part in this private ceremony, was emphasized by many a little

token of friendliness. They would take my hand as I knelt beside them, and ask me if it were not all "very good;" and once Ikde put her arms around me and asked if people performed rites like this in America, and what would I do when I had learned all the Bagobo ceremonies and other customs.
After the final prayer we returned to the house, the old women in advance, filing along in the moonlight, followed by Oleng and myself. 'No further ceremonies occured that evening.
Three days later, the preliminary Awas was repeated as a brief minor ceremony, fresh leaf-dishes being then laid down, simply because the first had become dry, and the areca-nuts had withered during the delay resulting from Ido's absence and from the ominous earthquake. I did not see this repeated ceremony, as at the same time the rite of Tanung was going on, but the words said by Miyanda over the leaf-dishes were reported to me as follows:
"You, Tigbanua to the North, and Tigbanua of the Kattan, and Tigbanua of the Wood, and Tigbanua of the Ground, I have pre- pared areca-nuts for you all, while praying you not to let us be hurt, for we want to have good health all of the time."
Presumably this preliminary Awas was repeated at the first station only, by the path leading to the river. Here I afterward found fourteen leaf-dishes, and their disposition was explained to me as follows. Eight had been consigned to the buso, through the Malaki t'Olu k'Waig as intermediary, and six were for the gimokud (ghosts). Of the eight kinudok offered to the buso, two contained four areca-
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH ill
nuts each ; one dish held five nuts ; two dishes, six each ; two had each nine nuts, and one dish contained fifteen nuts. Four of the- leaf-dishes belonging to the gimokud held, respectively, one, two, seven and eight nuts, and the other two kinildok had four nuts each. Main Anns. On the afternoon following the Pamalugu in the- river, preparations were being made for the second Awas, as well as for the setting out of the Tanung branches, both of which ceremonies were scheduled for the sunset hour. Kaba had already whittled out two rough figures of wood, to be used in the Tanung^. and Ido was chiding the women because they had failed to make the leaf-dishes for the Awas. Then Miyanda and Singan hastily pinned together some pieces of hemp-leaf, — enough to make nine ceremonial vessels, — and were just stacking them into a pile when Datu Oleng arrived in haste at the Long House. He appeared to be under strong emotional stress, and instantly called, in an agitated voice, for Ido and then for Singan. Immediately after- wards came Datu Yting, bringing the startling news of an earth- quake shock that had occurred shortly before. It must have been a very slight shock, for none of us at the Long House had felt the tremor; but straightway all ceremonial activities were cut short. The three chiefs, with Buat and the two women, Miyanda and Singan, held an informal conference on the porch. At this deliberation the fact came out that if any Ginum ceremony is- held on the same day that an earthquake shock is felt, the death of all the members of the family of the man who is giving the Ginum will certainly follow. On the other hand, the moon would be full in a few days, and, if the Ginum were deferred until after the date of full moon, it could not then be celebrated at all that month; because to hold the festival during the third or fourth lunar phases is strictly tabu. An animated discussion of the question, including many calculations and much pointing toward the moon, was summarily closed by Datu Yting, who announced that if they did not hold the culminating ceremonies within two or three nights, he, for his part, would go home without waiting for them. 'Now Yting's judgment was revered throughout the length and breadth of Talun, and to lose his presence at the feast was unthinkable; accordingly, it was proposed to hold the Tanung and the Awas rites on the next day, and to let the chief rites of the Ginum follow at night. The final ruling, however, placed the main ceremonial two days later than the earthquake; while the Tanung^
-112 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
^nd the Awas were arranged to be held twenty-four hours later than the time of the shock.
Accordingly, the next morning, in preparation for the main Awas, old Kaba made twenty-three little figures of men, called tingoto^ some of which he carved from the white wood of magabadbad, and others he shaped out from its green stem. The manikins were not over one inch or one and one-half inches long. The women made the leaf-dishes ; and at noon Sawad came in bringing a cluster of fresh areca-nuts, which, he said, he had gotten for the Awas. The rite was performed early in the afternoon, in the kitchen {ahu)^ ^^' near the door. A large number of the Bagobo observed the ceremony. Oleng sat on the floor, the little images laid in order before him. Of the twenty-three tingoto, eleven were of the white wood, and twelve were of the green stem of maga- badbad. Ten of the white figures were placed in a row, with one a little apart from the rest; while eleven of the green figures were laid in a row, and one green figure by itself. Oleng then said a short ritual over the twenty-three manikins.
"Now I lay you here, little tingoto, to make you just like slaves to us. We give you to the bad sickness and to the buso in place of our own bodies ;'^^ and now the buso and the diseases will not hurt us, because we are offering them these tingoto. Let the buso think about these little human figures and not hurt us. Now all of you, little tingoto, you must keep us from being sick."
At the close of this recitation, Miyanda placed six areca-nuts at the feet of the ten white figures, and said:
"I pray to you, Buso, and to you. Sickness; and I lay down these little men to make you kind to us. We give you these ten figures so that our own bodies will not be hurt by disease, and we give you these areca-nuts so that you will not do harm to us."
At a later hour, the tingoto were taken out to a retired place under the trees to the northeast of the Long House and laid beside the narrow trail, and with the figures were placed six leaf- dishes containing areca-nuts. Near the ten white figures were
^ ' ^ The word abu has two meanings : (1) kitchen, the room that contains the three fire- atones and the native hearth. In the Long House at Mati, it was the first room that one entered from the north door; (2) In a ceremonial sense, the ahu includes the two rooms farthest north. The rites on the first and second nights of the Ginum are held in the abu; on the third and fourth nights, in the sonor (the whole house).
''''See Charms and Magical Rites, Part III.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 143
laid ten areca-nuts, and near the eleven green figures, nine areca- nuts; while the odd white figure had eleven nuts beside it, and the odd green one had nine. My notes do not state the precise arrangement of the tingoto and of the leaf-dishes on the ground; but my impression is that the ten white figures and the eleven green ones lay either inside of the leaf-dishes or close to them, while the odd white figure and the odd green one lay apart at a little distance. Close beside three of the leaf-dishes, three sprays of magabadbad were planted, or stuck in the ground.
After the ceremony, Oleng spoke to me of the symbolism. There are ten, with one more, of the white figures and eleven, with one more, of the green figures only because it has always been the custom of the Bagobo to use that number at Ginum, for the celebra- tion of Awas. He explained that the ten white figures are intended to hold the sickness and keep it away from us, while the eleven green figures are put there on account of the earthquake — to save us from harm. The white and the green tingoto that are kept apart from the rest represent the two horns of that great Buso deer called Naat who has one good horn and one bad horn. The white tingoto is the right antler, all of whose branches point upward and are good; but the green tingoto is the left antler, the bad one, that has one branch growing downward. Then Oleng seized my pen and made a diagrammatic sketch with a firm eager stroke, for he clearly considered this detail a vital point in the ceremony.
Ceremony of Tanung, or Magic Rites against Buso. The distinctive elements of the rite called Tanung are two: first, the planting or sticking into the ground of a clump of branches from various vegetable growths that have a magic value; second, the placing of large wooden images, '^^ as
I spirit scarers, at certain points near the Long House. Like the Awas, there are two Fig.± — Antler of Buso deer ceremonies with the same name. The first ^^T^"^ by Datu Oleng showing . •Ill the left antler with one bad branch
or prehminary Tanung is held on the sec- turning downward and another ond evening of Ginum, and the main rite branch tending to deflect. En- at the close of the third day. The magical ^*'^*^' branches themselves are collectively called tanung, and the same
* • ^ Hein refers to similar usages among the wild tribes of Sarawak, where wooden
8
414 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
name is given to the ceremony. Other terms, interchangeable with Tanung, are Saiit and Bunsud, the last word having primarily the signification of "a post" or "setting a post in the ground." The use of bunsud here has reference to the pushing of the foot of the wooden image into the ground , like a post. It will be noted that both the green branches and the wooden images are intended to block the invasion of spirits of evil that attempt, regularly, to break into the ceremonial house on the occasion of a festival. A second point to be noted is that some of the magic branches are acceptable to the diseases, and are put there to make the diseases kindly to the Bagobo.
Preliminary Tanung. The preliminary Tanung was performed just after sunset on the second night. Leafy branches from a number of trees and shrubs were fixed deep in the ground at two different points : (a) at a spot directly north of the Long House, and beside the path that leads into the village; (b) at the beginning of the trail that winds down the mountain in the direction of Santa Cruz and the coast, a place near the southeast border of Mati. These branches were from the red-leaved terinagum, the sharp- pointed balekayo, and the balala — all of which act as "medicine" very salutary for the Bagobo. The specific purpose, as has been said, is to keep away the bad buso who try to come to the Long- House, bringing sickness to the Bagobo, and introducing besides a form of mental stimulation that would set the men to fighting, and would drive from the house all peace and good fellowship. One of the datu went out to cut the tanung, and Oleng, with the help of his second son, Andan, made the holes in the ground and planted the branches. The tanung stood up perhaps five or six feet from the ground, one clump on each side of the path at the
figures are placed near tlie house to keep off epidemics. "Die Dayaks vom Sekayam stelleu Holzbildnisse von 30 — 100 cm. Lange, Konto genannt, an die Pfosten ihrer Thiiren oder an den Weg, welcher zu ihren Wohnungen fuhrt, und die Dayaks vom Katingan than dasselbe, um Seuchen von ihren Kampongs abzuhalten, indem sie der Meinung sind, dass die krankheitbringenden Hantu von diesen Holzstatuen abgehalten werden, bis zu den Bewolinern der Hauser selbst vorzudringen." Cf. Die bildenden Kunste bei den Dayaks auf Borneo, pp. 31—32. 1890.
The Punan of Sarawak, according to Furness, use carved poles, instead of single figures, to scare off evil spirits, at least on certain occasions. A Punan chief had ill- luck; "wherefore to exorcise the evil spirits a great feast had been held, poles elaborately decorated with carved faces w^ere erected to frighten away demons ; . . . " Home Life of Borneo Head hunters, p. 179. 1902.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 115
chosen places. This rite occurred synchronously with one of the offices of the Awas, and consequently I did not hear the ritual words, although we were not very far from the spot where the branches were being set out.
Main Tmmng, The main Tanung consists in setting in a hole in the ground a large human figure of wood, which is put outside of the festival house, in the hope that Buso, mistaking it for a living man, will be afraid to pass by it. Two of these figures are put on station.
On the day of the earthquake, Kaba brought in large branches of the red-leaved terinagum, and the mottled green- and white- leaved terikanga, to be ready for the planting. Then, from a chunk of terikanga-wood, he fashioned two human figures nearly three feet in height, roughly cut and highly conventional in form. With his short knife he shaped out, first, a circular ridge outlining the limits between head and trunk; below that, a three-sided bust and waist; then, leaving a protruding abdominal region, he sloped off the body gradually to the base, so that it ended in a six-angled point for the feet, with no division for legs.
"This is to make the Buso afraid," remarked the old man glee- fully, as he whittled away at the image.
The ceremony took place at sundown, when the tanung branches were set out in two places: on the path winding to the river, and beside the way leading to the other houses of the village. Ten different varieties of trees and shrubs were represented, each of which had a charm value so that it would be effective in pro- ducing the emotion of fear in the evil spirits. At each of the places where the tanung was planted, one of the human figures of wood was also placed, the leafy branches being clustered so close about the figure as almost to conceal it. Oleng performed the ceremony, with the help of two young men who dug the holes and assisted in "planting" the figures and branches.
The first part of the rite was performed on the path leading to the river, and here the tanung was set out on the right-hand side of the way. When the younger men had done the manual part, Datu Oleng turned .toward the clump of magic branches enclosing the image and, facing south, made the following invocation.
"I plant this tanung toward the south for all you, anito, and for you, Malaki t'Olu k'Waig. I plant the tanung so that sickness and other harm will not come to us at Ginum. All of you, anito, we
116 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
ask you to take care of us and to protect us from the bad buso and from the things that might hurt us while we celebrate the Grinum. You, Tigbanua Balagan ^^* and Tigbanua Kayo, I plant this tanung for you, and I beg you not to come to make men fight at the festival. You, too, the bad Sickness that goes all around the world, I plant this tanung for you, so that you will not hurt us, but have a kind heart for the Bagobo."
After this, we retraced our steps toward the Long House, passed by it, and went on up the path leading to the other houses in Mati. At a point not over forty or fifty feet from the house, the second part of the Tanung rite was performed, the branches being placed on the left-hand side of the way. When all was ready, Oleng turned toward the figure in its thicket of potent charms ^^'^ and, while facing the north, he invoked the most dreaded of the buso, the diseases and the magic plants themselves.
"For all of you, the evil Tigbanua, and for you, the bad Diseases, I plant this sarabak and this badbad to make you feel kindly toward us. N^ow you, the Tanung that we plant, Balekayo and Dalinding, watch over us and be all-knowing in respect to us. ^^^' If the Sickness approaches, or if the Buso tries to come to our Ginum, you must not let them pass by this spot, or go from here to our house."
After the ceremony, Oleng repeated to me the names of the plants that Buso fears, and that hence are used for the Tanung: sarabak, kapalili, terikanga, ramit, dalinding, halala, balekayo, badbad. "There should be ten names," the old man said, "but I can now remember only eight of them." One of the plants that he had momentarily forgotten must have been terinagum, branches of which were brought in by Kaba for the ceremony. "Long ago," added Oleng, "the old men told the Bagobo to plant the branches for the Tanung ceremony, and that is why we do it now."
18'' Tigbanua Balagan is the Buso of the Rattan, and Tigbanua Kayo is the Buso of the Forest.
^•* Thickets consecrated to spirits, as well as groves and reserved places in the forest, are frequently mentioned by the Recollects and by other missionaries as elements asso- ciated with the ancient worship of the Filipino, Cf. Bolinao's sketch of religious customs in Zambales and Marivelez. Blair and Robertson: The Philippine Islands, vol. 31, pp. 144—146, 270, 272, 276—277, 282. 1905. Some of these thickets may possibly have been buso-scarers, rather than consecrated places.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 117
Ceremony of Famalugn^ or purification. The Pamalugu, or ceremonial washing in the river, takes place on the third day of Ginum — the day preceding that on which the culminating rites occur.
The time set for going down to the river was an hour after sunrise, or thereabouts, but it was considerably later — eight o'clock or eight-thirty — when the party started from the house. During the wait, the men beat agongs and chewed betel as usual, while the girls sewed and embroidered on festival garments that were yet unfinished. The sun, showing dimly from behind masses of clouds, was more than two hours high when the priestess, Singan, came in from the woods where she had been gathering the various kinds of plant-medicines required for the ceremonial. She carried a large bundle of small green plants, freshly cut, together with bunches and sprays plucked from large vegetable growths and from certain trees, all of which green things she had laid in a piece of sheath torn from the areca-palm, a material which forms the regular wrapping-paper of the wild tribes.
Here are the native names of a number of the varities of plants in Singan's bundle: bagebe, sarabah^ dalinding^ tarinagum, maga- budbud, uwag^ lambingbaying ^ badbad, uliuli^ manangid^ balintudug^ lawddd^ hapalili^ baiving. *^^ Singan divided the green bouquet into two equal parts, carefully placing upon another piece of areca-palm sheath one spray or plant of each kind. When she finished, she had two green piles of fairly uniform size, which she made into two bunches and tied with a strong, fibrous string of areca. One of the boys tore off the narrow strips from a section of sheath, and handed them to Singan as she needed them.
One element of the collection of greens was kept apart from the rest — a single branch of areca palm that had just burst from its enveloping sheath at the top of the trunk, and was full of clusters of tiny white blossoms and pale green sprays of undeveloped leaves. This branch, called bagebe^ ^^^ Singan preserved almost intact, only breaking off one or two little sprays to add to the two bunches already made up.
* " ■ An extensive list of the various leaves used to make up the medicinal bouquet with which the rice-paste (Tepong Tawar) is applied, is given in Skeat: op. cit., pp.77 — 80.
*"^ Bagebe is the word for the flowers and leaf-buds of the areca palm in the earliest stages of development. The blossoms just forming, are pure white, and the leaf-buds range from white to pale green at the moment of the bursting of the enveloping sheath. The same name is sometimes applied to this flowering axis when mature.
1 18 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
When the magic greens, known as sagmo, were ready, the priestess sat holding them all, while the people gathered for the walk to the river. Presently Ido said, "Panoydun" (Let us go), and Singan glanced swiftly at Datu Oleng, who at once gave her a signal to make the start. Then, with Singan well in advance, leading the way, we all set out. Singan was closely followed by Saliman, pale and emaciated from his long illness, and by two of the little children. At a short distance behind, Oleng led all the other people who were to be partakers of the rite. I was directly behind Oleng ; then came Buat ; then Sali, Oleng's elder brother, a very aged man ; then other members of the family : Ido, Inok (Oleng's third son), Sigo with her girl-cousin Odik, Miyanda, and a long line of Oleng's sons, nephews and grandchildren, with a number of friends and guests.
The people, for the most part, wore their every-day clothes — Oleng, his customary blue cotton jacket and hemp trousers of a dull claret color, his well-worn tankulu bound round his head; the women went down dressed just as on an ordinary working day; many of the men wore trousers only, and plain ones at that. Ido alone had dressed for the occasion in a splendid pair of festival trousers made by his Bila-an wife, who had decorated them richly with embroidery of fine needle-work and applique, and with figures done in small mother-of-pearl discs.
After a climb of perhaps twenty minutes down a bank that, for a part of the distance, was steep and slippery, we found ourselves at the bottom of a sharply Y-shaped valley, where the grade of the stream's bed was slight and the stream ran shallow and was not over ten or twelve feet in width. As the bed of the river widened out, it was full of great stones and boulders that told of the work of a young and vigorous stream which, during violent storms, had rolled the boulders down the steeper grades, but in this more level place had become overloaded with stones and debris and was reduced to a mere brook. Here and there, where the shallow current had become blocked, there were little pools hedged in by slippery white boulders, and in other places there were flat stones with their tops fairly above the surface of the water, and convenient to stand on.
They consulted together as to the exact spot for the ceremony, whereupon Oleng seated himself on one of the stony resting-places, while the boys and younger men busied themselves in clearing a
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 119
jer passage for the stream by pulling out vegetable growths and jooping up handluls of pebbles. Then followed the preliminary rites.
Singan laid her bunch of leafy medicine upon the ground, and began to place the areca-nuts and the betel-leaves, as she took them from her little basket, in several spots that served as temporary shrines. At the same time she uttered the appropriate prayers. The placing of the betel for the gods, with ritual words, is called f/arub'dtm.
First the priestess laid an areca-nut on its betel-leaf in the water at her feet, and said : '^Tigbanua of the water, this betel-nut I am laying here for you, to appease you. And you, Tigyama our pro- tector, I beg you to keep away from us the sickness, for you care for the living."
Singan next put one areca-nut and one betel-leaf on a large stone, with these words: "You, Tigbanua of the stone, are now to have this areca-nut for yourself, while we are engaged in the Pamalugu. From early times the Bagobo have celebrated the Ginum, year by year, and we beg you not to listen if the children have a good time and make a noise. See, I fix the betel for you."
The woman then stepped from one to another of the stones in the river-bed, until she found a good place on the east bank, that is, on the side opposite to the slope down which we had come. There, on a boulder, she laid one areca-nut with a betel-leaf and addressed the Buso haunting that bank. "You, Tigbanua of the other side of the river, here is an areca-nut for you; it is to keep you from being angry with us that we fix the betel. And you, Malaki t'Olu k'Waig, who live at the source of all the streams, protect us with your tidalan (spear shaft) from the bad Disease that is going round the world."
Then Singan made her way over one and another boulder, along the bed of the stream for some little distance to the north. 8he moved cautiously, for the stepping-places were slippery and she was frail and weak. On reaching a certain spot, she bent down and said, as she dropped an areca-nut with its betel-leaf into the stream: "Water that lies to the north, this is your betel; and I beg from you this favor while we celebrate the Ginum, that you will not take any notice of the merry noise of the people." *^^
' • * The idea is that the evil spirits which inhabit the water, on hearing the merriment, may come to hurt the people at the feast.
420 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Having moved toward the slope leading up to the village, the^ priestess then faced the west, laid down on a stone one nut in its leaf and, speaking very slowly, adressed the Buso of the Rattan. -'^^ "To you, Tigbanua Balagan, I give this areca-nut, for now, as every year, we hold a festival for the ancient balekat. "We beg you not to send sickness upon us, and we want you to tell all of your friends not to hurt us. It is with areca and with betel that we ask from you this favor."
After this, she turned. to face the south and, laying a nut and a leaf on a stone as before, she spoke first to the buso, and then to that glorious and divine malaki who dwells at the never-failing spring of all the waters. "To you, Tigbanua, I offer this areca- nut, and I pray to you all, to move you to be kind to us. Take this, and do not make us sick while we celebrate the Ginum. You, Malaki t'Olu k'Waig, keep us by your power from illness and from stormy weather, for you are the all-wise (matulus) Anito."
Before the ceremony, a very small shrine had been set up on the western border of the stream, having the usual white bowl wedged into a rod of split balekayo; toward this tambara the priestess now turned and laid in the bowl one areca-nut and one betel-leaf. Having done this, she took up her bundle of green sagmo (the medicine plants) and handed to the girl, Sigo, the branch of blossoming sprays from the betel palm that had been kept entire. Without speaking, the young virgin placed the branch in her girdle or within the waist folds of her panapisan. Singan then laid in the water — one at each end of that section of the stream that had been set apart for the purification — a young plant or a leafy cluster selected from the sagmo, and placed one spray of bagebe on the little shrine.
At that moment Oleng, who up to this point had remained seated, rose and called Singan's name. The priestess turned to him and Oleng
* " •• Similarly, on the Peninsula, "the annual bathing expeditions ... are supposed to purify the persons of the bathers and to protect them from evil." W. W. Skeat : op. cit., p. 21. Ceremonies of purification having the special intention of driving away demons are mentioned in Somadeva's stories ; e. g. : "Then he bathed in the Vitasta and worshiped Ganesa . . . and performed the ceremony of averting evil spirits from all quarters by waving the hand round the head and other ceremonies." Op. cit., p. 197. Cf. the Iranian ceremony in which an offering is made to the water itself. "He offered the sacrifice to the good waters of the good Daitya." J. Darmesteter (tr.): "The Vendidad." Sacred books of the East, vol. 4, p. 210. 1895.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 121
spoke one word, '^Sakan" (I, myself). Then, with slow steps and an attitude in which high dignity and a reverential sense of his sacred office were peculiarly blended, the old man advanced to the edge of the water and, in a clear voice, summoned the gods dear to the Bagobo — the beloved Tigyama, protector of man, and Pamulak Manobo, creator of all nature. It was an impressive moment when the aged chief stood there, alone, still, beside a massive boulder,, in the silence of the mountains with the cool refreshment of morning touching the air, his children and grandchildren grouped, in perfect hush, upon the banks. Feeble and spent, he yet stood erect, and strong in spirit, his face expressing a grave sweetness and purity^ as he called upon the ancient gods of the tribe.
"Where are you, Tigyama? and where are you, Pamulak Manobo ? Come near to us for a little time, while I perform the ceremony of Pamalugu ; while I pour water over the men and over the women, to keep them in health and strength. This prayer and this Pama- lugu I offer, begging you to remove from our bodies the evil sickness. Show your love for us; keep us from disease during the festival of Grinum, and make us well all of the time."
As soon as Oleng ceased speaking, his wife, Singan, stepped down into the bed of the stream and stood in the shallow water, with the two bunches of medicine in her arms. The people had dispersed themselves informally, and were sitting about on the great stones, waiting for their turns. Five young men, sons of Datu Oleng, were the first to present themselves for the rite. They went down together and stood before Singan in the water, or sat on the stones on the west side of the stream. Those who had the tutub or tan- kulu on their heads removed it, so that their black hair, long and luxuriant, hung down over their shoulders and around their faces, as they stood with bowed heads before Singan, and received the pamalugu at her hands. The priestess held one of the bunches of leafy medicine in the running brook, and drew it out dripping. Then, holding it over the young men, she let the water fall in a stream upon their heads, whence it ran down over necks and shoulders and backs. Again she dipped the sagmo into the water, and again allowed the magic stream to pour down on their bodies; and then again, until the effusion had been performed nine times. She held the bunch of greens in a vertical position, with the stems downward, so that the water from leaves and twigs collected into one stream; or she held the bunch horizontally, but in either case
d22 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
by a slight movement of her hand she could effuse five heads almost at the same moment.
During this ninefold purification, the young men were facing the bamboo shrine; after the ninth pouring, there came a slight pause, whereupon they all oriented, simultaneously, so that they now faced the east. Singan applied the water in the same manner as before, nine times again, but she used the other bunch of sagmo while the candidates held the eastward position.
When Oleng's sons had retired, his nephews went down into the stream by fives. Oleng himself stepped into the stream and assisted his wife in the pamalugu of the nephews, he and Singan each holding one of the bunches of sagmo. Over each group of five the water was poured nine times while they faced the prayer-stand, and, similarly, nine times when they turned toward the east. During the ceremony, the men washed their faces, arms and bodies with the water trickling over them. There was more or less con- versation and some laughter. Under this apparent lack of formality, however, lay an exact ritual that a careful observer could not fail to note.
Following the nephews of Oleng, his grandchildren (boys and girls together) came by fives, and presumably some children of nephews and nieces. A certain order in which candidates were to present themselves was apparently adhered to, for when Oleng's daughter and her cousin stepped into the water and took their places they were sent back to await their turn.
When any group of five had received pamalugu, the individuals would go off behind the larger boulders, slap the water off from trousers or skirts, shake out their hair, and perchance seize the occasion to take off some garment and wash it in the stream.
After Oleng and Singan had worked jointly for some time, Singan withdrew to the bank, and Oleng continued the purification alone. Presently, to my surprise, Ido motioned to me that my own turn had come, and that I was to let down my hair. Oleng sat down on the bank, and Ido gave me pamalugu like the rest, thus perhaps recognizing me as a sharer in the benefits of the Oinum, and as one of themselves, rather than a mere spectator. ^^'
* ° * The two times nine number of effusions was broken in a few cases. Ido had eleven effusions while facing the tambara, with slaps on his back administered with the sagmo after the third, the fourth, and the seventh counts. "Water was poured over myself the
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEBEMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH ^23
Immediately afterwards, Ido himself was effused by Singan, and he was followed by a group of three — Sawi, a son of Sunog, Bagyu the leper, who was one of Oleng's nephews, and another youth. Then came Sigo and her cousin, Odik, while Singan was pouring the water, for Oleng was now resting at the edge of the stream. Not many women received pamalugu; but Sigo, on this occasion as at the Awas, represented, it would seem, the unmarried daughters of Oleng of whom she was the eldest. Sigo and Odik were effused immediately before the officiating functionaries.
When practically all of the people present had come out of the river, Singan still stood waiting, and then Datu Oleng went down to her alone. Up to this point, the act of lavation had been done without any accompanying ritual words, except the checking of the count by the occasional utterance of a number; but now a prayer was said by the priestess as she poured the sacred water over her husband. "Anito, take away from Oleng's body the sickness that is there; and you, Malaku t'Olu k'Waig, keep him from sickness. Drive off the evil spirits, so that they may not come to our Ginum and bring bad diseases to us while we hold the festival."
Oleng was straightway followed by his sister, Miyanda, a woman of distinguished presence and splendid physique, the director of all the women's industries, and the leader of Anito rites. She, too, stood alone, while Singan effused her the orthodox two-fold nine times with the words: "All the bad sickness in Miyanda's body, Anito, we want you to take away and carry it to the place where the Malaki t'Olu k'Waig lives." ^o^ Then Miyanda added her own petition : "You take away this feeling of weakness from me."
Last of all, Singan herself received pamalugu from the hands of Oleng, who said, while he poured the water over his wife: "I pray to all of you who are true anito that you will take away this sickness from me, for I have no hunger for my food, and I am very feeble. Make me a little stronger, so that I may gain many good things. Now that I have been washed in the pamalugu, I think that I shall get well."
conventional eighteen times, but Ido counted the second set of nine as eight, for he said "walu" (eight) after the last lavation. Possibly this was a detail in conformity with a Bagobo custom elsewhere noted: namely, that of mentioning a number less than the correct count.
- ** * The thought is, that if the sickness is taken to the benevolent Malaki at the water sources, he will strangle the sickness.
124 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
The lustration of the priestess was to have closed the ceremony, but one woman came late, running down the steep bank, and Oleng did not send her away, but himself gave her the purification.
Very few women were at the river, though unquestionably they were not excluded from any motive of sex discrimination. They were all very much occupied with other matters on that day. The young w^omen were busy in finishing off their festival clothes; the older ones, with house cares, for the presence of many guests in the Long House entailed much additional labor. There was prepa- ration for ceremonies , too , such as bringing down tho seventy water-flasks for the ritual washing that was to follow.
When all was done, the people went away in scattered groups, some climbing up the bank directly after the ceremony, others staying behind to wash their clothes. Those Bagobo who did not go to the river, as, for example, Malik, who was engaged in making the new tambara, Kaba and his famijy, went through with a per- formance at home that was considered an equivalent. Each of them poured water from one of the bamboo joints over his head, twice nine times.
When Singan came back to the house, in company with Oleng, she brought with her the two bunches of sagmo and laid them up on the high guest bed that had been made for the festival. It was then late in the morning, and the priestess absented herself until the next ceremony, that of Sonar. "^^'^
Ceremony of Lulub or washing of water-flasks. A short ceremony, that I did not see, took place immediately after the pamalugu. As reported to me, this rite consisted in the washing of the new sekaddu, or bamboo joints, seventy of which had been made to hold water for the feast. A sekkadu consists of one bane; that is to say, it is the hollow internode of the bamboo that lies between two nodes or joints. One node forms the bottom of the vessel, and at the other end the mouth of the vessel is cut. The vessels must have been washed on the outside only, since openings
2 « * Almost directly after our return from the river, Ido and several others sat down to have their damp hair freed from innumerable small organisms. Soon, the floor of the porch was filled with people sitting in rows for a like purpose. The women did the work with marked success, each woman hunting in the head of the man immediately in front of her, spying the louse with a rapidity perfected by experience, and deftly squeezing it to death between her thumb-nail and a tiny, flat blade of wood, that resembled a paper-cutter.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 125
for the mouths were not cut until early in the morning of the last day of the festival.
The old women, Miyanda and Singan, performed the Lulub, assisted by younger women. They rubbed magic leaves over the surface of the bamboo joints and then washed them in the stream. Afterwards, according to the account I received, one of the old women carried a joint of laya bamboo to a place south of where the Pamalugu had taken place. She stuck the bane, or joint, either in the earth at the edge of the stream or in the bed of the shallow water, and said these words. "Now I place this bane of laya for you, Tigbanua Balagan, and for you, Tigbanua Waig. Remember this, when we are trying to draw water and to pray to you. And you, Gimokud mantu (new) and Gimokud tapi -^^ (old), do not envy us while we have our Ginum, because you have gone to the Great Country. I think you did not want to stay on earth any longer."
At the conclusion of the rite, the old women taught the girls that they must not play so much while the house was full of guests.
Ceremony of Sonar, or Offering on the Agongs of Manutac- tured Products, Soon after our return from the river, preparations began for the next ceremony — the laying of gifts upon an agong- altar, with accompanying rites. Devotions are directed, at this office, toward Mandarangan, the Malaki t'Olu k'Waig, certain anito, and the agongs themselves that are addressed as sonaran. In the ceremony of Sonar, just as in Pamalugu, there is an intention of securing from the gods both health and wealth; yet in the lavations the thought of purification is dominant, while at the offerings on the agongs the desire to grow rich is stressed.
It was toward the middle of the forenoon when we came back from Pamalugu, and there was an interval before the following ceremonies. Four new bamboo prayer-stands had been made by Malik early in the day, and these tambara were now ready to be used at Sonar, the bowls being wedged in the split balekayo in the usual manner; but there were many other things to be gathered together by men and women who had already had a full morning.
From the frame on which the agongs hung, three of the smaller instruments were taken from the upper row, and one of larger size
* *"• The term ceremonially used to characterize souls that have been long dead is tapi, and this same adjective is applied to old manufactured objects. An aged person is called in life tufful, never iapi, like an old thing.
126 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
from the lower row. The four agongs were placed on the floor in the middle room, not in contact with one another, but close enough together to form an unbroken square. At one side of this temporary altar, the bamboo prayer-stands were laid down in such manner that the four bowls formed a little square, while the rods of bale- kayo lay stretched out between (or beside) the agongs. The large agong, and two of the smaller ones, were placed with their convex sides up, so as to give a base on which material offerings could be piled; while the fourth instrument was put concave side up, like a big bowl which might function as a sort of font.
The ceremonies that followed may be briefly summarized as fol- lows, though there was no well-marked line of separation between the several acts, for two might be going on at the same time: (a) the offering of manufactured products to the gods ; (b) the ablutions called Sagmo ; (c) the visitation of anito ; (d) the rites with balabba.
Offering of manufactured products to the gods
Datu Ido sat down on the floor, in front of the agongs and facing the east. During the first part of the proceedings, Datu Oleng sat perched on the high guest-bed and watched all that went on, but gave no directions. At once the people began to bring their nice things to Ido, who put them on the agongs or on the floor close to the altar. In a few cases, the gifts were placed by the owners themselves. Old Miyanda took the initiative and put on one of the agongs a pair of man's trousers (saroar). Then came a long delay, during which everybody went about his ordinary occupations. The men chewed betel ; the girls kept on putting- stitch after stitch on the fine embroidery decorating garments to be worn at the dance on the following night. In the interval, Datu Ido and Miyanda, with a few others, talked over the proper disposition to be made of the things destined for the agong altar.
Then Miyanda went to another part of the house, and returned with an armful of hemp skirts, or sarongs, woven in figures and called by the Bagobo panapisan. She brought, also, women's cotton waists, and necklaces of beads in solid colors, — green, white and yellow, — all of which articles she placed together on one agong. In the meantime, Ido had fetched a finely-decorated waist, a long panapisan of Bila-an make, a number of pieces of Yisayan textiles and imported prints that had been secured at the coast and some
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEBEMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 127
white cotton cloth. All these he put in a pile on the floor. He then changed the arrangement of the agongs, by placing them in a row running north and south, with the one containing water at the south end of the line. He laid the four tambara just east of the agongs. At this point, the washing of faces began, as described under the following caption. All the time, the women and the men were approaching the altar from all directions of the house, bringing garments, ornaments, swords, and calling, "Ido! Ido!" so that the chieftain might recognize each individual, and thus asso- ciate every object with its owner. Ido, under this stress, was trying to keep the offerings in classified groups, so that at the end of the ceremony they could, the more conveniently, be returned. He kept asking, "Whose is this?" or "Whose is that?" before placing- the various articles. His disposition of things, however, was not always respected. One cotton textile he demurred at taking from a young man, but finally consented, rolled the cloth into a small wad and put it on top of the pile of objects which he, himself^ had brought to the altar. As soon as Ido's back was turned, the young Bagobo unfolded his textile and spread it out on Ido's things^ whereupon the chief, his eye returning to the spot, placed the cloth in still another position. Soon, the three agongs were heaped with offerings — embroidered shirts, newly-woven panapisan of glistening- hemp, wide bead necklaces and many cotton textiles. Ido took from his neck a fine gold cord (kamagi) and with it crowned hi& own heap of gifts.
The straight, one-edged swords called kampilan were brought, to the number of eight, and also four long spears. Ido laid on the floor the eight kampilan beside the agongs, and placed the spears with their blades under the swords. At the Ginum that I had earlier observed at Tubison, there were, similarly, eight of the kampilan — a type of sword that forms a valued element in the ceremony and is presumably associated with the war-god, Manda- rangan, who is addressed in the prayers at this time.
Only a few trinkets were dropped into the agong containing- water, for an object placed in this agong cannot be reclaimed — it goes to the priestess through whom the gods speak. On being invited to make some offering, I contributed a heavy armlet of brass, that Loda had cast from a wax mould. I stipulated, how- ever, that it should be put on the agongs, and not in the water,, as it was an object of value to me. Directly, then, Oleng called
-128 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
from his high seat, and requested me to put a little bell into the water. I did so, adding also a small mirror. The priestess quickly put her hand into the agong and took out the mirror, which she held, clasped tight, during the anito seance that followed.
Ablutions called Sagmo, The agong that was turned with its concave side up had been filled to about one-fourth of its capacity with water, and the two green bunches of sagmo, with which the candidates at Pamalugu had been sprinkled, lay in the water. Just after the bringing of offerings had begun, and when Ido had placed the four agongs in a row, a number of people came, one or more at a time, and bathed their faces in the water that held the sagmo. A good many of those who washed in the agong had not been present at Pamalugu; but some who had received purification in the early morning laved their faces now, as well, in the medicinal water. There was more or less laughter and talk during the ab- lutions, and all the while people were bringing their gifts to the altar, so that the religious nature of the rite was somewhat obscured. The value of this washing for the warding off of disease is appar- ently due to the magic sagmo hallowing the water in which it lies.
Visitation of Anito. The usual manner of conducting an inter- view with the gods is described in a later section of this paper. Such interviews take place, ordinarily, at night, this being the only instance that came under my observation of a seance during the day.
When the people had finished bringing gifts, the priestess, Sin- gan, sat down on the floor at the south end of the row of agongs, so that she faced north, and thus had the agong holding the medicinal greens directly in front of her. Covering her head and face com- pletely with her red cotton scarf {salughoy)^ she began to utter those harsh and sepulchral groans that regularly announce the coming of a spirit. Her right hand, grasping the tiny looking-glass, lay in her lap ; she pressed her left hand to her cheek, while her body shook and trembled. Not only the children, but adult Bagobo also, gazed at the priestess with keen curiosity, for they rarely get a look at her in this condition. At the night meetings, the torches are always extinguished. Her voice came muffled through the cloth wrapped round her head, few of her words could be heard, and soon the people began chatting and laughing. The oracle was very brief, and was uttered without the chanting that forms a cus- tomary feature of a seance. I was able to record only that the Ma- laki t'Olu k'Waig spoke as follows:
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 129
''I am come this noon because you summoned me by the gifts -on the agongs. Now let all the people upon whom water was poured from the sagmo, at the Pamalugu, put bells and brass bracelets into the agong with the sagmo."
Rites with halahha. The ceremonial drink of fermented sugar cane, barely tasted on the first night of the festival, is drunk freely on the third day ; and it is at this stage of the Sonar that the first deep draught of balabba is taken. A portion is offered to the gods as their right, before the people drink.
While Singan was muttering incoherent words, Ido brought a long bamboo flask, and from it poured out balabba, until he had filled four large bowls, and his own little cup, with the thick, rich, brown liquid. A delicious aroma came from the bowls, as it were of boiling molasses mingled with old rum. Then the people began to be eager for the close of the worship, and for the end of the abstinence of the long morning; but they sat waiting in their cus- tomary attitude of patience. Ido had placed the four bowls in a row parallel with the agongs, but on the other side from the tam- bara. His own little cup he moved into several different positions, placing it, first, at the north end of the bowls, then at the south -end, again, in the middle, and finally back at the north end again.
As soon as Singan had lapsed into silence, Oleng came down from his perch, and placed himself in front of the bowls of liquor, so that he sat facing east, and also facing the agongs. Ido was at his left, and he motioned me to a place between Oleng and himself for this, the most worshipful act of the Sonar. The Long House was full of Bagobo, standing, or sitting, as near the agongs as they could place themselves, without intruding into the reserved positions. Datu Yting was also at the altar, near the other datu.
Oleng, now acting as priest, touched the rim of the bowl of balabba that stood farthest to his right, and said : "All of this, anito, is yours, for this year we are making our Ginum ; and when all of you, anito, have drunk from this bowl of balabba, then we will drink the rest."
A spray of a fragrant plant called manangid had been laid beside the bowls, and he took this spray and stirred it three times around in the bowl. Then, with the tips of his fingers, he touched the rim of the second bowl, as he had touched the first, and said, addressing the agong-altar : "Sonaran, ^^^ the balabba in this bowl is yours.
*•* Oleng was doubtless addressing the spirit resident in the agongs. The agongs iunctioning as an altar are called sonaran, while the name of the ceremony is Sonar.
d30 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
See, now we have placed upon you our valued things — panapisan, jackets, trousers, woven necklaces, gold kamagi, textiles, kampilan, spears — because, from this time on we want to get rich. Now, Sonaran, that we have put our gifts here upon you, you must save us from sickness." Then he stirred the liquor in this bowl three times with the spray of manangid. Finally, he touched the rim of the third bowl, as he offered it to the great war-god, with these words. "Now you, Mandarangan, this third bowl is for you, because we are again holding our Ginum. "We ask you to taste this balabba, and to drink it all, then the rest of us will drink." Having said this, he stirred the balabba in the third bowl three times, with the same spray. The fourth bowl, unless some detail escaped my observation, was not dedicated to any deity, nor were any prayers said over it. At the close of the office, Oleng gave the spray of manangid to Ido, who put it in his hair.
Oleng spoke to the gods in a conversational tone, and was some- times prompted by Datu Yting when he forgot a word of the for- mula. Ido gave vent to a few explosive groans while Oleng was praying, for he thirsted to begin sipping the sweet balabba.
At the conclusion of the devotions, the three datu, Oleng, Ido and Yting, drank from the bowls, and afterwards the rest of the people. My impression is that they drank from all four bowls, but this item escaped me. Ido gave his own cup to me to use individ- ually, and offered to refill it when empty, but the large bowls were passed about, from hand to hand, among all the company.
When we had finished drinking, Malik took up the four new tambara and fastened them to the wall, or to some house-pillar. Ido began returning the objects from the agongs to their respective owners, and called out their names if there was delay in claiming the articles. I saw one man gird on his kampilan as soon as Ido returned it, but, in general, the people laid the smaller articles in the tambara, and put larger objects in a wide scarf {salughoy) hanging close to the tambara. Here they must remain for at least one night, and afterwards be retained always in the possession of the individuals who offered them. At last, the three agongs were hung up in their former places, and a tap-tap on a large agong, nine times repeated, announced the end of the Sonar. A pile of swords still lay on the floor, and were picked up after the tap-tap had sounded. Last of all, the agong containing the water and
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 131
bunches of medicine was pushed under the high bed, where it re- mained until the end of the Ginum(?).
Ceremonies on the Main Day of Oinum. The fourth and main day of the festival — the Ginum proper — is crowded with im- portant and deeply interesting ceremonial, that begins at dawn and continues until after sunrise on the following morning. Attention should be drawn to the events distinctive of the day, although, as has been indicated in an earlier summary, many other rites (such as drinking balabba, chanting gindaya, beating agongs, dancing, performing awas, and so forth) which took place on earlier days, re- appear during the culminating ceremonial, but are here characterized, usually, by new elements that have to do with the formality, or with the extent of time, of the performance.
On the last day occurs the sacrifice of a human or of an animal victim; the cutting down of two ceremonial bamboos followed by the bringing in, the shaving, the decoration, the raising, and the attaching of spears to these poles ; the raising of a war-cry at fixed points in the ceremonial ; an exhibition of products of the loom and of the warriors' kerchiefs; the preparation and the cooking of special forms of sacred food ; an illumination with ceremonial torches; the altar ceremonial, when sacrificial food and holy liquor and betel are first laid before the Tolus ka Balekat, and afterward eaten; the rehearsing by old men, while clasping the bamboo, of the number of persons they have killed; and the serving and the eating of an excellent banquet, in which everybody present has a share.
When the first trace of dawn appeared over the mountains, and while the darkness in the Long House was still unbroken, the girls got up and called Loda and several of the other young men, who were to start the t'agong-go. They rose forthwith, and beat agongs lustily for about half an hour. Thus, at daybreak, the culminating period of the great festival was ushered in.
About one hour after sunrise, eight men left the house to cut the two bamboos that were to be placed in the festival house on that day. The ceremony of cutting down the two bamboos, or kawayan^^^ is called Dudo ka kawayan. The eight men included
*"• The Bagobo distinguish nicely the many varieties of bamboo that grow in their country. The larger bamboos {Bambusa arundinacea) that grow to a height of from forty to sixty feet and are nsed for the heavier house timbers and for flooring, are called by the Bagobo kawayan. Two of these trunks are cut for the ceremonial poles at Ginum.
132 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Ido, Bansag and other picked warriors, each of whom wore the tankulu, a sign that he had killed at least one man. No other Bagobo was permitted to go on the expedition. They had to go some distance over the mountains, to reach a certain spot where the bamboos might be cut, in accordance with a regulation that the ceremonial kawayan must be cut each year from the same place in the forests. The old man, Oleng, did not go with the party, but rested during the early morning at the Long House. Later, he seemed very impatient for the return of the men; he paced up and down, watching from door or window, and would say, as the hours crawled by : "It is time for them to come. I will go out and meet them." About the middle of the forenoon, he left the house with two or three other men, intending to meet the party, and to return with them.
In the course of another hour, a current of suppressed excitement passed through the waiting group of people, as the word passed among us, "They are coming."
It was near the middle of the forenoon when a prolonged shout was heard in the distance, and then repeated. After the second shout, the nine men, headed by Oleng and Ido, came filing up the path from the southeast, bearing two long trunks of bamboo.
The little procession came up the house-ladder and through the narrow door, each man wearing the tankulu, and having a blossom or two of red and gold darudu fastened in the folds of his kerchief and hanging over his forehead. The expression on the face of every man was one of rapt abstraction and of high exaltation. Immediately on entering the house, they rested the two bamboo poles against one of the transverse timbers. Then Ido, followed
A smaller species {Bambusa blumeana) has a slender, brittle stem, covered with short thorns, and is called by the Bagobo bale-kayo, which means "house wood." They make use of balekayo everywhere for the lighter parts of the frame-work of the house, such as the joists running from the ridge-pole to the edge of the roof, to support the thatch; and for the entire wall, sometimes, of the Long House; for flutes and other wind instruments; for making fires where a short-lived, intense flame is needed, as when shells are to be calcined for lime. This is the bamboo that the Spaniards referred to as "thorny cane" (Cana espina). Another bamboo {Bambusa vulgaris"?) is thornless, has an exceedingly hard-grained stem, and is known among the Bagobo as bubung ; this is decorated with fine carving and used for lime-tubes. The color of the wood is light yellow in the young tree and a rich, mellow tan tint in older trees. Still another bamboo, of which the native name is laya, has a slender white stem that is utilized for various purposes, one of which is to supply a ceremonial frame at Ginum, on which textiles and other garments to be displayed before the gods are hung.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 133
by the other seven men, leaped toward the structure from which the agongs hung, and seized hold of its long rods, round which ogbus vine had been twined at an earlier hour. The eight men, close clasping vine and pole, raised the same war cry that we had heard from afar. There was a long drawn out nasal, prolonged by holding the tongue against the palate so as to produce a humming sound on one note — n-n-n-n-n-n-n ! — followed by a continued sonant — r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r ! — given with open throat and resonant voice, while the bodies of the men swayed slightly back and forth. When this behavior had lasted for several minutes, Ido sprang to the agongs, grasped a tap-tap, and beat the instruments with short, ringing strokes, his face expressing a jubilant ecstasy, as he darted from Tarabun to Matia , and from Matia to Mabagung. ^'^^ He produced such a grand clash of percussion melody that one felt a sense of trampling under foot all foes to the Bagobo. From the first signal at dawn until now, the agongs had not been struck.
Next followed the ceremonial decoration of the bamboos. The two poles were of unequal length and girth, the longer one con- sisting of nine internodes, and the shorter one of eight internodes. The longer bamboo was perhaps fifteen or more feet in length (the exact measurements I failed to secure). With one end resting on the floor, and the other end on a cross-beam of the house, each bamboo stood at a gradual slant during the time that the men were working on their decoration.
First, Ido scraped on each pole four lines running from one end to the other, as an outline for the detailed work. On these lines, the men shaved ^^^ off the skin of the bamboo in short lengths.
**" Specific names of the instruments.
2 0 8 rpjjg ceremonial use of shaved poles, and of bunches of shavings, among the Ainu of Saghalin is discussed very fully by Sternberg. After mentioning the various hypotheses in regard to the significance of this element, as put forth by Batchelor, Bird, Dobrot- vorski and Aston, the writer states his own conclusions : namely, that the shaved sticks to which the Ainu give the name of inao represent supernatural agents who carry the prayers and offerings of the Ainu to God, and that the shavings themselves are the tongues of the mediating-envoy. The Ainu place these inao at the door, in front of the house, and at spots on the mountains, in the forest, and at the riverside. On special occasions, as after recovery from an illness, or on returning from a journey, such shaved sticks are set up. The bear to be offered in sacrifice is often decorated with bunches of shavings. "To sum up," Dr. Sternberg says, "inao are shaved trees and pieces of wood, commonly in the shape of human figures, which act as man's intercessors before deities. Their power lies in their numerous tongues (shavings)^ which increase the suasive power of their eloquence to an extraordinary degree." (p. 436) "This odd cult," he states, "has
134 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
until they had made nine clusters of shavings on each pole, each cluster close to a nodal joint. The clusters on the long bamboo consisted each of nine shavings, and the clusters on the shorter bamboo, of eight shavings each, every individual shaving remaining attached by its base to the pole. Each one of the single shavings was then split into three or four or more fine curls, so that a series of festoons appeared running down the poles, a group of festoons at each node.
The next process was a mechanical device for the attachment of leaves and flowers. Near each of the four central nodes on the long bamboo, they cut a pair of small holes, so that there were eight holes, four on one side, and four on the opposite side of the pole. Similarly, they cut three pairs of holes in the shorter bamboo, near the three central nodes. They inserted long slender sticks into the perforations thus made, letting each stick run through a pair of holes, and project several inches on each side. There were thus eight sticks passing through the trunk of the larger bamboo, and six sticks through the smaller one. The corresponding pairs of perforations in the two poles did not lie exactly in the same hori- zontal plane, and hence the sticks did not meet end to end. Long branches of a plant called baris that has a slender, glossy-black, stiff stem, were tied to the projecting sticks, every baris stem being split into shreds — one large shred and eight small shreds for the long bamboo, while the stems for the shorter pole were cut into twelve shreds each.
The attachment of leaf-pennants and of flowers completed the decoration of the poles. Great bulla leaves were cut or torn into
spread from the Ainu to the neighboring people of the Amur region, — the Gilyak, the Orok, the Gold, and the Orochi . . . Judging from Krasheninnikofs description, an anal- ogous phenomenon exists among the Kamchadal, but with the substitution of fibres of sedge-grass for shavings." (p. 430) "The Tnao of the Ainu." Boas anniversary volume, pp. 425—437. 1906.
Several years earlier, Furness had suggested a like interpretation for the symbolism of the shavings. He says of the Kayans, when they select a camphor tree, "if all omens are favorable, and they find that the tree is likely to prove rich in camphor, they plant near their hut a stake, whereof the outer surface has been cut into curled shavings and tufts down the sides and at the top. I suggest as possible that these shavings represent the curling tongues of flame which communicate with the unseen powers)." The Home- life of Borneo Head-hunters, pp. 167—168. 1902.
The Kayans are said to have lost sight of the significance of this ceremonial element, and the Bagobo suggested no explanation.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 135
•ibbon-like strips, which were fastened on by piercing them with
Ithe stiff, wiry stems of the baris branches, so that an effect of
waving green pennants was, perhaps unconsciously, secured. Finally, [the symbolic flowers of the Bagobo warrior — red kalimping and dossoms from the scarlet and gold darudu — were tied to the projecting tips of the baris stems, and also to the bulla-leaves. The last flowers and leaf-strips were added, and the final touches given, after the raising of the poles.
At the same time with the processes just described, other Bagobo were thrusting into the upper end of the hollow poles bouquets composed of leaves and flowers of different kinds, with white clusters of tender young leaf-buds and undeveloped fruit from the areca- palm. These clusters are called itbiis^ and form one of the characteristic decorations of the ceremonial bamboos. Sprays of ubus may be worn at the throat, or stuck in the leglets, or tied to the spears of brave men who have killed other men. A large part of these clusters of leaves and flowers were concealed within the bamboo trunks, but they protruded for a short distance from the openings.
The next proceeding was to raise the poles into place, so that they should stand upright beneath the steepest part of the roof, and directly in front of the altar called halekdt. The shorter bamboo was easily lifted to a vertical position, so that its upper end rested against a joist of the slanting roof; but when the long bamboo had been raised to an angle of some fifteen degrees from the vertical it was found to be too long, by several inches, for the extreme height of the roof, and it could not be forced to stand up straight, so as to touch the ridge-pole as custom demanded. This check to the performances proved a serious matter; for to let the bamboo stand at a slant would be contrary to custom and hence unlucky; while to cut it shorter would be a sacrilege, certain to be followed by the sickness or the death of somebody. The old men and women talked over the matter, and everybody wore a grave and anxious face. My crass suggestion that they break the roof was dismissed -as if unthinkable, and a long delay ensued, followed by a fresh attack on the pole, a new adjustment, a pressure from the upper end of the bamboo against the yielding joists and the thatch of grass, and a tacit consent of all concerned to allow the ceremonial bamboo to stand at a slant removed by an extremely small angle from the vertical.
Just as the decoration of the poles was finished, there were brought
136 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
into the house two long rods of the slender, brittle-stemmed variety of bamboo called halekayo. These were to serve as an additional frame on which to hang fine textiles and other garments for the ceremonial exhibit. They were very long, from one-half to two- thirds the length of the entire house, and they were lifted to their place between the two rods of laya that ran lengthwise of the house, and parallel to them. The usual bindings of rattan fastened the balekayo to the heavy cross-timbers of the house. Immediately afterwards, a number of long-shafted spears were brought to the ceremonial bamboos, and tied to them. At the moment of attaching the spears, Datu Oleng said a few ritual words, which I was unable to record. The spears stood with their points up, in the usual position of a spear at rest, when it is customary to thrust into the earth the sharp-pointed cone with which the handle is tipped.
While the rite with the spears was in progress, the women and girls were gathering together all the new hemp textiles that, with tireless industry, they had dyed, woven, washed and polished, and with the textiles they piled up many women's waists, men's trousers, salugboy (scarfs), fresh cotton textiles and various other articles. All these they now brought forward and hung on the balekayo rods and on the long poles of the frame of laya wood that had been put up, primarily, for the agongs. The function of the three crossbars of this frame now became apparent, for so large a number of garments and stuffs were displayed that they covered every inch of the laya and balekayo, lengthwise and crosswise, thus making a sort of rectangular super-enclosure within which the ceremonies preceded. This is the annual occasion when the highly artistic work of the women is spread out to view, when all the guests may see, as in a picture gallery, the decorative designs done in glistening hemp, the rich embroidery, the figured patterns formed by tiny discs of mother of pearl. Ordinarily, the Bagobo keep all their treasures packed away in tight yellow wood boxes or in baskets, leaving the room, even in wealthy families, bare of all furnishings except the loom, the altar and the hearth. Even at the Ginum, the exhibition appeared to be purely a ceremonial affair. The girls spread their beautiful things over the frames with a serious and quiet mien, as if they thought only of the gods, for whose pleasure the offerings were made, and who alone were to enjoy the spirit, or essence, of the material objects.
Immediately after this, the sugar cane liquor was brought in. It
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 137
was carried in three long vessels of bamboo that Andan and Agwas^ had made while we were waiting for the coming in of the two great bamboos. These vessels, called halanan^ had handles for the more convenient bearing and pouring of the liquor, whereas the ordinary water-bucket (sekkadu) has no handle. The balabba was brought in by young men, who proceeded to pour out some of the dark brown liquor into a tall metal jar, called tagudn ha balabba^ that had just been placed in the Long House. They stood up against the wall the balanan holding the remainder of the liquor, to be kept for the evening rites. After this, there was a short intermission ; it was long past noon, and nobody had eaten since very early that morning.
The central event of the Ginum, namely, the sacrifice offered to the god of the balekat, took place on the evening of the fourth day, the preliminaries being handled in the afternoon. After the intermission, Datu Oleng carried a cock that had been tied in the house down under the house, where it was shot by Ido, with an arrow having a head of bamboo. The fowl was plucked under the house, and then brought up into the house again, where it was cut into pieces by Muku, a brother of Singan's. He cut it up in the same manner that the Bagobo cook commonly prepares a chicken for the pot: that is to say, opening the fowl by one lengthwise gash of the work-knife, removing entrails and opening gizzard,, chopping off the wings, tearing off the skin by a downward pull over the legs, striking off the legs, and finally cutting the body, wings and legs into very small squarish chunks. Before this pro- cess was finished, another ceremonial detail of import was in progress.
Against the west wall, and near the two bamboos, the shrine called balekat hung in its usual place. It consisted of seven pilea of old and smoke-grimed bowls and saucers, suspended by rattan hangers in the customary manner. Directly in front of this altar,, the young men put up the broad shelf called taguan'^^^ ka balekat^ and attached it firmly to the timbers of the roof by means of strong bands of plaited rattan. It hung at quite a distance above our heads, so that, in order to place or to remove anything from the shelf, the altar assistant was obliged to climb up the wall, and
**** Taguan is a word that expresses the idea of a receptacle of some sort. It may be a shelf, as taguan ka sekkadu (shelf for water-flasks), or taguan ka balekat (altar-shelf);, it may be taguan ka sulu (torch-holder); or taguan ka balabba (jar for balabba).
i38 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
on along the sloping roof, a feat easily accomplished by the help of house-posts and cross-timbers, and of that monkey-like agility which is characteristic of the movements of Bagobo youths.
The balekat now being complete for the sacrificial offerings, the ceeded. The sacred food that is placed before the Tolus ka Balekat, and afterwards eaten by the men and boys, is a mixture of chicken, red rice and cocoanut. The dessicated fowl, to which some cocoa- nut is added, is cooked by itself, while the bulk of the cocoanut pulp, with all of the rice, is cooked in a separate set of vessels After being taken from the fire, the contents of the different ves- sels — chicken, rice and cocoanut — are mingled together, before being offered to the god.
When Muku had cut the fowl into bits, he separated it into two portions, the portion on his right hand for the men, the por- tion on his left hand for the adolescent boys. In the meantime, Inok was scraping out white pulp from one-half of a ripe cocoanut, with a grater called parod. This is a little piece of cocoanut shell, armed with a row of teeth notched on one edge. The curve of the remaining margin of the shell fits nicely into the hollow of the palm. As the shredded cocoanut pulp fell down in little heaps, Muku picked it up, handful by handful, and mixed it with the chicken- meat at his right hand. He rubbed each handful of cocoanut thor- oughly with a small part of the chicken, and dropped the mixture into a bamboo joint. He put each handful of cocoanut and chicken as soon as he had rubbed them together into the vessel, then picked up more cocoanut, mixed it with some of the remaining chicken meat, and so on, until all of the chicken on his right was disposed of. Next, he rubbed shredded cocoanut, in the same manner, with the pile of chicken meat on his left hand, but all of this mixture he put into a second bamboo joint. Both of the two bamboo ves- sels had been lined with sarabak leaves before the mess of cocoanut and chicken was dropped into them. Finally, Muku poured into oach of the vessels sufficient water to cover, in part, the food and tied up the openings with leaves of hemp or of sarabak.
Simultaneously, or a little later, nine other bamboo vessels, called lulutan^ were being filled with rice and cocoanut in the following manner. Inok continued to grate cocoanut from the same half section of the nut, until he had scraped all of the pulp from the shell. Then, from a large basket beside him, he took a quantity
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 139
of mw red rice that had been crushed in the mortar, and stirred it up with the shredded cocoanut. The red rice is called omok, and is one of the special forms of sacrificial food. *'^ I understood that the same name (omok) was given to the mixture of red rice and cocoanut. Another young man, Ayang, took a part of the little pile of red rice and cocoanut, heaped it on a sarabak leaf, and laid on it another sarabak leaf. He then lifted the leaves with their contents, so that his palms did not touch the omok, and pressed the whole into one of the bamboo vessels — the lulutan. A very little cold water had previously been poured into the vessel. Im- mediately afterward, Buak filled a second lulutan in the same man- ner, thus using up the remaining cocoanut from the first half shell. Inok then attacked the other half of the nut and scraped out all of the meat, which he mixed with the rest of the red rice, where- upon Ayang and Buak proceeded to fill seven additional lulutan. Each of the bamboo vessels was filled up to about two-thirds of its capacity, or a little less; but the amount put into each did not vary, for Buak measured the content exactly, every time, by in- serting a little stick of laya wood into the vessel and minutely examining the point to which the moisture mark rose. When the nine lulutan had been prepared, Inok tied together the two empty halves of cocoanut shell with rattan so as to make one hollow nut, which he left ready to hang on the altar at the close of the even- ing ceremony.
The nine lulutan and the two bamboo joints containing the chicken and cocoanut were then carried down the steps to a place under the house, where each vessel was filled to the rim with cold water, and its top tied securely with a leaf-cover. On stones encircling a wood fire, all of the vessels were placed where the food might steam until soft, the fresh green bamboo being not at all inflammable.
It was then deep dusk, and we hastened up into the now dark house so that we might be in time to see the illumination. Long torch-chains of biaii nuts, that had been strung a week earlier, were now to be lighted to take the place, for this one night, of the
»*« I have been told that the root of a plant, probably saffron, from which a yellow dye is obtained, is used at Ginum to stain the sacrificial food yellow, but, on this occasion, I did not observe that any yellow stain played a part. Mandarangan, however, is said to be very fond of yellow rice. Skeat mentions, frequently, the ceremonial value of yellow among the peninsular Malays; but, as for the Bagobo, red and white seem to be the colors chosen for offerinsjs and for sacrificial use.
140 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
ordinary torches of leaf-wrapped resin. To Maying, the second in age of the virgin daughters of Oleng, the privilege of making the sacred illumination was assigned. She hung several strings of biau nuts on the forked branches of the native candelabra that stood on the floor, and other strings she suspended from house timbers. The nuts were rich in oil, and the flame flared up as soon as lighted, the entire length of the sections being soon a row of flickering lights. The Long House was as bright as if hundreds of candles were burning. The silence was broken by a resounding shout from the men, who now raised the war cry again at the moment the blaze leaped forth.
Close upon the last war cry of that Talun Ginum, arrangements for the evening ceremonial were gotten under way, and the people grouped themselves at their several activities in the appointed places in the Long House: young women attended to the cooking of foods — rice, pig, and venison — for the feast; old women prepared leaf-dishes for a supplementary awas; young men tended the fire under the house and watched the bamboo vessels in which the sacred food was steaming; other young men up in the house helped in the preparation of the feast, by placing cocoanuts ready to be grated at a later hour. Some of the old men sat near the balekat, while talking or making prelimrnary moves toward the altar cere- mony now close at hand. Oleng was on his high seat (dega-dega) just north of the balekat, from which he had been observing care- fully the dressing of the fowl, the mixing of the ceremonial food, and the succeeding activities. The weary guests sat in tightly- packed lines on the floor, their faces wearing a patient, solemn expression, and waited.
The ceremony over the chicken and omok was performed by Oleng and Ido in front of the balekat, on the west side of the house where broad leaves were laid on the floor. On these, the contents of the nine bamboo vessels containing the cooked rice and cocoanut, and of the two vessels containing the chicken food were poured out, the sarabak leaves being left in the lulutan. The chicken and rice which had been boiled separately were now together in one brown soft mass forming a mixture called taroanan. But in spite of the apparent homogeneity of the food, there was a sharp distinction be- tween the right-hand and the left-hand portions, for, in mixing the chicken and rice, Ido or his assistant poured the contents of the men's bamboo on the rice to his right, and that of the boys*
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEBEMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 141
bamboo on the rice to his left, thus keeping the two apart as Muku had done in filling the vessels. The two halves of the sacred food were marked by two sarabak leaves that Ido laid upon it, one leaf on the right-hand portion and one on the left, with a very narrow space between the ends of the leaves to mark the dividing line. Upon each sarabak leaf he put eight pieces of areca-nut, and in front of the aisle between the leaves, one entire areca-nut upon a buyo leaf. Standing before Ido were two white bowls for balabba.
Immediately in front of the sacred food, Ido sat, while Oleng took his place a little to the left, at the southeast corner of the altar, and Malik, son-in-law to Oleng, sat between the two datu. At the south end of the taroanan, were Buak, Inok and Ayang, watching with deep interest the proceedings, and ready to assist in handing about utensils. The chief of Bansalan sat on the dega-dega but fell asleep during the ceremony, and did not waken until near its close.
The only material offerings to be seen besides the food and drink were a small pile of shells, little brass linked chains and miscel- laneous ornaments that lay on the floor at Oleng's left hand. This collective gift, called pamading^ was put there, I was told, so that the Bagobo would get rich; but I did not observe that it was touched during the ceremony, or that attention was directed toward it. No doubt it was a case of simply laying before the gods valued objects, with an expectation of receiving back a mani- fold increase.
Mention should here be made of four vessels called garong^^^^ which had an important part to play at the altar ceremonial. They were large cylinders of freshly-cut laya bamboo, with fitted lids shaped from the nodal joints. The four garong were of uni- form size, and each had, perhaps, five or six times the containing capacity of the lulutan in which the rice was cooked. They had been
* ^ ^ Bamboo vessels, looking much alike, receive different names, according to the function of each type. The sekkadu is a water-flask; the balanan is a vessel with handles and contains sugar cane wine; the lulutan is the vessel in which the red rice and cocoanut mixture is steamed, while the garong is a vessel decorated with shavings and reserved especially for altar use, including the sacred function of being elevated to the shelf with its contents of food or of wine. Each of these vessels consists of one internode of bamboo, of which one of the nodes forms the bottom of the vessel and the other node is utilized, often, for the lid.
I have no record of the specilic name for the bamboo vessels that contained the chicken ; possibly they, too, are called lulutan.
142 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
made that same day, immediately after the bamboos were filled with green sprays. Like the bamboos, the four garong were orna- mented with festoons of curled shavings peeled off in regular clusters on the surface of the vessel, two garong having nine clusters of shavings, and the other two, eight clusters. Two of these vessels were intended for drink offerings, and two for food offerings. At the beginning of the ceremony we are now discussing, the two garong destined for drink offerings were filled with sugar cane liquor, poured from the balanan by one of the young men who were serving as altar attendants. From one of the garong (now full of balabba), the sacred liquor was poured into two bowls that stood in front of Ido, between him and the sacrificial food. The other garong full of liquor was elevated to the shelf of the balekat. To do this, one of the attendants climbed up from the south wall and then along the roof, until he was close to the south end of the shelf of the balekat. The vessel was then handed up to him by Ido(?) and placed on the shelf, where it remained throughout the following rites.
The more distinctively sacrificial part of the ceremony opened with the stirring of the sugar cane wine in the two bowls. For this purpose two spoons, known as barakas^ were used, the spoons being made of small sections of bulla leaf twisted to the shape of bowl and handle, and the stem-handle tied in a knot. The larger spoon had tied to its handle a red blossom of kalimping, and the smaller spoon was adorned with a scarlet blossom that had tasseled petals. Ido dipped into the bowl of balabba on his right hand the smaller spoon, and, having taken it out with a little of the brown liquor, he laid it with the liquor in it beside the bowl. In the same manner, he dipped the larger spoon into the left-hand bowl, took it out and laid it, holding a few drops of liquor, beside the left-hand bowl. He then stirred the balabba in the bowl to the right, with a small spray of manangid, and thereupon, either Ido or Oleng, with a second spray of manangid, stirred the contents of the bowl to the left.
The Gurrugga^ or worship, was then performed by Datu Oleng, who, in his priestly character, laid before the Tolus ka Balekat the flesh of a victim slain in sacrifice, together with those selected products of the field and fruit of the trees that are most highly valued by the Bagobo — rice and cocoanut and areca-nuts and the precious wine extracted from sugar cane. In his right hand, Oleng held a
BENEDICT, BACrOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 143
small tube of hard bamboo, such as is used everywhere by the Bagobo to contain powdered lime. From the lime-tube, he sprinkled lime on the sixteen pieces of areca-nut, by sifting the white powder in showers through a little sieve stopper of rattan that closed the end of the tube. As he repeated certain ritual words, he made frequent passes, tube in hand, to and fro over the sacred food, often pointing the lime-tube toward the food and toward the areca-nuts on it. In the low, conversational tone of voice so often heard at a Bagobo ceremony, Datu Oleng said: "Tolus ka Balekat, I am making a Ginum this year for you. I have prepared eight areca-nuts and I pray to you, while offering you the areca-nuts. Tolus ka Balekat,. you demand a human victim this year, as in the years before when we celebrated the Ginum, but now we do not kill a man in sacrifice any more, because the Americans now hold control, and we are using a little American custom in giving you no human victim^ Instead, we have killed a chicken, ^^^ which we offer to you with the red rice." Oleng then sprinkled lime on the betel several times, and stirred the balabba in the left hand bowl with his spray of manangid, whereupon Ido stirred the contents of the right hand bowl with the other spray of manangid. Following this, the two spoons of bulla leaf, each still having in it a small amount of balabba, were handed up to be placed upon the shelf of the balekat, the young man, Madaging, having climbed up for that act.
Next followed a ceremonial drinking and a chewing of beteL Datu Oleng, Datu Ido, Sali, and other men of renown, drank from the two sacred bowls of sugar cane liquor, and passed the bowls^ from one to another until they were drained to the bottom. There- upon, the men about the altar took the sixteen pieces of areca-nut that lay on the sacred food, and chewed them in the customary manner. Some other men then took areca-nut from the altar and chewed it.
Up to this point, the sacrificial food had lain spread out before the god, but in plain sight of all the people as well. Now, it must be passed up for the enjoyment of the great deity of the balekat alone. It was not put back into the same vessels in which it had
111 "Whatever kind of sacrifice is asked for by the ffharu-s])ivit must ... be given, with the exception of the human sacrifice which, as it is expressly stated, may be com- pounded by the sacrifice of a fowl.'" W. W. Skeat: Malay Magic, p. 211.
The Malay magician says that "if the spirit craves a human victim a cock may be substituted." Ibid., p. 72.
AU ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
been cooked, but into the two large shaved bamboo vessels (garong) that still stood empty. Ido filled these garong with the taroanan, or sacred food, and carefully drew together and gathered up the last scraps clinging to the broad leaves on which the food had been spread. Then he closed the vessels with their tight stoppers, and passed then up to be placed on the shelf beside the garong of wine. There they remained during the music, the dances, the chanting ^nd the feast, and were not taken down until after the old men's statement of exploits.
As soon as the taroanan was elevated to the shelf, Inok hung up, below the balekat, the cocoanut shells that he had tied together ^t the time the omok was mixed. At that moment, the profound -stillness that had lasted for an hour and a half broke to the sound of the big drum, beat with dull monotonous taps, and accompanied by resounding strokes on the agongs. This was the signal announ- -cing the close of the altar ceremonial. All the men who had been drinking balabba at once discharged an animated flow of talk, but the utter silence prevailing throughout the rest of the company remained unbroken.
Before this point in the ceremonies, a supplementary awas had taken place over a number of extremely small leaf-dishes which were «aid to number two hundred — a rite conducted by the old women, Miyanda and Singan. This sacred office was going on at the same time as the altar ceremony, and hence was not observed by me, but was reported to have occurred after the taroanan food was spread on the altar, and before Oleng said the prayers over it. I failed to -ascertain what was afterward done with the leaf-dishes, but, if their disposition followed that of the other leaf-dishes at the three preceding awas, they would have been taken out and laid down by the wayside.
It was not until after drum-beat that the chanting of Gindaya began, but from this time on, ceremonial chants were given at intervals throughout the entire night. The sons and nephews of Oleng carried much of the burden of the gindaya; they sang in the customary antiphons, one against one, or two against two, with recitatives intervening in the usual manner.
After the opening performance of gindaya, the music of the agongs called the dancers to the floor. The first dance was done by three warriors alone who were dressed in embroidered trousers, fine beaded jackets and tankulu of a very dark chocolate color, the tint showing that they were brave {magani) men, whose human victims were
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH Ub
many. This and the later dances were all performed in the same part of the house in which the bamboo poles stood, and in which the altar was situated. They danced on the restricted portions of the floor on each side of the two bamboos. This initial dance of the men was followed by a second ceremonial chant.
At this Ginum, there were eleven agongs suspended from the laya rods. Four of uniform size formed the upper row, and each was named Matio. Just below them hung four others of uniform size, but somewhat larger than the four above them. The agongs in this lower row were called, from left to right, respectively, Tarabun, Mabagong, Marubur, Mabagong. The eight instruments just mentioned were all played by one expert musician, who beat tap-tap while dancing in the customary manner of an agong-player. Suspended just below the eight was another agong considerably larger in cir- cumference, but of shallow convexity. It bore the name of Inagongan, and a woman performed on it, beating an accompaniment to the theme of the leading musician. Beside the Inagongan, hung a very small instrument called Bandiran, on which a child rang the tones. Some little distance to the right of the ten instruments just named, was suspended an agong of exceedingly large size that was tapped by a man as an accompaniment, and that bore the same name as the woman's instrument — Inagongan. One or two drums, each beaten by two persons, a man and a woman, assisted the eleven agongs at every set performance.
Now came the event that had been looked forward to with keen anticipation by the weary people — the general drinking of the fragrant and delicious balabba. So little food had been served for the preceding twenty-four hours that it seemed more like a day of abstinence than a festival, for when the Bagobo are preparing for a great celebration, they pay no attention to bodily wants. Many of the guests had tramped a long distance over the mountains and were very tired; the refreshment of this first drink of balabba re- lieved the tension greatly. When the liquor was served, separate cups were supplied to the special guests, but a few large bowls sufficed for the majority of the company, who passed the same bowl from hand to hand. As fast as emptied, the bowls were re- filled from the large metal jar, or from the fourth garong of bamboo.
Three successive periods of chanting Gindaya succeeded the drinking. Then followed the beating of agongs in dance measure,
10
^46 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
a signal which brought girl dancers to the floor. ^'^ They were in festival costume of shining hemp skirts; short, tight-fitting waists of cotton, decorated with conventional designs done in fine needle-work ; bracelets and leglets of brass and of bell-metal cast from a wax mould. These ornaments were hollow, and each inclosed a number of tiny, freely-rolling globes of metal that tinkled in the movements of the dance. The girls wore, also, necklaces of beads, pure white or many-colored; inlaid ear-plugs connected by tasseled pendants of white beads that passed under the chin; and some wore wide belts bordered with small, hand-cast bells.
When the dancing was done, two young men approached the bamboos, and standing there, each with one arm encircling a pole, they began afresh the monotonous yet sweet-toned chant that lasted until the banquet opened.
Ever since the conclusion of the altar ceremony, many women and men had been dishing up food and making preparations for serving that houseful of guests. All of this work was going on at one end of the Long House, while the chanting and the dancing were in progress at the other end. Under Sigo's direction, Sambil, Sebayan and three other girls, filled the hemp-leaf dishes that had been made five days earlier with an appetizing mess just dished from the big clay pots, and called kumodn. The ingredients were white rice, grated cocoanut, hashed venison and pig fat. Other de- licious cocoanut mixtures were being prepared to be served with the kumoan. Several of the young men halved and grated the co- coanuts, whereupon other men caught up the white shreds by hand- fuls and mixed with boiled and slivered fish, manipulating the food swiftly with fingers and palms. Other men mixed bits of venison with grated cocoanut, and still others cut off narrow, thin slices of fresh boiled pork. Three men were kept busy in handing out to the women these foods as they were ready. Bansag handed up the pork; another man, the cocoanut-venison ; and another, the cocoanut-fish. The five girls filled all of the leaf-dishes — an indi- vidual leaf-dish for each guest, and one for every member of the family. They pressed into each leaf-dish a large portion of the rice and meat stew, and a small portion of cocoanut-venison and of cocoanut-fish.
^^^See also pp. 85 — 87 for a discussion of the dance. The Bagobo say that Mandar- angan comes to see the dance, and watches its performance with pleasure.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 147
o "
te; d
a
o
SS to c
o a a
O S .2
=0 "to 2
g bO "
^ ^ a
CO
=3 rrs * o
448 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Eight large plates of heavy white crockery were prepared with special attention to arrangement and quantity of viands, for they were to be served to the eight most distinguished guests at the Ginum. An ample supply of the kumoan stew was heaped on the pla,te, and pressed into pyramidal shape; the white food of cocoa- nut and slivered fish was piled beside the stew, and the whole bordered by bits of venison that had been first roasted, and then broiled to a hard crisp. This last-named delicacy appeared only on the plates of the eight elect, of whom I was one, the other seven being datu and other Bagobo of note.
We all sat on the floor, tightly packed in solid rows, between which the girls made their way and, with the help of a few young men, handed to each of us a leaf-dish or a plate. I failed to note just which were the "distinguished guests," besides myself, who received the special plates, but among them may have been in- cluded Datu Yting of Santa Cruz; the datu of Bansalan; the two brothers of Tonkaling, datu of Sibulan ; Sali, elder brother to Oleng, and Awi. When all were served, Ido called out in a loud voice, "Langun pomankit!" ("Let all eat!") and in reply all the people shouted out in unison, "Mimankid!" ("We will begin to eat.") There were few words spoken after that until the end of the meal, for we were all well-nigh famished. Swiftly the leaf-dishes were emptied and the plates cleared, as with eager fingers the food was rushed to the mouth. Scarcely had the meal come to a close when the ceremonial offices were resumed.
The recitation of exploits began. An aged man, wrinkled and gaunt from continued privations, his shriveled skin clinging close to the bones of his famished face, stepped toward the ceremonial bamboos and, clasping a pole with one hand, made a statement before the god of the balekat, and in the presence of the assem- bled people, to the effect that he had slain a certain number of men during his lifetime. All the Bagobo listened attentively, but made no comment, or gave sign either of dissent or of applause. It was Sali, brother of Oleng, who was making the recital. Di- rectly he had finished, another old man came forward, and then another, each grasping a pole, or one of the spears attached to the bamboos, throughout his recitation. No man may lay hold of the bamboos, or of the ceremonial spears, unless he has killed at least one man. If any man break this tabu, he will be struck down by some terrible illness.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 149
When Datu Oleng made his recitation, he stated that he had killed thirty men, and he then gave a charge to the bamboo and to the balekayo and to the ogbus vine that they were to keep on growing until the Ginum should be celebrated next year. Oleng was followed by Awi, who gave a lengthy autobiographical nar- rative telling how he had killed eighteen men in one locality ; and the circumstances which led him to kill nine men in another place; and then, at a later period, eleven more; and how, on a certain occasion, he had killed one woman; and, at another time, one man ; and , finally , how he slew three 'men — a total of forty-three on the face of the statement. Right here, however, there comes into play a remarkable tabu that changes the result of the count.
When a brave old Bagobo, while holding the bamboo pole, takes his oath on the number of men he has killed, he must always give one half the actual number, for if he should dare to state the correct figure he would be attacked by disease. Moreover, his audacity would be manifest to all the people, for if, while clasping the pole, he should reveal the true number of his victims, the great bamboo would instantly split, from the top down through the entire length of the pole, without blow from human hand. The man's own Mandarangan, or personal war-god, would cause the bamboo to split, because the man has spoken the truth about his exploits. Applying this key, therefore, to the recitations of Oleng and of Awi, we double the count of each, and discover that Oleng had sent down to Gimokudan sixty individuals, and that Awi's victims reached the grand total of eighty-six. This case is a fair illustration of that indirectness which forms such an essential ele- ment in the psychic complex of the Malay. Other instances, too, of what we call dishonesty or lying, may, perhaps as easily, be often traced to some religious scruple, or to some ethical restraint, making it incumbent on a man to say something less, or something more, than the truth.
When the old men had finished checking up their achievements, a rite of peculiar significance took place, namely, the eating of the sacred food that a little while before had been offered to the god of the balekat. The deity was supposed to feast on the spiritual essence of the food, but the material part was partaken of by the Bagobo men and adolescent boys, this being one of the very few privileges tabu to women. The two garong containing the sacred
150 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
food were lifted down from the shelf, and the contents poured out on the leaves that had been laid below the hanging-altar. The distinction between the portion for the men and that for the boys was still preserved, so that, just as before, the men's food lay to the right of the officiating datu, and the boys' food to his left. Old men near the altar ate first, and then the others, a few at a time approaching without formality, each thrusting the fingers of one hand into the taroanan and conveying a small portion to his lips, the boys taking from the left side and the men from the right. Only the Bagobo and men from tribes closely akin in language and in appearance are permitted to eat the sacred food. Any male guest from the Guianga tribe, I was told, would be accepted at the altar like a Bagobo visitor; but no Bila-an, or Ata, or Kulaman, or a man from any other of those neighboring groups with which the Bagobo trade and intermarry, would be permitted to eat the taroanan. My own observation bore out this statement, for although ten or fifteen Bila-an had been at Mati for weeks waiting for the festival to begin, not a man of them approached the altar. Yet one of Ido's wives was a Bila-an woman, and the entire party of her tribe was entertained at Ido's house.
Now that the strain of the religious exercises was past, the people fell to drinking sugar cane liquor with a freedom that up to this time had not been permitted. The bowls were passed round, first to guests from other towns and afterwards to the people of the home village. Speeches of an informal nature followed the first or second round of drinks. Datu Oleng and Datu Yting spoke on various little happenings of the week, and Yting urged the men not to drink enough to make them boisterous, but to remember that the seiiora was present.
Soon the chanting of Gindaya rose again, and continued at inter- vals throughout the entire night. Balabba flowed freely all night, and some of the men kept on drinking until noon the next day, so that they grew hilarious, and finally drowsy from the effects of a drink which is but slightly intoxicating, unless taken in large quantities. The extreme sweetness and rich quality of this liquor often proves too much for a people accustomed to a slim diet, and many Bagobo are sick the day following a festival. There often follows a period of exhaustion that almost prostrates an old man for some little time. Datu Yting had planned to return to Santa Cruz immediately after the festival, but it was two or
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 451
three days before he felt strong enough to make the journey, ^i* Arrangement of the Long House. The Long House, called Dak'Nl Bale^ has another name that refers, possibly, to its security from evil spirits. It is known in Gindaya chants as the "Tina- malung Tambubung," or "shady, well-roofed house." The phrase that best combines these various elements is "long, narrow house with a good roof."
On first entering the Long House, it appeared to be one con- tinuous room, for there were no dividing walls, or noticeable par- titions. Yet there were actually five compartments with distinct functions, in which separate activities connected with the festival took place. The lines of separation between the rooms consisted in strips of bamboo or of palma brava, ^^^ running the width of the house and projecting barely above the level. These relief partitions were tied to the same timbers to which the slats of the floor were lashed. There was a double floor, the lower one being of balekayo, and the upper of split bamboo of the larger variety {kaivayan). This upper floor, or carpet, was made from internodal sections of bamboo, averaging 12 '/a feet in length. The green sections are put
*^'' The following description of a Mandaya ceremonial is interesting to refer to at this point, because it combines, in one complex, elements that appear at several different ceremonies of the Bagobo Ginum: the rectangular altar made of four smaller altars suggesting the sonaran of agongs; the floral decorations; the great bamboo set up in the middle of the space; the drum-call at the opening of the festival; the costumed dancers; the interview with Mansilatan in whi'^h the emotional disturbance shown by the priestesses, the following silence, and the devotions as a whole resemble very closely the Bagobo manganito; the offerings of areca {bongo) and of betel ipuyo); the feasting and drinking at the close of the ceremony.
"Otro sacrificio es el Talibung. Para celebrarlo levantan cuatro altares en forma de reetangulo, y cado esquina del altar es adornada con flores. En medio de estos cuatro altares, colocan una cana gruesa de tres brazas de largo con sus hojas. Se inagura la funcion al son del guimbao 6 tamboril, salen tres 6 cuatro bailanes bien vestidas, organizan un baile al rededor de dichos altares. — Al cabo de cuatro 6 cinco vueltas se sientan a la vez, tiemblan, eruptan prolongadamente, sigue luego un silencio sepulchral en cuyo tiempo fingen el descenso de Mansilatan y su conversacion con ellas, en cuyo tiempo les infunde el espiritu profetico, le adoran luego, y le ofrece cada cual su polio abado y partido, juntamente con algunos camarones, los cuales mezolan con buyo hecho de tabaco, cal, fruta y hoja de la bonga, despues de cuya ofrenda repiten su baile, sientase, tiemblan, eruptan, escuchan a su dios, anuncian la buena cosecha, la curacion de la enfermedad, el buen viaje, y luego sigue la accion de gracias en el festin y la borachera decostumbre." P. Pastklls: Cartas, vol. 2, pp. 39—40. 1879.
'** Valma brava: Coripha minor. The Bagobo call it basag. It is a blackish wood, strong and hard-grained, and is much used for building purposes, both for upright timbers and in place of split bamboo for the slats of floors.
152 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
through a process of striking, cracking and splitting to make them flexible, so that they can be laid down flat to form the "asug ka kawayan" (floor of large bamboo).
The room farthest south had a platform floor, raised by a few inches above the rest of the house floor, and the edge of this plat- form served as a seat, it being the nearest approach to a bench that the house contained. This room was occupied entirely by guests from other towns with a few from the same village. They all sat crowded close together, covering this slightly elevated platform.
The next room to the north formed the center of religious rites, and contained the sacred objects connected with the celebration. Near the centre, the two ceremonial bamboos stood; the agongs hung on the east side ; the hanging altar was on the west wall, and below it the sacred food was spread; a space on each side of the two bamboo poles remained for the dancers. The dega-dega, or high seat from which Oleng reviewed the ceremonial, was just north of the balekat.
The third rooni was utilized in various ways. Attached to the east wall was the wide guest-bed of bamboo. It was 10 feet, 2 inches in length, and 4 feet, 1 inch in width, and would accommodate a number of men, sleeping side by side, their bodies across the width of the bed; that is, at right angles to the wall. As many more could sleep on the floor below, just as in a lower Pullman berth. On the floor beside the bed, the young men cut in halves ripe cocoanuts, and mixed venison and fish with cocoanut-meat. The west side of this room caught the overflow of visitors, especially youngj girls who, with a few men, sat in well-packed rows on the floor. A narrow aisle, between the cocoanuts and the girls, made possible locomotion from the north end of the house to the ceremonial room. ^^^
In the fourth room, the women were filling leaf-dishes with food for all the people; piles of the leaf-dishes lay on the floor near the west wall. On the east side was the vacant floor space used by the older members of Oleng's family for rest at night.
The last room to the north, and the smallest of the five, was the kitchen, which opened upon a very small porch. In the northeast
*^® The uprights and the long bamboo rods that formed the frame of the loom, from which the last textile had been removed before the festival, kept their place against the west wall, in this third room.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 155
corner of the room were the three large stones that formed the native fire-place. They rested on a bed of earth several inches high, banked by strips of wood, and having an area sufficient to hold^ besides the fire-stones, big clay pots, piles of kindling-wood, and a little group of people who would gather round the fire. On thi& hearth, during the Ginum, all of the boiling and the broiling pro- cesses were carried on, and here, after the visitors had trooped off, the members of the family would gather to roast corn and to chat*
Festival of Ginum at Tubison, On May 27—28, 1907, almost three months earlier than the Talun festival, it was my privilege to be a guest, during the last fifteen hours, at the celebration of Ginum at Tubison, a mountain village at the top of a steep ascent several hours ride northwest of Santa Cruz. Datu Imbal and hi& wife, Siat, were the hosts. The festival was held three days before the expected sprouting of the rice in Imbal's fields, as he had planted somewhat earlier than several other Bagobo who, during that very week, were giving rice-sowing festivals to their neighbors. My obser- vation of the ceremonies covered the period from about two hour& before sunset of one afternoon until one hour after sunrise of the following morning. I shall here call attention to those ceremonial details alone which present points of variation or contrast to identical rites on the corresponding night at Talun; and, while passing over those lines of ritual behavior that may be expected to manifest themselves regularly at Ginum, I shall mention particularly some few single religious functions that appeared at Tubison, and were absent from Talun, as well as cases of the reversed situation.
The first important difference to be noted is one that touches the order of ritual functions. The offering of material objects upon the agong-altar with accompanying ceremonies-** (Sonar) which at Talun took place on the third day of the festival, was performed
* ^ ' The ceremony of placing the sacred food before the gods, and of reciting a liturgy- over it, probably took place very early in the evening. I must have missed that im- portant rite, for I was told that a ceremonial had been performed at the agong-altar about dusk while I was in the grounds with the young people. If that were the case,, the rite must have been very much shorter thau at Talun. I feel pretty well convinced that the betel ceremony which, at Talun, accompanied the rites over the sacred food was, at Tubison, transferred to the Sonaran as described. In each case the officiating priest placed sixteen slices of areca-nut on the altar, each being laid on a piece of betel-leaf; they were separated into two sets of eight each, by sarabak leaves at Talun, and by the little ceremonial spoon of bulls leaf at Tubison; and the betel was similarly sprinkled with lime by the celebrant. Sugar cane liquor was drunk at the earlier ceremony a
154 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
at Tubison on this last night, as one of the early evening functions. A single agong — a very large one — formed the altar, and on this the entire ceremony was performed, there being no additional agong holding water and medicine for lavations. The rite of washing and the anito seance were both absent from the Sonar as performed at Tubison. On the other hand, we have at Tubison the ceremonial preparation and chewing of areca-nut and betel-leaf on the part of the old men, a function which at Talun did not occur in connection with the agong oblation. Another element of variation was the large number of sacred dishes used in drinking the sugar cane liquor. There were, in all, sixteen cups, saucers, and plates, eight being placed to the right of the agong, and eight to the left; whereas at Talun there were but four bowls and one individual cup. The wide variety in the kinds of gifts brought to the altar at the Talun feast has been noted; but at Tubison the offerings were noticeably limited to swords, knives and brass armlets, ^^^ there being no textiles or bead- work or embroidery produced for the rite. Many of the bracelets were brought tied in bunches, and a few of these the celebrant fastened to the swords that leaned upon the agong. In other respects, the details of Sonaran as performed at the two places were fairly parallel.
The bamboo prayer-stands, ^^^ called tamhara^ formed at Tubison a more distinctive ceremonial element than at Talun. It will be
Tubison, I understood, as well as at the later one; just as at Talun this ritual drinking occurred at the agong ceremony and also at the final sacrificial rites. As a whole, how- ever, I should remark that the two ceremonies stood out from each other more sharply distinct at Talun than at Tubison.
*^* There were in all thirty-five brass armlets brought to the altar, in eight clusters «t different times, the clusters numbering from two to six armlets each; of these only three were the fine bracelets cast from a wax mould and called hal'mutung, the others being the wire armlets punched in patterns and called pankis. As for the swords, they were all of the long, one-edged type called kampilan — the most valued weapon among Bagobo men, and always worn in full dress. The ritual performance over the agong opened with eight kampilan piled one upon another, and resting in part on the floor, «,nd iu part on the agong. After the sugar cane wine had been poured into the sixteen dishes, another kampilan was brought, thus giving nine, instead of the eight that at Talun made the proper count.
* ^ " In each corner of the house stood a bamboo prayer-stand {iambara) dedicated, respectively, to the god of the house {dios ka bale), the god of the fire {dios ka apuy) the personal guardian of our host {dios ku Butu Imbal), and the unseen spiritual protector called Tungo, this last shrine being set up with the particular intention of keeping the family from sickness ("diri masakit to manobo tun to bale" — "not sick the people in
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 155
recalled that at the last-mentioned place bamboo stands functioned merely as accessories to the agong rite, both in association with the altar itself, and as shrines on which the gifts that had pre- viously been offered on the agongs might be hung. At Tubison, on the contrary, separate ritual recitations were uttered by the elder brother of Datu Imbal, while standing before two of the four tam- bara that occupied the corners of the house, and these devotions were accompanied by some display of dramatic action which cannot at the present time be discussed.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of this festival at Tubison was the notable part taken by women, particularly in the singing. While the chanting of gindaya was, as usual, reserved for young men alone — indeed, the women told me that the daughters of Datu Imbal did not know the words of the gindaya — yet many other vocal performances were given by girls and women. My notes, taken during the night, mention thirteen of these songs and chants, six of which were performed by a chorus of adult women, three by young girls assisted by a few young men, three were rec- itatives by single female voices, and one was a duet between Imbal's sister and his brother's son, the same nephew who carried the burden of the gindaya. Alternating with the songs of the women, or sometimes massed in consecutive numbers, came choruses by male voices, including the war song {diira)^ while ever and anon rose the chanting of gindaya by Iti, Umpa and Imba^ sons of Datu Imbal, and by Ume, son of Imbal's brother. Some of the women's songs were given in a high key and with an explosive utterance that approached a shriek ; others were softly chanted at a low pitch.
One, at least, of the women's choruses was led by Siat, the wife of Datu Imbal, a middle-aged woman of remarkably impelling per- sonality, who took a prominent part in directing the schedule of the entire night, acting, indeed, as a co-master of ceremonies with Imbal himself. There was something very impressive in the execu-
the house"). It was before the two last-named shrines that the ritual recitations above referred to were made. Above these two altars, and covering the intervening space, were draped a great number of the ceremonial, dark red kerchiefs called tankulu which were hung from the bamboos, and spread from joist to joist, so as to form an almost con- tinuous canopy at this end of the house — the same end where the agong-altar rites were said. The family of Imbal had a wealth of tankulu, in a wide variety of figured patterns, and they formed the festive decoration of the house. There were no long lines of textiles displayed, as at Talun.
156 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
tive ability with which she superintended the various functions and .the scrupulous care that she bestowed on the correct perform- ance of ritual details, her attention passing so swiftly from one to another of the activities that were going on in the various parts of the Long House that it seemed as if she perceived the entire situation at one glance. Once I noticed that her keen eyes were fixed sharply on Ume, who was singing gindaya; it was obvious that he had made a blunder, and he stopped short, looking at Siat and laughing in a half-disconcerted manner, but Siat promptly cor- rected him, giving him his cue, and he resumed his chant. One ritual recitation was given by Siat in a high voice, and she drank sugar cane liquor from several of the sacred dishes at the altar. One other woman drank with the old men.
A few minor ceremonial features may now be mentioned in which slight variations from the rites at Talum become apparent. The dancing took place late in the afternoon and up to dusk ; during the evening and the night, no dances were performed. The sprigs of fragrant bulla, that were worn by all of us women at our waists, had to be discarded at a definite point of the ritual. It was rather soon after the opening strains of gindaya were heard, and while the food was being pressed into leaf-moulds, that a little girl came to me and removed the bulla-leaf from my belt, and I saw that the Bagobo women were laying aside their own decorations of bulla. Another detail to be noted is that the sacred food, when taken from the altar was emptied into a flat basket and placed on the floor, where each man reached for it, putting his hand into the basket. I observed no separate portion for the boys. The general drinking of balabba by the guests followed immediately upon the consumption of the sacred food, a much later period in the ritual sequence than at Talun, where everybody was invited to drink ba- labba, not only before the men's food was laid out, but prior to the big general feast itself.
We now turn to a dramatic episode of the ritual which set off*, to a marked degree, the religious activities of this night at Tubison from those we have recorded of Talun. The chief actor was an old man, Datu Idal, head of the neighboring village of Patulangan, and his part consisted in falling on the floor in a trance, or a pseudo-trance. This performance occurred quite late in the night, after all the liturgical ceremonial as well as the eating and drink- ing had come to an end. Following a period of successive singing,
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 157
interspersed with sharp cries from groups of women and groups of men, and while I was standing at one end of the house listening to the chanting of gindaya, there came a noise of tumult from the next room, and thither everybody began to rush and crowd together. There was a sound of a heavy body falling, followed by low cries and exclamations. Instantly, the wife of Imbal hastened to me and begged me not to be frightened; she told me that what was happening was very good for the Bagobo, but that I must stay where I was, and not attempt to go to look. As soon as her at- tention was diverted, I succeeded in making my way to a place where I could get a glimpse of Datu Idal. He lay on his back, stretched out at full length on the floor, his eyes closed, his general aspect being that of a person in a faint. Siat (Imbal's wife) sat at his head and gazed fixedly at his face. The old people who were standing about explained that Idal was dead, but that he would come to life again by and by; and they assured me that it was something good for the Bagobo. The crowd gradually thinned out and the Bagobo, one after another, lay down on the floor and fell asleep. After a while Idal's condition of stupor, if it were such, seemed to pass imperceptibly into natural slumber. After keeping her position as watcher for one or two hours, Siat lay down beside the old man, drew over herself a part of the cotton sleeping-blanket which she had spread over him, and soon dropped off to sleep. By that time, nobody was awake except the youths who were relieving one another at the gindaya and myself. I did not venture to lose sight of the sleeping datu, for it seemed highly probable that he would "come to life" suddenly, to bring to some dramatic culmination the events of the night; but nothing unusual occured. The hours wore on toward dawn, while only the monot- onous intoning of gindaya broke the stillness. Soon after sunrise, Datu Idal stirred, opened his eyes, sat up, and began to chew betel as if nothing had happened. Everybody else woke up as usual; and, as the sun shot rays across the mountain tops, only the soft chanting of the weary boys, each still holding over his lips an edge of the sacred kerchief as the last strains of gindaya came forth, indicated that a great religious festival was drawing to a close.
In attempting to characterize briefly this festival night as a whole, one would note the high degree of animation that pervaded the rites, a spirit which was quite as plainly apparent before the sugar
158 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
cane wine had been served as after the general drinking. In marked contrast with the quiet, orderly, almost conventional manner in which the proceedings at Talun were put through, the religious activities at Tubison suggested some hidden psychological stimulus to which every performer responded. ^^'^ There were frequent shrieks and screams from the women ; groans and loud calls from the men ; shouting of directions ; sudden dramatic outbursts, as when one datu seized hold of another and tried to drag him from his seat, or when one clasped the wrists of another during the prayers before the bamboo stands, or when the entire company oriented at the same moment, crowding together and facing the north, while the men sang the locust song {Apang). Yet, throughout this intense excite- ment, one was conscious of an organization so exact as to inhibit any excess of emotional discharge. Many of the above demonstrations, as well as the war songs, the cries, and the prolonged humming and trilling sounds that are associated with war expeditions, gave the impression of a battle-field with a fight in progress, or of the return from a successful man-hunt.
Question of Head-hunting. Much work remains to be done before the complete significance of the Ginum ceremonial is revealed. Some of the religious rites that I have attempted to describe sug- gest similar customs which, by a parallel development or through convergence, have grown up in many countries and among many peoples all over the world. No attempt has been made in this paper to draw attention, outside of a limited territory, to parallels that will occur to every student of primitive religion.
There are other elements of the Ginum which seem peculiar to Malay groups, but the material is lacking for a detailed comparison. Among these elements, the triumphal entry of the two bamboo poles, with the attendant ceremonies, calls for special investigation. That they are raised in honor of the same god who receives so
^""Two possible causes may be hinted at for what may be termed this difference in psychical atmosphere: — (1) Possibly a human sacrifice had been offered at Tubison during the preceding twenty-four hours; while at Talun the enforced substitution of a fowl as the bloody victim may have dampened the spirit of the feast. Bute/, pp.96 — 97.
(2) There was evident, at all times, in Imbal's family a temperamental strain of buoyancy and of mental alertness that thrilled me, on every occasion when any one of them came to visit at my house. Possibly, all of the guests were infected by the enthusiasm and vivacity of our hosts. Oleng's family, on the contrary, with the sole exception of Ido, were less spontaneous in manner, not at all optimistic, cautious, reserved, and not inclined to be over-hasty in the execution of their intentions.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEBEMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH ib9
large a portion of the devotional exercises, that is, the Tolus ka Balekat, is a point we have already noted; that the poles are asso- ciated with exploit factors which include the shedding of human blood is demonstrated by the war cry at the entrance of the poles, by the attaching to them of spears, by recitations of the number of lives taken, and by the detail of grasping hold of a ceremonial pole and of maintaining this position as long as the narration continues^
Father Mateo was convinced that the decoration of the poles was a sign that a human sacrifice had just been made. He mentions this conclusion in two different letters, written about six months apart. In his valuable description of Bagobo ceremonial, he says: "From the place of the sacrifice they then go to the house of their chief or the master of the feast, holding branches in their hands which they place in a large bamboo, which is not only the chief adornment, but the altar of the house in which they meet." And again, "Curious persons who are present at those feasts, do not understand the language of the old men nor see anything that hints^ of a human sacrifice, but those who are fully initiated in the Bagobo customs, will note immediately the token of the human sacrifice which was made in the woods on the preceding day among the branches placed in the bamboo or drum, before which the old men above mentioned make their invocation to Darago." These passages were written after Father Mateo had Jbeen ministering to the coast Bagobo for about two years.
My own findings agree with those of Father Grisbert, in regard to the bamboos. At an interview with the anito, this association of the poles with the sacrifice was stressed, and the Bagobo were told by the god that the reason they were sick was because they no longer followed the old Bagobo custom of killing a man before performing the ritual with the bamboo poles; and the point was made that it was formerly the custom after the man was killed to get sprays of areca and certain plants to take into the house, and to set up the two kawayan, and to sing the war song. But in addition to their connection with the sacrifice, the bamboo poles may have a larger significance.
During my observation of the bringing in of the poles and of the rites that followed, I was impressed by the resemblance of these activities to the sort of celebration that one would look for at the close of a successful expedition against an enemy. The behavior of the men suggested forcibly the return of a war party from some
160 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
big slaughter, of the bringing back of heads, or of a related exploit. Since that time, I have read Dr. Furness's picturesque account^-' of the return of the Kayan head-hunting expedition, and I have noted several features of the celebration that closely resemble the Bagobo rites accompanying the entrance of the two bamboos. Still more striking is the similarity in mental attitude toward the cere- mony, as would appear from such emotional responses as the fixed position of the warriors, the rapt and exalted expression of their faces, the restrained eagerness of the waiting women, the break into the war cry on entering the house. Since this behavior is only one of many points of resemblance between the Bagobo and the wild tribes of Borneo, it seems possible that the same stimulus — that of hunting human heads — gave rise to the ceremony in the one group as well as in the other.
Among the Berawan of Sarawak, according to Furness, when, in
**^ "At the very first glimmer of dawn I was awakened hj an unusual stir throughout the house. The women and children and the few men who were so unfortunate as to have been obliged to remain behind, were all collecting along the edge of the veranda below the eaves, whence they could get a view of the river. Just at the very instant that the sun sent its first shaft of level light down the long expanse of river, we heard ■coming up-stream, a solemn, low, deep-toned chant, or rather humming, in harmony. There were no articulate words, only a continuous sound, in different keys, from treble to bass, of the double vowel oo, as in boom. A minute later the long line of canoes, lashed three abreast, slowly rounded the turn, and drifted toward the house. The men were all standing. . . Only a few were at the paddles, merely enough to steer the pro- cession, while all the others stood as motionless as statues, holding their spears upright and the point of their shields resting at their feet. On and on they slowly glided, propelled, it almost seemed, by this inexpressibly solemn dirge, which was wafting this sacred skull to a home it must for ever bless. ... In order to watch the ceremony more narrowly, I left the veranda as the boats neared the beach, and I shall not soon forget Abun's solemn, absorbed demeanour. I could not catch his ej'^e, and, unlike his usual «elf, he took not the smallest notice of my presence, nor did any of the others. Every face wore the rapt expression of a profoundly religious rite. Without intermitting the ■chant, Abun, bearing the skull, led the procession in single file to the up-river end of the house. . . . When they were all gathered, still chanting, in a close group, the old 'fencing-master' stepped out to the front with a blow-pipe, and, looking in the direction ■of the Tinjar River (still chanting) addressed a vehement warning to the enemy, and then (still chanting) raised the blow-pipe to his lips, and blew a dart high in the air to carry the message to them. The chanting instantly ceased, and all gave a wild, exultant «hout. . ." The Home Life of Borneo Head-hunters, pp. 90—92. 1902. [The account ■continues with a narration of the rites held over the skull.]
According to Furness, the Kayans have a legend on the origin of taking heads, and the mythical account says that it was first done on the advice of a frog, and that this initial trial brought them so many blessings that the practice was ever after continued. Op. cit, p. 60.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 161
the old times, a man hunt was inconvenient, a slave was sacrificed as a substitute. From this point of view, we might look upon the Bagobo custom of sacrificing a single individual at Ginum as a mere vestige of a much more noteworthy outpouring of blood for the satisfaction of Mandarangan and for that of the Tolus ka Balekat. But this view is not altogether satisfactory, for there is no reason to suppose that human sacrifice may not be a practice that has been associated with the Ginum equally as long as head-hunting, if we admit both as ceremonial elements.
The situation in regard to head-hunting among the Bagobo offers a question for investigation. For my part, I have never seen a human head preserved as a trophy, nor have I seen a human skull in any Bagobo house. Pig skulls are occasionally hung on the wall, the number recording the skill of the hunter.
The Bagobo seem to stand in great fear of the human skull, as to them it is a representative of Buso. One old woman, a priest- doctor, caught sight of a single skull among my ethnological ob- jects, and suffered such a shock that she told me, weeks afterward, that she had been sick ever since she saw the "bonga-bonga" at my house. Her feeling was fairly representative of the general sentiment.
Yet the frequency in many other Malay groups of this practice of taking heads, particularly in Borneo, in Celebes '-^-'^ and in several parts of the Philippines, leads one to look for the custom in the history of the Bagobo tribe. One definite statement is given by Father Gisbert in a letter to the Superior of the mission, written from Davao, July 26, 1886. The case is one of head- hunting on a large scale and it occurred only two generations ago. The father of Manip, who figures in the episode, was Panguilan, the grandfather of the present datu of Sibulan, '^'^^ so that these heads were taken well within the last one hundred years.
**' The Sarasin brothers write that the greatest pride of the natives of Minahassa was in head-hunting. The captured heads, they brought home in triumph, and this entry was followed by banquet and dance. Small pieces of the slain foe were devoured. Cf. Reisen in Celebes, vol. 1, p. 43. 1905. The natives on Kendari bay, in southeast Celebes, say that if they did not take heads their crops would fail, and sickness would come. Cf. ibid., vol. 1, p. 379. For head-hunting among the Tolokaki, see ibid., vol, 1, pp. 374—375.
**^ See also "The "Wild Tribes of Davao District," p. Ill, where Cole gives a con- tribution from Sibulan that throws light on this point. He says: "According to the tales of the old men, it was formerly the custom to go on a raid before this ceremony
11
162 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
"The father of Manip was the dato of Sibulan, who died a few months ago at a very old age (perhaps he was as much as a hundred), and whom [sic] they say had already attained to the condition of immortality, which was due to the matuga guinaua^ or good heart of Mandarangan, because of the many victims that he had offered that being. It is said that when he was yet a youth, he sought a wife, but did not obtain her until he had cut off fifty human heads, as was attested by the hundred ears which he carried in a sack from the river Libaganon to Sibulan." Blair and Robertson, vol. 43, p. 246.
[The word "ginaua" (ginawa) literally means "loving."]
Just why, and when, the custom of hunting heads passed out of use among the Bagobo is an interesting problem. There is one vestige, at least, in the practice that some old men have of fas- tening the hair of their slain victims to the handle or to the scab- bard of a weapon. I bought from Awi one sword with human hair attached. Meuwenhuis ^'^* found this use to be a substitute for the old practice among the Kayan.
All we can say now is that there is some evidence that the Bagobo took heads at a time not very remote, and that the character of certain of the Grinum ceremonies suggests that they may originally have been performed in association with the bringing back of heads (as well as with the human sacrifice), the two poles serving for the attachment of the skulls. The present ritual of tying on the spears and the recitations of the old men may be vestigial.
A Few Ceremonial Chants. A few of the typical chants are here given.
Dura
(Part of a war-song that is said to be sometimes chanted at the time of cutting down the two ceremonial bamboos).
[i. e. Ginum] was to take place, and successful warriors would bring home with them the skulls of their victims which they tied to the patanan." The author in a footnote explains this word as meaning "Ceremonial poles dedicated to Mandarangan and Darago," and continuing he says: "In Digos and Bansalan the skulls were not taken but hair cut from the heads of enemies was placed in the swinging altar balakat, and . . . left there until the conclusion of the ceremony."
In connection with Mr. Cole's use of the word paianan, it should be noted that at Talun they invariably called the two poles kaicat/an (the ordinary name for the large species of bamboo); but the ritual that was performed after the setting up of these poles they called paianan. It is quite conceivable, however, that in another mountain group the name for the ceremony might easily pass over to the ceremonial object itself, particu- larly among such a metaphor-loving people as the Bagobo.
*="' e/. Quer durch Borneo, vol. 1, p. 92. 1904.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 163
Shout the. war-cry;
Sing gindaya;
Pamansad ka kawayan. 226
Cook food for Ginum;
Serve food; dish it up;
Make the leaf-dishes.
Clear the jungle;
Fell the trees;
Lop off branches;
Burn the field;
Plant the rice;
Build the fence;
Place the altar.
Put on trousers;
Pull the drawstring;
Bind on tutub;226
Dress the hair;
Put on necklace ;
Gird on sword;
Hold the war-shield;
Take the spear;
Hold up spears; 227
Gird on sword
Fringed with goats' hair, 228
Tipped with kids' wool.
Ride horses;
Run the horses,
Racing, racing.
Dance to kuglung;229
Dance to flute ; 230
Dancing, all dancing.
Lay betel in mouth;
Tobacco makes dizzy.
Wash in Ragubrub;23i
At bank of Malilyo. 231
Cook food; climb for bees 232
Making combs very high;
Fix logan233 for bees.
Make saddles; make stirrups.
Dig the holes; 234 build the house.
Make palandag. -35
Place altar and bowls. 236
Gindaya
Make the house strong;
Lay red peppers, 231
Lest fighting break in.
Hang up torches at dark.
Dance to the flute;
Hold shield on guard;
Break the shield of the other;
Fight with swords; fight with spears ;
Ride horse running,
Racing, racing.
Make fish-traps;
Dam the river;
Catch the fish.
Climb fruit-trees.
Beat agongs, all dancing.
Go swimming and diving;
One boy drowns; 238
^*^ Recitation of exploits that is made by the old men while grasping the ceremonial bamboo.
* * " A kerchief worn by those not eligible to the tankulu.
* * ' That is, while tying the spears in an upright position to the bamboo poles.
**" It is usually the scabbard, not the sword, that is decorated with a fringe of hair or of wool.
* * * The man's guitar having two strings.
* ' ° The tulali — a small wind instrument of light bamboo that is blown from one end. **^ The name of a river.
*'* That is, smoke out the wild bees to get wax.
* ' • A framework of wood and rattan that is sometimes fastened to the branches of trees to induce the wild bees to hive there.
* "• The holes for the posts of the Long House.
*^^ Another kind of small flute, that is blown from the side. * ' • This is the balekat, with its pingan, or bowls.
* ^ ' A charm against demons.
**« Probably a reference to a single accidental occurrence.
464
ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
He is dying.
Make saddles; play agongs.
Clear the brush ;
Hew down trees;
Burn the field;
Pile up branches;
Lop oif branches;
Burn it over.
Plant the rice;
Hedge the altar; 239
Weave at loom. Burn the meadow; Hunt the boar. Climb for cocoanuts.
Wear good clothes. Cook food; Make leaf-dishes; Dance and cook. Get wood for the fire; Bring water; fetch leaves; Get water in buckets. Raise the bamboos, Balekayo24o and laya24t Get tamanag242 wood; Manga, 243 hmzone,-** Durian,^*'^ areca; Pound natuck.24B Build the house ;
GiNDAYA
(A part of the Gindaya chanted on the opening night of Ginum.) "God the Protector, 2«a the All-knowing, come down here and tell us, you who have been there, the story of the bird far away in the mountains. You have heard the tale of the youngest nestling of limokon, 2*" perched on a golden tree on the farther side of the mountains of Baringan, 248 concealed under the branches, finding at the topmost point fi-esh branches pointing toward the sunset, waving toward the dawn '
*'' The magic plants that are placed around the hut-shrine at rice-planting. Some of the references are anticipatory of clearing and planting, as the Ginum is often held in January.
*''°The textiles exhibited at the festival are hung from a frame of light bamboo, called balekayo. See p. 136.
* * ^ The agongs are suspended from rods of lay a wood.
**» A white, porous, highly inflammable wood, much used for kindling.
* * ' Mangifera indica L. : a large and delicious fruit having a yellow skin, a long pit, and a juicy pulp. Foreigners call it "manggo," but natives give ng in this word as a single phonetic element.
*"* Lansium domesticum: a small fruit with translucent white pulp having an acid flavor.
* * ^ Burio zibeihinus B. C. : A good-sized fruit having a heavy rind covered with prickles, and a very soft, cream-colored pulp, which has a pleasently pungent flavor, but an offensive smell. The durian is a favorite fruit with the natives.
'"•^Sago, which is extracted from the sago palm, pounded and boiled to a jelly. Bagobo mothers feed their babies freely with natuck.
2 "wife," sometimes "companion." In the Long House at Tubison, there was an altar dedicated to Tango, and there is a question as to whether the two divinities are identical.
* * ' The omen pigeon.
^ * * Fabulous mountains of the ulit, the romantic tale.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 165
In the north on the seashore lie nine million kalati; 2*9 jq the north on the seashore lie nine rows of sequins. To fifty trees the branches cling; in the south they drop showers; in the north the breeze makes branches sway.
There is a place in the Salikala mountains where there grows a bontia^so pebble on the rocks. Wire cannot dent it; iron and knives cannot cut it."
Gindaya25i
Gindaya chanted antiphonally by Ynok and Abe against Atab and Luma. Ynok sings to Atab:
"Now here we are. I have been traveling eight years to find my own brother; these many years I have sought him, and now we have met in the house called Tinamalung Tambobung ^^'^ (narrow long house with a good roof). Now I want to ask you, my brother, 253 if you have any areca-nut and buyo leaf with you. You have probably come from a town a long way off and if you have no betel you will be hurt by the wind and the hot sun in my town. I have something to ask you. I want you to show me the way to Tangos, 25* the little island near to this town. 1 must meet some- body there; and I have lost the way to my own town. I have not been back for eight years. I should not know my own areca-palm plantation nor my buyo. But this month I am going to find my way, and we will make our luas,255 not to speak each other's names. We will meet in one month and one day. Now I am going toward my own town; and do not you say anything bad about me after I am gone, because we are very intimate friends.
Atab sings in reply to Ynok:
"Here I am, my nearest brother. I came from Tangos island, near to the
* * ^ Small discs of mother-of-pearl that are ground and pierced for beads by the Bila-an, the Tagakaola and the Kulaman tribes. The Bagobo get kalati in trade for use in decorating festival garments.
* * ° Bontia is said to be a tiny white stone of magic properties. If kept wrapped in a cloth and put away in a bamboo tobacco case or other tightly covered vessel, it will after a time reproduce itself. It will have one child at a time, several years apart. If the case or box it is kept in be not securely covered, the bontia may run away. This magic white stone is described as "a little larger than a grain of rice, but smaller than a kernel of corn." The bontia was once found in a bird's nest by a Bagobo of Tuban. There is one variety of bontia — the bontia tigaso — that never gets children, however carefully kept.
* * ^ This chant may, perhaps, refer to the wanderings of mythical ancestors, but I am not able to make a definite statement as to this.
*^* A shady house with a good roof; that is, the Long House. Except in the chants, they always call it dakul bale, or "big house." The main elements of this term are -malung, shady; tam-, prefix with a sense of "good;" bobung, "roof."
25 3 "Brother," or "own brother" is equivalent here to "close friend."
* ^ * Tangos was explained as meaning any small island near to a town. From this it would seem as if, perhaps, this song had its origin at a festival on the coast.
**^ The names of certain persons are luas or taba.
466 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
town, and I walked a long way on the American road with the wire,2S6 to meet my own brother. I think I am a little pangalinan"^^' and the smallest boy in the world, because I did not bring any areca-nut. It is not right for you to say, "My nearest brother," when you ask me for betel. I think you do not feel kindly to me, because I heard bad words from you after 1 came. After that, I did not care to keep the areca-nuts and the betel-leaf."
Bite of Human Sacrifice^ called Pag-Huaga
A fundamental feature of the worship of certain gods is the offering to them, from time to time, of a human victim, with ap- propriate rites. The war-god, Mandarangan, demands this sacrifice; and the persons who take part in the ceremony pray that he will keep them from sickness and death, in return for the human blood which they, for their part, are pouring out for him to drink. At the Ginum a deity of the altar, called Tolus ka Balekat, is the one for whom, from ancient times, the human sacrifice has been killed and ceremonially offered up.
Three hundred and fifty odd years ago, when the Spanish priests began the religious conquest of the Islands, the custom of killing a human victim as a religious ceremony was widespread among Tagalog and Yisayan peoples of Luzon and the Yisayas, as well as through the mountain tribes of Mindanao. These last-named have never given up the custom, in spite of persistent efforts made by the missionaries to crush it out. The attack has been renewed by the American government, but the human sacrifice represents so vital an element in the religious life of the Bagobo and of the other tribes who have always performed it that it dies very hard. There have been numerous references by many authors to the sacrifice, and we have three or four detailed accounts of it; but all of these were given to the various writers by Bagobo in- dividuals, for, so far as we know, no white person has ever had the opportunity of being present at the rite. It is doubtful if any investigator will ever be in a position to record from personal ob- servation a human sacrifice. But of the significance, and of the
* * " A good illustration of the tendency of the native to incorporate recent happenings with the ancient elements of his story. Atab had walked along some part of the coast between Davao and Bolton, where telephone connections were established about 1906. Thence he had taken the path up the mountain trail to Talun.
* ^ ' The traditional small boy of the old stories {ulit) who, though poor and often dirty and covered with sores, eventually becomes a great datu, or a famous malaki.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 167
lanner of its performance, we can get a tolerably clear idea from "the several accounts that have leaked out, or that have been ex- tracted by questioning.
One does not want to betray the confidence of a Bagobo friend, or to place him in an uncomfortable situation with respect to the local authorities, now that the situation has become strained in regard to this native custom. Without, then, mentioning the name of the young man who gave me an account of the sacrifice, I will simply say that the story was told without question on my part; and, on his, with a spontaneity and a naive dwelling on gruesome details that grew out of his ignorance of the danger of exposure, quite as much as his confidence in my discretion. This was several months before the case occurred that has been published by the United States War Department. -^^ My informant had observed a number of sacrifices, and he was a keen observer. I have two or three pictures that he sketched of the slave tied to the sacrificial post.
As the sacrifice oiffered up at Ginum is fairly typical, that form may be selected for description.
The slave to be sacrificed at an approaching festival is selected some time'^^^ in advance. It may be two or three months before- hand that the purchase, or barter, or transfer of the slave into the family holding the ceremony is agreed upon. During the first and second nights ^^^ of the festival, the slave-boy is kept in the cere- monial house, tied by his wrists to the wall, and fed "like the dogs" with scraps held to his lips. Clearly there is no suggestion of making the ceremonial victim the subject for special privileges during the hours just before death, or of feasting him before sending him to sacrifice.
On the last and main day of Ginum, shortly after sunrise, the slave is taken to the forest, or to the beach if the village is not
*** A full report of the governmental investigation that followed the human sacrifice of December 9, 1907, was published in the Annual Report of the United States War Department for 1908, pp. 367—370. Washington, 1909; and is reprinted in F. C. Cole: The Wild Tribes of Davao District, pp. 115—119. 1913.
^ ® ' According to the account in the government report above cited, the appearance of the constellation Balatik is the signal for a sacrifice. This constellation appears early in December. Mr. Cole heard the same statement from Datu Tongkaling. Op. cit., pp. 114 — 115. The same writer states that this constellation is identical with Orion. Plasencia called Balatik the Greater Bear. Cf. Blaib and Robeetson, vol. 7, pp. 186 — 187. 1903.
""Among the Hindu also, the victim for the human sacrifice was kept chained all night. Cf. Tawney's footnote to Somadeva: Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. 1, p. 336. 1880.
168 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
too far from the coast. All the people from several miles around gather to attend the ceremony, except the younger children who remain at home, where they later have a little supplementary per- formance.
At the place picked out for the ceremony, a frame — the ta- kosan — is set up. This consists of three posts, vertically placed, with a cross-piece connecting them at top. The three upright ele- ments form the patindog^ and the horizontal cross-bar is the halahag. The balabag is decorated from end to end with fresh young shoots from the areca palm. Directly in front of the middle patindog, a hole is dug in the ground, to which the slave's body will finally be consigned; the pit is called kutkut.
Near to the sacrifical frame, there is set up a small shrine {tarn- hara) consisting of the usual white china bowl wedged into the split end of a rod of bamboo set upright on the ground, and secured to a tree or other support. In the bowl of the tambara the usual of- ferings of areca-nuts and buyo-leaf are laid. Before this shrine, the old men gather for the office called garug-dun^ which is recited by one or two of them acting in the capacity of priests. The burden of the rite is a prayer to Mandarangan, dwelling on Mount Apo, asking him to accept the sacrifice, and to keep the Bagobo from diseases and from all calamity. At the close of the garug-dun, or just before it, the slave is brought forward for the saksakdn, or the rite of killing and cutting the body to pieces.
The slave is fastened to the middle post of the takosan, his hands uplifted, his wrists and ankles bound to the patindog by strong cords of vegetable fibre (gland). Often he is tied so tightly that he cries out more in physical pain than in fear: "The fetters hurt me! Take them off! I can't bear the bands! Untie them for this time!" Immediately many of the men begin the dance with war-shields — the palagise — a performance of remarkable maneuvers, demanding considerable practice as well as athletic skill. The leaping, the bending at the knee, the agile passes with the shield in presenting, drawing back, springing lightly from one to another position — all of these feats are done with a high degree of dramatic effect that is intensified by the character of the occasion. As they dance, they draw nearer to the takosan, and with spears and kampilan begin to make stabs at the victim. Others of those present, men and women, rush forward and each tries to inflict a wound on the slave, each one stimulated by the hope of a benefit to be gained
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 169
for himself if he assist at the sacrifice. In a few minutes the slave is dead from a multitude of gashes. The instant he is dead, they cut the body, with the exception of hands and feet, into small pieces, each about two and one-half inches by four inches in size, and drop them into the hole prepared to receive them. The ritual name of pinopul is given to a piece of a slave's body thus cere- monially cut off. The hands, sectioned just below the wrists, and the feet, just below the ankles, are left entire, these parts being reserved to carry home to the little boys in the family that offers the sacrifice. The lads cut these members into small pieces and bury them in another hole in the ground. This performance is for the purpose of making the children very brave.
Immediately after the sectioning of the body, one of the young men opens the chant called gindaya^ in which he is joined by one or three others who sing antiphonally for half an hour. Thus closes the tragic rite, from which the Bagobo hope to secure so large a measure of health ^^^ and prosperity. '^^"^
* * ^ It is immediately after the conclusion of the sacrifice, or else the day after according to Gisbert, that the bamboo is filled with branches, and the accompanying rites are celebrated. "From the place of sacrifice they then go to the house of their chief or the master of the feast, holding branches in their hands which they place in a large bamboo, which is not only the chief adornment but the altar of the house in which they meet." Blair and Robertson: op. cit., vol. 43, pp. 234. 1906. Again he says: "Curious persons who are present at those feasts, do not understand the language of the old men nor see anything that hints of a human sacrifice, but those who are fully initiated in the Bagobo customs, will note immediately the token of the human sacrifice which was made in the woods on the preceding day among the branches placed in the bamboo or drum, before which the old men above-mentioned make their invocation to Darago." Ibid., vol. 43, pp. 249 — 250. Cole received from Datu Ansig a statement to the same effect, that the sacrifice was made "at the time the decorated poles were placed in the dwelling." Op. cit., p. 111.
*®* That the idea of substitution enters prominently into the complex of associations set up by the act of human sacrifice is nicely shown by Father Gisbert in the following paragraph: "When any contagious disease appears, or whenever any of their relatives die, the Bagobos believe that the demon is asking them for victims, and they immediately hasten to offer them to him so that he may not kill them. They are accustomed generally to show their good will in the act of sacrifice in the following words. . . . 'Receive the blood of this slave, as if it were my blood, for I have paid for it to offer it to thee.' These words which they address to Biisao, when they wound and slash the victim, show clearly that they believe in and expect to have the demon as their friend by killing people for him. For they hope to assure their life in proportion to the number of their neighbors they deliver to death, which they believe in always inflicted by Busao, or the demon who is devoured continually by hunger for human victims." Blair and Robertson : op. cit., vol. 43, p. 250. Attention has been called already to the confusion between
170 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
A human sacrifice of an entirely different type is that called gaka^ the victim being a Bagobo of virtue and valor who is killed in order that his liver may be eaten by other brave Bagobo men. The manner of sacrifice is the same as that of the slave, the man being bound to the takosan and gashed to pieces. Before the body is buried, the liver is removed and ceremonially eaten. ^'^^ This is the only trace of cannibalism^^* that appears in Bagobo customs. They look with horror upon the practice of eating human flesh as a means of nurture, and say that it is a custom of the buso. The eating of the human liver is a religious rite.
In prehistoric days, the custom of offering a human victim in sacrifice was widespread throughout the Islands. The Tagal, ac- cording to Plasencia, tied a living slave beneath the body of a dead warrior. ^^^ Artiedo, in 1573, writes of Filipino tribes in general, that they have a custom of killing slaves to bury with the chiefs. ^^^ This usage is not strictly analogous to the Bagobo rite, for the slaves were, no doubt, sent along to provide the distin- guished dead with servants in the other world — a custom prac- tised by the Bagobo in addition to the ceremonial sacrifice.
Among the Yisayan people, we have records of both kinds of sacrifice. Chirino says that the people of the island of Bohol gave the slaves a hearty meal and then killed them immediately after- ward. Male slaves were buried with the body of a man, and female slaves with that of a woman. ^^* The chronicler of the Le- gaspi expedition states that the Visayans of Cebu sacrificed several slaves at the death of a chief. ^^^ Saavedra records, in 1527 — 1528, that the natives of Cebu offer human sacrifices to the anito. "^^^ Morga, it is true, wrote, in 1609, that the Visayans "never sacri-
the personality of Mandaraugan and that of Biisao which apjjcars throughout the writings of the missionaries,
' * ' According to Coronel, the Zambales of Luzon ate the brains of those whom they beheaded. Blair and Robertson: oj). cii., vol. 18, p. 332. 1904,
*"* The statements of popular writers as to the reputed cannibalism of the Bagobo ought to be taken with a good deal of caution. Henry Savage Landor, for example, writes of "their eyes having a most peculiar lustre, such as is found in cannibal races." The Gems of the East, p. 362. 1904.
^'^ C/. Blair and Robertson: oj). eit., vol. 7, p. 195. 1903.
««« C/. ibid., vol. 3, p. 199. 1903.
"' C/. ibid., vol. 12, p. 303. 1904.
*•« Cf. ibid., vol. 3, p. 199. 1903.
*"«(?/: ibid., vol. 2, p. 42. 1903.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 171
ficed human beings;" ^^"^ but the Recollects, in 1624, found many instances of this rite, and recorded that in Visayan groups a sac- rifice, either of a hog or of a human being, had to be made be- fore a battle, in sickness, at seed-time, when building a house, and at other special times. ^^*
In regard to the wild tribes of the south, Pastells and Retana state: "the human sacrifice. . . . called Jiuaga^ is only practised among the Bagobo, and the most barbarous heathen of Mindanao." -^^^
Furness-" obtained an account of the sacrifice among the Be- rawan of Sarawak, and here two points are of special interest for our discussion: first, that the slave is killed to take the place of a head hunt; and second, that everybody present at the sacrifice is allowed to have a thrust, a distribution of privilege which, from various accounts, seems to be stressed by the Bagobo.
Ceremonial at Rice-sowing^ called Mariimmas
Rice may be sown while the constellations Mamare, Marara, and Buaya are visible. May and June being the months in which the most numerous rice-plantings take place. If a new field is to be cleared*-^*, the work is done two or three months before Marummas.
^■"^ Cf. ibid., vol. 16, p. 133. 1904. ^'^ Cf. ibid., vol. 21, p. 203. 1905.
»'» (y*. ibid., vol. 12, p. 270. 1904.
*" "In former days, on the death of any influential chief, if his people were either too lazy or too cowardly to go head-hunting, a male or female slave was purchased and sacrificed in honor of the dead. From far and near, friends were invited to take part in the higli ceremony. When the poor wretch of a slave was thrust into a cage of bamboo and rattan, he knew perfectly well the death by torture to whicb he was destined. In this cage he was confined for a week or more, until all the guests had assembled and a feast was prepared. On the 'appointed day, after every one had feasted and a blood-thirsty instinct had been stimulated to a high pitch by arrack, each one in turn thrust a spear into the slave. No one was allowed to give a fatal thrust until every one to the last man had felt the delight of drawing blood from living, human flesh. We were told by the Berawans that the slaves often survived six or seven hundred wounds, until death from loss of blood set them free. The corpse of the victim was then taken to the grave of the Chief, and the head cut ofl' and placed on a pole over- hanging the grave. Frequently some of the guests worked themselves into such a blood- thirsty frenzy that they bit pieces from the body, and were vehemently applauded when they swallowed the raw morsel at a gulp." Home life of Borneo head-hunters, p. 140. 1902.
*'* See the account of the ceremonial clearing of the fields at Sibulan, and of the religious preparation therefor, given by F. C. Cole, op. cii., p. 86.
172 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
First comes the kamiit^ or clearing away of undergrowth ; next the pamiili^ or felling of large trees, one week after kamnt\ and finally the burning over of the land, called panorok.
The Mariimmas is a co-operative affair, to which all the neigh- bors come to assist in turn the man whose field is to be sown. During the season for planting, there is a Marummas held every few days at one or another field. After the sowing is done, the host gives a feast to all who have helped him. The occasion is made one for a display of rich textiles worn by the women, while the men have on good trousers and richly beaded carrying-bags and kerchiefs.
The ceremonial at the sowing is performed for the pleasure of the god Tarabume, who cares for the rice plants, making them grow and bear grain for the Bagobo. The ceremonial tool is the digging- stick, a slender pole of wood, ranging in length from six and one- half to eight and one-half feet, to one end of which is tied a little spade {karok or mata) of wood or iron, while at the upper end the pole is run through a nodal joint of bamboo about two feet long, split lengthwise to form a clapper. Whenever the digging- stick hits the ground, the two halves of the bamboo clapper strike together, producing a crisp rattling sound very pleasant to the ear, especially when many are striking in unison. The clapper is called lyalakpak^ and the entire digging-stick is katehalan^ but the palakpak being the significant part of the tool, from a ritual standpoint, the whole stick usually goes by the name of palakpak. The clapper is decorated with cocks' feathers, as long and gorgeous as can be obtained, and often with strings of beads and little bells, while the long handle is frequently scratched or carved in patterns, and colored with torchblack and dyes from roots and sap. It is for the pleasure of Tarabume that the clapper is put on the digging- stick, and it is to rejoice the eyes of Tarabume that it is orna- mented with feathers and bells. The Bagobo say that "The feathers are to make the palakpak very pretty to please the god in the sky; the bamboo clapper is to make a pretty sound for the god to hear. When Tarabume sees the feathers and hears the sound, he makes much rice." The bamboo is cut for the palakpak several months before planting. Each man cuts an internode of a fixed size, measured on his own body. It must be the length of the distance from a point on his right arm called katitu to a point at the wrist called taklaya. The katitu is a few inches below the
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 173
shoulder at a point just above the bulge of the biceps muscle; the taklaya is the middle point of the wrist on its palmar aspect. Between sowing and harvest, the palakpak is kept in the house, for if it were sold or given away during that interval the rice crop would fail.
While sowing, a line of men and boys goes first, moving in the orthodox direction for the Bagobo, that is, frora north to south, for if they should move northward or eastward or westward they would be attacked by the sickness pamalii. A man holds his pa- lakpak at an angle of about forty-five degrees, with the right hand higher up on the stick than the left. According to the fixed motor habit of his tribe, the right hand grasps the stick from underneath, as it guides the motion, while the left hand, in steadying the downward thrust, is clasped over the stick. This gives a centri- fugal motion exactly the opposite of the habit in hoeing common among ourselves. The depth of the hole is to the neck of the mata, or little spade, but the mata are not all of uniform length. The holes are made as far apart as the distance from the point at the wrist where the pulse-beat may be felt to the tip of the middle finger; and the time between the rapid, regular blows of the spade one can measure by the striking of the clappers; it is as the time between the ticks of the pendulum of a small clock. All the strokes are made in unison, so that the palakpak of all the men rattle precisely at the same moment. A line of women and girls follows, each carrying in her left hand a vessel of cocoanut-shell containing the seed rice, or with a small basket of rice hanging from her left arm. With the right hand she takes out a few grains of rice, drops them into one of the holes, and pulls some earth over the place with her foot, patting down the soil with bare toes.
To secure the growth of rice and the well-being of the family that tends it, there is placed in one corner of the field a shrine called parabunnidn. Before sunrise on the day of the sowing, or the morning of the preceding day, the shrine is set up, with prayers for a good crop and prayers against sickness.
The parabunnidn consists of a little house, three or four feet in height, made of light bamboo thatched with nipa or cogon grass, and having a steep, sloping roof like a Bagobo house, but with only three walls, the front being left open. The parabunnidn used by the Bila-an people has a floor, and some Bagobo have borrowed
174 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
this style of shrine. Inside the house is a very small tambara, with its rod of balekayo split at the upper end to hold a little white bowl, old and blackened. In the bowl are various offerings — a few brass bracelets, tarnished by age, several fresh areca- nuts on betel-leaves, and other small gifts — while a piece of white cloth ^^^ may be hung beside the shrine. At Egianon's rice planting, there were four brass wire armlets in the tambara, a bracelet cast from a wax mould (baliniitung), and six areca-nuts on nine buyo-leaves. On the ground, just outside the little house, five areca-nuts on four buyo-leaves lay in a tiny pile. The Bagobo say that the god (probably Tarabume) will come and chew some of the betel while the festival of Marummas is in progress.
Around the sacred hut, runs a little fence made of light bamboo split into slender strips. This is the bulituk^ and it is like a tiny wicket fence with eight curves. I was told that "the number eight is very good for parabunnian, for with eight curves you could not be sick." Another function of the bulituk is to make the rice plants grow thick together.
Spikes of rattan, leaves and little branches from plants having magical value are stuck in the ground at different points close around the shrine. Each has a definite effect on the development of the young plants during their sprouting and growth.-'^
Tagbak makes the rice grow and open very quickly. Bon-bon grows abundantly and close together, just as one wants rice to grow, so the use of bon-bon means that there will be a rich sprouting of plants near together. Pula (pahna brava) makes the rice very sturdy, because the trunk of the pula is hard and strong. Patugu also keeps the rice strong. Stalks of balala (a fine rattan) are put there to keep the leaves of rice moving, just as the balala keeps swaying. Isug causes the rice to stand straight. Lupo (cocoanut-leaves) keep the sun from the rice, because the cocoanut palm never dies from the heat of the sun.
Ceremonial at Harvest Called Kapungdan
The rice is ready to cut from five to six months after the sow- ing. At harvest, ceremonies take place which are called Kapungd-
* ' * Small pieces of white cloth are favorite offerings at the out-of-door shrines {kramat) of the Malay peninsula. Cf. Skeat: op. cit,, p. 67, 74.
*'^ For ceremonies at rice-planting in the Peninsula, cf. Skeat : op. cit., pp.228 — 236.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 475
aw,-" a word meaning "the finish," referring to the close of the season in which rice is grown.
A shrine is set up in the field, in the shape of a little hut which bears the name of roro. In this shrine is put, as soon as harvested, a small portion of rice for the diwata and for the con- stellation Balatik, which appears in December, one of the months when harvest is celebrated. A portion of the rice in the roro is offered to the three constellations, Mamare, Marara and Buaya — star-clusters under which the rice was sown, and to which the first fruits are now due. -'^
The religious performance in the house, following the cutting of the rice, is characterized by such typical ceremonial elements as the offering of manufactured products on an agong altar, the offer- ing of food to the spirits, and the ceremony with betel.
The harvest ceremony at which I was present took place in the house of Datu Yting, of Santa Cruz, and covered about three hours, from half after one or two o'clock in the afternoon, until five, when the guests dispersed. The arrangements were largely in the hands of the women, ^^^ one presiding at the altar, and others arranging the sacred utensils.
A wide, low platform, several feet long, close to the east wall of the main room, served as the altar, and in front of this the priestess Odal officiated, sitting on the floor, while another old woman of distinction, Kaba's wife, sat on a box at the south end of the platform, and from this slightly elevated position super- intended the placing of dishes and other objects concerned in the rite.
At the north end of the platform, stood one or two large agongs, placed there for the offerings called sonaran. First of all, the
* " Three other names, 1 have heard applied to the harvest festival : one is Kafapusan, the Visayan word for "the finish;" another is Pokankaro, whose meaning I do not know; a third is Gatog-biaan, which signifies "guessing the season." That guessing games were formerly played at harvest, and perhaps are still in use is certain, although I can give no eiplanation of them. Sometimes when children are at play, they run to the hemp-field, tear off abaca (hemp) leaves, poke holes for eyes, nose and mouth, and wear them as masks, called Unotung, which, they say, are like those used at harvest "in the guessing." One man is said to wear a mask called halekoko. Masks called buso-buso, I have heard from a Bagobo, are worn at one of the Visayan festivals.
"" The harvest ceremony differs in a number of details at Sibulan. Cf. F. C. Cole: op. cit., pp. 88—89. 1913.
* ' " Father Gisbert says that the harvest festival is called "the feast of women." See Blair and Robertson: vol. 43, p. 233. 1906.
176 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
articles of clothing and the ornaments to be presented before the gods were brought from various parts of the house by different members of the family, and put in piles upon the agongs, in the informal manner that characterizes this part of the ceremony at Grinum as well as at harvest. Many pieces of hemp and cotton cloth were brought by the women, including a great number of the cotton textiles woven in small checks that had very recently been taken off the loom in Yting's house. On the top of the pile of garments they put the ornaments — strings of beads, wide woven necklaces (sinalapid) and bracelets of brass. A good-sized betel-box (katakia) was placed on the floor at the side of the altar. Just back of the heap of textiles stood a large, high burden-basket (bokub) partly filled with rice {palay) in the husk, intended as a thank offering to the spirits. Later there was placed in the basket a green spray of palay and a section of bulla-leaf twisted into the shape of a spoon.
The women proceeded, then, to arrange the leaf-dishes, and the crockery of some foreign white ware that stood in confusion on the altar. Every dish was handled by the old priestess, Odal, and from her received its final placing. She sat directly in front of the central point of the altar, erect, dignified, exact in the manip- ulation of every detail; yet all the time she was watched, closely and critically, by Kaba's wife, who knew the orthodox forms of arrangement equally well with Odal. Datu Yting's younger wife, Hebe, and a son of Yting's prepared dishes of food by placing rice and grated cocoanut on the plates ; and Hebe's sister helped her in the handing of areca-nuts to Odal, as from time to time they were needed. Yting's older wife, Soleng, walked about the room and near the altar, and made suggestions here and there about the arrangements, or gave some definite direction to the younger women — even to Odal. Occasionally, Soleng or Datu Yting would detect some little break and hastily interfere; or would check some intended move of Odal's with a hastily uttered caution that this or that would be madat (bad), or that it would bring upon them all the sickness called pamalii. One of these warnings was uttered when Odal attempted to break the spray of bulla.
The priestess arranged in a straight line, directly across the altar before her, nine saucers of thick white ware, each of which contained white food, of mingled cocoanut meat and boiled rice. She placed betel on the rice in several of the saucers immediately,
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 177
and in the remaining saucers as the ceremony proceeded. Begin- ning with the saucer farthest to her right, and moving her hand from right to left, she placed one areca-nut with a buyo-leaf in the first, fourth, fifth and sixth saucers. In the third dish she put three of the little knives (gulat) used by women in all of their work. She let the knives stand upright, near the rim of the dish, with the points of their blades imbedded in the rice. At the center of the same dish, she stuck in the food three needles, points downward, two having been threaded with long white hemp, one with short ends of hemp thread colored black, such as women use for the process of overlacing warp. Later, she put an areca-nut on its betel-leaf in this third saucer, and one each in the seventh, eighth, ninth and second, as named, ending with the second from the right.
Immediately back of the nine saucers, Odal made another row of nine dishes, but these were of hemp leaf twisted into a boat- shaped vesseP^^ such as is used on ceremonial occasions, and in each of these the younger women had put a very small handful of rice and grated cocoanut. Odal added to each a betel-leaf and a thin section of areca-nut, about one-eighth of a lengthwise slice.
The priestess now proceeded to arrange a third row of dishes, directly behind the preceding. This row consisted of nine good- sized crockery plates, heaped up with boiled rice, well-moulded in conical form. As at every festival, certain plates were prepared for distinguished guests ; here the number of plates thus designated was six ; at Ginum it was eight. I do not know, however, whether the number six in this connection is distinctive of the harvest rites, for this was the only harvest feast that I attended. On these six plates, the moulds of rice were decorated with very small red crabs, arranged in a circle around the base. Above these, were slices of hard-boiled eggs, and encircling the apex of the cone were rings of little fish of a blackish color, the name of which I failed to ascertain. Near the rim of each plate lay eight or nine small heaps of a russet-brown powder, evidently the pounded seed called lunga^ an edible seed that is used much more commonly in the interior than at the coast, but here included as a representative food to be laid, with the other first fruits, before the spirits. Waving from the top of the mould of rice on each dish were two
««»See pp. 101, 105—113.
178 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
or three sprays of green nito"-^' bearing small white buds. The color display was most brilliant and artistic, an effect which may have been unconsciously produced, for the food elements were probably placed in that particular order in obedience to custom. The remaining three plates of the nine had smaller moulds of rice, with no crabs, fish, or eggs.
The details of laying out the altar table were concluded when Odal placed to the right of the first row of saucers another saucer containing the ceremonial red rice called omok. ^^^ To the left of this first row she set a bowl containing a few spoonfuls of cocoanut- water from a fresh nut, and just in front of this bowl she laid one of the great circular leaves from the luago — a pile of brown, powdered lunga-seed lying on the leaf. The bowl and the leaf, however, were not put in place until a somewhat later point in the ritual.
Now, Datu Yting who for some time had been lying stretched out on the floor, got up and took a hand in the performance. At the extreme left of the first row of saucers, he placed one of the large, flat baskets that are used by women when they toss the pounded grain to let the wind blow off the chaff. Yting laid eight of the heavy work-knives-^^ called 2^o^ together with four of the short knives called snngi^ such as men use for doing their fine carving of wood, and for cutting up areca- nuts. He brought all of these knives together in a pile, except one poko that was added later, and after putting them into the basket he said a few ritual words over them.
Immediately afterwards, the priestess opened her prayer, which was a long one. At first, she was prompted several times by Yting and Ikde; but afterward she proceeded fluently and without break for perhaps fifteen minutes, while holding in her hand a spray of manangid which she waved back and forth over the objects on the altar. In the ritual over the clothing, she mentioned by name
*^^ Lygodium scandens: a climbing plant having a slender, glossy-black stem that is widely used for making neckbands and bracelets.
*«»See pp. 138, 139.
*"' Father Gisbert seems to have had this part of the ceremonial in mind, when he wrote: "When they harvest their rice or maize, they give the first fruits to the diuata, and do not eat them, or sell a grain without first having made their hatchets, bolos, and other tools which they use in clearing their fields eat first." Blair and Robeetson: op. cit., vol. 43; pp. 237—238. 1906.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 179
each class of garments that she was presenting to the gods: pana- pisan (skirts), ampit (cotton textiles), sinalapid (wide necklaces), pankis (brass bracelets), and when dedicating the first fruits of the products of the field she turned slightly in the direction of the plate, or bowl, or leaf-dish that she was offering. At a certain point in the service, Yting handed to her a plain, undecorated lime- tube, and she went through with the motions of sprinkling lime over the betel, although no lime came out, because it had become dried in the tube. For a few minutes during the invocation, Hebe, having stepped to the altar, stood directly back of Odal. As she went forward, she told me in a low tone, on passing, that her own dios were now being called upon. When Odal had finished, Datu Yting offered a brief prayer.
Then followed the binang; that is, the partaking of the now sacred fruits of the field by individuals in the following order: Datu Yting, Soleng (the elder wife), the priestess Odal, Sumi, Hebe (the younger wife), Brioso (Yting's eldest son), Hebe's sister, then Ikde, Modesto's mother and several other old women, then the younger women and the men. Each individual took a very little rice with his fingers from some one dish and put the rice into his mouth. A few took from several dishes, apparently in a fixed order. Yting began with the third row of large plates, then passed on to the first row of saucers, and finally returned to the plates. Soleng took a portion from the third saucer, in which Odal had stuck the needles and the little knives. The six large plates of rice, garnished with fish, eggs, etc., were handed entire to the guests of rank. The ceremony closed when all of the food had been eaten. ^^*
In the evening, there was the usual gathering at Yting's house for the consultatation of the manganito spirits.
*** A letter written by Father Gisbert, and dated January 4, 1886, briefly charac- terizes the harvest festival among the Bagobo. "They have two feasts annually: one before the sowing of rice, and the other after its harvest. This last is of an innocent enough character, and is called the feast of women. At that feast all the people gather at the house of their chief or the master of the feast, at the decline of the afternoon. That day they feast like nobles, and drink until it is finished the sugar-cane wine which has been prepared for that purpose. There is music, singing, and dancing almost all the night, and the party breaks up at dawn of the following day." Blair and Ro- bertson: op. cit., vol. 43, pp. 233 — 234. 1906.
For a description of the elaborate reaping ceremonies practised by the Malays of Selangor, see Skeat, op. cit., pp. 235 — 239.
480 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Marriage Bites
Courtship and marriage come about in a very spontaneous manner among the young people of the Bagobo. The girls are quite as independent as the boys, and both are of an age, when the question of marriage comes up, to be fully able to make their own decisions. Child marriage, or contract for the marriage of children, does not exist among tham. The girl is from fifteen to eighteen years of age, at least, and the boy, eighteen or twenty, at the time of marriage. During courtship there are abundant opportunities for meeting without surveillance from their elders, for songs and walks, for glances and smiles and chewing of betel together. The girls are exceedingly dignified, yet always frank and kindly in their behavior with young men.
Ordinarily the boy asks the consent of the girl directly, and then goes to her parents, placating them with gifts of agongs if they object. Another method which is called a "very good way" is for the boy to tell his father that he wants a certain girl, and ask him to go to her parents; "the boy sends his father" to manage the affair. In other cases, the negotiations are initiated by the parents of the respective families.
"Marriage by purchase" in the sense that many of the early writers on ethnology use the term is unknown among the Bagobo. Though the young man gives a present to his prospective father- in-law for the privilege of marrying the girl, his situation is very different from that which is found among tribes where the woman is actually sold against her will. In the first place, the Bagobo woman is a free agent; she accepts or rejects her suitor at will; her parents will not force her to marry unless she wishes. Secondly, it should be noted that if the young man is accepted, the girl's father gives him in return for the gift he has brought a present equal to one-half of its value; that is to say, if the boy brings ten agongs, the girl's father gives him five of his own agongs, thus making a very personal gift, and completely removing the stigma of selling his daughter. She is honored, deferred to, consulted in everything by her husband to an extent that often seems to place her at the head of the family. A word from his wife will often mould a man's plans and change his intentions on the spot. That the purchase of the woman, in the sense of a marriage gift to her
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 181
father, necessarily implies the bondage of the woman, or even a minimizing of the respect in which she is held by the man, is effectually disproved in Bagobo family life, just as it is disproved in many another primitive group.
Trial Marriage. ^^"^ A wide latitude prevails in regard to a set time for the formal marriage ceremony. In general, the wedding takes place while the boy and the girl are still respectively malaki and daraga^ or virgins. They marry first, it is said, and try each other afterwards. Another Bagobo custom, which seems to be an ancient one, is to permit the couple to meet without restriction, but to defer the Bagobo ceremonial until after the birth of the first child, or even later. During the period of reciprocal test, if no child is born either one of the lovers may change face, reject the other, and choose another partner. The marriage of Oun and Une was not solemnized with Bagobo rites until three children had been born, the eldest being then six years of age, and the youngest, eighteen months old. But Oyog married Daban immediately after the birth of their first child.
Formal Ceremony ^'^^ called Taliduma,-^^ A formal marriage is an act of high ceremonial significance, at which event such im- portant ritual acts appear as the application of medicine with water (pamalugu), the drinking of sugar cane liquor (balabba), the chanting of gindaya, and even, occasionally, a human sacrifice.
Rites peculiar to marriage include the discarding of old garments and throwing them into the river, an act typical of the casting out of disease; the pointing of a spear toward the mountain, emblemat- ical of the warding off of misfortune; the plaiting together of locks of hair, symbolizing, possibly, the permanence of the union; the exchange of gifts; the setting up of a house-altar when the new family is formed. The entire ritual of marriage, which is performed by a priest or priestess, covers more than twenty-four hours, and informal drinking and feasting often begin a day or two before the formal ceremony.
The first event of the main day is the bringing of the agongs
*^* Cf. the mythical romance, "The Malaki's sister and the Basolo," Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, vol. 26, pp. 39. 40. 1913.
*** I did not have the good luck to see a marriage ceremony. The account here recorded was given me by Islao, and I have checked it up by one or tv^ro other accounts that came to me.
*•' Ta/i-means "to tie," and duma, "the other," "the wife," or "the husband."
182 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
that are to furnish the wedding music into the house of the girl's parents. This performance occurs at about seven a. m., and is called _pw(i k'agong. The instruments are supposed to be furnished by the bridegroom, and include those that he brings as the mar- riage price, and others that he borrows for the occasion if his purchase falls short.
When the sun is about two hours high — that is to say, about eight o'clock — the couple to be married, their families and all the friends who have arrived, go in procession to the river, where a convenient place has been selected for the ceremony. Two small flat bowlders that lie close together and project above the water are picked out in a narrow part of the stream's bed where the water runs shallow. The young man and the young woman are directed by the old people to sit down on these two stones, while the people cluster at the edge of the river. The sitting on the stones is a rite called gunsad.
There follows the pamalugu, or ceremonial washing. The old man or the old woman who officiates as priest steps down into the stream, holding in his hand a bunch of medicine (uli-uli) composed of small branches, leaves and stems of freshly-plucked plants of many varieties that possess magic properties. The priest stands over the young couple, and having dipped the bunch of medicine into the stream he holds it above them, and lets the water drip down upon their heads and bodies. Then with the uli-uli he rubs the head and joints of the pair, giving one downward stroke to each joint, in the following order: top of head, back of neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, knuckles, finger-joints, hips, knees, ankles, toes, jaw, and last of all the face. The object of the pamalugu is to make the bodies of the young people strong and vigorous, and to keep out disease.
A magical rite for warding off sickness and misfortune is that of bracing the mountain {T^okud ka Pahungan). The priest takes two short spears and points them at one of the neighboring moun- tains (it was Mount Roparan when Oun married Une) and at the same time recites a formula to the effect that the mountain may not roll down on the young couple and bring them sickness. Then he puts the spears in place, one back of the boy, and the other back of the girl, letting the spears stand braced by stones. They say they do this because it is Bagobo custom (butasan)., and that it is s^alat or something to keep sickness away, because it
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 183
means that the mountain will not roll down on them. After the ceremony, the two spears are laid in the river and left there.
The next rite is the gantugan^ or throwing of garments into the water. Up to this point in the ceremony, the young man and the girl have been dressed in old shabby clothes, so far as exter- nals indicate, but now the girl draws off her skirt {panapisan) and reveals beneath a beautiful, newly-woven skirt. She throws her old panapisan into the river. At the same time, the man takes off his poor trousers (saroar)^ under which he wears a fine new pair, and flings the old pair into the stream, where the current carries it down together with the panapisan. It is said that with the old garments all the sickness goes away, floating out to sea.
The old man then ties together a lock of the man's hair and a lock of the girl's hair as a mark of their union — a function called pagsugpat k'olu. The tying of hair is followed by the exhor- tation called patongkoy when the priest addresses the newly-married pair in the following words. "You must put the altar tigyama in your house, for an alat to keep away sickness. Take a white dish and put into it areca-nuts and betel-leaf, and keep it in your house. Whenever you get sick, put some more betel in the dish. You must never take betel from the tigyama for chewing, because that would make you very sick."
During the entire ceremony at the river, which lasts for upwards of an hour, all of the guests who wish to do so may bathe in the river since the water acts as an alat, or charm, to make their bodies strong against the attacks of sickness. Very many of the Bagobo present go into the water for padigus, or bathing.
Between nine and ten o'clock, all return to the home of the bride, where beating of agongs and dancing take place, at inter- vals, throughout the entire day and guests keep on coming all day long.
During the evening, there is cooking of rice, broiling of pig and venison, and the accompanying preparations for a feast. At about nine o'clock, the festival meal comes off and the guests, seated on the floor in the customary manner, receive the food distributed by some of the younger women. After the meal, there is a general drinking of balabba, and afterwards beating of agongs and dancing to the music of agongs and flutes. A few young men chant gin- daya in the usual antiphons. At some hour during the night, there takes place a set conversation, or discussion, among the old men,
484 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
who sit in a group on the floor, and decide matters that come up for consideration between the two families of the wedded pair, such as the exchange of suitable presents.
At break of dawn on the second morning, the agongs are beaten (fagong-fjo), and there is dancing {sumayo) for an hour or two.
When the sun is an hour high, — about seven o'clock, — the ceremonies of the day are started under way. There is first an ex- change of gifts between the bride and her husband — a ceremony known as pahulase. She gives him a good textile made up into a panapisan, which she may have worn for a few days or more, at pleasure, since she took it from the loom. His gift to her is commonly a wide, solid brass armlet, or an entire set of bracelets for one arm or for both. A set, or hude^ for one arm may consist of forty to sixty rings of brass cut from heavy wire, some of which are plain, some punched in decorative patterns. Two or three fine cast bracelets usually form part of such a set. There is no cere- monial restriction on the disposal of these marriage tokens; they may be kept or sold, at the wish or the need of the young people.
Soon after the exchange of presents, the rite of tigyama takes place. The bride furnishes one saucer or small deep plate, of white crockery, and her husband brings another. Both of these dishes, called pingan^ must be old ones. The pingan are placed with ritual words, and they remain for an indefinite time in their place below the edge of the sloping roof. Areca-nuts and buyo-leaf are put into the dishes for the god Tigyama, with a prayer to be kept from sickness. This entire rite has an important magical value for the prevention of disease and for the cure of sickness, and hence is called alat.
The gift to the old man, or woman, who officiates is termed ikut — the same name as that given to an old article reserved for the gods, for the priest's fee has a religious significance akin to that associated with a gift to the gods. The bride and her husband present, jointly, two or three articles of some slight value: a spear and a piece of textile, or a shirt simply embroidered, to- gether with a bracelet of brass, or a few hand-cast bells. The giving of ikut closes the ceremony, usually at about nine o'clock in the morning.
During the day or the night following the wedding, there is held a meeting of the old men, called gohum hayako. This is a form of assembly characterized by antiphonal singing interspersed
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 185
with conversation, and having for its object a financial settlement between the two families, in regard to the marriage price. The bridegroom may have been obliged to borrow the agongs, or to buy on credit; the man to whom he owes the instruments may be inclined to come and take them away from the bride's father; the number of agongs brought in by the young man may fall short of those he promised for the marriage price; and numerous compli- cations may arise among a people so ingenious in resources for borrowing, as well as for pawning and promising payment in articles that they hope sometime to acquire. In any case, there might arise a question as to how many agongs are due of those customarily given back by the father of the bride. Gokum lasts, often, far into the night or until morning.
In marriages among families of wealth and distinction, the killing of a slave as a religious sacrifice (paghuaga) is regarded as an im- portant factor for insuring an auspicious marriage. This is an old custom among the Bagobo, and as late as 1886 Father Gisbert writes: "When they [the Bagobo] marry, if the lovers think that it will be of any use, they make a human sacrifice so that they may have a good marriage, so that the weather may be good, so that they may have no storm, sickness, etc., all things which they attribute to the devil." ^^^ During my own stay among the Bagobo, no such instance came to my knowledge.
According to Bagobo custom, the young man lives in the home of the bride's parents for perhaps a year, more or less, or at least until his own new house is built. When this is ready they set up their own establishment. But if a bagobo girl marries a Vis- ayan, she will go with her husband to the house of his parents, in accordance with Yisayan custom, for a longer or shorter period.
Neither tribal exogamy nor tribal endogamy exists among the Bagobo. They marry ^^^ freely both within their own tribe and
*«« Blair and Robeetson: op. cit., vol. 43, p. 235. 1906.
^*^ The mixture of the Bagobo with other tribes, which is considerable, will lead to interesting questions concerning changes in Bagobo ritual from the outside influence thus brought in. In the sparsely-settled country in the near vicinity of Santa Cruz, I noted seventeen families in which a Bagobo man or woman had taken a mate from some other tribe. Of these, there were five matings of Bagobo with Tagakaola; six with Visayan; two with Tagal; two with Bila-an; one with Zamboanguinian Moro; while one Bagobo man had three wives — one each, from the Tagakaola, the Bagobo and the Bila-an tribes, respectively. In the mountains, intermarriage between the Bagobo and Bila-an peoples.
186 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
into other wild tribes with whom they are on friendly terms, as well as with the civilized Visayan and Tagalog. Nor is there any law regulating village endogamy or village exogamy, for they choose partners in the same village, as well as from other villages; but whether or not there is any regulation as to marriage within a certain cluster of villages, I am not able to state.
Bites attending Death and Burial
As sketched in a preceding chapter, "^^^ the takawanan^ or good soul, goes after death to the pleasant underworld; while the tebang^ or evil soul, departs to find its place among the buso. The dead body, abandoned by both of those personalities that have dominated it during life, is left as the helpless prey of flesh-eating fiends, unless it be safeguarded by friends. Attendants gather around the dying person, to rub his face with the fragrant leaves of tagomaing and manangid and other sweet-smelling plants that have a magical efficacy against the demons. "We do this," they say, "so that Buso cannot come to the sick man; these plants make Buso afraid." If such precautions were neglected a buso would come and suck the blood of the dying ^^' before the heart-beat had ceased.
After death the body is left on the floor, lying on the same mat used during the sickness. A little cushion is put under the head and a piece of hemp or cotton textile is spread over the body, covering the head also. Before the American occupation, a wide strip of Bagobo textile was always used for covering the dead, but now it is a gaudy striped cotton cloth of Moro weave. It appears that this change is intended as a sop to the American government thrown in all sincerity by the Bagobo on account of a laughable, albeit pathetic, misinterpretation of a scrap of our nomenclature. When the Bagobo learned that a large part of Mindanao, including their own territory, had been named by our government the Moro
who are very friendly together, is not unusual. To what extent the traditions and ceremonies are being affected by these unions, is a problem that ought to be minutely investigated. Modifications in material culture and in decorative art are continually being introduced by inter-mixture; and, unquestionably, we may expect to find borrowed episodes appearing in tbe myths, borrowed rites incorporated into the ceremonies.
''"See pp. 50—61.
**^ Although Buso is not supposed, ordinarily, to harm the living, those at the point of death are thought to be in danger of his attack.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 187
Province, they at once inferred that Americans wished to favor these traditional enemies of the mountain tribes. Moro customs and Moro products vrould be favored by Americans. "We now take a Moro gintulu to cover the dead man, because if we used the Bagobo cloth it would make the American governor of the Moro province angry." Before the funeral the body is dressed in a nice pair of trousers, if a man, or fine woven skirt, if a woman, so that it be suitably arrayed for making its entrance into Gimokudan.
During the one or two nights that pass before burial, a death- watch (damag) is observed to protect the corpse from all the buso, who are supposed to smell it from afar and to come flying or running to eat the flesh, but who fear to enter a company of living people. At the coast, it is customary to play at the wake a Yisayan game of cards called traysetis^ but whether any function of divination is attached to the game, or whether it be a mere device to keep awake, is not known to me. A little jesting and fun relieve the strain. If anybody falls asleep he is not disturbed, but they punish him by scraping soot from the bottom of the clay pots and slyly rubbing it over the miscreant's face and legs. When he wakens in the morning he sees his blackened skin, and realizes to his deep mortification that they have made game of him.
A highly efficacious device for scaring Buso from the coffin is that of producing a crocodile design ^^^ on coffin or pall. In the mountains, it was formerly the custom when a datu died to carve the head and lid of his coffin into the shape of a crocodile's head with open jaws showing tongue and teeth. The head was a carving in the round that projected in front of the body of the coffin, the lid forming the upper jaw, so that to open the coffin it would be necessary to lift the upper jaw and thus open the mouth of the dreaded reptile.
In ordinary burials, a conventional pattern of lozenges and zig- zags made from strips of red or white cotton cloth is tacked on the black cloth that covers the sides and lid of the box, thus producing a highly schematic representation that is called huaya, or crocodile. The women tear off lengths of cloth and turn down the edges in exact folds, while the men attach the strips to the pall.
At the closing of the coffin, the chief mourner gives utterance
»«* See p. 43.
188 ANNALS NEW YOBK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
to a perfunctory wail. If a man is to be buried, the wife or daughter sits down on the floor at the precise moment when some male relative is picking up the lid of the coffin, and as he lowers it to the box she places her right forearm horizontally across her eyes in the customary attitude of grief, and begins to wail in that high-pitched, plaintive tone peculiar to Bagobo women and little girls. The wail seems on the border line between genuine grief and a cry meant as a feature of the occasion. While this wail goes on, an old woman, mother or grandmother, makes a ritual exhortation to the spirit of the dead, her eyes fixed steadily on the coffin, her glance following keenly every movement of the men and directed toward the exact place where a nail is being driven. Precisely with the placing of the last nail, the old woman ceases speaking, and the young woman's grief closes abruptly.
If the funeral takes place in the early morning, breakfast is served to family and friends immediately after the coffin is closed, but before anybody receives a portion of rice the first handful ^^^ is taken out to put with the onong for the dead. Someone near of kin to the deceased wraps the boiled rice in a banana-leaf and puts it into the dead man's carrying-bag, before joining the rest to eat rice and to chew betel. At the close of the meal, they gather up the things that will be needed at the burial — petati^^* to lay in the grave, and the food and other conveniences that the soul is to take along on its journey to Kilut.
In the mountains, a burial-box is hollowed out from a section of tree trunk or a log split lengthwise; but Bagobo families living near the coast have formed the habit of shaping out a coffin, after the manner of foreigners, but it is made barely large enough to sqeeze the body into. Measurements taken by myself on the coffin of Obal, a fairly tall Bagobo whose body was enormously swollen by disease, gave an extreme length of 5 feet 3^2 inches; a maximum width at the head end of 1 foot 6 inches, sloping sharply to a width of 8 inches at the top of the lid ; while the foot of the box had a maximum width of 11 inches, with a slope to 4^/^ inches at top.
I was told that in former times the Bagobo made no coffin of
**' This custom was noticed by Father Mateo. "When anyone dies, they never bury him without placing for him his share of rice to be eaten on the journey." Blair and RoBKRTSON: op. cit., vol. 43, p. 237. 1906.
*** Professor Boas tells me that this is a Mexican word.
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 489
any sort, but simply spread a petati or two at the bottom of the grave to receive the body. A vestige of this old custom appears at the present time, when the same mats upon which the person died are carried by somebody near of kin, and laid in the grave before the body is lowered, so that they lie under the coffin. For chieftains and persons of rank, a burial-box has probably been used for a very long period.
If the body is to be carried any considerable distance for burial, the coffin is placed on a rough bier (tiangan)^ consisting of two long poles and two short cross-pieces, tied together with rattan. Male relatives bear the dead to the grave. At the funeral of Obal, three cousins carried the coffin, and Obal's daughter carried three forked sticks on which the bier would be placed at intervals on the road, when the bearers stopped for rest; she carried the petati, too.
While Jesuit influence has led those Bagobo who live near the coast to inter in one section of land set apart for a graveyard, the mountain Bagobo continue the ancient custom of burying their dead in the ground directly beneath the family house — a convenient place, on account of the Malay mode of house construction, by which the floor is lifted several feet above the ground. Many references in the writings of Spanish missionaries-^^ show that the old Filipino custom was to make individual burials under the house, or in the open field.
The grave {kalian) is measured, as custom requires, by the stat- ure of the digger ;^^*^ that is to say, the top of the wall of the grave must be on a level with a point of the body somewhere between waist and breast. The grave runs north and south, and the body is placed with head to the north, so that it faces south.
At the moment of lowering the coffin into the grave, another
*»^ The Visayan of Cebu, according to the chronicler of the Legaspi expedition, 1564 — 1668, buried in coffins, with rich clothes, pottery and gold jewels, the common people in the ground, but chiefs in lofty houses. Cf. Blair and Robeetson: op. cit., vol. 2, p. 139. 1903. Chirino describes Filipino customs of embalming with the juice of buyo, and burying in coffins under the house, or in the open field, Cf. ibid., vol. 12, p. 30. 1904. Plasencia says that the Tagal buried beside his house, and thai the chiefs were buried beneath a little house, or beneath a porch specially constructed. Cf. ibid., vol. 7, p. 194. 1903.
*"* Zoroastrian books prescribed the exact depth for a grave. "On that place they shall dig a grave, half a foot deep if the earth be hard, half the height of a man if it be soft." J. Darmesteter (tr.): "The Zend-Avesta." Sacred books of the East, vol. 4, p. 97, 1895.
190 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
ceremonial wail is heard. At the funeral of Obal, the mourner was his daughter Ungayan, his wife having died before him. It was she too who mourned when the lid was nailed down. When the coffin was lifted from the bier by Maliguna, Ogtud and Bungan, the three men cousins of Obal, Ungayan stooped down on the ground, and just as the coffin was placed in the grave she reached down and with one hand silently touched the head of the coffin. This she did twice or thrice. Then she rose and walked a few steps east of the grave, where she squatted on her feet, then turned her head partly away from the grave and placed her right arm horizontally across her eyes. One of the relatives dropped upon the coffin Obal's old kabir in which was deposited the rice that had been put aside at breakfast, with some coffee, a few areca nuts and buyo leaves, Obal's tobacco-tube {kokong\ and two lime- tubes {tagan)^ all of which constituted the traveling-outfit (onong) for Obal's soul. Then the three cousins began to push earth into the grave. Simultaneously with the falling of the first clod, Ungayan took up her wail for the second time that day, crying and moaning as before, but for a longer period and in a more vehement manner. While she mourned, her young husband, Ulian, made an invoca- tion addressed to the gimokud of Obal, which was supposed to have been walking through the village since death, but whose departure for Kilut must now be hastened. The intention of the burial ritual seems rather for the benefit of the living than that of the dead, for it is recited with the hope that the gimokud will go down in peace to Kilut, without attempting to trouble the members of his family, or to draw them after him. They told me that Ulian said the words to keep Ungayan and himself and the others from getting sick. Ulian took up a slightly elevated position on the crooked trunk of a gnarled old balbalin tree, a part of which had curved in growth until it was almost parallel with the ground. Ulian looked steadily into the grave, gazing with a fixed stare at the coffin as it disappeared beneath the falling clods, as if his attention were wholly riveted upon the spirit which he was addressing in an urgent entreaty to depart. ^'•^* This formula was called dasoL and ran as follows.
* " The tradition that the soul lingers near the grave and funeral customs that express this belief are widespread in the Malay region. Martin says: "Besonders wich- tig sind die Vorstellungen, die sich die Inlandstamrae von dem Verhalten der Seele nach dem Tode machen. Am meisten verbreitet ist der Glaube, dass der Geist beim
BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 191
"Do not envy us, Kawanan. ^^^ We have got you. What is the matter? I see you grieving. You are going there to the One Country. ^^^ Do not be sorry. Go there to the One Country. Do not speak, because you are going there. We are here above. We must eat now at our house because we are alive. You, you are there in the One Country. We are living. If we speak in Bagobo, you must answer in Bagobo. Feet, hands, eyes, nose, mouth, head, belly, forearms, back — you must turn away; you will go out from here. Show the sole of your foot, your palm. It was your short line of life that killed you. Do not come from the One Country. We bury you in the ground; we dig the walls of the grave. We will set pots on the stones, place dishes, put wood on the fire, cook food, dishing ^^^ it with spoons. Let us walk far away. We are sleepy. You will be on yoijr road for three nights. When we reach our home, we will rest because we are tired. Walking hurts my knees. My whole body hurts. My arm pains me from elbow to wrist. I am sleepy because I am tired from walking a long way. I hurt my foot on a sharp bamboo sugian ^^ ' while I was getting betel-leaf and cutting bananas. I shall dig camotes to fill the burden baskets, because we are going home to our house; for we will cook them because I am hungry. All day I did not eat until the setting of the sun. We will spread the petati for sleep. Give me a kisi. ^^'^ The mosquitoes are stinging me. Kindle a fire, because many small gnats ^^^ are biting already. Bad mosquitoes sting me all over. Put away the dishes.
Tode den Korper rerlasst und nach einem paradiesischen Lande gelangt, wo er in aller Ewigkeit verweilt. In den Einzelheiten dieser Legende bestehen aber ziemliche Differenzen, die wohl, zum Teil wenigstens, auf Vermischung mit ahnlichen, fremdartigen Vorstel- lungen beruhen. So glauben die Besisi, dass die Seele zunachst sich noch einige Zeit in der Nahe des Grabes aufhalte, und daraus erklaren sich gewisse, bereits erwahnte Grab- gebrauche. Aiich die Sitte, den Ort, an welchem ein Mensch gestorben ist und begraben wurde, zu verlassen, diirfte mit jener Vorstellung zusammenhangen, da naturgemass der umschwebende Geist den Hinterbliebenen Schaden tun konnte." Die Inlandstamme der malayischen Halbinsel, p. 950. 1905.
*** The good soul, or gimokud takawanan.
* * ® The land of the dead, called also the Great Country. '"•' This reference is probably to the funeral feast.
^"^ A trap of sharp bamboo points.
* ** * A mantle of woven cotton which a Bagobo sometimes wraps round him at night. »«»3 A hint of the actual condition at the moment, for swarms of little gnats filled
the air. In that tropical jungle, the bodies of the men, naked to the the waist, were covered with swarming and crawling things — vermin, black and yellow, long and shiny-looking.
192 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
We have finished eating. I will sweep the floor, chew betel, put tobacco in my mouth and shake out lime. The river has risen. We cannot cross. It is swollen." ^""^
By the time that Ulian had finished the recitation of the dasol, the grave was entirely covered, and the frame forming the bier was laid on the grave, with the forked sticks placed on top. Ulian then stepped down from his place, and all the mourners went home.
A feast and a dance are often given after the funeral by families that can afford the expense.
Another custom is to leave the body in the house, while the family, after carefully closing the door and fastening the windows, moves away and builds a new house to live in. Sometimes the new house is very near to the old one which contains the body. I have seen in a lonely forest on the mountains two small huts but a few feet apart, one of which little houses was said to contain the body of a boy, while his family lived in the other. I was told that they lived there because they loved their little boy, and wanted to be near him. An additional motive may have been the hope of pro- tecting the body of their dear child from the attacks of Buso, since the bad demon is traditionally afraid of living people.
An ancient custom of tree-burial is suggested by the story, "The Tuglibung and the Tuglay, ^"^^ in which the hero laid the body of his little sister in the branches of a tree, "because the child was dead." Although in the myths thus far published this is a unique case, it is not unlikely that such a disposal of the body was common in old times. This probability is strengthened by the fact that tree-houses used to be used rather widely by the Bagobo and by the Bila-an people. The leaving of a corpse in the tree-house ^"^^ would then correspond to the present custom of shutting up a home with the body inside.
'°*The text of the address to the departing spirit was given me by Ulian after the funeral. It seems to end abruptly, but such an ending is often characteristic of the Bagobo songs and stories as well as of speeches. The exhortation contains several refer- ences to the funeral feast, which gives the customary termination to the ceremony and perhaps offers additional consolation to the departing soul.
'"^ See Jour. Am. Folk-lore, vol. 26, p. 26. Jan.-Mar., 1913.
306 ^^rom Ouirante's account, the Igorot, at the time of their discovery by Spain, used to bury in caves, but they also made use of the trees for placing their dead. "Others they set in the trees, and they carry food for so many days after having left them." Blair and Robeetson: op. cit., vol. 20, p. 275. 1904.