The God Culture: 100 Lies About the Philippines: #39: Igorot Law is Hebrew

Welcome back to 100 lies The God Culture teaches about the Philippines. Today's lie concerns Timothy Jay Schwab's claim Igorot law is derived from Hebrew law. As we shall see this is simply untrue.

In his videos Tim says the following:

Solomon's Gold Series - Part 7: Track of the Hebrew to the Philippines. Ophir, Sheba, Tarshish

27:21 Well, the Igorot people who live in Ifugao and surrounding areas are a mystery. Igorot is a Hebrew word meaning letters. We do not know a certain application for this meaning in this case but their language has been likened to that of Hebrew and even their law ranks fairly with Hebrew law. The purpose of this video is not to prove the Igorots or other tribes are Hebrew but we are seeking Hebrew words and we have already found many.

It is interesting that Tim says Igorot is a Hebrew word and Igorot language and law have Hebrew similarities but then says he is not trying to prove that Igorots are Hebrew when that is the implication of what he has said. Let's deal with the etymology of the word Igorot first. 

The Search for King Solomon's Treasure Sourcebook, pg 208

It is not true Igorot is a Hebrew word. The word is actually Iggereth. 

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/107.htm

Biblehub says it can also be transliterated as iggerot. 

But so what? Tim's reasoning is because the words sound similar, or can be made to sound similar, they are the same word. 

The Search for King Solomon's Treasure, pgs. 202-203

Igorot:

Hebrew: iggereth: תרגא: (eeg-ge-roht, iggerOt): A letter, an epistle.

What kind of writing may this refer? According to R.F. Barton writing in “American Archaeology and Ethnology” in 1919, “It (Igorot law) ranks fairly with Hebrew law.” You will also find a similar calendar in the Igorot communities to that of the Bible. Additionally, we have been exploring volcano names as well and many remember this tragic eruption from the 1980s.

Why would these people be called the letter or epistle tribe? That does not make any sense. The word Igorot actually means mountain people and applies to a number of tribal people. There is no singular Igorot people. In The Bontoc Igorot  published in 1904 Albert Ernst Jenks writes 

Igorot peoples

In several languages of northern Luzon the word "Ig−o−rot'" means "mountain people." Dr. Pardo de Tavera says the word "Igorrote" is composed of the root word "golot," meaning, in Tagalog, "mountain chain," and the prefix "i," meaning "dweller in" or "people of." Morga in 1609 used the word as "Igolot;" early Spaniards also used the word frequently as "Ygolotes" −− and to−day some groups of the Igorot, as the Bontoc group, do not pronounce the "r" sound, which common usage now puts in the word. The Spaniards applied the term to the wild peoples of present Benguet and Lepanto Provinces, now a short−haired, peaceful people. In after years its common application spread eastward to the natives of the comandancia of Quiangan, in the present Province of Nueva Vizcaya, and northward to those of Bontoc.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201107225638/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c394/2ecc963da337c0fa9e7d38b13dafca5de914.pdf

It makes a whole lot more sense that people living in the mountains would be called mountain people rather than letter or epistle people. 

Some Igorot peoples do not even call themselves Igorots. The Ifuago tribe rejects that name. 

"Ifugao," translated as "hill (or mountain) people" (Barton, 1930/1978) is the term used to denote the ethnolinguistic group of people whom ancestors are from the area that, since 1966. has been designated as the national political unit of Ifugao Province. Ifugao additionally refers to the set of languages spoken by Ifugao people, of which there are three major dialect clusters (Conklin, 1980). 'fugao languages are part of the Austronesian/Malayo-Polynesian language group, and they are not written languages. Prior to and during the Spanish colonization of Ifugao, people living in the area now designated as Ifugao territory did not conceive of themselves as belonging to one cohesive ethnolinguistic group. Instead, district or village names, such as Alimit, Kiangan. Mayoyao. and Banaue, served as the markers of identity and territory, which are still recognized today (Dumia, 1979). The name Ifugao was a term borrowed by the Spanish from lowland Gaddang and lbanag groups (Conklin, 1980). Pugan is another term that was histori-cally used to refer to "Ifugaoland," and other variations of the word Ifugao currently in use are Ifugaw and Ipugaw (Barton, 1930/1978; Conklin, 1980). Spanish colonizers generically labeled all Cordilleran mountaineers, who were generally uncolonized by the Spanish (including Ifugaos), as Igorot's, meaning "mountain people," though Ifugao people have not fully identified with this name (Barton, 1930/1978; Conklin, 1980; Dumia, 1979). 

https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=XUAsskBg8ywC&q=Ifugao&pg=PA498&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Tim reasons that Igorot means letter or epistle and aptly describes the Ifugao people because one anthropologist, R.F. Barton, says Ifugao law "ranks fairly with Hebrew law." But that is not all of what he writes. 

The Search for King Solomon's Treasure Sourcebook, pg 208

See how Tim only quotes part of the sentence in this lengthy paper? That half citation makes Tim's claim a full lie. Here is what he really writes.

https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucp015-003.pdf

5. Stage of development of Ifugao law.—Reasons have already been given for believing the Ifugao’s culture to be very old. His legal system must also be old. Yet it is in the first stage of the development of law. It is, however, an example of a very well developed first-stage legal system. It ranks fairly with Hebrew law, or even with the Mohammedan law of a century ago. R. R. Cherry in his lectures on the Growth of Criminal Law in Ancient Communities demonstrates these stages of legal development: First, a stage of simple retaliation—“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.” Second, a stage in which vengeance may be bought off “either by the individual who has inflicted the injury or by his tribe.” Third, a stage in which the tribe or its chiefs or elders intervene to fix penalty-payments and to pronounce sentence of outlawry on those who refuse to pay proper fines. Fourth, a stage in which offenses come to be clearly recognized as crimes against the peace and welfare of the king or the state.

No Ifugao would dream of taking a payment for the deliberate or intentional murder of a kinsman. He would be universally condemned if he did so. However, he would usually accept a payment for an accidental taking of life. There is still, however, an element of doubt as to whether even in such a case payment would be accepted. For nearly all other offenses payments are accepted in extenuation. Ifugao law, then, may be said to be in the latter part of the first stage of legal development.

R. F. Barton writes that Ifuago law is "in the latter part of the first stage of legal development" and that is why it "ranks fairly with Hebrew law, or even with the Mohammedan law of a century ago." Why would Tim gloss over the part where Ifuago law is likened to Islamic law? Why would he cite half a sentence and not give the full sense of R. F. Barton's thesis? Because it does not fit Tim's program of proving Filipinos are members of the Lost Tribes of Israel and Hebrews descended through Peleg. 

Igorot is not a Hebrew word and Ifugao law is not anything like Hebrew law except its stage of development. The claim otherwise is another lie being taught about the Philippines by Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture.