Ifugao Law / (In American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 15, No. 1)

The study describes a customary legal system governed by communal norms, taboos, and religious practice, explaining how law is learned, applied, and enforced. It outlines family law including marriage forms, bridewealth, adoption, divorce, and inheritance rules. Property arrangements are examined with attention to rice terraces, forest lands, heirlooms, and tenure systems. Penal provisions and sanctions are detailed, from fines and capital punishment to penalties for sorcery, homicide, theft, and sexual offenses. Procedures for resolving disputes are analyzed, including intermediaries, testimony practices, ordeals, and collective enforcement such as seizure, retaliation, and truce-making. The work links legal customs to ritual peace-making and discusses effects of social change on customary authority.