BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 143 



small tube of hard bamboo, such as is used everywhere by the 

 Bagobo to contain powdered lime. From the lime-tube, he sprinkled 

 lime on the sixteen pieces of areca-nut, by sifting the white powder 

 in showers through a little sieve stopper of rattan that closed the 

 end of the tube. As he repeated certain ritual words, he made frequent 

 passes, tube in hand, to and fro over the sacred food, often pointing 

 the lime-tube toward the food and toward the areca-nuts on it. In 

 the low, conversational tone of voice so often heard at a Bagobo 

 ceremony, Datu Oleng said : "Tolus ka Balekat, I am making a 

 Ginum this year for you. I have prepared eight areca-nuts and I 

 pray to you, while offering you the areca-nuts. Tolus ka Balekat, 

 you demand a human victim this year, as in the years before when 

 we celebrated the Ginum, but now we do not kill a man in sacrifice 

 any more, because the Americans now hold control, and we are 

 using a little American custom in giving you no human victim. 

 Instead, we have killed a chicken, 212 which we offer to you witli 

 the red rice." Oleng then sprinkled lime on the betel several times, 

 and stirred the balabba in the left hand bowl with his spray of 

 manangid, whereupon Ido stirred the contents of the right hand bowl 

 with the other spray of manangid. Following this, the two spoons 

 of bulla leaf, each still having in it a small amount of balabba, 

 were handed up to be placed upon the shelf of the balekat, the 

 young man, Madaging, having climbed up for that act. 



Xext followed a ceremonial drinking and a chewing of betel. 

 Datu Oleng, Datu Ido, Sali, and other men of renown, drank from 

 the two sacred bowls of sugar cane liquor, and passed the bowls 

 from one to another until they were drained to the bottom. There- 

 upon, the men about the altar took the sixteen pieces of areca-nnt 

 that lay on the sacred food, and chewed them in the customary 

 manner. Some other men then took areca-nut from the altar and 

 chewed it. 



Up to this point, the sacrificial food had lain spread out before 

 the god, but in plain sight of all the people as well. Now, it must 

 be passed up for the enjoyment of the great deity of the balekat 

 alone. It was not put back into the same vessels in which it had 



21 j "Whatever kind of sacrifice is asked for by the yharu-s-phit must ... be given, 

 with the exception of the human sacrifice tohich, as it is expressly stated, may be com- 

 pounded by the sacrifice of a fowl" W. W. Skeat : Malay Magic, p. 211. 



The Malay magician says tbat "if the spirit craves a human victim a cock may be- 

 substituted." Ibid., p. 72. 



