186 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
Tagbanua, is unfortunately very little known. Its 
forms are probably less elaborate than those of the 
Luzon and Bisayan nationalities, but all the bits of 
available evidence point to its being of the same type. 
Magicand Medicine. Like all nations who have 
not put science in the forefront of their thinking, the 
Filipinos are given to magical practices and beliefs. 
Also as usual, the dividing line between magic and 
religion is impossible to draw. Every sacrifice involves, 
in a sense, magical power, and the formulas that push or 
compel the gods to do the will of the worshipper fall in 
the same category. Conversely, a charm or fetish is 
never thought to be efficacious merely through its own 
directly inherent virtues. It always stands in some con- 
nection, immediate or remote, with the god, spirit, or 
soul. 
Medicine is a case in point. The Bagobo attribute the 
majority of severe illnesses to the operations of evil 
spirits called buso, who live on the flesh of corpses and 
therefore are constantly employing every means in 
their power to procure food for themselves by causing 
the death of human beings. Often, the bwso enters the 
body of his intended victim. There he remains, unless 
expelled, until death ensues, when he flies away re- 
joicing in anticipation of the feast that awaits him on 
the victim’s interment. In other cases he is believed 
not to need to enter the patient’s body, but to be able to 
work his harm from a distance. Other diseases the 
Bagobo declare to be brought on by a breach of taboo, 
that is the violation of some magic rule. Among such 
trespasses are the disposal of an object once devoted to 
the gods by sacrifice; the selling of even the most 
ordinary piece of cloth before it is entirely completed; 
the wearing by a young man of the type of jacket re-. 
served for the old, or of the head piece dyed in the color 
