Philippine Quarterly of Culture & Society

32(2004): 161-177

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INFERENCE AND ANOTHER

LOOK 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 areas
deemed 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 cultural systems(m)ajor aspects of human behavior such as religious beliefs, aesthetics, and scientific knowledge received little attention. The
scopedoes not appear to have expanded beyond that already embraced by the ecological and settlement-pattern approaches that developed 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 about
the presence of chiefdoms and the dichotomy between elite and non-elite
(Junker 1993a, 1993b, 1999a, 1999b; Bacus 1996; Mijares et al. 2003: 3435; Dizon 2003: 19-20) with one questioning voice (Peterson 2003), is instructive 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 Program there. His email is <pinaksak@yahoo.com>.

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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, religion is considered as too esoteric to be a subject of study or is seen merely
as 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 of
everyday 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 Philippine archaeology. This is probably due to the ubiquitous presence of surface or near-surface burial goods, for example, porcelain potsherds
unearthed in farmers fields. This ubiquity may have been due to a common site-formation process known in the Philippines from ethnographic
data: some indigenous peoples bury their dead under their houses. Because
of this, Philippine archaeologists have often been forced to save archaeological data from the ravages of artifact looting.
Despite the relatively enormous archaeological evidence culled
from burials, mortuary analyses have been largely limited to artifact description, 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 (Junker
1999b), 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 culturalhistorical milieu.
However, an alternative archaeological interpretation could be applied to the data by problematizing the role of religion and ritual in organizing the archaeological context. This area of study has been underconceptualized 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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between a vast number of systems Flannery added that ultimately the

goal is the reconstruction of the pattern of articulation, along with all related systems.
To achieve this in the process school, ideological components (or
in Binfordian parlance, the ideotechnic component), specifically religion
and ritual, need to be explored. Yet most archaeologists, including those
from the process school, tend to subordinate evidences of religion and ritual in the archaeological record to supposedly more visible aspects (i.e.
technomic and sociotechnic components). They would argue that religion
and ritual are mental and cognitive processes and thus can not be investigated scientifically. This invisibility is rooted in the methodological
reluctance of those in the process school to uncover ideological dimensions. Trigger (1999) posited that processual archaeologys failure here is
due 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 and
values.
Central to the problem is the materialist/idealist dichotomy found
in the technomic-sociotechnic-ideotechnic Binfordian perspective. Viewing ideology as a mere product of the mode of production as well as of the
socio-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 considered 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 culture.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 interactions or practices within an expanded social realm that includes nonhuman, 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 interaction
between 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 consider ritual as religion in action and that it is ritual which accomplishes
what 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 behavior
capable 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 inferences leads to all traces of violent death being interpreted, almost automatically, as caused by warfare. But there is a greater richness to much
archaeological data which cannot always be satisfactorily subject to inferences of a politico-economic character, such as attributions of warfare.
Walker (1998) argued that some of the American Southwest archaeological cases earlier interpreted as products of warfare are in fact due to activities 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 historic and prehistoric societies. For example, Lieban (1960: 133) wrote open
acts of violence against those suspected of sorcery (and witchcraft) have
been 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 were
structured than has been recognized. This is not to completely play down
other causal factors thought to have been at work in their sites by Philippine archaeologists, but rather to argue for a need to be more open to religion 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 and
protohistoric societies using a politico-economic framework. She draws
her 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, focused 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 regions
and 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 societies
characterized 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 alliance-structured tributary systems, agricultural intensification achieved
through recirculated labor (slave raiding), chiefly sponsorship of luxury
goods artisans, and inter-island trading and raiding for gold and other status goods (Junker 1999b: 85-119). She points out historical and archaeological 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 chieftains, Spanish contact period warfare and headhunting, extensive trading
with 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 municipality 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 the
archaeological survey, is dichotomized into elite and non-elite settlements
because of differentials in prestige goods, artifactual diversity, architecture, etc. This is then supported by inferences from historical sources
showing the hierarchical complexity of prehistoric and protohistoric Philippine 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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The mass graveyielded no manufactured burial goods but contained

eight detached skulls as grave accompaniments and exhibited a number
of skeletal abnormalities among the intact individuals. One adult female had a severe cranial trauma consistent with a piercing blow to the
forehead, and one of the adult males had a misaligned vertebral column
consistent with a severe spinal injury.

A further description of it follows (Junker 1993a: 64).

(T)he mass burial consists of a roughly east-west oriented, approximately four-meter long, 0.7 meter deep trench into which several
paired male-female burials and an adult male-female-child triad had
been placed. [One burial] was associated with an unusual arrangement of secondarily deposited human bone near its right femur
consisting of the upper portion of a cranium (the frontal and parietal
bones) in which a single large, semi-circular notch had been deliberately carved in the vicinity of the eye orbits, through which a human humerus has been placed (oriented roughly NE-SW), at right angles with
a human radius passing underneath the parietal (oriented roughly NWSE), the two long bones forming an X pattern.This worked human
skull fragment also had two irregularly-shaped, but clearly deliberate
punctures through the upper parietal, which appear to have been made
with a sharp instrument, about one centimeter in diameter.

Junker stated that the mass grave represents an unusual or uncommon

death event prescribing multiple burials rather than the more typical interment individual graves because it was a violent one resulting from
raiding or warfare activities and that the inclusion of several individual
skulls represented trophies from reprisals against the responsible group
(Junker 1993a: 68). The cause of this unusual death event she attributed
to intergroup warfare and the skull accompaniments she saw as representing the heads of slain enemies that had been ritually re-killed through
the puncturing of the crania (Junker 1993a: 70).
Another contemporaneous burial with evidence of violent death
was excavated in the 1995 Tanjay excavations. The grave was
an adult male with the filed, gold-pegged, and betel-stained teeth
mentioned in early Spanish texts as insignia of Visayan warriors. The
male was buried with a late Ming blue-on-white plate over his pelvis, a
fifteenth-century Annamese jarlet next to his right femur, at least five
other porcelain vessels that were fragmented and scattered in the grave,
several heavily corroded iron blades, and two pigs tusk pendants. Most
remarkable, however, was the discovery of an iron blade still embedded

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in the rib cage of the individual(T)he grave contained a detached

skull as a grave accompaniment (Junker 1999b: 365).

The mortuary evidences from the two burial sites indicate the significance 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 twelfth
to 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 the
depositional contexts of the two burial sites (i.e. mass grave and warriors grave) regular enough to warrant the warfare thesis?
By invoking artifactual multivocality, this paper attempts to argue
for an alternative interpretation of the Tanjay mass grave, beyond the warfare and chiefdom thesis. The inherent archaeological limitation of this
paper, however, is its reliance on secondary data, taken from Junkers publications.
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 multiple 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 for
continued slave-raiding, allowed chiefs to devote more of their labor to
maritime trading activities, and generally expanded the politically manipulable surplus under a chiefs control. She extricated herself from this dilemma 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, I
would 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 accounts of various Spanish chroniclers, the mass grave does not seem to be
caused by warfare. At the outset, the presence of a cranial trauma, a misaligned vertebral column, and skull accompaniments might lead one to infer 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 significant, as evidenced by stories of heroes and epic battles, these narratives of
war are interwoven with religion and ritual. What is poignant in the Tanjay mass grave is the unusual nature of the burial, which could be adequately explained by taking into account the power of belief in the
supernatural. 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 Philippines region (where Tanjay is located), a belief in the inherent evil of
witches has been and is prevalent. Scott (1995) in his study of Spanish
contact period Philippine societies, identified various witch-prototypes in
the Visayas. According to Scott, the aswang were flesh-eaters who devoured 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 lexicons listed alok, balbal, kakag, oko, onglo, and wakwak as synonyms of
aswang. Today witches are believed to have a carnivorous habit (Arens
1971: 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 fall
into three groups: tangso-tangso, nalakat, and managhilaw. The tangsotangso is akin to the manananggal of the Tagalog in that the witch torso
separates from the rest of the body and flies out to seek a victim. The nalakat, on the other hand, has to walk to where its victim isand has the
power to transform itself into any animal it chooses, while the managhilaw 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 to

metamorphose 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. The
hair 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 (Arens 1971: 95). Arens suggested that the first
witches were cave spirits, for in one of his interviews, he learned that
people believe one automatically becomes a witch if he or she finds a
bottle 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 become
a good tambalan (traditional healer).
Lieban (1960: 128) stressed that Cebuano witchcraft can be transmitted either through heredity or transference. Among the Waray, a
germ or kagaw of witchhood can supposedly be transferred to another
through 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 is
present at the witchs deathbed (Arens 1971).
Arens and Villegas noted that in Waray culture the process of becoming a witch goes through stages. At first, the kagaw or germ incubates 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 raw
chicken. The witch teaches the victim how to fly and search for prospective prey. Once the witch-apprentice learns all the necessary knowledge,
the process cannot be reversed.
The ethnographic accounts suggest that witches are considered to
be malignantly evil. Lieban (1967) noted that the supernatural powers of
witches are considered to be rooted in the individual, a constitutional resource in contrast to sorcerers whose powers are taken from resources
outside of the individual, such as magical procedures and spirit guides.
He writes:

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Reaction to someone believed to be an aswang is apt to be more intense

and hostile due to the extremely aberrant characteristics ascribed to this
type of witch, and the fact that the aswang is more likely to be conceived as inherently evil(Lieban 1967: 75).
The aswang resembles some witches elsewhere whose behavior in certain 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 dimensions of violent death are found in historic accounts. Persecution of suspected witches has been documented as a cause for violent death in many
societies. 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 the
witch-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 wakwak in 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
wakwaked by 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 carabaos wallowed (Ramos 1971: 56-57).

Another incident was recorded by Lieban (1960: 133) where violence was perpetrated against those suspected of sorcery. He said that a
man 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 injured 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 in
Sitio 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 witchsuspect, 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 prevent it from reconnecting with the body. The men then hacked the other
witch-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 that
they did the right thing and saved the lives of others. That is why they did
not 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 been
killed 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 aswang has to be slashed into pieces. If the witch transforms itself into
an 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 been
caused by one of their townmates who was such a creature, he or she was
put to death along with their whole families if the victim had been a datu (emphasis mine). The stark fear of witches was also manifested in the
burial of the datu after which a slave called dayo was 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 reside
within the individual and not outside, say for example in another supernatural being. Although witchhood may have originated from the cave
spirits, it is thought to be transmitted usually along kinship linesthe
germs or kagaw being contagious. Scott, in his rendition of contact period 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 weapons
ascribed with special powers had to be used, usually metal knives or bamboo 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 kinship
lines (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 and
cutting 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 sacralized objects and incantations (Villegas 1968, Scheans and Hutterer
1970, Arens 1971).
Given the very malevolent image of witches in the Visayan mind,
witches probably even during the pre-Spanish period were victims of persecution. They very likely suffered social derision and worse their persecution may have led to mass killings.
As presented above, witchcraft persecution is found in historical as
well as ethnographic accounts in the Visayas. There is therefore a compelling reason to reassess Junkers interpretation of the Tanjay mass grave in
view of the ambiguity of the causality of violent death in the archaeological 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 Tanjay mass grave certainly reveals some puzzling features, as she says. According to her, they provide evidence for headhunting activities associated
with 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 the
multiple 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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173

put to a ritual use that was not associated with warfare at all. Skulls perhaps were central in the mortuary rituals in the Tanjay polity during that
period (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 these 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 and
slain 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 accompaniments
were ritual objects, and not the heads of slaves sacrificed to accompany
their masters in death. This use of skulls could have been related to what
in rural Cebuan culture today is called pangontra or sumpa, countersorcery or counter-witchcraft to ward off or exorcise the aswang. Related
to this is Liebans observation that the skull of a deceased, unbaptized person could be used ritually by a sorceror to cause someones death (Lieban
1960: 129-130), a curse called in Cebuano paktol. Another way of warding off witches, observed ethnographically, could have been in use in prehispanic 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 one
of them inserted through an eye socket, may have been another way to repel the return of the deceased witches, possibly by blinding one of them.
Conclusion
Archaeologists have often used ethnographic analogy to substantiate their conceptual framework in the analysis of the archaeological record. How the archaeologist interprets the depositional context largely
depends 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 communities that the archaeologist studies. Consequently, other dimensions of human 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 other stories 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 archaeological inferences, the stratigraphic and behavioral structure of the past
will remain the victim of warfare, greed, and other attributes of utilitarian 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 the
generous 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 special debt of gratitude to Harold Olofson for his assistance on this paper;
William H. Walker -- a fellow Joyce Wellian -- for his theoretical guidance and friendship; Wenda Trevathan who gave me her steady support
and encouragement; and John A. Peterson for reviewing the contents of
this paper.

REFERENCES CITED
Anima, Nid
1978

Witchcraft, Filipino Style. Quezon City: Omar Publications.

Arens, Richard SVD

1971
Witches and Witchcraft in Leyte and Samar, Leyte-Samar Studies 5(1
& 2): 91-106.
Bacus, Elisabeth A.
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