BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 201 



Following this oracle, a message came from a female deity of 

 the women — the Tolus ka Talegit — who said : "Before long, the 

 Tagaruso and the Tagamaling 324 will come into your house ; but 

 in order to keep them off you must tell her that she will have to 

 put a linimut balinUtung 325 on the hanging altar, 320 because this is 

 her first visit here." 



Singan ceased speaking and came out of her trance. A little 

 later, when Oleng complained of feeling cold, she went to the hearth, 

 stirred up the fire and gave him some food or drink. Then Oleng, 

 Singan and Oleng's daughter, Maying, talked together in low tones 

 for a few minutes, while gathered round the fire. After this short 

 consultation, Maying went to the other young women, all of whom 

 were now sound asleep, and spoke gently to each of them. With 

 great difficulty she awakened them, one by one, and then went 

 to the big mortar near the hearth and began to pound rice by 

 herself. Presently, other women got up and went to help her. 

 Through the rest of that night and all of the next day and through 

 the following night, they pounded continuously, working by relays. 

 The sound of the pestle in the mortar never ceased for thirty-six 

 or forty hours. It was the eleventh of the month when they 

 finished pounding; that is to say, three days before the beginning- 

 of Grinum. The anito had told them not to stop pounding until 

 the opening of the festival, but it is possible that some further 

 message curtailing the time may have come from the gods, since, 

 on the night of the tenth, the old people 327 slept at Oleng's house. 

 The rest of us were sleeping in the Long House, and it is not 

 possible to state whether on that night a manganito occurred or not. 



On the night of. the eleventh, there were a few brief communi- 

 cations from the divine beings. Bualan was told that his wife had 

 given birth to a child since he had left home to come to Talun, 

 and that the child was a boy. 



31 -See pp. 35—36, 38, 110. 



316 Two general types of metal rings, whether worn on arms or legs, are carefully 

 distinguished by the Bagobo: (a) pankis, or baliniltung gutang, which is made of a section 

 of heavy brass wire rounded by pressure into a circlet that is not quite closed for the 

 two ends are never soldered, a very narrow space being left between them; (b) baliniltung 

 linimut, a leglet or armlet much more higly valued than the other, for it is cast from 

 a wax mold in brass or bell-metal and forms a complete circle. The "her," I was told, 

 referred to myself. 



3 * e The balekkt. 



3 2 7 That is, Oleng, Singan and Miyanda. 



