244 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Goat's flesh is tabu, for u it would kill a Bagobo to oat it." I 

 saw no goats under domestication with the Bagobo, lmt I was told 

 that the Bila-an people kept goats. Whether this tabu has arisen 

 through unfamiliarity with the animal, or because of the economic 

 value of goat's hair for decorative purposes, or through some Bila-an 

 tradition borrowed by the Bagobo cannot be determined until the 

 Bila-an tribe is better known to us. 



Reptiles, including snakes, monitor lizards and agama. are almost 

 universally tabu among the Bagobo. Although some Bagobo will 

 eat the flesh of the monitor lizard and of certain snakes, the 

 aesthetic repugnance that leads to the prohibition is pretty general. 



Nearly all Bagobo, young and old, show disgust and abhorrence 

 at the mere suggestion of eating the flesh of monkeys. While the 

 story-teller accounts for tbis widespread feeling by reference to some 

 mythical or other episode where the monkey figured as a chief 

 character, most Bagobo explain the tabu by pointing out the re- 

 semblance which an ape bears to a human being. Prom boys and 

 girls, from old women and old men. one hears such remarks as 

 the following, uttered with manifest signs of horror and shrinking. 

 "The monkey has two feet like man's feet; he has two hands like 

 man's bands; I could not eat the monkey." "A Tagakaola can eat 

 monkey ; a Bilia-an can eat monkey ; a Kulaman can eat monkey." 

 ••\'<Tv few Bagobo can eat monkey, because monkey is like man." 

 I have known two or three Bagobo boys who frankly admitted to 

 eating monkey-meat, "because it is like deer," or "because it is 



like chicken," but these boys were ridiculed by the other young 

 people present. Doubtless, under stress of famine, which so often 

 comes when the rice crops fail, any tabu that limits the food supply 

 runs a risk of being broken. 



The Bagobo say that other tribes eat animals proscribed among 



themselves. The Tagakaola are said to eat civet cat and lizards, 

 while the Bila-an and the Kulaman are accused of eating monkey. 

 No doubt the tabu on eta-tain classes of foods is subject td con- 

 siderable local variation, but of course each tribe regards its own 



customs as more or less distinct ive. One day there were ten or 

 more Bila-an men at inv house when we were talking of food 

 tabus, and they all admitted readily that it was their custom to 



eat monkey-flesh. 



