGRICULTURAL WORK) (total PWDs:960)
561
E410 = RATTAN WORK (total PWDs:832)

E411 = gather rattan (726)
E412 = carry rattan to buyer (68)
E413 = cut and tie rattan intobundles (17)
E414 = shave rattan sticks (19)
E415 = help load rattan ontoboat (2)
E420 = GATHER FOREST PRODUCTS FOR LOWLANDER (total PWDs:61)

(other than rattan)
E421 = gather Raphidophora vine (50)
E422 = gather Imperata 'cogon' grass (1 )
E423 = gather poles for house building (0 )
E424 = cut houseposts (2 )
E425 = gather nipa leaves (0 )
E426 = gather anahaw leaves (4)
E427 = cut bamboo (4)
E430 = MAKE MAT FOR LOWLANDER (total PWDs:16)

E431 = gather leaves for mat (2 )
E432 = strip/boil/dry leaves for mat (5)
E433 = weave mat (9)
E440 = OTHER WORK FOR LOWLANDER (total PWDs:51)

E441 = guide/companion in travel (5)
E442 = cargador (1)
E443 = wash clothes for lowlander (4)
£ 4 4 4 = domestic help (2 )
(excluding permanent live-in maid/servant)
E445 = repair equipment (4)
E446 = housebuilding or house repair of lowlander house (12)
E447 = weave nipa shingles (for lowlander) (3)
E448 = cut grass around house (10)
E449 = run errand (3)
E450 = guard house for lowlander (4)
E451 = gather or cut firewood or make charcoal (3)
E500 = WORK FOR LOWLANDER (AGRICULTURAL) (total PWDs:285)
E510 = SWIDDEN WORK FOR LOWLANDER (total PWDs:75)

(excluding onglon share work which is no. E305)
E511 = megsikaw - cut brush & small trees (17)

E512 = megpukan - cut big trees- (6)
E513 = megekwat - clearing debris after burning (12)
E515 = thresh rice (0)
E516 = harvest and thresh rice (0)
E517 = weed straw after rice harvest (2)
E518 = plant other crops (11)
E519 = harvest root crops (3)
562
E520 = plant coconuts (0)

E521 = burn swidden (2)
E522 = meghasik - plant rice (5)
E523 = weed garden (not rice) (13)
E524 = harvest peanuts (1)
E550 = RICE PADDY WORK FOR LOWLANDER (total PWDs:84)

E551 = plow and/or harrow rice paddy - (29)
E552 = uproot & tie seedlings into bundles (11)
E553 = plant rice (13)
E555 = thresh rice (14)
E556 = harvest and thresh rice (0)
E580 = COPRA WORK FOR LOWLANDER (total PWDs:124)

E581 = cut down brush in coconut grove (70)
E582 = harvest coconuts (14)
E583 = husk coconuts (10)
E584 = make copra (22)
E585 = help get copra to market (8)
E590 = OTHER (total PWDs:2)

E591 = reclear 1982 swidden for planting (1)
E592 = plow upland field for planting peanuts (1)
E600= TRAVEL (but excluding no. E441) (total PWDs:245)
E610 = hike (195)

E620 = canoe (8)
E630 = motor boat (35)
E640 = wheeled motor vehicle (jeep, truck, motor tricycle) (7)
E700 = REPAIR OR MAKING OF EQUIPMENT, TOOLS, UTINSILS (for self)

(total PWDs:125)
E720 = making arrows (8)
E721 = making bow (1)
E730 = housebuilding (own house) (81)
E740 = making mat for self (stripping, boiling, weaving) (33)
E750 = other (2)
E800 = GATHERING FOREST PRODUCTS (for self, not for lowlander)

(total PWDs:21)
E801 = collect honey (1)
E802 = harvest wild yams (14)
E803 = harvest starch from caryota palm (2)
E804 = gather fruit from wild inapo tree (3)
E805 = gather bigo reeds for arrow shafts (1)
E900 = OTHER (13)
APPENDIX E
AN OUTLINE DESCRIPTION OF THE 48 FIELDS
CULTIVATED BY CASIGURAN ACTA IN 1983
In 1983 the Casiguran Agta made 43 new swiddens and grew rice in 5
wet rice fields. (This excludes Agta who did agricultural labor in
fields for lowlanders for wages or as employed sharecroppers.) In
Chapter 11 I presented a detailed analysis on these 48 fields. In this
appendix I present to the reader who wants to know the details, the data
I collected on each field, and some items of information concerning
particular circumstances on those fields. These bits of information
concern, for each field, the crops planted, rice yields, involvement of
lowlanders, percent of field never cropped, cultigens planted after the
rice harvest, biotope where field was made, and various other items of
information. Much of these data are displayed in the tables presented
with Chapter 11. Other information, which is not easily displayable in
table form, is mentioned below for each of the 48 fields. The reader
should refer to the 48 field maps as he reads the following paragraphs
on each field.
Unless stated otherwise, the quantitative figures given throughout
this appendix are based on my own measurements, or counts, done with the
assistance of the field owners and/or my Agta research assistants.
Cultigens planted in these fields by lowlanders are listed in the
following paragraphs, but are not included in the counts in the tables,
since they were not planted by Agta.
563
564
SWIDDEN NO. 1
It is questionable whether this should be counted as an Agta

swidden. Itwas cleared andburned in 1983 by a lowlander, Lasko, who
is married to an Agta woman. This woman's 26 year old married son,
Tersigg, who did not help in the clearing of the swidden, was alloted a
747 m section of the swidden to plant rice. Tersing planted his rice,
getting his seed from his lowlander stepfather, and eventually
harvested this rice for his own household.
2
After the rice harvest, thirty percent of this swidden (220 m )
was weeded of rice straw in late 1983 by the lowlander owner, for
replanting of root crops. Upon my last on-site visit to this swidden,
on January 31, 1984, it had been replanted with 64 cassava cuttings, 6
taro, 4 string bean hills, and 1 cutting of sugar cane. The planting of
these secondary crops, however, was done by the lowlander owner, not by
the Agta Tersing. (For other details on this swidden, and on all the
fields outlined below, refer to Tables 11.1 through 11.11.)
SWIDDENS NOS. 2, 3, AND 4
These 3 contiguous root crop swiddens were actually part of a

larger, rice swidden of a lowlander named Bong Apuradu. The 3 Agta
"owners" of these 3 small swiddens did not help clear the larger
swidden in which their sweet potato plots are included, nor their own
plots. The lowlander also supervised the 3 Agta families in planting
their root crops here, while he himself planted at the same time
throughout the 3 plots about 50 coconut seedlings. He did not pay the
Agta to plant, but they were allowed to harvest and keep all the root
crops they planted. Swidden 2 was planted in sweet potatoes; Swidden 3
in sweet potatoes and many cassava; and Swidden 4 in sweet potatoes,
many cassava, and about 15 eggplant.
SWIDDEN NO. 5
The Agta owner and I counted the following cultigens in this

swidden on August 5, 1983: Rice, 25-30 cassava, 3 string bean vines, 3
coconut seedlings, 2 squash, 1 sugar cane cutting, 7 stalks of corn
(harvested a month later), and 10 sweet potato hills. Subsequent
visits in 1984 showed no new cultigens planted after the rice harvest.
565
SWIDDEN NO. 6_
This is one of the 2 swiddens made by Nadoy's work group. This

swidden was actually made by a lowlander who is living with Nadoy's camp
group, who recently married Nadoy's widowed daughter. No other crops
were planted here before the rice harvest. After the rice harvest the
swidden was well planted in cassava, with 9 coconut seedlings, 9 banana
suckers, and 2 calamansi seedlings.
SWIDDEN NO. 1_
Nadoy's own swidden was planted first in rice, several banana

suckers, several coconut seedlings, and several sugar cane cuttings. On
December 7, after the rice harvest, I counted many new sweet potato
cuttings, 37 cassava cuttings, 18 sugar cane cuttings, 22 banana
suckers, and 8 sampernando taro cuttings. On a January 13 visit I
found planted 31 more sampernando taro, many eggplant, a patch of
onions, and a patch of garlic. Also, on December 19 Nadoy planted 9
coconut seedlings in his previous-year's 1982 swidden.
SWIDDEN NO. 8^
The following were growing here in September: rice, 14 banana

suckers, 15 coconut seedlings, several cassava cuttings, several
sampernando taro cuttings, and several sugar cane (not counted because
of the thick rice in which these were intercropped). The following were
planted after the rice harvest, in December and January '84: many sweet
potatoes, many cassava, several more banana suckers, several more
coconuts, several taro, 2 jackfruit seedlings, 1 coffee seedling, 2
balsam apple plants, several string beans, 4 eggplant, a small patch of
onions, 5 sugar cane cuttings, 10 okra, 1 pineapple, a few marigold
flowers, and 3 lemon grass plants.
SWIDDEN NO. 9^
Up to the time of the rice harvest, this field was planted only in
rice and 3 sugar cane cuttings. After the rice harvest the field was
planted in sweet potatoes, many cassava, 21 banana suckers, 8
sampernando taro, 20+ sugar cane cuttings, and a small patch of onions.
SWIDDEN NO. 10
This field was first planted in rice, 12 coconut seedlings, 20

banana suckers, and 23 sugar cane cuttings. After the rice harvest it
was replanted with many sweet potatoes, many cassava, many sugar cane,
about 20 sampernando taro, 13 banana suckers, 8 more coconut seedlings,
566
2
11 more banana suckers, 13 more coconuts, and a 12 m patch of onions.
Later, in early 1984, the owners planted 17 taro, 3 jackfruit
seedlings, and 2 calamansi seedlings.
SWIDDEN NO. 11
Before rice harvest season, this swidden was planted with rice, 4
eggplant, 10 okra, 11 stalks of corn, 7 papaya seedlings, 2 sweet
potato hills, and 14 cassava cuttings. (The lowlander owner of the land
also planted 2 coconut seedlings in the swidden). After the rice
harvest, the field was planted (by the Agta) with 13 banana suckers, 6
taro, 9 more eggplant, 7 more okra, 3 string bean plants, and 2
sampernando taro. In January 26 mustard plants, 11 onion sprouts, and 3
stalks of corn were found newly planted.
SWIDDEN NO. 12
Before rice harvest, Ending and his family planted in their swidden
the following: rice, many cassava, several sweet potatoes, about 25
coconut seedlings, several sugar cane, several eggplant, 10+ taro, some
sampernando taro, 6 yams, 5 ginger, 4 papaya seedlings, 20+ banana
suckers, 2 chili plants, several string beans, 5 pineapple, 1 pomelo
seedling, 1 calamansi seedling, 1 balsam apple plant, 1 silangan plant,
one dusol plant, 6 tobacco, a few mustard, 2 derris poison plants, 2
lemon grass, 4 okra, and a few zacate grass plants. After rice harvest,
they planted 4 sampernando taro, and 1 coconut seedling and, in early
April, 2 more samgernando targ. They also cleared 2 small patches of
rice straw (72 m , and 345 m ) in December, but never planted anything
in them.
SWIDDEN NO. 13
This swidden was actually cleared by Nolbing, but for some reason
he abandoned it after the burning. The swidden was then considered as
Ending's, who planted it in rice. No other cultigens were planted in
this swidden in 1983 up to May 1984.
SWIDDEN NO. 14
This swidden was first planted in rice, 6 banana suckers, and

about 5 coconut seedlings. After the rice harvest it was planted with
8 taro, 4 sampernando taro, 46 mung beans, 1 tobacco, 2 mustard, 2
tomato plants, and 12 cassava cuttings. These latter were all together
in a patch cleared of rice straw of 208 m .
567
SWIDDEN NO. 15_
The following were planted here before rice harvest season: rice,
many cassava, several banana suckers, 10 coconut seedlings, 4
sampernando taro, a few string beans, and several mung beans. No
cultigens were planted here after rice harvest, or in early 1984.
SWIDDEN NO. 16_
This was the only swidden which was cleared, and then planted
without first being burned. It was planted with mostly sweet potato,
many cassava, 3 stalks of corn, 1 avocado seedling, and 1 papaya
seedling.
SWIDDEN NO. 17_
This swidden was planted in rice, 2 coconut seedlings, 2 banana

suckers, and 2 cuttings of sugar cane. No more cultigens were added
after the rice harvest. This was the only field I was able to moniter
and observe closely throughout the 19 month period, including the total
energy input/output. It was also the only field where I measured (by
volume and weight) the complete rice crop. A total of 26 work-man-days
were put into this swidden, and the resultant output was 55 kg of rough
rice (weight after drying), enough to feed a man for only 20 days! This
was not even enough to break even on the labor input. Thebreakdown on
the 26 work man days were as follows: 1 day marking the area to clear
(December '82); 6 days cutting big trees (April); 1 day lopping branches
from fallen trees(April); 1 day burning (June 2); 3 days cleaning after
burning (June); 3 days planting rice (June); 1day weeding (August 10);
3 days harvesting rice (late October); 1 day threshing, cleaning and
drying the rice (November). 2
Included in the initial cutting of this swidden was a 217 m area
on the uphill ENE corner of the field (indicated by broken lines on the
map); but this area was not completely slashed, and it was not included
in the burning, and no crops were planted in it. Also, this man begin
clearing a new swidden on the north edge of this swidden in the second
quarter of 1984. He cut all the brush and small trees, but then never
finished the swidden. The large trees were never cut, and the field
was not burned or cropped. He also did not make a swidden in 1985.
Other data on this swidden is presented in the tables.
SWIDDEN NO. 18
The following were planted here before rice harvest: rice, 32

cassava, 7 banana suckers, 7 pineapple, 2 taro, 2 coconut seedlings, 1
breadfruit seedling, and 7 sugar cane cuttings. The only cultigens
5 68
planted after the rice harvest were 2 more coconuts, and 6 sampernando
taro.
SWIDDEN NO. 19
Planted here before rice harvest were rice, 23 cassava, 30+ string
beans, and one coconut seedling. After rice harvest the following were
observed newly planted: 10 sugar cane cuttings, 9 ginger hills, 3 more
coconut seedlings, and one screw pine cutting.
SWIDDEN NO. 20
Planted here before rice harvest were rice, 21 cassava, 13 sugar

cane, 4 taro, 2 sweet potato cuttings, and one banana sucker. After
harves£ the following were observed: 3 sweet potato cuttings in a patch
3.9 2 ® in size, and 3 sampernando cuttings in another cleared patch of
16 m . This man also planted in December '83 or January £*84 in his
previous year's swidden, in a freshly weeded plot of 90 m , 42 cassava
cuttings and 4 sugar cane cuttings. This family was involved in a
conflict throughout 1983 with a lowlander who was trying to takeover
this land, including the land of Swidden No. 19.
SWIDDEN NO. 21
Rice was the only cultigen planted here up to harvest tim^. After
the harvest, 8 cassava were planted in a weeded plot of 27 m~, and 12
cassava in another plot of 31 m . The owner of this swidden, Erning,
is the leader of an extended family group which, together, made
Swiddens numbered 21 through 25, and W|t Rice Field No. 1. Erning
also planted, in January 1983, a 66 m plot of peanuts in his previous
year's swidden.
SWIDDEN NO. 22
Rice was the only cultigen planted in this swidden.
SWIDDEN NO. 23
2
Besides rice, the only other cultigen planted here was a 75 m plot
of sugar cane.
569
SWIDDEN NO. 24
Only rice was planted here.
SWIDDEN NO. 25
Only a tiny portion of this small swidden was planted, and that
only in rice. The swidden "owner," an 18 year old man in frail health,
was married to the daughter of the owner of Swidden 21. They divorced
in mid 1983, and this young man moved to a distant area, abandoning his
half-done swidden.
SWIDDEN NO. 26
Before rice harvest time this swidden was planted with rice, 15
cassava, about 10 sweet potato cuttings, 2 string bean vines, 1 stalk of
corn, and one common (bottle) gourd vine. No cultigens were planted
after the rice harvest.
SWIDDEN NO. 27
Planted here before rice harvest were rice, 12 cassava, and 3

pineapple. No cultigens were planted after rice harvest.
SWIDDEN NO. 28
This root crop swidden was part of a larger swidden owned and
cleared by a lowlander named Martin Galyato. He had his Agta client and
family clear this section of his land and plant the following cultigens
for themselves: many sweet potatoes, many cassava, 3 pineapple, 4
banana suckers, and 10 sugar cane. The lowlander also planted 5 coconut
seedlings on the swidden (which are not included in the figures in the
tables).
SWIDDEN NO. 29
I did not locate this tiny root crop swidden until November 7,
1983. It was then choked with weeds, and seemed all but abandoned.
But growing in it were 104 cassava, 7 taro, 4 sampernando taro, 6
bananas, 5 coconuts, and 1 stalk of sugar cane (all planted in.1983).
The plants were all sickly because of heavy weeds. The Agta men who
guided me there said the swidden was planted in corn right after it was
burned in April or May. This was probably true, though there was no
evidence of corn (which would have been harvested about July).
570
SWIDDENS NOS. 30 AND 31
These two rice swiddens were planted by the same Agta band at
Gumanineng. The work was heavily supervised and dominated by a
lowlander named Uya Gabas. This man had separated from his legal wife in
town in early 1983, and then in August "married" a young Agta widow in
this band named Kulut. Uya lived most of the year with this Agta band
of 4 families, and they said they all shared equally in the rice
harvested from the 2 swiddens. No other cultigens were planted in
Swidden 30. Planted in Swidden 31 were 2 eggplant and 1 banana sucker.
Neither field was planted with any secondary crops after the rice
harves t.
SWIDDEN NO. 32
In March, this tiny swidden had growing in it 15 cassava cuttings,

10 taro cuttings, 2 sampernando taro cuttings, and a 6 m patch of
onions. On June 23 an Agta named Erning, the co-owner with his
father-in-law of this field, died. (It was Erning's widow who, in
August, married the lowlander owner of swiddens 30 and 31.) After the
death, the 3 houses in the field were burned, and the swidden abandoned.
In September, the field, and the cultigens, were densely choked with
weeds. I counted the following then: the same 15 cassava as in March,
8 sampernando taro, about 6 sickly sweet potato plants, 4 stalks of
corn, a few sugar cane stalks, and 2 squash plants.
SWIDDEN NO. 33
In March, 74 percent of this swidden was planted incorn, as well

as sweet potato cuttings intercropped with half of the corn, and 1 taro
cutting. The owners said later to me that the corn was successfully
harvested in June. When I next visited the field in September, the
sweet potatoes were all but dead, completely smothered in heavy weeds.
In early '84 it was impossible to walk into the swidden because of
thick brush, and no new cultigens had been planted, according to the
owners.
SWIDDEN NO. 34
This small root crop swidden- was cut in late 1982, and burned in
February 1983. In March it was newly planted with corn throughout, and
many sweet potato cuttings, about 15 taro, and 22 cassava cuttings. No
more new cultigens were observed during subsequent visits up to March
1984.
571
SWIDDEN NO. 35
This swidden was first planted in rice, with 20-30 sweet potato
cuttings, and 28 banana suckers. After the rice harvestit was planted
with several more cassava cuttings, many sweet potato cuttings, 15 more
banana suckers, about 40 stalks of corn, 2 coconut seedlings, 2
breadfruit seedlings, 5 pineapple, 1 okra, 8 sugar cane, 12 taro, 3
sampernando taro, several onions, 1 mustard plant, 6 asparagus bean
plants, 1 yam cutting, 1 balsam apple, and 2 chili plants.
SWIDDEN NO. 36
Before the rice harvest this field was planted only in rice and
about 20 banana suckers. After the rice harvest, it was planted with
many sweet potato cuttings, 1 coconut seedling, 6 more banana suckers, 3
jackfruit seedlings, 27 stalks of corn, 30 mustard greens, 1 oregano
plant, several impatiens flowers, several marigold, 4 tobacco plants, 1
avocado seedling, 1 calamansi seedling, 1 crotonplant, 2 lemon grass
plants, and a few ginger plants. One of the most salient
characteristics of this swidden was its steep slope, overall about 50
degrees.
SWIDDEN NO. 37
This swidden, and Swidden 38, were made by a 66 year old widow,
Liyanita, with the help of some of her children and grandchildren. This
woman is strong, a very hard worker, and a serious agriculturist. Her
father was a lowlander. No cultigens were planted in this field after
the rice was harvested, but before the harvest the following were
planted: rice, many cassava, several eggplant, several string beans, 4
chili plants, about 8 corn, 6 papaya, 3 yams, a few sugar cane, okra,
and mustard greens. This land is on the Panamin Reservation.
SWIDDEN NO. 38
After the rice harvest in Swidden37, the old widow owner, rather
than planting secondary crops in that swidden, cleared a new swidden
adjacent to it, in October of '83. It is unusual to cut and burn a
swidden in the rainy season, but somehow this woman succeeded, with the
help of her relatives (perhaps because it was brushland). She had a
successful burn in November. On January10, I found the following crops
growing here: corn throughout most ofthe field, many garlic, several
tobacco plants, 20 mustard greens, 11 watermelon plants, 18 squash, many
sweet potato cuttings, 23 eggplant, 2 chili, many sincamas, many string
beans, and many peanuts. In the center of the swidden was a wide clump
of old banana plants, planted 3 years before by a lowlander who claims
the land is his. This land is on the Panamin Reservation.
572
SWIDDEN NO. 39
This fallow brushland was cleared, but not burned, by an Agta

family in 1983. It was also plowed, using a borrowed carabao, the only
upland field plowed by Agta in 1983. The following cultigens were
planted in it in 1983: many sweet potato (in a 207 m plot), many
cassava, 11 taro, many peanuts, 5 banana suckers, several string beans,
2 papaya, and 8 yam cuttings. This land is on the Panamin Reservation.
SWIDDEN NO. 40
Planted here before rice harvest were rice, many cassava, about 15
sweet potato cuttings, and 1 banana sucker. After the rice harvest,
they^planted here, in January, a 77 m plot of sweet potatoes, and a
54 m plot of cassava, and 12 sampernando taro cuttings.
SWIDDEN NO. 41
Planted here before^rice harvest were rice and many cassava. After
the rice harvest a 370 m area was replanted in corn. Also planted were
12 taro and 16 more cassava. The rice straw was not weeded.
SWIDDEN NO. 42
Before rice harvest the following were planted here: rice, 4

coconut seedlings, 5 banana suckers, 7 taro, 1 sampernando taro, 11
pineapple, many okra, many sweet potatoes, a few tomatoes, and 2 loofa
gourd vines. After the rice2 harvest they planted here corn and cassava,
both intercropped on a 475 m area of the swidden, plus a small plot of
sincamas.
SWIDDEN NO. 43
Planted here before rice harvest were rice, about 30 cassava, 22

banana suckers, and about 20 coconuts. After rice harvest they planted
10 more coconut seedlings, 4 sugar cane, 3 sampernando taro, 7
pineapple, 5 cassava cuttings, and 2 more banana suckers.
WET RICE FIELD NO. 1
In January 1983 this field consisted of just 5 ponds, made by an

Agta extended family in 1981 and 1982. (This is the same group, led by
Erning, who also made the five 1983 swiddens numbered 21 through 25.)
It is naturally irrigated by a spring at the east end of the field.
These Agta extended this to 9 ponds in the first half of 1983, and then
573
planted it all in rice2 in June. The map of this field is of those 9

ponds, totaling 2375 m . They harvested this field- in October. Based
on samples I harvested from two 1 m plots, their harvest yielded 446.5
kg of rough rice, or the equivalent of 1.9 tons/ha.
It should be noted that the 2 ponds on the south side were leased
by Erning to a lowlander named Rene, who is married to an Agta woman
(the sister of Erning's son's wife). Rene was supposed to give Erning
half of his crop from these 2 ponds. Rene's portion of the field is
included in the above calculations, and in the calculations in the
tables accompanying this appendix, since he worked as a member of the
work group. Erning also useda borrowed carabao for the plowing and
harrowing of this field, for whom he was supposed to give anunspecified
percentage of the harvest.
After the 1983 rice harvest, Erning's group extended the w^st end
of this field by adding 7 more small ponds, totaling 1080 m (not
shown on the map). This tooksome 3 months of part time work after
which, in late March 1984, they replanted the now-extended field again
in rice.
The Agta family cultivating this field in 1983 were renting the
land from a ôwlander, but were not sharecroppers. This large field
(of 9,180 m ) was planted in late 1982, and harvested in the second
quarter of 1983, and then planted again in the fall of 1983. In 1984
this family did not cultivate this field, but did cultivate another
nearby field, also rented from a different lowlander. (1984 rice
harvests are not computed in the tables.)
This small field was planted by the Agta family of Melanio in late
1982, and harvested in the spring of 1983. They replanted the field
again in late 1983. This field is on the Agta Reservation at Calabgan,
supervised at the time by the Panamin Agency.
This field, also on the Calabgan Reservation (on Lots numbered 45

and 46), was planted twice in 1983 by Kekek and his son-in-law. The
first planting2 (done in April) covered only the northern half of the
field (3532 m ), and was harvested in August-September. They planted
the field agai^ in November 1983, this time covering almost all of the
field (6904 m ), i.e., all of the uncheckered area of the field shown
on the map for this field, except for the 142 m area at the very south
end. This second planting was harvested in the spring of 1984. (Only
the 1983 rice harvests are included in the tables.)
574
This was the largest of the 48 fields cultivated by Agta in 1983,

over a hectare in size (although the Agta "owner" only planted 70
percent of thefield, 9672 m ). It is also on the Agta Reservation.
A lowlander planted the southern section of the field (of 4048 m ) in
October 1982, under an arrangement where he was to give the Agta
"owner" one-third of his harvest as rent. The Agta, Hempok, planted the
rest of the field at the same time, and harvested the crop in March of
1983. After the March '83 harvest, thisfield was not replanted that
year, or up to the time of my departure from the field in mid 1984. The
reason was that the field was being claimed by a lowlander who scared
off the Agta, but then himself, because of the resulting tension, I was
told, was afraid to work the field himself.
APPENDIX F
A HISTORY OF FIELDS CLEARED IN THE ROSO RIVERSHED
IN THE 20th CENTURY
One goal of the 1983-84 research was to look for data which might
substantiate or repudiate my hypothesis that the "competitive exclusion
principle," discussed in Chapters 3 and 13, was present in the Agta
ecosystem to the degree where it blocked the Agta's ability to gain
secure hold to agricultural land (See Hypotheses 5 and 6 in Chapter 1.)
Specifically, I wanted to test my Hypothesis 5, which predicted that
though a number of Agta families clear land to make their own swiddens
each year, most of those areas of land are claimed or taken over by
lowlanders within a 3 or 4 year period. Whether by force or by
gentlemen's agreement, Agta lose, sell, or give up their cleared fields
to lowlanders, rather than retain use of them for themselves.
One way I tested these hypotheses was to survey and map a river
drainage which is the traditional home area of one of the larger Agta
band groups. The area I chose was that of the Koso band. I chose this
area because I know it best, since most of my years of residence in
Casiguran were spent living with this band on the Koso River Con the SSE
border of Area 6 in Map 5). I had watched both Agta and lowlanders
clear swiddens on this river for many years, and I had a fair
recollection of most of the plots cleared since my arrival in 1962.
Plus I had several close friends, both Agta and lowlanders, who assisted
me in locating swiddens cleared before 1962. These assistants told me
who originally cleared the swiddens, and who owned them now, if anyone.
575
576
I believe it would be next to impossible for anyone to attempt to locate
all the old swidden sites of an area, and to try to reconstruct their
histories, if he was not first very familiar with both the people, their
language, and the geography. I could not have done a reliable
reconstruction of the Koso rivershed swidden history if I had not first
lived there for many years.
My method was to survey up and down the Koso River with different
informants, which I did three times in 1983-84, and to map the locations
of every past or present agricultural field my informants could
remember. I located a total of 32 general field sites, 2 of which are
wet rice fields (II and X). These were emically recognized plots of
land, not necessarily individual swiddens. That is, several of the 32
sites were plots upon which swiddens had been made several times over
the years. It was not possible for me, or my informants, to find or
remember every single swidden made in their lifetimes.
My two main Agta assistants on these trips, then aged 60 and 51,
were both born and raised in Koso. Both they, their parents, and their
grandparents, they said, made swiddens on this river, and they pointed
out to me the spots where these swiddens had been made and remade,
sometimes in the same, adjacent, or overlapping spots. The majority of
the swiddens, however (19 out of the 32), were made by lowlanders,
usually using Agta as hired laborers. Two of the sites (IXX and XXVI)
were cleared by Agta under the orders and supervision of agents of the
Commission on National Integration (CNI). The other 11 sites were
cleared by Agta working independently of lowlanders.
577
The resultant map (Map 5) is not a perfect job. My informants were
vague (or in disagreement) about who cleared what before the 1930s.
What was apparent was that the Koso Agta were doing some independent
small scale agriculture by the end of the last century, and that with
only one exception (Field No. XXIX) they were unable or unwilling to
retain ownership on any of their cultivated lands. It was also apparent
that, both then and now, Agta worked more often for lowlanders in
swidden activities, rather than doing cultivation independently for
themselves. Often they were allowed to make their own small gardens in
a part of the larger swiddens of their lowlander friends for whom they
worked.
Most important, all but one of the 13 swiddens originally cleared
by Agta only (including the 2 cleared under the orders of the CNI) are
now owned or claimed by lowlanders. In 5 of these cases lowlanders
took the land by force (III, IV, VI, XI, and IXX). In 3 cases the Agta
owners sold the land to lowlanders (XXIII, XXIV, and XXV), and in 5
cases lowlanders "took over the land," but my informants were in
disagreement whether these latter 5 cases were by dishonest means (XVI,
XVIII, XXII, XXVI, and XXX). Sometimes a piece of Agta land lies
fallow for so long, with no old tree crops in it, that lowlanders
apparently come along and reclear it, thinking it is unclaimed. Then
later some Agta complains that the land is his.
There were only three Agta families living part-time on the Koso
river in 1983-84, none of whom cleared swiddens there in those years.
Also, no lowlanders cleared new swiddens there either during those two
578
years, though they did harvest tree crops from old swiddens. There were
several lowlander families working in downriver Koso in 1983-84, growing
mostly wet rice and peanuts, and making copra.
Another note of interest: None of the old swidden sites in Koso
have succeeded to grassland. All swiddens in this area revert to
brushland, then to secondary forest or to coconut groves.
A BRIEF HISTORICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE 32 KOSO AREAS CLEANED SINCE 1900
The following short paragraphs briefly outline the history of each
Koso field, as I and/or my informants remember them. These old Koso
fields are numbered with Roman numerals. For reference to their
locations, see Map 5.
Koso Field No I. Areas cleared by lowlanders before this

century. Now mostly nipa swamp, with some coconuts.
Koso Field No. II. Wide area of wet rice fields, most of
it cleared by lowlander Nicolas Corbadura and his brothers at
the end of the 19th century. All owned by lowlanders today.
Koso Field No. III. This area was first cleared by Agta
in the 1920s, according to my informants. The Agta men who
opened this land were Aduanan (alias Buhek), Mahew, and
Pegkeng. It totals about 4 ha,and is today planted
completely in mature coconut palms. This was a frequent and
favored settlement site of the Koso band through the 1940s.
All Koso Agta hold a long standing grudge against a certain
lowlander named Morning Guerrero, the present owner. It was
Morning's father, the late Tino Guerrero, who allegedly stole
this land outright from the Agta when the Agta were said to
have given him their land title for safekeeping during the
War. The land is now titled to the son, Morning. This case
has been to court at least twice, with the Agta losing both
times.
Koso Field No. IV. Area first cleared by an Agta named

Dangbalen, the maternal grandfather of Pidela, around 1900,
with different portions cleared sporadically for several
years following. Much of it had regrown to secondary forest
579
when it was taken over and cleared again by lowlander Paturo

Kalugtun (father of lowlander Ipoy) around 1920-30. Agta
claim this land was taken from them by Paturo without their
consent. It is now a mature coconut grove owned by the sons
of recently deceased lowlander Rolando Kalugtun.
Koso Field No. V.. Area first cleared by lowlander

Irarion (father of Li lay, widowed from Julian), before WWII,
using Agta labor. Now a mature coconut grove, owned by
lowlander widow Li lay.
Koso Field No. VI. Area first cleared by lowlander

Permin Angara and Agta Menes in the early 1950s. Menes was a
half-owner, not a hired worker. Menes and his two Agta
step-sons, Hayme and Erning, along with Agta Kekek, claimed
this land as theirs and made several swiddens on it in the
late 1950s. They had new swiddens on it when I first visited
this spot in April 1962. Then, in 1963, lowlander Julian,
owner of Field No. V, forcibly took the land, claiming it was
his. It is covered today with mature coconuts, and is owned
by the late Julian's widow, Li lay.
Koso Field No. VII. This area first cleared by lowlander

Damaso Corbadura, about 1915. Owned now by his descendants,
it consists of a mature coconut grove.
Koso Field No. VIII. This area first cleared by

lowlander Ganoy Vi liar, about 1910. Mostly mature coconuts
today, owned by lowlander.
Koso Field No. IX. This large area cleared yearly in the
years following 1910, and up to the 1950s by lowlander Paran
Garcia, using Agta labor. It is now mostly mature coconut
groves owned by lowlander sons of Paran, Guiriel and Berto
Garcia.
Koso Field No. X. This area first swiddened about 1920,

then made into a wet rice field by lowlander Dulubiko
Esteves. It was sold by Dulubiko to Paran Garcia about 1935.
It remains today a productive wet rice field now owned by
lowlander David Garcia, youngest son of the late Paran.
Koso Field No. XI. This was the center of the

traditional area of the Koso Agta band, where they were said
to have had a large Agta barrio at the turn of the century,
and where they made their yearly swiddens. This is one of
the more well known stories in Agta oral history of their
losing land to lowlanders. Sometime between 1910 and 1920 a
lowlander named Siong Cordial allegedly cheated them out of
this land by promising to pay them a carabao, which the Agta
580
say their parents never received. Lowlanders say the Agta

had abandoned the land, and it had reverted to brushland,
except for two mature coconut trees planted by Agta, when
Siong moved in and recleared it.
Koso Field No. XII. This area first cleared by lowlander

Siyc, about 1942. He still owns this land, covered now with
mature coconuts.
Koso Field No. XIII. This area first cleared by

lowlander father of Ambrosio E. Esteves, about 1942-44.
Today it is mature coconut grove, owned by Pedro Esteves.
Koso Field No. XIV. This area first cleared by a

lowlander named Valdes, in 1964-66. It is now a mature
coconut grove.
Koso Field No. XV. This area first cleared by lowlander

Haduy Salamera, in 1957, with some assistance from Agta
labor. It is today a mature coconut grove.
Koso Field No. XVI. This area first cleared by Agta in

the 1920s. After they 'abandoned' it, it was recleared by
lowlander Ambrosio Esteves, duringWWII.
Koso Field No. XVII. This area first cleared by

lowlander Benid Corbadura in 1965 with the help of Agta
labor, and especially Agta Kekek, who lived on the swidden to
guard it for Benid, his trading partner. Kekek also made his
own small corn field on one side of this swidden the same
year. It is still considered the land of Benid, but is now
reverted to secondary forest.
Koso Field No. XVIII. This area first swiddened by Agta

Aduanan (alias Buhek) at the turn of the century. It was
recleared by his son, Talimangon three times, and then
cleared by Dikmin, the son-in-law of Talimangon, in 1962.
The land was then taken over by lowlander Anye Corbadura in
1964-65, who claimed at the time that Talimangon, now long
dead, had sold the area to his, Anye's, grandmother. Anye now
owns this land, which he planted in coconut trees in the late
1960s.
Koso Field No. XIX. This land first opened by Agta just
before the turn of the century. It was cleared again by Agta
Ayogyog and his nephews, and Agta Dikmin, in 1961, under the
orders and supervision of CNI agent Tomas Casala. Soon after
Dikmin died in 1964, a lowlander named Doming Malabunga
claimed Dikmin and Ayogyog had sold the land to him (for 10
gallons of nipa wine and 100 pesos [U.S.$25], as Dikmin
581
needed the wine for the wedding of his son). I was involved
with the Agta in legal disputes over this land for 3 years.
The Agta lost, and Doming now owns this land, which he
planted in coconuts in the late 1960s.
Koso Field No. XX. This land first cleared by lowlander

Osmundo Corbadura and his sons in 1966, hiring Agta Borseg to
help clear and guard the land. It was planted in coconuts in
the late 1360s, but today is succeeded by secondary forest,
with a few sickly coconut trees.
Koso Field No. XXI. This area first cleared by Agta

Kekek in 1965. Kekek then sold it to a lowlander named
Riming, the recognized 'owner' now. The land is succeeded
today to secondary forest.
Koso Field No. XXII. This area cleared several times by

the grandparents and parents of Agta Didog and Agta Eleden,
between 1910 and 1930. It was cleared down to bare dirt by
loggers in 1964, when they had a temporary camp there. It
was then taken over by two lowlander brothers, Amor and Ante
Corbadura, in 1966. They are the present owners. The land
is now mostly secondary forest, with some coconuts.
Koso Field No. XXIII. This area first cleared by Agta

Baliwengweng in the early 1930s. It was recleared by his son
Mawas in the '40s, and then by his other son, Eleden, in
1961. Eleden sold the land to lowlander Nalding Garcia in
January 1963 for 100 pesos (U.S.$25). Agta Didog and his
family lived on this land for one year in 1967, guarding it
for Nalding, for which Nalding paid him a radio. The land is
owned today by Nalding's sons, and is covered by coconuts and
secondary forest.
Koso Field No. XXIV. This land was partly cleared by

Agta Beding and Agta Ramon in 1964. They never completed the
swidden. It was neither burned nor were any crops ever
planted except a few bamboo shoots. After these two Agta
died, Agta Gibson tricked a lowlander named Fred Turusilla
into paying him an unspecified amount of money for this land.
The land remains uncleared, but the recognized owner is
lowlander Turusilla.
Koso Field No. XXV. This area was first cleared by Agta
in the 1920s. The land was recleared by Dikmin and his son,
Gibson, in 1963, then partly cleared again by Agta Eleden in
1973. Gibson sold this land to Turusilla in 1979, at the
same time he sold him area XXIII.
582
Koso Field No. XXVI. This area cleared of primary forest

by ten Koso Agta families in 1961, and planted in corn, under
the supervision of CNI agent Tomas Casala. The land was
taken over by lowlander Nalding Garcia in 1964-65. It is now
covered with mature coconuts owned by Nalding's sons.
Koso Field No. XXVII. This area was cleared and planted
in rice, then coconuts, by lowlander Nalding Garcia in 1966,
with the help of Agta labor. This was right after it had
been partially cleared by loggers. It is today covered with
mature coconuts, and is owned by the lowlander sons of
Nalding.
Koso Field No. XXVIII. This area first cleared by

lowlander Ohenio Alkantara in 1966, using Agta laborers. It
is today mostly secondary forest, with a few coconuts.
Koso Field No. XXIX. This area first cleared by Agta

Eleden in 1968. It is mostly overgrown now with brushland
and secondary forest. It has in it now (March 1983) two
mature avocado trees, 14 coconut trees about 12-13 years old,
2 patches of bamboo, and I counted 32 coffee seedlings
planted by Eleden in lace 1982, at the time badly choked with
weeds. This is the only plot of land in the whole Koso
rivershed now 'owned' by an Agta, though he has no ownership
paper nor tax receipts to the land.
Koso Field No. XXX. This land was first cleared by Agta
Tigo, uncle of Didog, during WWII. It had succeeded to
secondary forest when it was taken over and cleared by
lowlander Hatoy in the late 1950s, and increasingly enlarged
by him each year during the 1960s, using hired Agta laborers
to clear and guard the crops. Most of the area is covered
today with mature coconut trees, except for secondary forest
on the upper hillside. The owner is still Hatoy.
Koso Field No. XXXI. This land was first cleared by

lowlander Agundino Torre about 1956, using Agta labor. It is
still owned by him, and is covered with mature coconuts and
secondary forest.
Koso Field No. XXXII. A Bikol lowlander man named Isung,

and his teenage son, began clearing this area of primary
forest in 1965. They continued this full time swidden
activity there for 4 years. In 1966 Isung married an old Agta
widow named Saged. This swiddened area covered about 4 ha.
It is today still 'owned' by Isung, and succeeding to
secondary forest, along with some mature tree crops. This was
the only lowlander, of all those who made swiddens in Koso
during my time, who was a full time 'integral' swidden
583
farmer, and the only man who lived permanently at his swidden
site. (All other lowlanders were what Conklin [1957] calls
'partial' swiddeners, and lived most of the time in the town
of Casiguran.)
APPENDIX 6
DOCUMENTS AND OFFICIAL LETTERS RELATING TO AGTA LAND PROBLEMS
(Examples of the Competitive Exclusion Principle)
The following quotes are taken from various letters and documents,
written sometimes by Agta, more often by government officials,
concerning Agta land problems. Most of these date from 1960. I have
never been able to locate the originals of many of these documents, but
carbon copies of many of them, but only those dated from 1960 to 1963,
are in the possession of a Mr. Tomas C. Casala, a resident of Casiguran
who was the Superintendent for Non-Christians in Casiguran, under the
national office of the CN1 (Commission on National Integration),
during those four years. Other documents cited here are from various
sources, mostly from individuals in Casiguran who loaned them to me to
photocopy. In many cases I cannot divulge the names of the present
possessors of several of the documents, lest I endanger them to possible
embarrassment or retaliation.
I have photocopies of all of the documents cited here, and a second
photocopy set is filed in the office of my doctoral chairman at the
University of Hawaii, Dr. P. Bion Griffin.
1. An undated "petition," written in Tagalog sometime in

early 1960, and signed by 11 Agta (using their thumb
prints), requests help from the government over land taken
from them at Dilepsong, Dinalongan (in Area 10, see Map 2)
by two lowlander men. Typed in Tagalog, it reads in part:
"We at Dilepsong, Dinalongan, are writing concerning land we
have here which is the land of our grandparents . . . Our
land was taken over by two Christians named E.F. and
E.S.T. . . . They forced us off after we cleared this land
because they said our grandparents sold this land [to them].
584
585
E.F. says [mistakenly that] he bought it from Aledan, [an

Agta], buying a portion of 9 hectares for 100 pesos."
(English translation cf original.)
2. This case at Dilepsong (no. 1, above) has never been

settled and, in fact, A letter written to a lowlander named
E.F., dated January 15, 1962, and signed by CNI agent
Casala, informs him that a court case ispending over his
alleged usurping of Agta land at Dilepsong, Dinalongan. The
Agta at Dilepsong also sent a petition to the Provincial
Governor, dated February 12, 1962 asking for government help
and protection from the above name lowlander, E.F. This case
was again in the courts, in Baler, when I returned to the
field in 1982. (Civil Case No. 308). This time the
plaintiff was the lowlander, named E.G., and the defendants
were the same Agta kin group who has claimed this land as
theirs since the early '60s. The Regional Trial Court of
Aurora, in Baler, had already passed judgment, on October 30,
1980, that the lowlander plaintiff, E.G., is the owner of the
contested land. The court sent a written command, dated
November 25, 1983, to the provincial sheriff to forcibly move
the Agta off the land. These Agta, with the support of a
lowlander man who is married to one of the Agta women, have
refused to vacate. I left the field in July '84 without
knowing what the final outcome may be.
3. In August 1960, the Agta band group at Bakyad (Area 8)

submitted a petition to the Casiguran Municipal Mayor
requesting "immediate release in the name of Non-Christians,
a Barrio Site [i.e., a piece of land] from Public Land
situated in the above cited location. In the name of this
Tribe [of Agta], I represent and request the help and proper
protection of the authorities . . . " (letter attached to the
petition, dated August 31, 1960, signed by Tomas Casala). A
copy of the petition was also sent to the Director of the
Bureau of Lands, on September 3. The CNI office in Manila
did send a regional supervisor, one Attorney A. Marrero, to
investigate this problem and "if possible, to assist [the
Agta] in securing titles to their farm lots" (letter from CNI
office in Manila dated November 10, 1960, signed by Alexander
Dawa). No titles, however, were ever granted to the Agta at
Bakyad. Casala received instead a letter from the
Provincial Land Office, dated November 28, 1962, and signed
by a M.C. Balajadia, saying that Casala's "attached Order
cannot be acted upon as the land subject to the request falls
within Cadastral Project No. 358-D, Casiguran, Quezon,
pursuant to Office Memorandum of the Chief, Surveys
Division, dated December 22, 1961."
586
4. In September I960, a group of Agta sent a petition to the

Lt. Governor of Aurora, who resided in Baler at the time,
requesting help and protection in reestablishing themselves
on their land at Calabgan. I do not have a copy of the
petition, but only of the cover letter which went with it,
dated September 23, and signed by Tomas Casala. (I do not
know the outcome of this.)
5. In November 1960, 22 Agta men signed a petition (using

their thumb prints) stating they wanted to cultivate the
land at Calabgan their grandparents had cleared. They refer
to their suffering hunger because of a recent typhoon, and
they request plows, harrows, and carabaos, so they can
cultivate. (Document titled "Resolution No. 3," written in
Tagalog, dated November 28, 1960.)
6. A one page document from the Manila office of the CNI,

titled "Record of Parcels of Land Acquired and Entended
[sic] for the Non- Christian Tribes in the Municipality of
Casiguran, Quezon," dated at the bottom of the page January
13, 1961, lists areas of land for the Agta in Area 2 and
Area 9 (see Map 2). The bottom of the document says, "At
present, the land situated in San Ildefonso [Area 2] is
occupied by Christians [lowlanders]." A hand-written note
below that, followed by a signature which is illegible,
says, "Dear Attorney Manero: Please include these cases
presented to us by Mr. T.C. Casala of Casiguran, Quezon
Province on behalf of non-Christians." I do not know if this
case was pursued then, but that land in Area 2, Dinipan,
which is the ancestral rivershed area of one of the larger
Agta bands, is completely taken over today by lowlanders.
7. In January 1961, a lowlander of Casiguran, Mr. R.C. wrote

a letter to the Provincial Governor of Quezon (of which
Casiguran was then a part), dated January 5, requesting the
removal of four Agta, Maria, Elpidio, Saged, and Emilio,
from "his" land, where they were residing, because they were
unbaptized. CNI agent Casala wrote a follow up letter to the
same governor, dated February 3, saying, "I have learned that
the [lack of] baptismal of Negritos is not sufficient reason
[for them] to be exclude[d] [from a] barrio where they
reside . . . it is not better for those Negritos to [be made
to] leave their homes in the barrio and transfer to another
place . . . In this connection, I respectfully request the
Honorable Provincial Governor not to honor the pettetion
[sic] of Mr. [R.C.] to exclude four negritos in the barrio
were [sic] they reside.
8. A letter addressed to the Chairman of the CNI in Manila,

signed by CNI agent Tomas Casala, in Casiguran, and dated
5 87
September 29, 1961, says the following: "Attached herewith

is a petition of some family head Negritoes [sic] about
their own land acquired [i.e., taken over] by one F.G. of
this municipality. In this connection, I respectfully
request the authority concerned to take necessary action
about this matter."
9. This almost certainly refers to a two page document titled

"Affidavit," dated August 25, 1961, and signed with thumb
prints by six Agta (Ayogyog, Pidela, Didog, Tigo, Pinyang,
and Away), formally complaining about their land at Koso
(Area 4) which was taken over by a lowlander named F.G.
about 1945. This is probably the most infamous land grabbing
case, at least in the eyes of the Agta on the Peninsula,
since WWII. This is a 4 ha coconut grove, planted by the
parents of the above-named Agta, before the War. This is
"Koso Field No. Ill," described in Appendix F. See Map 5 for
location of this field. Casala received an answer to his
letter of September 29, signed by the Chairman of the CNI in
Manila, Gabriel Dunuan, and dated October 2, saying the
problem "has been referred to our field men for proper
action."
10. A letter addressed to the Chairman of the CNI in Manila,

dated March 1, 1962, and signed by agent Casala, says the
following, which I quote in full: "Sir: I have the honor to
forward to you the petition of the Non-Christian [Agta] in
this Municipality concerning the conflict of Christian vs.
Non-Christians about the land. This is the third petition
with similsrity scince [sic] 1961, forwarded to your office
requesting proper action, but up to the present time, I
wonder why was neglected. In this connection, I
respectfully request the proper authorities concern to take
necessary steps about this matter at your earliest convinient
[sic] time." I am unsure which petitions Casala is referring
to here, but it concerns the land case at Dilepsong (see
paragraphs numbered 1, 2, and 25).
11. A letter addressed to a Casiguran lowlander named M.M.,

dated October 8, 1962, andsigned by agent Casala, asks the
addressee why he is planting coconuts on the land of an old
Agta woman, Opista, at Calabgan, and orders him, M.M., to
vacate the land, since he has no papers.
12. A letter addressed to the Provincial Governor, in

Tagalog, dated February 12, 1963, and signed by agent Casala,
reports several lowlanders taking over the land of the Agta
at Dibet (Area 9), and taking over fields planted in rice by
Agta.
588
13. A letter addressed to the Casiguran mayor, Bernardo

Angara, dated February 27, and signed by Governor Claro R.
Robles, says the following: "Dear Mayor Angara: Several
persons appeared before my Office and informed me that in the
non-Christian reservations in your municipality some of our
Christian brothers [i.e., lowlanders] have entered the land
and made kaingins [swiddens] thereon, dispossessing the
Non-Christian [Agta] . . . As these acts of our Christian
brothers are both illegal and unjustified . . .These acts
also will foment hatred of the non- Christians towards the
Christian Filipinos and may result in bloodshed in your
municipality . . .we should take immediate steps to remedy the
situation . . . "
14. A letter addressed to the Provincial Governor at Lucena

City "Through the Chairman, Commission on National
Integration, dated May 3, 1963, and signed by agent Casala,
says: "I have the honor to request the authorities concerned
for an immediate investigation of the land proclaimed by the
late Pres, of the Philippines, Manuel L. Quezon, in the name
of the Cultural Minorities, situated in Bo. Dibet, Casiguran,
Quezon. The said land were mostly grabbed by several
Christians and the Non-Christian [Agta] were driven
away . . . "
15. A letter addressed to the Chief of the Cadastral Survey,

Casiguran, dated July 15, 1963, and signed by agent Casala,
says, "Sir: I have learned that you are now placing monument
in Barrio Dibet [for marking property borders] of which the
place of one parcel of land [of] . . .Non-Christian
Reservation is situated. In view hereof, I have the honor to
request the authorities concerned to please see to it that
the old monument be followed accordingly. Hoping that this
request will meet your favorable action." As Casala told me
years later, this was a politely written letter meant to
shortcut a plan to usurp part of the Agta land at Dibet.
Casala's journal for the date September 5, 1962 states, "I
advised Sibero [an Agta] to relocate the monument of the Non-
Christian Reservation in Dibet." This was land cleared by the
father of Sibero, whose name was Kadong, which land was
usurped by the laue Ponciano Benevides, a lowlander who was a
CNI agent in Aurora from 1956 to 1959. This land is owned
today by lowlanders.
I also have in my possession a photocopy of the daily log of the
CNI agent Tomas Casala (Casala n.d.), typed in English and submitted as
monthly reports to his superiors in Manila. A second copy is filed in
589
the office of my doctoral chairman at the University of Hawaii. Mr.
Casala furnished me with a copy of this log, and gave me permission to
quote from it. Following are references to land problems between Agta
and lowlanders:
16. "Personally appear before the regular session of the

municipal Council of Casiguran, presenting a copy of the
petition of the Non- Christian [Agta] concerning their Barrio
site in the sitio of Lawang . . . Requested the body of the
Council to give attention to the matter and proper action"
(12/Sep/60).
17. "Investigate one B.L. [name of a lowlander] about the

purchase of a parcel of land and the products thereon, owned
by one Sadsoy Negrito (deceased). The heirs of Sadsoy are
claiming about their share" (5/Oct/60). (This is an area of
land at Dinipan, a traditional Agta area. The land is today
legally owned by the same lowlander, B.L.)
18. "Confered w/ Chief Agri. and Rural Development Division,

NCI, Manila, concerning the land conflict between Christians
and Negritos" (10/Jan/61). (This was about a conflict in
Bakyad, Area 8, according to my interview with Casala on
November 21, 1983, over land taken from the Agta by one
M.R..)
19. "Received reports from several Negritos who work in the

ACOJE Mining Co. that their houses were pulled down and their
plants [crops] destroyed by the Co. I conferred with the
manager [who was an American] and he promised that the houses
[would be] errect in good condition with the expense of the
Company" (19/Feb/61). This multinational mining company,
whose work in Casiguran was described in Chapter 8, built
their camp in 1960 on the very spot where the Agta at
Dinapigui were growing crops, according to my informants.
Not only the Agta houses, but their crops as well, were
destroyed in the process.
20. "Petition of several Non-Christians from the Barrio of

Cuso [Koso] was filed in this office for action that
according to the statement, their own land planted w/
coconuts inherited from their forefathers were acquired
[i.e., usurped] by one F.G. for a long time. According to
petitioners, this case was brought to several authorities but
until at present no action has been taken" (16/Aug/61). This
is the same case as that referred to in paragraphs numbered 8
590
and 9, above. As a matter of fact, no action was ever taken,

and the land is today owned by the lowlander son of F.G.
21. "Arrival of Asst. Com. Marcelo Gonzales from Esperanza,

Dilasag [a day's walk northeast of Casiguran town]. With him
are six Negrito families and children presented before me.
All of them headed by their presidentconfess to me all
things. The reason why they go away are tired waiting for
the action to the petition of their land acquired [usurped
from them] by one M.R." (16/Oct/61). (Casala had Gonzales
fetch these Agta to his office in town, who had been driven
from their land at Barrio Lawang by M.R.)
22. "Report from President Dikmin Anidao (Negrito) of Sitio

Cozo [Koso] that almost all of their pomelo [fruit tree]
plantation were cut down by unknown person" (3/Nov/61).
"Left for inspection in connection to the report of
the . . . plantation damaged by somebody, about forty banana
trees were cut down" (6/Nov/61). (Certain lowlanders were
suspected of this misdeed, but no proof could be established,
and no one was ever formally accused.)
23. "Left station at 9:30 a.m. for Calabgan by horse back for
inspection trip. Petition of Non-Christians concerning Real
Property conflict was signed" (12/Feb/62).
24. "Hold meeting at Bungo [Area 10], Received report from

one Inong Negrito that his banana plantation were destroyed
by one Christian named B.Q. Said D.Q.'s [farm] overlapped
the homestead of Inong Negrito" (22/Feb/62). (This incident
occurred in Area 10, and is not the same as the similar
incident above, in paragraph no. 22).
25. "Letter sent to the Chairman, C.N.I. concerning complaint

and petition of the Non-Christians living in the sitio of
Dilepsong, Casiguran, about the conflict of their land
between Christians"' (l/Mar/62). (This is almost certainly
the letter referred to in paragraph no. 2, above.)
26. "Inspected the place of the land [in Calabgan] reported

that a Christian claimed that the said place was sold to him
by one Non- Christian [an Agta named Alonso] more or less
three years ago. Give advice to the bought [sic] parties to
wait for further decision of the authorities concerned"
(27/Mer/62).
27. "Report from President Nadoy Lisiday (Negrito) of Dinipan

[Area 2] that some lowlanders [3 brothers with the family
name of P.] likes to enter the Public land cleared and
occupied by those Cultural Minorities [Agta], Advise them
591
that whatever happens they must not leave the said place"
(10/Apr/62).
28. "Give memorandum to all Presidents of the Dumagats [Agta]

that they should leave their occupied land and let the
Christians enter" (ll/Apr/62). (This sentence does not make
sense. My guess is that the writer, Casala, failed to type
in the word "not" before the phrase "they should leave...")
29. "Meet [with] the Senior Associate, Commission on National

Integration, in Manila, in connection with the land conflict
between Dumagats of Casiguran and the Christians"
(25/May/62).
30. "Left station at 8:30 a.m. for Tagbak [Area 8] by horse

back. Visit the reported Christian [lowlander] entering the
land cleared by the Negritos" (9/Jul/62). "Inspect the place
of the land and advise Christian named P.M. not to enter the
said land [of the Agta] and warn him for the first [sic] time
not to do it again" (10/Jul/62).
31. "Sent letter to Mr. M.M. of Sitio Bikal to appear before

this office for information aboutthe report of Opista
Negrito concerning the grabbing of her cultivated land [at
Calabgan]" (8/Oct/62). "Mr. M.M. appeared before this
office and explain to me that he did not grab any kind of
land belonging to Negrito" (10/Oct/62). This was not true.
M.M. still owns this land today. The Agta woman, Opista, now
deceased, was his mistress for a time years ago.
32. "Sent letter to the Vice Barrio Lt. Mariano Mora of Sitio
Bikal concerning reports of land grabbing in the Calabgan
[Agta] Reservation" (7/Feb/63). "Sent letter to the Ba. Lt.
Bonifacio Briagas of Bo. Dibet, concerning land grabbing in
that Barrio to the land reserved for the Non-Christians"
(8/Feb/63).
33. "Left Manila at 6:00 a.m. for Lucena [City] and arrived
at 10:00 a.m. Meet the Hon. Prov. Gov. and conferred about
the newcomers [lowlander and Igorot immigrants] from
different provinces [who have] entered the Calabgan [Agta]
Reservation. Request the Governor to let these people vacate
the place" (27/Feb/63).
34. "Investigate the place occupied by the new settlers

[squatting] in Calabgan Reservation" (6/Mar/63). "Letter
sent to Hon. Governor Robles requesting immediate
investigation in the land grabbing at the Calabgan
Reservation" (11/Mar/63).
592
35. "Proceed to Dinipan [Area 2] by banka and arrived at

11:00 a.m. Inspect the land conflict between B.L. [a
lowlander] and Nadoy Lisiday et al. [Agta]" (20/Mar/63).
36. "Meet the Chairman of the C.N.I. [in Manila] and request
immediate investigation about land grabbing of Christians
from the land for the Minorities [Agta]" (6/Jun/63).
37. "Sent letter to Governor Robles informing that the

Non-Christians [Agta] cannot plant this coming planting
season in the ricefield of the Government [at Calabgan]
because the Christian newcomers [immigrants] did not vacate
the place" (6/Aug/63).
38. "Hold meeting at Bungo [Area 10]. Investigate Tening

Negrito about selling of Agta homestead to one V.R. [a
lowlander]. Ordered him to return the money or [the
equivalent in kind] because the selling of the said homestead
is illegal" (13/Aug/63).
39. "Meet the Chairman of the Commission on National

Integration and request for immediate investigation about the
squatter in the Non- Christian Reservation in Barrio Dibet
[Area 9]" (30/0ct/63).
APPENDIX H
REFERENCES OF GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO TEACH AGRICULTURE
1 0 CASIGURAN AGTA IN THE TEARS 1960 TO 1963
The following quotes are taken directly from the daily log of a Mr.
Tomas C. Casala (Casala n.d.), presently a resident of Casiguran, who
was the Superintendent for Non-Christians in Casiguran, under the
national office of the Commission on National Integration (CNI), during
the period from January 1960 to January 6, 1964. The originals of this
log were typed in English and submitted as monthly reports to to the CNI
main office in Manila. Mr. Casala loaned me his carbon copy of the log,
from which the following quotes are taken, and used here with his
permission.
These quotes are presented here to show an example of the intensity
of the efforts of the CNI to try to make the Agta into agriculturalists.
The quotes also give us a glimpse of the degree to which Casiguran Agta
were involved in cultivation during this four year period, though we
must recognize that much of their agricultural activities were the
result of orders from Mr. Casala.
1. "Inspected the rice, camote and other plantation of the

non- Christian [i.e., the Agta] in their farm sites"
(6/Sep/60). "Proceed to Kataguman [Area 3 of Map 5] to visit
the upland rice plantation of the Non-Christian" (7/Sep/60).
[There are many more references- like this throughout the log,
references to inspecting of Agta swiddens, which I will not
bother to keep repeating.]
2. "Left station [i.e., Casiguran town] for Bakyad [Area 8]

to introduce clearing forest land to the Non-Christians and
be planted w/ corn this coming month of January" (8/Dec/60).
593
594
3. "Left station at 9:00 a.m. for Pasarubuy Barrio Negritos

[in Area 4], Advise . . . Negrito Pres. Menes Espana. to lead
his barrio folks in clearing forest land to be planted w/corn
this coming planting season by the month of January"
(17/Dec/60). "Proceed to Dinipan [Area 2] to introduce food
production to the Non-Christians. Inspected the farm planted
w/ root crops . . . advise to clear more forest land to be
planted with corn" (18/Dec/60).
4. "Proceed to Calabgan [Area 9] . . . Introduce food

production by planting rootcrops and corn" (19/Dec/60).
5. "Proceed to Taguan, northwest of Calabgan proper at about

10 klm. distance from the main barrio of Calabgan [Area 9].
The Negritos living in this place are totally uncivilized.
They killed human beings with out any cause and they never
taste salt since their life. Introduce them [to] go down
from the mountain and [encourage them to] always ask help
from the government thru me of whatever they need. They are
accustomed of swallowing tobacco leaf. I give lecture
concerning their lives since and at present comparing [them]
to those civilized Non- Christians [i.e., the Agta living near
town who are planting crops] living in good dwellings, eating
better foods like Christians and living together with
Christians" (20/Dec/60).
6. "Advise Commissioner Curitana [a lowlander supervising

Agta] of Bakyad [Area 8] . . . to supervise [the Agta in]
clearing the land to be planted with corn and cassava"
(3/Feb/61).
7. "Advise Pres. Prente Prado [Agta] to supervise clearing

the land [in Area 9] purposely for corn plantation. Ordered
two Negritos to go to Dinalongan to buy corn seedlings to be
distributed among them [Agta]" (7/Feb/61).
8. "Proceed to Dinipan and visit the situation. The [Agta

swiddened] land is cleared and ready for plants" (8/Feb/61).
"Proceed to Pasarubuy and inspect the area proposed for
[Agta] corn plantation. The only problem is the seedlings.
I ordered Pres. Menes Abundio [an Agta] to buy corn seedlings
and give him cash for the purpose" (9/Feb/61).
9. "Advise Commissioner Curitana to supervise Negritos

planting corn in Sitio Bakyad [Area 8]" (2/Mar/61).
10. "Proceed to Simbaan [Area 10], givelecture and advise to

clear some piece of land to be planted w/ upland rice for the
coming planting season" (18/Mar/61).
595
11. "Left Casiguran at 8:30 for Bakyad [Area 8], held meeting
and give lecture to Non-Christians concerning upland rice
planting season coming" (25/Apr/61).
12. "Held meeting [at Area 9], give advise how to plant
upland rice and the way to prepare seedlings, and to use same
varieties of seedlings if possible" (5/May/61).
13. "Advise [Agta at Area 9] to begin clearing the old [wet]

rice field owned by the government of Calabgan" (26/Jul/61).
14. "Left station for Barrio Cuso [Koso] at 8:30 a.m. to hold
meeting. Visit; the newly acquired Public Land situated in
the said place by the Negritos residing thereat. [This is
the upriver part of the Koso River, shown on Map 5.] Advise
them to plant permanent fruit trees and root crops"
(l/Aug/61).
15. "Proceed to sitio Abuleg [Area 10] . . . and visit the

upland rice plantation of the Negritos. Held meeting and
advise to plant coconuts, bananas and other bearing fruits"
(13/Sep/61).
16. "Report from Asst. Commissioner Marcelo Gansales [a

lowlander] of Bakyad thatthe Negritos now living in Pengit
[Area 8] have cleared land and ready for corn plantation, but
the problem are corn seeds to be planted" (8/Nov/61).
17. "Advise Negrito President Dikmin Angidao to enforce all

Negritos in Muntay (Cuso) [upriver area of the Koso River,
shown in Map 5] to clear land for corn plantation not less
than one hectare" (5/Jan/62). "Bought six gantas of corn
seedlings with my own money to be distributed to Non-
Christians" (8/Jan/62). "Hold meeting and advise [Agta at
Muntay] to plant coconuts, cassava and other secondary
products" (10/Jan/62).
18. "Left station at 8:00 a.m. for sitio Muntay by horse back
to visit and estimate how many gantas of corn seedlings can
be planted on their kaingin [swidden]" (5/Feb/62).
19. "Hold meeting [for Agta in Area 2] and advise to make

their kaingin bigger and they will be given free corn
seedlings" (8/Feb/62). "Hold meeting [for Agta in Area 9]
and advise to get corn seedling in my office for free
distribution tothose who have kaingin [swidden]"
(13/Feb/62).
20. "Advise Commissioner Guillermo Garcia to administer
596
[i.e., supervise] the Negritos in sitio Muntay in planting

corn" (26/Feb/62).
21. "Hold meeting at Calabgan [Area 9]. Advise

them . . . [each] family were required to plant upland rice
this coming planting season and not less than seven gantas of
seedlings each family" (16/Mar/62).
22. "Give advise to all settlement presidents of the

Non-Christians who suffered disaster [from a typhoon] to
plant cassava or upland rice instead of corn" (21/Mar/62).
23. "Proceed to Dinipan [Area 2], Hold meeting and advise

[Agta] to finish immediately the fence for their [swidden]
rice plantation to protect from wild pigs" (20/Sep/62).
24. "Visit the kaingin of the Negritos [in Area 2] and found
out that about 45% destroyed by rat infestation" (8/Nov/62).
25. "Hold meeting at Calabgan, advise not to sell their

harvest to anybody or else they will receive punishment"
(20/Nov/62).
26. "Hold meeting [at Dinalongan, Area 10] and found out that
their harvest is good, but only 50% of the [Agta] residents
have a kaingin [swidden]" (22/Nov/62).
27. "Hold meeting [in Area 9]. Advise all Non-Christians to

plant additional rootcrops in their kaingin" (5/Feb/63).
28. "Give lecture to every member of the Non-Christians [at

Koso, see Map 5] concerning cleanliness and farming
procedure" (16/Apr/63).
29. "Give lecture to Non-Christians [in Area 10] not to sell

to anybody their cultivated homestead or else they will
receive punishment" (7/May/63).
30. "Visit the rice plantation of the Minorities [Agta in

Area 2] and observed that it is going all right. Advise them
to protect their rice plantation from wild pigs by always
visiting [i.e., building] the fence around [it]" (17/Oct/63).
31. "Left Calabgan for Dinalongan [Area 10]. Found out that
most of the Negritos are half [done] with their harvest of
rice" (19/Nov/63). "Left Dinalongan for Bungo [also in Area
10], Of all the [Agta] barrios I visit, Bungo is the best in
rice harvest. I advise them not to sell their rice to
anybody, especially [not] to barter [it] for liquor.
597
Anybody who will barter their rice for liquor will receive
punishment" (20/Nov/63).
598
FIGURE I: AVERAGE AND EXTREME MONTHLY RAINFALL

AT CASIGURAN FROM 1949 TO 1983
r i
1700
1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
C/i
K
hi
(■
hi
1100 ri
S 1000
mJ
5 900
z •x trtm t
800 maximum
£ 700
z
3
a: 600
500
400
300
200
100 axtrama minimum _J
_r
Jan Ftb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sap Oct Nov Dae
599
FIGURE 2: KINSHIP CHART OF

EGO'S RELATIVES
rE*
e
9
UJ
£
o
X o
If
Is
C2
Si
t! •• M
s•
. W ii
I! £
s ic * **
ij iI 1 M
■ M
M M
•*
Z £<OD
FIGURE 3: AGTA POPULATION PYRAMID FOR 1977
(showing 1977 age and sex composition of Casiguran de jure population)
75+
70-74
65-69
60-64 10
55-59 15 6
50-54 11 14
45-49 12 22
40-44 12 13
35-39 14 19
30-34 18 18
25-29 28 21
20-24 30 33
15-19 28 44
10-14 26 28
5-9 49 -=== 31
0-4 49 43
males in 1977: 310 females in 1977: 308
total population in 1977: 618
Explanation of Figure:
To the left of the vertical line are shown the number of
males in each age cohert. Females are to the right. Each
dash represents one individual. There are 618 dashes in
the above pyramid.
600
FIGURE 4: AGTA POPULATION PYRAMID FOR 1984
(showing 1984 age and sex composition of Casiguran de jure population)
75+ 0 1
70-74 1 :. 3
65-69 4 :: ••*• 7
60-64 12 ....
55-59 7 .::: :::: 8
50-54 g ....
45-49 14 .....
40-44 in ...
35-39 19 ....... 16
30-34 25 .......... 24
25-29 30 ............. 33
20-24 16 43
15-19 35 32
10-14 45 27
5-9 33 31
0-4 47 28
males in 1984: 306 females in 1984: 303
total population in 1984: 609
Explanation of Figure:
To the left of the vertical line are shown the number of
males in each age cohert. Females are to the right.
Each dot represents one individual. There are a total of
609 dots in the above pyramid.
601
6 02
CAGAYAN
MAP I km 50
EASTERN LUZON
ISABELA Palonan
Dinapigui
NUEVA
'Dilasag
VIZCAYA
QUIRINO Casiguran
San Ildefonso Peninsula
Dinalongan
.Casiguran ecosystem
Baler (research area).
'AURORA
124'
LUZON
laniia
Manila
[QUEZON
0 100 200 km
603
ISABELA
AURORA
MAP 2
THE 10 AGTA "BAND" AREAS
\ Casiguran
15'-
,Ojjr T/v *
Calabgan
Reservation
for Agta
6 km
604
122° ISABELA
AURORA
MAP 3
LOCATIONS OF THE 43 SWI ODENS
CULTIVATED BY AGTA IN 1983
29 28
Casiguran
30-34
-26-27
35-36 -21-25
19-20
42 37-38
39
40-41 12-15
6-11
43
6 km
605
122°
MAP 4
LOCATIONS OF THE 5 WET RICE
FIELDS CULTIVATED BY AGTA
IN 1983
Casiguran
6 km
606
MAP 5
LOCATIONS OF 20th CENTURY
FELDS ON THE KOSO RIVER KOSO
River
m
W
~9H
N ss
3ZE
TEL
*WTT rnn
33C
Deppeg
— Koso River / Creek
yyyt s x m x
400 m
607
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. /
owner : J € T ^ I Q ^ location: SifaU*t /jr**&. /_______________

(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix £)
\ \
S
■\ \' ss s N
N \ S' SN
+ -------- > N \ \l
\/
s' s' >
rice a - .
r lav>Â /
Of '«•" T e r -sin3 /
'/ area cropped in rice

cropped in other than rice
burned area newer cropped
total field size: 7 - f 7 m 2' seale: - 100

cropped area: 7^*7 m 2’
area in rice: 7^-7 m 2- (heavy line indicates downhill side)
608
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. 2.

owner : T e r sin y location£ &ut Area. / _____________
(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix £ )
I
I
/ j
v / no. 3 \
rice Su/ld<Jen
y area cropped in rice

total field size: 3 5 ’^ ’ m Z scale: - 100

cropped area: 3 & 4" 1X1^
area in rice: o (heavy line Indicates downhill side)
6 09
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. 3

owner: UJa.fi location:_ E b w t Artcu I_______
••
A. ▼
A"'
~7/ area cropped in rice

burned area never cropped
total field size:

scale: 100 «2
cropped area: £ 3 £ m
area in rice: ^ (heavy line indicates downhill side)
610
SWIDDEN FIELD NO.
owner: Borseg __ location:_ E Area. I____

(for history end details see tables and text of Appendix
/ o f lo u la n J *
OV*ner
>1
0••• area cropped in rice
J— cropped in other than rice

total field size: (oÔ m*’ scale: 100 a

cropped area: 6,0 4 m 2
area in rice: o (heavy line indicates downhill side)
611
SWIDDEN FIELD NO.
owner : Botrse^
^ ~ _ location: E b u t Area. J_______
(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix E )
no
Crop s
"7/ area cropped is rice

total field size: / />»i

scale: 100
cropped area: /7^ O***2
area in rice: I7L0 m 1 (heavy line indicates downhill side)
612
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. (0

owner: A/e r SI_______ location; PimCLqipO farGO. «2>
area cropped in rice

U
Itl cropped in other than rice
total field size: 9 * 3 m'

scale: - 100 «2
cropped area:
?Z7
area in rice: & JL*1 (heavy line indicates downhill side)
613
SVTDDEN FIELD NO.

A/_ J .
owner : //gLc/oy location: C)im6.îpO ^ »_____
y are* cropped in rice

'** cropped in other than rice
horned area newer cropped
total field size: 1 7 9 0

scale: 100 «2
cropped area: / *790 n*2’
are* in rice: / 7 Ô (heavy line indicates downhill side)
614
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. JL

owner: fisloy location: fri jpO /j/'CCL _______
(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix JE )
\
\
\
\
I ~
\
s/' s \ \
i SwidJe/
\ sN \ \
no. 6 \ \ n's\ \
\ > s \;s'\ \
s's'N \ \ en
\
\ <:k no. 1
\ N S s' \
\
s>N \ S>\ s\
Ns
'/ area cropped In rice

••• cropped in other than rice
1—
total field size: / 3 ^ > ?

scale: • 100
cropped area: / $(o f fr*X
area in rice: J3 ^ ?r~2 (heavy line indicates downhill side)
615
SVIDDEN FIELD NO.
owner : od J f\€j location: QifyjdLîpO 2*_____

(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix B. )
2 area cropped In rice

••• cropped in other than rice
total field size: /ZLbh >***" scale: 100 «2

cropped area: / / JL 3 « 1
area in rice: // 2.3 *1*’ (heavy line indicates downhill side)
616
SWIDDBN FIELD NO. /O

owner:J L IflC fT location: D / j O A «2_____

total field size: JL373

scale: 100 a2
cropped area: / $ S"$ m x
area in rice: / $ S S /w1 (heavy line Indicates downhill side)
617
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. //
owner: Hen ____ location; o ArC,CL ________


horned area never cropped
total field size: m 7 /w i scale: - 100 a2

cropped area: f^ X O w 1
area in rice: / S “7 / (heavy line Indicates downhill side)
618
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. 12.

owner : £ K i d i location: h/CL.'t'Oj Di'fii p d n ftrGQ* 2.
<«X x XX X s s'
1x X
X \X XX X
X X XX X X
!\ X X X x s X x
x s s'X X X s'A
i,\X X s'X X x x
t\X X x XX X x
i'''XX X X s'X X
K*X X N X XX v
K XX X X s s'
E\X X X 'XX X
X s s' xx
•Vs
X XX X X
t•• «• X X X X XJ
f -:
(
i X
e1
s'X XX X
’v>s X X
X x s X V, |
NX X s'
\
X XX
*X X
isX
V
X
TO A
0
K*
i—
horsed area newer cropped
total field size: 3 * ^ 7 4 scale: • 100 a2

cropped area: 3 & O & m A
area in rice: 3 7 Ol ^ 1 (heavy line Indicates downhill side)
619
. 13
SVIDDEN FIELD NO
owner ; Ending location:Mi/o. D S /ila * /> A re a , 2

t
no- /2-
»_
£ 5 22m
Smidden
no. t4r
y
/
/
/ £ midJen
\ no. 15"
\
\
area cropped in rice \
lil cropped in other than rice *
total field size: 12.37 rrt2- scale: 100 a11

cropped area: 71?"*
area in rice: 71 ? "*~ (heavy line indicates downhill side)
620
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. /4

owner : S d n c / g r _ location: N *to : D inipan Argo. 3.
(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix
t
no.
\
\
no. /3
\ 22m
/
\\ no. iff
area cropped la rice

\
Ed
••• \
3-m
cropped In other than rice
total field size: 153-7 scale: 100 a2

cropped area: /3£c rti*
area in rice: /3 4>0 (heavy line indicates downhill side)
621
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. /5*
owner : L Q. ko-H location: Nojt'o, Dinip&n /{re.^L 2-

I Sw»«W<o no-1^•
Stridden
\
no. /3
Suiiaden
~^/ area cropped In rice v

total field size: 1?3<* m 1 scale: 100 a<

cropped area: llo fit
area in rice U 3?m* (heavy line indicates downhill side)
622
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. /<6

owner:_ s±L O *** location: 3

*.*.* cropped in other than rice
total field size: 530 scale: 100

cropped area:
area in rice: O (heavy line indicates downhill side)
623
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. /7
owner : N a. '{’€ location: PQ. <tO_r u b t*V/ A rCtf. ^


total field size: I 5 S I *vv

A
scale: 100
cropped area: 7 &?/>»*
area in rice: 76? *»x (heavy line indicates downhill side)
624
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. IS

owner • H m C location: A Cf g S A red. 5 ___________
(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix 5 )
I!SSBiSSK£

total field size: m 2

scale: - 100
cropped sraa: / J 3 5 fri1
area in rice: 9^ (heavy line indicates downhill side)
625
SVIDDEN FIELD NO.
owner ; L a . y J i*n j _ location:


&
total field size: f 3 S ryt ■

scale: 100 «2
cropped area: 703 m '
area ia rice: & 2.S m x (heavy line indicates downhill side)
626
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. Z_C

ovner : -T k g _________ location: A ^ e S 5*___________
(for history and details see tables and text of Appendix 5 )
V \ \ V
\ V cw?
v
\N N \
/ V V v V
p s V V i\
N \ v
? o L\ \ <; I v
\ IV N \ V V
N \ \ \ V s K A
N V V V > \
N \ V V >>
i

total field size: /«2. f*tx

scale: • 100 a*
cropped area: 193 + mn
area in rice: 19 o 3 m
(heavy line indicates downhill side)
627
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. 2./

owner : £ m i n * location Area. 5
see tables and text of Appendix £ )
*
.5uJiWd€•'i
no- 4.3
area cropped In rice

total field size: 5 4 76 /*»1

\ Cj\j)» \ *!5 |
cropped area: 3 83/ *♦’1
I
area In rice: 388/
♦
628
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. 2.2.

owner : £ ir r u n * location: es A rea. 5"
St*tidJe,rs
no. 3,1 \
/ StAiiJd^n
/
flo. 23
J
/i
I I
m
area cropped in rice I I
•••
cropped in other than rice M
\
burned araa newer cropped
total field size: /w1

scale: - 100 *2
cropped area
area in rice (heavy line indicates downhill side)
6 29
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. 2.3

owner :Tem in location : Ages A r e S'
\
\
\
\
\
\

total field size:

scale: - 100 a2
cropped area: $ S 8 1**2,
area in rice: 7 ^ 3 (heavy line Indicates downhill side)
6 30
SVIDDEN PIELD NO. -2

owner : T e W locat ion: Area. S'____________

total field size: b ^b /»2

scale: - 100 n*
cropped area: ^LjZ.2 n%3'
area in rice: r*t (heavy line indicates downhill side)
f
631
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. ZS

owner: L o rde. location A g g 5 A rea. S_ ___
no crops
'Z area cropped in rice

•
•••
• cropped in other than rice
total field size:

scale: - 100 **
cropped area: S Z r*3-

area in rice: £ 3 . m 2* (heavy line indicates downhill side)
632
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. (o

owner : G <b S O H locat ion: Biha. A rea. 5 ________
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
0 area cropped in rice

total field size: W) 1

scale: 100
cropped area: / 7 0 3 m 1
area in rice: ItoSl m ' (heavy line indicates downhill side)
633
SVIDDEN FIELD NO. 3L7

ovner: j ? u p i ‘n location: fij ho. A r e & 5*

•••
• • cropped in other than rice
total field size: 281-1 r***

scale: - 100 m2
cropped area:
area In rice: (heavy line indicates downhill side)
634
SWIDDEN FIELD NO.

Is.
owner : /Cdt/l d
/r location:^ D i n i y o g A r e a . 7 _______

a
total field size: m 2,

scale: 100 «2
cropped area: J2.60 w 1.
area in rice: (heawy line indicates downhill side)
635
SWIDDEN FIELD NO.
owner : Do 5 e location: Ncl+u.Hgen. Afea. f

>
i
c* i
\ CvJ
V
/a
& '-fc
1 i
\m s
% 0.bd.ioJon^cl
< <• a*
hc».se of
0 o
m area cropped in rice

i•
*.•
* cropped in other than rice
total field size: 4 - 7 C , nr scale: 100

cropped area:
area in rice: O (heavy line indicates downhill side)
636
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. 30

owner J
• o c r f J a n J e r location; Q u m a n t n e n j A r e a & ______

•••
total field size: 30

scale: • 100 a2
cropped area: 4~0 30 *r>X'
area in rice: ^-0 3 0 (heavy line indicates downhill side)
637
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. 3l

owner Jo i d l a n d ( U w a .) iocation:/fe/>oa^/s £g/7ia/>//?g/7<y /4re&. %
— R
00\
000 \ R v •
N
0,
\O'0s0>R\s0
\ \\0\ OyV
,
Rl00
R\00 00RNo
R\\\\
0 \0\\
\\R\RR00\\ 0N\\
,\\\sR\R\00 l\\> V
00\\
0 N\ \ sR\ s
>0O
0 R
0s>N 0R
i
N \*
»R \ V
00 N R a
v0>0
H
7/ area cropped in rice

total field size: 31^9 /»*•

scale: - 100 n*
cropped area: 3/0? m 2"
area in rice: 3lo? « 4 (heavy line indicates downhill side)
638
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. 32,

owner : P t A y p n ^ _____ location : F
£ fi'tVCr

cropped in other than riee
homed area newer cropped
total field size: 57o /V I 1

scale: 100 a"
cropped area: / m 2"
area in rice: Q (heavy line indicates downhill side)
639
SWIDDBH FIELD NO. 33

owner : L a .to n g location: Ani n A r e a . &
•• ••
/ \Corn Ana
,
C om
£ w « * f Po+A+otf5
721
. area cropped is rice
total field size: 2.

scale: - 100 a2
cropped area:
area in rice: (heavy line Indicates downhill side)
640
SWIDOEN FIELD NO. 3±

owner: /C LA IU.f location: %

total field size: m x- • 100 «2

cropped area: w 1,
area in rice: ^ (heavy line indicates downhill side)
641
SVIDOEN FIELD no. 35

owner :B«r\auG locatIon: DI b&"t ?
ftft
Xs Xsftft*
f
It
VXj] ftf XftsA%7
\XN <1ft tftftX
v9*i
■
Vt'\sX Xftft /A
V\Nf>ftftxsS \fPr
V
ar.VA
;
tftftftft
Kftftftftftfth.d?1
11
/
\
no 3to
\

total field size: *2-1£ rrx*-

scale: — — - 100 a2
cropped area:
area in rice: /wl (heavy line indicates downhill side)
642
SWIDDEN FIELD HO. 3Ca

owner : M a r r u n * location: Dib&f Area. 9
\
\
\ \
5uttJ«len \
tio. 35
\
\ \
pSrsIS33p !R
/ £NAA
L \ NN AV V\5^
ar- >w Y »A
.
t~EA
f 55\ o\ 35\
$ \ \ ?£
vV R 2 £
" ^
1 □ —\ >\>
N-J \ r VsA “n
U
— -
\ ii \ / j
s
—
v 1
IN Y j s.
\ rs£Y
V
J V_J
*
v rT£I 1
\
_____
■ j

M Jf.
==c --
“*s;
.
1— cropped In other than rice

total field size: 3(o 8 7 m 1

scale: 100 «2
cropped area: 3J (o2. v**"
area In rice: 2*1 (o.2. m (heavy line indicates downhill side)
643
SWIDOBN FIELD NO. 3 7

owner : U Ani'ta* location: Ja.b^ ^rg.a. 9
¥■
*
I
I
\ no . 3#
I
\
/
.V* • *
••I

•••
total field size: - f 3 7 / 'w*

scale: • 100
cropped area: 3 5 "7! /*»Z’
area in rice: X JSX t*3" (heavy line indicates downhill side)
644
SWIDDEN FIELD HO, 38

owner : Z-iVa.nibt
------------
j - ... ■ ... - . —
(for history and details, see tables and text of Appendix C )
no. 3 7

total field size SlSOm 2.

scale: - 100 e2
cropped area: o
area in rice: o (heavy line indicates downhill side)
R eproduced w ith perm ission o f the copyright owner. F urther reproduction prohibited w itho ut perm ission
645
SWIDDEH FIELD HO. 39

owner:flleU n/O location: K&-J&. (oq A /I A re a 9
~7/ area cropped in rice

total field size: 6>4-g m ^

scale: • 100 a
cropped area: t,42 m i
area in rice: 0 (heavy line indicates downhill side)
646
SWIDDEN FIELD NO.
owner: S i f'o/( locttlon: T4/>»iâ./oOJ *<1 ^rgg. /o

7/ area cropped in rice

•••
total field size: 2.JZ (o m*’ scale: - 100 «2

cropped area: JhT to
area in rice: / ^to A~ (heavy line indicates downhill side)
647
SWIDDEN FIELD NO. 4-/

✓VI • __
owner : (Y\ a.mi nj location: T a m ba./o nj9 An Area, to
7A. area cropped in rice

•••
6 50 X
fw‘
total field size
scale: - 100 e2
cropped area: S X t
area in rice: + 3 I " 1 (heavy lice Indicates downhill side)
6 48
SVTDDEN FIELD NO. 4 2-

ovner : X 6 o < ,<________ location: B iVA / j M 0*7 O /Q
o n>v/er

0
L .
total field size: / 7 7 ^ « i 2.

scale: • 100 nr
cropped area: J(o 2.*} m
area in rice: (heavy line indicates downhill side)
649
SWIDDEN FIELD NO.
owner:J k n •ft9______ location:£ificia.fi, Simla*xan Area. lo

Qinda.h
2 are* cropped In rice

total field size: 2,7oL m*-

scale: - 100 a2
cropped area: 2^18 « A
area in rice: (heavy line indicates downhill side)
VET K.ICS FIELD SO. 1
owner; location: A 5"
(for history and details see tables and test of Appendix £ )
I total field site: £3*1S A?2,

r-Fj scale: - 100
r/I area in rice harvested in 1983: JL3*7S fn
651
WET M C E FIELD SO. 2.

owner; \JI IS O H location: Ai m IXh0 -1*2G *1 $
(for history and details see tables and teat of Appendix £ )
/
0 */ 5 £ f t f e |k *
2 2 z z z z 7 s r a r r m rr% »bj■
I 2 2
z z f2’z 2 z 7 ? 2 7 z L Elra
V A 7 z
/2 A a 2 A
2 Z z z 22 2 T~ A 7
2
7 2 2 2 2 z z 2 7 z Z7
ZZ Z
£ a 7/.2 z __c 2 2 2 z. a r" / >z 2
z 3 z
7
z z / 2 z
V z
Z
2 Z * /z 2 2 7
Z
K ' rr 2 2
2 Z z 7 2 / 2 z z 72“ A 7 z z 3 7 7 z
* / 2 a 2 z 2 2 z z Z >2 2 2 7 Z 2 -
' A
A Z
z 222 2 z 27zz 22Zz 77
Z z 2 / Z z 2 Z /z 2 2 a Z 2 2 z
'7 Z 2 2 z 7 2 22/ 2z 22z z 72 2 7
a
/ / 2 Z Z z 7 rr22z 7222zz 222 2
2 z z 2 2 Zz z2 2z Zz 227 7 2
\ / Z a a 2 Z 7 z 7 2 2 z z 7 2 2 2
1 /a Z 2 2 z 7 2 2 2 7 2 2 2 7 7 2 2 2
Z2 Z
Z
a22 Zz 22Z 7Z222 Z72 22
2 z z z 22z 7 2227 7277 2 Z
| Z2a222Z2 2 22ZZZ2227 Z
total field size: 9 1 S O /♦j3*

□
Y A area in rice harvested in 1983: 9 / S O m x
SC&iC 5 - 100 »2
652
WET RICE FIELD HO. 3
owner; fA G IA n tO location: ^
(for hiatory and details see tables and text of Appendix £ )
\
\
\ wd h c <
\ fi'cU nos ^
---- ---
total field size’

.i S 3 2
□ □
scale: - 100 m2
area in rice harvested in 1983: / 5 3 2 f*Z
D total
*lM; 7 o 4 (,
3 s - 3 J w**>*
i *c*Iej
Mission
° f the
c°Pyright
owner.
F m h e 'rep m a
oction
Pr°h ib itecj
with0ut
Pormis.sion.
654
VET RICE FIELD HO. S'

: hiC tnpp /y location: A reft 9
(for history e tables and text of Appendis £ )
2 2
m
*1
m
asil
m
% ■
m
as
m
m
m t
total field size: J372-0 m
• 100
Y/\ area in rice harvested in 1983: 9 6 7 2 m *
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Headl?nd, Thomas Neil

WHY FORAGERS DO NOT BECOME FARMERS: A HISTORICAL STUDY OF

University of Hawaii Ph.D. 1986

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A HISTORICAL STUDY OF A CHANGING ECOSYSTEM

AND IT S EFFECT ON A NEGRITO HUNTER-GATHERER GROUP

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE

P. Bion Griffin, Chairman

opinion it is satisfactory in scope and quality as a dissertation for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology.

All Rights Reserved

It is impossible for me to adequately thank all those whose help

and support made this research possible. Appreciation must be

expressed first to my home institute, the Summer Institute of

Linguistics, which first asked me to do a doctoral program in

anthropology in 1979, and which allowed me complete freedom from other

completed. They provided major financial support during those years.

I also gratefully acknowledge funding from the Lowell Berry Foundation

during my period of field work and the writing of the present

dissertation. The Philippine Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports

which provided my affiliation while in the Philippines is also to be

The following persons read parts of dissertation drafts and sent me

comments: James Eder, on Chapter I; Murray Chapman, Arthur Gilmore and

Cruikshank, Karl Hutterer and William Henry Scott, on Chapters VI and

VII; and Harold Conklin, on Chapter XI. Janet Headland, Rachel

Headland, Kristy Nickell, Charles Peck, and the members of my doctoral

committee at the University of Hawaii read and commented on drafts of

all or most of the dissertation. Howard McKaughan helped me with

helpful comments on my research proposal in 1983. I am indebted to all

of these. They cannot be blamed for the remaining deficiencies, but

there are fewer because of their wise advice.

archivest at the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, in Madrid, located

and sent me photocopies of many documents and letters pertaining to

Casiguran. David Bain sent me photocopies of various historical

records on Casiguran and Palanan. Rudolf Rahmann sent me photographs

taken of Casiguran Agta in 1936, which he located in the Anthropos

Institute in West Germany. Ronald Edgerton sent me an important

document he chanced upon at the Dean C. Worcester Collection, at the

University of Michigan. John Slonaker, Chief of the Historical

Reference Branch of the U.S. Army Military History Institute,

Pennsylvania, located, photocopied, and sent to me documents concerning

Curitana of Casiguran also supplied me with information on U.S. military

units in that area in 1945.

3. O versize m a te ria ls (m aps, dra w in g s, a nd ch a rts) are p h otog ra phe d by sec

4. M ost p h o to g ra p h s reproduce acceptably on p o s itiv e m ic ro film o r m icro

16. Other_ 1__________________________________