BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 265 



gious significance in all cases, as we know it to have had in the 

 painting of certain figures, was so widespread a custom among the 

 Visayan that the Spaniards gave them the name of Pintados. In 

 my work with the Bagobo, I saw only a few cases of tattooing, 

 and they said that an Ubu (Ata) man, from a place in the far 

 north, had done the work. 



In many Filipino groups, there was a more distinctly devotional 

 attitude toward the sun, the moon and the stars 470 than we find 

 among the Bagobo, so far as is indicated by the attention given to 

 certain constellations, to which they look for the setting of times 

 and seasons, and to which they give offerings at certain times. 

 The Filipino is said to have paid worship to the sun, the moon 

 and the stars, but the records are brief. 



There seems, also, to have been a tendency toward some forms 

 of ancestor worship among the early Filipino of a more distinct type 

 than the mere placing of a few areca-nuts for the ghosts, with the 

 intention of driving them away. It is possible that the stronger 

 influence of the Chinese in the north may have been a factor in 

 directing this tendency. It may be, however, that the impression 

 gained by Spanish missionaries in regard to the extent of ancestor- 

 worship throughout the Islands would have to be modified if all of 

 the facts were at our disposal. One of the Recollect Fathers says 

 of the inhabitants of the Visayas: "When they became sick, they 

 invoked their ancestors to aid them, as we do the saints." 471 Now 

 the custom of placing offerings at shrines in order to induce the 

 dead to keep away from the living might easily lead astray an 

 observer with a theological bent of mind. 472 In fact, the dividing 

 line between ancestor-worship and magical spells intended to influence 

 the dead is so hazy that perhaps it is hardly fair to name this 

 custom as one peculiar to Filipino usage. A belief, perhaps unique, 



" 70 Cf. Mendoza, loc. cit., vol. 6, p. 146; A. Morga, loc. cit., vol. 16, p. 131; 

 Recollect Missions, loc. cit., vol. 21, pp. 138, 202, 314. 



""Blair and Robertson: op. cit., vol. 21, p. 207. 1905. 



""Warneck seems to use the term as the Spanish writers used it; for he finds 

 ancestor-worship and soul-cults and fear of ghosts to be central elements in the religion 

 of all Malay people. He says: "Die Religion der heidnischen Bewohner des Indischen 

 Archipels zeigen im wesentlichen einen Typus. Mogeo Zahl, Namen und Mythen der 

 Gotter differieren, bei alien malaiischen Volkeru ist der Ahnen- und Geisterdienst, auf- 

 gebaut auf animistischen Seelenvorstellungen, der gleiche; in alien ist Seelenkult und 

 Geisterfurcht, das Zentrale der Religion." Joh. Warneck; Die Religion der Batak, p. 1, 

 1909. 



