BENEDICT, BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 243 



this armlet, and that was Antis, brother of Datu Ido. Possibly the 

 tabu is lifted for relatives of chieftains. 



JEsthetic Tabu 



The aesthetic tabu derives its force from the juxtaposition of 

 incongruous mental images, often associated with some real or fancied 

 resemblance. 



The few tabus to be found in existence among the Bagobo 

 on eating the flesh of certain animals are in nowise traceable 

 to any totemic origin ; nor are they based on supposed hygienic 

 grounds; nor is there any scruple against taking the life of an 

 animal, as such ; nor, except in the single case of the limokun, is 

 there a religious sanction involved. Rather does the mention of 

 eating this or that animal suggest a train of mental images that 

 stimulates a feeling of distaste or repugnance. The tabued animal 

 in said to be like some other animal which is never eaten; or it 

 resembles man in some character ; or the visual or the gustatory 

 image is unpleasant simply because it is inhibited by Bagobo custom. 

 This group of tabus is by no means so generally binding as those 

 of the two preceding classes, and the Bagobo who fails to observe 

 them is gently derided rather than censured. The only animal 

 food that I have heard spoken of as likely to produce death is the 

 flesh of the goat. 



The civet cat is tabu, the only reason given being on the ground 

 of custom. 



The carabao, or water-buffalo, is tabu for food, possibly because 

 the animal is utilized for dragging loads, and for riding bareback. 



Mountain Bagobo of the truly conservative type refuse to eat beef. 

 On my offering a share in a can of corned beef to some old women 

 at Talun, who had very little food, they said that they could not 

 eat it because the cow was "like the carabao." " 3 



3 7 3 To the mountain Bagobo, cows are known only by an occasional glimpse at the 

 very few herds kept by an occasional Spaniard at the coast. Rinderpest is so widespread 

 a disease in the district of Davao that the attempt to introduce cows has met with 

 little success. "The universal preference for the flesh of the Buffalo to that of the Ox in 

 Malay countries is evidently a prejudice bequeathed to modern times by a period when 

 cow-beef was as much an abomination to Malays as it is to the Hindus of India at the 

 present day." W. W. Skeat : Op. cit., p. 189. As above noted, however, the Bagobo 

 women objected to cow-flesh on the ground that it suggested eating buffalo-meat. 



