Religion and Magic 303 



she eat of carabao, wild pig, wild chicken, or shrimp; nor may she 

 touch peppers — all prized articles of food. 



The inducements for a person to enter this vocation are so few 

 that a candidate begins her training with reluctance ; but, once accepted 

 by the spirits, the medium yields herself fully and sincerely to their 

 wishes. When possessed by a spirit, her own personality is submerged, 

 and she does many things of which she is apparently ignorant, when 

 she emerges from the spell. Oftentimes, as she squats by the mat, 

 summoning the spirits, her eyes fake on a far-away stare; the veins 

 of her face and neck stand out prominently, while the muscles of her 

 arms and legs are tense; then, as she is possessed, she assumes the 

 character and habits of the superior being. If it is a spirit supposed 

 to dwell in Igorot or Kalinga land, she speaks in a dialect unfamiliar 

 to her hearers, orders them to dance in Igorot fashion, and then in- 

 structs them in dances, which she or her townspeople could never 

 have' seen. 1 At times she carries on sleight-of-hand tricks, as when 

 she places beads in a dish of oil, and dances with it high above her 

 head, until the beads vanish. A day or two later she will recover them 

 from the hair of some participant in the ceremony. Most of her acts 

 are in accordance with a set procedure; yet at times she goes further, 

 and does things which seem quite inexplainable. 



One evening, in the village of Manabo, we were attending a cer- 

 emony. Spirit after spirit had appeared, and at their order dances 

 and other acts had taken place. About ten o'clock a brilliant flash 

 of lightning occurred, although it was not a stormy evening. The 

 body of the medium was at that time possessed by Amangau, a head- 

 hunting spirit. He at once stopped his dance, and announced that 

 he had just taken the head of a boy from Luluno, and that the 

 people of his village were even then dancing about the skull. Earlier in 

 the evening we had noticed this lad (evidently a consumptive) among 

 the spectators. When the spirit made this claim, we looked for him, 

 but he had vanished. A little later we learned that he had died of a 

 hemorrhage at about the time of the flash. 



Similar mediums and possession were observed among the ancient Visayans. 

 See Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. V, p. 133 ; Perez writing 

 concerning Zambales says of their mediums, "He commences to shiver, his 

 whole body trembling, and making many faces by means of his eyes ; he gen- 

 erally talks, sometimes between his teeth, without any one understanding him. 

 Sometimes he contents himself with wry faces which he makes with his eyes 

 and the trembling of all his body. After a few moments he strikes himself on 

 the knee, and says he is the attito to whom the sacrifice is being made. See 

 Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. XLVII, p. 301. 



