BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 227 



the traditional mermaid, who finds her counterpart, at least on the 

 morphological side, in the gamo-gamo people who have already- 

 been characterized. 



Three other disease-bringers are women, one of whom lives in the 

 center of the earth where there is an enormous hole ; another 

 resides at the rim of the sky, and still another in the middle of 

 the sky. 



Several illnesses — chills, cough, skin disease — are brought 

 by a mythical individual called "Sickness that goes round the 

 World" and said to travel down the mountain streams. The "Sick- 

 ness that goes round the World" is often called by the name 

 of Gimusu — a disease which produces sores. At the time of the 

 Ginum at Talun, the gimusu was reported to be in the mountains, 

 and on the way to Mati." 360 



Furthermore, there are mythical birds and beasts that live in 

 the sky or roam over mountain and plain, and that have power to 

 bring sickness. These are the so-called "bad animals," among them 

 some that were mentioned in our discussion of the various forms 

 of the buso. : - G1 Those specially noted as disease-bringers are Pung- 

 atu, Limbagu, the eight-eyed Riwa-riwa, the swine-like Abuy, 

 the chick-like Tulung and the aforesaid Timbalung. There seems 

 to be no essential relation between the type of sickness that any 

 one of these buso brings, and the zoomorphic form that the demon 

 assumes. Almost any buso, indeed, is supposed to be able to "make 

 the Bagobo very sick." 



Diseases Caused by the Left-Sand Soul 



When a Bagobo cannot recall having broken any tabu, and is 

 unable to trace his sickness to any particular buso, he is likely to 



360 The tree-hantu, and several other disease-bringers, mentioned by Dr. Martin in 

 his discussion of the religion of the Mantra, correspond to the buso diseases of the Bagobo. 



" So sincl vor allem die Krankheiten, von denen der Mantra befallen wird, in 



seinen augen Damonen, die in den Menschen gefahren sind. Dementsprechend gibt es so 

 viele Krankheitsdamonen, als der Eingeborene Krankheitsformen zu unterscheiden vermag. 

 ... die Mantra glauben ... an einen Hantu-Kayu (d.h. Baum-Hantu), der in jeder art 

 von Biiumen lebt und die Menschen krank raacht. Einige Biiume sind der Bosartigkeit 

 ihrer Damonen wegen besonders gefiirchtet . . ." Rudolf Martin: Die Inlandstamme 

 der malayischen Halbinsel, pp. 942 — 943. 1905. 



361 See pp. 31, 38—40. 



