238 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



while sowing rice at the annual festival of Marummas. The pre- 

 scribed direction is from north to south, and to go in any other 

 direction would cause a Bagobo to "die very quick" of a disease 

 called tulud. 



It is tabu to sow rice at any time except during the traditional 

 rice-planting season, which covers a period of about three months — 

 April, May and June. 



It is tabu to break the spray of rice that is ceremonially placed 

 on the altar for the harvest ritual. 



It is tabu for a torch to burn at the night meetings called Mana- 

 (ou'to, at which seances not even a flicker of fire is permitted. 



It is tabu for anybody in the house where there is a dead person 

 to fall asleep during the death watch. 



Mythical Tabu 



The coercive effect of the mythical tabu depends upon its asso- 

 ciation with some tradition, myth, supernatural mandate or omen, 

 as the following examples will illustrate. 



It is tabu to continue a journey if an animal belonging to any 

 member of the party dies on the road, or if any animal dies at a 

 house where the party is stopping or waiting on the road. 



It is forbidden to laugh at one's reflection in the water. 



It is tabu to laugh at small animals. Whoever laughs at a mouse 

 or a monkey or a lizard or a fly, or at any other little creature, 

 will have his head turned round by the Thunder-god, so that he 

 will face backward. 



To kill a cat istabu 308 because, according to the myths, the 

 cat on two or three occasions gave timely warning to the Bagobo 

 when they were in danger. 



The killing of a snake, though perhaps not carrying a direct 

 prohibition, is regarded as unwise, in view of the attitude which 

 the snake community might assume toward the offender. My 



' I be Peninsular Malays consider it lucky to keep a cat in the house. Cf. W. \\ . 

 Skkat: Malay Magic, i>. 190. A passage quoted by Skeat from Hugh Clifford's "In 

 Court and Kampong" (p. 47) reveals a like superstition. "It is a common belief among 

 Malays that it a cat be killed he who takes its life will in the next world be called 

 upon to carry and pile logs of wood as big as cocoanut trees, to the number of the 

 hairs on the beast's body. Therefore cats arc not killed but if tiny become too daring in 

 their raids on the hen-coop or tin- food rack, they are tied to a raft and sent floating 

 down stream to perish miscrabh of hunger." Ibid., p. 191. 



