132 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



1(h), Bansag and other picked warriors, each of whom wore the 

 tankulu, a sign that he had killed at least one man. No other 

 Bagobo was permitted to go on the expedition. They had to go 

 some distance over the mountains, to reach a certain spot where 

 the bamboos might be cut, in accordance with a regulation that 

 the ceremonial kawayan must be cut each year from the same place 

 in the forests. The old man, Oleng, did not go with the party, 

 but rested during the early morning at the Long House. Later, 

 he seemed very impatient for the return of the men; he paced up 

 and down, watching from door or window, and would say, as the 

 hours crawled by: "It is time for them to come. I will go out 

 and meet them." About the middle of the forenoon, he left the 

 house with two or three other men. intending to meet the party, 

 and to return with them. 



In the course of another hour, a current of suppressed excitement 

 passed through the waiting group of people, as the word passed 

 among us, "They are coming." 



It was near the middle of the forenoon when a prolonged shout 

 was heard in the distance, and then repeated. After the second 

 shout, the nine men. headed by Oleng and Ido, came tiling up the 

 path from the southeast, bearing two long trunks of bamboo. 



The little procession came up the house-ladder and through the 

 narrow door, each man wearing the tankulu. and having a blossom 

 or two of red and gold darudu fastened in the folds of his kerchief 

 and hanging over his forehead. The expression on the face of 

 every man was one of rapt abstraction and of high exaltation. 

 Immediately on entering the house, they rested the two bamboo 

 poles against one of the transverse timbers. Then Ido, followed 



A smaller species {Bambusa blumeana) has a slender, brittle stem, covered with short 

 thorns, and is called by the Bagobo bale-kayo, which means "house wood." They make 

 use nl' balekayo everywhere for the lighter parts of the frame-work of the house, such as 

 the joists running from the ridge-pole to the edge of the roof, to support the thatch; 

 and for the entire wall, sometimes, of the Long House; for Mutes and other wind 

 instruments; for making fires where a short-lived, intense flame is needed, as when shells 

 are to be calcined for lime. This is the bamboo that the Spauiards referred to as "thorn\ 

 cane" (Cana espiua). Another bamboo [Bambusa vulgaris'*) is thornless, has au exceedingly 

 hard-grained Btem, and is known among the Bagobo as bubung ,• this is decorated with 

 line carving and used for lime-tubes. The color of the wood is light yellow in the young 

 tree and a rich, mellow tan tint in older trees. Still another bamboo, of which the 

 native name is laya, has a slender white stem that is utilized lor various purposes, one 

 of which is to supplj a ceremonial frame at Ginum, on which textiles and other garments 

 to be displaced before the gods are hung. 



