BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 55 



going too far to assume that the Ginum rite is in any way typical 

 of the final bathing in the Black River, it is fair to say that the 

 two rites are closely analogous. 



The country through which the dark river runs is said to be a 

 good place to stay in, for the cocoanut trees grow in abundance 

 and the areca palms are loaded with nuts ; yet after the close of 

 the lustration, the spirits pass on Ul to join the rest of the dead 

 in Gimokudan proper, except the little children, who during their 

 period of helplessness remain under the care of Mebuyan. 



Manner of existence in Gimokudan. No radical change in 

 manner of life is conceived to be incident upon the shift of the 

 soul to a new country. The spirit goes on with the same occupa- 

 tions that fill the time of the Bagobo during life, and everything 

 that is used on the earth may be obtained down there. Whatever 

 a spirit lacks in his traveling outfit (onong) that he brought with 

 him, he can buy down there from the supplies laid in abundance 

 before him. He may buy a jacket or a spear or a cock ; since 

 any manufactured article that wears out, or any animal that dies, 

 forthwith gives up its immaterial gimokud, which then passes down 

 to supply the needs of the spirits in the Great City — a mythical 

 situation quite in accordance with the common primitive concepts 

 touching the souls of animals and of inanimate objects. 



The same sun that shines on us by day travels around under 

 the earth, and illuminates the world of the dead while we are in 

 darkness, so that our day is synchronous with night in Kilut, and 

 our night, with their day. It is during their period of darkness 

 that all the dead are in action : the gimokud — weak, attenuated, 

 shadowy, as they are conceived to be — work and dance and play 

 and eat in the customary Bagobo manner ; they sow and harvest 

 rice; they dig camotes and cut sugar cane. The rice of Kilut is 

 of immaculate whiteness, and each grain as big as a kernel of 

 corn ; the camotes are the size of a great round pot, and every 

 stick of sugar cane is as large as the trunk of a cocoanut-palm. 

 All night long, even until dawn, this glad existence continues. 



At the rising of the sun, or just before sunrise, all of these 



111 I have not yet found mention among the Bagobo of the belief held by many 

 pagan peninsular Malays, that there is a bridge leading into heaven, and that all souls 

 must cross this bridge, the good alone succeeding in maknig the passage. Martin derives 

 this tradition from an Iranian source. Cf. op. cit., pp. 951 — 952. 



