Bodong refers to the peace pact or treaty, used by the

Kalinga people The Kalinga people () are an indigenous ethnic group whose ancestral domain is in the Cordillera Mountain Range of the northern Philippines. They are mainly found in Kalinga province which has an area of 3,282.58 sq. km. Some of them, howev ...

Kalinga Province ; tl, Lalawigan ng Kalinga) , native_name = , other_name = , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_caption = (from top: left to right) Bum-bag Rice Terraces, Pasil Valley, ...

, northern

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. These peace rites are usually accompanied by

Kalinga Kalinga may refer to: Geography, linguistics and/or ethnology * Kalinga (historical region), a historical region of India ** Kalinga (Mahabharata), an apocryphal kingdom mentioned in classical Indian literature ** Kalinga script, an ancient writ ...

songs such as the ''ading'', ''wasani'' and the ''dandanag''. It is a unique

judicial system The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

wherein the peace pact holder appointed by the pangat (tribal leaders) of a certain tribe holds a

peace agreement A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to stop hostilities; a surrend ...

with another

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

. In this system, two tribes agree to ally with each other. The bodong is usually worked out in large gatherings between two villages that belong to the same geographic area and shares kinship ties. They call the written laws pagta. The tribes in Kalinga are known for their tribal-wars wherein a life is repayable only with another life. These vengeful tribes will not settle unless the tribe of the person who committed the misdemeanor will surrender or will be killed. Eduardo Masferré notes that by the start of American colonial period, the neighboring Bontoc and

Gaddang people The Gaddang (an indigenous Filipino people) are a linguistically-identified ethnic group resident in the watershed of the Cagayan River in Northern Luzon, Philippines. Gaddang speakers were recently reported to number as many as 30,000. This n ...

had begun adapting peace pact customs based on the Kalinga Bodong.

References

Law of the Philippines Culture of Kalinga (province) {{Philippines-stub