180 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



into other wild tribes with whom they arc on friendly terms, as 

 well as with the civilized Visayan and Tagalog. Nor is there any 

 law regulating- village endogamy or village exogamy, for they choose 

 partners in the same village, as well as from other villages ; hut 

 whether or not there is any regulation as to marriage within a 

 certain cluster of villages, I am not able to state. 



Rites attending Death and Burial 



As sketched in a preceding chapter, 290 the takawanan, or good 

 soul, goes after death to the pleasant underworld; while the tebang : 

 or evil soul, departs to find its place among the huso. The dead 

 body, abandoned by both of those personalities that have dominated 

 it during life, is left as the helpless prey of flesh-eating fiends, 

 unless it be safeguarded by friends. Attendants gather around the 

 dying person, to rub his face with the fragrant leaves of tagomaing 

 and manangid and other sweet-smelling plants that have a magical 

 efficacy against the demons. "Wo do this," they say, "so that 

 Huso cannot come to the sick man; these plants make Buso 

 afraid." If such precautions were neglected a buso would come and 

 suck the blood of the dying 201 before the heart-beat had ceased. 



After death the body is left on the floor, lying on the same mat 

 used during the sickness. A little cushion is put under the head 

 and a piece of hemp or cotton textile is spread over the body, 

 covering the head also. Before the American occupation, a wide 

 strip of Bagobo textile was always used for covering the dead, but 

 now it is a gaudy striped cotton cloth of Moro weave. It appears 

 that this change is intended as a sop to the American government 

 thrown in all sincerity by the Bagobo on account of a laughable, 

 albeit pathetic, misinterpretation of a scrap of our nomenclature. 

 When the Bagobo learned that a large part of Mindanao, including 

 their own territory, bad been named by our government the .Moro 



wliu arc very frieudly together, is not unusual. To what extent the traditions and 

 ceremonies are being atl'ccted by these unions, is a problem that ought to be minutely 

 investigated. Modifications in material culture and in decorative art are continually 

 being introduced bj intermixture j and, unquestionably, we may expect to find burrowed 

 episodes appearing in the myths, borrowed rites incorporated into the ceremonies. 



lD0 Sce pp. 50—61. 



1B1 Although Hum, [g aol Bupposed, ordinarily, to harm the living, those at the point 

 of death arc thought I" be in danger of his attack. 



