Appeasing Deprivation : The Meaning of Bandi (Bridewealth) among the Pinatubo Negritos

Based on the materials the author collected during 19 months of field research in and around Kakilingan village, this paper presents an ethnographic description of marriage and bridewealth in the southwestern Pinatubo Negritos, western Luzon.In particular the author will discuss the meaning of bandi in their society by answering the following questions; why it is given at marriage; why the amount differs so much according to the socio-psychological distance between the bride\u27s and the groom\u27s extended families; and how it works alternatively to promote or to prevent social change.Among the Pinatubo Negritos, bandi is not a specific property with symbolic value, but ordinary goods of any kind such as pigs, chickens, cloth, clothes, radios, knives, and recently, water buffaloes and cash.It is neither given to compensate for the transfer of rights over a woman (c. f. Fortes 1962, Goody 1973) nor to balance the cost-benefit ratio at marriage (c. f. Spiro 1975).It is also not meant to put mating into a socially meaningful context and a universe of relations (c. f. Comaroff 1980).The author thinks that bandi is given to appease the anger and sense of deprivation of the bride\u27s family, while Negritos themselves explain it either as a custom or as a “breast-fee”(the costs of being brought up).Actual marriage procedures differ widely between two poles; i. e. arranged and/or forced by parents on the one hand, and elopement by a couple on the other hand.Marriage with near kin is prohibitted, because it is just like a bo-et, an animal with rabit-like shape, which eats its own droppings and has intercourse by itself.Marriage, therefore, is essentially thought of as depriving the family of a daughter (sister/niece).And even marriage by parents should be arranged outside a socio-psychologically intimate circle and involve a feeling of deprivation on the bride\u27s side.When marriage is initiated by elopement, the bride\u27s family gets angry and demands a big amount of bandi.If the groom\u27s family cannot meet the agreement at negotiations, or if it fails to fulfill the agreement later, a couple is forced to separate.Elopement takes a long time to achieve stability because of the heavy burdon of bandi, which is paid in long instalments.Thus bandi works to prevent all attempts at elopement from becoming successful and still maintains the importance of arranged marriage.But, if a groom\u27s side succeeds in appeasing a bride\u27s family by delivering the required bandi, even though it may not be fully paid, another dimension of soical relations by affinal bond is developed.While arranged marriage occurs in already established relations and strengthens the existing social circle, elopement initiates re-organization by introducing outside relations

Transitional Stage Kakilingan Negritos : From Sifting Cultivation to Plow Agriculture

This essay presents a case study of Pinatubo Negritos\u27 traditional subsistence system and its transformation.The data used in this essay were collected by myself.My field research was carried out in Kakilingan village located at the southwestern foot of Mt.Pinatubo from October, 1977 up to April, 1979.Kakilingan village was built by Ecumenical Foundation for Minority Development Inc.in the middle of 1970\u27s, in order to promote sedentary plow agriculture for Negritos who practiced shifting cultivation in surrounding mountains.The Foundation leased one carabao (water buffalo) and one hectare farm land to each Negrito family coming down from the mountains to settle in the village.It encouraged them to plant sorghum for the first year and then to plant upland rice from the second year.However, improving labor quality as well as acquiring new agricultural techniques are indispensable for Negritos to change their subsistence system.Many Negrito farmers could not follow up this radical change and had very poor harvest every year.That is to say, the Foundation project could not obtain good results at least by the time I left the village.In spite of the failure in sedentary agriculture project, the Foundation exerted strong influence on Negrito subsistence system and their daily economic activities.The object of my study is to analyze the problems which Kakilingan Negritos were facing at their transitional stage of subsistence system, namely from shifting cultivation to plow agriculture.In doing so, I also present detailed analysis of the changes which were actually occuring in their economic life by the impact of the Foundation project

VI. Installation of a Triangulation Chain and a Traverse Survey Line on the Ice Sheet in the Mizuho Plateau-West Enderby Land Area, East Antarctica, 1969-1970

With the purpose of conducting researches on the ice sheet flow, a triangulation chain and a traverse survey line, 250 and 200km in total length respectively, were installed in the Mizuho Plateau-West Enderby Land area in 1969 and 1970 by JARE 10 and JARE 11 (see Fig. A attached to the end of this volume)

Development of a reverse transcription-loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) system for a highly sensitive detection of enterovirus in the stool samples of acute flaccid paralysis cases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In the global eradication program for poliomyelitis, the laboratory diagnosis plays a critical role by isolating poliovirus (PV) from the stool samples of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases. In this study, we developed a reverse transcription-loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) system for a rapid and highly sensitive detection of enterovirus including PV to identify stool samples positive for enterovirus including PV.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A primer set was designed for RT-LAMP to detect enterovirus preferably those with PV-like 5'NTRs of the viral genome. The sensitivity of RT-LAMP system was evaluated with prototype strains of enterovirus. Detection of enterovirus from stool extracts was examined by using RT-LAMP system.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We detected at least 400 copies of the viral genomes of PV(Sabin) strains within 90 min by RT-LAMP with the primer set. This RT-LAMP system showed a preference for <it>Human enterovirus species C </it>(HEV-C) strains including PV, but exhibited less sensitivity to the prototype strains of HEV-A and HEV-B (detection limits of 7,400 to 28,000 copies). Stool extracts, from which PV, HEV-C, or HEV-A was isolated in the cell culture system, were mostly positive by RT-LAMP method (positive rates of 15/16 (= 94%), 13/14 (= 93%), and 4/4 (= 100%), respectively). The positive rate of this RT-LAMP system for stool extracts from which HEV-B was isolated was lower than that of HEV-C (positive rate of 11/21 (= 52%)). In the stool samples, which were negative for enterovirus isolation by the cell culture system, we found that two samples were positive for RT-LAMP (positive rates of 2/38 (= 5.3%)). In these samples, enterovirus 96 was identified by sequence analysis utilizing a seminested PCR system.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>RT-LAMP system developed in this study showed a high sensitivity comparable to that of the cell culture system for the detection of PV, HEV-A, and HEV-C, but less sensitivity to HEV-B. This RT-LAMP system would be useful for the direct detection of enterovirus from the stool extracts.</p