BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 229 



against the stung face banana leaves that have been heated over 

 a flame. 



Methods of Healing Sickness 



Unshaken in his conviction that he must look to the supernatural 

 for the source of bodily pain, the Bagobo proceeds, consistently, to 

 wrestle with a throng of diseases just as he would strive against 

 any other outbreak of hostile demons. The methods recognized as 

 efficacious are of three sorts, any one of which may be used either 

 by itself or in combination with the other two. A case of sick- 

 ness or accident may be treated, or sometimes prevented: (a) By 

 an act of devotion ; (b) By magic ; (c) By native materia medica. 



By an Act of Devotion. A simple act of faith, a devotional 

 gift laid upon an altar or on the ground, a prayer asking that 

 some god will keep the body strong, or that a buso may be ap- 

 peased by a little betel and go away — any one of these acts is 

 relied on for help even more than magic, more than curative plants. 

 Many a long ceremony with complex ritual may be resolved into 

 one straining, pitiful cry for health and freedom from pain. The 

 fundamental intention of many of the rites of Ginum is that of 

 being kept from sickness and death, and touching appeals are put 

 up in individual cases. At the preliminary awas the betel in leaf- 

 dishes is offered to the Malaki, who, in turn, is asked to give the 

 dishes to the tig-banua, so that those demons may be induced to 

 refrain from sending disease to the Bagobo. Again, the priestess 

 implores the Malaki to keep the diseases shut up in the leaf-dishes 

 until he comes to kill the diseases. The buso that are associated 

 with departments of nature are propitiated by offerings, and are 

 asked to keep the people in health. At the Pamalugu in the river, 

 areca-nuts with betel-leaf are laid before the Malaki t'Olu k'Waig 

 and before Tigyama, the protector, with prayers to be kept from 

 the Sickness that goes round the World. While the water is being 

 poured over the bodies of the candidates, appeals are made to 

 Tigyama and to Pamulak Manobo, and to all the anito that they 

 will remove sickness and feebleness from each person, and take the 

 diseases to the Malaki to be strangled. 3G3 Newly-married people 

 are taught by the priest to set up a shrine in their house, and when 



See pp. 100, 123. 



