
RELIGION 189 
of a particular species runs across the path and a journey 
is postponed. A ceremony must be promptly abandoned 
if an earthquake occurs, else the giver of the rite will 
surely die. A rotten tree crashing to the ground at night 
isa portent of death. Hundreds if not thousands of such 
omens could be cited. Sometimes a charm or prayer is 
believed sufficient to avert the indicated event; but in 
many cases there is no recourse, according to the native 
point of view, but to delay or wholly renounce whatever 
undertaking is on foot. 
For every important enterprise, such as attacks by 
war parties, marriages, and the like, omens were deliber- 
ately sought by means of special ceremonies. Every 
tribe that has to any considerable extent preserved its 
ancient religion appears to have one or more such divina- 
tory rites. A stone or piece of iron or firebrand may be 
suspended and the direction or manner of its swinging 
read as prophetic of the future; or a stick is stood up 
and allowed to fall; or the priest-medium may study the 
reflections or images in a vessel of water. Often the 
method is that of question and answer. Names are 
recited, or direct queries put, until a sign is thought to 
be given by the omen object. When a Nabaloi falls ill, 
the priest-medium mentions the various classes of 
spirits that might have produced the disease until the 
response is obtained. The cause of the sickness having 
been in this way determined, the cure is effected by 
making the offering and ceremony that are appropriate 
to the particular spirits. Similar procedures are fol- 
lowed when it is desired to find lost objects or to dis- 
cover a thief. 
Some form of ordeal serving the detection of theft, 
or even the determination of guilt between two persons 
mutually accusing each other, was observed by most 
Philippine peoples; and a variety of devices serving 
