BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEBEMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 37 



thus give him blood to drink. I was present at a devotional meeting 

 at Oleng's house when one of the anito urged the Bagobo to be 

 on their guard against Tagareso and Balinsugu. 



The Mantianak, 82 as everywhere throughout the Malay country, 

 is associated with childbirth, but there are local variations. Bagobo 

 tradition says that if a woman dies during her trial her spirit is 

 angry at the husband, since he is held responsible for the conditions 

 that caused his wife's death. The ghost of the woman becomes a 

 mantianak that hovers in the air near her former home and utters 

 peculiar cries, resembling the mewing of a cat. When the man hears 

 that sound at night, he knows that it is the voice of the mantianak 

 of his dead wife. This form of buso is characterized by a hole in 

 the breast and by the long claws, and it is called "a bad thing." 

 They say that the mantianak is constantly trying to kill men and 

 boys, but that it is afraid of women and girls. 



Some buso live in the sky, like the eight-eyed Riwa-riwa, 8;3 who 



82 A Malay compound of two elements: mati, "to die," "dead;" anak, "child." The 

 Bagobo and certain other tribes interpolate a nasal. The Tagal makes the initial 

 sound a surd, p. 



Concerning a parallel myth amoug the Tagal tribes, Father Plasencia wrote in 1589: 

 "If any woman died in child-birth, she and her child suffered punishment ... at night 

 she could be heard lamenting. This was called patianac. See Blair and Robertson: 

 op. cit. vol. 7, p. 196, 1903. If the missionary drew a correct inference from the wail 

 of the woman's spirit, the significance of the mantianak's cry is distinctly different from 

 that given to it by the Bagobo, who put the burden upon the man. Birth-charms for 

 driving away this spirit are given by Ortiz, op. cit., vol. 43, p. 107, 1905. He states, 

 further, that when travelers lose their road, the patianac is to blame. lb. p. 108. 



Cole found among the Mandaya a belief in Muntianak, which was regarded as "the 

 spirit of a child whose mother died while pregnant, and who for this reason was born 

 in the ground." Op. cit., p. 177. 



In the tradition of the peninsular Malays, the matianak (or pontianak) is a stillborn 

 child which takes the form of a night-owl that disturbs women and children at the time 

 of childbirth. If a woman dies in childbirth, she is popularly supposed to become a 

 lansugu, or flying demon, much like the pole-cat called bajang. Cf. W. W. Skeat: Malay 

 magic, pp. 329, 325, 327. 1900. Among certain inland tribes, according to Dr. Martin, 

 the matianak, as a jin or hantu, is the demon of puerperal fever, and occasionally takes 

 the form of a frog or a bird. Die Inlandstamme der malayischen Halbinsel, pp. 944, 

 946. 1905. The natives of Nias have a bechu matidna which has the power of tor- 

 menting a woman in childbirth, and of procuring abortion. Cf. Elio Modigliani: Un 

 viaggio a Nias, p. 625. 1890. For allied conceptions among the natives of Sarawak and 

 the tribes of south-east Borneo, and in other parts of the Malay area, cf. Blumentritt: 

 op. cit., article, "Patianak." 



83 Blumentritt quotes the following description of Riwa-Riwa: "Segiin los Bagobos es 

 Rioa-rioa un ser espantoso y malo que, suspendido en el cenit, a rnanera de pendulo 



