Ifugao Law

Barton, Roy Franklin, 1883-1947Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 323K words
Chapters: 33

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Ifugao Law by Roy Franklin BartonAuthor: Barton, Roy Franklin, 1883-1947,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Sep 20, 2012

Editor's review

This book is a relatively rare early ethnographic study focused specifically on the Ifugao customary law system. Structured around field observations and case narratives, it presents land, inheritance, marriage, debt, injury, and dispute resolution within concrete social relationships, letting readers see that law is not abstract statute but practice embedded in everyday ethics and community order. For non-specialist readers its value lies not in brisk prose but in offering a window onto how a stateless society maintains order; for students of anthropology, legal sociology, or Southeast Asian area studies, it serves as material for understanding early paradigms of legal ethnography. Read it as a historical source: note the author's questions, recording methods, and era-bound limitations, and compare with today's discussions for a more solid takeaway.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology and ethnology needing examples of legal ethnography.
Researchers in legal sociology and customary law interested in non-state dispute resolution mechanisms.
Readers interested in the mountain peoples of Luzon, Philippines, and Southeast Asian area studies.
Serious nonfiction readers who enjoy understanding how social order forms through concrete cases.

Not a good fit for

Casual readers expecting light stories or travel essays; the book is academic and case-dense.
Practitioners needing a contemporary guide to Philippine legal practice; this is historical ethnography, not a current law manual.
Beginners with limited patience for reading English originals who are unwilling to use reference tools.

Reading tips

Read the introduction or opening chapters first to understand the author's questions and scope, then move to specific cases.
Prepare a simple table of people and relationships, recording disputing parties, kinship ties, and bases of judgment for comparison.
After each type of case, summarize its rule logic in a few sentences, then compare similarities and differences with another type.
Annotate era-bound judgments in the margins, distinguishing "the author's description at the time" from "analysis supportable by today's evidence."

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers without an anthropology background?

It can be read, but expectations should be adjusted. It is not an introductory primer but an early specialized ethnography with dense terminology and case narratives. Readers should first understand basic concepts such as customary law and kinship systems, or read alongside an introductory course; those interested only in specific dispute cases can read selected chapters rather than the whole book.

Is the "law" discussed here the same as modern societal law?

It is not the same concept. The book concerns the customary rules and adjudicative practices by which Ifugao society maintains order and handles injury and disputes, closer to what legal anthropology calls customary law or local norms. Readers should not directly apply modern state law categories but examine how rules are embedded in kinship, land, and community relations.

What preparation is needed to read the English original?

This is a public-domain English e-book whose sentence patterns and ethnographic style may be demanding. Use a dictionary and glossary for frequent proper names, and keep a notebook for people and cases; if time is limited, prioritize chapters on land, inheritance, marriage, and dispute resolution, then return to theoretical passages.

What is the point of reading this early ethnography today?

Its value lies mainly in historical documentation and methodological reference: it preserves a systematic record of Ifugao customary law from a particular period and shows how early legal ethnography posed questions, gathered evidence, and wrote. Readers can reflect on the recorder's era-bound limitations and compare with later research, rather than treating it as a complete final word on local culture.

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About the author

Barton, Roy Franklin, 1883-1947 Author · American · 1883–1947

Roy Franklin Barton (1883–1947) was an American anthropologist who conducted long-term ethnographic research in the Philippines, focusing on the societies of the Ifugao and the Kalinga. His representative work, Ifugao Law, is known for its systematic documentation of Ifugao customary law and remains an important early source for understanding the legal and social organization of Philippine highland peoples. Public information on his education, posts, and fieldwork career is limited, so this profile can only outline his research orientation. Grounded in field observation, his writing attends to the connections between institutions and everyday life, and his work is still consulted by scholars of anthropology and legal ethnography.