192 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



We have finished eating. I will sweep the floor, chew betel, put 

 tobacco in niv mouth and shake out Lime. The river has risen. 

 We cannot cross. Tt is swollen." 304 



By the time that Ulian had finished the recitation of the dasol, 

 the grave was entirely covered, and the frame forming the bier 

 was laid on the grave, with the forked sticks placed on top. Ulian 

 then stepped down from his place, and all the mourners went home. 



A feast and a dance are often given after the funeral by families 

 that can afford the expense. 



Another custom is to leave the body in the house, while the family, 

 after carefully closing the door and fastening the windows, moves 

 away and builds a new house to live in. Sometimes the new house 

 is very near to the old one which contains the body. I have seen 

 in a lonely forest on the mountains two small huts but a few feet 

 apart, one of which little houses was said to contain the body of 

 a boy, while his family lived in the other. I was told that they 

 lived there because they loved their little boy, and wanted to be 

 near him. An additional motive may have been the hope of pro- 

 tecting the body of their dear child from the attacks of Buso, since 

 the bad demon is traditionally afraid of living people. 



An ancient custom of tree-bnrial is suggested by the story. 

 "The Tiiglibung and the Tuglay, 305 in which the hero laid the 

 body of his little sister in the branches of a tree, "because the 

 child was dead." Although in the myths thus far published this 

 is a unique case, it is not unlikely that such a disposal of the 

 body was common in old times. This probability is strengthened 

 by the fact that tree-houses used to be used rather widely by the 

 Bagobo and by the Bila-an people. The leaving of a corpse in 

 the tree-house 300 would then correspond to the present custom of 

 shutting up a home with the body inside. 



"""The text of the address to the departing spirit was given me In I'lian after the 

 funeral. It seems to end abruptly, but such an ending is often characteristic of the 

 Bagobo songs and stories as well as of speeches. The exhortation contains several refer- 

 ences to the funeral feast, which gives the customary termination to the ccremonv and 

 perhaps oilers additional consolation to the departing soul. 



,06 See Jour. Am. Folk-lore, vol. 26, p. 26. Jan. -Mar., 1913. 



3 "° From Ouirantc's account, the Igorot, at the time of their discovery by Spain, 

 used to bury in caves, but thc_\ also made use of the trees for placing their dead. "Others 

 they set in the trees, and they carry food for so many days after having left them." 

 Mi.air and ROBERTSON: op. cit., vol. 20, p. 275. lHOt. 



