32 THE SUBANU. 
notice that death will be visited upon the person who attempts to enter 
the settlement while the scourge of disease prevails. The victims of the 
disease are segregated in isolated houses, supplied with food and water, 
and then abandoned by friends and relatives when recovery seems 
impossible. If death ensues, the bodies may be buried later by the 
relatives, and if any of the afflicted recover they are aided to rejoin their 
families. Near the signal fences are erected light wooden stands with 
offerings of various articles of food to appease the wrath of the gods 
and cause them to assist in extirpating the disease. Small sheds are 
also sometimes erected near the stands, under which guards may be 
stationed to prevent the food from being taken by wild animals, birds, 
and mischievous persons. But the guards go to sleep and the food 
(cooked rice, boiled eggs, fruit, tobacco, betel-nut, cooked chicken, etc.) 
disappears, whereupon the guards report that diwata (god) has accepted 
the gifts and will drive away the disease. Superstition and good sense 
are strangely but effectively mingled in this scheme of practical and effi- 
cacious quarantine, and the Subanu stand alone among all the tribes 
and peoples of Mindanao in devising and operating such protective 
measures. 
The attempt in 1904-05 to induce Subanu to enlist in the Philip- 
pine Constabulary was abandoned as impracticable, after a trial of a 
few months, during which every man induced to enter had deserted. 
These people have no desire to become soldiers or policemen, or to seek 
employment far from their homes. A hard and bitter life has taught 
them to place no confidence in the stranger and very little in any form 
of government but their own. 
RELIGION. 
The Subanu are nature worshipers and believe that the spirits of 
their gods dwell in some of the most striking natural features of the 
land ; for example, in an unusually large tree, ina huge rock balanced ona 
small base, in a peculiarly shaped mound of earth, in an isolated cave, in 
a mountain top difficult of ascent, and the like. ‘The gods or spirits are 
called diuata. ‘The Subanu or his balzan realizes that no man or woman 
on the earth can build these trees, the great rocks and the mountains, 
and believes they must therefore be the handiwork of the gods and the 
abode of their spirits. In the presence of these evidences of the great 
power of the gods, the Subanu finds his opportunity for communion 
with the diuaia. At these places he prays to the spirits for good crops, 
freedom from disease, a safe journey, the recovery of a member of his 
family from disease or injury, for rain to break a protracted period of 
drought, and the like. He likewise argues that no person could make 
the sea and that therefore the spirit of one of the diuata must reside 
therein, and to that spirit he prays for a safe journey upon it. 
The spirits or diwata are believed to possess the power of producing 
conception without human agency, and the progeny of such unions 
