MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 39 
left in the abandoned houses and may be consumed by the hordes of 
starveling dogs and cats that always infest Subanu settlements. The 
balian, man or woman, is called in to minister to the sick, and entire 
reliance is placed upon his judgment in the employment of herbs and 
prayers to drive away the evil spirits which are believed to produce 
the illness. Medicine and religion are so closely allied in daily life that 
the herbs used in medication are considered quite ineffective unless 
administered by the balian. 
If the deceased is a male adult the women of his family engage in 
wild lamentations while others prepare the body for burial. The body 
may be encased in a wooden receptacle hollowed out from a tree, or 
wrapped up in mats securely bound about with strips of bejuco or 
bamboo. ‘The graves are marked by carved pieces of wood and deco- 
rated by a varied arrangement of stones and shells. Bodies are some- 
times placed for burial in natural caves where available, and in the 
hollow trunks of large trees. When corpses are interred the pits are 
always shallow, for they must be scooped out with knives and the 
hands. ‘Therefore the graves are often dug open by wild hogs and 
dogs and the bodies devoured. To avoid such unearthing the dead 
from isolated families are buried near the house and sometimes under 
the house, especially in the case of children. In some cases shelters 
are erected over the graves and the spot is inclosed with a fence of split 
_ bamboo or of poles. 
During epidemics the dead are sometimes cast into the rivers and 
the sea in order to destroy, if possible, the cause of the contagion. 
The Subanu do not practise cremation in disposing of the dead. They 
have a horror of thus disposing of a body and fear the condemnation 
which may follow from the spirits or diuata. 
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 
Subanu women usually marry upon arriving at the age of puberty 
(about 13 years), while young men are often restricted beyond the age 
of puberty by the necessity of providing for the dowry, which must be 
paid to the father of the bride before she can engage in the marriage 
ceremony. 
The Subanu do not know their ages, as no record of the date of 
birth is ever kept and they are unable to read or write. They appre- 
ciate the succession of day and night and count a period of days by 
tying knots in a string of split bejuco, each knot representing a day of 
light and a day of darkness. In some instances a separate knot is 
made for each. 
Marriage among the Subanu is brought about through the efforts 
of relatives of the young people, especially the parents. ‘The fathers, 
as absolute heads of their families, control the disposition of the brides. 
They fix the marriage portion and determine the time of payment, 
