CHAPTER XXVII 



DIVINATION AND OMENS 

 IN GENERAL 



The Manobo not only consults bis priest in order to determine the will of the deities but he 

 himself questions nature at every step of life and discovers, by what he considers definite and 

 unerring indications, the course that he may pursue with personal security and success. 



To set down the multitudinous array of these signs would be to attempt a task of extreme 

 prolixity and one encompassed with infinite uncertainties and seeming contradictions. 



Upon being questioned as to the origin of these manifold omens and auguries the Manobo 

 can afford no further information than that they have been tried for long generations and found 

 to be true. Show him that on a given occasion the omen bird's cry augured ill but that the under- 

 taking was a success, and he will explain away the apparent inconsistency. Show him that the 

 omens were auspicious and that the enterprise was a failure and he will ascribe the failure to an 

 unnoticed violation of a taboo or to the infraction of some tribal custom which aroused the 

 displeasure of a deity. 



In every undertaking he must have divine approbation to give him assurance. If one omen 

 is unsatisfactory, he must consult another, and if that one fails also, he tries a third, and after 

 various other trials, if all are unfavorable, he suspends or discontinues the work until he receives 

 a more favorable answer. After getting a satisfactory omen he proceeds with the full assurance 

 of success. 



There can hardly be said to be professional augurers in Manoboland. Here and there one 

 finds one with a reputation for skill but this reputation is never so great as to overcome differences 

 of opinion on the part of others who also claim to be experts. In fact, where a combination of 

 good and bad omens occurs, it is customary to hold a long consultation until the consensus of 

 opinion inclines one way or the other. 



MISCELLANEOUS CASUAL OMENS 



The following are a few of the accidental omens that portend ill : 



(1) Sneezing when heard by one who is about to leave the house, prognosticates ill luck for him. He must 

 return to the house and wait a few minutes in order to neutralize the bad influence. 1 



(2) It is an evil portent to see a snake on the trail. The traveler must return and wait till next day, or if 

 that can not be done, recourse must be had to other omens, such as the egg omen, or the suspension omen, in 

 order to determine beyond a doubt what fortune awaits him. 



(3) Should a frog, a large lizard, or any other living creature that is a stranger to human habitations, enter a 

 house, the portent is unlucky and means must be taken at once to discover, through divination, the exact signi- 

 ficance of the occurrence. In such cases the egg omen is tried, and then the suspension omen, and others until no 

 doubt is entertained as to the significance of the unusual occurrence. 



(4) The settling of bees on the gable ornaments of a house, or even in the immediate vicinity of the house, is a 

 sure intimation of the approach of a war party or even of certain death, unless the occurrence has taken place 

 during the rice-planting season and in the new clearing. The fowl-waving ceremony and the blood lustration 

 must be performed immediately and other omens taken at once to determine whether these ceremonies were 

 sufficient to neutralize the threatened danger. I arrived at a house on the upper Karaga, shortly after the 

 occurrence of this portent, and took part in the countervailing ceremonies. According to all reports the belief 

 in this omen and the neutralization of it by the above-mentioned ceremonies is common to Man6bos and Mafig- 

 guafigans. 



(5) The howling of a dog while asleep portends evil to the owner. This omen is considered very serious and 

 the evil of which it is an intimation must be averted by prompt means. Moreover, the dog must be sold. 



(6) The appearance of shooting stars, meteors, and comets prognosticates sickness. 



' Pan-du-ut. 



216 



