ITS ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



or three sprays of green nito 2 * 1 bearing small white buds. The 

 color display was most brilliant and artistic, an effect which may 

 have been unconsciously produced, for the food elements were 

 probably placed in that particular order in obedience to custom. 

 The remaining three plates of the nine had smaller moulds of rice, 

 with do crabs, fish, or eggs. 



The derails of laying out the altar table were concluded when 

 Odal placed to the right of the first row of saucers another saucer 

 containing the ceremonial red rice called omok. 282 To the left of 

 this first row she set a bowl containing a few spoonfuls of coeoanut- 

 water from a fresh nut, and just in front of this bowl she laid 

 one of the great circular leaves from the luago — a pile of 

 brown, powdered lunga-seed lying on the leaf. The bowl and the 

 leaf, however, were not put in place until a somewhat later point 

 in the ritual. 



Now, Datu Yting who for some time had been lying stretched 

 out on the floor, got up and took a hand in the performance. At 

 the extreme left of the first row of saucers, he placed one of the 

 large, flat baskets that are used by women when they toss the 

 pounded grain to let the wind blow off the chaff. Yting laid eight 

 of the heavy work-knives 2 * 3 called poko in this rice-winnower, 

 together with four of the short knives called sungi, such as men 

 use for doing their fine carving of wood, and for cutting up areca- 

 nuts. He brought all of these knives together in a pile, except 

 one poko that was added later, and after putting them into the 

 basket he said a few ritual words over them. 



Immediately afterwards, the priestess opened her prayer, which 

 was a long one. At first, she was prompted several times by Yting 

 and Ikde; but afterward she proceeded fluently and without break 

 for perhaps fifteen minutes, while holding in her hand a spray of 

 manangid which she waved back and forth over the objects on the 

 altar. In the ritual over the clothing, she mentioned by name 



181 Lyyodium scanilens: a climbing plant having a slender, glossy-black stem that is 

 widely used for making neckbands and bracelets. 



s81 Sec pp. L88, 139. 



*•* Father Gisbert seems to have hud this part of the ceremonial in mind, when he 

 wrote: "When they harvest their rice or maize, they give the first fruits to the diuata, 

 and do DOl eal them, or sell a grain without firsl having made their hatchets, bolos, 

 and other tools which they use in clearing their fields eat first." BL4.1B and Robertson: 

 op. at., vol. •*:'.; pp. ->:M— i'l%. 1906. 



