BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH S3 



something is peculiar to ceremonial, he always says it is done "at 

 Ginum," that being the most important festival. Gindaya is, however, 

 a feature of marriage and of human sacrifice, and it may be of 

 some other ceremonies. 



On the three nights that I heard the gindaya, at two celebrations 

 of Ginum on different mountains, it was always chanted by very 

 young men, and preferably by the sons and by the brothers' sons 

 of the datu giving the festival. The youths who take part in 

 gindaya sing with an arm uplifted and hand clasping a bamboo 

 post or one of the cross-timbers. This position is mandatory and must 

 be held until the singer is relieved by another, however long the 

 chant. While one hand is thus raised above the head, the other 

 holds lightly over the lips a corner of the singer's head kerchief, 

 or an end of one of the tankulu that hangs draped from the rafters 

 above. The obligation to keep the lips covered, however, is some- 

 times complied with in a somewhat perfunctory manner by merely 

 holding the tankulu near the mouth. 



The subject matter of the gindaya is in part narrative, in part 

 descriptive, in part devotional, with many mythical allusions 

 throughout the song or story. Of the three or four texts that I 

 secured, the subjects include the celebration of Ginum with special 

 reference to the activities attending the preparation, and a dialogue 

 between two men who have met at the feast, which possibly pre- 

 serves some tradition of mythical ancestors. Just as is the case 

 with other songs of the Bagobo, and with their long romances, the 

 impression conveyed in gindaya is of a metrical form — an effect 

 due perhaps to the quantity observed, as well as to the slight pauses 

 made between groups of words, and to a fairly uniform accent 

 on the penultimate syllable. There is a tendency, also, to insert 

 extra prefixes and suffixes, and to duplicate entire words as if to 

 fill out the measure of the lines. In the chanting of gindaya, only 

 a very few intervals are used (the second and the fifth predomin- 

 ating) and the notes are long sustained. One is reminded of the 

 intoning of convent offices, or the singing of psalms in Gregorian 

 tones. There is no instrumental accompaniment to gindaya. 



Agong Music. Ceremonial music is furnished by the beating of 

 the agong — a large percussion instrument of bronze, IG7 resembling 



167 Professor William Campbell, of the Department of Metallurgy of Columbia Univer- 

 sity, was good enough to look at one of the little bells that are cast by the Bagobo 



