Sacrifice and Sharing in the Philippine Highlands

The Buid are a group of shifting cultivators inhabiting the highlands of Mindoro. They continue to resist incorporation into the economic, political and ideological systems of the lowland Philippines. This study focuses on the relationship between their value system and their history of resistance to the lowland world. Some of the most striking features of this value system are a thorough-going equality between women and men, old and young; a devaluation of dyadic ties of kinship and reciprocity; a high rate of divorce and remarriage which is positively valued; and, on the religious plane, the legitimation of belief through the direct personal experience of the spirit world in communal seances and sacrifices. This study is based on field research among the Buid of Ayufay, a community which formed the first large, permanent settlement in its history to counter the threat to their land, property and persons posed by settlers from the lowlands. The work will be of interest to students of ethnicity, highland/lowland relations, and indigenous resistance to the world system, as well as to anthropologists interested in kinship and religion in Southeast Asia.