BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AXD MYTH 97 



the necessary change of time, place, and so forth. Such change 

 would have entailed the long conferences and discussions always 

 required among Malay people when anything out of the ordinary 

 occurs; or, if the human victim were not slain, a number of inter- 

 views with the gods must have taken place, to persuade them to 

 accept the substitution of a cock. The utterances of the medium 

 at the seances that I attended showed that an undercurrent of 

 intense anxiety was accompanying the strong efforts then being made 

 by the Bagobo to please the new American Government, and at 

 the same time properly to pacify the ancient gods. The entire 

 well-being of the group hung upon the punctilious performance of 

 every rite of the Ginum, and particularly in the matter of the 

 sacrifice. On the other hand, there would be the utmost danger if 

 the sacrifice were discovered by us foreigners, with our inability to 

 realize the traditional necessity for the rite. In December of the 

 same year, when a human sacrifice was certainly offered in Talun. 

 at which time the event was betrayed by some native anxious to 

 put himself in good standing with the local authorities, the excite- 

 ment and the strict governmental investigation that followed fully 

 justified the earlier fears apparent in the Talun group. The Bagobo 

 were at this time meeting a severe crisis in their tribal history. 



Thus Ido's failure to secure cocoanuts and fish may not have 

 operated as the sole cause for the delays and the apparent tendency 

 toward procrastination in getting ready for the Ginum. The last 

 change of date for the main ceremony, that is, from the 18th to 

 the 19th of August, was due to religious scruples attendant upon 

 the occurrence of an earthquake shock on the third day of the 

 rites. 



So, for one and another reason, it came about that the Ginum 

 which was formally opened on the evening of August 14th, and 

 normally would have closed after sunrise on the 18th ? was pro- 

 longed until after the sunrise of the 20th. Yet the relative sequence 

 of the rites was exactly preserved. There was simply an inter- 

 polation of one day, and a part of another, on which there were 

 no ceremonies — the first interpolation being that of the twenty - 

 four hours following the evening of the 1 5th • the second, of a 

 period from sunset on the 17th until the afternoon of the 18th. 

 These remarks are made in this introductory section in order to 

 make clear the chronology which immediately follows. 



At Talun, there were four days set apart for the Ginum cere- 



7 



