62 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. XII. 



We have still to mention a powerful class of supernatural beings 

 who, in strength and importance, are removed only a little from the 

 Creator. These are the patron spirits. 



Guarding the warriors are two powerful beings, Mandarangan and 

 his wife, Darago, who are popularly supposed to make their home in the 

 crater of the volcano. They bring success in battle and give to the 

 victors loot and slaves. In return for these favors they demand, at 

 certain times, the sacrifice of a slave. Dissentions, disasters, and death 

 will be sure to visit the people should they fail to make the offering. 

 Each year in the month of December the people are reminded of their 

 obligation by the appearance in the sky of a constellation known as 

 Balatik, and soon thereafter a human sacrifice doubtless takes place 

 in some one or more of the Bagobo settlements. 



A man to come under the protection of these two deities must first 

 have taken at least two human lives. He is then entitled to wear a 

 peculiar chocolate-colored kerchief with white patterns in it. When he 

 has killed four he may wear blood-red trousers, and when his score 

 has reached six he may don a full blood-red suit and carry a sack of 

 the same color. Such a man is knowm as magani and his clothing 

 marks him as a person of distinction and power in his village. He is 

 one of the leaders in a war party; he is chosen by the datu to inflict the 

 death penalty when it has been decreed; and he is one of the assistants 

 in the yearly sacrifice. It is not necessary that those he kills, in order 

 to gain the right to wear a red suit, be warriors. On the contrary he 

 may kill women and children from ambush and still receive credit for 

 the achievement, provided his victims are from a hostile village. He 

 may count those of his townspeople whom he has killed in fair fight, 

 and the murder of an unfaithful wife and her admirer is credited to 

 him as a meritorious deed. 



The workers in iron and brass, the weavers of hemp cloth, and the 

 mediums or shamans — known as mabalian — are under the protection 

 of special deities for whom they make ceremonies at certain times of 

 the year. 



The mabalian just mentioned are people — generally women past 

 middle life — who, through sufficient knowledge of the spirits and their 

 desires, are able to converse with them, and to make ceremonies and 

 offerings which will attract their attention, secure their good will, or 

 appease their wrath. They may have a crude knowledge of medicinal 

 plants, and, in some cases, act as exorcists. The ceremonies which are 

 performed at the critical periods of life are conducted by these mabalian, 



1 Orion. 



