248 , A NATUBALI8T IN CELEBES ch. x 



A further advance was marked by the introduction into 

 their spiritual world of the spirits of deceased chiefs who lived 

 for ever, not in the form of the fetiches of places so much 

 as in the form of wandering ghosts haunting the scenes of 

 their former triumphs and experiences. Then, when men 

 began to record with greater accuracy their genealogy, their 

 remote ancestors were elevated to the rank of powerful gods 

 dwelling in the heavens or the under-world, to whom prayers 

 must be said and sacrifices offered to avert disasters and 

 secure blessings, and a crowd of lesser deities and spirits 

 introduced from some of those who were more recently 

 deceased. 



It was in this stage of religious belief that the mission- 

 aries found the people of Minahassa. They believed ia a 

 series of ancestral ghosts of the rank of first-class gods, in 

 a crowd of lesser deities, protecting spirits and demons and 

 a few fetiches connected with certain holy trees, the forests, 

 dangerous or prominent rocks and cliffs, noted waterfalls 

 and streams and other natural objects. 



The principal god of the natives of the northern dis- 

 tricts was Lumimuiit, the universal mother of all men ; and 

 next to her came her first-born children, the twice nine 

 group of the Makaruwa sijow, the thrice seven group of the 

 Makatelu pitu and the three Pasijowan. 



These were the principal empungs or gods. Most of 

 them dwell in four villages iu the heavens called Kasosoran, 

 Kalawakan, Kasendukan, and Karondoran (89). In for- 

 mer times it appears the gods were not exclusive, but 

 would at times leave their heavenly abodes to walk amongst 

 mankind on earth. The following legend of the bold bad 

 Warereh explains the reason of their latter-day exclusive- 

 ness (58) : 



' Once upon a time the Lokon was very much higher 

 than it is now, in fact so high that it reached into th6 



