230 THE MAN0BOS OF MINDANAO— GARVAN !Mim °Ivol N xxnt 



My informant said that the following orders were issued by Meskinan : 



(1) All chickens and pigs were to be killed at once; otherwise they would devour their owners. 



(2) No more crops were to be planted. 



(3) A good building for religious purposes was to be erected in each settlement. 



(4) In each settlement there was to be one priest 6 who must have received his power from Meskinan himself, 

 and several assistants 7 who were to help to propagate the news and to perform the prescribed services in distant 

 "churches." 



(5) The services were to consist of praying to Meskfnan, performing sacred dances in his honor, and forward- 

 ing offerings to him. 



My informant described to me how several people of Mawab settlement went over the 

 Libaganon for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of the numerous messages and of the ceaseless 

 rumors. On their return they reported that Meskinan was truly a deity ; that his body was all 

 golden; that he ate only the fragrance of offerings made to him; and that he bestowed his 

 special protection on those alone who made these offerings. The visitors to Libaganon brought 

 the news that the toppling over 8 of the world would take place within one moon, and that the 

 orders of Meskinan, the Magbabaya, should be carried out at once, for otherwise, when the day 

 of destruction arrived, all would be irretrievably lost; husband would be separated from wife, 

 and mother from child; pigs and chickens would prey upon whomsoever they could catch, and 

 all woidd live a life of darkness and despair. But those who had complied with instructions 

 would be saved; their bodies, at the moment of the fall of the world, would become golden and 

 they would fly around in the air with never a care for material wants, the men on their shields, 

 and the women on their combs. 



A high priest from the Tagum River conferred a "Magbabdya" 9 or spirit upon my informant 

 and upon several others who were to act as his assistants and emissaries. 



The people who had assembled at Mawab settlement decided accordingly to erect an im- 

 mense house, for the performance of the religious acts enjoined by the Magbabaya of Libaganon. 

 In this edifice they passed one month in expectation of the impending cataclysm. Men, women, 

 and chddren, half starving as my informant assured me, danced and sang to the sound of drum 

 and gong, while he and his assistants broke out at intervals into supplications to the Magbabaya 

 of Libaganon and fell into the state of violent exaltation that was the outward manifestation of 

 the fact that a spirit had taken possession of them. 



SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT 



Toward the end of the month word was received from Meskinan that the end of the world 

 would not take place for three more moons in order that every settlement might have an oppor- 

 tunity of erecting its religious house and of saving itself thereby from the impending doom. 

 The priests and their assistants were bidden to spread the news far and wide, even in the most 

 inaccessible haunts of the land. 



My informant and his relatives then returned to their settlement on the Baklug River, but 

 only to find that their pigs and chickens had been stolen by Christianized people of Compostela. 

 They constructed a religious house of very fine appearance and faithfully fulfilled all the other 

 behests of the Magbabaya. 



All this time reports and messages as to the approach of the end of the world kept pouring 

 into Compostela from Libaganon, so that it was not long before my informant was invited to 

 establish a religious house in Compostela. As this town is the principal intertribal trading point 

 to which Christianized Manobos, Mangguangans, and Mandayas resort, it is evident that 

 within a short time word of the approaching calamity was received and believed by all the sur- 

 rounding peoples, and my informant, the high priest, was invited to establish "churches" in all 

 the settlements of Mandayaland. Through the instrumentality of other priests and their 



fl Called pun-6-an. 



' Tai-tai-an, that is, "bridges," meaning probably that these emissaries were to be the bridge over which the religious doctrines would pass In 

 spreading from settlement to settlement. 



• Ki-liHg. 



• As the narration proceeds an attempt will be made to explain this term. 



