bonne aure

8/10/2019 Bonne Aure

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Philippine Quarterly of Culture & Society

32(2004): 161-177

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INFERENCE AND ANOTHERLOOK AT JUNKERS MASS BURIAL

Bonn Aure

Introduction: William H. Walker on Archaeological Inference

This paper is inspired by Dr. William H. Walkers (1995, 1998,2002) arguments for the expansion of archaeological inference to areasdeemed by some archaeologists as more difficult to study because of

methodological and theoretical inadequacies (Sullivan 1978). As Trigger

(1999: 327) notes,

Although the New Archaeology advocated studying all aspects of cul-

tural systems(m)ajor aspects of human behavior such as religious be-

liefs, aesthetics, and scientific knowledge received little attention. The

scopedoes not appear to have expanded beyond that already em-

braced by the ecological and settlement-pattern approaches that devel-

oped in the 1950s.

This paper attempts to support Walkers (1998, 2002) thesis that

religion and ritual is as material as technology and social organization in

the formation of the depositional context. The subordination of the role of

religion and ritual to other archaeological questions, such as those aboutthe presence of chiefdoms and the dichotomy between elite and non-elite

(Junker 1993a, 1993b, 1999a, 1999b; Bacus 1996; Mijares et al. 2003: 34-

35; Dizon 2003: 19-20) with one questioning voice (Peterson 2003), is in-structive of the current state of archaeological thought in the Philippines.

Walker has criticized the monolithic approach to understanding artifact

use and instead proposed that dimensions of artifact and stratigraphic vari-

Bonn Aure is an instructor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at

the University of San Carlos, Cebu City; he is also in the Graduate Anthropology Pro-

gram there. His email is .


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PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE & SOCIETY162

ability be considered in making archaeological inferences (Walker 1998).Despite the abundance of ethnographic data on religion and ritual

during the Spanish contact period, they are seldom seen as causal factors

in the interpretation of the archaeological record. If ever mentioned, reli-

gion is considered as too esoteric to be a subject of study or is seen merelyas a reflection of a given mode of production ideological residues to be

accommodated in adaptive evolutionary scenarios (Walker 1995: 64). On

the contrary, Philippine ethnography has shown that religion and ritual,

and especially witchcraft and sorcery beliefs, are significant aspects ofeveryday community life and could have been instrumental in influencing

events in prehistoric communities.

Religion and Ritual in the Depositional Context as Theoretical

Explanation

Historically, burials have been the most common site type in Phil-

ippine archaeology. This is probably due to the ubiquitous presence of sur-

face or near-surface burial goods, for example, porcelain potsherdsunearthed in farmers fields. This ubiquity may have been due to a com-

mon site-formation process known in the Philippines from ethnographic

data: some indigenous peoples bury their dead under their houses. Becauseof this, Philippine archaeologists have often been forced to save archaeo-

logical data from the ravages of artifact looting.

Despite the relatively enormous archaeological evidence culledfrom burials, mortuary analyses have been largely limited to artifact de-scription, typologies, and the establishment of chronologies. Recently,

however, there has been a trend in Philippine archaeological studies to

correlate archaeological data with socio-political organization (Junker1999b), trade (Junker 1999b, Nishimura 1988), and warfare (Junker

1999b). This trend is part of what Santiago (2001) called the emerging

processualism in Philippine archaeology within an essentially cultural-historical milieu.

However, an alternative archaeological interpretation could be ap-

plied to the data by problematizing the role of religion and ritual in organ-

izing the archaeological context. This area of study has been under-conceptualized in Philippine archaeology despite Binfords (1962) call for

studying the ideological component of prehistoric communities. Rather

than seeing culture normatively, Flannery (1967: 103) suggested that

human behavior could be viewed as a point of overlap (or articulation)


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RELIGION IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL INFERENCE 163

between a vast number of systems Flannery added that ultimately thegoal is the reconstruction of the pattern of articulation, alongwith all re-lated systems.

To achieve this in the process school, ideological components (or

in Binfordian parlance, the ideotechnic component), specifically religionand ritual, need to be explored. Yet most archaeologists, including those

from the process school, tend to subordinate evidences of religion and rit-

ual in the archaeological record to supposedly more visible aspects (i.e.

technomic and sociotechnic components). They would argue that religionand ritual are mental and cognitive processes and thus can not be investi-

gated scientifically. This invisibility is rooted in the methodological

reluctance of those in the process school to uncover ideological dimen-sions. Trigger (1999) posited that processual archaeologys failure here isdue to more reliance on the ecological approach, where environmental

constraints that shape human behavior are deemed most important, as well

as on technology, economy, and social organization, than on beliefs andvalues.

Central to the problem is the materialist/idealist dichotomy found

in the technomic-sociotechnic-ideotechnic Binfordian perspective. View-

ing ideology as a mere product of the mode of production as well as of thesocio-political organization tends to disregard the diversity of prehistoric

communities in terms of ideology. Extending this thesis, Walker (2002)

argued that instead of labeling ritual as ideology, ritual should be consid-ered as having a material reality of its own.

Labeling ritual as ideology universally masks the material qualities of

ritual action and works to subordinate inferences of ritual to seemingly

more important topics, including politics, economics, and environment.

Religions organize rituals that, like all other behaviors, instrumentally

contribute to the manufacture, distribution, and use of material cul-

ture.Ritual organization can also structure the disposal, discard and

abandonment of artifacts and architecture (Walker 2002: 162).

At this point, religion and ritual need to be operationally defined in a way

that gives justice to their materiality. Religion is a series of social interac-tions or practices within an expanded social realm that includes nonhu-man, but similarly animated, entities (Walker 2002: 161). Religion thus

is not a mere psychological phenomenon existing in a persons mind but is

a social force that exists within the space that encompasses the interactionbetween people, objects, and other similarly animated entities (the natural


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environment and its spirits, the power of myths, and so forth). If we con-sider ritual as religion in action and that it is ritual which accomplisheswhat religion sets out to do (Wallace 1966: 102), the operation of belief

systems can therefore be scientifically investigated in archaeology, with

ritual deposits seen as the material realities of religion and ritual behaviorcapable of forming a depositional context. Walker goes on to argue that

violent death as manifested in mortuary evidence need not be attributed

only to warfare but may also be caused by ritual violence.

The partiality of New Archaeology towards politico-economic in-ferences leads to all traces of violent death being interpreted, almost auto-

matically, as caused by warfare. But there is a greater richness to much

archaeological data which cannot always be satisfactorily subject to infer-ences of a politico-economic character, such as attributions of warfare.Walker (1998) argued that some of the American Southwest archaeologi-

cal cases earlier interpreted as products of warfare are in fact due to activi-

ties related to religion and ritual.Indeed, warfare has been well documented historically as a cause

of death, but so have religious and ritual-related violence in various histor-

ic and prehistoric societies. For example, Lieban (1960: 133) wrote open

acts of violence against those suspected of sorcery (and witchcraft) havebeen well-known for some human groups. In many interpretive cases now

considered closed, or almost closed, ritual and religion have probably been

more significant causal factors of how those archaeological deposits werestructured than has been recognized. This is not to completely play down

other causal factors thought to have been at work in their sites by Philip-

pine archaeologists, but rather to argue for a need to be more open to reli-gion and ritual as alternative frames of reference in forming

archaeological inferences.

Warfare, Slave-raiding, and the Tanjay Mass Grave

Laura Lee Junkers (1999b) book, Raiding, Trading and Feasting:The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms, stands out as the most

comprehensive work dealing with Philippine prehistory. The book offers a

comprehensive interpretative understanding of Philippine prehistoric andprotohistoric societies using a politico-economic framework. She drawsher conclusions from a wide array of archaeological and ethnohistorical

data to illustrate the dynamics of Philippine chiefdoms vis--vis other

kinds of polities. Prior to Junkers book, archaeological inferences on Phil-


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ippine mortuary evidence had been largely descriptive. For example,Tenazas (1974) complex burial, in contrast with the simple burial, fo-cused on wealth indices; Maceda (1977) inferred that the quantity of

grave goods recovered could be an indicator of a persons wealth; and

Solheim (1964) found artifactual similarities across geographical regionsand made inferences about various pottery complexes.

Junkers central thesis is the existence of chiefdoms in prehistoric

and protohistoric societies, especially those located in coastal areas.

Chiefdoms, as defined by Junker (1993b: 146) are inegalitarian societiescharacterized by a high degree of social stratification, hereditary political

authority, and a highly centralized and specialized economy. Philippine

chiefs controlled politically manipulable wealth generated through alli-ance-structured tributary systems, agricultural intensification achievedthrough recirculated labor (slave raiding), chiefly sponsorship of luxury

goods artisans, and inter-island trading and raiding for gold and other sta-

tus goods (Junker 1999b: 85-119). She points out historical and archaeo-logical evidences for the existence of the chiefdom prototype in prehistoric

and protohistoric Philippine societies (including, amongst others, early

Spanish accounts of social stratification in the form of mentions of chief-

tains, Spanish contact period warfare and headhunting, extensive tradingwith other trading polities, and complexity in burial practices).

She then applies the chiefdom hypothesis to analyze settlement and

mortuary patterns, particularly in her archaeological site in the municipali-ty of Tanjay, Negros Oriental. Variation in social rank, she says, can be

materially reflected in the size and architectural complexity of domestic

structures (Junker 1999b: 145). Settlement pattern, as inferred from thearchaeological survey, is dichotomized into elite and non-elite settlements

because of differentials in prestige goods, artifactual diversity, architec-

ture, etc. This is then supported by inferences from historical sources

showing the hierarchical complexity of prehistoric and protohistoric Phil-ippine societies. Her inferences on mortuary patterns, on the other hand,

focus more on elucidating the dynamics of the chiefly polities; she sees

status symbolisms as expressive of ideological dimensions of the ranked

Philippine prehistoric societies.What is particularly interesting is an excavated twelfth to sixteenth

century mass grave with detached skulls as burial accompaniments in the

archaeological site in Tanjay. To quote Junker (1999b: 364):


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in the rib cage of the individual(T)he grave contained a detachedskull as a grave accompaniment (Junker 1999b: 365).

The mortuary evidences from the two burial sites indicate the sig-

nificance of warfare in the formation of paramount chieftaincies in the

Philippines (Junker 1999b: 368, 1993a: 71). However, this inference begs

some questions. Although warfare may have been prevalent in the twelfthto sixteenth century societies of the Tanjay region, was it the sole causal

factor of violent deaths during that period? Even if the warriors grave is

a plausible evidence for warfare, can we also infer that the multiple deaths

(i.e. mass grave) were also caused by warfare? Are the patterns in thedepositional contexts of the two burial sites (i.e. mass grave and warri-

ors grave) regular enough to warrant the warfare thesis?

By invoking artifactual multivocality, this paper attempts to arguefor an alternative interpretation of the Tanjay mass grave, beyond the war-

fare and chiefdom thesis. The inherent archaeological limitation of this

paper, however, is its reliance on secondary data, taken from Junkers pub-lications.

We concur with Junker that the reason for the mass grave was

probably an unusual death event. However, inferential gaps seem to be

present in the warfare and raiding thesis as a plausible cause of the multi-ple deaths. If slaves were so important in the Tanjay chiefdom, why did

the mass killings happen rather than enslavement of the victims? Junker

(1999a: 31) remarked that the accumulation of more slaves increased

overall agricultural productivity, supported an expanding military force forcontinued slave-raiding, allowed chiefs to devote more of their labor to

maritime trading activities, and generally expanded the politically manipu-

lable surplus under a chiefs control. She extricated herself from this d i-lemma by coming to the conclusion that the mass grave was the result of

a devastating raid (1999a: 29) brought about by interpolity warfare.

While warfare is well represented in the ethnographic record, Iwould argue that a rigid fixation on warfare and raiding tend to constrict

analysis and may result in the misrepresentation of the archaeological

record. Although warfare was prevalent, as suggested from historical ac-

counts of various Spanish chroniclers, the mass grave does not seem to becaused by warfare. At the outset, the presence of a cranial trauma, a misa-

ligned vertebral column, and skull accompaniments might lead one to in-

fer that indeed war was the cause of death. This seems to be

commonsensical and later on believable as historical accounts are injected


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into the analysis.Insights present in the ethnographic and historical records reveal

other causal factors that may render the inference in this particular case on

warfare and slave-raiding insubstantial. Ethnography and oral histories of

the Visayan peoples indicate that while warfare was once culturally signif-icant, as evidenced by stories of heroes and epic battles, these narratives of

war are interwoven with religion and ritual. What is poignant in the Tan-

jay mass grave is the unusual nature of the burial, which could be ade-

quately explained by taking into account the power of belief in thesupernatural. Of significance is the power of belief in the aswang(witch)

as a possible causal force in some indigenous mortuary behavior.

Another Explanation? Visayan Witchraft Beliefs and Associated

Behaviors

In the Philippines, particularly in the Visayas or Central Philip-

pines region (where Tanjay is located), a belief in the inherent evil of

witches has been and is prevalent. Scott (1995) in his study of Spanishcontact period Philippine societies, identified various witch-prototypes in

the Visayas. According to Scott, the aswang were flesh-eaters who de-

voured the liver like a slow cancer(and) also ate the flesh of corpses,disinterring them if not well-guarded or actually causing them to disappear

in the plain sight of mourners at a wake (Scott 1995: 81). Spanish lexi-

cons listed alok, balbal, kakag, oko, onglo, and wakwakas synonyms ofaswang. Today witches are believed to have a carnivorous habit (Arens1971: 97) and prey on the sick, the dead, infants, and pregnant women

(Arens 1971, Villegas 1968). Liver complaints are still attributed to the

appetite of witches.Villegas (1968: 227-230) notes that, in the coastal towns of the

Waray in eastern Leyte, witches are evil persons with preternatural powers

but are indistinguishable from others in the community. There, witches fallinto three groups: tangso-tangso, nalakat, and managhilaw. The tangso-

tangsois akin to the manananggalof the Tagalog in that the witch torso

separates from the rest of the body and flies out to seek a victim. The na-

lakat, on the other hand, has to walk to where its victim isand has thepower to transform itself into any animal it chooses, while the managhi-

law attacks even people in the best of health and sucks their blood in

contrast to that of the other types of witches who prey only on the sick

(Villegas 1968: 227).


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Aside from this predatory behavior, witches are also believed tometamorphose from a normal person during daytime into a witch at night.During nighttime, they are believed to have reddish eyes that become

sharp and penetrating, allowing them to see into the womb of a pregnant

mother. Witches have razor-sharp teeth and long, pointed fingernails. Thehair is purportedly brittle, straight, and spreading while the body is thin

and slippery so as to be able to fly or crawl through the smallest opening.

Saliva drools from the mouth. They have keen hearing, sight, and smell

(Arens 1971, Villegas 1968).One of Arenss informants remarked that witches have existed

since time immemorial (Arens1971: 95). Arens suggested that the first

witches were cave spirits, for in one of his interviews, he learned thatpeople believe one automatically becomes a witch if he or she finds abottle with an inverted plant inside a cave during Lent. But if a person

finds a bottle with a plant positioned in a natural way, with its roots at the

bottom of the bottle and the leaves at the top, then that person will becomea good tambalan(traditional healer).

Lieban (1960: 128) stressed that Cebuano witchcraft can be trans-

mitted either through heredity or transference. Among the Waray, a

germ or kagawof witchhood can supposedly be transferred to anotherthrough cold food, physical contact, or by blowing on another persons

alimpoporo (crown of the head) (Villegas 1968). The monster in the

witchs stomach can relocate to another persons body if that person ispresent at the witchs deathbed (Arens 1971).

Arens and Villegas noted that in Waray culture the process of be-

coming a witch goes through stages. At first, the kagawor germ incu-bates in the newly bewitched persons stomach. The witch-apprentice

begins to feel a pain in the kapoy-kapoy or sorok-sorok (diaphragm). A

thick mass of blood develops which gradually assumes the appearance of a

pikoy (parrot). In a month, the victim then develops an appetite for rawchicken. The witch teaches the victim how to fly and search for prospec-

tive prey. Once the witch-apprentice learns all the necessary knowledge,

the process cannot be reversed.

The ethnographic accounts suggest that witches are considered tobe malignantly evil. Lieban (1967) noted that the supernatural powers of

witches are considered to be rooted in the individual, a constitutional re-

source in contrast to sorcerers whose powers are taken from resourcesoutside of the individual, such as magical procedures and spirit guides.

He writes:


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Reaction to someone believed to be an aswangis apt to be more intenseand hostile due to the extremely aberrant characteristics ascribed to this

type of witch, and the fact that the aswang is more likely to be con-

ceived as inherently evil(Lieban 1967: 75).

The aswangresembles some witches elsewhere whose behavior in cer-

tain respects antithesizes or inverts normal behavior in the societies

where they are found (Lieban 1967: 77).

Violent death is not the monopoly of warfare. Other causal dimen-

sions of violent death are found in historic accounts. Persecution of sus-

pected witches has been documented as a cause for violent death in manysocieties. For the Philippines, Anima noted that witchcrafthas a long,

continuous history of persecution for its practitioners. Witch-suspects

were often subjected to drowning tests to determine the validity of thewitch-hunters suspicions (Anima 1978: 2).

One lynching incident in Carigara, Leyte, as recounted by Ramos,

illustrates one community reaction to those suspected of witchcraft.

Han olitawo pa ako may-ada wakwak didto ha Cogon an ngaran he

Mara. Damo an nasering nga hi Mara in para wakwak han mga bag-o

nga anakan didto hadto nga lugar. Usa ka adlaw may ada bag-o nga

anakan nga namatay kay guin wakwak kono ni Mara. Guinhigot ha

barsa ngan iguin pasaog han carabao hasta nga namatay. An mga taga

baryo diri na kontento salet era guin labay ngadto ha lunayan han

kabao

When I was still single there was a wakwakin Cogon whose name was

Mara. Many said that Mara was the cause of the death of many mothers

who had newly given birth there. One day a mother had been

wakwakedby Mara (her blood sucked out). The barrio folks went to the

house of Mara and tied him and mounted his body on [or behind?] a

sled and had a carabao pull him over rocky ground. The barrio people

were not yet content so they dumped him into the mud where the cara-

baos wallowed (Ramos 1971: 56-57).

Another incident was recorded by Lieban (1960: 133) where vio-

lence was perpetrated against those suspected of sorcery. He said that aman suspected of sorcery was shot at in a community near Sibulan and,

in the course of his study, a newspaper reported that a woman suspected

of performing sorcery had been killed and her husband and children in-jured when men threw a homemade explosive into her house because she

was believed to have caused the illness of a son of one of the men.


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Recently, another news item appeared in the Visayan Daily Star(Gomez 2003) that recounted the beheading of a married elderly couple inSitio Si-alay, barangay Bulata, Cauayan town in Negros Occidental. The

perpetrators (three members of the same community) believed that the

couple were aswang. As one of the men beheaded the female witch-suspect, he purportedly saw the severed body stand up before falling

down. He then rushed to the couples kitchen to get some ashes and

rubbed the ashes and some salt on the stump of her severed head to pre-

vent it from reconnecting with the body. The men then hacked the otherwitch-suspect (i.e., the husband) and proceeded to sever the head from the

body. They planned to bury the heads in a nearby river to prevent them

from rejoining the bodies. Interestingly, the perpetrators believed thatthey did the right thing and saved the lives of others. That is why they didnot attempt to flee from their barangay.

Arenss informants noted that aswangsdo not live long because

all the people are after their necks. Some of the aswangs have beenkilled and the rest moved away to far-away places where they are not

known. To kill a witch, one should chant certain prayers and stab the

witch in the back with a sharpened length of bamboo. Arens was told that

the aswanghas to be slashed into pieces. If the witch transforms itself intoan animal, the animal should be severed into two and the two halves

placed in the distant opposite reaches of a river (Arens 1971: 101-102).

Scott wrote, if Visayans became convinced that a death had beencaused by one of their townmates who was such a creature, he or she was

put to deathalong with their whole families if the victim had been a da-

tu (emphasis mine). The stark fear of witches was also manifested in theburial of the datuafter which a slave called dayowas stationed at a datus

tomb for the rest of his life to guard against robbers or aswang, with the

right to feed himself off anybodys field (Scott 1995: 90-91).

In the Visayas, it has been shown that the power of witches residewithin the individual and not outside, say for example in another supernat-

ural being. Although witchhood may have originated from the cave

spirits, it is thought to be transmitted usually along kinship linesthe

germs or kagawbeing contagious. Scott, in his rendition of contact peri-od Visayan culture, pointed out the possibility that families of suspected

witches were put to death together with the witch-suspect. Moreover, an

aswang could not simply be killed with bare hands but certain weaponsascribed with special powers had to be used, usually metal knives or bam-

boo spikes. In contemporary Cebuano culture, the aswang motif is not


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simply an individual affliction but rather a family trait. In other words,the community generally views witchcraft as transmittable along kinshiplines (among kaliwat sa aswang, roughly translated as clan of witches).

For example, Arens (1971: 103), to account for how contemporary witches

are treated, noted that:

The life of a suspected witch and her [or his] family is made difficult

by the constant suspicion of the people. The witch is shunned and

sometimes publicly embarrassed. Food and delicacies sent from her

kitchen out of hospitality are thrown away or fed to the dogs. Endless

gossip circulates about horrible and inhuman ways such as feasting on a

dead mans body which some will claim to have seen her doing the

night before. The family members are the targets of many sarcastic andcutting remarks. The pretty daughters stay unmarried because young

gentlemen are afraid to marry them.

In Philippine folklore, the aswang is capable of returning from the dead

with a vengeance (Ramos 1971). It can be warded off only by using sa-

cralized objects and incantations (Villegas 1968, Scheans and Hutterer1970, Arens 1971).

Given the very malevolent image of witches in the Visayan mind,

witches probably even during the pre-Spanish period were victims of per-

secution. They very likely suffered social derision and worsetheir perse-cution may have led to mass killings.

As presented above, witchcraft persecution is found in historical aswell as ethnographic accounts in the Visayas. There is therefore a compel-ling reason to reassess Junkers interpretation of the Tanjay mass grave in

view of the ambiguity of the causality of violent death in the archaeologi-

cal record of protohistoric timesespecially with Scotts discovery of the

Visayan practice of the massacre of witch-suspects families.

A Reassessment of the Tanjay Mass Grave

Junkers (1993a: 61-64) description of skeletal deposits in the Tan-

jay mass grave certainly reveals some puzzling features, as she says. Ac-

cording to her, they provide evidence for headhunting activities associatedwith revenge-raiding. Given the benefit of the doubt that headhunting did

occur in the fifteenth to sixteenth century Tanjay maritime polity, the use

of the skulls as grave accompaniments did not necessarily imply that themultiple deaths were archaeological evidence of warfare. Initially, the

skulls may have been a consequence of war, but they could later have been


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put to a ritual usethat was not associated with warfare at all. Skulls per-haps were central in the mortuary rituals in the Tanjay polity during thatperiod (as expressed in the warriors grave and the mass grave). But

the reworked skull (with two long bones forming an X) suggests a special

and specific symbol meaningful to the surviving community. Without the-se remains having been arranged as they were, the mass grave would have

been culturally sterile.

Therefore, I suggest that the human remains in the Tanjay mass

burial are possibly of two kinds: (a) those of a kin group of persecuted andslain witches, and (b) extra skulls of warriors taken in previous battles

which were placed in the mass grave to ward off (or weigh down) aswang

returning from the dead. In this interpretation, the skull accompanimentswere ritual objects, and not the heads of slaves sacrificed to accompanytheir masters in death. This use of skulls could have been related to what

in rural Cebuan culture today is called pangontra or sumpa, counter-

sorcery or counter-witchcraft to ward off or exorcise the aswang.Relatedto this is Liebans observation that the skull of a deceased, unbaptized pe r-

son could be used ritually by a sorceror to cause someones death (Lieban

1960: 129-130), a curse called in Cebuano paktol. Another way of ward-

ing off witches, observed ethnographically, could have been in use in pre-hispanic times, namely the tattooing of certain formulae on a vulnerable

persons body (Scheans and Hutterer 1970: 29). In the Tanjay mass grave,

the reworked skull with the long bones in an X (hex?) formation, and oneof them inserted through an eye socket, may have been another way to re-

pel the return of the deceased witches, possibly by blinding one of them.

Conclusion

Archaeologists have often used ethnographic analogy to substanti-

ate their conceptual framework in the analysis of the archaeological rec-

ord. How the archaeologist interprets the depositional context largelydepends on the conceptual lens he or she uses; for example, processualists

tend to privilege politico-economic analysis. The danger, however, is that

these conceptual frameworks may misrepresent the peoples and communi-

ties that the archaeologist studies. Consequently, other dimensions of hu-man experience are left unexplored and the richness of prehistory

expunged from the archaeologists texts. The stories of the prehispanic

native Filipinos went beyond wars and slavery and these otherstories are

worth listening to as well.


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The following statement is thus instructive:

As long as the demon of practical reason twists and contorts archaeo-

logical inferences, the stratigraphic and behavioral structure of the past

will remain the victim of warfare, greed, and other attributes of utilitar-

ian models. If the demon is exorcised, what wonders will the deposit of

prehistory hold? (Walker 2002: 173).

Acknowledgments

The writing of this paper would not have been possible without thegenerous support and encouragement of colleagues and friends. First and

foremost, I would like to thank the University of San Carlos-New Mexico

State University Fulbright Education Partnership Project for enhancing

anthropological studies at the University of San Carlos. I also owe a spe-cial debt of gratitude to Harold Olofson for his assistance on this paper;

William H. Walker -- a fellow Joyce Wellian -- for his theoretical guid-

ance and friendship; Wenda Trevathan who gave me her steady supportand encouragement; and John A. Peterson for reviewing the contents of

this paper.

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