CHAPTER III 



A SURVEY OF THE MATERIAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL CULTURE OF 

 THE MAN6B0S OF EASTERN MINDANAO 



GENERAL MATERIAL CULTURE 



DWELLINGS 



For a home the Manobo selects a site that is clearly approved by supernatural agencies, and 

 that is especially suitable for agricultural purposes by reason of its fertility, and for defense, 

 because of its strategic position. Hereon he builds an unpretentious, square, one-roomed build- 

 ing at a height of from 1.50 meters to 8 meters from the ground. The house measures ordinarily 

 about 3 meters by 5 meters. Posts, usually light, and varying in number between 4 and 

 16, support the floor, roof, and intervening parts. The materials are all rattan lashed and 

 seldom consist of anything but light materials taken from the immediate vicinity. The floor is 

 made of slats of palm or bamboo, the roof is thatched with palm leaves, and the walls are light, 

 horizontal, superimposed poles laid to about the height of the shoulders of a person sitting on the 

 floor. The space between the top of the walls and the roof constitutes a continuous window. 

 This open space above the low house wall permits the inmates during a fight to shoot their arrows 

 at the enemy in any direction. 



The one ceilingless room serves for kitchen, bedroom, and reception room. There is no 

 decoration nor furniture. Scattered around or hung up, especially in the vicinity of the 

 fireplace, are the simple household utensils, and the objects that constitute the property of 

 the owner — weapons, baskets, and sleeping mats. On the floor farthest away from the door are 

 the hearth frames, one or more, and the stones that serve as support for the cooking pots. 

 A round log with more or less equidistant notches, leading from the ground up to the narrow 

 doorway, admits the visitor into the house. 



Under the house is the pigpen. Here the family pigs and the chickens make a living off 

 such refuse or remnants as fall from above. The sanitary condition of this part of the establish- 

 ment is in no wise praiseworthy. The only redeeming point is that the bad odors do not reach 

 the house, being carried away by the current of air that is nearly always passing. 



The house itself is far from being perfectly clean. The low, cockroach-infested thatch, the 

 smoke-begrimed rafters, the unswept, dirt-bestrewn floor, the bug-infested slats, the smoke- 

 laden atmosphere, the betel-nut-tinged walls and floor, these and other features of a small over- 

 populated house make cleanliness almost impossible. The order and quietude of the home is 

 no more satisfactory. The crying of the babies, the romping and shouting of the boys, the loud 

 talking of the elders, the grunting of the pigs below, the whining and growling of the dogs above, 

 and the noise of the various household occupations produce in an average house containing a 

 few families a din that baffles description. But this does not disturb the serenity of the primi- 

 tive inmates, who laugh, chew, talk, and work, and enjoy themselves all the more for the anima- 

 tion of which they form a great part. 



ALIMENTATION 



In the absence of such a luxury as matches, the fire-saw or friction method of producing 

 fire is resorted to, although the old steel and flint method is sometimes employed. 



The cooking outfit consists of a few homemade earthen pots, supplemented by green bamboo 

 joints, bamboo ladles, wooden rice paddles, and nearly always a coconut shell for receiving water 

 from the long bamboo water tube. 



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