BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 61 



burkan, or kamatoyan. We may speak of him as a buso-ghost, for 

 convenience in designation, but there is now little distinction, if 

 any, between himself and the rest of the demons. Like other buso, 

 he digs up dead bodies, tears the flesh from the skeleton, and 

 devours the flesh ; like other buso, he stands under the house of 

 the dying, or hovers over it, ready to drink the watery blood of 

 the corpse, and to catch every falling drop upon a chin two spans 

 in length. In short, it is those mental images most abhorrent to 

 Bagobo fancy that are pressed into service for picturing the future 

 of that spirit that throws a shadow on the left side of the path, 

 and that looks at one strangely from the water. If this flesh- 

 eating kamatoyan could be seen, the old people say, he would look 

 just like a shadow. 



"There is no way by which a kamatoyan can talk with us," the 

 Bagobo assert, "because he is bad;" but he manages to make his 

 presence felt, not only by such signs as the falling of old trees, 

 but by other peculiar noises that are heard in darkness only. 

 When one hears a sound of weird laughter at night, it is the 

 kamatoyan calling for blood to drink. If the laughter sounds faint 

 and far awav, — tiki! — it is actuallv close at hand: but if it 

 is loud and seems near by it is really far distant, because this evil 

 spirit deceives us. One need not be too much alarmed, however, 

 for, like the other buso, the kamatoyan is seeking only the dead 

 for food, though he may hurt the living by making them sick. 



General considerations 



Restoration of the dead to life. A few allusions in folklore, 

 and one or two particular episodes in myth, give us the im- 

 pression that the conception of raising a dead body to life contains 

 no element of impossibility, but may come to pass under certain 

 conditions, of which the following are examples. 



If anyone should die in consequence of having laughed at his 

 image in the stream, the corpse must be buried directly under the 

 eaves of the house. By and by, life will return to the body. No 

 doubt some little ritual would accompany the performance, but my 

 informant gave me only the bare fact. 



A magical restoration to life, brought about by a combination ot 

 circumstances, forms one episode in a story of the S'iring, n0 the 



119 Cf. Jour. Am. Folk-lore, vol. 26, pp. 51—52. 1913. 



