124 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The lustration of the priestess was to have closed the ceremony, 

 l>ut one woman came late, running down the steep bank, and Oleng 

 did not send her away, but himself gave her the purification. 



Very few women were at the river, though unquestionably they 

 were not excluded from any motive of sex discrimination. They 

 were all very much occupied with other matters on that day. The 

 young- women were busy in finishing off their festival clothes; the 

 older ones, with house cares, for the presence of many guests in 

 the Long House entailed much additional labor. There was prepa- 

 ration for ceremonies, too, such as bringing down tho seventy 

 water-flasks for the ritual washing that was to follow. 



When all was done, the people went away in scattered groups, 

 some climbing up the bank directly after the ceremony, others 

 staying behind to wash their clothes. Those Bagobo who did nor 

 go to the river, as, for example, .Malik, who was engaged in making 

 the new tambara, Kaba and his family, went through witli a per- 

 formance at home that was considered an equivalent. Each of them 

 poured water from one of the bamboo joints over his head, twice 

 nine times. 



When Singan came back to the house, in company with Oleng, 

 she brought with her the two bunches of sagmo and laid them up 

 on the high guest bed that had been made for the festival. It was 

 then late in the morning, and the priestess absented herself until 

 the next ceremony, that of Sonar. -° : ' 



Ceremony of Lulub or washing of water-flasks. A short 

 ceremony, that I did not see, took place immediately after the 

 pamalugu. As reported to me, this rite consisted in the washing 

 of the new sekaddu, or bamboo joints, seventy of which had been 

 made to hold water for the feast. A sekkadu consists of one bang; 

 that is to say, it is the hollow internode of the bamboo that lies 

 between two nodes or joints. One node forms the bottom of the 

 vessel, and at the other end the mouth of the vessel is cut. The 

 vessels must have been washed on the outside only, since openings 



-"'Almost directlj after our return from the river, Ido and several others sat down 

 to have their damp hair freed from innumerable small organisms. Soon, the floor of the 

 porch was tilled with people sitting in row9 for a like purpose. The women did the 

 work with marked success, each woman hunting in the head of the man immediately in 

 front of her, Bpying the louse with a rapiditj perfected b_\ experience, and deftly squeezing 

 ;t t.) death between her thumb-nail and a tiny, Hat blade of wood, that resembled a 

 paper-cntter. 



