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MOLBOG 533
the island as well as by a more direct control of Balabac by the Sulu sultanate.
The local kalibugan (mestizo) rulers in Balabac were the offspring of marriages
between the first Tausug settlers and the Molbog. They used the title panglima
(official representative of the sultan) and collected taxes to send once a year to
Batarasa, in the mainland Palawan, where part of the Sulu royal family transferred
during the nineteenth century.
The control by the sultan was strict; he had ultimate word in questions of
succession, and his emissaries directly and frequently interfered with local problems.
After American rule was established at the beginning of this century, the
process of Islamization was still in progress. In different periods, imams and
Islamic teachers came to Balabac for short visits, and it was only after the first
years of the century that all the Molbog came to profess the Islamic faith.
The Molbog's productive activities are shifting cultivation and fishing. Hunting
and gathering are of secondary importance, but especially in the case of gathering,
they can acquire considerable relevance as a substitute source of livelihood when
rice is lacking.
The staple food is rice. Additional crops are cassava, sweet potato and corn.
Other vegetables such as taro, yams and beans are cultivated but in lesser quantities,
and not regularly. Fruit trees are planted but seldom reach the productive
age for lack of care.
Fish is the main source of protein. The most common fishing techniques are
hook and line, which are used from the dugout, underwater speargun fishing
and fishing by light during the last and the first quarters of the moon cycle.
While the latter is performed usually in small groups, the other two are essentially
individual activities.
In traditional times, the idea of private ownership of land was completely
alien to the Molbog. Land was considered the property of God, and no one could
claim permanent right to it. Right to usufruct was exercised by the farmer until
the land was cultivated. At the end of the agricultural cycle, when the land was
abandoned, he no longer had any claim to it. While the government has instituted
processes for individual titles which can be bought and sold, the basic concept
that land is a public good still holds. No Molbog will refuse permission for
another Molbog to cut trees on the land for which he pays taxes, and rent payment
is never required.
The Molbog kinship system is bilateral. The descent lines of both the father
and the mother are biologically and socially recognized. Descent groups are
totally absent, and a strong genealogical amnesia worsened by a taboo called
busung busung that forbids naming parents, elders and the dead makes it impossible
for the Molbog to recall names of ancestors who died even two generations
earlier.
Marriage is prohibited between first degree patrilineal or matrilineal cousins.
Polygynous marriages are rare. Post-marital residence is uxirilocal for the first
year of marriage, at which time the husband will help the father-in-law with the
cultivation of the field. After the fulfillment of this obligation, the new family