Subject: datu / magani warrior chief
Culture: Bagobo
Setting: tribal warfare, Mindanao early 20thc.
Context
* Hamilton 1998 p28 (Roy W. Hamilton, "From the rainbow's varied hue: Textile style regions of Mindanao and Sulu" p14-101)
"Bagobo society, like that of many of the neighboring groups as well, was stratified into four named segments. At the top were the datu, or chieftains, whose positions were sometimes, although not always, inherited. Next was a class of prominent warriors called magani, who were distinguished by having taken human life in warfare. The third segment consisted of commoners and the fourth of slaves. These were not entirely rigid categories, as the datu and magani segments were not mutually exclusive, and commoners could become magani through their actions. The elaborateness of clothing was closely related to social standing, and special types of garments were reserved for the datu and magani. Violation of these sumptuary privileges was considered a serious matter, subject to supernatural rather than human punishment."
* Hamilton 1998 p172 n23 (Roy W. Hamilton, "From the rainbow's varied hue: Textile style regions of Mindanao and Sulu" p14-101)
"There are no accounts of Bagobo taking heads, but warfare and human sacrifice were institutionalized among them in much the same way that headhunting complexes operated in other Southeast Asian societies." [CONTRA Viriginia War Museum > America at War]
* Hamilton 1998 p172 n6 (Roy W. Hamilton, "From the Rainbow's Varied Hue: Textile Style Regions of Mindanao and Sulu" p14-101)
"Over six hundred Japanese involved in the abaca industry mostly small-scale planters, were killed between 1918 and 1938 by Bagobo who were resisting the taking of land and the felling of fruit trees for abaca plantations."
Costume
* Anawalt 2007 p303
"The Bagobo of mountainous central and southern Mindanao were known for their beautifully crafted cloth woven from the fiber of the abaca plant (Musa textilis), a close relative of the banana. Bagobo men once wore highly burnished and intricately decorated jackets and short trousers. To the proud Bagobo, the wearing of beautiful clothing was particularly important because personal adornment equated with virtuous character."
* Hamilton 1998 p31 (Roy W. Hamilton, "From the rainbow's varied hue: Textile style regions of Mindanao and Sulu" p14-101)
"The Bagobo had an elaborately graded system of color and garment symbolism. ... [M]agani who had taken two human lives wore the tangkulo, those who had taken four wore pants of the same material, and those who had taken six lives were entitled to a full suit. ... [T]he depth of color, ranging from light red to chocolate brown, reflected the number of lives taken, while ... the number of markings in the pattern reflected the number of lives taken. ... [M]agani who had taken more than twenty lives were once entitled to wear full abaca suits of black but that this was no longer practiced in 1910 .... This color ideology was based on the precept that only those who have provided the diety Mandarangan with human blood sacrifice were entitled to wear the red pelangi cloth. The preoccupation with depth of red-brown shades therefore seems to have reflected a notion of saturation with blood." [references omitted]
* Benitez & Barbier 2000 p142
"Traditionally, the Bagobo engaged in combat to avenge the death of a family member, secure loot and slaves, or win the distinction of being called a magani. A dress-coded system of hierarchy prevailed and permission to don chocolate-coloured headbands was given to those who had killed two or more people, blood-red trousers to those who had killed four, and full maroon suits to those who could claim six."
* Hamilton 1998 p28 (Roy W. Hamilton, "From the rainbow's varied hue: Textile style regions of Mindanao and Sulu" p14-101)
"The characteristic garment of the magani was a special headcloth called tangkulo, made with the pelangi technique. Only priestesses were allowed to do the pelangi work under the protection of the diety Bait Pandi, a female spirit who is the guardian of looms and weavers and taught women to weave. Tangkulo were made of abaca or cotton ..., but nearly all examples that remain in museum collections today are made of cotton trade cloth, which the Bagobo obtained from Chinese traders. The pattern was tied into the cloth using waxed abaca threads, and the cloth was then dyed with morinda. In the finished cloth the motifs stand out in white against the red-brown background. The cloth is usually finished with a border of white glass beads and sometimes tiny pom-poms.
"The pelangi motifs consist almost entirely of small circles, with a slightly larger motif at the center that the Bagobo call 'moon' (bulan-bulan). It is the arrangement of the small circles over the surface of the cloth that makes up the design. Each cloth is unique, but the design is always based on some variant of an X, running diagonally from corner to corner. ...[T]he Bagobo considered the pattern on the tangkulo to be a crocodile pattern. Some cloths offer clearly representational crocodile figures, while others are considerably more abstract." [references omitted]Shield
* Demetrio 1991 p593 (quoting Dacanay 1977 p924)
"For defense, the Bagobo rely on shields which are either oblong or round and on strips of hemp cloth to cover their bodies and ward off knife thrusts."
* Benitez & Barbier 2000 p142
"In former times, the Bagobo frequently feuded with other Bagobo settlements and conducted raids further south against the B'laan and Tagakaulu, their hereditary enemies. During battle, they began by using bows and arrows and spears from a distance. Then they rushed towards they enemy brandishing long knives and engaged them in close combat. They crouched behind their shields, skipping back and forth continuously rather in the manner of a dance. To protect themselves, the Bagobo covered their bodies with strips of hemp cloth and, before that, added layers of long decorated strips called gindua. However, their primary defensive weapon was the shield."
Spear
*
