CEREMONIAL ACCESSORIES AND RELIGIOUS RITES 205 



When it is decided to make an offering of a pig, a sacrificial table 7 of bamboo is set up close 

 to the house that has been selected as the place of sacrifice. Upon this is bound the victim, 

 lying on its side. Over it are arched fronds of betel-nut and other palms. This stand is used 

 exclusively for the sacrifice of a pig. It is a rude, unpretentious structure. 



CEREMONIAL DECORATIONS 



Fronds of the coconut, betel nut and other palms are the only decorations used at ceremonies. 

 The betel-nut fronds, however, 8 enjoy a special preference, being used in every important cere- 

 mony when they are obtainable. No other leaves and no flowers, unless the bloom of the betel 

 nut be considered such, are used as decorations. 



The consecrated objects, consisting of such things as lances, bolos, daggers, and necklaces, 

 are frequently set out upon a ceremonial structure or put in the ceremonial shed in order to give 

 more solemnity to the occasion, and it is not infrequent to find the structure draped with cloth, 

 preferably red. 



SACRED IMAGES 9 



Sacred images are of neither varied nor beautiful workmanship. At best they are but 

 rudimentary suggestions of the human form, frequently without the lower extremities. Varying 

 in length from 15 to 45 centimeters they are whittled with a bolo out of pieces of bdyud wood, or 

 of any soft white wood when bdytid is not obtainable. More elaborate images are furnished with 

 berries of a certain tree 10 for eyes and adorned with tracings of sap from the Tcayuti or the narra tree, 

 but the ordinary idol has a smearing of charcoal for eyes and mouth and a few tracings of the same 

 for body ornamentation. 



Images are made in two forms, one representing the male and distinguished by the length of 

 its headpiece and occasionally by the representation of the genital organ, the other representing 

 the female, and distinguished most frequently by the representation of breasts, though in a good 

 image there is often a fair representation of a comb. 



Images are intended for the same use as statues in other religions. They are not adored 

 nor worshiped in any sense of the word. They are looked upon as inanimate representations of 

 a deity, and tributes of honor and respect are paid not to them, but to the spirits that they repre- 

 sent. I have seen rice actually put to the lips of these images and bead necklaces hung about 

 their necks; but in answer to my inquiries the response was always the same that not the images, 

 but the spirits, were thereby honored. 



It is principally in time of sickness that these images are made. They are placed somewhere 

 near the patient, generally just under the thatch of the roof. 



The priest almost invariably has one, or a set of better made ones, which he sets out during 

 the more important ritual celebrations and before which he places offerings for the spirits repre- 

 sented. In a sacrifice performed for the recovery of a sick man on the upper Agusan, I saw two 

 images, one male and one female, carried in the hand by the presiding priests and made to dance 

 and perform some other suggestive movements. 



Occasionally one finds very crude effigies of deities carved c-i a pole and left standing out on 

 the trail or placed near the house. These are supposed to serve for a resting place for the deities 

 that are expected to protect the settlement or the house. This practice is very common when 

 fear of an attack is entertained, and also during an epidemic. 



CEREMONIAL OFFERINGS 



Offerings consist, in the main, of the blood " and meat of pig and fowl, betel-nut quids, rice, 

 cooked or uncooked, and an exhilarating beverage. But occasionally a full meal, including every 

 obtainable condiment, is set out, even an allowance of water, wherewith to cleanse 12 the hand, 



' Aftg-ka. u Ma-gu-bai. 



' Known as ba-gai-bai. " No reference is here made to human blood, a subject which will be found treated in Chapter XXVI. 



• Man-i-UQ. " Pailt-h^niu. 



