BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEBEMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 35 



beside the sea; they drink the blood from the corpse, and gnaw the 

 flesh from the bones, and then throw away the skeleton. Gruesome 

 as is the situation, however, it is relieved by flashes of quaint hu- 

 mor, such as invariably dart into Bagobo talk and story. According 

 to the folktales, a tigbanua is often very dull of perception, very 

 credulous ; so much so that a child, a cat, the moon, even a wo- 

 man's comb may fool him and make a jest of him, 79 in much the 

 same manner that the trickster Coyote, of American myth, is him- 

 self, in turn, tricked by others. 



The Tigbanua most often invoked are the following: 



Tigbanua kayo (of the timber, or forest trees); 



Tigbanua balagan (of the rattan); 



Tigbanua tana (of the ground); 



Tigbanua waig (of the water); 



Tigbanua batu (of the rocks, or stones); 



Tigbanua dipag-dini-ka-waig (of this side of the river); 



Tigbanua dipag-dutun-ka-waig (of the other side of the river); 



Tigbanua buis (of the hut-shrine). 



Another group of supernatural beings, the Tagamaling, are some- 

 times termed "good buso" on account of their extreme moderation 

 in eating human flesh, a practice in which they indulge only 

 on alternate months. The tagamaling are thought to resemble the 

 Bagobo in physiognomy and in manner of dressing. A few of them, 

 however, have eight faces. Their houses, invisible to man, are 

 hidden in dense foliage up on the mountains or the hills. I quote 

 from the "Story of Duling and the Tagamaling" 80 a tale of two 

 young men who are enticed to the house of a tagamaling by two taga- 

 maling girls; as a result of which adventure one of the youths is 

 turned into stone. 



"Before the world was made, there were Tagamaling. The Tagamaling is 

 the best Buso, because he does not want to hurt man all of the time. 

 Tagamaling is actually Buso only a part of the time ; that is, the month 

 when he eats people. One month he eats human flesh, and then he is Buso; 

 the next month he eats no human flesh, and then he is a god. So he 

 alternates, month by month. The month he is Buso, he wants to eat man 



79 Stories of the tricking of Buso will be found in my "Bagobo myths." Jour. Am. 

 Folk-lore, vol. 26, pp. 43—46, 48—50. 1913. With equal ease the Rakshasa of Indian 

 myth is duped, as shown in one of Somadeva's tales: cf. op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 363 — 

 364. 1880. 



80 Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, vol. 26, pp. 50—51. Jan.— Mar., 1913. 



