THE MATERIAL SIDES OF LIFE 79 
consumed wholly or almost wholly by the worshippers. 
This seems to have been true of all the natives when dis- 
covered, and is still the custom of the uncivilized 
peoples. Since sacrifice is the most important act in 
ceremonial, it is clear that the Filipino thinks of eating 
flesh as essentially an accompaniment of religion, and 
conversely of religion—at least in all its greater and 
more public manifestations—as always ending in a sub- 
stantial meal. 
This devotion, in theory at least, of domestic animals 
to the purposes of religion, is likely to be an importation. 
The idea of animal sacrifice is cardinal in the religion 
of the ancient Greeks, Hebrews, and other nations in the 
region of the eastern Mediterranean. It is not essen- 
tially East Asiatic; or if ever it was, fell at an extremely . 
early period into nearly complete disuse. The more or 
less uncivilized regions in which the life sacrifice still 
prevails, such as large parts of Africa, are so situated 
that the practice might easily have been introduced by 
diffusion from its original Mediterranoid center. There 
seems considerable probability that the sacrifice usages 
were also carried eastward from their earliest hearth, 
presumably through India, and thence to the East 
Indies and the Philippines. It does not of course follow 
necessarily that the breeding of animals was unknown 
before. But its identification with the sacrifice concept 
is so undeniably close today, that there exists the very 
strong possibility that both traits of culture were carried 
into the Philippines as merely two aspects of a single 
set of practices. 
Rice Culture. Rice is the staple food of the Filipino 
of every condition, and the thing that probably occupies 
his life-long attention more than any one other. His 
most regular labor is that which he performs in the 
cultivation of this plant. In place of money, he uses 
