220 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



drop dead. The second medicine is palids, a liit of the root of the 

 tree called by that name. The root is kept in a small tube of bal- 

 ekayo tied with a red rag, and the effect on the enemy is like 

 that of the preceding. 351 The third medicine is Mulug-mulug mata- 

 din (glaring eyes), magical leaves kept in the same tube with the 

 preceding. This charm makes the eyes of him who carries it glare 

 at the foe with a fixed, terrifying stare that puts the foe at the 

 mercy of the other. Uutun gave a dramatic rendering of the effect 

 of all three charms. 



A charm called paltimi is held by women, and is operated 

 to make a man thin and anaemic. They put the palumi into a 

 cup of water, and then throw the water over the men who have 

 incurred their displeasure. A girl will sometimes let it be known 

 that she is working this witchcraft, and while she is sitting on the 

 floor she will say to several boys who are trying to pass her. 

 "You cannot pass." Then everybody in the house knows that she 

 holds the palumi. If a boy succeeds in getting by the girl without 

 having the water sprinkled on him, the charm is spoiled. Girls 

 use the palumi as a means of repelling familiarity from those young 

 men who presume to disregard the old, strict Bagobo customs 

 regulating the etiquette that should prevail between the sexes. 

 When a boy goes too far with a girl, she may retaliate by putting 

 palumi into the betel she offers him, thus causing him a severe 



illness. 



Kabibi is a love charm that is rather scarce, as only a few men 

 and a few women are known to possess it. When a girl rejects a 

 young man and he, in anger, determines to revenge himself for 

 the slight, he puts kabibi into the girl's betel, or else lays ka- 

 bibi on tnie of her footprints in the ground. She reads to the 



'"'Of this sort of magic nuiong the Visayan, 162-i, a Recollect document records: 

 "They gloried in knowing charms and in working them, by consulting the devil — a 

 means by which some made themselves feared by others, for they easily deprived them 

 of life. In confirmation of this assertion, it happened, according to the recital of one of 

 our ministers, that while he was preaching to a great assembly one Indian went to 

 another, and breathed against him with the intent of killing him. The breath reached 

 not the Indian's face, however, hot an instrument that he was carrying, the cords of 



which leaped out violently, while the innocenl man was left unharmed. The philosophy 

 of such cases is that the murderer took in his mouth the poisonous herb given him by 



the devil, anil hud another antidotal herb for his own defense. Then, exhaling his breath 

 in this manner, be deprived of lifo whomever he wished." Bi.air and Roheetson: op. 

 cil., vol. 21, pp. 211—212. 



