BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH G7 



The old people had rice and fruit to eat, but they lived under 

 miserable conditions, for the low-hanging sky brooded so near the 

 earth that nobody was able to stand upright; all were forced to 

 keep continually a stooping posture. Worst of all, the sun blazed 

 in the sky, and so close to the earth that the mona had to seek 

 refuge in a deep hole from the terrible heat. 12s During the hot- 

 test part of the day, they crawled into a great pit in the ground, 

 just as those fabulous black men 129 that live at the door of the 

 sun are said to do this very day. Stung to exasperation at last, 

 an old woman, while stooping to pound her rice, chid the sky for 

 impeding her work, and straightway the sky rushed up to a great 

 height from the earth. 



After the sky went up, things were better. The people could 

 then stand upright and walk at ease. They built houses of bamboo 

 thatched with nipa palm, or with cogon grass. The air was cooler ; 

 plants grew in abundance, and the mountains were covered with 

 cocoanut palms and banana plants and sugar cane. The mona 

 had plenty to eat, except in seasons of drought, when the sun 

 wilted the rice-plants and spoiled the bananas. Yet they were still 

 called poor, since they had no material wealth in fine textiles, or 

 in ornaments, and they still continued to wrap themselves in pieces 

 of bunut as clothing. 



By and by, the old people began to give birth to children. The 

 first boy was called Malaki, and the first girl, Bia : famous names, 

 retained in myth for brave heroes and for ladies of distinction. 

 All the country came to be full of people, for nobody died in those 

 days. The buso who now function as disease-brin<)-ers and death- 

 carriers were then kindly spirits, on intimate terms with the people. 

 It was at some later period that a quarrel is alleged to have 

 broken out that resulted in the buso assuming a hostile attitude 

 toward man. l3 ° 



One of the most renowned individuals of this early period was 



sins state, this primitive material is rarely seen, except occasionally for work in field or 

 forest. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 49. 



A map showing the distribution of the bark girdle in Melanesia will be found in 

 F. Geaebnee: "Kulturkreise in Ozeania." Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, vol. 37, p. 30. 1905. 

 A map of the distribution of bark clothing in Africa is given by B. Ankermann, in the 

 same volume, 1, p. 62. 



Cf. Jour. Am. Folk-lore, vol. 2G, pp. 16—17. 1913. 



Cf. ibid., pp. 18—19. 



Cf. ibid., pp. 42—43. 



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