260 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



to the villages, or in retired places in the forest. The essential 

 character of another kind of shrine was the white bowl or dish 42 '' 

 that must have been very widely used in ceremonial. Aduarte. 

 the Bishop of Nueva Segovia, lays great stress on having destroyed 

 a great amount of fine earthenware that had been consecrated to 

 the uses of pagan worship, but was finally brought to the fathers 

 by converted Tagal natives. In 1604 — 1605, Chirino speaks of the 

 little plates that were used in making sacrifices at Tatai, near 

 Manila. At the rites of the Visa van. white china may have been in use 

 at least four hundred years ago, for Pigafetta, in his account of the 

 Magellan voyage, 1519—1521, describes a funeral ceremony at Cebu 

 where fragrant gums were burned in the dishes. "There are many 

 porcelain jars containing fire about the room, and myrrh, storax, 

 and bezoin, which make a strong odor through the house, are put 

 on the fire." 430 



In Mindanao, the use of good crockery for sacred purposes by 

 mountain tribes, whose own hand-made pottery is of the roughest 

 sort, strikes the investigator a-- a remarkable phenomenon, especially 

 when one notes how old and smoke begrimed the dishes are, and 

 bow different in shape from those which are now sold to natives 

 in foreign simps at the coast. The earthenware in use at Bagobo 

 altars is of a heavy quality, though always white; whereas Aduarte 

 seems to have found fine porcelain used at Tagal shrine-. ' 

 Tin' Filipino tribes of the north were the first, presumably, to 

 acquire such dishes from Chinese' traders, who came often with 

 merchandise to the Islands. Later, the use of china bowls and 

 saucers as receptacles for offerings at shrines may have been either 

 transmitted by the Filipino to more southern tribes, or introduced 

 directly by the Chinese at the coast of Mindanao. Such dishes would 

 quickly have supplanted for ceremonial use the rough black ware 

 or the cocoanut-shell bowl. 



We find records that betel was offered at Filipino shrines, though 

 it i- imt stated whether the areca-nutfi were placed in the white 

 bowls. Manufactured products, as has been noted, were also cere- 

 monially presented to the gods. 



ibid., vol. 13. p. 72. 1 '.mi j.. See also D. Aduartj : "Historia." 1640. Op. eit., vol. 31, 

 p. L65. 1 



'■ ,, Op. eit., vol. 30. pp. 186, 243. Sec also, P. Cmikino: lor. rit., p. 7-'. 



*" Op. rit., vol. 84, pp. 173— 176. 



"" Op. rit., vol. 3d. p. 248. 



