266 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



was found l>y Aduarte among the Tagal, to the effect that their 

 departed ancestors would come to life again, and that they would 

 look to find the people faithful to old religious customs. 473 



While methods of treating the sick show a general similarity. 

 one peculiar custom seems to he local to Xueva Segovia — that 

 of killing a young child and bathing the sick person in its blood, 

 or of anointing the patient with the blood of a bird in place of 

 the infant's blood. 4T4 



The above points are noted as fairly representative of numerous 

 religious customs and beliefs that doubtless could be cited as 

 evidence of variation from that great body of tradition which prob- 

 ably dominated the entire archipelago in prehistoric times. In 

 spite, however, of local differences and even of important peculiari- 

 ties, there still remains the fact of the existence of a mass of 

 ceremonial rites and magical usages common alike to Filipino and 

 Bagobo, and perhaps to a great number of mountain tribes in the 

 north ami in the south. A range of ceremonies that reaches from 

 central Luzon to southeastern Mindanao, through groups where 

 transfusion of ideas would be an easy process, surely casts doubt 

 upon any hypothesis of independent local development in single 

 groups. The student is impelled to look for some common origin 

 that may date back even to a pre-migration period, and to recog- 

 nize, also, a development modified by a marked degree of dissem- 

 ination within the Philippines of ritual forms and of religious 

 practices. In this connection, Etizal's historical comments on the 

 interrelations between the tribes in Spanish times are in point. 



"This fundamental agreement of laws, and this general uniformity, 

 prove that the mutual relations of the islands were widespread. 

 and the bonds of friendship more frequent than were wars and 

 quarrels. There may have existed a confederation, since we know 

 from the first Spaniards that the chief id' Manila was commander- 

 in-chief of the sultan of Borneo. In addition, documents of the 

 twelfth century that exist testify the same thing/' 1 '' 



In any attempt to trace the mythology and rites of these island 



tribes back to a common origin, we are at a profound disadvantage 



because of our great lack of native Filipino documents. Although 



* 7J ( /'. I). Am mmi : "ilistoria . . ." 16-to. Blaib and Robertson: op. ciL, vol. 30, 

 pp. 290, 292, 298 1906. 



* 7 * if. I). Am u:n \ 'Ilistoria..." 1640. Op. cit., vol. 32, pp. 42—48, 56. 1005. 



• 7 '■ Blaib and Robertson: op. ciL, vol. 16, p. 121. 1904 (a note by Rizal to Morga's 

 "Sucesos"). 



