BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 177 



and in the remaining saucers as the ceremony proceeded. Begin- 

 ning with the saucer farthest to her right, and moving- her hand 

 from right to left, she placed one areca-nut with a buyo-leaf in 

 the first, fourth, fifth and sixth saucers. In the third dish she 

 put three of the little knives (gulat) used by women in all of 

 their work. She let the knives stand upright, near the rim of the 

 dish, with the points of their blades imbedded in the rice. At the 

 center of the same dish, she stuck in the food three needles, points 

 downward, two having been threaded with long white hemp, one 

 with short ends of hem]) thread colored black, such as women use 

 for the process of overlacing warp. Later, she put an areca-nut 

 on its betel-leaf in this third saucer, and one each in the seventh, 

 eighth, ninth and second, as named, ending with the second from 

 the right. 



Immediately back of the nine saucers, Odal made another row 

 of nine dishes, but these were of hemp leaf twisted into a boat- 

 shaped vessel 2S0 such as is used on ceremonial occasions, and 

 in each of these the younger women had put a very small handful 

 of rice and grated cocoanut. Odal added to each a betel-leaf and 

 a thin section of areca-nut, about one-eighth of a lengthwise slice. 



The priestess now proceeded to arrange a third row of dishes, 

 directly behind the preceding. This row consisted of nine good- 

 sized crockery plates, heaped up with boiled rice, well-moulded in 

 conical form. As at every festival, certain plates were prepared 

 for distinguished guests; here the number of plates thus designated 

 was six ; at Ginum it was eight. I do not know, however, whether 

 the number six in this connection is distinctive of the harvest 

 rites, for this was the only harvest feast that I attended. On these 

 six plates, the moulds of rice were decorated with very small red 

 crabs, arranged in a circle around the base. Above these, were 

 slices of hard-boiled eggs, and encircling the apex of the cone were 

 rings of little fish of a blackish color, the name of which I failed 

 to ascertain. Near the rim of each plate lay eight or nine small 

 heaps of a russet-brown powder, evidently the pounded seed called 

 lunga, an edible seed that is used much more commonly in the 

 interior than at the coast, but here included as a representative 

 food to be laid, with the other first fruits, before the spirits. 

 Waving from the top of the mould of rice on each dish were two 



See pp. 101, 10 J— 113. 



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