84 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



roughly a deep inverted pan with a bottom curving Blightly to the 

 convex and haying a 1 > i izr knob-like protuberance at the central point. 

 Agongs are of Chinese manufacture and are imported into the 

 islands from Singapore in considerable numbers. The wild tribes 

 gladly barter away their possessions for these instruments, one of 

 which is worth, according to size, from twenty to thirty pesos. 

 A data or a Bagobo of wealth may own as many as twelve. 

 twenty, or even a larger number of agongs; if lie is to hold a 

 festival, and owns only two or three instruments, he borrows as 

 many as he needs for the occasion. The agong is the standard 

 unit of barter in trading valuable objects, and in calculating Large 

 debts and marriage dowries. 



The tool for striking is the tap-tap, a short wooden stick, of 

 which the head end is coated with rubber to give the proper 

 rebound, and covered with cloth, while the handle of many a fine 

 tap-tap is often richly carved. Unlike the More, who keeps his 

 agongs in a long frame with an individual socket for each instru- 

 ment, at which frame he sits down to play, the Bagobo hangs his 

 agongs by loops of rattan from a rod of bamboo and stands facing 

 the convex: sides of the instruments during his performance. With 

 left thumb and index ringer, lie lightly grasps the central knob of 

 the agong, or holds with his left hand the suspending strings of 

 rattan, while his right hand wields the tap-tap. At a ceremony, 

 some expert musician carries the melody and handles in his per- 

 formance all but a few of the instruments, while his assistants on 

 the remaining agongs have but to accompany their leader by making 

 their strokes exactly with his. at set intervals. For example, it' 

 there are eleven agongs, the head performer plays on eight of 

 them, and perhaps three persons — a man. a woman and a 

 child assist him. The leader must be a skilled artist whose 



training is begun in early boyhood, for they all say that years of 

 practice are required to make a good agong player. But a man 

 who has a feeling for music and has received the necessary edu- 



from metal obtained In melting down old agongs. He informed me thai the alloy was 

 of coppei and tin, with a high percentage of tin, and with the addition, possibly, of a 

 little lead. 



In Pigafetta's I ii>t Voyage around the World, 1519 — 22, agongs are mentioned. "These 

 gongs are made of metal and arc manufactured in ... China. They are used in those 

 regions as \vc use bells and arc called aghon." 



Mi. Cole slate- that tin: agongs he saw at Sibul;in were gongs of copper. Op. cil., 

 ].. 102. 1013. 



