256 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Certain of the religious beliefs r hat have been mentioned, such as 

 the reverence for haunted trees, are widespread throughout the 

 world and might easily have arisen independently in different Malay 



groups; but we find also such forms and customs as the sacrificial 

 dance and the dress of the baganis that have a certain amount of 

 complexity, and since they occur in neighboring groups they point, 

 unmistakably, to contact and diffusion, for a completely inde- 

 pendent growth of ritual phenomena so essentially alike is highly 

 improbable. The chances for dissemination of religious culture from 

 island to island, and within each single island, must have been 

 good at all times, especially where Malay people are concerned, 

 who are both sea-farers and land-trampers. 



The hypothesis of one cultural center in Mindanao from which 

 ritual practices have radiated is not an impossible one, although 

 at present there is not sufficient evidence to determine which 

 of the tribes has ever been in a position to impose its myth- 

 ical prepossessions on the rest. To determine such a center of 

 radiation, it would be necessary to have access to records of the 

 full ceremonial and the stories of each tribe — records which are 

 not available. A\ 'hat we do know is that there must have been a 

 general interaction among all of the ceremonial groups, and that 

 borrowing of myths and of ceremonial details has undoubtedly been 

 going on for a very Long time, especially among groups that inter- 

 marry and that hold toward one another relations that are fairly 

 friendly — Buch groups as the Bila-an, the Tagakaola, the Guianga 

 and the Bagobo though we do not know just how recently 



Mich friendly intercourse has come about. We have, indeed, de- 

 finite evidence from Spanish writers, as well as from the accounts 



did nut regard the stories of demons as mere fictions of the imagination. In the writings 

 li:i_\ Casimiro Din/, lOHs — HMO, we find an account of spiritual apparitions among 

 the natives of Panay. "During the time when this apostolic minister Mentrida was 

 preaching in the. mountains of Ogton, there were visible apparitions of the devil, standing 

 upon a rock and teaching superstitions and giving laws to a great number of Indians, 

 who, deceived 1a him, followed him. liven at this day these hideous monsters are wont 

 to appear to the Indians, some of whom remain in a demented condition for months from 

 the mere Bighl of them; others go awaj with the demons, and are lost for a Long time, 

 and then will return in :i terrified and fainting condition, few of them failing to die 

 afterward. I would have much to tell and relate if I Bhould Btop to mention what 

 has occurred with such mon-iei>, who have been -ecu not onlj in the mountains of Ogton 

 and Panay, bni verj frequently in the province of Taal." Bi.wi: and Robertson: op. 

 cit., vol. 29, pp. 269 — 27o. 1906. See also, Aduabte: Bistoria. Op. cit., vol. 30, pp. 

 L78 — 180. 1905. 



