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A Structural Study of Bagobo
Myths and Rites
By
P ie t e r J a n R a a t s
University of San Carlos

Cebu City, Philippines
Table of Contents
CH A P T E R O N E Introduction
CH A P T E R T W O Tuglibong
I. Tuglibong or the Woman
1 . Bagobo myths about Tuglibong
2. The name of Tuglibong
IT. The Mythical Beings
1 . Mythical beings and the scorching period
2. Aftermath of the firebrand period
III. Tuglibong and the Sky
1 . Sky and evil
2. Quarrels and progressive creation
3. Pestle and argument
IV . Rituals Connected with Pounding
1 . Bagobo ritual music
2. Subanon ritual music and dance
3. The palakpak and the pestle
V
Quarrels and Rites

VI Tuglibong and Some Spirits of other Tribes
1 . Female spirits
a) in Mindanao
b) in Celebes
c) in Borneo
d) in Ceram
2. The Bagobo Tuglibong
V II. Summary
CH A P T E R T H R E E Mebuyan
T. The myths of Lumabat and Mebuyan
1 . Introduction
2. The text of the myths
3. Antagonists in the Bagobo myth
4. Antagonists in the myth of the O t Danum
I I . Character of Mebuyan in Bagobo Myths and Ceremonies
1 . Mebuyan and the mortar
2. Mebuyan and rice
PIETER JAN RAATS
3. Mebuyan and death

4. Mebuyan and fertility
5. Mebuyan and the tree
6. Some rice and branch ceremonies
7. Why Mebuyan descended into the underworld
8. Childbirth and the mythical abode
I I I . The Bagobo and Wemale
1 . Related female spirits
2. Related rites
3. Bagobo celebration of mythical times
IV . Summary and Suggestions
C H A P T E R F O U R Lumabat
I. Preliminary Remarks
1 . The myth of Lumabat
2. Analysis of the myth of Lumabat
I I . Comparison of a Bagobo with a Wemale Myth
1 . Paradigm
2. The schemes in the myth and rite of Wemale and Bagobo
3. The actors and their roles
4. Antagonism in the data of the Bagobo and Wemale
I I I . Contents of the M yth of Lumabat
1 . The first killing
2. The equivalent to Hainuwele in the Bagobo myth
3. The deer in the myth of Lumabat
4. Animals as warranters of life
a) The hero and the pig in New Guinea
b) The Bagobo hunter and the lizard
c) The Bagobo hunter and the monkey
5. The horizon in the myth of Lumabat
a) Animals for horizon in China and Mexico
b) Symbols for horizon in Indonesia and the Philippines
6. Identity of centre and horizon
7. Sacrifical character of centre and horizon
IV . The Sacrificial Rites of the Bagobo
1 . Pit and pole
2. Idols of the Mansaka
3. Remarks on Bagobo celebrations
CH A P T E R F IV E The Trip
I. Lumabat’s Trip to the Sky Country
1 . Pilgrimage to the source of life
2. The symplegades and the monster; Bagani and Kahikan
3. The trip of Lumabat and the rite of Kakihan
I I . Death and the Elements
1 . Return to the elements
2. Process and path
I I I . The sacrifice and the dead
IV . Lum abat: Pyschopomp and God
V. Summary and Suggestions
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF BAGOBO MYTHS AND RITES
C hapter O ne ：INTRODUCTION
The Bagobo live in the interior of southeast Mindanao (west
and northwest of the Gulf of Davao) on the southwestern,
southern and eastern slopes of the volcano Mount Apo, the
highest mountain in the Philippines. They are among many
other tribes living in Mindanao which includes: the Manobo,
the Mandaya，the Mamanwa, the Bukidnon, the Subanon, and
others. This paper concerns the Bagobo and only occassionally
mentions the other tribes or some close neighbours of the
Bagobo who, like the Bagobo themselves, inhabit the region
between Sarangani Bay and the western shore of the Gulf of
Davao. These neighbours are the Kulaman, Tagakaolo, Bilaan
and Ata, all relatively small tribes, except the Bilaan. Today,
the Bagobo are not numerous either, perhaps not more than
2500 all together. In the past sixty years many have moved
to the town or city; they have either given up their old custo
mary way of life completely or have perhaps retained in these
more modern communities a little of their dialect and a few of
their religious customs and concepts only.
The Bagobo have come under stronger Western influence
since 1850 A.D. Before this time they have been influenced to
some extent by the Moslems and perhaps, before 1450 A.D.,
directly but slightly by the Hindu-Javanese. Words like “Di-
wata,” possibly borrowed from the islands of Sangi, Talaud or
Jolo，once strongholds of Madjapait, or absorbed through con
tacts with the Tagalog who probably were under some sort of
Javanese domination before 1450 A.D., seem to indicate such
Hindu-Javanese influence.
Of the anthropologists who lived with the Bagobo at the
beginning of this century and collected anthropological data,
Laura Estelle Watson Benedict1 (1861) should be mentioned
first. She worked there from 1906 to 1907. Most of her data
were gathered in the Talum area and in Santa Cruz, at the
time a settlement with a Bagobo character. Benedict was an
anthropologist of the school of Fr. Boas.2 She was also familiar
with the ideas of G. A. Wilken, A.W. Nieuwenhuis, Alb. C.
1 . Benedict, Ceremonial， p. 7.
，
2. Benedict, loc. cit. p . 134 (footn. 208), p . 188 (footn. 294) ， p. 288
(footn. 362), Lowie, Ethnological Theory, p. 134， 131， 132.
4 PIETER JAN RAATS
Kruyt, P. and F. Sarasin, Johann Warneck and others3 who had

studied the land and people of the Indonesian Archipelago. At
that time its peoples were a test case for theories of the Bagobo
dialect well enough to check on the translations4 prelearned by
the interpreters. She described5 the religion of the Bagobos
neatly (though in some respects somewhat scantily) in her book:
A Study of Bagobo Ceremonial Magic and Myth. This appeared
on 15 May, 1916, in the annuals of the N.Y. Academy of Sci
ences in Vol. XXV, pp. 1-308. In that year Wilson issued his
famous peace policy, was re-elected to the Presidency and soon
the U.S.A. participated in World War I. The turbulence of
these events may explain why Benedict’s work remained largely
unnoticed, and after World War I the interest of the U.S.A. in
the Philippines was not the same as before. L.W. Benedict also
published a collection of myths in the Journal of American
，，
Folklore, V o l.26 pp. 13-63 Jan.-Mar. 1913 Philadelphia. The
title of the article is “Bagobo Myths.”
Another author who came to the Philippines during the
same period was Fay Cooper Cole.6 He arrived in Davao in July,
1910 and worked in that area for seven months. He wrote about
the Bagobo in his book: “The Wild Tribes of Davao District,
Mindanao， ” which was published in Chicago in 1913. He too
was a student7of Boas. Besides the Bagobo, other “Gulf-tribes”
— the Tagakaolo, the Kulaman, etc.— were also described by
Cole. Previously, he had studied the tribes in Bukidnon,8 but he
published the results of this study only in 1956. His chapter
about the Bagobo mentioned earlier remained a sketch9 and
hardly discussed the religion of this tribe. In contrast to Bene
dict, who treats principally of Bagobo religion, Cole10 describes
the material culture of these people. Still, the few data he was
able to adduce about their religion，especially the need they
felt to offer sacrifice, are important.11
3. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 279-282.

4. Benedict, loc. cit” p. 8.
5. Benedict^ loc. cit” p. 7.
6. W ild Tribes^ p. 49.
7. Lowie, loc. cit,, p. 129, 50.
8. Cole, W ild Tribes, p. 49.
9. Cole, loc. cit., p. 50.
10. Cole, loc. cit” p. 51—90.
11 . Cole， loc. cit” p. 105—120， 61-63， 125, 118.
A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF BAGOBO MYTHS AND RITES 5
Benedict and Cooper Cole were not the first to write about
the Bagobo. A missionary, Fr. Matteo Gisbert, S.J., discussed
the Bagobo in his letters edited in the “Carta de los Padres de
la Compania de Jesus” in Manila, 1889, translated and reprinted
by Blair & Robertson in V o l . 43 of the Philippine Islands,
Twenty vears later, the American ethnologists mentioned earlier
continued what Gisbert had begun.
Although Laura Watson Benedict noted that Bagobo reli
gion would soon die out/2 she herself and Fay-Cooper Cole were
able to collect a treasure of data. Benedict also systematized
(externally) the data concerning Bagobo religion. In the first
part of her book she discussed myths and beliefs; in the second,
the major rites or the formal ceremonial; and in the third, every
day forms of religious response. This scheme hardly reveals
the internal connection between the elements of Bagobo religion
although it keepf, the valuable objects together as a unit. As
far as the character of Bagobo religion is concerned Benedict
only briefly suggests that it is based on a simple spirit or demon
worship to which the Bagobo have clung steadfastly. They
would have, however, permitted Hindu and Buddhist elements
to fuse with their own old ideas, thus constituting a new reli
gious complex that was not at all Malay and far from pure
Indian in any phase.13 She noticed that the Indelible Elements
play somehow a role in Bagobo religion.14
Benedict appears to be correct in her opinion that the
Bagobo have absorbed some Indian lore and may have clung
to what she calls their underlying simple spirit or demon
worship. The question, however, is what that simple spirit or
demon worship may be, and/or how the data collected by her
would constitute a religious “complex” which is not a mere
accidental unit of many elements lying on top of each other or
in juxtaposition, but one that supposes an underlying principle
of order manifested by a mutual interrelationship of these
element that form perhaps a pattern, a system, a structure,
though not necessarily a completely logical or a perfectly con
clusive one. This system might be defective or imperfect，but
still something formative in itself the Bagobo could “cling to,”
2
Benedict, Ceremonial: p . 188 (footn. 294).

，
Benedict, loc. cit. p. 274.
3
Benedict, loc. cit” p. 25.

4
6 PIETER JAN RAATS
It should only be a pattern of thought，original or adopted,

flexible yet strong enough to absorb and determine e.g. new
elements that came from abroad later. Benedict did not dwell
long upon what the structure of that “complex” could be, what
the character of the Bagobo spirits probably was, in which
relationship they stood to each other or what the function of
the many symbols might be.
In this study an attempt will be made to disclose further
the underlying pattern of Bagobo religion and this by making
use of the Bagobo data mainly collected by the two anthro
pologists, Benedict and Cole. Only if a structure can be dis
covered can the elements that constitute the “complex” get the
place and emphasis they have in the Bagobo mind. It pre
supposes indeed that such a pattern lies beneath the data that
on the surface look quite often inconclusive and disconnected.
It will be necessary therefore to have the data mentioned com
pared time and again with those collected from other perhaps
more extensively studied tribes, predominantly from Malay
ethnic units of similar cultural development. The Archipelago
constitutes one ethnological field for study and the data on the
Bagobo should, if necessary, be compared with those of a similar
or identical kind and if possible with those where a pattern was
supposedly discovered.
The writer discusses here only three greater Bagobo spirits:
，
，
，
“Tuglibong “Mebuyan， ” and “Lumabat， ” although other spirits
are mentioned occasionally. These spirits like “Mandarangan ，
，
，
“Buso， ” and others will find a place in another article. The
writer has chosen these three spirits first because they are
seemingly more clearly interconnected and seem to reveal best
something of the structure of Bagobo religion. The spirit “Tug-
libong” is the first to be discussed (see Chapter Two). She will
gradually though hazily appear as the “mother” of the primeval
beings associated with the earth and with the symbols of pestle
and mortar. Through her scolding, while pounding with the
pestle, she forces the sky beyond the dwelling place of the
primeval beings. Her daughter Mebuyan, discussed in Chapter
Three, uses the mortar to open up a path to and to ride to the
underworld to prepare there a dwelling place for the mythical
beings who will now have to die and whom she will guide or
send to her city in the Beyond. She is the ruler of the under
world. Finally the two women, Tuglibong and Mebuyan, may

turn out to be one and the same person. In that case she who
was the chief of the mythical beings on earth, would today
be psychopomp and chief of the dead who live in the Beyond,
the old ‘‘paradise’’，transferred by her from the surface of the
earth to the underworld.
Tuglibong and Mebuyan will appear to be associated with
the centre of the earth. However, when Tuglibong placed the
sky on top, she at the same time made the horizon the place
where sky and earth still meet today. Thus the horizon would
be today the Bagobo equivalent of tree, liana, scaffold, pole,
formerly in the centre. There the situation that characterized
the beginnings in the centre would still exist. This would mean
that the source of life and all the power that was once found
in the centre, is also available (today) at the horizon for those
at least who can reach it. Another path to the source of life
which originally was in the centre upon the earth would be the
path of Mebuyan that leads from the centre into the underworld.
Those who go there are the common dead. They will find there
the black river (in the Beyond) that they have to cross and in
which Mebuyan bathes them and bestows new life on them.
The source at the horizon mentioned above can be reached
today also, but by those (dead) only who take the hazardous
path of Lumabat, the brother of Mebuyan, which will be dis
cussed in Chapters Four and Five.
In reality, however, the “two” sources, center and horizon,
eventually underworld and sky-world, will appear to be prob
ably the same, ‘‘the Beyond， ” although the Bagobo seem to have
attached some elements of their culture (social classes) to the
two different mythical personalities and regions. Thus their
basic identity would not exclude the possibility that the “myths”
have again distinct functions within the society of the Bagobo
about whose structure unfortunately not enough is known yet.
If the myths would have such distinct functions in society this
again would not yet mean that the “religious” scheme must
be earlier than the social structure of the society or the other
way round. This last question, can as of now, only be touched
upon in a cursory fashion in the article that follows. I f finally
centre and horizon would turn out to be identical in significance,
much in Bagobo religious customs and rites would fall in line
8 PIETER JAN RAATS
and would get the correct emphasis.

The Bagobo are of Malayan stock although Cole15 thinks
that some individuals show Negrito influence. This would not
be surprising. The Bagobo language, however, which belongs
to the Filipino branch of the Malayan Polynesian languages,
points to a close cultural relationship between the Bagobo and
other Malay tribes living throughout the Malay Archipelago.
Bagobo material culture also shows this relationship. Rice,
corn, bananas, cassava, sugar cane, etc.，are the main Bagobo
agricultural products grown by shifting cultivation or kaingin
(slash and burn method). The Bagobo raise pigs and fowl.
To earn some money, they used to plant coconuts. For clothing
they use the abaca, later cultivated extensively by foreigners
for Manila hemp. Like many other Malay tribes, by c a .1900
A.D.，they still wove and embroidered their cloths and dyed
them with colors extracted from native woods roots .lfl The men
cast bells and armlets out of bronze.17 War18 was also of social
significance for the Bagobo; it gave rise and admission to the
highest social class of the warriors: the Bagani.19 The Bagani,
perhaps best translated as Peers, were clothed in a claretred or
dark red waistcoat, the darker the red the higher the rank and
the more the victims. Whatever religious meaning there may be
in Bagobo warfare will be discussed elsewhere; here it suffices
to suggest in a general way that the Bagobo, like other Malay
tribes, extolled warfare. The instruments for agriculture, de
fense, fighting and hunting,20are all of the usual Malay varieties.
Woman’s place in society is not much lower than the man's.
Women often officiate at religious ceremonies21 but they rank
lower than successful warriors.
The Bagobo still prefer to live in small communities scat
tered over the countryside in houses built on high stilts and
preferably on hills.22 Settlements of a few families, even as
few as two or three only, are quite common. It is true that a

16. Cole, loc. cit” p. 57.
17. Benedict, Ceremonial， p. 83 (footn. 167).
18. Cole, W ild Tribes， pp. 93—97， Benedict, Ceremonial, p . 10.
19. Benedict, ibidem.
20. Cole, W illd Tribes, p. 68, 72, 74， 90， 92.
2 1 . Benedict，Ceremonial p. 76—77， 180.
22. Cole，W ild Tribes, p. 63; plate X L IX .
blood-feud would make close and real community life difficult,

but Filipino families have for ages loved for one reason or the
other to live apart, and larger barrios of a hundred families
were a rarity noticed already by the Spaniards.23
In 1910 women were still “bought.”24 This could point to a
(former) clan or exogamous system, but it does not appear
among the Bagobo of today.25 Blood relationship (incest) up to
the second cousin26 bars from marriage.
In all these features of environment, language, material
culture, social relationship, art, customs, etc.，one recognizes a
Malay cultural variety. Bagobo religion may be expected to be
of the same nature as the other cultural features, that is:
basically Malay and thus comparable with the religions of other
Malay tribes.
Compared with the data H. Schaerer collected by himself
and from the Ngaju Dayak only, the materials provided by
Benedict, Cole and others about the Bagobo are scanty and often
not clear enough. Comparison with other tribes and peoples is
necessary. The grade of certainty, therefore, H. Schaerer could
claim for his interpretation of the Ngaju Dayak and of the
structure or system of their religion he discovered cannot be
expected here, while the danger of subjectivism because of the
necessity to compare when clarifying or interpreting data is
greater. A Bagobo who had acquired enough formal education
and who fully understands and could love his religion would
have been a great help in writing this paper. As it is now it is
difficult to have such a person at hand. The data on which the
writer of this article had to rely were data collected by others—
non-Bagobo either— who have necessarily chosen what they
considered valuable sixty years ago and from what the occasion
at that time provided. It seems however that the results of the
inquiry offered in this paper would justify at least，and perhaps
encourage, a new and broader investigation among the Bagobo
that would also include language and society. This would, ac
cording to reliable information and the writer's own knowledge,
be still possible to a satisfactory degree. And there still are the
23. Phelan Hispanisation^ p. 45.
24. Cole, W ild Tribes, p. 101, Benedict，Ceremonial p. 180， 185， 245.
26. Cole， ibidem, p, 95.
26. Cole， ibidem.
10 PIETER JAN RAATS
less known and more numerous Bilaan, close neighbours of the

Bagobo, who could be the subject for a similar study.
As was mentioned before, only a part of Bagobo religion,
and the quest for a possible structure of this said part (that
would suppose an underlying principle of order) will be dis
cussed in the following pages，in the course of which the writer
will also try to give to some Bagobo spirits more familiar fea
tures and a meaning to some major rites. As only three spirits
are discussed here in their interrelations, associations, and
antagonisms or polarity, and since a structure only begins to
appear, it would be too early to express a definite opinion about
the conception of “god” among the Bagobo as H. Schaerer
could afford to do for the Ngaju Dayak.
The data used in this article are mainly Bagobo myths and
rites supposed to constitute a unity. They are suggested here
as the externalizations of the Bagobo mind with the help of
which it communicates, thus revealing the internal pattern of
this mind in matters of religion. Wherever it seemed possible
the writer will try to show that myths and rites, if recited and
performed in what the Bagobo consider the right attitude,
activate for them the sacred beginnings.
The meaning of a number of symbols is generally agreed
upon today. The writer will occasionally try to demonstrate
how the Bagobo make use of them.
The authors who influenced the writer most, are mentioned
in the short bibliography attached to this article. Also found
at the end of the article is a glossary of some Bagobo, Malay
and Javanese words.
The “Malay Archipelago” includes Indonesia (except Irian),
Malaysia, and the Philippines; but not Polynesia, Micronesia
or Melanesia.
C hapter Two ：TUGLIBONG

I. Tuglibong or the Woman
The Bagobo myths noted by Benedict are rather concise and

perhaps only condensed reports of much longer stories. The
first myth tells us about a mythical woman called Tuglibong
whose activities seem to bear on primeval events. It describes

how the sky and the earth took the shape they have today, and
consequently, how the Mona (or mythical beings) began to live
upon the surface of the earth. As the myths are short, the
author has decided to present here the text of the following
，，，
myths, A, B, C D E F, as included in the report of L.W.
Benedict in the Journal of American Folklore.27
1 . Bag：
obo M yths about T uglibong
A
In the beginning- Diwata made the sea and the land and
planted trees of many kinds. Then he took two lumps of earth
and shaped them like human figures; then he spat on them, and
they became man and woman. The old man was called Tuglav,
and the old woman, Tuglibong. The two were married and lived
together. Then Tuglay made a great house, and planted seeds
of different kinds that Diwata gave him, etc.
B
Long ago the sun hung low over the earth. And the old
woman called Mona said to the sky, “You go up high, because
I cannot pound my rice when you are in the way.” Then the
sky moved up higher. Mona 'vas the first woman and Tuglay
was the first man. There were at that time only one man and
one woman on the earth. Their eldest son was named Malaki;
their eldest daughter, Bia. They lived in the center of the earth.
C
Tuglay and Mona made all things in the world; but the
god made the woman and the man. Mona was also called
Tuglibong. Tuglay and Tuglibong got rice because they could
see the god. But the snake was there also, and he gave the
fruit to the man and the woman saying to them: “If you eat
the fruit, it will open your eyes.” Then they both ate the fruit.
This made the god angry. After this Tuglay and Tuglibong
could not see the god anymore.
D
In the beginning, when the world was made, the sky hung
27. Benedict, Myths, p . 15.

12 PIETER JAN RAATS
too low over the earth. At this time the poor families called
Mona were living in the world. The sky hung so low that when
they wanted to pound their rice, they had to kneel down on the
ground to get a place for the arm. Then the poor woman called
Tuglibong said to the sky: “Go higher up! Don’t you see that
I cannot pound my rice well?” So the sky began to move up
wards. When it had gone up about five fathoms, the woman
said again, “Go higher up still more.” This made the sun angry
at the woman, and he rushed up very high.
E
In the old days when the sun as well as the sky were down,
the Mona had a deep hole in the ground as large as a house
into which they could creep to keep themselves from the fierce
heat of the sun. The Mona were very old; but after the sun
went up very high, they began to have babies.
F
In the beginning the sky hung so low over the earth that
the people could not stand upright, nor do their work. For this
reason the man in the sky said to the sky, “Come up.” Then
the sky went to its present place.
2. The N am e o f T uglibong
In the myths quoted above the primeval beings were all

called “the Mona”28 which means “the first.” There were many
of them, male and female,29 the first called “Tuglay” or “Todlay
(also called Tuglai and T o dlai)，
，，the second “Tuglibong”. The
second syllable of “tuglay” or “tuglai” is “la i，，
，a common word
throughout the Malay Archipelago for “man”. In the Malay
language, the equivalent of “man” is “laki”，which is of the
same root as “lai”. In Visayan and Javanese, the term for man
”；
is “laki in Pampanga it is “laq ui，，.3。In Flores, Sicca, the term
，
used is “la i”. The “tug” of “tuglay” is a prefix. The meaning ：
of the word “Tuglibong” is probably “woman” or eventually
28. Benedict, loc, cit” p . 16.

30. Rahmann, Quarrels (Folklore 14) ， p. 206.
“virgin”. “Libon” can mean “virgin” in Visayan. According

to the Bisaya Espanol Diccionario, the Visayan word “Libon”
means first of all something that is without holes or stain, as a
tree can be. In the Diccionario Waray Espanol of A. Sanchez
，
de la Rosa “libon” means: enclosure, something without en
trance or exit. This meaning will be very useful for describing
and interpreting some Bagobo rites in another paper. But it
also simply means; virgin, virgin-forest or/and virgin-earth.
The addition of the final “g” in “libong” is not unusual in lan
guages of the Southern Philippines (cf. Opon, Opong). Among
the Mona, Tuglibong seems to mean “the” virgin or “the”
woman. Benedict says indeed that “Tuglibong” is the wife
of Tuglay, yet a goddess ever virgin, and the two instituted
the Bagobo way of life.31 She is also called “Mona”，the first
one. “The first” or “the woman， ’，may be vague “names，，，but
they have the advantage of signifying a type in which all female
undiversified mythical characters can be included. This makes
it possible that the two first beings, whether they are made or
not made, can be called “Tuglai and Tuglibong”，“the Man”
and “the W oman， ’，or simply “Mona，，，“the firs t，，. Also the
Creators themselves, if they are two and as such known to the
Bag*obo, could be called “Tuglai and Tuglibong•” The creator
god of the Toradja/2e.g., is called “Ila i，
，，w hich is etymologically
similar to the Bagobo Tuglai, and this Toradja Ilai seems to
stand outside Nature indeed. The Bagobo do not categorically
state that the two, “Tuglibong” and “Tuglai”，are co-creators.
Myth C seems to point to the latter and in another text
is told how the two were assisting the “creator” in making
plants and stones.33 It would seem that the two immanent co
creators participate in a mysterious way in the power of even
tually an extraneous or transcendent Creator, and so would the
Creator participate in the worship by man of the co-creator,
which topic being of great importance, cannot be discussed
here yet, as was mentioned in the Introduction. It can happen
that in one myth of the same tribe the transcending (?)
3 1 . Felix de la, Diccionario Bisaya, Encamacion ， Espanol, p. 201， A.

Sanchez de la, Diccionario Waray, Rosa, Espanol, p. 184， Benedict, Ceremonial,
p. 29 (footn. 66).
32. Downs， Toradja, p . 12.
33. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 65.
14 PIETER JAN RAATS
creator accomplishes almost everything; in another the im

manent co-creator appears much more active and responsible.
In myth A the two seem to be only “cooperators.”
The whole first mythical period in the story of the Bagobo
is vague. It is here and there (Myth C, A) influenced by
Biblical ideas. Tuglibong's treatment of the sky, however,
seems genuinely Bagobo and less or not at all influenced by
historical religions from abroad. The intrigue as well as the
choice of the instruments: pestle and mortar, and the scolding
are also rather original, although within the range of what is
found in other myths of kindred Malay tribes. A further in
vestigation of this aspect may reveal in extenso a genuine
Bagobo picture of the beginnings. The word “Mona” itself
also does not indicate immediately and clearly whether it means
‘‘first，
’ in an absolute or in a relative sense, nor whether it bears
on ‘‘creation’’ or only on the beginning of a new era.
II. The Mythical Beings
1 . The M ythical Beings and the Scorching Period
The myths cited above seem to have been intended to reveal

something about a powerful ancestress who appears as the head
or the chief of the mythical beings called Mona, who dif
fered from man as man is today, and who were struck by a
disaster that threatened them.34 They were scorched by the sun
and the “sky” and could not live a human life. It is normal
to find in Malay myths that the “sky” is considered the source
of good, but it is not necessarily (always) absolutely good. On
the contrary, the “sky” is often described as a bit pretentious,35
or fickle. The scorching related in the Bagobo myth is equivalent
to a disaster caused by a flood, a more familiar disaster to us
because of Biblical associations or by “darkness” as we find in
the Northern hemisphere. In mythical stories cataclysms
often follow creation stories and sometimes the two integrate
into one story. For instance, one may call to mind the myth of
the Ngaju Dayak36 in which two primeval beings float upon the

35. Fischer, Paradies Myths (Z. f. E. 64), p. 208.
sea. Perhaps we have here originally two myths, a creation and

a flood myth, which were contracted into one. The same may
be true of a myth which supposes that creation started from
heat or fire and later this same heat or fire almost destroyed
everything. Then the process of creation would start again and
probably after the same or a similar pattern. It seems clear also
that in case of a disaster from heat or fire salvation comes not
through a boat, an ark or a mountain, but by pits and crevices
in the earth. The boat or crevices may be considered as the
womb of life into which life retreats for a new birth or a new
start. In the Bagobo myth E the pit is compared with house,"7
another equivalent to boat or mountain and also to centre"8 as
in myth B. Finally, the powerful woman, Tuglibong，was able
to force the sky (associated with the Indelible Element fire or
heat) to retire higher up and to end the torture, just as in other
myths some spirit would stop rain and flood. After this disaster
of the firebrand type, a better period, approaching a golden
age, began for the mythical beings.39
2. The A fte rm ath of the Firebrand Period
In mythical times life had no stable forms or divisions. It

seems that “life” was a “substance” （？）that could adopt, even
here on earth, any form any time, be changed or transformed
into something else. One could be a squirrel today and a great
hero tomorrow.40 The spirit Buso,41today an evil spirit associated
with death, was not then a spirit of “evil.” Things were undeter
mined. In the ulits，stories of the Bagobo about mythical times,
the heroes sometimes die but they always resurrect. The sort of
“death” described in these Bagobo stories was obviously not the
death we know today. Indeed, it seems that for the Bagobo
there was no real death, since there was no country for the dead.
The country for the dead came into existence only after this
paradisiac period, when seemingly the “centre” was transferred
to the underworld. Its creation will be told in the myths of
36. Schaerer, Gottesidee， p. 196.
37. Benedict， Ceremonial, p. 67， Myths ， p. 16-17.
38. Benedict， Ceremonial， p. 65.
39. Benedict， loc. cit” p. 67-69.
40. Benedict, loc. cit', p. 65， 72.
41. Benedict, loc. cit., p. 67.
16 PIETER JAN RAATS
Lumabat and Mebuyan to be discussed further in the next two

chapters.
If there was no genuine death, there was also no genuine
birth. Very cautiously the Bagobo relate that the Mona began
to give birth to children “by and by’’，42 thus insinuating that it
was still something strange and far from being an established
custom. The neighbours of the Bagobo, the Bilaan，say so
explicitly.43 They believe that the god of the sky provided per
sonally for additional creatures, but when men and women
began to raise children on their own, he retired and left them
alone. The Bagobo first chased away their god of the sky, then
they began to raise children. On the other hand, the Bilaan
raised children and then their sky god left them. There is con
sequently in both the myths some indication of a connection
between the raising of children and the retreat of the sky.
Food44 is a classical problem in “paradise” stories. The
Bagobo recall that under Tuglibong, the mythical beings lived
，
in an ‘‘earthly’ paradise. The fruit trees grew low enough for
everybody to reach easily their branches and fruits. It is sug
gested that agricultural work (like death and birth) was not
known in that period or was different from what it is today.
The women45wove cloth and the men cast bronze but these were
artistic labors, not menial work. Everything was a pleasure.
Other tribes46 say that weaving- was learned directly after man
had become “man.” There were, according to the Bagobo, Mona
who were rich and more progressive than the others; this may
mean that differences in social standing and degree of culture
appear to the Bagobo of primeval origin or “developed” during
primeval times. It was perhaps not so with the other tribes .just
mentioned.
But the Bagobo changed and eventually deteriorated
gradually.47 As was already mentioned, children were born now
and then48 and in consequence, quarrels arose，bringing about
enmity and hatred. The situation called for a solution. It was
44. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 67， 69.
45. Benedict, loc. cit., p. 69， 68.
46. Jensen, Drei Stroeme, p. 121.
48. Benedict, loc. cit., p. 67， 68.
at this stage that Lumabat and his sister, Mebuyan, appeared.

They also quarreled and ended mythical times by introducing
the period of “mortal m an，，
，a new order of things where trans
formation also takes place but in the Beyond only. Bagobo myths
conceive of mythical times as a period during which Mona were
protected by the Earth, perhaps personified in Tuglibong. In
this aspect the Bagobo differ from other tribes who think of the
sky as their protector.
III. Tuglibong and the Sky
1 . The S k y and E v il
The feeling* that the sky is a seat or source of evil may be

ascribed to the Bagobo in particular, but quarrels of terrestrials
with spirits in the sky, resulting- in the pulling* up of the sky
by sky spirits (Myth F) or the pushing up of the sky by ter
restrials, are widely known among the tribes of the Archipelago.
A Rotinese49 myth tells of a similar situation but while the
Bagobo refuse to give credit to the sky, the Rotinese consider
it a source of good things in the beginning. These people of
Rote, an island of the Lesser Sunda Islands about 1500 Km.
south of Mindanao, have a myth explaining how primeval
beings first got their food and all they needed from the sky.
The sky was hanging quite low, until some girls, forgetting
the benefits they had been getting- from it, noticed that when
they pounded their rice, the pestle struck the sky. They hired a
strong spirit to push the sky higher up, which he did, but un
fortunately he pushed it too high. For the Rotinese the sky
was the “paradise” from which they got their food and other
needs. For the Bagobo the earth was the paradise while the
sky was only an obstacle.
That the sky took offense at the behaviour of man and put
the “paradise” beyond his reach by retreating, is mentioned
several times in the much quoted article of H. Fischer “Indo-
nesische Paradiesmythen”. The Toradja,50the To Mori,51both in
49. Fischer, Paradies Mythen, pp. 227-228.
50. Fischer^ loc. cit” pp. 209-213.
5 1 . Fischer, loc. cit” p. 213.
18 PIETER JAN RAATS
Celebes, the Olu Ngadju52 in Borneo, some tribes in Flores, in

Timor53 and in Nias,54 an island off the West coast of Sumatra,
etc., have myths in which the sky figures prominently, but there,
too, the sky is never wholly right. There are suggestions that
it is too touchy, too demanding, too intolerant or careless, though
it does not exactly endanger life as the Bagobo sky did.
In myth F of the Bagobo, “the man in the sky” orders
the sky to come higher up; this it also does without exactly
being forced to do it. It is difficult to decide what opinion is
more generally accepted by the Bagobo but it seems that myth
D offers a clearer indication of forthright Bagobo thought. In
myth D Tuglibong is the heroine and the saviour of the Bagobo.
The question whether the “sky” is “Mandarangan” and whether
the two principle spirits in the Bagobo sacrificial rite, Mandaran-
gan and Darago (virgin?), are identical with Tuglibong and
“the sky’，，m ust be discussed in another article.
2. The Q uarrels and Progressive C reation
Tuglibong's quarrel or her action of pounding, or both,

may be considered now as a creative action, because it made the
sky retreat. The surface of the earth became safe and the
mythical beings could slip out of the (house) womb of the earth
and live on its surface. Another Bagobo myth55 tells that the
sun and the moon quarreled and decided on traveling at different
times, consequently bringing about the separation of day and
night and perhaps also the seasons. In the next chapter, part
of the discussion will be about the myth of Mebuyan which
relates that after a quarrel, the underworld was created and the
mythical beings were made mortal men. It is clear enough that
the three myths are interdependent and very simply teach a
“tru th .，
’ This truth is probably the gradual process of creation,
first of the sky and the earth and the birth of the Mona on the
surface of the earth, and later, the creation of day and night ，
stars and seasons, or eventually the other way round (space
2
5
Fischer, loc. cit., p. 217.

35 4 55
Fischer, loc. cit.} p. 225—227.

Fischer, loc. cit” p. 223-224.
Benedict, Myths, p . 18.
5
and time) ; and finally, the making of “mortal” man with the
possibility of another life in another country. The mythical
quarrels which characterize the three myths form the link among
them. Quarrels, disputes or dialogues lead, so it seems, to a
definite settlement of things, and this must mean perhaps the
creation of the order we see in the universe.
The belief that dialogue was necessary as a foundation of
the universe could easily lead the Bagobo to conceive some of
their own domestic or local quarrels as ritual procedures re
presenting the primeval quarrel and thus sharing in its effective
ness to settle things for ever56.
S. Pestle and A rgum ent
Tuglibong was pounding and scolding the sky at the same

time. According to the Bagobo myth, it was the scolding that
made the sky rush higher up, but the Bukidnon57 say that the
woman struck the belly of the sky with the pestle and thus
forced it to go higher up. This means perhaps that the rhythmic
pounding- is equivalent to the repeated scolding. The one who
can not reply would lose in such a contest and retreat, just as
the one who is beaten escapes further hits by flight. Schaerer58
found that among the Ngaju Dayak in Borneo quarrels can
indeed be rituals based upon the famous Ngaju Dayak myth of
the two rival birds who pounded the sacred tree with their
heavy beaks in rhythmic repetition. In so doing they destroyed
the tree but out of the destruction the world and man arose. It
is quite possible that a similar idea underlies the Bagobo myth
of the pounding woman. The creation of space, of the sky and
the surface of the earth, would be the result of a primeval
dialogue involving a woman who, because she could not pound
her rice and because her “children” had to live in crevices and
holes, grumbled and demanded that reason prevail. And reason
prevailed as additional creation. The symbol of the dialogue
would be the pounding, just as the pecking of the two mythical
birds, one associated with the upperworld and the other with
56. Schaerer, Gottesidee， pp. 18-20， 126.

57. Cole， Bukidnon ， p. 123.
58. Schaerer, Gottesidee, p. 126.
20 PIETER JAN RAATS
the underworld, is the symbol of competition and of creative

action among the Ngaju Dayak. The pestle, which is the in
strument for pounding, may be taken now as the visible symbol
for the creation of the surface of the earth, of the vault of
heaven, and of space, while, as will be discussed in the next
chapter, the mortar, the counterpart of the pestle, may be ad
mitted as the instrument for creating the underworld. To the
Bagobo the pestle and mortar together could symbolize the old
as well as the new universe. Around these two symbols of pole
(or pestle) and mortar the Bagobo would have spun their more
or less elaborate stories, tales and myths. In the Bagobo myth
of the sun and moon mentioned before it is told that the sun
took his bolo and cut the body of the daughter of the moon to
pieces. Here the daughter was also the link between the two,
but when the sun and the moon quarreled they eliminated the
link and got separated. By travelling now at different times,
they created night and day. Cutting, pounding and pecking
are rhythmic actions that may symbolize argument, quarrel,
discussion, dialogue. The result would be a tolerable and rea
sonable equilibrium that permits life on earth. The cut liana ，
the broken down tree, the destroyed scaffold, the killed daughter,
all former links between sky and earth, or sun and moon (that
are easily identified with sky and earth), could be conceived now
as equivalent to the pestle that, like the cut liana, caused or
occasioned the separation of sky and earth.
IV. Rituals Connected with Pounding
1 . Bagobo R itu a l M usic
It has been pointed out that pounding in the myth of

Tuglibong could eventually be the symbol or the equivalent of
scolding and argument. At present the Bagobo seem indeed to
attribute to rice pounding a certain solemn and sometimes an
almost sacred character. Days or weeks before a festival starts ，
the community gives notice of this coming event by pounding
rice. The50 spirits may also be understood to take rice-pounding

as a symbol and harbinger of good things, if, for instance,

during a seance, they order the community to pound day and
night without interruption before the festival starts. This will
be easier to accept if one thinks of the festivals for which rice is
pounded as religious events celebrating the past (the creation
and formation of m an), as the Bagobo seem to do. Further
creation started with rice pounding.
As a matter of fact, the Bagobo rely mainly on one kind
of music to go with their festivals, that produced by the women
on the bolang bolang， These are simple instruments made of
a mortar with a board on top to cover the hole, and a stick.
The fact that these instruments, simple and improvised as they
may be, are given a generally adopted name (bolang bolang) ,
shows that they are a conventional thing and may have a
meaning for the Bagobo. These instruments and the music，to
which the crowds dance, symbolize strikingly the movement of
the mythical woman and the pestle when the mythical beings
were allowed to appear on the surface of the earth. Hence,
the ritual could celebrate the beginnings of the world and
mankind. Dances also are often celebrations of mythical
times. Such a dance is that found among the Wemale, a tribe of
Ceram, Moluccas, Indonesia. Jensen states that their ceremoni
al61 dance, the M aro， 62 is a continuation of the dance of the
mythical beings through which they danced Hainuwele, a miracle
girl, into the ground. After this mythical event, the beings had
become mortal. Today, the Maro is obviously a representation or
celebration of these mythical events and their result, death. This
interpretation may be applied to the music on the bolang bolang
and the Bagobo belief about Tuglibong. As a matter of fact,
the Bagobo63say that Mandarangan, the god of the sky, rushes to
the feast when he hears music and dancing. I f even the gods
“come”，the mythical era is celebrated, so it would seem. Some
Bagobo64 believe that the sacrifice they offer today to the spirit
Mandarangan is the same as the sacrifice Salingolop offered this
6
0
Benedict， loc. cit., p. 110.

6
Jensen, Drei Strome, p , 114.

1
6
2
Jensen, ibidem.
6 6
Benedict, Ceremonial, p . 146 (footn. 213).

3
Benedict， loc. cit.. p. 252.

4
22 PIETER JAN RAATS
spirit in mythical times. Salingolop was a hero and a giant.

When he fell under the blows of the “Spaniards”，the land of
the Bagobo was formed out of his body which is certainly a
mythical event. A ceremony like that of the Bagobo in which
a dance is carried out to the music of the bolang bolang could
well be a celebration of a mythical event also. But there are
more indications to this effect in Mindanao.
2. Subanon R itu a l M usic and Dance
Later it will be seen that the Wemale have much more in

common with the Bagobo and that an argument constructed
with the help of their lore may well have a special value in the
case of the Bagobo dances and music. In Mindanao however,
evidences can also be found to support the suggestion that the
bolang bolang music of the Bagobo is possibly the celebration of
the sacred rhythm of mythical times that occasioned the creation
of space. One may e.g. observe the ‘‘buklug，，dance of the
Subanon,05 a tribe in the northwestern region of Mindanao.
The dance was described as follows: “The festival of buklug is
prepared by raising a structure of some 10 to 18 feet high,
consisting of a highly resilient platform supported at the corners
by upright beams. A beam passes through the middle of the
platform, which above extends like a Maypole and below reaches
to a short thick log laid in the ground. This log is hollowed out
as much as is practicable and lies almost immediately over a
number of large earthen jars sunk in the earth which serve as
resonators. A few leaves and sticks are interposed to prevent
the jars from breaking. A crosspiece that joins the long* central
pole or beam to the platform makes it go up and down with the
latter as the Subanon dance on the platform. The long- beam
as it comes down strikes the hollow log and makes a booming
sound, which animates the dancers and is usually their only
music. This dancing platform gives the name to any festival
or ceremony in which it is used but the dancing is only an
incident (sic). The more important features of the occasion are
the feasting, drinking and religious ceremonies. The dancing
is done by joining hands in a ring*, alternately closing in and
65. Christie, Subanon, p. 73-74.

jumping backward around a sort of May pole in the centre,

all pressing down on the platform at the same moment. This
causes the lower end of the pole to strike forcibly the hollow
log beneath, thus making the deep booming sound. The clank
of the women’s brass anklets can be heard coming just before
the boom boom of the hollow log.”
One can recognize a similarity between the Bagobo kettle
drum music (bolang bolang) on festive occasions and the
Bukluk of the Subanon which appears to be a dance and a
mechanized apparatus where stage, music, and even dance are
combined in one instrument. Because the buklug reminds us
of the Bagobo kettle drum music, it at the same time recalls to
us the Bagobo myth of Tuglibong. The pole and the jars easily
attract attention. Their going up and down, thus producing- the
booming sound in log* and jars, looks like the pounding* with
pestle and mortar described in the myth of the Bagobo. The
“stage” represents the world. This could be the spot where
Tuglibong stood when her action separated the sky from the
surface of the earth. From this centre the wide horizon would
have been created and this is perhaps represented by dancing*
to and fro around the central pole. Indeed, it will be difficult to
deny the similarity between the pounding in the myth and the
bolang bolang rite of the Bagobo and this ceremony of the
Subanon.
The Wemale danced a girl into the ground, as will be
explained later extensively. This caused the opening up of the
underworld and the start of universal death. The Subanon
seem to dance the underworld into existence when they perform
the buklug，but at the same time they also push the sky higher
up. The same pole which the dancers move up and down ac
complishes both. The Bagobo stress in their first myth of
Tuglibong and the pestle the creation of room between sky and
earth. They reserve the creation of the underworld for a second
myth, the myth of Mebuyan and the mortar, which is quite
similar to the Wemale myth and will remind us also of the
jars in the Subanon rite. During their sacrificial rite the Bagobo
men and women, like the Subanon, dance to and fro also around
a pole to which they have tied a victim. Regardless of some
differences, dancing, pounding, pole and jar, sky and under
world, the universe, etc., are，so it seems，for the people in Min
24 PIETER JAN RAATS
danao and some other places, related concepts. Was it the power
of the symbol (pounding* rice with a pestle) that placed the
Woman in the centre of the Bagobo creation myths, or was it the
dominant character of the Woman in Bagobo religion that
created the eminently female symbol of pounding rice? Actually
the Bagobo have also a rite where the Bagobo male handles a
ritual device used in a ceremony that perhaps reminds one of
the movements of the pestle.
3. The P alak p ak and the Pestle
The buklug of the Subanon is performed in times of sow

ing, harvesting, illness and death, while the bolang bolang
dance of the Bagobo seems to be connected with harvesting only.
There is, however, another Bagobo instrument and dance that
perhaps can be considered a counterpart to the bolang bolang.
This is the palakpakT a clapper made (following a precise
ritual) from bamboo and put on the top of a planting stick.
The palakpak is embellished with feathers, while the stick itself
is partially blackened with soot. The stick ends below with an
iron point used to dig a shallow hole by thrusting it into the
ground. The action produces a pleasant noise because the clap
per, shaken by the thrust of the pole, vibrates. The Bagobo use
these sticks for planting because they believe that the spirits of
the fields are fond of this sound.67 We are reminded here of the
buklug of the Subanon. In the buklug dance, though, the jars
that make the sound are in the ground while the clapper
{palakpak) of the planting-sticks is on the top. But the
“thrusting ，” the “m usic，” and the “automation”，are all there,
while the rhythmic movement of the planters over the field is
a sort of dance. Although the buklug works the other way
round (the palakpak has the source of music on top) the simil
arities are too striking to be overlooked. As the Bagobo do
not have a buklug like the Subanon that combines stick and
mortar for more general purposes, they need perhaps a counter
part to the bolang bolang (mortar) in the planting* ceremony
where the “stick” would come to the foreground. This would
mean that the Bagobo harvest feast emphasizes the mortar (a
66. Cole, W ild Tribes， p. 87.

6 フ. Benedict, Ceremonial， pp. 172-179.
symbol for rice and the female) while the planting ceremony
could stress the male by giving importance to the stick that
was associated with primeval scorching. Both ceremonies
(planting and harvesting) would be aptly symbolized now by
two instruments that belong- together as closely as man and
：
woman the mortar and the pestle. One could admire this
attempt to bring to a common denominator a multitude of things
in the cosmos: pestle and mortar, man and woman, upper and
lower regions, sky and earth, planting and harvest, rain and
seed, etc.
One should consider the circumstances in which the palak
pak appears, that is, during the ritual planting which goes from
North to South, the “orthodox direction” for the Bagobo"8 and
in the midst of a religious place. The Bagobo field is a clearing
out of the jungle. A small spirit-house or a tambara (a reli
gious item that should be discussed elsewhere) is put up in
the centre of the field. It seems to serve as an altar which
represents the centre of the world or the cosmos. Around this
centre the rice-mother6!) is planted together with all the “magic”
plants that must impart their special qualities to the rice. The
Kulaman70, neighbours of the Bagobo, also plant a pole in that
centre together with a sugar-cane stalk. The sugar-cane stalk
appears in a myth of the Bagobo71 as the only plant that had
survived the scorching period and thus points to the end of this
scorching period. This happened in mythical times in the place
where the Bagobo village Sibolan was. One could even say that
the sugar-cane stalk is the plant of Sibolan, the equivalent of
the central tree, and thus the centre where the Bagobo settle
ment and people started, and also where Tuglibong must have
pounded her rice. Because of this sacred plant, the clearing to
be cultivated would have all the likeness with the earth at the
end of the scorching period, as the fields are actually made at the
end of the dry season. It is in the environment just described
that the up and downwards moving palakpak appears. One
must think here of the mythical pestle. One might object that
the Subanon buklug requires one stick only while all the plan
6
8
Cole，W ild Tribes, p. 86’ 173.

Benedict, Ceremonial, p . 1フ3， 174,
6
9
Cole, W ild Tribes, p. 154.

7
0
Cole, loc. cit., p. 54.

7
1
26 PIETER JAN RAATS
ters have their individual sticks. All these sticks can perhaps
not possibly represent the centre，as the pole does in the buk-
lag. In this connection the custom of the Tagakaolo/2 also
neighbours of the Bagobo, can perhaps shed some light. When
the work is done, the Tagakaolo take some rice and form it into
a heap. Then they collect all the sticks used during planting
and plant them on the heap of rice. The sticks have now been
made to form a bundle in the centre, from where the whole field
has been cleaned，sowed and planted and the assembled sticks
are thus made to look like one pole. Next, the Tagakaolo pour
water over the sticks and the rice. Rain is the only thing lacking
for a prosperous growth and for ending the scorching or dry
season.
The palakpak is cut several months73 before planting is to
start and it must be a bamboo joint of a fixed size, exactly the
distance from a point of one’s arm to a certain point of one's
wrist. When work is over, the sticks and the palakpak are not
discarded74 but are stored in the house. Sticks whose size are
related to the individual man and sometimes ornamented with
feathers are also found in other places.75 The feather can sym
bolize the spirit (wind, breath) of a sacrifice especially of a
chicken offered to the gods. The sticks may well symbolize the
tree in which everybody has his personal limited share (life
span) since man became mortal.76 The tree that Mebuyan holds
and shakes is a tree of limited life for mankind on earth.77 The
palakpak made out of bamboo could represent this central tree,
and so can a bamboo growth. Even if the bundle of planting-
sticks placed by the Tagakaolo on the heap of rice would not
be the central “tree，，，it could represent a growth or a garden
of bamboo trees on a mountain top, which would mean the same.
Not only a tree but bamboo growths are sometimes associated
in the same way with the allotted life span of man, of which
a mysterious monkey is said to keep the record.78 (See Chapter
，，
Four I I I 4，page 58). The planting- stick of the Bagobo is
72. Cole， loc. a t ., p. 160.
75. Demetrio，Death (Ph.S. 14), p. 382.
76. Demetrio, loc. cit” p. 377.
77. Benedict, Myths, p. 20.
78. Demetrio, Death p. 377
blackened79 with soot perhaps to remind us of the scorching

heat on earth which made Tuglibong push the sky higher up
with the pestle. The sound made by the palakpak on top may
represent also the noise created by the pestle of Tuglibong as
it struck the low hanging sky which, according to the very
similar myth of the Bukidnon, was as hard as rock.
The palakpak must have the exact size of one’s arm.so It is
well to point out that arms play a role in several myths. The
Wemale associate the arm of Hainuwele with death (see Chapter
I I I ，sub 7 page 36) and thus with the life span of everyone on
earth. The arms of Mebuyan shake the tree on which everybody
“hangs•” The Bukidnon81 associate the arm directly with agri
culture. Here the arm of primeval man hanging down was
cut off by one of his magic knives because primeval woman
(his wife) violated a taboo while he was asleep and his (magic)
；
knives were busy making a clearing (centre). The two quarreled
as usual and the man migrated to the sky, the woman to the
ocean. This “man” in the sky is still interested in agriculture.
Every year his arm appears in the sky as a constellation to
remind people that the right time has come to clear the fields.
Hainuwele of the Wemale, whose arm was cut off，is associated
with “the tree” (Chapter Four, 3) just as the man of the
Bukidnon may also be (knife and liana). The cut off arm
would represent the cut or destroyed central tree or liana, the
symbol of agriculture and the life of man in mortality.
It is difficult to interpret the palakpak. It seems though to
remind us of the central pole of the Subanon but here it would
strike the sky, thus also severing and separating it from the
earth and creating space for new life to arise out of the crevices
of the earth after the dry season (the equivalent of the primeval
scorching period) has ended. Therefore it would aptly serve in
a planting rite. The stick could be handled as a pestle by the
woman as it does in the Bagobo myth and as a planting stick
by man as it does in the Bagobo rite, and it would be associated
with the beginnings, the creation of the sky and the surface
of the earth as well as with life and its origin on the earth.
The cutting of the liana, the destruction of tree or mountain,

80. Benedict, loc. cit., pp. 172—173.
8 1 . Cole, Bukidnon, pp. 123， 124.
28 PIETER JAN RAATS
would be the same as the moving up and down of a pestle or

stick, thus striking sky and earth and separating them.
V. Quarrels and Rites
The separation of sky and earth brought about by Tug

libong is also the result of a quarrel between Tuglibong and
“sky”. H. Schaerer,2 who had to deal with an analogous
quarrel in mythical times narrated by the Ngaju Dayak, i.e., the
altercation of Mahatala (the sky or the upperworld) with Djata
(the earth or the underworld), thought that the quarrel and
its stabilizing result has remained typical since then of all
stable accord in the future among the Ngadju Dajak.
The quarrel and the settlement between Sky and Earth,
or Tuglibong and Tuglay ( ? ) ，could also be the prototype of
all settlement of disputes among the Bagobo of today. Actually
most people throughout the Archipelago prefer to settle things
after much chiding and scolding. If there is no opposition, a
“ritual” opposition is put up to show a semblance of scolding,
and when two parties are unable to quarrel (e.g. the lovers
in a marriage contract), the respective families do the chiding.
The Javanese83 are skilled and accomplished in this verbal duel;
the more the abuse, the better. The same phenomenon occurs
in the Lesser Sunda Islands，in Bali, in Flores, etc. It is true
that Benedict did not report anything of this sort about the
Bagobo, but it is not likely that they should differ from their
neighbours, the Manobo,84who are notorious for their yelling and
abuse at such occasions and for their implacable and atrocious
diplomacy. The desire for a settlement is serious however and
an agreement is always arrived at. According* to H. Schaerer 广
the chiding and scolding would be the representation in time of
the same chiding employed by the primeval deities and has
become the prototype of all arbitration today. Perhaps it may
be an outlet for pent-up feeling, a primitive but effective medi
82. Scharer, Gottesidee, p. 126, 196, 108-109.

83. Rassers， Panji, pp. 41-43.
84. Garvan ， Manobo, p. 101-103.
85. Scharer, Gottesidee, p. 126.
cine that helps to prevent or even cure a pathological case; but

it would be religion as well.
“Court cases”，as Schaerer gives them, are also missing*
from Bagobo data, but Benedict* writes a few words about the
ordeal. In a way, all discussions can be considered ordeals. The
one who is victorious in an ordeal is regarded right, because
the gods have aided him. It would then be blasphemous and
useless in such a case to investigate further. Usually the ordeals
are performed exactly because human wisdom has not been
able to cope with the situation. H. Th. Fischer87 says that the
person who fails in the repartee is considered the loser in com
mon quarrels. According to Fischer, Adriani88 also says that
among Malay tribes，the person who has the last word in a
discussion or case is the winner. One should remember that
Tuglibong had the last word when she quarreled with the
sky; thus the latter gave in to her by rushing up high.
The great deities of the Ngaju Dayak,89 the woman Djata
and the man Mahatala，quarreled with each other when both
tried to eat of the fruit of the tree they had created. Their
envy led them to destroy the tree. Out of its remnants arose
cosmos and man. In this way their quarrel took the form of a
creative competition. The Bagobo used to recite a hymn, the
Gindaya-song,90 during their festival of ginem and also during
the killing of a human victim. The hymn was in praise of com
petition and mentions explicity racing and fighting. On the
second day of the Bagobo festival, horse racing took place.
Benedict91thinks it possible that this racing was a mere diver
；
sion however, this is not likely to be true. Games were held
everywhere in the world during festivals and many found their
origin in religion. As the cosmos of the Bagobo arose out of a
competition between sky and earth, the horse race or other
competitive games could well be the celebration of this event,
although the element of diversion and relaxation is there, too.
86, Benedict, Ceremonial, pp. 222-223.

87. Fischer, Paradiesmythen, p. 241-242.
88 . Fischer， ibidem.
89. Scharer, Gottesidee, p. 196.
90. Benedict，Ceremonial p. 163， 101.
30 PIETER JAN RAATS
VI. Tuglibong and some Spirits in other Tribes
1 . Fem ale S p irits in other Tribes
The phenomenon of a female spirit in the creation myths

is not particularly Bagobo. There are other tribes in the
Archipelago where similar characters appear. Those closest to
the Bagobo, about whom some information is available here,
are their neighbours in Northeastern Mindanao, the Manobo.
Personalities with similar features as Tuglibong are also found
in Celebes. Borneo and Ceram. The short description in this
section of these deities will perhaps make the picture of the
Bagobo primeval woman more vivid. The deity that appears in
the first myths of the Bagobo as a co-creator is associated
with fertility because she appears with the rice, and perhaps
she is the person who sits now in the underworld and is as
sociated with death. The possibility of associating Tuglibong
with death would make her similar to the Manobo female
deities.
a) Female Spirits in Mindanao
The Manobo92 believe in a goddess who is queen of the

afterworld and their chief of the dead. She lives at the pillars
of the world. Her name is Ibu，which means “mother.” The
pillars remind one of the central tree, pole or pestle. Another
spirit of the Manobo is Dagau.93 She lives with a python also
at the pillars of the world and causes earthquakes' by ordering
the python to writhe around the pillars. She is the Manobo
goddess of rice, and she can make the soil infertile and diminish
the amount of rice in the granaries if the conduct of man does
not please her. Both Ibu and Dagau are associated wifh pillars
and rice and neither of the two is necessarily identical with
Tuglibong. It seems however, that the Bagobo character
Mebuyan can be identified with Tuglibong，and Mebuyan, as
will appear in the next chapter, is definitely associated with
the underworld. The snake could be the symbol of the horizon.
92. Garvan, Manobo, p. 192.

93. Garvan, loc. cit” p. 191.
If there is really some identity between the Manobo women

Dagau and Ibu and the Bagobo Tuglibong, the underworld
would be the place where she lives today. The Mandaya, neigh
bours of the Bagobo, have a goddess Manamoan who is asso
ciated with the earth and presides over childbirth,w which
makes her really Ibu, the mother.
b) Female Spirits In Celebes
The word Dagau makes one think of the Toradja spirit

Ndara5" or I-ndara, the antagonist of the sky-spirit I-lai and a
goddess of rice and fertility. Indara’s hair consists of rice ears.
It will be recalled that Tuglibong is also associated with rice and
is the antagonist of the sky.
The myth of the Minahassans (North East Celebes, Indo
nesia) is different. It shows belief in a spirit called Lumimuut;'6
who arose out of a stone scorched by the heat of the sun. In a
way, she is a daughter of the earth and the sky, and as a
woman she also represents the earth. Being made pregnant by
the four winds, she gave birth to mythical beings who were
groups of seven and nine. After a flood she and a son were
the only survivors. Both planned to travel around the earth
in search of partners. In order to recognize each other and not
to commit incest they took sticks of the same length with them.
After they had traveled around the world they met again and
married because the stick of Lumimuut had grown long and
their relationship could no longer be traced; the two thought
they were not relatives. This last part of the myth corresponds
to a myth about the ancestress of the Mandaya, neighbors of
the Bagobo. Here also a woman was rescued during a flood
together with her son whom she had to marry. The first part,
however, reminds us directly of Tuglibong who had been
scorched.
The word Lumimuut also reminds one of scorching, the
closest Visayan equivalent for it being “alimuut” which, with
，
the infix “um，，，would make “lumimuut” the scorched one. It
is remarkable that the name of a great male spirit of the
9
4

5 9
9
Downs, Toradja, p . 12.

6. Wilken. Animisme. p. 214-215.
32 PIETER JAN RAATS
Bagobo, “Mandarangan”，seems to mean “the scorcher，，

，and is
associated with the sky. In the Minahassan myth, a scorching
myth and a flood myth would have been combined. Lumimuut
holds the magic stick in her hands in the way that Tuglibong
holds the pestle. She has more discernible characteristics than
Tuglibong but the stories about her discuss the same items as
those associated with the latter, i.e., scorching, rescue, sky and
earth, mother, stick, etc. Her association with the stone may
also remind us of the Visayan word: libon, the stone, the virgin.
c) Female Spirits in Borneo
The Dusun97 in Northwest Borneo have a deity called

Warunsasadun, the consort of Kinorohingan who is associated
with the sky. She killed her own child and buried it in the
earth, thus making the soil fertile and productive. The body
of her child is in a way her own body, thus suggesting that she
is associated with the earth.
The spirit Djata08 of the Ngaju Dayak, South East Borneo,
Indonesia, like the Manobo Dagau, lives below the world. She
gives life to the people in the form of health and wealth derived
from a good harvest. Like the Dagau of the Manobo, Djata
withholds the harvest if the order of the cosmos is violated.
Like Tuglibong, Djata used to be considered the creatress or
co-creatress of the world. This may be the reason why she is
interested in the order of the cosmos. This may also be the
case with Dagau of the Manobo,
d) Female Spirits in Ceram
The Wemale" in Ceram, Indonesia, have a much discussed

deity called Mulua Satene. She was formely the queen of the
mythical beings and became the queen of mankind in the Beyond
after death had been introduced. The first part would certainly
correspond to the former task of Tuglibong. In the Bagobo
myth however Tuglibong^ task would later be taken over by a
female spirit Mebuyan, Tuglibcmg， s daughter, who belongs to
97. Evans， Dusum, p . 15.

98. Scharer, Gottesidee, p. 18-20.
99. Jensen, Drei Strome, p. 114， 157-—
159.
the same category as Tuglibong, since she is a female spirit and

associated with earth and rice. Association with the dead
today would be understandable because the old “paradise，，has
been removed to the underworld. This will be discussed later.
The Bagobo consider Mebuyan the “queen” of the “dead,” but
since she is likely to be the same person as Tuglibong, she may
have affinity with Djata and Mulua (and perhaps with Dagan
and Ibu).
2. The Bagobo T uglibong
Like Tuglibong, the female spirits of the other tribes

mentioned are also hazy, but since their characteristics show
some similarities any idea of the personality of each will make
that of Tuglibong clearer to us. Both Tuglibong and Mulua
Satene of the Wemale are chiefs of the mythical beings, but
Mulua Satene is also the chief of the dead in the underworld.
Ndara of the Toradja is the antagonist of Ilai and a powerful
co-creatress or creatress. Djata is also a creatress and as such
co-responsible for the destruction of the central tree. Today,
she rules in the underworld. The associations of Djata and
Mulua with the underworld make them similar to Dagau and
Ibu of the Manobo，and especially to Mebuyan of the Bagobo
who, like Mulua Satene, made the underworld and rules it today.
In order to make Mebuyan or Tuglibong the equivalent of Djata
and Mulua Satene, one has only to add the characteristics of
Tuglibong to Mebuyan or those of Mebuyan to Tuglibong, be
cause the great spirits Djata and Mulua Satene suggest that
being co-creatress and later ruler of the underworld are com
plementary. I f this were done to Tuglibong, she would become
a great spirit, the principle founder of the Bagobo way of life
(cf. note 31), and a co-creatress whose real importance nowa
days still apears if one would admit that part of her function is
given to another character, her daughter, with whom she is in
reality one. The reasons for this separation of functions can be
come more or less apparent only after the discussion of the re
maining myths.
It is also important to arrive at a fuller understanding of
the symbols of the two (or one) Bagobo women, Tuglibong and
：
Mebuyan the pestle and the mortar. It was with these in
34 PIETER JAN RAATS
struments that the sky and underworld were made. The actions
and intrigues of the spirits will necessarily differ if a tribe
places pestle and mortar in the center, or a tree, a scaffold, or
a mountain. These items have probably all the same function
of beginning, and the spirits that are believed to operate or
handle them will be in function identical as well, although the
intrigues will differ.
Mebuyan will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.
Discussing here both characters, Tuglibong and Mebuyaii, has
been unavoidable if either is to be made clearer and better
understood.
V II. Summary
Tuglibong, “the” woman or virgin, seems to be the chief

of the mythical beings who were brought to the verge of disaster
or had not yet been able to appear on the surface of the earth
during a scorching period caused by a careless sky. Tuglibong
was able to avert this, and she led the mythical beings into a
golden age when death, as we know it today, or work and
fatigue did not exist, and when “by and by” children began to
be born. What happened later will be dealt with in the next
chapter.
The Bagobo think of the sky as a source of harm, while
other tribes regard it as a source of good things, though rarely,
if ever, of good only. Tuglibong was able to make the sky go
up higher by scolding it while pounding. The Bukidnon believe
that the striking of the pestle against the sky caused the sky’s
retreat. Since the Ngaju Dayak hold similar ideas, the pos
sibility must be considered that repeated arguing could be iden
tical in the myths with physical actions such as pounding or
pecking, etc.，and eventually with dancing, music and all rhyth
mic movements. In that case the pestle could symbolize the
creation of sky, space, surface of the earth, and horizon. The
use of the pestle would be identical in effect with the cutting
down of the “tree” or the destruction of the “mountain” or the
“scaffold” in the centre. Some ritual practices of the Bagobo
and others in Mindanao seem to strengthen this possibility.
Among these are the Bagobo bolang bolang and the Subanon
buklug. Since the buklug is a rite for general purposes, while
the bolang bolang is played mainly during harvest feasts, it is
possible that the palakpak used in the Bagobo planting cere
mony is the counterpart of the bolang which is perhaps also
the instrument in the rites for Mebuyan, the deity of the under
world. It should be borne in mind that Tuglibong and Mebuyan
are probably identical. If this were so, it would also be more
understandable to say that Tuglibong is the goddess that in
stituted the Bagobo way of life as it supposes mortality. Much
would then be clarified but it is not possible to do so with
certainty. On the other hand, it is quita certain that quarrels,
as they are elsewhere also，are part of the Bagobo idea about
creation, either of sky and earth, sun and moon，upperworld
and underworld. They lead to separation which could explain
the origin of time and of space in the meaning of sky, under
world, and surface of the earth. In quarrels the more personal
contribution of creating spirits is emphasized above eventually
more mechanical activities or movements. Guided by H.
Schaerer, the author attempted to inquire whether the Bagobo
know of ritual quarrels in their social life. Very little data on
this point could be obtained; hence, it was not possible to settle
the question. However, the Bagobo customs of ordeal and of
competition in songs and practice during1their celebrations seem
to suggest so. The female spirits of Bagobo and other tribes
have something in common and their characteristics seem to
overlap. One can admit that Tuglibong and Mebuyan are
most probably identical. In that case Tuglibong would be a
great co-creatress and protector comparable to the female deities
of those other sometimes better known tribes in the archipelago.
Her pestle and her mortar are the symbols for the upperworld
and underworld as well as for the centre and horizon. What in
other myths is achieved by cutting or demolishing, is done by
bumping and scolding here. It is around symbols, like these
instruments, that the intrigues of the spirits are actually woven,
or in other words, the symbols often determine the character of
the creative personality and its action. In Bagobo mythology it
is a primeval dissatisfied Woman who argues and thus “creates”
while she pounds rice with a pestle.
36 PIETER JAN RAATS
C hapter Three : MEBUYAN
I. The Myths of Lumabat and Mebuyan
1 . Introduction
The myth of Tuglibong tells us how an abode for the

mythical beings came to be created or how they appeared from
the womb of the earth upon the surface of the earth. They
began their existence on earth in a protected and undiversified
state; they were not yet “man”. They lived in what can be
called a kind of paradise at the expense, perhaps, of the woman
who had saved them from torture and disaster in the hands of
their antagonist, the sky. The following myth relates how these
mythical beings became “mortal m e n ' the last step in the
development of the being that we call “man” today.
There were two beings, Mebuyan and Lumabat, who an
nounced the arrival of a new period, the period of death or
mortality. The old abode was breaking up and a new one, far
away and difficult to reach, had to be established. The two
mythical beings discussed the proper site for the new abode.
They quarreled when they suggested diametrically opposed
solutions. Neither gave in to the other, so the myth divides
itself into two sections of adventures and intrigues.
The two myths seem to suggest “why” man is mortal,
where he will go after death, “what” he may expect there, and
perhaps what man’s function and significance in this new sys
tem of mortality may be. The first of the two solutions to be
discussed is the one given and worked out by Mebuyan.
2. The Text o f the M yths
The quarrel of Lumabat and Mebuyan100 is related as fol

lows : “Long ago Lumabat and his sister had a quarrel because
Lumabat had said, “You shall go with me up into heaven.”
And his sister had replied, “No，I don’t like to do that.”
Then they began to fight each other. Soon the woman sat
down on the big* rice mortar and said to Lumabat, “Now I am
100. Benedict, Myths; p. 20.

going down below the earth, down to Gimokudan. Down there

I shall begin to shake that lemon tree. Whenever I shake it ，
somebody up on the earth will die. If the fruit shaken down
is ripe then an old person will die on earth, but if a green fruit
falls, the one to die will be young.” Then she took a bowl filled
with pounded rice, and poured the rice into the mortar as a
sign that the people should die and go down to Gimokudan.
Presently the mortar began to turn round and round while the
woman was sitting upon it. All the while, as the mortar was
revolving, it slowly sank into the earth. But as it began to
settle in the ground, the woman dropped handfuls of the pound
ed rice upon the earth, with the words” See! I let fall this rice.
This makes many people die, dropping down like grains of rice.
；
Thus hundreds of people go down but none go up into heaven.”
The mortar kept on turning round, and kept going lower down,
until it disappeared in the earth, with Lum bat， s sister still
sitting on it. After this, she came to be known as Mebuyan.
Before she went down below the earth, she was known only
as Tube’ka Lumabat (sister of Lumabat). Mebuyan is now chief
of a town called Banua Mebu，，
yan (Mebu yan， s tow n), where
she takes care of all dead babies, and gives them milk from her
breasts. Mebu， yan is ugly to look at, for her whole body is
covered with nipples. All nursing children who still want the
milk go directly when they die to Banua Mebu’yan instead of
，
to Gimokudan. They remain there with Mebu yan，until they
stop taking milk from her breasts. Then they go to their own
families in Gimokudan, where they can get rice, and “live very
well”.
All the spirits stop at M ebuyan， s town on their way to
Gimokudan. There the spirits wash all their joints in the black
river that runs through Mebuyan’s. They wash the top of
their head, too. This bathing (pamalugu) is for the purpose
of making the spirits feel at home, so they will not turn away
and go back to their own bodies. If a spirit could return to
its own body, the body would get up and be alive again.”
There are two stories about Lumabat, the brother of
Mebuyan, one recorded by Cole,101 the other by Benedict. The
101. Cole, W ild Tribes， p. 126.

102. Benedict, Myths, p. 20.
38 Pi e t e r J a N r a a t s
one told by Benedict102 is given first.

“Tuglai and Tuglibong had many children. One of them
was called Lumabat. There came a time when Lumabat
quarreled with his sister and was very angry with her. He
said, “I will go to the sky, and never come back again•” So
Lumabat started for the sky country. Many of his brothers and
sisters went with him. A part of their journey lay over the
sea. When they had passed the sea, a rock spoke to them and
said, “Where are you going?” In the beginning all the rocks
and plants and the animals could talk with people. One boy
answered the rock: “We are going to the sky country.” As soon
as he had spoken, the boy turned into a rock. But his brothers
and sisters went on, leaving the rock behind. Presently a tree
asked: “Where are you going?” “We are going to the sky， ”
replied one of the girls. Immediately the girl became a tree.
Thus, all along the journey, if any one answered, he became
a tree，a stone or rock, according to the nature of the object that
put the question. By and by the remainder of the party reached
the border of the sky. They had gone to the very end of the
earth, as far as the horizon. But here they had to stop, because
the horizon kept moving- up and down (supa-supa) . Sky and
earth would part, and then close together again, just like the
jaws of an animal when eating. This movement of the horizon
began as soon as the people reached it.
There were many young men and women; all tried to jump
through the place where the sky and the earth parted. But the
edges of the horizon are very sharp, like a kampilan. They
came together with a snap whenever anybody tried to jump
through and cut him to pieces. The parts of his body then
became stones, or grains of sand. One after another of the
party tried to jump through, for nobody knew the fate of the
one who went before him.
Last of all, Lumabat jumped quick, quicker than the rest.
Before the sharp edges could snap shut, he was safe in heaven.
As he walked along, he saw many wonderful things. He saw
many kampilans standing alone, and fighting, without any man
to hold them. Lumabat passed them all by. Then he came to
the town where the bad dead live. The town is called “Kilut.”
There, in the flames，he saw many spirits with heavy sins on
them. The spirits with little sins were not in the flames. They
lay, their bodies covered with sores, in an acid that stings

like the juice of a lemon. Lumabat went on, past them all.
Finally he reached the house of Diwata, and went up into the
house. There he saw many diwata who were chewing betelnut.
One Diwata spat from his mouth the isse (betelnut) that he had
finished chewing. Lumabat saw the isse coming from the
mouth of the god; it looked to him like a sharp knife. The
Diwata laid hold of Lumabat who thought the god held a
sharp knife in his hand. But it was not a knife; it was just
the isse. Diwata rubbed the isse on Lumabat’s belly. With one
downward stroke he opened the belly and took out Lumabat’s
intestines (betuka). Then Lumabat himself became a god. He
was not hungry anymore for his intestines were gone. Yet if he
wanted to eat, he had only to say, “food，come now!” and at
once all the fishes were there, ready to be caught. In the sky-
country fish do not have to be caught. And Lumabat became
the greatest of all the Diwata.”
The myth of Lumabat recorded by Cole differs from the
myth recorded by Benedict. It will be presented and discussed
in the next chapter which is about Lumabat.
3. A ntagonists in the Bagobo M yth
In Chapter Two: Tuglibong, we discussed in passing two

antagonists, Lumabat and Mebuyan, who quarreled about the
future fate of the mythical beings. The element heat had been
restricted to the sky and the mythical beings had become ter
restrials on earth, happy children of mother earth. After the
creation of the sky, the underworld, for one reason or another,
was created. The creation of this new abode included the neces
，
sity of having the mythical beings leave the earth at some time
which would mean “death” as we know it today. The Bagobo
have preserved this spiritual truth in the form of a myth of
antagonism difficult to unravel. However, the first part, which
pertains to Mebuyan, is less obscure and logically connected
with the preceding chapter. Discord concerning the location of
the new abode and the path to it, led to a fight between the
founders of this new abode. The man Lumabat intended to
guide the mythical beings to the sky, while Mebuyan, the
woman, wanted to have them in the underworld. Possessed of
40 PIETER JAN RAATS
greater determination, the woman Mebuyan seemingly gained

victory over her opponent. She became the founder of the
underworld to which most, or all, of the “souls” will go.
4. A ntagonists in the M yth o f the O t l>anum
The myth of Mebuyan and Lumabat and how their quarrel

started man's mortality, is a composite myth. Not all Malay
myths on the same subject matter are particularly difficult.
Sometimes they are transparent or almost as simple as a fairy
tale. H. Schaerer has quoted the myth of the Ot Danum,108 a
Dajak tribe. The myth will tell how Pahatala had created every
thing. However, since nobody could enjoy all the good things ，
P ahatala， s co-creator, called Pahatara, decided to make man.
He found some eggs (a common symbol of creation) which he
molded into a male and female form. Then he went in search
of stone-bones and stone-breath for these forms. When he had.
left, a certain Peres (note the antagonism implied in the name:
pe = good5res = bad) who is associated with the underworld, hap
pened to pass by the place where Pahatara had left the two
incomplete beings under the care of his wife, Andin Bamban.
Peres asked for her husband. She answered that he had left
to find stone-breath and stone-bones for his people. “That is
not very good， ” Peres said in words to that effect, “because if
you give them stone-breath and stone-bones, they will have
eternal life and cannot die. Soon your earth will be too small.
It would be better if they would live for a short time only,
then die and come back afterwards”. “Is that possible?” Andin
asked. “Of course， ” Peres answered. “The body of each of
these people is already earth. You have only to add some wind-
breath, some bones from wood, and blood from water/' Andin
agreed. She started to scoop wind and haul water while Peres
made the bones. Soon the people were breathing. When Paha
tara came home, he was surprised to see that the creatures were
alive. His wife explained that Peres had visited her and given
his advice. “It is good， ” Pahatala said. Then seeing that the be
ings still had no nails or hairs, he took from the stuff he had
found and gave them nails, teeth and hair. Since then nails, teeth
103. Scharer, Gottesidee^ p. 25.

and hair have not decayed after death.

The story of the Ot Danum and the Bagobo version are
not incompatible with each other. The myth of the Ot Danum
is less complicated however and seems more familiar to us. Some
differences between the two myths may be pointed out. First
of all, in the Ot Danum myth, the question of mortality or
immortality seems to be simultaneous with creation. There is
no mention made of a woman who had rescued the mythical
beings from scorching or a flood; nor of a woman and a man
who try to lead the mythical beings to another abode if the
first had to be abandoned. Man is according to the Ot Danum
a puppet in the hands of two stronger beings who are the
antagonistic co-creators. Neither is much said about the future
abode of the “souls,” although Peres and Andin Bamban are
probably both associated with death and the underworld, while
Pahatara looked for help in the sky, which seems to be here a
symbol of unchangeability, while earth and material things are
symbols of decay. At the same time the belief in a come back
is nevertheless given expression to. In the Bagobo myth
Mebuyan and Lumabat have the power of co-creators but they
are also mythical beings and potential “men” who precede man
kind and lead them to the new abode. One remark in the Ot
Danum myth is to be considered carefully. Peres says that
“man” should disappear and come back later. Peres speaks
here of introducing a system which, based on the fear of “over
”，
population includes the preservation of “souls” in the Beyond,
and of their return to earth after some time. It should be noted
that a strong similarity between children and father or grand
fathers actually exists and that the tribes did not visibly in
crease by much. That could mean that there is, for the Ot
Danum, a constant exchange of ‘‘souls’，between the Beyond
into which the dead disappear and the surface of the earth on
which they reappear again. The existence in myths of such an
exchange can help us to understand the myth of Mebuyan. She
appears as the guard of children who have to be “sent forth .，
，
A myth of the Wemale, as will be shown later, also speaks of
sending children back from the Beyond to the earth.
42 PIETER JAN RAATS
II. The Character of Mebuyan

in Bagobo Myths and Ceremonies
1 . M ebuyan and the M ortar
The exact function of Mebuyan among the mythical beings

before she began to play her particular role is not clear but she
is supposed to have been a powerful being. She must show
traces of Tuglibong and she is the sister of Lumabat, the son
of Tuglibong. Her “sinking into” the underworld seated on the
mortar resulted in the location of the underworld just as the
hitting of the sky by the pestle was the occasion or cause of
the sky， s moving to its present location and of the appearance
of the mythical beings on the surface of the earth. It also
changed the condition of man because it introduced death or at
least the city for the dead. The instrument Mebuyan used to
travel to the underworld is the mortar, whose shape and func
tion make it a fit symbol of womanhood and the underworld.
It seems that mortar and death are associated in many places
in the Malay Archipelago. In Laos, Java, the little Sunda Island
(B ali), in Alor and the Kei Island, there are “kettle drums”
or bronze “mokko.” In Laos1。 * these drums are still buried
ceremoniously and unearthed later during festivals when people
contact the spirits of the dead. In Java big drums were once
used for a similar purpose. They were taken to cemeteries or
hung in the serambi in front of the mosques. Here the drums
are no longer buried but they still suggest death. The kettle
drums look like mortars and some are covered with symbols,
geometrical figures, or figures of animals and human beings.
In Central Celebes105big stone vats are found half buried in the
ground and were probably used for burials. It seems that burial
jars found throughout the Archipelago reveal a relation between
(death) jar and drum. The body of the round burial jars of
the Manobo in Mindanao are often similar in form and decora
tion to the ceremonial drums of the Ifugao in Northern Luzon.
104. Dubois ， Alor, p. 32; plate X V I, X V I I ， v. Heekeren, Bronze Age,

p . 14.
105. V. Heekeren，Bronze Age， p. 59-63; plate 24， 25.
On the cover of one of the Manobo burial jars a female figure

appears in squatting position, and on another a similar figure
seems to sit upon something that could be a drum or a mortar.
M ebuyan， s trip into the underworld represents a widespread
motif. The three female deities of the Wemale108 tribe called
Rabie，Mulua Satene, and Hainuwele, all disappear into the
earth. The first two persons descend alive, the last one dead.
Jensen admits that all three are ultimately one and the same
person with a lunar character. Mebuyan’s name could also be
reminiscent of the Malay “bulan”*~“moon”，and the whirling
movement of the mortar is perhaps a lunar characteristic. J. v.
Baal107 mentions a whirling top in the island of Flores. It would
do exactly the opposite of the whirling mortar of the Bagobo,
because it climbs the mountain Inerie and there treasures are
bestowed upon the boy (who perhaps (?) rode on the top) by
his “father.” From that time on this boy grew up very fast,
a lunar symbol.
In the previous chapter the pestle was the center of dis
cussion. It was the instrument that forced the sky higher up
and thus freed the earth from the heat of the sky. In this
chapter, the mortar appears as the instrument with which the
netherworld was made, was reached, or came to be known.
Pestle and mortar are associated with and may therefore sym
bolize to the Bagobo the upper-world and netherworld or the
universe as a whole. They can perhaps also symbolize now man
and woman or life and death; the totality.
2 . M ebuyan and Bice
In the myths wherein the sky was considered the source of

good，it is sometimes said that the retreating sky permitted some
seeds to fall into the hands of man so he would live. In the
Bagobo myths, where the earth is the source of good, seeds and
food are expected not from above but from below. And indeed,
it seems that Mebuyan, having decided to leave the earth, also
intended first to pack the rice and take it down with her. She
emptied the jar of rice into the mortar but it seems she changed
her mind. As she whirled down into the earth, the rice dropped
106. Jense，Drei Strdme, p. 157.
107. v. Baal, Wegen, p. 176.
44 PIETER JAN RAATS
out of her hands, enabling man to survive on earth for a while

but suggesting also that man, like his food, is earthly in origin
and destination.
The concept of a deity who descends into the earth and
drops rice, or later produces rice out of her dead body, is com
monly held in the Malay Archipelago. Sometimes this rice-
woman must be killed and dismembered. Jensen108 tells the
story of a woman who cooked rice every day while her hus
band wondered where the delicious food came from. One
day he discovered that she would rub her hands above a cook
ing pot and the dirt of her hands (earth) dropping into the pot
changed into rice. He was upset and scolded her. In resent
ment, she went into the ground and became the rice plant. The
deity of the Wemale, Hainuwele, did not descend into the earth
alive, but was killed，dismembered and buried. Out of her body
camotes sprouted forth. These are seemingly just variations of
the same motif，all telling us that a woman later identified with
the earth, feeds the terrestrials from below. During her life/09
Hainuwele produced precious things which were found in her
excrements. Benedict110 records the Bagobo myth in which the
sun and the moon quarreled and killed their celestial daughter.
The sun then dismembered the shiny girl and tossed the pieces
out of the window. These became the stars. As moon and
stars are usually symbols of treasures or precious things, this
recalls to mind Hainuwele. It would mean that what the
，
Wemale associate with one figure Hainuwele, the Bagobo as
sociate with two, Mebuyan and the daughter of the sun and the
moon in the myth just cited. The important thing is that
the women mentioned are producers of treasures and food
scattered in abundance all around or of vegetable plants that
“sprout out” in great numbers of their dismembered bodies. In
the myth of Srivijaya rice also turns into treasures.111 The sun
and the moon are often associated with the sky and the earth.
This would bring us close enough to Mebuyan, the daughter
of Tuglibong, who represents the earth. Jar or mortar on
which she sits would be identical with the body of Mebuyan.
1± 1 1 1 1
8
Jensen, Prometheus, p. 151.

9 0
Jensen: Drei Strome, p. 124.

Benedict, Myths3 p . 17.
1
IX
1
Benedict, Myths ， p . 17.

X
They are all earth or underworld now.

In her myth Mebuyan sometimes resembles the Wemale
Mulua Satene who descends without being killed and dismem
bered. Jensen, in fact, considers Hainuwele and Mulua S.
identical. Nevertheless, Mulua Satene is not directly associated
with rice or edible plants, whereas Hainuwele’s dismembered
body gave forth camotes.
In Java, too, there is a story about a “rice-girl,” Ken
Tisnawati,112 who dies on the knees of the god Bhattara Guru.
Soon after she is buried, edible plants grow out of her body,
particularly rice, which grows out of her genitals (rice is as
sociated with fertility). Bhattara Guru’s legal wife, Dewi Shri,
identifies herself with Ken Tisnawati and becomes the patron
of rice and of agriculture in Java. The Bukidnon in Mindanao,
the Dusun113 in Borneo, the Manggarai114 in Flores, even the
Bagobo themselves, have stories or myths relating how rice or
a miraculous harvest of rice grew out of the body of a buried
woman, child, or higher being. These and similar stories thus
associate food (fertility) and death (burial).
3. M ebuyan and D eath
In the myth of Mebuyan death is explicitly linked with her

gifts of rice when she says that this “dropping of the rice
will make many people die, dropping down just like grains of
rice.” All the female spirits mentioned so far are linked to
food, death, and disappearance into the earth. Mebuyan sinks
into the earth alive but she speaks of death and her “trip”
is the equivalent of burial. Ken Tisnawati dies and Hainuwele
；
is danced into the ground violently Mulua Satene does not die
herself but announces death like Mebuyan and descends deep
into underworld. The transfer of habitat, the mortar，falling
rice and death, are obviously associated concepts for the Bagobo,
just as birth, food, death and burial are. These related concepts
probably point to the earthly downward character of all visible
life. The normal course of all things is: dust you are, etc. It
is the earth that attracts, not the sky. The story represents
112. Rassers, Panji3 p . 17.

113. Evans, Dusun, p . 16, Cole， Bukidnon, p. 126.
114. Verheyen, Hoogste Wezen, p. 169.
46 PIETER JAN RAATS
this simple truth but suggests nevertheless that death came

about through the decision made by a person, not merely as a
law of nature.
4. M ebuyan and F e rtility
The myth tells that Mebuyan receives the Bagobo dead at

the entrance of the underworld and bathes them in the waves
of a black river which flows through her realms. This bathing,
called Pamalugu/15recalls the ceremonial bath the Bagobo usual
ly take when they celebrate the Ginem-festival or a wedding.11*1
As there is identity in word and ceremony between this pa-
lugu rite of the Bagobo and the pamalugu of Mebuyan, an
identity in meaning seems to be suggested. This would mean
that festivals and wedding are in reality somehow celebrated,
or supposed to be celebrated, in or with relation to that realm
of Mebuyan, the Beyond. For Mebuyan marriages on earth
would result in a regular increase of inhabitants in her city.
Marriage thus seems to be her institution, just as the festival
(during which the spirits of the dead become active) could be
considered as celebrations representing her house in the Beyond.
Mebuyan nurses the children in the underworld. She is
the head of this special department over there. She feeds the
children until they are strong enough to travel the tiresome
path to Gimokudan, the residence of the souls. If Mebuyan and
Mulua Satene (the goddess of the Wemale) were compared in
this respect，117 one difference would be discovered. Mulua Satene
sits at the end of the long journey which the souls have to
undergo. When they arrive at her gate they are all children.
She can send them back to earth to be reborn. The Bagobo put
Mebuyan at the entrance of the Beyond to bathe all the souls,
but especially to take care of the children who will be fed by
her until they are adult “souls.” That the myths of the Wemale
and the Bagobo are somehow related is rather clear and, regard
less of the differences between the myths, the two women—
Mulua and Mebuyan— are associated with womanhood and
motherhood. Mulua Satene is told to send children to earth
115. Benedict, Ceremonial, p . 117-124.

117. Jensen，Drei Strome, p. 155, 156.
and thus to control birth. Mebuyan, however, shakes the tree

from which .a green fruit falls，and nurses it until it is ripe.
She thus substitutes for earthly motherhood. In the Wemale
myth, earthly motherhood is in the service of M ulua; in the Ba
gobo myth Mebuyan seems to be in the service of earthly mother
hood, but only apparently so. Mebuyan holds the tree upon
which as upon a great mother all that lives grows and hangs.
She also bears the symbol of fertility on her body, which is
covered with milk glands. This is the reason why she looks
so ugly. The goddess with the many breasts, who can eventually
substitute for all the mothers on earth, holding* the tree, not
only suggests now that all motherhood finds its origin in her
(so that earthly mothers are rather the delegates of the god
dess) but also that all fertility on earth is dependent on her.
She seems to be the great mother, the lasting source of all the
partial and temporary fertility found in the beings on earth.
Here, it may be pointed out that Manamoan of the Mandaya
(neighbours of the Bagobo) is also associated with the earth
and presides over childbirth.118
The descent into the earth and' the use of water in the
black river transform the dead. Earth, river, water and dark
ness are thus indelible elements under the care of Mebuyan.
The goddess Djata of the Ngaju Dayak119 is also associated with
rivers, and the Tinguians in Luzon believe that an “old woman”
owns a pool over there whose water revive the dead and renew
youth.120 To go to Mebuyan would mean the return to the
origin, the beginning. Mebuyan is also a psychopomp who
guides souls or puts them on the right track, and thus the
“apartment” of Mebuyan in the Beyond appears to be a womb
that begets new life for man in a new country, but also controls
life on earth, ultimately all life here and in the Beyond.
5. M ebuyan and the Tree
In the previous section the tree of Mebuyan in the under

world was briefly mentioned. On it all life depends or “hangs.”
Similar trees are believed to be found in other places in the
18. Cole，W ild Tribes， p. 178.

19. Scharer, Gottesidee， p. 18-20.
12丨 Demetrio, Death. Phil. Studies V o l . 14. p. 373.
48 PIETER JAN RAATS
Philippines.121 They are supposed to stand in far away and

desolate places (equivalent of underworld). A mark is placed
on the tree by the spirits in charge of every child that is born.
As soon as the child reaches the mark, it dies. This would be
the equivalent of shaking the tree done by the Bagobo Mebuyan
in her underworld. The shaking of the tree must mean the
plucking and the consuming of its fruits, the common image
of earth or underworld first giving and then consuming life.
Among the Bagobo Mebuyan is responsible for this process
since she decided to go to the underworld and to abandon man.
Perhaps she is supposed to have transplanted the ‘‘tree’，into
that realm. This tree，now sucking sustenance from and blos
soming in the realm of death, produces fruits that have to die,
fruits that live on earth but must return to the realm of death
where the cycle is checked. Shaking a tree and sucking into a
cortex are thus symbols of death. In this respect Mebuyan
would be the great mother of life as life actually is, containing
the germs of death，thus being mother and monster both, and
very much qualified to represent the totality.
The Atchin122 also have a tree in the underworld. As soon
as the dead man has eaten its fruit, he is really dead and sup
posed to be in the Beyond. Here the tree has more of the
function of the river and of the bath in the myth of Mebuyan,
and also shows how water and tree (vegetation) can be identical
in Malay symbolism.
6. Som e B ice and B ranch Cerem onies
Mebuyan is associated with rice, tree, earth, underworld,

life, marriage, and death. Death and rice are very closely
related because Mebuyan herself has made the dropping of
rice the ‘‘cause of death/* No rice ceremonies of the Bagobo
are recorded，but only some of the Manobo,123 their neighbours.
It is their custom to make a human figure out of cooked rice
during the ceremonial after a burial and to let everybody take
a bite. What this exactly means is difficult to gliess but it
seems to link rice and death also, the way it is in the Bagobo
12 Demetrio, loc. cit., p. 377.

12： Demetrio, loc. cit” p. 382.
12： Garvan, Manobo, p. 127.
myth. The Manobo124 observe another rite during the burial

dinner. They put rice and other food on a winnowing tray and
jointly toss the victuals into the air. At the same moment,
they retreat swiftly, for a particle falling on a person would
be considered a foreshadowing of his speedy death. The anthro
pologist and narrator of this custom, Garvan, says he could not
find out what the origin of this custom was. In the myth of
the Bagobo rice, death and mortar (or winnowing tray ), are
associated items and the dropping of rice seems to be especially
significant in it.
In Carcar, on the island of Cebu, a similar belief prevails
during wedding ceremonies. Particles falling on young girls
would signify a speedy marriage; hence, the participants are
anxious to catch or to be touched by them. This custom exists
in a more sophisticated form in many places in the southern
part of the Philippines. Here the idea of future telling has
replaced or superseded the element “death” unless death and
marriage are both really and closely associated with the under
world, as well as wisdom in general.
In Java125 a similar ceremony has degenerated into a chil
dren^ game. The children make a doll and put it on a winnow
ing tray. Then they collect all kinds of utensils used for cooking
and storing rice without the permission of the owners. Scolding
and quarreling ensues— a very important feature in Bagobo
myths. The items are then put upon the tray together with the
doll. The relation with rice is unmistakable. Towards the end
of the game，the children use the doll to foretell something of
the future, thus showing that the custom had originally been
the game of life and death. Surprisingly, the custom or its
equivalent appears lacking- among the Bagobo. A careful in
vestigation should be made in Bagobo land to determine whether
similar rites or ceremonies are observed by this tribe.
A certain Bagobo ceremony which makes use of branches
recalls to us the tree of Mebuyan. Cole126 tells how during a
Bagobo festival,a planter at Santa Cruz saw the priestess take
a palm leaf and some buds to divine and explicitly declare that
2
4
11
Garvan, ibidem,
2
5
Rassers, Panji, p. 44.

ii
2
6

50 PIETER JAN RAATS
the leaf represented streams, rivers, tribes and individuals.

Although this is an inadequate division of things in the world,
the leaf may be understood as the earth and all life upon it.
The priestess held up the palm leaf and swung it over the
buds in front of her. She gave a bud to the datu who opened
it and read the message from the god. It is possible that this
simple ceremony is a visual representation of the belief that
the goddess Mebuyan holds the tree of human fate in her hands
and drops ‘‘buds’’ full of information concerning the future and
the fate of the individuals and the tribe. Life after all sprouts
out of the earth and returns into the earth. Those that control
all life from below must know what is in store for the Bagobo.
7. W h y M ebuyan Descended in to the U nderw orld
One often reads in myths of Malay tribes that mythical

beings were allowed to travel to the sky and visit the gods,
even to take home with them things they wanted most such as
rice. It was also held possible for divine beings to come down
regularly and visit the earth-dwellers. This was perhaps the
custom of Melu,127 a divine being of the Bilaan (neighbours of
the Bagobo) whose mythical beings lived in a place where he
could take care of them. Sometimes it was necessary for Melu
to add some individuals to their number, since those beings did
not marry. One day Melu discovered that two mythical beings
had taken their fate into their own hands, and, after intercourse,
had given birth to a child. When Melu saw this, he left his
people, and they never saw him again. The mythical beings
had to leave the place and begin their life on earth. It was not
the direct release of death that caused the closing of the paradise
here but marriage or intercourse and birth, (cf. Bagobo myth
of Jizzard and Hunter, Chapter Four I I I ，paragraph 4，sub b.
page 81)
There is some similarity between Mebuyan and Melu. It
has been mentioned that Mebuyan is perhaps associated with
the moon. Melu may also be associated with the moon.128 We
are told how he made the world and man out of the dirt he
collected from his own body. He cleaned himself regularly be
127. Cole, loc. cit” p. 136.

128. Cole, loc. cit,} p. 137.
cause he liked to shine. The Bilaan have probably the moon in

mind, the object that regularly becomes dirty and is regularly
cleaned. The place where it leaves its dirt is the earth; that
would happen during the period of the three moonless nights.
Finally Melu retired also into the earth, where he lives with a
famous goddess Saweigh,129 a Bilaan co-creatress. This goddess
is possibly the equivalent of the Bagobo Tuglibong or Mebuyan.*
As there is no reason given in the myth of Mebuyan for
the closing of the earthly paradise, it is quite possible that the
Bagobo had in mind the explanation of the Bilaan. The latter
think of birth and death as characteristic anomalies130 in a
paradise. The introduction of one of them entails the other
and would necessarily end it. The Wemale,131 who have very
much in common with the Bagobo, suggest this also. Their
goddess Mulua Satene, who lives now in the underworld much
the same way as Mebuyan, regularly sends little children to the
earth where they are born of earthly mothers. Man is here the
cooperator of the gods and contributes to populating the city of
the spirits in the underworld, where each individual has finally
to appear. In the section ‘‘Mebuyan and the underworld” it
was suggested that Mebuyan could best be conceived as the
great mother who gives children to the earthly women who
bear children for her city and her kingdom in the Beyond, thus
making them her cooperators and representatives on earth.
The symbol of the tree in the myth of Mebuyan also seems to
suggest the rhythm of birth and death directed from the under
world. By going into the earth and the underworld Mebuyan
can feed life on earth and also shake the tree on which all life
hangs, thus causing- death on earth. So death seems to suppose
fertility or birth, intercourse and marriage. As sure as the
direct release of ‘‘death’’ could eventually end paradise, so the
introduction of birth and marriage can Bo likewise, because the
two seem to demand death, as Peres also stated in the myth
of the Ot Danum. This could mean that the two women, Mulua
Satene and Mebuyan, would originally have had the function
Melu had in the paradise of the Bilaan— to increase the number
Sa means Earth and Water.

129. Cole ， loc. cit” p. 137.
130. Benedict, Ceremonial， p. 67.
131. Jensen, Drei Strome, p . 155, 156.
52 PIETER JAN RAATS
of individuals. Today they would fulfill that task from below by

blessing and recognizing the marriage of the tribal members.
Through marriage a couple would represent Mebuyan on earth.
Once marriage and intercourse seemed to make the tribe
autonomous and independent of the spirits. Still, the tribe
remains subject to its queen in the underworld who holds and
nourishes the tree, and who shakes it whenever she wants to
consume some fruit (to call a member to her city), thus causing
death on earth. Mebuyan is the Mother but also the devouring
goddess.
8. C h ild b irth and the M ythical Abode
A Bagobo mother who is about to deliver a child sits in

her regular dwelling and holds in her hand a rope hanging
from the roof, the purpose of which can only be guessed at.
The Mabalians, translated by Cole to “midwives，，
，fulfill tasks
during a delivery which may be rational or not. One of these
seems to be religious in nature. Cole132 describes how a Mabalian
spreads a mat on the floor in the center of the room where the
partus will take place. Then she places on it all kinds of pre
cious things such as cloths, weapons and gongs. After this she
prays to the spirits to make the delivery easy and to make the
child healthy. A similar ceremony is performed during Bagobo
Ginem133 but with great solemnity, it being one of the most
important rites of the Bagobo. It is the so called Sonar134 cere
mony, which seems to be a reliving of mythical times since
collections of precious things are always apt to symbolise para
dise. Interesting too is what H. Breitenstein135 tells about the
Dayak of the Olo Ott tribe in Borneo. When a woman is about
to, deliver, all the doors of the house, boxes, etc., are opened,
but coins are also poured into copper plates，or rice and money
are placed between the feet of the woman in childbed “in order
to bait the child.”
I f one regards this as a sensible and religious custom, a
ceremony or a rite, one can appreciate it. The Bagobo or Olo
132 Cole，W ild Tribes, p. 100.

133. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 93—166.
134. Benedict， loc. cit” p. 125-126.
135. Breitenstein; In Indien^ p. 173,
Ott woman in childbed represents perhaps the mythical women

in the realm of Mebuyan, at the moment they took over
Mebuyan’s task, left paradise, and became Mebuyan’s arm or
representatives on earth. At this moment of giving birth the
women would be supposed to be in the paradise of mythical
times or in what is its equivalent: the realm of Mebuyan, and
the children would still be born in it. This way they would
celebrate the wonder of birth, and at the same time the decision
to become mortal men for themselves and for their children,
with the prospect of the paradise of a Mebuyan in the future
after death. Some may consider the ceremony merely a magic
device but others might consider it as something pious or reli
gious, as it perhaps originally was. To the latter, Mebuyan is
willing to lend a helping hand and to save mother and child.
Perhaps the ceremony is a memorial of the paradise and
the beginnings. The coins and the rice used in Borneo would
produce the same effect as the gongs, cloths and weapons of
the Bagobo. Heaps of coins and rice as well as cloth and other
metalware represent abundant food and riches, the character
istics of paradise. By performing the ceremony one would at
least show that he has，in a more general way, not forgotten
the origins of this world but that he honours and respects them.
If this supposition is correct, it is reasonable to expect that the
ancestors who brought this about are willing to help those who
“do not forget” but who commemorate it at the proper time.
III. Bagobo and Wemale
1 . R elated Fem ale S p irits
The Wemale are a tribe in Ceram (Moluccas, Indonesia).

Their principal myth will be discussed extensively in the next
chapter, but since the Wemale and their mythology were men
tioned several times already as having bearing on the Bagobo
myths in which Mebuyan appears, it is necessary to present
here more detailed information concerning the mythical heroes
of the Wemale, especially Hainuwele and Mulua Satene.130
136. Jensen，Drei Strome, p. 114-115: 155-156.

§4 PIETER JAN RAATS
The father of Hainuwele was a hunter who caught in the

forest a wild hog that carried a coconut on its tusks. In a
miraculous way, the coconut developed into a tree and out of
one of its new nuts the girl Hainuwele was born. The girl's
excrements were all sorts of precious things and she used to
sit in the center of a crowd that danced the so-called Maro
dance (a whirling dance)，distributing her gifts to the par
ticipants. One particular night she was caught there by the
vortex of the dancers who danced passionately. They thrust her
into the ground and the crowd trod down the soil above her.
Later her father unearthed the body and cut it into pieces out
of which camotes and edible plants soon grew. The arms were
taken to Mulua Satene，another great mythical woman. Mulua
took the incident seriously and decreed death for everybody.
With the arms of Hainuwele she beat the mythical beings who
had to jump through her gate (symbol of death), and they
were ordered to follow her later after she herself had blazed
the trail to the underworld. Much reminds us of Mebuyan, and
：
again whirling, death, burial, food, and Beyond or underworld,
are found together. Mulua Satene also announced a difficult
path over mountains and valleys down, on which everybody
would have to travel to the end of the underworld. Mulua S.
；
will sit there not at the entrance but at the end of the under
world where she admits the newly arrived Wemale when they
have become children after nine consecutive deaths and rebirths
(in the underworld), and on whose arrival she releases a child
to the earth. The underworld is like a womb that re-generates
the dead within a period of nine months and in the reversed
order from adult to child. (Lunar symbolism). Mebuyan is
similar to Mulua Satene because she opened the underworld,
but in the Wemale myth it is out of the dismembered body of
Hainuwele that camotes grow, whereas the Bagobo mention
that out of the hands of Mebuyan the grains of rice dropped.
According to Jensen, the two Wemale goddesses, Hainuwele and
Mulua S., are one and the same person; hence the Bagobo
Mebuyan can eventually stand for both as well.
2. R elated K ites
The tribes of the Malay Achipelago are generally considered

to be one field for study, but it is the Bagobo and the Wemale
who show quite close similarities in their beliefs, myths and
rites. It is the popular belief among the Wemale that the
dance the Wemale mythical people performed when they con
ducted Hainuwele into the ground is the same as their Maro
dance today, a whirling or circling ritual dance. If the Bagobo
have a dance similar to the Wemale dance for occasions when
the beginning and thus Mebuyan— who has so much in common
with the goddesses of the Wemale and their deeds,— is cele
brated, it is reasonable to suppose that the Bagobo dance con
cerned is also as such intended to ‘‘celebrate’’ an event men
tioned in the myth of Mebuyan and similar to that of the
Wemale goddess. The Maro dance is a group dance since the
crowd danced Hainuwele into the ground. The Bagobo, especial
ly the drummers, perform their dance more individually while
many; only look on, but the drums used during this dance are
the mortars called bolang bolang. In the Wemale dance the
crowd was compelling, while the dance of the Bagobo would
be an imitation of Mebuyan moving her mortar so that it
virtually sucked the crowd behind her into the underworld.
F.C. Cole137 describes it thus: ‘‘The music goes faster, emphasiz
ing certain beats, until it becomes a compelling rhythm that
makes the feet of the onlooker move and suddenly a man or wo-
m.an begins to dance. At first she keeps time to the music by
raising toes and heels, bending the knees and twisting the body
from side to side, but soon she becomes more animated; the feet
are raised high above the floor and brought down with a sort of
shuffle that reminds one of the sound made by the feet of a
clog-dancer. Still swaying her body she begins to dance clock
wise, around the gongs, and soon she is joined by others until
all the dancing space is filled. The scene is most picturesque
because the dances generally occur at night in rooms illuminated
only by the flickering light of the torches. The rich clothing
of the dancers loses nothing of its beauty in this dim light
while the bells and rattles with which each dancer surrounds
arms and legs and ankles add to the din and the weirdness of
the occasion. Before the dance has progressed far the musicians
begin to keep time with their feet and frequently dance away
137. Cole, W ild Tribes， p. 113， 110.

56 PIETER JAN RAATS
from their instruments, circle, and then return to continue the

music.” Here is the dance’s compelling character, the fascination
(animation) and the circling in a spiral around the drums
which make it almost impossible not to think of Mebuyan or
eventually of Hainuwele and the mythical crowds of the
Bagobo and Wemale. The popular Bagobo belief is that their
ceremonial music and dance has effects beyond the visible world
of man indeed. Even Mandarangan, on hearing the music,
rushes to the feast.138 I f the gods come, the other world is
present.
3. Bagobo Celebrations o f M ythical Tim es
According to Benedict, the Bagobo attribute a meaning to

their dances indicated by the names given to these dances.
Benedict thought139 that the names were taken from nature and
the dances imitations of phenomena in nature. As an instance,
she cited the bamboo dance. This however seems almost as
unlikely as “history” would be among the Bagobo. For them,
“nature”，like everything else, has a strong religious aspect.
If they celebrate ‘‘the bam boo，
，by a bamboo dance, it is prob
able that bamboo appears somewhere in one of the myths or in
a wonder or fairy story. The dance dedicated to such a mythical
bamboo would be part of the Bagobo celebration of their be
ginnings. The Bagobo are accustomed indeed to dedicate such
dances to spirits140 whose names are loudly announced by a
balian (priestess). Remarkable also is the fact that the cere
monial dances of the Bagobo and the Wemale141both follow after
their ceremonial bath. For this reason also, one may believe
that there is an identity in meaning in the Bagobo and Wemale
dances. The Bagobo start their festival with the Pamalugu,142
a ceremonial bath in a river bed. This is the bath which
Mebuyan will give to the Bagobo when they arrive in the under
world. The ceremonial bath of the Wemale143 is at least some
times associated with the underworld also. The Bagobo even
138. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 146, footn. 213; 139, footn. 210; 129.
139. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 85^ 27.
140. Cole, W ild Tribes^ p. 113.
141. Jensen, Drei Strome^ p. 92.
143. Jensen, Drei Strome3 p. 92.
seem to extend this bathing ceremony to a whole day by placing

a bowl144 with water on the floor of the ceremonial house. This
bowl is an inverted agong and they regularly sprinkle the danc
ing participants with the water which is taken from the river to
gether with the same bunches of fragrant twigs that were used
for sprinkling during the bath in the riverbed. The metal drum
with the water appropriately symbolizes Mebuyan’s mortar as
well as her riverbath in the underworld. This way the Bagobo
would remind themselves the whole day of Mebuyan's house.
The Bagobo positively know of other ceremonies and customs
that have come to them from mythical times like the Maro
dance of the Wemale. Weaving and bronze casting are some
of them.145 More important is the fact that their ritual sacrifice
to Mandarangan is considered to have existed already at the
time of the “giant”146 Salingolop who was killed by “the
Spaniards,” as was mentioned before. From this mythical
person the Datu family of Sibulan (a sacred Bagobo centre)
descended in eleven generations.117 In Salingolop^ time the
sacrifice was, so they say, offered “in the same manner” they
offer it today. This shows that celebrations of mythical events
by ceremonies believed to be of mythical origin are not foreign
to the Bagobo mind. So it is quite possible that the Bagobo
dances would at least celebrate the exploits of Tuglibong and
Mebuyan. It is also a fact admitted by the Bagobo that dances,
gifts and colors attract the spirits of primeval times (cf. note
138), thus making the Beyond present.
The story of Salingolop shows also that the Bagobo con
sider their history “sacred” and the old mythologem of quarrel,
struggle, and sometimes violence as the basis of new creative
acts that now and then brought about new situations. Finally
the Bagobo believe that their way of life, which almost certainly
must include their principal ceremonies and rites, was instituted
and founded by the primeval mythical beings themselves, as
was mentioned before. The mythical beings of the Wemale
danced “passionately.” Had they invented sex like the Bilaan,
Bagobo, and others?
44. Cole3 W ild Tribes, p. 113.

45. Benedict， Ceremonial， p. 69.
46. Cole，W ild Tribes， p. 54 ，Benedict Ceremonial, p. 252.
47. Cole，W ild Tribes， p. 54.
58 PIETER JAN RAATS
IV. Summary and Suggestions
Mebuyan is a female deity who lived in mythical times

and whose decisions gave definite shape to human life of the
individual as well as the community and determined its ultimate
fate. Mebuyan is earthly and female, associated with and
perhaps the personification of the will and the wisdom of the
earth, mother earth. She is also queen of the dead, the chief
of (part of) the underworld. She is ugly, but good and friendly
to the dead and a mother especially to the young ones that come
to her prematurely. It is not clear whether she is the prolonged
arm of fertility on earth in the Beyond or whether fertility on
earth depends on her. The tree she holds, and her abundant
and unusual fertility (nipples) suggest the last. Although she
is the goddess of death and should therefore be ugly, she does
not appear in a stage of decomposition but is ugly as a goddess
of fertility or as an earth-goddess. This could mean that
Mebuyan was once the mother (Tuglibong) of the mythical
beings and that fertility on earth today is only fertility dele
gated by her to earthly parents (and the fields) above whom
she clearly excels and who would help her now to populate
Gimokudan. Mebuyan’s goal to populate this city of Gimokudan
would be analogous to her former aim to populate the paradise.
It would also explain why she willingly acts as the mother to
children who arrive prematurely. Therefore also her symbol,
the mortar (fertility), would appear during harvest festivals
(earth), though the mortar is also associated with death and
underworld. Ancestors and harvest are very often associated
in the Malay Archipelago as well as wisdom and wealth. Once
Mebuyan lived on the surface of the earth; today she rules from
below. As the goddess of fertility and the dead, Mebuyan can
still be viewed as the great mother perpetually at the disposition
of man in whom she has an interest. Birth and marriage would
then be associated with the underworld as much as death.
The Bagobo do not tell why Mebuyan opened the under
world and introduced death. However, a comparison with the
Bilaan suggests that the desire of mankind to be “independent”
in completing the number of tribal members could be the reason.
It would imply that Mebuyan, like Mulua Satene. and as the Ot
Danum believe, still determines not only who will die but also
who will be born. Man did not become really independent. Her
power over the tree suggests this also. The Bagobo themselves
suggest in a myth to be recorded and discussed in Chapter Four,
，，
I I I 4 1，that primeval man risked and chose death with con
jugal love above a life in the “paradise.” This consequently
seems to include birth.
If one refers back to the myth of Tuglibong, one may be led
to the possibility of considering the two women, Tuglibong and
Mebuyan, as one great goddess. It is certain that they comple
ment each other in most of their functions and that their
symbols— — the pestle and the mortar~constitute one unit.
Mebuyan is a complex personality. Her symbols of tree
and rice belong to the indelible Elements and she is also asso
ciated with indelible water. The black river is her river. Her
character and activities, shaking, bathing, and whirling are
determined by the indelible Elements. She could be a personifi
cation of them, but penetrating into this problem would already
be beyond the scope of this article. At least she is associated
with these elements. Mebuyan is also and in much clearer
manner a psychopomp who guides the souls to a new life by
bathing them, strengthening them and putting them on the
path to Gimokudan.
In the myths of Mebuyan discord and quarrel also play a
role. It seems that being more determined, the woman again
gained the victory, and the dead, or most of them, will go to
her country, Gimokudan. If her antagonist, Lumabat, is finally
to be associated with the upperworld, the quarrel between the
two for the “souls” of men would be an old theme reappearing
in this peculiar form in Bagobo myths. To the Bagobo the
Mother in the underworld would seem more attractive then the
upperworld, which has proved less hospitable to mankind from
the beginning. Without the absolute moral issue, however, the
choice or destination of mankind for one of the two abodes will
not take the dramatic character it has in some world religions.
Mebuyan has the character of the fertile, good and wise “mother
E arth ，，’ who gives some hope to her faithful in the Beyond
but no reason for excitement. The sky country would eventually
also be just satisfactory for those who would for one reason or
the other prefer it. To reach one of the two seems to be a
60 PIETER JAN RAATS
matter of rites more than of morality, as will be discussed fur

ther in the next chapters. The significance of Mebuyan who
combines motherhood on earth and in the Beyond, who rules
over life and death, is greater than the significance of Lumabat
who did not clearly develop into a perfect counterpart of his
sister and lacks the gentleness of Mebuyan.
C hapter F our ：LUMABAT

I. Preliminary Remarks
1 . The M yth of L um abat
After the myth of Mebuyan, the myth of Lumabat, her

antagonist, must be discussed. The text of the myth is given
by both Benedict and Cole,148 but the one offered by Cole seems
to offer more detail. The myth recorded by Benedict was already
cited in the chapter dealing with Mebuyan and should be read
there. Here the text of Cole follows :
“After the people were created a man named Lumabat
was born. He could talk when he was only one day old and the
people said he was sent by Manama. He lived ninety seasons
and when still a young- man he had a hunting dog which he
took to hunt on the mountain. The dog started up a white deer
and Lumabat and his companions followed until they had gone
about the world nine times when they finally caught it. By the
time they caught the deer Lumabat’s hair was gray and he was
an old man. All the time he was gone he had only one banana
and one oamote with him for food. When night came he planted
the skin of the bananas and in the morning he had ripe bananas
to eat，and the camotes came the same way. When he had
caught the deer Lumabat called the people to see him and he
told them to kill his father. They obeyed him and then Lumabat
took off his headband and waved it in the air over the dead man
and he at once was alive again. He did this eight times and at
the eighth time his father was small like a little boy, for every
148. Cole，W ild Tribes， p. 126^ Benedict, Myths) p. 20.

time the people cut him, the knife took a little flesh. So all
thought Lumabat was like a god. One year after he killed the
deer he told all the people to come to his house, but they said
they could not because the house was small and the people
many. But Lumabat said there was plenty of room, so all
entered his house and were not crowded. The next morning
the diwata Tigyama and other spirits came and talked with him.
After that he told the people that all who believed that he was
powerful could go with him but all who did not would turn into
animals and buso. He went tq the place where the earth and
the sky meet. When he got there he saw that the sky kept going
up and down the same as a man opening and closing his jaws.
：
Lumabat said to the sky ‘‘You must go up， ” but the sky
replied. “N o!” At last Lumabat promised the sky that if he
let the others go through he might try to catch the last to pass.
The sky opened and the people went through; but when near
to the last the sky shut down and caught the bolo of the next
to the last man. The last one he caught and ate•”
This myth recorded by Cole has three parts:
1 . Lumabafs first trip to the horizon where he caught the
white deer and subsisted on bananas and camotes, miraculous
products. (Planter and Hunter)
2. Lumabat^ return home and his order to kill his father; the
way he revived h im ; finally his decision, after the killing of the
deer, to leave the place with all those who believed in him.
(Mortal Man.)
3. Lumabat’s trip with the mythical beings to the sky coun
try. This last part is full of trials, and it is the only part
found in the text of Benedict. (Psychopomp.)
2. A nalysis o f the M yth o f L u m abat
The myth of Lumabat is a composite and obscure myth.149

One finds here several themes that are treated in separate myths
or rites among other tribes and people. There is the theme of
a trip to the sky. This could be by shamans, or it could be the
conquest of heaven by gods or mythical beings from below.
There is the picture of an animal that seems to be a hoard or
149. nscher? Paradiesmythen^ p. 221.

62 PIETER JAN RAATS
warranter of life or death; there are secret and magic numbers

and the gates at the horizon, usually called symplegades. The
story may be likened to the tale of a mythical pair who are
brother and sister, (elsewhere child and parent). Usually such
persons appear right after creation or after a flood and commit
incest. It would seem that in the myth of Lumabat almost
everything has been concentrated. In such a labyrinth it is dif
ficult to find the leading thread.
Now it is fortunate that a myth and a rite of the Wemale
appear to be related to those of the Bagobo. By comparing the
myth of Lumabat with the myth and the rite of this tribe, which
are extensively discussed by Ad. E. Jensen,150 it seems possible
to unravel the skein, since the salient point will set off in relief,
and one can see some sense and meaning in the constituent
parts as well as in the whole.
The substance of the Wemale myth about Hainuwele has
been referred to at the end of the chapter on Mebuyan. A few
details will be added later as they become necessary. In the
next paragraph the elements of the myth of Hainuwele will be
summarized again in a paradigm and compared with a similar
paradigm made up of the myths of Lumabat and Mebuyan. In
the subsequent paragraph the similarities and differences be
tween the myths of the Bagobo and Wemale will be extensively
discussed.
Ad. E. Jensen151 is of the opinion that in the telling of the
myth and in the dramatic performances of their rites the
Wemale try to make present, to re-present, by ritual renewal
what has happened in mythical times. They thus hope to in
fluence the events of today which are still supposed to arise some
how from the same source. This would mean that the partici
pants in a rite identify themselves with the mythical beings. The
vivacity of phantasy and the ability of these people to act must
be great, and would seem to be at least co-responsible for the
origin of the belief mentioned. Myth and rite would place the
Wemale, according to Jensen, in the last days of mythical times
just before death was introduced. They enable the Wemale to
undergo mysteriously what the mythical beings experienced.
150. Jensen, Drei Strome, p. 114-116, 88-92， 98-101, 193.

151. Jensen, ibidem.
All this is done with the same hopes and expectations, namely,
of a prosperous growth in this world and of an honest death
and the acquisition of a happy abode in the Beyond. If one could
demonstrate that the myth or rite of the Wemale and the
Bagobo show substantial similarities, the path would be open
to a discussion of similarities in religious background, and be
valuable especially in so far as celebrations of the Bagobo may
be also understood as representations of mythical times accord
ing to the idea of Jensen.
The last part of the myth of Lumabat will be compared
in section B. of the following paradigm with a rite still used by
a distinct part of the Wemale group, the so-called Kakihan152
secret society, with which the reader will become more familiar
in later chapters and paragraphs (Chapter F iv e ,1 2 3，page ，，
J04). What appears to be similar or identical in the myths and
rites compared here are only the elements that constitute the
intrigues, not the intrigues as such. They are often different
but their meaning will appear to be similar as well.
II. Comparison of a Bagobo Myth with a Wemale Myth
1 . P arad igm
S e c t io n A
Bagobo Wemale
column aa column bb column cc
M yth o f L um abat M yth of M ebuyan M yth o f Hainuwele-

M u lu a S.
1. 1.
Son of Tuglibong Daughter of Tuglibong M ulua Satene, great
who lives at the centre chthonic deity, arose out
of the earth. of unripe banana. H ainu
wele was born out of a
nut.
(Plant and man are
identical).
a) He was a hunter, a) A hunter went to

went to the
b) a mountain and b) forest and caught a
around the world pig. On
(the horizon)3
caught
152. Jensen, loc. cit” p. 193.

64 PIETER JAN RAATS
L u m abat M ebuyan H ainuw ele
c) with the help of his c) its tusks it brought a

dog a white deer coconut,
d) which he took home d) which was taken and
and kept. Lumabat subsequently planted
was a miracle at home.
c) boy, grew fast，spoke e) It became a young
f ) within one day. tree that
f) grew fast. I t flower
ed within a few
days; the flower was
mixed with the blood
of the
g) “father” (hunter)
and yielded a girl
who, wrapped in
“patola ”， is carried
down by her “fath-
Hunting, he a) ate ba Mebuyan also appears a) Her excrements are

nanas and camotes c) “seated’，but upon a precious
whose skins mortar, in which rice b) articles (miracle).
b) were planted and is stored (under her), Her name is Hainu-
grew again next the mortar is put up c) wele. She used to
morning (miracle d ) in the centre, squat.
“food” in aa, “ex c) dropping rice and d ) in the center of a
crements” in cc ). seated on dancing crowd, dis
(M ulua S. and un f) it she will whirl tributing her
ripe bananas). down into the earth. e) gifts (excrements) to
f) Lumabat circled the dancers ( £<giv-
around ing” in cc， “consum-
g) the world nine times ing” in aa.) The
h) during ninety years. f ) crowd danced around
(Lumabat circles, her in
Hainuwele sits in the g) nine circles, nine eve
center of a circling nings, in nine differ
crowd.) ent placess.
(food (rice) and pre
cious articles are asso
ciated).
a) Lumabat ‘‘ordered’’ Mebuyan a) begins in a) The crowd “seduced”

the crowd front of Lumabat (and by a mysterious
b) at home to kill his the crowd?) to circle power danced the
father (also Mebu- on the mortar and she girl with circling
yan， s father). whirls dances
c) The old man was b) down into a hole b) into the ground. She
killed and cut into (that she bores) is killed.
two eight times, thus while she disappears c) She is dismembered
e )lo s in g (scattering) into by the father and
flesh. Lumabat re d) the ground (burial), d) buried.
vived him eight times she takes rice, drops e) O u t of her scattered
waving his kerchief it members more edible
(proclaiming re e) out of her hands plants appear (ca
birth?) this fact will (members, and scat motes ) . ( B e f o r e :
be inserted again on ters it proclaiming Hainuwele， s body
top of the next death for the crowd, produced treasures
page to demonstrate the people. which she handed out
more clearly some to the crowds, now
congruence with the edible plants.)
L u m abat M ebuyan H ainuw ele
myth of Hainuwele). Here the fragments are

scattered and become
plants. Hainuwele is
the fertile and always
young earth. In aa the
father becomes young
again.
a) Lumabat soon sum Mebuyan announces the 5.

moned the crowds to necessity for all to The arms of Hainuwele
meet in his c )le a v e and follow her go to M ulua S. which
b) house that could con to her house below, she will use to brandish
tain all. Later he to her house below, over
ordered them thus proclaiming c) the mythical .beings,
c) to leave the house death. proclaiming death so
with him (death). e) (read also number B that they
Those in this paradigm.) f ) become mortal.
d) who refuse would be a) M ulua S. ordered
come animal or buso the crowd
(both “nonm an，，). b ) to come to her gate
(The father (house)
f) of Lumabat, in or c) and to jum p through
der to revive him it.
(which supposes d ) Those who refuse
death) was “beat- become “spirits or
e) en” with the ker animals” . After
chief of L um abat). jum ping through the
gate the jumpers are
e) beaten with the arms
of Hainuwele
a) Lumabat ordered the Mebuyan goes down in 6.

people b) the center alone leav a) M ulua orders them
b ) to leave his house ing the crowd waiting to stay on earth for
(centre) and to fol (in the centre) b) the time being while
low (immediately) a) until she orders them she goes down there
c) along a path to the (by shaking the in the centre. She
hori- lemon tree, branches, organizes them (in
d) zon， (and climb up arms). The Bagobo the centre) in clans,
wards.) will go killing pigs for them.
e) The father was killed c) into the underworld a) After a while the
but also revived eight where Mebuyan sits Wemale will have to
times. at the entrance of her follow her. They
g) When the father of residence. Next comes will travel through
Lumabat was killed the river (water) c) the underworld, to
and had been revived where she bathes the climb
8 times he was only souls and pours water d ) 9 hills, to die there
as large as a child. on top of their heads, and
Lumabat put his fol e) giving them another e) be revived 9 times.
lowers life. Finally she puts M ulua S. sits at the
f ) on the path to the f) them on the path end of the
sky. through which they f ) path. In her abode
Before he and the peo walk down. M ulua S.
ple actually left, Lum a g) Mebuyan nurses the g ) keeps children which
bat killed the deer. children. She leaves she sends to their
the earth and is parents on earth so
‘‘buried’’ in the un they may be born.
derworld. fThe 9-fold death in
the underworld can
also be compared
with the horrible
path of Lumabat
66 PIETER JAN RAATS
mentioned on
side column of
paradigm.) M u
leaves the earth
is buried in
underworld.
S e c t io n B
column aa column bb column cc
M yth of L um abat Bagfobo rite W em ale rite
The people of the my Baths are mentioned The initiandi of the
thical Lumabat several times， e.g., the a) Kakihan society leave
a) leave the house with Bagobo take ritual the house of their
him. While traveling baths when they parents. First they
a long celebrate the festival take ceremonial
b ) path on foot they of Ginem153 or when d ) baths and are rub
are they contract marri bed with fragrant
c) challenged to reveal age. leaves. They have
the goal of their trip. a) They leave their c) to 'promise secrecy
If they do, they dis houses and descend and blind-folded take
solve at once into along a steep path a path to the place
the elements. First into a deep valley; e) in the forest (hori
they had also to they pour water drip zon ?).
cross the ping O n all approaches tabo
d) ocean, (water, d) from fragrant leaves signs warn man and
b a th ?). Finally they upon the heads of spirit.
reach the the participants f ) In the forest is a
e) horizon. e) whose faces are house,
f) Here is a gate that covered by loose g) in the flooring of
goes up and down hanging hairs, once which is a hole. The
likp the jaws of an facing West with 9 initiandi
animal (jaw, gate, downpours, once h) will have to jum p
hole, valley). The East with 9 or 8 through that hole.
travelers have to downpours. (West Under the house is
h ) jum p through that and East is a dark room (the
gate into the un e) horizon (? ) • But peo unknown).
known. ple stand in the cen i) A pig is killed dur
i ) The spirit demands tre between West ing the performance.
a sacrifice ( ? ) ， one and
of the companions. f ) East and in a river
( gate ) ， ( Mebuyan’s
characteristics).
The 9 downpours
are the 9 “deaths” of
M ulua S. (cf. No. 6,
paradigm, column aa,
sub e.)
The travelers reach their Sometimes the faithful The initiandi, together
destination are beaten with cere with their guides, jump
b ) but there are sharp monial bunches of leaves. c) into the hole (down
knives there, and the The chief minister in the wards)
a) spirits spit their riverbath seems to be a a) and are received by
“issue” on them woman. (Two identical fighting “spirits” who
which becomes sharp bunches recall the arms beat and wound them
as bolos. The travel of Hainuwele?) and
ers are badly receiv (This is a rite called b) cut them with their
ed. Pamalugu.) bamboo spears. Final-
M yth o f L um bat Bagpobo rite W em ale rite

c) They travel upwards, During the Pamalugu, ly the initiandi
climbing. The travel the bath in the under- d) escape through an
ers world，the dead is trans exit, guided by their
d) try to avoid the pro formed and loses his initiator.
jectiles. earthly e) Now they meet the
c) They meet the chief g) desires. chief spirit of the
spirit of the place, place，Nitu Haulu. This
who demands dis- f) eats the flesh of the
cmbowelment. initiandi. (This is a
g) (End of earthly de rite, a celebration of
sires?) things past or anti
Now they are set cipation of things to
free. come.)
g) End of ceremony.
9 . .
Lumabat becomes king Mebuyan is the chief of In the Wemale myth
of the sky country. a department in the un M ulua S. is queen of
derworld. the underworld.
2, The Schemes in M yth and R ite

of the W em ale and Bagobo.
The myths of the Wemale and the Bagobo are similar in

that both apparently recount how “man”，once a permanent
settler in the paradise, as an individual and as a group, be
comes a temporary inhabitant on earth as an individual, but
will survive on earth in his society which seems to him to be
permanent. In the next chapter it will become clearer that as
an individual man will have to return to tEe source of life
after death. As a society he gains or regains the source of
life regularly during the festivals, ceremonies and rites, which
also help the individual on his path.
The major differences between the myths and rites of the
Bagobo and the Wemale are due to:
1 . the emphasis in the myth of Lumabat upon ：
a) the 8-fold (intentional) killing and revivification by
Lumabat of the father, insinuating- somehow, so it
would seem, the eventual rebirth or rejuvenation of
the tribe (in this life ) ;
b) the immediate departure (initiation into death?) for
the gates of death o f :
c) the group with tabooes and under tHe leadership of
68 PIETER JAN RAATS
Lumabat, where at the end the individuals must leap

individually (initiation rite ?)
d) and the capture or intentional killing of the deer before
departure as the origin and the markstone of the new
era;
while the myth of Hainuwele stresses:
a) the (unintentional?) death of Hainuwele by a crowd
as the origin of the new period
b) the immediate initiation of the individuals by jumping
into the gates of death (represented by the arms of
Hainuwele or the gates of Mulua’s house), but
c) the temporal organization of people into a group and
their temporary stay on earth until each is called later
by Mulua Satene who had preceded them to the under
world (more similar to the myth of Mebuyan), and
d) the promise of the 9-fold death and resurrection or
revification in a future life with the insinuation of
new life for the tribe on earth (rebirth) out of the
realm of death, as can be seen in the paradigm above.
2. to the complications that arise when the two characters
(Lumabat and Mebuyan) who are supposed to assume in the
myth of the Bagobo the functions of the two Wemale characters
(Hainuwele and Mulua Satene)，do not distribute the functions
concerned along the same lines as the Wemale characters did.
When both Lumabat and Mebuyan take over a part of each
Wemale actor (of Hainuwele as well as of M ulua), the line
of division does not run horizontally but rather vertically.
Lumabat is not exactly Mulua S., nor is Mebuyan exactly
Hainuwele, but the activities of Mulua and Hainuwele are
nevertheless accounted for or appear somehow in the myth of
Lumabat and Mebuyan. This will be demonstrated in extenso
in the next paragraph.
3. to the fact that the second part of the myth of Lumabat
tallies, not with a Wemale myth, but with the scheme of a
Wemale rite. This is the rite of the Kakihan society which
seems to be an initiation into death and the underworld, wEile
the Bagobo myth seems to suggest a conquest of a higRer
form of life by those who would follow the path of “heroes•”
This will be mentioned again in the next paragraph but will
be discussed at length in part IV paragraph 1 of this chapter
，
as well as in Chapter Five: The Trip of Lumabat, I 3，page
，
106 ff.
4. by the antagonism between Lumabat and Mebuyan in the
myths of the Bagobo which is absent in the myth (and rite)
of the Wemale. In the latter, the two characters are both
chthonic; in the Bagobo myth Lumabat seems uranian, Mebu
yan chthonic.
3. The A ctors and T heir Roles
The Wemale spirits Hainuwele, Mulua Satene and Nitu

Haulu (a spirit connected with the Kakihan secret society),
are seemingly all chthonic characters. The intrigue in the myth
of Hainuwele which has two actors, Hainuwele and Mulua S.,
is rectilineal. This means Hainuwele is not the antagonist of
Mulua S. but the latter appears after Hainuwele^ death, takes
over the drama and continues the intrigue. The roles of both
actresses are complementary. As was mentioned earlier, in the
Bagobo myth, Mebuyan, the woman, is chthonic and Lumabat,
the man, seems uranian in character. Lumabat does not take
over the role of Mebuyan but appears to be her antagonist.
One may say that Lumabat has some of the functions and
features attributed to Hainuwele, performs most of what con
stitutes the role of Mulua Satene, and guides his followers
through the hardships that in the Wemale rite the initiandi
undergo. The rest of these functions and characteristics con
stitute the role of his antagonist, his sister, Mebuyan. In more
concrete form, these would mean that:
1 . several aspects pertaining to Hainuwele such as her
origin, the trip of her father, her association with precious
articles and camotes (yams), appear, though less clearly, in
the role of Lumabat during his first trip, and the element of
death which is very important in the role of Hainuwele, is
found in the myth of Lumabat either in the killing of the old
man or in the capture and killing of the deer. The same
elements, however, constitute here at first glance a completely
different intrigue.
2. the role of Mulua Satene and Lumabat coincide in the
following: the conference in his house (equivalent to Mulua’s
calling the crowd to her gate), the announcement of the inevit
70 PIETER JAN RAATS
able departure and the leaving of the old place in both the
intrigues, the threats used in both myths to stimulate the
participants (those who refuse will be “no-man”），the killing
of pig and deer, Mulua becoming the queen of the underworld
while Lumabat becomes the greatest of all the diwata (kings)
in the sky country.
3. the remainder of the elements in the myth of Hainu
wele (and in the rite of the Kakihan) is “carried” out by the
Bagobo Mebuyan. From the role of Hainuwele she has perhaps
also appropriated for herself the role of a provider of food.
The buried Hainuwele brought forth edible plants, particularly
yams, that sprouted out of her dismembered body. In correla
tion to Lumabat who, like Hainuwele, is associated with yams,
Mebuyan brings the rice. Both, man and woman, are culture
heroes. “Buried” or (disappearing) Mebuyan drops rice out
of her hands. From Mulua Satene, Mebuyan took over the office
of queen of a department of the underworld but she is again
correlated to Lumabat, king of the upperworld. Mebuyan has,
like Mulua, a special relation to little children, but she is also
correlated to her antagonist Lumabat who killed his father
but revived him until he became a little child.. As rice-girl she
seems similar to Hainuwele. However since she disappears into
the earth without being killed or having died, she seems more
like Mulua Satene. To be rice-girl (food-provider) without
having been killed is a phenomenon that occurs also elsewhere
as was mentioned before.
4. the scheme of the Kakihan secret society appears almost
completely in the myth of Lumabat but constitutes his trip to
the sky-country and his arrival there. In the myth of Lumabat
everything has seemingly a more ‘‘uranian’’ character. Some
of the elements of the intrigue of Lumabat appear now as the
inverted mirage of the Kakihan rite; the trip of Lumabat
seems also to be for heroes only.
Suffice it to state here that Mebuyan is, like Lumabat,
related to both Hainuwele and Mulua Satene, who ultimately
seem to be identical anyway. From the Kakihan ritual scheme
Mebuyan has reserved in her myth the bath and the hole in
the flooring. This hole can also serve as the hole in the myth
of Lumabat, but then it has an uranian character as it opens
into the sky. This shows how readily several of these elements
A s t r u c t u r a l s t u d y o f b a g o b o MYTHS AND RITES 71
can serve m both an uranian as well as a chthonic vision. This

is especially so of elements or words like “gate，
，，or “opening ”，
，
“hole” etc., since they always have a double aspect, an obverse
and a reverse. Most symbols are that way, ambi- or even multi-
valent. The same was observed when discussing the pounding
of Tuglibong.
4. A ntag onism in the D ata o f Bagobo and W em ale.
As the paradigm shows antagonism seems to be a charac

teristic feature of the myths of Lumabat and Mebuyan. The
two actors are supposed to be each other's antagonists and
their actions reflect each other as though in a mirror. The
significance of this antagonism is difficult to assess. Also the
Wemale have it. Although it does not directly appear in their
myth of Hainuwele they have a spirit Tuwale154 associated with
the sky who marries Rabie1" associated with the moon and the
earth/56 According to Jensen157 Rabie, Mulua Satene and Hainu
wele are identical. The houses of Tuwale and Mulua must be
close because the souls158 that go to the house of Mulua159 can
reach the house of Tuwale, a spirit who eats bats, and whenever
he eats one a man on earth dies. This reminds us vividly of
Mebuyan shaking her tree. The spirits180in his house eat corpses,
a chthonic characteristic. The spirits of the Wemale seem to
be more strongly ambivalent than those of the Bagobo, but
even among the latter the antagonism could be a polarity with
unilateral stress only that includes the antagonist. Symbols
like centre and horizon, jar and cover, mortar and pestle that
play a role in the Bagobo system of religious thought seem to
suggest so. The Bagobo belief101 that man has two souls must
also be connected with this antagonism in the universe, but it
153. Benedict, Ceremonial, p.

154. Jensen, Drei Strome, p. 65.
155. Jensen， loc, cit., p. 119,
156. .，
Jensen, loc. cit p . 114.
15フ . Jensen， loc. cit” p. 157.
159. Jensen, loc. cit., p. 41.
160. Jensen, loc. cit” p. 164 .65.
161. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 50,
72 PIETER JAN RAATS
is difficult to find out at this stage of the inquiry which is

the cause and which is the effect.
III. Contents of the Myth of Lumabat
1 . The F irs t K illin g .
The first part of this chapter was meant to demonstrate

that，in spite of the differences, there exists a relationship
between the Wemale myth of Hainuwele-Mulua Satene with
the rite of the Kakihan society on the one hand, and the myth
of Lumabat-Mebuyan on the other. It is the opinion of Ad.E.
Jensen that the myth of Hainuwele teaches why man is fertile
and mortal, why he is as he is, the “so-sein” of man.162 This
event, according to Jensen，is especially celebrated by the We
male when they perform their Maro dance.
One difference between the Wemale and the Bagobo is this:
the Wemale tell in one myth what is told by the Bagobo in
two, or in one “double-myth” with antagonism or polarity. In
the first part of the myth of Mebuyan the origin and the so-
sein of the “new woman” seems to be stressed. It seems that
here the relation between birth and burial is discussed. The
predominant tenor of the myth of Lumabat is violence and kill
ing. It is logical therefore, to think here of the other reason
that eventually could end “paradise”，the first violent death.
Thus the first “new man” would arise who is mortal, and
whose task is perhaps to be “killer” (hunter, fisher or warrior).
But there are several killings in the myth of Lumabat and
so the question is: whose death really ended the Bagobo para
dise and made man as he is? If this decisive death in the myth
can be found, another question still remains. Does man’s
mortality also have a meaning or significance in the totality
of being or in the relation between man an<f spirits ? Fertile
women apparently became the cooperator with the goddess
Mebuyan in the underworld by giving birth. Does mortal (and
killing) man in the Bagobo system cooperate perhaps in an
analogous way with spirits in the sky，for instance, who are
162. Jensen, loc. cit., p. 121.

blood-thirsty and who are ready to grant people on earth a

good life and a new life in the Beyond only if they receive blood?
2. The E qu iv alen t to H ainuw ele in the Bagobo M yth.
The decisive moment in the well-known myth of Hainuwele

is the violent death of the girl.163 In the myth of Lumabat three
die: the father of Lumabat, the deer, the companion who fell
victim to the sky. The equivalent to Hainuwele is probably
the one who is killed before the expedition of Lumabat started.
This would rule out the companion of Lumabat, because this
companion dies during the expedition, i..e.，after death had
already been introduced. It seems that the story of the trip
can be compared with the initiation rite in the Wemale Kakihan
society. In this Wemale rite appears a monster called Nitu
Haulu16' with chthonic character. He swallows victims as the
sky of the Bagobo does. The Wemale also speak of a hero,
Tanku T elie， 165 who seems similar to Lumabat and who is also
the guide of the trip. Here death and the necessity for every
body of pilgrimage from one abode to the other seems already
to exist. At the end of this chapter the trip of Lumabat and
the rite of Nitu Haulu will again be discussed. For the moment
the companion as a candidate for the origin of death can be
discarded. This leaves either the father or the deer.
The killing of the father is also probably not the crucial
killing that unleashed general death. The whole adventure of
the father of Lumabat looks too much like tKe counterpart of
what Mulua Satene promises to her followers. Her promise
was made after the death of Hainuwele, when she beat the
crowd of the mythical beings with the arm of Hainuwele and
condemned them to die in the Beyond nine times and promised
to revive them nine times on nine different hills which they
would have to cross before they could reach her and be children
again. Lumabat orders the crowd to cut his father into two
eight times. He revives him with his headgear eight times until
he is reduced to child. Both the action of Lumabat and the
speech of Mulua seem to announce what the Bagobo (and We-
163. Jensen, loc. cit.} p . 115.

n PIETER JAN RAATS
male) have to expect later once they have chosen to follow the
path of Lumabat or Mulua. Mulua Satene beats only once with the
arms of Hainuwele but she explains that it means the nine
fold death and revivification. Lumabat does not speak but
makes his point by demonstrating it eight times. The beating
with the arm of Hainuwele entitles the Wemale to undergo the
process of the nine hills after death that leads finally in the
Beyond to rejuvenation not directly of the tribe but of the
individual who becomes there a child, that, so it seems, can
be sent back to earth however. The swinging by Lumabat
of his headgear seems to promise rejuvenation after the eight
fold death of a particular individual who probably represents
the tribe (the father). As a result of this choice the individuals
must die but the tribe will be continuously rejuvenated. Ulti
mately it must be fairly well the same.
Is the father of Lumabat “the tribe” that will remain young
and be continuously reborn ? Perhaps he is the ancestor indeed.
This could be an inconsistency but one should bear in mind that
the ‘‘M ona，，by and by began to give birth to children. Lumabat
must be one of those. And if he is the only son he can even
easily be identical with the “father.” Lumabat, the “son，，，was
“born， ” but he is also “sent” by the god, so that the position
of his “father” is somewhat unclear anyway. Or is he “the
father” of all those who “believe” in his son Lumabat? All
those who do not “believe” would become spirits or animals
and would not be “m an， ” mortal man. The rite of the Wemale
also seems to insinuate the existence of such sort of belief.
Would this necessarily mean foreign influence?
In Lumabat himself many Bagobo of today might see a
kind of magician who could perform tricks or show supernatural
power168 just as jugglers and magicians still do at fancy fairs
in the southern Philippines, but the myth of Lumabat is prob
ably quite old and genuine. It also appears in Java in the story
of the magic headkerchief of the Javanese hero; Adji Saka,
who changed into a child and whose servants killed each other
while Adji Saka liberated the island Java from a man-eating
monster167 and introduced there a new era of culture and civili
zation (cf. next paragraph 3). In this intrigue the same ele
166. Cole，W ild Tribes, p. 178.

167. de Graaf， Gerschiedenis, p. 22-23.
人 STRUCTURAL s t u d y o V b a g o b o m y t h s AND RITES 75
ments appear, but Adji Saka has here more or less the function
of the Bagobo Tuglibong, and the monster seems to be the
equivalent of the Bagobo scorching sky. The coming to Java
of Indian civilization has found its setting in the shape or form
of this myth.
According to the myth, the primeval people now considered
Lumabat after his performance a “god” and thus certainly
able to change the state of the mythical beings. The killing and
raising up of Lumabat’s father would have been a demonstra
tion of what the Bagobo were to expect. In contrast to the
myth of the Wemale where full information comes after the
death of Hainuwele, the Bagobo story seems to suggest that
people were duly informed before they chose and only after a
choice was made did something final happen. Thus the eight
fold death of the father in itself would not be the decisive
moment that made man definitely “man,” mortal and fertile.168
It would only suppose death and be a warning or a promise, a
demonstration, with emphasis on rejuvenation.
So the deer alone would be left to eventually seal the
choice of the crowd under Lumabat and to make it definite,
with all its consequences. Thus when the deer (taken a prisoner
at the horizon) dies, it would be the first real death that would
place mankind definitely beyond the point of no-return. The
crowd warned beforehand would have to accept among other
things the path of Lumabat. They would have to “leave” the
place where they had lived because, by this killing or “sacrifice”
of the deer, rejuvenation of the tribe would be guaranteed but
(temporary?) “emigration” of the individuals to another coun
try (of the dead) would be a consequence.
Regarding the similarity between the actions and intentions
of Lumabat and Mulua Satene, at least in some essential re
spects, there can hardly be much doubt. The equivalent to
Hainuwele must be the deer. This deduction can perhaps be
made more probable by a closer study of the particular actors
in the dramas of the Wemale and Bagobo.
3. The Deer in the M yth o f L um abat.
The dramatis personae in the myths of the Wemale and
168. Jensen, Drei Strome3 p . 115.

76 PIETER JAN RAATS
Bagobo discussed in this chapter are:

In the myth of Hainuwele-Mulua S. In the myth of Lumabat
1. a father 1 . a father
2. a hunter (the father) 2. a hunter
3. a daughter (Hainuwele) 3. a son (Lumabat)
4. a pig and a nut 4. a dog and a deer
5. a crowd 5. a crowd
6. a guide (Mulua Satene) 6. a guide (Lumabat)
In this list the only differences are indicated in Nos. 3 &
4, Usually the woman takes care of the pigs, while men, as
hunters, are easily associated with dogs or game like deer.
There are however differences in the action. Although the
main actions are retained quite well in both stories, they are
sometimes performed by other characters. This, at first sight,
may blur the similarities. In the myth of the Wemale the
father and the hunter are identical. In the Bagobo myth, the
son and the hunter are. In the myth of the Wemale the crowd
has a role other than that in the myth of Lumabat. They kill
Hainuwele and are initiated by Mulua Satene when they are
condemned to undergo the nine fold death in the underworld
and have to appear before Mulua Satene as children. In the
myth of the Bagobo, the crowd is ordered by Lumabat to apply
to the father what Mulua Satene applies to the crowd, the fate
to die nine times. Lumabat, however, immediately resurrects
his father eight times while Mulua Satene only promises revival
to the crowd nine times in the Beyond. Lumabat swings the
headkerchief to resurrect his dismembered father, while Mulua
swings the arm of Hainuwele to condemn to death first, promis
ing revival.
In the Wemale myth pig and daughter can be identified.
The pig comes out of the forest (trees), only to introduce the
coconut that it carries on its tusks which is taken by the hunter
to the centre (the village). The coconut, with the help of the
blood of the father, develops into the girl Hainuwele. Since
the hunter who catches the pig and carries the nut and the
father whose blood produces Hainuwele are identical, they are
in a way identical with Hainuwele, too, and would be con
sequently killed in her. This could perhaps also bring the myth
of the Wemale closer to the Bagobo myth and would open the
way to a solution of the riddle of Lumabat’s father. Thus Hainu-
wele is also the “tree， ” and a kind of prolongation or extension

of the pig. The pig in the myth fades away and disappears
from the picture. This means that in the myth of Hainuwele
four actors fill six roles because father-hunter and pig-daughter
are identical, and perhaps all four are one only. This is different
in the myth of Lumabat. The deer does not expire noiselessly
or transform itself into another actor as the pig was trans
formed into Hainuwele. The deer remained a separate entity.
Now, if the character into which the deer should have changed
but did not and, as on consequence that character is not killed
in the Bagobo myth as Hainuwele is in the Wemale, that charac
ter is able to carry out a function that in the myth of Hainuwele
had to be ascribed to a new actor, namely, Mulua Satene. This
Mulua is perhaps the equivalent of the Bagobo Tuglibong or
Mebuyan, but both of them enjoy among the Bagobo their own
separate myths. And since, in the Bagobo myth, the crowd was
given the task of killing the father, one character must remain
to resurrect the father and to kill the deer later. He will thus
demonstrate to the crowd what kind of law will rule all man
kind. By killing the deer he seals the decision. This character
can be the one now that, according to the Wemale scheme,
should have developed out of the deer but did not，and that
should have been killed, but was not in the Bagobo myth. This
character is the “son， ” called Lumabat. He is a hunter, has a
relation to the deer (he caught it in a mysterious way), he
kills the deer, he initiates the father, and he becomes the guide
of mankind. He alone fulfills all these four parts. This is
possible because his relationship with the deer does not directly
amount to full identity as in the myth of Hainuwele where
the pig is killed or the tree is destroyed when Hainuwele is
killed. In the myth of Lumabat the deer is killed as a deer,
but it fulfills the task of Hainuwele, of the pig and of the tree
，
(forest nut, eventually mountain). They are all identical in
the myth of the Wemale just as the roles of hunter, killer,
initiator, and guide, are identical in the myth of the Bagobo
in the person of Lumabat.
The role of the Wemale guide and initiator, Mulua Satene,
is in the Bagobo myths given to Mebuyan in so far as she
prepared the path and leads mankind into the underworld, but
in so far as Lumabat leads mankind to the sky, Mulua Satene's
78 PIETER JAN RAATS
role of guide and initiator is given to him as well. The role

of Hainuwele as food-producer appears in the role of Mebuyan,
the rice girl. However it appears also in the activities of
Lumabat who3 in contradistinction to Mebuyan, plants with his
hands and grows miraculously the tubers' and the bananas
which make him similar to Hainuwele who grew tubers out
of her dead body. His similarity to Hainuwele appears again
in the fact that he grew fast and spoke within a few days
(Hainuwele also grew fast) and perhaps also in the fact that
Hainuwele is danced into the ground by a circling dance and
Lumabat circles “the mountain” 9 times.
It can hardly be doubted that the myths of the Wemale
and Bagobo are related. Eventually, the Bagobo story could
be rendered in Wemale form this way: the Bagobo “father”
should be the hunter who caught the deer that developed some
how into a son. This son should be Lumabat. The crowd should
take the initiative and kill Lumabat (the son) who was a
miracle boy and out of whose body the tubers now grew. The
father should visit Mebuyan or Tuglibong wfio should have
introduced death by condemning the crowd to the eight-fold or
nine-fold death.
I f the foregoing is correct one could look at the Bagobo
myth of Lumabat as the Wemale myth of Mulua Satene turned
upside down or as its mirror image. The axis on which the
myth “turns” are the words in the middle of the two myths ，
spoken alike by the Bagobo Lumabat and the Wemale Mulua
Satene: “Everybody who will not follow will become animal
or ghost.” In the myth of Hainuwele-Mulua Satene the killing
of Hainuwele comes first and the message of Mulua second. In
the myth of Lumabat the message of the father comes first
and the killing of the deer second.
Granting that the deer in the myth of Lumabat is the
equivalent of Hainuwele in as far as her fate started general
death, some elements still need, if possible, further clarification.
There is e.g. the headkerchief of Lumabat. Mulu Satene swung
the arm of Hainuwele, and Lumabat swung the headkercKief.
Has this cloth a meaning of its own? It was mentioned already
that with his magic cloth Adji (king) Saka (Saka-era) was
able to rescue Java from a pernicious and man-eating monster.
The same Adji came, like Lumabat, from afar and proved that
A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF BAGOBO MYTHS AND RITES フ9
he had the power to rejuvenate. His magic cloth scared the

monster but at any rate it opened in Java a new era. It was
suggested already that by doing so Adji Saka can be compared
with Tuglibong and thus his magic cloth would be comparable
with her pestle. As a matter of fact the Ngaju Dayak169 believe
that the headkkerchief of Mahatala, the creator, was the “tree
of life.” This would bring us closer to the pestle although the
pestle was an instrument for action while the tree of the
Ngaju is the object of action. The effect of the actions around
tree and pestle is however, the existence of the universe. Also
in the myth of Adji Saka people are killed; his servants kill
each other. Adji Saka would have scared away the voracious
monster that “killed” for its own benefit and have introduced
rejuvenation but over or along the path of individual death.
The coming of the new era of Hindu civilization is seen by the
Javanese in the frame of this old myth but Adji Saka reminds
us still of Tuglibong and Lumabat and his magic headkerchief
would fit there. It seems that the division of the roles is always
different and so are the actors. However they all extend creation
and explain the existence of death in our era.
The myth of Hainuwele was highly regarded by Jensen. He
considered it of great importance in any attempt to discover
and understand the leading idea in the Wemale’s view of the
world and of their behaviour in coping with it. The same could
be said about the Bagobo myth of Lumabat which will be dis
cussed further in Part IV of this chapter. The deer must
eventually be considered the counterpart to the tree of Mebuyan
as Mebuyan is to Lumabat.
If the myth of Lumabat up to the point where he and his
crowd depart were really the myth of Mulua (Hainuwele) but
in reversed version, the deer would have the correct place in
the myth of Lumabat. It had to be killed after the warning
with headkerchief and rejuvenation. These serve as the equiva
lent to the condemnation with the arms in the myth of Hainu
wele. The intention in the myth of Lumabat also seems a little
different from that in the myth of Hainuwele. As we mentioned
above, the myth of Lumabat, so it would seem, speaks primarily
of the rejuvenation of the tribe in this life and suggests the
169. Scharer, Ngaju Religion ， p. 28.

80 PIETER JAN RAATS
necessity of the death of the individual with eventual rebirth

on earth, while the myth of Hainuwele speaks primarily of
the death and the rejuvenation of the individual in the Beyond
and only suggests the continuation of tribal life by rebirth
on earth after the nine-fold death of the individual in the
Beyond. Perhaps, therefore, the revivification of the “father”
also has to come first in the myth of Lumabat.
It seems also that Adji Saka is comparable with Lumabat
and with the “father”. The difference is that Adji undergoes
rejuvenation of himself while Lumabat rejuvenates his father.
Something similar happens to the female spirits discussed
before. Some (Mebuyan) go into the underworld without being
killed; others are killed and buried. In the last case there are
necessarily two actresses (Hainuwele and Mulua Satene) who
are virtually one, however. The question is: would this change
the meaning of the myth. If it does not, Lumabat could also
be identical with the father, and only for the sake of the
intrigue they would be two. What the Wemale did for the
goddesses of the underworld, the Bagobo would do for the
spirits of the sky. Rejuvenation of an adult by becoming a
child always means loss of substance, and rejuvenation supposes
necessarily sort of previous death. Both can be given expression
by killing a hero and slashing him, thus diminishing him as
in the story of Lumabat, or it could be told as in the story of
Adji Saka who rejuvenated himself. The only thing important
would be that society on earth is renewed while death is intro
duced. If there are two heroes, one can eventually be killed
and one can blaze the trail to the underworld or the sky; if
there is one only, like in the case of Mebuyan, she cannot be
killed first, because she has to blaze the trail herself later,
and she “buries” herself like Mulua by disappearing into the
earth.
4. A nim als as W arranters o f L ife.
a) The Hero and the Pig in New Guinea.
The myths of the Wemale and the Bagobo teach that ulti
mately the fate of mankind depended on the life or death of
animals, of a pig and a deer. Such mysterious animals are not
really exceptional in myths since also other things of similar value

(a tree or a fruit, etc.) may be found elsewhere in the centre
of equally dramatic events. The myths will generally teach
only that at a certain moment a powerful mythical being on
whose actions and behaviour much depended simply decided to
end the old state and to make “man” mortal and fertile. Some
times the actions may be condemned as stupid or worse; at
other times, if not usually, the decision is considered wise or
at least quite understandable and a matter of course. When
the idea of absolute morality comes in, the outlook can become
very different.
Jensen cites a New Guinea myth170 which shows that ideas
such as those of the Wemale and Bagobo are rather widely
spread. In it a great hero had a pig. As long as it was alive
the hero’s people would not die. One day he thought: if I kill
the pig and I can “give the women vaginas” (make them
fertile), “people” can also be immortal; and he was right. Since
then individuals die but give birth to children first; and so
“man” will be perpetuated also. He changed the immortality
of the individual into the immortality of mankind. For these
people the two sorts of immortality (personal and communal)
seemed to be equally desirable. Eventually the general con
viction here was that individual life would also continue now in
another country, but not many seemed to worry about it.
b) The Bagobo Hunter and the Lizard.
A weak echo of such a decision but with some new and

disturbing elements in it is perhaps found in a Bagobo story173
of the lizard and two mythical beings. In another form the
same story appears among the Visayan.172 The Bagobo relate
that a man had set a trap, and caught a lizard. He ordered the
lizard to walk to his house and see his wife. The lizard however
walked off in the other direction, thus toward the horizon, the
man’s house probably being in the centre. When the man came
home, his wife told him that she had seen no lizard. Later,
they found the lizard seated on a tree growing on a river tRat
170. Jensen, ibidem.

171. Benedict, Myths， p. 41.
172. Demetrio ， Studies, p. 360, 370,
82 PIETER JAN RAATS
reflected the tree and the lizard. The dull-witted man tried
to catch the reflection of the lizard on the water but the wom
an, who knew better, scolded him and climbed the tree in order
to get the lizard from the branches.
Could the tree and lizard reflected on the water mean the
horizon where sky and earth meet? Anyway, the place far
away from home would seem to be the horizon, and this would
be essential for understanding the consequences. Reflections
in the water are still associated with death.173 The reflection
is supposed to be the left hand gimokud or soul which is
associated with the underworld and death, perhaps because
everything is upside down in the Beyond. One should, according
to the Bagobo, not laugh at one’s reflection for it would perhaps
mean laughing at the mysterious power of water usually asso
ciated with the underworld and death. The appearance of this
reflection could thus be the w arning; but this reference in the
myth certainly complicates matters. Where sky and earth meet,
the upper and lower regions are confounded ;174 perhaps this is
also why the water instead of the horizon appears in this myth.
The woman felt the results of her actions immediately.
While they were busy trying to catch the animal in the tree,
the man caught sight of his wife’s menstruation. “You have
sores， ” he said. He soon consulted Tuglai (a great spirit)
on the cure for her. Tuglai taught him the use of intercourse.
From then on, the two became perfectly happy, threw away
all they had, but became skinny and finally died. Here again
is a combination of hunting and (at least an attempt to) killing,
with fertility and death. (The Visayans say that after a fish
was caught and later died because it could not live in the house,
man was “condemned” to die also.) The attempt to kill or
simply to hunt was sufficient to make the first traces of fertility
appear. Soon the “spirits” taught man and woman intercourse
and this subsequently led the two to death. In brief, the two
gladly sacrificed the goods of “paradise” for the joy of the
married state but they also accepted death. All this happened
in and under a tree that hung above the water. In this one
myth, we find house, water, tree, man, woman and animal
together, and probably the horizon, where the attempt to climb
173. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 58 (footn. 117).

174. Benedict， Ceremonial, p. 48 (footn. 103).
the tree and to catch the animal (hunting) leads to fertility

，
and apparently to death (cf. Chapter Three, I I 7. page 51).
The story of the lizard is not exactly equivalent to the myth
of Lumabat and the deer, because some elements such as the
reflection have been added and these could obscure the impor
tance of the horizon or the hunting (and the killing) which
obviously preceded (or caused) fertility and death.
The Visayans175 have different stories about a mythical
shark. In one they tell how the catching and the subsequent
unfortunate and unintended death of the fish that was caught
in a trap (horizon) and taken home to be placed under a bench
caused general death. In other versions they expand the in
trigues by adding that the mourning and weeping after the
death of the fish angered the gods who did not like having
an animal treated ‘‘lik e ，
，m an and condemned man to die. The
addition of angered spirits that have higher powers suggest
faintly the moral issue. In the Bagobo myth of the lizard, the
higher gods also interfere at the end when they willingly teach
man intercourse instead of bluntly condemning him straight
to death, the correlate of fertility. Remarkable is the anachron
ism of treating a dead animal like a dead man before the dead
man existed. The weeping at the bier of the dead today could
remind of this first obsequies and celebrate thus the beginnings
for those who accept this version of the myths. In both stories,
death is introduced at the end, but animals were the first to die.
c) The Bagobo Hunter and the Monkey.
The lizard behaved intelligently but did not speak. The

Bagobo176 have another story about an animal that was killed
and spoke. It goes as follows: After some days of searching,
a hunter discovered the king of the monkeys seated high upon
a tree in the forest. He shot an arrow at the monkey but it
did not harm it at all. The hunter tried 15 times more, but
in vain. The last one, the seventeenth, hit the monkey and
killed it. The monkey fell to the ground. And as it lay there
it spoke to the hunter and ordered him to cut it to pieces，stuff
it into a bamboo, cook it and eat it. While the hunter was
175. Demetrio, Studies, p. 358-360.
176. Benedict， Myths， p. 46.
84 PIETER JAN RAATS
busy carrying out the order, a bird, perched on a tree, warned

him to flee because the dead monkey had ‘‘changed，，into a
terrible “buso， ” a sort of evil spirit of the Bagobo who is
directly associated with death. The man fled to a tree with
thorns that protected him.
The monkey is an animal that seems to keep “death” con
fined within itself. If one hunts or kills exactly that animal,
death “inside” it would be unleashed, and universal death would
follow in a sort of chain reaction. Thus, this particular animal
may be considered a “hoard” of life or death. It is clear also
that the number seventeen, the cutting of the animal to pieces
and the stuffing of the fragments into a bamboo have a meaning
for the Bagobo. They are probably lunar symbols. The days the
hunter did not find the monkey is perhaps the monthly moonless
period. When the moon appears on the horizon (forest) in the
West, the hunter spots the monkey. The Bagobo177 indeed see
a monkey and a tree in the moon. The 17 arrows are perhaps
the 17 nights from the first day of the moon’s reappearance in
the West to the first day of the waning moon. Then the moon
would “fall” down (wane) and die. The arrows may also have
a phallic meaning. In that case the connection of birth and
death would again be insinuated. The cutting to pieces is per
haps the dismembering of the (waning) moon, and the stuffing
into the bamboo of the dismembered monkey (moon) are again
the 3 moonless nights at the end of the monthly course of the
moon. The myth would probably tell how a dangerous ogre
(monkey) associated with the moon appeared in a forest (hori
zon) . The hunter travels to the horizon and kills the ogre
that falls down and brings the rhythm of moon-life (life-death)
to the earth. The hunter flees to a special tree (centre?) and
is saved. All the common elements and symbols are present:
horizon and centre (tree), hunter, victim, arrows (instead of
spear), killing and general death, and also salvation.
The tales about the lizard and the monkey show that
eventually a deer could be a warranter of life and death among
the Bagobo, and that this would not necessarily be a mere
postulate for the interpretation of some myths of this tribe. In
a myth of the Visayans178also a red monkey appears in a bamboo
178. Demetrio, Studies, p. 3 フ7? Demetrio? loc, cit” p. 370.
growth and keeps there, today, the record of the lifetime allotted
to everybody. When he cuts the last joint of one’s personal
“life-bamboo， ” which stands together with many others in a
growth, one has to die. This shows again how tree, (bamboo),
monkey, cutting, and dead are associated. The picture of the
monkey cutting the tree on a mountain is similar to the picture
of Mebuyan shaking the tree in the underworld. Underworld
and mountain are polar. Mebuyan holds the tree because she
opened the realm of death. It is not told how the monkey got
to the mountain in the growth. In the Bagobo story however
the killer of the monkey climbed a tree, which reminds us of
Lumabat, and the tree is the equivalent to the mountain.
Nothing is said about rejuvenation in these last stories.
In the myths of the Ifugao that relate the beginning and
the origin of their institutions right after the flood, the killing
of a rat is mentioned, also of a snake and even of a human
being. The gods decided that it should be a pig. The Ifugao
describe here the re-creation after the flood, and what they
seem to imply is that killing was always at the base of all that
has shape, of the world as well as of the institutions, also of
those before the big flood. The Bagobo seem to refer in the
myth of Lumabat directly to the real and first creation period
which would be antediluvial for the Ifugao, who talk about
the post-diluvial re-creation.
It is thus not exceptional that in the beginnings an animal
is killed. But also other activities of the mythical beings like
cutting or shaking usually connected with trees or fruit, deter
mine the fate of man. The Bagobos have in the myth of Luma
bat the deer. Trees are usually associated with the centre. The
deer of Lumabat is associated with the horizon.
5. The H orizon in the M yth o f L um abat.
A comparison of the myth of Lumabat with the myths of

Tuglibong and Mebuyan reveals that there are some remark
able points of contrast among them. The two women are asso
ciated with pounding and whirling, with pestle and mortar.
Tuglibong prepares the surface of the earth and the dome of
the sky with the pestle. She stands in the center because the
horizon appears to be the result of her scolding and her activi
86 PIETER JAN r a a t s
ties. In contrast to Tuglibong, the elder, Mebuyan makes use

of the mortar and creates the underworld, thus unlocking or
preparing the abode of the souls and introducing death as it is
today. Mebuyan also stands in the centre because she goes
straight down and pestle and mortar belong together as a unit.
The natural antagonism between the surface of earth and sky
however has not had great consequences in the Bagobo myths.
The sky retires but that is about all. Not this antagonism of
sky and earth is developed further in these Bagobo myths but
the stories of Mebuyan and Lumabat make use of an antagonism
or a polarity created by the action of Tuglibong: the antagonism
of the centre against the horizon. The preceding pages have
shown how the horizon can be associated with forest (monkey )，
mountain (deer), ocean (shark), river (lizard), etc. It is also
clear from the myth that the horizon must be a place where
terrestrials can reach the sky, and how the horizon, in this
respect must be the equivalent of mountain, tree, scaffold, pole,
etc., that are usually in the centre. So, it would seem that the
Bagobo give to centre and horizon the same function but the
stories based on either of them appear in the reverse, like an
antagonism. An article written in 1917 by P. D. Kreichgauer17"
about the Toltecs, Mexico, and the function in their beliefs of
the horizon, can show how the Bagobo would be no exception if
they would associate the horizon with the beginnings; or if
they associate the deer with it. Other authors associate animals
with the celestial bodies that depend on the same horizon how
ever. Jensen180 did so when he says that the pig of the Wemale
is a lunar animal. The Bagobo deer is perhaps also such an
animal associated with sun or moon，but with horizon as well.
a) Animals and Horizon in China ana Mexico.
Hentze181 says that in Chinese mythical lore, the deer is

sometimes associated with the sun and, what is more important,
with rejuvenation. One can imagine that the sun is rejuvenated
at the horizon every morning, but the moon would be generated
in the deep pit of 3 moonless nights, and is consequently perhaps
179. Kreichgauer, Die Klapptore; Anthropos, Vol. 12—13，p. 272-311.

180. Jensen， loc. cit” p. 120.
181. Hentze3 Das Haus ， p. 92.
even considered a real “new” moon. However the horizon

would also play a role in this drama of the moon.
In his much quoted article, H. Th. Fischer182 says that
American Indians speak of a trip to the gates of the sun which
are obviously situated at the rim of the horizon. This is the
place to which Lumabat also went twice. The first times he
went there to catch the deer and the second time to find the
symplegades, the trapdoors or gates that looked like the jaws
of an animal. The symplegades of Lumabat will be discussed
in Chapter Five but a few details may be anticipated here to
show that in some parts of the world deer and symplegades
(horizon) are really associated.
The symplegades are a widely spread motif that reaches
from Greece (Argonauts) over India to Java, and P. D. Kreich
gauer proved that it also exists in Mexico among the Toltecs.
In Java it appears as a mysterious and powerful device, the
sela tertangkap, that watches the entrance to the skycountry
but that could not prevent the god Semar (the old creator)
from passing through. The symplegades in the Malay countries
may look like jaws, a mountain or rock that opens and shuts,
or as a rock placed in the sea where people are drowned.183 The
Toltecs184 in Mexico who also have the motif of the symplegades
use many symbols to represent them. According to Kreich
gauer,135 these symbols can be the deer or other objects which,
curiously enough, regularly appear in the myths and rites of
the Bagobo, Wemale and other Indonesian groups. He mentions
the following symbols among the Toltecs which, like the deer,
can replace the symplegades: house, gate, door, hole, mountain,
and tree; water, net, noose, jar, plate and bowl; bands (on ears,
eyebrow, nose, decorations) and jaws, arms, legs, hands, feet,
joints; finally: eyes, nose, mouth, cavities of the body, also
stars, etc. All of these symbols are identified by the Toltecs
with the horizon, the gate to the sky, which they seem to regard
as a source of life. This would mean that for the Toltecs all
are interchangeable with the deer associated up to the point
of identity with the symplegades. Kreichgauer also tries to
8
2
Fischer, Paradiesmythen, p. 237.

8
3
Demetrio, Studies， p. 382.

8
4
Kreichgauer， loc. cit., p. 272, 279, 284， 288, 290， 297， 302， 307-309.
8
5
Kreichgauer, ibidem.
88 PIETER JAN RAATS
prove that a similar value is given to these symbols by the

Chinese and some Altai tribes.
b) Symbols for Horizon in Indonesia and the Philippines.
The symbols mentioned above are found not only in the

myths of the contemporary Bagobo and other peoples but also
on burial jars of Megalithic culture, spread throughout Indo
nesia (especially those in Central Celebes) and on those recently
discovered by Dr. M. Maceda in Mindanao among the Manobo
of Cotabato. As jars they are significant already. Their covers
have the shape of mountains, poles, roofs, and figures appear
on them with outstretched arms and legs or hands and feet.
Noses and eyes are sometimes incised. This reminds us of the
kettle drums of the Dongson culture. One of these was found
on the Dieng plateau together with a round urn on a pedestal
with a “removable” pointed upper part.186 In f i g . 13 in H. R.
van Heekeren’s167 “The Bronze and Iron Age of Indonesia” a
tympan of such a kettle drum is reproduced. On it appears a
hunter chasing an animal (lion?, tiger?). For a Bagobo it
could look like an accompanying dog. A deer is seemingly
started up by this barking dog and is caught by a hunter with
a lasso (noose) in the next picture. The illustration in the
book mentioned offers only five scenes，but they seem to cover
the entire myth of Lumabat and the deer. Is this purely a
coincidence ? It is impossible to get any form of certainty in this
matter but one is forced to think here of Lumabat and his
exploits just as one thinks of Mebuyan if one sees in Mindanao
a female figure modeled in a squatting position on a burial jar.
The fact that the pictures are on the rim of a round kettle
drum (horizon?) could indicate Lumabat’s running around the
edge of the earth. The same drum, eventually inverted, could
also serve as a mortar to whirl a person into the earth as it
did to Mebuyan. Actually the kettle drums are still used in a
few places in Indonesia, and among the Lamet of Laos they
are used in burial rites and sometimes interred.16" The myth
relates that Lumabat caught the deer and took it with him.
186. N. J. Krom ，Inleiding I ， p. 151.

187. v. Heekeren, The Bronze Age，Figures 9， 10， 11， 12， 13.
188. v. Heekeren, loc. cit” p . 14,15.
On the kettle drum the deer is indeed caught but not killed,
as is normally done. The lasso is perhaps the equivalent of
the trap of the Bagobo and Visayans. One of the most impor
广
tant spirits of the Bagobo “Malaki” the protector of Bagobo
life, wealth and health, is a strangler and uses a device that
looks like a noose. He is a “good” spirit supposed to kill the
evil spirits of sickness. If the deer of Lumabat is really the
deer of death, it also released the spirits of sickness. The two
previous sub-paragraphs might prove that the “horizon” can
be a feature to be reckoned with in myths.
6. Id e n tity of Centre and H orizon.
，
Trap water, noose, forest, all mentioned, e.g. in the myth
of the lizard, seem to symbolize one and the same thing, the
horizon. In many Indonesian myths the tree serves as the
ladder to, or the link with, the sky. It usually seems to stand
or to have stood in ‘‘the centre.” The liana, a cord made of
grass,100 or a mountain101 may take the place of a tree. Pole and
pestle may belong to the same category. The Visayans192 use
all these symbols in their myth of origin with an intrigue
different from that of the Bagobo yet similar in essential
respects. A pole, liana or tree are cut and thus the link be
tween the sky and earth is severed; the pestle achieves, by
pushing the sky upwards beyond reach, the same effect and
becomes identical with the cut liana, eventually with the cut pole,
the broken down scaffold or the demolished mountain. Among
the Bagobo some of these symbols are found in the centre as
well as at the horizon (forest). Perhaps this is in itself pos
sible because a circle (horizon) and the centre of a circle are
interdependent. In the myth of Tuglibong, the sky and earth
still meet193 at the horizon indeed. This must mean that the
horizon has the same function now that the centre once had.
Therefore Lumabat can go to the horizon in order to find
there either life or another rhythm of life, perhaps the rhythm

190. Cole，W ild Tribes, p. 127.
191. Fischer, Paradiesmythen， p. 225.
192. Demetrio, Studies, p. 359-360.
90 flE T E R JAN RAATS
of sun and/or moon. The discovery of such an identity between

centre and horizon creates for a composer possibilities for new
intrigues. For instance, “traveling” from centre to horizon
and vice versa is made possible. The heroes traveling between
the two points can go now through many more adventures than
if they were to stay at the central point only, and nevertheless
centre and horizon would ultimately remain identical in mean
ing and function. The story of the origin of marriage and
death can now become completely separated from the story
of the origin of death by killing. The first can be staged m
the centre; the other partially on the horizon and partially in
the centre, or completely on the horizon. This could mean that
all life and, therefore, also death which supposes new life in
another world, can originate either at the central “point” or
at the rim of the “extended” circle, at the horizon. Both would
be an equally “sacred” place. One finds this indeed in the myth
of Hainuwele104where the connection between centre and horizon
as the Wemale conceive it is well revealed. The forest or hori
zon where the pig was caught by the hunter is also “the tree，，’
because the pig comes out of this forest (tree) and carries
on its tusks “the tree” in the form of a coconut. The hunter
plants this nut (tree) in the neighborhood of his house (the
center). The tree that develops or grows is the central tree
that yields the treasure girl Hainuwele who is subsequently
killed there and typically in the center of a dancing crowd. The
victim came from the horizon (forest) and was killed in the
centre. The forest (tree) is here the tree at the horizon,
but the coconut (its fruit) in the village of the hunter becomes
a central tree. Both must be the same. The girl herself is also
the tree; she likewise came “from” the horizon in the nut
that is now the central tree. This way centre and horizon
both appear to be equivalent symbols of life and death. The
horizon can be the mouth that swallows but also the tree that
yields a new fruit, and consequently a central tree. Centre
and horizon in myths would both contribute to the “explana
tion” of the mysterious phenomenon of life as it is. In the
far away undiscovered and unseen horizon the element of
mystery in life and death took its hiding.
194. Jensen, loc. cit 。p. 114-115， 155-156.

7. S acrificial Character of Centre and

H orizon in Bagobo C ulture.
Granted that centre and horizon are functionally identical,

it would be right to suppose that traps and nooses, also animals
like fish, lizard, deer, etc., caught far away in such traps or
nooses, or fruit plucked on a far away mountain or forest but
carried to the centre, symbolize primarily this horizon. The
animals however are analogous to or identical in significance
to the central tree or its fruit, as was demonstrated before.
They also appear all together in the famous Javanese Wayong
requisite, the “gunungan” or “kakayon， ” which words mean
“hill” and “tree.” In this “tree” also the house and even the
monster, the spirit of the forest, appears which can be the
swallowing horizon or the devouring centre.
Lumabat’s action (the killing* of the mysterious deer)
would now in essence not be different from the cutting of the
liana (symbol of centre), the demolishing of the central tree
or mountain, and the action of pestle and mortar or even of
the scolding. If the centre as centre has to be symbolized,
usually a fixed object will serve, a liana，mortar and pestle,
tree or mountain; if the horizon is to be brought in, an object
that can move will serve, a pig or a deer, a fish or (very
sophisticated) a nut (tree) (carried by a man) that changed
into a girl. In this last case (the killing of Hainuwele) fruit,
tree, pig and girl were all represented in one; perhaps “the
father” is even included. The object at the horizon has usually
to be carried or to be guided home, to “the house， ” which would
mean centre, but in that case movement, which is a char
acteristic of man or animal, is necessary. The one who can
meaningfully guide and escort animals to the house is usually
the man, the hunter or the fisherman. Perhaps, therefore,
man is often associated with horizon, the woman who used
to stay at home is associated with centre and tree.
All this means that symbols such as tree, liana or mountain,
(centre), are likely to appear in a story wherein the connection
between sky and earth is broken. Symbols like man or an
animal (horizon) would probably be found in a story concerned
with the direct introduction of death by killing. For this purpose
mountain or tree at the horizon may even “change” into pig,
girl, deer or anything that can move (and die). When these
92 PIETER JAN RAATS
beings of flesh and blood primarily associated with the horizon

are killed and death is thus “introduced， ” the specific “sacrificial
character’，of the act becomes for us more transparent than
when a liana (centre) is cut. But perhaps one should consider
the first primeval action (the cutting of the link) as pregnant
with the second just as the centre is with the horizon. In the
first static objects (tree, liana, mountain) are used as symbols;
in the second, animal life. The word “sacrifice” can now mean
the destruction of tree, mountain, cutting of liana or pole, (which
are usually associated with centre) as well as the killing of
animal, girl, giant or child (which are usually associated with
horizon). It would be an optical illusion to consider the hori
zon associated with “sacrifice” and the centre not; unless one
restricts “sacrifice” to the purely technical act of “killing.”
The object to be killed is only “killed” because items coming
from the horizon usually have animal life. In meaning and
significance, functionally, there would be no difference. This
is clear in the myth of Hainuwele where fruit, tree, animal and
girl, horizon and centre simply change into one another. They
are the same there, and this could be also the case elsewhere.
Admitted now that these events of primeval times are
sometimes celebrated today, the ritual performance must reflect
the picture acquired by studying the myths. The music, made
by pounding on drums (mortars)，together with the circling
dances on three of the four days of the Bagobo festival would
not only enhance such a celebration but actually represent the
creation and separation of the sky, earth and underworld. They
would be evocative of the actions in the “centre”，around the
mortar and pestle. The sacrifice of animal life, performed by
the Bagobo e.g. on the last day, would represent the action
associated with the horizon (animal life). The one includes
，
the other however, or the one presupposes the other, i.e., the
last day of the Bagobo celebration，on which the victim is killed,
would follow logically from the first days which represented
and celebrated the separation of sky and earth and the forma
tion of the horizon. The first days of the festival would celebrate
the mythical activities in the centre, the last day the mythical
activities associated with the horizon. In essence they would
be the same. The Bagobo festival would appear then as a
compact celebration of the whole of creation and not as some
unconnected days of ritual music and finally of a day of sacrifice.

The ritual music on pestle and drum (mortar), as well as the
dances, would be already “sacrifice” in a “wider sense.” They
would celebrate the creation of the cosmos as it is, including
sky and underworld, while the “sacrifice” in “the strict sense”
would celebrate the creation of mortal man but as a logical
consequence, conceived as the necessary completion of the previ
ous acts and events. Everybody, even if the last part, the
sacrifice of man or animal，is partially reserved to the male
faithful only, would celebrate the creation of the whole cosmos
as it is today.
Unfortunately, since the myths of Lumabat and Mebuyan
appear as independent myths implying contrasting origins of
death, the above explanation can be nothing more than a sug
gestion forced upon the mind by the final identity here of centre
and horizon and by the seemingly coherent Bagobo celebration
in four days. This explanation however would allow much in
Bagobo myth and rite to fall into place. In general terms it
could mean that according to the Bagobo idea man and woman
both are responsible for the mortality and fertility of “man ，
，
，
both of them in their own proper way, working independently
of each other because of a quarrel (separation) but ultimately
achieving one and the same effect. It would be good to cast
an eye on the sacrificial rite of the Bagobo itself and find out
whether the ceremonies used in that rite also corroborate what
was suggested above.
IV. The Sacrificial Rite of the Bagobo
1 . Pi t and Pole
The Bagobo might celebrate the introduction of death and

the saving of mankind by Lumabat through a recitation of
the myth, but the most solemn celebration and a more impressive
one was their sacrificial rite in which a human being was
sacrificed. Such human sacrifices were still offered regularly in
Bagobo settlements at the time the Americans established their
rule in the Davao area in the first decade of this century. This
94 PIETER JAN RAATS
is asserted by Cole1"5 and Benedict,™ who describe the rite

extensively according to witnesses whom they consider reliable.
A striking feature in this ceremony was the “altar•” The
victim was tied to a pole. This pole with two other poles planted
at the left and the right, carried a 4th pole that lay horizontally
upon the three vertical poles. This last one was covered with
foliage. The foliage probably represents the branches of a tree.
The victim was sometimes directly tied to a tree. The poles, with
or without the horizontal pole on top, formed a gate. This
centre or “house” (central gate) could coincide with the “gate”
meaning the symplegades or the horizon, as one symbol is
enough for both the gates. If this is correct the victim may
coincide with house and symplegades or with centre and horizon
as well. On the Javanese Kakayon the tree also appears with
a devouring monster drawn without perspective, either within
its centre where the first branches spread or on its top.
The Bilaan191 have almost the same ceremony the Bagobo
have. They go to a stream or to the forest outside the barrio;
sometimes they build there a “house” around the place of ex
ecution and the victim is killed in the house but tied the way
the Bagobo do. In front of the Bagobo and Bilaan victim a
hole was dug. This was used to receive the fragments of the
dismembered body and thus served as a grave. The victim
was either a slave or a captive. Usually198 he came from afar
and was either captured by the heroes or acquired by the rich
of the community from foreign lands or tribes, or caught as
a thief.199 The victim in the centre, like Hainuwele, represents
now also totality (centre and horizon). The two symbols, pit
and pole, recall the myths of Bebuyan and Lumabat, the burial
of Hainuwele and Mebuyan, and the catching of the deer of
Lumabat at the gates of the horizon (poles) where the entrance
to the sky-country is located. The victim would represent the
primeval deer killed again but now by a dancing crowd of
Bagobo, both men and women, who surround the victim, cut it
to pieces (like Hainuwele) and bury it in the “kutkut,” the
195. Cole, W ild Tribes， p. 119， 116-120.

196. Benedict, Ceremonal， p. 167—169.
197. Cole, W ild Tribes， p. 145-146.
198. Benedict, Ceremonial， p. 167—169， footn. 261，162 footn. 223.
199. Cole，W ild Tribes， p . 145 footn. 2， 146.
pit. The victim is first cut in two at the waist and then cut
into smaller pieces. It is interesting to read that the heroes
of the Isneg200 were accustomed during their great festival to
cleave a coconut in two. All the people would then rush
forward to get a small piece of the coconut meat and take it
home. The nut must be the equivalent of the “tree” (or the
human victim). What the Bagobo do in reality with the human
victim, the Isneg* seem to do with the tree in the form of a
nut. The Bagobo/01 too, take pieces of the victim home, and
the hands and feet were not buried in the kutkut but were
taken to the village to be dismembered further by the children.
This was their share in the sacrifice and perhaps the first part
of their initiation. The Bilaan202 permit their women and chil
dren to throw spears at the victim, which reminds us of a
sacrifical ceremony of the Dusun in North Borneo.203 The victim
is associated here with the path to the sky and back to the
earth which is here symbolized by a scaffold and a rope. In
the Dusun myth the scaffold is destroyed; in the Dusun rite
the rope is let loose so that the victim (pig) falls on the ground
which effect is similar to that if the rope were cut. One will
rarely see a case where the victim to die is so identical with
the primeval links between sky and earth. The ceremony is
called here “Lumobut.”
The Bagobo children were charged to cut the hands and
feet of the victim, an act expected to make them “courageous-”204
The Malay word for courageous is “berani” which is etymolog
ically the Bagobo word “bagani” and the Tagalog “bayani”.
These bagani and bayani are perhaps “peers” in the inter-
barangay (barangay is the Tagalog word for extended family)
relationship. The Bagobo bagani had killed and formed the
tribal nobility.
The fragments of hands and feet of the victim mentioned
were later buried on the graves of the dead205 in the village,
which shows a relation of the sacrifice with the dead. Some
o o o o o o
2
Vanoverberg， Isneg, p. 152, 213.

2
1 2
Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 142.

2

2
Evans, Dusun ， p. 356.

2
Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 169.

5
2

96 PIETER JAN RAATS
other parts of the victim206 were taken to the ceremonial house.

These，during a peculiar nightly ceremony, were put on plates
together with food and products of the fields and placed on a
small altar that hung from the ceiling as an offering to fhe
spirits of fertility (rejuvenation), the Tolus Kabalaekat. “Tolus”
means “semen.” The Tolus is seemingly associated with the
sky or the mountain (?). Only men plus a few boys, seated in
an enclosure, take direct part in this nightly Bagobo ceremony.
The women only look on. The night ceremony could be the last
part of an initiation rite undergone only by male children. It
is interesting to note that part of the food offered to the spirits
and eaten by the male attendants was “venison”207 (which
recalls the deer), and that some of this foo3 was cooked in
“green bamboos，，208 (which recalls the monkey). The connection
between violent death (sacrifice) and fertility (rej uvenation)
clearly appears in the offering of parts of flie killed victim
to the Tolus, the spirit of fertility. The boys who participated
in the sacrifice became, so it would seem, mortal and fertile men ，
hunters and future warriors. For final and complete initiation
into the order of the bagani，an expedition might be necessary
later.
From William G. Beyer we get the assurance that killing
in war is in the Ifugao country definitely associated with
fertility. The rite is called “Dikat” in Central and Southern
Ifugao, “Dallong” in North and East. It is done when a couple
do not beget children. Only if they remain unfertile after the
rites do they divorce. Unlike the Bagobo sacrifice, the Ifugao
rite is concerned with “w ar， ” but it seems to point in the same
direction.209
Urns (or jars) and poles are standard signs of burial or
death throughout Indonesia. The two are closely related to pit
and pole which are in turn associated with mortar and pestle,
the symbols of creation in Bagobo land and, throughout Indo
nesia, the symbols of fertility.
The Bagobo ceremony of a killed victim tied to the pole,
cut to pieces, and buried in the pit in front of him can, if all
206. Benedict， Ceremonial， p. 142-143, footn. 212，Cole W ild Tribes, p.

112， 118.
207. Benedict, Ceremonial， p. 146， 140.
208. Benedict， Ceremonal, p. 140,139.
signs do not deceive us, hardly leave much doubt about its
meaning. It is probably the celebration of the first and violent
death which, for the Bagobo, is the ultimate consequence of
the actions around pestle and mortar and the celebration of
an event first performed and of an institution founded by the
ancestors at the end of the “earthly paradise” when “man”
became mortal and was to be rejuvenated (fertility) in his
descendants but had also to migrate (individually) into anotHer
world. The first ancestors would be the perpetrators of both
deeds, of death for the individual and of rejuvenation for the
tribe and this for all eras to come or at least for this era.
This first killing and the separation of sky and earth, because
of the identity of centre and horizon, would be celebrated in
the same act and with the same symbols. Pit and pole symbolize
the victim, the victim represents pit and pole or pestle and
mortar. The great “feast” of the Bagobo that embellishes the
celebrations would only show how intimately society and religion
are integrated. But there is more than just singing, dancing
and drinking as Christie thought (Chapter Two, IV, 2.).
There are many more ceremonies in the sacrificial rite of
the Bagobo than those mentioned here, some of them quite
remarkable, that would deserve to be discussed separately.
Several ceremonies as well as the name of the Bagobo festival,
“Kewayan，，
，rem ind us of what the Javanese dalang of old
does before the Wayang performance in Java begins.
2, Id o ls o f the M ansaka.
The Mansaka, close neighbours of the Bagobo, give their

little idols made out of wood the shape of the stone burial
jars discovered some years ago in the caves of Western Min
danao by Dr. Maceda. These jars, though sometimes quad
rangular, are mostly round, tall and barrel-shaped. The upper
part of the container is somewhat wider than the foot and is
covered by a removable lid that sometimes looks like the roof
of a house, or is shaped like a pagoda or a mountain. It may
have a protuberance in the centre that can take the form of
a tall pole like a lingam or a top. A t other times it is a human
209. Cole, W ild Tribes， p. 111， 119， Benedict，Ceremonial p. 160-161.

footn. 222, 223， etc.
98 PIETER JAN RAATS
head with eyes, ears and nose scantily incised. One cover has
the form of a roof (or mountain?) which, however, looks like
a human head. Houses with a similar type of roof are still
built in Alor, an island in the eastern part of the Lesser Sunda
Islands.210 Arms also appear on the jars or covers at times, but
only in relief, and the feet are always invisible. The human
figure looks as if it were sitting in the jar and the upper torso
rising out of it.
The idols of the Mansaka still have such a shape today.
However they are made out of one piece of solid wood. The
lower part usually has the form of a square-shaped container
which widens (like the burial jars) from the foot below to the rim
above. The very foot of the container is flattened a bit in
order that it may not tumble over. What should be the cover
on top is now one piece with the massive container, but looks
like a protuberance with a human head on it. It seems to pop
out of the jar with ears like half moons and a face like a full
moon not unsimilar to the figures on the vats discovered by
Kaudern in Celebes.211 On the “head” is a big comb like a
half moon. Eyes, nose and mouth are sometimes drawn but
not incised. The arms are in relief at the outside of th© con
tainer, the feet are lacking. The idols are further embellished
with beads, earrings, and other kinds of gaudy things. Often
these items are simply put in the basket that hangs at the
foot of the statue. The Ngaju Dayak have similar statues But
they make them of stone and place them on their graveyards.
The Mansaka put these idols on sticks placed in the ground or
in their house and hang small baskets on these sticks as recep
tacles for gifts. The implication can hardly be doubted. The
idol in jar-form must be a sacred object of worship. This would
be understandable if it would represent the underworld and
the upperworld, the pit and the pole, the realm of Lumabat as
well as of Mebuyan who made man as he actually is in this
earthly world, and who are also his guides and saviors in the
life to come. It would also represent all the glorified ancestors
who have undergone the required rites (see next chapter). It
would be a monument to creation and to the institution of death
210. Dubois, Alor, p. 32 plate X V I.

2 1 1 . v. Heekeren, The Bronze Age, plate 22， 23， 24， 25.
212. Scharer, Ngaju Religion，plate X X V .
with its implications introduced by the ancestors and regularly

celebrated in the rites by the tribe.
If these idols were the former burial jars, the Mansaka
must have practised secondary burial, once the end of a great
festival intended primarily for the dead. The burial jar in
which the bones were placed was at that time the monument
of this successfully held festival. Secondary burial is no longer
practised by the Mansaka but the festival in which a sacrifice
is offered was still held at the beginning of this century. The
little idols in the form of the former jars would be the traces
left of these great festivals. The idols in the form of jars
kept in the houses at home must have replaced the real stone
jars, the usual monuments of these rites, in which the bones
were buried and that were perhaps placed and kept in caves in
the inaccessible mountains, as the Manobo of Cotabato did.
The Bagobo and Manobo today prefer small houses, the
tambara, for worshipping the spirits at home to the idols in
jar-form of the Mansaka. The “houses” are placed on poles
with baskets for gifts, all like the jar-shaped idols of the Man
saka. The consecration of these tambara，in which the spirits
will reside, takes place during a great Bagobo festival which
is often held for the dead.213 I f this is correct the spirits would
not only come to dances, or be attracted by gifts and colors,
but also the tambara-'house11r the monuments or souvenirs
of the festival, would invite them to take up residence there.
Rites as well as monuments of rites would re-present the spirits.
Small houses called prayerstands by Benedict and jars with
covers in the form of roofs can well all be identical indeed, and
so can the idols and the sacred poles be of the Mansaka.
3. R em arks on the Bag：

obo Celebrations.
It is amazing that the Bagobo do not celebrate the origin

of marriage and fertility as such. At least，such a celebration
e.g. in licentious intercourse was not recorded either by Benedict
or by Cole. One gets the impression that the Bagobo favour
only what they consider an orderly and well-arranged celebra
213. Stutterheirrij Indonesia Archaeology, p. 77, 83， 84， Benedict, Cere

monial, p . 126 (cf note; 138).
100 PIETER JAN RAATS
tion of their four-day festival.214 They discourage drunkenness

as it leads to debauchery and to killing* even among friends.
The ritual killing of a human victim was perhaps enough to
compensate for restraint and suppression during the year. We
know that other tribes, who also celebrate the beginnings,
positively favour licentious practices during* such festivals.
They lift, for instance, the ban that forbids marital infidelity.
The Ngaju Dayak studied by Scharer is a well-known example.
A similar practice existed also among some groups on the island
of Flores, for instance, in Maomere. The festival there with
the so-called Togo dance (a dance to and fro in a circle) during
the festival was an occasion for young people to make love.
Scharer215 explains that for the Ngaju Dayak this is the celebra
tion of the paradise, the period before the customs that regulate
married life came into existence. For the Bagobo it would be
a celebration of the last days of the paradise also, when the
mythical beings began to practise intercourse that finally ended
that period, and led, under Mebuyan and Lumabat, to established
married life, social regulations, agriculture and death. But death
and fertility are for them interrelated. To celebrate the one
is logically to include the other. It is possible that bitter experi
ence during festivals has led the Bagobo to observe more sobriety
in this matter so that even in the myth of Mebuyan free inter
course finally no longer appears. The pounding of rice and the
music made on mortars together with the dances described in
the first two chapters have perhaps sufficiently replaced in a
symbolic manner what was once or could be interpreted as
intercourse and its direct celebration.
The summary of this first part of the Lumabat myth will
be offered at the end of Chapter Five in which the second part
of the myth will be discussed. It would be possible to dwell
here upon the personality of Lumabat, comparing* him with
similar personalities in the myths of other Filipino tribes, But
it seems less necessary than in the case of Tuglibong. Suffice
it to say that the Visayans had a spirit Captan217 who amongst
214. Benedict， loc. cit” p. 110， 201, (36).

215. Scharer, Gottesidee， p. 66.
216. Cole，W ild Tribes， p . 1183 Benedict, Ceremonial， p. 143， footn. 212，
Demetrio ， Studies, p. 370.
217. Loarcaj Relacion: Blair & Robertson; V o l . V 3 p. 173.
other things is supposed to have planted the first plant and who
was able to resurrect the dead from the grave, two character
istics that remind us of Lumabat. The spirit Captan has his
residence in the sky and is close to the highest (Tagalog) god
Bathala. The Visayans also have a spirit Manguayan218 who
shares some of Captan’s powers but who ferries the dead to
the underworld across a stream. Lumabat is more similar to
Captan, and Manguayan more to the Bagobo Mebuyan, a wom
an, whose name reminds of Manguayan. There must, so it
seems, also be a relation between the Bagobo Lumabat and the
Ifugao Lumawig as well as the Dusun ceremony, Lumobut.210
It seems that personalities, functions and associations of spirits
can shift and also that tribes sometimes retain only one pole
of a former antagonism neglecting the other that withers away;
or they substitute this with a pole belonging to another antago
nism thus melting two sets of antagonisms together.
Lumabat was sent by Manama, perhaps the equivalent of
the Visayan sky god22,) “Abba•” Lumabat’s sister, Mebuyan, is
the daughter to Tuglibong and perhaps sent or delegated by
her. Ultimately these two would be close to the former two
and eventually coincide with them and be identified，one with
the earth and Tuglibong, the other with the sky and Manama.
They are an only son and an only daughter. They would just
set forth what the parents were. The Bagobo horizon would
be ultimately the equivalent of the sky, which is among the
Bagobo more associated with evil and suffering. Goodness and
wisdom are associated here usually with the underworld. This
could have induced the Bagobo to tear asunder the path of
the souls into two distinct paths. The benign effect would have
been attributed to the so-called path of Mebuyan the painful ；
aspect of the path of the souls would have become characteristic
of the path of Lumabat. This will be the topic of the next
chapter.
218. Loarca， ibidem.

219. Beyer, Folk Art, p. 7， Scott， Cordillera, p. 128-130， Evans, Dusun,
p. 354.
220. Pigafetta, Voyage，Blair & Robertson Vol. X X X I I I . p. 127.
i02 PIETER JAN RAATS
I. Lumabat’s Trip to the Sky-Country
1 . The P ilg rim ag e to the Source o f Life.
The first part of the myth of Lumabat discussed in the

preceding pages may be considered a version of the Wemale
myth of Hainuwele-Mulua Satene with a male counterpart as
central character. This myth of Lumabat，together with some
elements from the myth of Mebuyan, seems to be a more or
less complete parallel of the myth of the Wemale. However, as
was pointed out earlier, while the Wemale mention the violent
death of Hainuwele as the only cause of the end of mythical
times, the Bagobo suggest in the myth of Mebuyan that i(inter-
course” was also a cause. This may be one reason why they
formed a double myth, one of Lumabat where there is killing
and the other of Mebuyan without. But the Bagobo composer
had also to provide a story now wherein Lumabat, who found
his own path, appeared as a psychopomp or a guide of the dead
as Mebuyan and Mulua Satene are. Whether this second part
has always been an integral part of the myth is difficult to
ascertain. The link seems somewhat artificial, although not
illogical, and it is what the Bagobo tell.
In the preceding pages, it has been suggested that centre
and horizon, pit and mountain, pestle and mortar, may be all
basically the same. It would be the place or source of creation,
life and death. Death, however, for the Bagobo and others,
seemed to be only another form of life in another country.
Dying could thus be a return to the source of life in order to
gain there a new form of life and Lumabat would be (at least
once) the guide or pathfinder, a psychopomp. By the action
of Tuglibong the centre was removed to the horizon where sky
and earth still meet. There the condition of the primeval
“origin” still exists and Lumabat is associated with it as the
two women were with the centre. This “return” is like a
journey along a difficult path. There are adventures along the
way, one after the other. Such paths with the conventional
trials221 are well-known throughout the Malay countries. It is
221. Demetrio, Studies^ p. 363.

interesting to see that the Bagobo have stored the tradition of

this awful “soul-path” in the myth of Lumabat, but that they
have barely mentioned trials on and even have made easy the
path of Mebuyan into her underworld. Suffering is for the
Bagobo associated with the sky.
In the first part of the myth discussed in Chapter Four
Lumabat goes to the horizon and, circling around the moun
tain, catches the deer and brings death and rejuvenation to
the centre. In this way he extends creation by making individual
man mortal and fertile. In essence his action is the same as
the more simple one of Mebuyan. She stays at home and, being
in the centre, whirls down into the earth where she awaits all
mankind, thus making them mortal while still taking care of fer
tility on earth. Mebuyan awaits the dead in the very centre, in
her house in the underworld which is easy to find. Lumabat, the
bringer of death and rejuvenation, must travel with his fol
lowers to the sky (horizon), and a pretty adventurous trip
will be necessary. The sky is far beyond land and ocean and
the spirits of the sky, obviously do not like Tuglibong whose
“offspring” the mythical beings are, and they refuse to let
them in.
It should always be borne in mind that centre and horizon
would remain nevertheless functionally the same. Perhaps,
，，
as was mentioned in the previous Chapter Four IV 1，there
is a Javanese equivalent to this, the Javanese Kekayon, also
called Gunungan, a requisite of the Wayang play. This requisite
represents the central tree，but in its centre where the branches
split often a devouring monster appears. This could be the
monster of the forest or the horizon, showing how tree (centre)
and monster (horizon) are the same, not only a symbol of
the beginning but also of reabsorption at the very end of the
process of life, which is death. Reabsorption however would
eventually mean ‘‘rebeginning.”
2, The Sym plegades and the M onster; B agani and K akihan.
The most striking part in the trip of Lumabat is his passing

by the symplegades. These have been discussed previously and
，
it was mentioned (Chapter Four, I I I 5, a, page 87.) that the
Javanese have a similar story in which the god Semar222 acts

as a guide for a certain expedition. On arriving at the symple
gades, he orders them to open up. Then follows his fight with
the beings in the sky. It seems that there is some similarity
in the Bagobo myth with this Javanese version, since Lumabat
also passes through the gates and starts the fight with the sky
beings. In one version he speaks authoritatively, “You go
higher up,” but the sky refused. Lumabat had to offer a man
first. In the end, Lumabat nevertheless becomes the great
god or the king in the sky country.
The Wemale have an initiation rite for the members of
the Kakihan society which resembles also the fight in the myth
of Lumabat. This is the rite of Nitu223 Haulu, a man-eating
monster which the members of the society are said to face
after they have jumped into a hole and are beaten up by
invisible actors in a dark room. In this rite the monster and
the heroic deeds of a hero, Tanku Telie,224 are dramatized by
the initiandi and the initiators. This monster has a chthonic
character or it is perhaps like the Wemale spirit Tuwale225
ambivalent. For the rest, the monster Nitu Haulu resembles
the Bagobo monster of the horizon. He must be the equivalent
of the symplegades that appears in the myth of Lumabat in
the form not of rocks that open and shut as they did for Semar
but as the jaws of a devouring animal. The monster of fhe
Bagobo catches those who fail to jump properly and grinds
these unfortunates to stones and “sand.” The Bagobo monster,
located where sky and earth meet, could have the character
istics of both. In the person of Lumabat the Bagobo may have
a counterpart to the Wemale Tanku Telie. The devouring
monster, located by the Bagobo at the horizon, is a common
characteristic of the Indelible Elements as will appear in the
next paragraph.
Without anticipating what would belong to the conclusion
or to another discussion it seems necessary to mention here that
the Wemale have 2 parallel societies in their tribe, the Kakihan226
2
2
2
Mellema ， Wayang, p . 19 (18), 48 (85), 53.

2
2
3
Jensen, Drei Strome^ p. 149, 159-162.

4
2
2
Jensen, loc. cit., p. 149, 92.

2
2
5
Jensen， loc. cit., p. 88， 100， 98， 117， 193.

2
2
6
Jensen, loc. cit.} p. 80-85.

secret society and the Wapulane society. The Kakihan has the
rite of Haulu, while the Wapulane227 cherish the myth of Hainu
wele-Mulua Satene. A comparison of the two need not be made
here but it is a fact that the antagonism between the two socie
ties may foster a difference in their myth and rite. While the
Wemale now show a vertical division inside the tribe, like two
moieties，(Wapulane group versus Kahihan group), the Bagobo
have a horizontal division into classes and as far as is known,2"8
no division into moieties or clans. The separation between the
higher and the lower brackets of Bagobo society is in many
respects strong. The higher class is the ruler in worldly and
religious matters; its members are the leaders in politics and
rites. To this higher class belong the men who are warriors,
the Bagani,228 who have a special relation to the sky spirit called
Mandarangan,230 who will be discussed in another article. They
form an esoteric231 group within the society which has to be
studied further. All these show that the story of Lumabat as
a psychopomp to the sky-country is perhaps not merely a literary
requirement after all. The character of the story, as far as
it is associated with the sky, could have a meaning connected
with this Bagobo social phenomenon and thus be important for
a fuller understanding of things Bagobo. As in the case of
sacrifice and symbol it would not necessarily mean that antago
nism in myth or rite would have produced this social antagonism.
Returning now to the conclusion previously made，that the
main feature in the myth of Lumabat~the awful jaws— is
not exceptional in the stories of the Malay Archipelago，some
more similarities between the Bagobo myth and Wemale rite
will be discussed. One of these may be found in the trip to the
abode of the monster and the events that follow after passing it.
3. The T rip o f L u m abat and the B ite o f K akihan.
The story of the Bagobo, a complicated and composite myth,

that will be compared this time with a rite of the Wemale. To
7
2
2
Jensen, loc. cit., p. 110—125.

2
2
8

2
9
9
Cole, loc. cit., p. 96， Benedict, loc. cit” p . 10， 254， 255.
3
0
2
Benedict, Ceremonial， p. 254; 162, 25-26.

2
1
3
Cole, W ild Tribes p. 96.

begin with, the members of the Kakihan23" take a ceremonial

bath before they are initiated. In the Bagobo myth, Lumabat
crosses the ocean. Both symbols (bath-ocean) intend to reflect
a separation just as the symplegades (gates) do between the
life before and the life to come, and this separation or severing
will often be a great challenge. Water is like a gate, always
an end and a beginning. If the entering into and the stay in
the water are stressed，severing and danger will predominate.
If the exit and rebirth are emphasized, the bath will generally
appear as benign. Sometimes both are mentioned but the one
always supposes the other. We see now that in the ceremonial
bath the Wemale have probably dramatized in a rite the crossing
of the ocean, or the painful separation between the life before
and the initiation to come. A ceremonial bath is explicitly men
tioned in the Bagobo myth of Mebuyan, but here it accommodates
the dead to their new life and makes death definite. Although
it is also a separation from the former life, a return to this
former life after bathing is no longer desired by the dead. The
benign effect is stressed here and the dead are even anxious
now to take up the new form of life in the new country. The
bath alone would suffice to enable them to acquire a new life
but many tribes prefer to link symbols of equal value (heat,
earth, etc.) together and thus prolong the ritual or the suspense
of the audience.
The Bagobo pilgrims make the trip on foot and are severely
punished if they speak during the trip or if they try to give
information concerning the goal or purpose of the trip. They
perish, right on the spot. The path is “flanked” by trees (vege
tation) and stones (the earth) that speak and ask tempting
questions. The travelers are tried not only by the Element
water but also by “earth” and “vegetation.” One may also
recall here the well-known prohibition not to look backwards.
It seems that the pilgrims must forget and abandon everything,
and are not allowed to linger on. Determination is necessary,
death is finality. The Wemale have made it taboo to reveal
the secrets of their initiation to those who are not initiated
or are left behind. The myth shows that not only water but
also vegetation and earth have devouring power. They are
232. Jensen, Drei Str6me; p. 91,161.

A STRtJCTtjRAL STUDY OF BAGOBO MYTHS AND RITES 107
Indelible Elements.
The Bagobo arrive at the symplegades, the “doors” where
sky and earth meet, the entrance to the Beyond. The Wemale
arrive at the initiation house (gates) built in the forest. The
forest (tree) is here the end of the inhabitable world and (the be
ginning of) the horizon. The Wemale initiandi now enter the
house and find a dark menacing hole in the floor. This could
be a dramatization of the arrival of the followers of Lumabat
before the threatening jaws of the symplegades. The Bagobo
have to jump through the teeth of the monster, each one alone
and in his turn, into the nowhere, into darkness. Many fail
or are crushed by the jaws and disappear into eternal death.
Other tribes have an abyss to cross while balancing on liana or
rope. Those who lose balance and fall, vanish, or, e.g., if the
moral issue is known, might arrive in a pool of torment. The
liana or rope that cross an abyss are in a horizontal position,
but they are the same liana or rope that appears elsewhere in
a vertical position (earth and sky). Jaws and abysses are
also identical. The Bagobo who fail and disappear could be
the poor and the wretched,233or those who are not valiant, hence,
not “Bagani.” The Bagobo associate heroism with the sky.
The hole in the house of the Wemale is fearsome and each
one must jump into it alone. He hears the cries and the shouts
of those who have preceded him and have arrived in a dark
room where they are actually beaten up. The hole and the
subsequent beating of the Wemale seem to represent the (crush
ing) monster of the Bagobo.
The Wemale sacrifice a pig during the performance. Luma
bat offers a more precious victim. As he stands in front of the
doors, he deliberately allows the last man to follow him to be
snatched by the horrible jaws. The last man is, as far as the
Bagobo are concerned, perhaps the least man. Was this last
man intended as a victim, and was the “offer” of Lumabat to
the spirit of the doors intended as a sacrifice? It seems so.
Once through the gates, the Bagobo climb uphill in contrast
to the rite of the Wemale where everybody seems to go down
ward. In one version of the myth Lumabat sees (after he has
reached the Beyond) “sinful souls” tortured in pools of flames
233. Demetrio, Studies, V o l . 14, p. 363-364.

and acia.-34 The moral issue, in itself not necessarily of alien

origin in a Malay tribe, need not be considered an originally
constituent part of this myth. The flames and pools of acid
beneath the path could formerly have been only a new element
of danger confronting Lumabat. Neither is it likely that Luma
bat saw “sinful souls” suffering over there because he was
apparently the first to travel to the sky country. This part
of the myth is suspect although only with reference to the
suggestion of a moral issue and the presence of souls already
there, since the Bagobo can expect to find heat on their path
to the Beyond. The path leads through the horizon where sky
and earth meet and where the scorching that overtook Tuglibong
must still be felt. The Visayans,235 as will be discussed in the
paragraph below, also undergo the heat ordeal on their soul-
path without mentioning the moral issue. It is interesting to
note, however, that in this particular myth the Bagobo associate
heat with sinful behaviour. Anyway Lumabat cannot possibly
have seen ‘‘souls’’ in the pools but Lumabat could have seen
the pools prepared for “sinful souls.” Perhaps in seeing the
“souls” already in the pools, the composer was imaginatively
peering into the future. The moral issue could or could not be
an interpolation.
The Bagobo meet many obstructions, mostly sharp objects,
on the last leg of their journey. Moreover, the spirits who
have been occupying this “sky-country” before them surprisingly
also show hostility by spitting upon them. Their “isse” (saliva)
becomes sharp objects that cut into the flesh of the new
comers. One is led to recall the grinding teeth of the monster,
but the sharp objects and bodily excrements appear also in
the Javanese stories about Semar.
After jumping into the dark room under the opening in
the floor, the Wemale initiandi are received by men armed with
sticks who beat the initiandi and wound them with their sharp
bamboo spears. The Bagobo will finally be disemboweled, while
the Wemale lose their flesh which is supposed to be eaten by
the horrible Nitu Haulu. Then the initiandi are set free.
It seems rather certain now that there is a great similarity
between the myth of the Bagobo about Lumabat, the psycho
234. Benedict, Myths ， p. 20.

235. Demetrio，StudieSj V o l.1 4 3 p. 364.
pomp, and the Wemale initiation rite of Kakihan. One may

add that the nine hills of Mulua Satene, where the “souls” Have
to die and rise again，are also comparable to the path of
Lumabat on which many disappear completely while otRers
are able to overcome the challenge of death many times. There
is, however, a difference with regard to the rite of Nitu Haulu.
In the myth of the Bagobo Lumabat seems the only survivor
and becomes the highest god. In the rite of the Wemale all
or most of the initiandi survive, although they undergo many
tortures. It may mean that the Bagobo think of this path as
not feasible for the common man and that all will go to Mebuyan
as she proclaimed. On the other hand, the Wemale Kakihan
still consider the path of Nitu Haulu quite acceptable. As was
mentioned before it is possible that this part of the myth of
Lumabat had originally another place in the Bagobo set of
myths.
Concerning how the Bagobo and Wemale acquired these
clusters of symbols and intrigues, it seems reasonable to admit
that the myth and rite of the Bagobo and Wemale are strongly
determined by the Indelible Elements and partially a dramati
zation of death and burial as practiced by the tribe concerned, and
decomposition, metaphorically applied to the “soul，，，and that
borrowing from other cultures in everything was not per se
necessary. This will be discussed in the next part of this chap
ter. The basic idea of Indelible Elements with their devouring
and transforming character, was once widely spread not only
in Greece but also in Egypt, India and China.
II. Death and the Elements
The first part of the myth of Lumabat celebrated the

origin of “death in life;” the second part, the trip towards “life
in death•” The first part tells how death (in life) for the
individuals came into the world and how the tribe became
immortal. The second half shows how the individual thereafter
gains (or regains) in the face of great challenges, where every
thing every time is at stake, the sources of life and eventually
obtains “life in death.” In the myth of Mebuyan the division
of the two parts is not very clear although she also appears
as a psychopomp, but the challenges in it are much fewer and

more benign from the start.
It is clear that the Bagobo can hardly produce any reliable
datum on which to base either the vision they have of that
“life in death,” or of the path the “soul” follows to reach the
“country of the dead•， ’ The fact that several tribes236have stories
about people who claim to have followed the path of the souls
up to a certain point or who have seen it from the top of a hill,
etc.，only demonstrates the urgency of the problem. For the
Bagobo Lumabat who was a god is their informant.
The nature of this path is now the subject of our inquiry.
The awe of death, the myth of the beginning, and the natural
process the dead body undergoes have, so it seems, in several
of these cases served to provide imagination with the picture
of the path of the soul. This would mean that the path Lumabat
had blazed, the same path that the dead will take after him,
is to a certain extent a parallel or a transposition on a higher
level of the phenomena that occur in and around the dead body
when the last breath is breathed. What happens to the body
that returns to the Elements would happen also to the “soul”
but in an analogous way. The path of the soul is not so much
a passively undergone ‘‘process，，however such as the dead
has actively to undertake. Perhaps this also entails that the
fate of the dead body can not be entirely indifferent to the “soul”
(the dead person). This might help to explain partially how
the burial rites developed. In the following pages it will appear
that the return to the primeval elements is a painful process
involving the body as well as the “soul” of the dead. The process
in and on the body is visible and would partially serve as a pat
tern for what happens to the “soul” invisibly.
1 . Ret ur n to the Elem ents.
The trip the “soul” of the Visayans231 makes is different

from that of the Bagobo but some relevant similarities may be
recognized. Here, too, the soul of the dead must travel and
will be absorbed, not by a monster that “eats” it, but by a cave
or hole in which fire burns. It will be seen that remnants of
236. Demetrio, loc. cit., p. 383.

the devouring element ‘‘fire， ’ appear here and are associated

with the underworld. The process of absorption is the same
in both stories. However, the arrangement of the elements and
the intrigue is different.
The Visayans now relate that a dead man traveled to the
shore of the ocean where he boarded a boat in which a silent
ferryman was seated. The dead asked him repeatedly where
they were going but the ferryman kept silent. The ominous
silence and loneliness of death enhance the character of great
uncertainty that causes fear and agony. In the Bagobo myth
the travelers were assailed by questioners. After the departure
or the painful severing, the Bagobo dead had first to travel to
the shore on foot. Upon reaching the shore they set out to
cross the ocean. No mention is made here of how they cross
the water. Perhaps,238 the Bagobo have a stick or a staff to
“divide the waters.” Those who use a magic wand would travel
on foot to the shore but then they would have to cross the
ocean walking on its bottom between two walls of water and
finally reach the other shore. The number of possible combina
tions is legion. In all these stories the dead are usually “caught，
”
walled in, between rocks or walls of water, as in a grave.
The Visayans tell that during the trip the soul, unwilling
to proceed (lack of determination) and caught between the
deep ocean and the ugly ferryman, attacked the ferryman and
hit him on the nose. The ferryman seemed not to be too much
disturbed but, on arrival on the opposite shore，he pitched the
dead man down in a dark hole where it was hot.239 After going
through three hot places, the “soul” would reappear and obvi
ously be ready for a new life. The remarkable thing is that in
this Visayan story, the path of the soul leads through water
and heat, the primeval elements out of which many believe
creation and life to have arisen. As they appear in the Visayan
story, these elements “swallow” the dead. Neither are here the
symbols of the beginning lacking, such as boat, mountain,
tree, hole, sometimes in the more sinister form of pole, staff,
rock, or cave. This must mean that the soul returns to the
primeval elements of the beginning located now at the horizon,
the far away shore. This return is difficult and full of dangers,

239. Demetrio, loc‘ cit., p. 364.
and is like a second birth but backwards. The hole into which
the Visayan ferryman pushed the dead must be the symplegades
of Bagobo, but everything is inverted. Instead of the “soul”
being swallowed “by the gate， ’’ it is pitched “into the hole,"
as into a cauldron, by the ferryman. The ferryman is function
ally the equivalent of the Bagobo monster that sits ‘‘behind， ’ or
“in” the gate. This Visayan ferryman looks as ugly as the
monster but is not at all bad since the whole process is finally
intended for the well-being of the soul. I f the crossing of the
ocean could be considered the “wet” symplegades, the Visayan
hole would be the “hot” ones. Both ordeals challenge the dead
at the end as flood and heat once threatened life on earth in the
beginning.
Although the Bagobo also have “heat” as an ordeal at the
beginning, they do not give it a conspicuous place, as the Visayan
do at the end for the reabsorption. The Bagobo symplegades
are mainly the entrance, the mouth of something that “devours”
such as a monster, a dangerous or nasty spirit. Destructive or
devouring by nature however are all the elements, of water as well
as of fire, earth and darkness. They can all be represented by one
devouring monster. In some myths or rites the monster appears
linked to the element earth, in others to water or fire, but
in this sort of stories all the elements will always somehow
narrow, decrease or endanger and swallow life. The Bagobo
have a devouring spirit called Mandarangan240 associated with
heat, with the sky and the volcano Mount Apo, that perhaps
should have appeared here in the myth of Lumabat instead of
the monster that grinds to sand (earth). Actually the horizon
is associated with both sky and earth, and the element “heat”
appears anyway when Lumabat has passed the symplegades
(the flames and the acid).
The Bagobo associated the earthly Buso241 with the decay
of the bodies. Perhaps they have reserved for the spirits of
the other elements the more immaterial process the dead man
undergoes after he has expired. The element earth seems to be
for many Bagobo the principal devouring element, eventually
for souls as well as for bodies, but the much feared Buso are
associated with earth and darkness and take care principally

241. Benedict， loc. cit.s p. 29.
of the bodies. Other elements and their spirits, such as Malaki

，
t 01ug Waig (water) and Mandarangan (heat) seem to have
only the more immaterial task of transforming the “soul” and
are less or not concerned about the dead bodies.
The whole dead man, body and “soul” both, would in this
way be transformed, the bodies by the earth spirits Buso only,
the souls however by the spirits that represent the more im
material characteristics of all the three elements: earth, water
and heat. This leads us to the topic of discussion below.
2. Process and P ath.
The highlights in “the path” of the dead (soul) seem to

run parallel now with the natural “processes，，in the body.
The first part of the process is depicted as a departure in silence,
a severing of ties, and a setting out on a long trip alone, on a
lonely, ghastly and irksome path. The dead “m an，，
，
，
” the “soul
is on his way, has “le ft， ” has “passed” away. Its body left behind
does not react anymore and it is attacked and transformed into a
skeleton by the Buso; the horrible process of fading away and
decay. The body is “carried” to its grave. Thus, the body under
goes a process, but at the same time the soul on a higher level is
supposed to experience something analogous. The “soul” parti
cipates more actively in the transition of the “dead man” and is
supposed to “t r a v e l h i s adventures are supposed to be a trip or
“path， ” not so much a “process， ” which applies to the body. The
Bilaan242 believe that when the body starts decaying (3 days),
fading away, the soul “sails” away in a boat.
The narrowness of the path (or the boat) that makes the
soul feel oppressed and almost annihilated is perhaps inspired
by the narrowness of the grave or by the fear of death itself,
or by both. The Bagobo liked to bury their dead in crocodile
shaped coffins.243 The narrow crocodile-shaped coffin might repre
sent the monster that swallows and eats body and/or souls.
Firmer ground for parallelism between the path of the soul
and the process of bodily decay is had when we recall the state
ment that the dead man will be disemboweled. The myth of

243. Benedict，Ceremonialj p. 209; 187.
Mebuyan only says that the dead lose their earthly desires to
eat and to generate. The power to do so, however, was situated
in the organs of the body. Thus, as cited earlier, the visible
decay of the body could suggest a “disembowelment” to be
undergone by the dead (soul) in the Beyond, an immaterial
process that transforms the dead into a sky or underworld being
with different desires. A tribe in Palawan is used to carry
the dead body to a river first and to submerge it. After this
ceremony the dead is buried. This custom could be the ceremony
a dead body has to undergo in order that the “soul” might
go through a parallel experience (the crossing of “the ocean ”）
of diappearing and rising again on a higher level. The custom
of the secondary burial practised by many tribes could be
interpreted in an analogous way. Here the (Indelible) Element
Earth would be the active element. What happens in the grave
would happen to the soul as well; the final exhumation and
re-burial (secondary burial) in the jars would represent visibly
the final transformation of the soul on the other level. Crema
tion (with “fire” as transforming element) would also have
been understood by the Bagobo.
Thus the return of the body to its elements is partially
responsible for the Bagobo picture of the path of the dead
(“the soul” ）who leaves behind his former existence and travels
to regain the sources of life, the primeval elements，in the
centre or horizon, for a new life of different nature without
the necessity to eat or the power to generate, the two charac
teristics of the life in the Beyond that seem to the Bagobo
“spiritual” enough. This would be the dangerous path to the
soul strewn with obstacles, narrowed by alleys of Elements like
water and fire, through gates and along abysses where jumping
and balancing are necessary before one can reach final “salva-
tio n ，
” the transformation into another being belonging to
another world and feeling happy to be there.
III. The Sacrifice and the Dead
Perhaps the story of the trip of Lumabat is attached to

the previous myth about this spirit in order to teach that
death，the inevitable fate of every human being，is the result
of the choice the tribe had made once in order to gain fertility
or rejuvenation for the tribe instead of the “immortality” on
earth of the individuals. This immortality ceased with the first
killing. The living society, however, so the myth seems to
teach, that now enjoys the gift of this life as it is, has the
duty to conduct the individual through the gate of the Beyond
where the Indelible Elements, for one reason or other, must
be continuously activated to absorb the dead as well as to give
new life to them. The sacrifice that now celebrates and activates
the life-giving aspect of the beginnings, also commemorates
and apparently stimulates the re-absorption of the dead in the
process of revivification. This would be consequent, because if
the sacrifice is salutary for the tribe in this life it must also be
useful for the dead individuals who are the result or consequ
ence of this primeval choice of mankind. Almost everybody
takes transformation and life after death for granted. Sacrifice
therefore would support and bolster the whole course and struc
ture of this world to which it gave its shape, including life on
earth and the processes of death in the Beyond. It is not surpris
ing then to read that the dead of the Visayans244 can only be
rescued from the heat in the Beyond into which they have pro
ceeded, and find rest in the tree-covered mountains far away,
if a sacrifice is offered by the family and friends of the dead.
The dead are supposed，so it seems, to be lingering somewhere
beyond the point of no return enclosed in the dark hot cauldron
and without the help of an activating sacrifice they would not
be able to get the process of their revivification into the new
country finished. Some believe that this may be the reason why
they are not yet completely departed and are able to bother the
living. Life on earth would wither away if the Bagobo would
not offer sacrifices to stimulate it from time to time,245 and so
must life in the Beyond.
The spirits associated with the elements involved in the “life
in death” process are not exactly kind and friendly, are usually
voracious, and often gullible but not all bad. The necessity of
4
4
Demetrio ， Studies, P. 368.

4
5
Benedict, Ceremonial, P. 149, ：

, W ild Tribes, p. 116-117.
4
6
Benedict, Myths, p,.20-21.

7
4
Demetrio ， Studies, P. 364.

も
8
Demetrio, Studies, P. 382.

offering sacrifice for the dead appears sometimes in the shape

of such demanding spirits who would receive the sacrifice (man,
pig, fowl) as a kind of toll.246 Under this image the more mech
anistic idea of inevitable reabsorption or “swallowing” into
the elements, activated by the sacrifice, would seem to have
taken cover. Offering is made to those spirits to prevent the
“souls” from being held up unnecessarily long by these ogres.
In the other more mechanistic view, however, the duration of
the impersonal process would be abbreviated automatically by
the activating sacrifice. A moral issue has probably nothing
or not much to do with it, in either opinion.247 The Atchin248tell
how the dead takes a staff with him exactly the size of his own
body. This staff can divide the waters, and on top of the staff
the “soul” of a chicken appears in the form of feathers. This
chicken was sacrificed by his friends and family after his de
parture. This magic wand now “brings him through” the
dangers in the Beyond and especially past the ghastly devouring
spirits. The process here is imagined as half automatic (the
automatic division of the waters) and half propitiatory (the
gullible waylaid spirits). In the mechanistic view this stick
and sacrifice would automatically start the process of trans
formation or facilitate and accelerate magically the “trip”
through the “ocean” or the “fire•” In a more religious view of
spirits it would serve as a quittance proving that the debt
(blood) to the obstructing bloodthirsty spirits has been paid
by the community.
We know that the Bagobo249 used to offer sacrifice for the
dead, and one may expect it to appear in the last part of the
myth of Lumabat as it seemingly does when Lumabat “sacri
fices” the last man. A difficulty in this last part of the myth
itself is the lack of information concerning the state of the
pilgrim Lumabat and his companions. Are the pilgrims in
the myth supposed to be the first dead only, or are they also
exemplary, and were the Bagobo once used to ‘‘play dead,” like
the Kakihan do, as initiandi in an initiation rite? The last is per
haps more likely. The whole Bagobo community, men, women
and children, would be supposed to dedicate themselves to
death: formerly in a real rite, today by telling this story of
the former “rite” of Lumabat. The story seems to be the
249. Cole, W ild Tribes, p. 104, 145,

description or the ground plan for an initiation rite indeed to

be undergone as such by youngsters for the first time. It is
very similar to the rite of the Kakihan society among the
Wemale. As an independent rite, however, it seems not to exist
anymore among the Bagobo but is perhaps included in the
common sacrificial rite that the Bagobo used to repeat from
time to time. In that rite the last man would die, “sacrificed”
to the monster of the symplegades. The Kakihan sacrifice a
pig during their initiation; the Bagobo would sacrifice the “last
man.” If one reads the reports of Bagobo sacrifices in Benedict
and Cole this “last man” could well be the “least man” indeed,
a slave or a prisoner. The human sacrifice in its completeness,
including especially the nightly ceremony in which only the
men and some young boys take part, could be the last but
essential part of that initiation rite. It initiates into an under
standing of the full life of the Bagobo, both individuals and
community, which is in its first stage up to the dismemberment
of the victim at the end of the sacrificial rite shared by women
and children, while the last part，the nightly ceremony, is
especially for the young men who are probably here and now
made hunter and warrior. The Bagobo sacrifice “for the dead”
would also be, as mentioned before, in essence exactly the same
as the sacrifice primarily celebrating the origin of the world
and of death, in this life. This event made man really “m an， ”
and the world with sky and underworld as it actually is. There
fore the “gate” through which death entered into the world
can be the same “gate” through which the dead person departs
to gain a new life in the underworld or the sky. If this is
correct the same Bagobo sacrificial rites can be celebrated for
the living as well as the dead and they can be initiation rites
at the same time for the youngsters. For the men further
exploits may be required.
It seems indeed that most of the Bagobo hold the sacrifice
to be somehow the central power in this world as it appears
today. However, most of them or quite a number seem to
prefer to let it function in the hands of spirits who are sup
posed to eat flesh or drink blood but to know how and to be
willing to apply the benevolent effect of the sacrifice to the
profit of the beings on earth, of those in the Beyond, and of
their own selves, or to have replaced the Indelible Element
completely. The nature or character of these spirits is at least

very much determined, so it seems to our mind, by these Indelible
Elements mentioned.
Sacrifice supposes killing, the opposite of giving birth, which
suggests that it must have a function beyond this world just
as intercourse and fertility also seem to have. If fertility or
giving birth is primarily the interest of Mebuyan, sacrifice
and killing could be primarily the interest of the spirits in
the sky and only man would be able to supply them. Today,
the Bagobo associate sacrifice with Mandarangan,250 the spirit
of heat often associated with the sky, who eats the fresh victims
of sacrifice and war and drinks their blood and protects those
who offer the victims to him. Mandarangan will be discussed
further in another article. The Bagobo have not stated clearly
whether this Mandaragan will give refuge only to those who
were his worshippers or devotees on earth, e.g. warriors, or
whether he is the not all bad ogre in the sky who is willing
to bless and protect the community if only the tribal institution
of war and sacrifice is kept by a few with the duties involved.
This way the total community would reconcile the two conflict
ing tasks of giving life (birth) and taking life, of worshipping
the underworld and the sky，centre and horizon, that finally
are all identical. Mandarangan could be the counterpart to
Mebuyan as far as Mebuyan is associated with the earth, and
he could eventually be identified with her brother Lumabat.
The functions of the spirits representing the elements can
overlap, and one figure, the ogre of the Beyond, could even
tually represent all three or four Elements. All the Indelible
Elements are devouring, whether associated with sky or earth.
The devouring ogre of the Bagobo at the horizon between sky
and earth seems to represent them all by its location and its
typical devouring character.
IV. Lumabat the Psychopomp and God
The word Lumabat is probably etymologically related to

the Malay “lompat” or the Visayan “labang，
” to jump. Luma-

bat would mean “the one who jumps”，as indeed he successfully

jumped through the symplegades. Lumabat is an ancestor, asso
ciated with the horizon and probably with the sky. He is the
brother of Mebuyan, the spirit of the earth. He convinced
the primeval beings to follow his path to the Beyond and guided
them to the sky after he had killed a miraculous deer whose
death caused general death on earth. Lumabat has a function
similar to Mulua S. of the Wemale who was the queen of the
mythical beings on earth (more or less similar to the Bagobo
Tuglibong) and who guides the dead of the Wemale to the
underworld. Lumabat seems to be the male counterpart to both
Tuglibong and Mebuyan and thus also a guide of souls or a
psychopomp. But he is not as clearly associated with the sky
as the two women are with earth and underworld. He is similar
to Tanku Telie, a Wemale hero who, as psychopomp, is probably
the antagonist of Mulua S. and the guide of the dead along a
path similar to Lum abat， s path but in the underworld. The
intrigue of Tanku Telie still exists among the Wemale as a
rite. This perhaps was once the case with the intrigue of
Lumabat also but today the Bagobo celebrate apparently the
first part only of the myth of Lumabat in the ritual performance
of the human sacrifice. The trip which the Bagobo seem to
celebrate in the Pamalugu (the riverbath) must be the trip
to the house of Mebuyan. It is possible that the Bagobo251still have
a rite that bears directly on the intrigue of the trip of Lumabat
also, but further suggestions in this respect have been omitted,
except the discussion of the sacrifice, the dismemberment (the
crushing by the teeth of the ogre) and the treatment of the
dead victim in the ceremonial house which could mean the
celebration of the arrival at the gates of death. Lumabat was
also compared with Semar, the older deity in the Javanese
pantheon who made a trip as a guide with followers to the sky
or the horizon and who may also be conceived as a psychopomp.
Semar, however, could still order the gates of the sky to let
him pass and they did. Tuglibong also spoke the magic words:
“You go higher up， ” and the sky did. But when Lumabat
repeated the order, the sky demanded a victim. The monster
took the last man and the others were allowed through.
It seems that the going up higher of the sky at the horizon
is as important to the dead as the rising of the sky was to the

mythical beings that thus could start a more human life in the
very beginning. At that moment they could get out of the caves
and crevices in which they lived. The jump of the dead into the
“great crevice，，at the horizon and into the Beyond during the
journey after death today would be the counterpart of this first
jumping of the mythical beings from the crevices to the surface
of the earth which today is realized if the act of Tuglibong is
celebrated. It was pointed out, however, that the events in the
centre and at the horizon, as well as their celebrations, are
identical. This can be easier understood if the ritual pounding
of the Bagobo would, as was suggested, include the sacrifice
and vice versa or simply be its alternative. Therefore, so it
would seem, a sacrifice would repeat the act of Tuglibong also,
and must take place today before the sky can go up and the
dead can pass.
Since Lumabat can be conceived as the counterpart to
Tuglibong- and Mebuyan, who are probably one and became
the queen of the underworld associated with earth and unfler-
world where most if not all people go, it is not too difficult
to admit that Lumabat gradually became a great god and less
of a psychopomp. Much of the powers and functions of the
sky god (Lumabat’s father?) would have finally been passed
on to Lumabat. In fact, in some252 lists of the Bagobo gods, he
is among the first in rank.
V. Summary and Suggestions
The myth of Lumabat is obscure because in it the Bagobo

have stored a great deal of their beliefs in a very concise and
partially vague manner by which one statement easily veils
another. Only after one of them is sufficiently exposed may
another begin to reveal itself while a third remains unsolved.
In the myth of Lumabat，the Bagobo offer an intrigue in
which the male brings about general death, in contradistinction
to the myth of Mebuyan where the female predominates. This
252. Benedict, loc. cit” p . 16.

is followed by a report on how primeval man (again in con

tradistinction to the functions of Mebuyan in the underworld)
blazed an extremely difficult and heroic path to the country
in the sky on which path however, so it might seem, all except
one finally perished.
It was first of all necessary to compare the myth of Luma
bat with the well-known myth of Hainuwele of the Wemale, a
tribe in Ceram (Moluccas, Indonesia) in order to locate the
salient points in the myth of Lumabat and to place them in
perspective. This rather complicated work revealed that Luma
bat is in many respects identical with the actress Mulua Satene
in the Wemale myth, but as Lumabat remains the antagonist
of the Bagobo Mebuyan，his role does not exactly cover Mulua’s
role and a great part of it appears in the reversed order.
Unlike Mebuyan, Lumabat is associated with the horizon
where he finds the deer that seems to fulfill some essentials in
the role Hainuwele plays in the Wemale myth. The deer would
be，like Hainuwele, the first being to die violently. Death is
thus introduced and Lumabat guides his people to the sky.
On the other hand Mebuyan prepared the underworld for the
“souls.” The quarrel mentioned is apparently based on the
antagonism of centre and horizon that was created in the first
myth by Tuglibong. Mebuyan and Lumabat are her children.
It seems, however, that centre and horizon are functionally
identical and that myths based on either of them will always
tell that everything has found its origin “in the beginning”
which was once in the very centre and today in the extended
centre or on the horizon. This antagonism or polarity provides
an opportunity to make the intrigues longer and to introduce
the element of quarrel and dialogue that the Bagobo, like the
Ngaju Dayak in Borneo and many others, love so much.
A comparison of the myth of Lumabat and Hainuwele-
Mulua S. also shows that the centre is usually directly associated
with items that cannot move, while the horizon is often associ
ated with animals or persons that live and can die，and thus are
fit victims in sacrificial rites. But these victims may easily be
identified with the fixed objects that are usually found in the
centre. Hence, fhe myths in which violent death associated
with the horizon are reported, would not differ in meaning from
myths in which severing and separation with cosmic consequ
ences take place in a centre, especially if these last mentioned

events are clearly the preparation for the second. The creation
of sky and horizon is necessary to prepare the residences for
the living as well as for all those who will have to die after
death will be introduced. The horizon serves in Bagobo myths
as the gate to the sky and seems virtually identical with it. As
the woman used to stay at home and the man to travel, the
woman is usually associated with the centre, the man with the
horizon. The centre is the gate to the underworld, the horizon
to the sky.
In the Bagobo rite that celebrates this first violent death,
pit and pole appear together with the victim to be sacrificed
while the dancing of the crowd around the victim at the pole
recalls the dances round the Bagobo bolang bolang and those on
the buklug of the Subanon. All the symbolic actions of this
music and dance as well as the rites of killing, would just mean
severing and separation. So it would seem that during their
four days festival the Bagobo celebrate the whole work of
creation, indeed from Tuglibong’s pounding up to the death
of the deer by Lumabat; or that the events in the centre unfold
the events associated with the horizon, which is the death of
the deer represented here by a human victim on the fourth day
of the festival. This significance is bolstered if we call to mind
the custom of the Mansaka of keeping the symbols of pit and
pole, that once might have appeared in their burial rites, as
their most sacred idols. They thus would worship the monu
ments which, in earlier times, were probably put up as sacred
memorials for performances of sacred rites that celebrated the
beginnings of sky, underworld and death, the creative work of
the ancestors that had made man mortal and his environment
七
as it is, fit for his life and the life to come. The Bagobo prayer
stands (tambara) are perhaps the Bagobo version of this same
custom. House and jar with cover must be the same.
The second part of the myth of Lumabat is the report of
his return to the horizon with those who believe in him and
who have chosen his path. The most striking feature in this
report is the monster that the travelers find after a trip over
land and sea. The monster, as well as some words and some
actions, and the later position of Lumabat, remind one of the
Javanese atory of Semar. At the same time one is surprised
by the similarity of the myth with the rite of the Wemale

Kakihan secret society. This was enough reason to bring up
the question whether the myth of Lumabat has perhaps also
something to do with a social division in the tribe of the Bagobo.
Lumabat’s trip itself over land and sea shows similarities
with the rite of the Wemale. The Bagobo trip over land reminds
one of the Kakihan rite during which its members have to
walk down a path and are blindfolded and forbidden to reveal
to the non-initiated the secrets of the initiation. On the other
hand, the Bagobo tell of stones and trees along the path, all
challenges put by “earth” and “vegetation，，
，th at try to hold
them up and to seduce them to reveal the goal of the trip. The
trip through the ocean can be similar to the bath of the
Kakihan. When Lumabat has passed by the symplegades he sees
the “souls” of the wicked in flames and pools of acid, an an-
chronism in the Bagobo story. But it shows that the Bagobo
：
seem to know of three primeval Elements at least earth (the
challenging trip over land with speaking stones and trees and
the grinding to sand), water (the crossing of the ocean), fire
(the heat of flames and the acid), and that all three start work
ing on the dead Bagobo forcing and crushing him through
narrow passages and even trying to absorb him completely,
although one Element would be enough as the myth of Mebuyan
shows. What exactly happens to the dead, of course, no Bagobo
can tell but the story expresses his feeling. It is what the
“soul，，
，the dead person, ‘‘m ust，，endure before its transforma
tion is complete, of which the disembowelment is the last act
that finally releases definitely a renewed satisfied and different
being in the Beyond. The walk of the soul balancing between
the pools of fire and acid seems to be just another trial for
the Bagobo, but it is probably the passing of the soul through
heat the element of the Bagobo beginnings; this trial alone would
be also enough for transformation, without the elements of
water and earth.
The Bagobo thus seem to believe in the return to the Ele
ments. This belief is also found among the Visayans who
mention the Elements earth, water and neat，apparently as
the transforming Elements and who tell it in a story with a
different intrigue. If one analyzes the story of the Visayan
ferryman, however, the differences dwindle. Stories about such
transformations brought about by the spirits of the Beyond

are found in many places. Whether the Indelible Elements are
believed to be at work in the underworld or in the sky world
is seemingly immaterial. Any intrigue telling about them will
also do. The Bagobo know of the path of Mebuyan in the
underworld which would be a “mild” case, and they gave the
more horrible process into the hands of the sky spirits, all con
trary to our feeling that heaven (sky world) is a better place
than hell (underworld), and the first can only be reached after a
process of purification by fire (purgatory) in the underworld.
One could ask where the Bagobo (and other Malays) got
the idea of the “soul” paths. This question is also connected
with their “philosophy” about body and “soul” which will not be
discussed here however. They seem generally to believe that there
is another life possible for “man” after death and that some
people at least can gain it along the path either of Lumabat or of
Mebuyan. This path seems to be the process of transformation
undergone by the dead man apart from what happens to the
body, but in its form and stages it seems partially based on
the process the body undergoes. The Bagobo can easily observe
how the body falls victim to the Elements (in Mindanao usually
to the Earth) and he may believe that something equivalent
must happen to the “whole” dead man who is partially invisible.
The effect is such that it permits us to say that the ‘‘dead man”
gained another life after the visible process on the body and the
invisible on the “soul” is finished. This wouI3 also entail that
the Elements have a visible and an invisible activity. The
visible activity of the Elements concerned working on the
unconscious body would be more of a “process;” their invisible
activity would be exercised on the “conscious” dead man, and
therefore the Bagobo would prefer to make him “march” to
wards and through his transformation. The process appears
here as a “path” or a “trip.”
Each one of the three or more Elements would be able to
bring this desired transformation about. However, the Bagobo
prefer a whole chain of them in order to make it more awe
inspiring. All the Elements swallow, and all could have the
monster as a symbol. If it is a cave it reminds one of the
mythical beings that arose out of the earth and started life on
earth. The crevices of Tuglibong were once in the center but after
her creative action，the old situation of the centre was found

at the horizon. This is the reason perhaps why the “souls”
must or can go there and find new life turning back down into
the crevices, the origin, the symplegades.
The Bagobo have two great male spirits, the one associated
with water (Malaki t’Olug W aig), the other with heat (Manda
rangan). It is not impossible that they were originally just
personifications of the invisible (or also of the visible) power
of the Elements water and fire and their activities. At least
they are associated with these Elements. The invisible activity
of the Element “earth” would appear in the character of Me
buyan, and the more visible power and activity of this earthly
Element would be apparent in the “evil” spirits whose charac
teristic is to “eat” corpses, the Buso, that are always around
especially on graveyards. Perhaps the other Elements also
characterize some spirits as equivalents of the “earthly” Buso
that would represent the more material activities of these
elements. It would increase the amount of spirits differing in
character, not in essence, and augment the danger of confusion
but also lead to a tendency of fuse. Actually the two great
spirits mentioned above have a throng of minor attendants
around them, (the Malakis and the small Mandarangans), but
they are，unlike the Buso, always in the neighbourhood of living
man. Those of Mandarangan are bloodthirsty.
Mebuyan would be a psychopomp but somehow also pre
dominantly associated with the indelible Element “earth， ” as
the Visayan ferryman is with water or fire. Both Mebuyan
and the ferryman are more active with their arms instead of
directly swallowing as the Elements should do. The ferryman
pitches the soul into the pit, Mebuyan bathes it in a pool.
Together with the Elements earth, water and fire, Mebuyan and
the ferryman are also monsters, however.
It is more difficult to determine Lum abat， s status. He could
be originally a psychopomp but finally also be associated with
either sky or heat, and only this.
The Bagobo customarily offer a sacrifice for the dead, but
this sacrifice for the dead seems to be virtually the same sacrifice
they offer when they celebrate the origin of world and man as
they actually are, because this includes this world, fertility ，
the creation of the residences for the dead in sky and under
world, the necessity of death and the opportunity of transforma

tion and of life for man after death. The sacrifice would be
the central rite and its monument would be the sacred centre
in Bagobo religion appearing as idol, burial jar, tambara or
miniature house, temple, etc. The “sacrifice” by Lumabat of
the last man at the gates of the symplegades stresses, unnec
essarily perhaps, the need of a sacrifice for the individual dead.
Summarizing it would seem that the Bagobo spirits dis
cussed in this paper, associated as they are with upperworld
and underworld, with centre and horizon, with the Indelible
Elements, and slightly with the celestial bodies, would have a
pronounced cosmic character. In the beginning two spirits
appear associated with earth and sky. The following genera
tion of spirits is primarily associated with centre and horizon
but finally with underworld and upperworld again. Motherhood,
wisdom, birth and natural death are associated with the under
world; violent death, human or animal sacrifice are associated
with the sky. Wealth (poverty) health (sickness) are associated
with the underworld, evil (violence, passion, war, amok) pre
dominantly with the sky. The Indelible Elements are distributed
seemingly arbitrarily over upperworld and underworld. Earth,
water, vegetation, belong more to the underworld, heat and fire
to the upperworld. The Beyond is in the upperworld and the
underworld, where the dead will go along the paths of centre or
horizon and be transformed by the Indelible Elements. In the
underworld the benign effect of water and the wholesome bath
is emphasized; in the upperworld heat and fire，violence and
suffering, are stressed. It seems that warriors may in principle
aspire for the arduous path of Lumabat and the sky world;
all the others prefer the path to the underworld established by
Mebuyan who finally calls, all, ripe and green. The ceremonial
bath of the Bagobo (pamalugu) is perhaps a sort of initiation
rite into the society and the company of Mebuyan (Gimokudan)
while the sacrificial rite (only partially attended by women and
children) might be the first stage of an initiation into the mys
tery of Lumabat. Perhaps trips to an enemy country or danger
ous and hectic war expeditions complete this last form of initia
tion. The inference would be that the tribal society as a whole,
not necessarily the individual, has to preserve and practice both
the forms: ceremonial baths as well as war expeditions. The
moral issue is not pronounced. Pestle and mortar are symbols

of the beginning of sky (horizon) and earth, of fertility and
death. These symbols will appear when the beginnings are
celebrated and people are initiated, sometimes in the form of
pit and pole or jar and cover, eventually of idol or house. These
symbols would represent the universe as it is now and the
spirits that are active in it. Like pestle and mortar, the universe
is a unit with parts mutually interdependent and so are the
spirits and men.
GLOSSARY
abaca, (Musa textilis) plant looking like the banana, the fibers of
which are made into hemp.
agon, percussion music instrument
Alor, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia.
Anito ，spirit, usually of ancestor.
Apo, lord; volcano in Bagobo land.
Ata, a tribe, neighbours of the Bagobo.
bagani, brave man of the Bagobo, same as magani.
balian, ministers for religious rites，usually female, sometimes male.
barrio, village.
Bia，female mythical beings, daughters of Mona (Mebuyan).
Bilaan’ a neighbouring tribe of Bagobo (West).
bolang bolang, drum made by putting board on an empty mortar.
Bukidnon, tribe in Mindanao, neighbours of the Bagobo (North).
bolo, sword
buklug, ceremonial dancing floor and dance of the Subanon.
Buso, feared spirit associated with darkness, death, etc.
camote, sweet potato.
Cibulan, village of origin of Bagobo; also Sibulan.
datu, chief.
dewata, diwata, general Bagobo term for spirit.
Dusun, tribe in Sabah.
gimokud, “soul”，“dead man”.
gimokudan, residence of the dead in the Beyond, underworld of
Mebuyan.
ginem, festival of the Bagobo lasting 4 days.
gunungan ，“hill”— — requisite of Wayang in Java.
Ifugao, tribe in Luzon.
Isneg, tribe in Luzon.
Jolo, island and principal town on this island in the southern part
of the Philippines.
Kakihan, moiety of Wemale tribe.
Kekayon, another word for Gunungan, Wayang requisite, “Tree， ’.
Kulaman’ tribe in Mindanao, neighbours of the Bagobo (South).
Lamet, tribe in Laos.
mabalianf male or female minister, same as balian.
magani，same as bagani.
Malaki, a Bagobo spirit usually associated with water.
Mamanwa, tribe in Northeastern Mindanao.
Manama，Bagobo deity (sky?).
Mandaya, tribe in Mindanao, neighbours of the Bagobo (Southeast).
Mandarangan, great spirit of the Bagobo associated with heat.
Manobo, tribe in Mindanao occupying an area northeast of Bagobo.
Maro, ceremonial dance of the Wemale,
Minahassa，Indonesian district in northern Celebes.

Mokko, bronze drum.
Ngaju Dayak, tribe in Southeast Borneo, Indonesia.
palakpak, digging stick.
pamalugu, Bagobo ceremonial bath.
Sangi <& Talaud, islands off the north coast of Celebes.
Santa Cruz，town in Davao province. 土 1910，a Bagobo village.
sarongj sort of skirt worn around lower part of body.
serambi，veranda.
sonar, sonaran, “altar” built during ceremony of sonar (sonar—
piling up).
Sibolan, same as Cibolan, village of origin of Bagobos.
Subanon，tribe in northwestern Mindanao.
Tagakaolo, tribe in Mindanao, neighbours of Bagobo, (South.)
tambara, prayerstand; altar?，miniature temple?
tankulu，kerchief of warriors.
tolus， semen; spirit of fertility.
ulitj ceremonial song, poem.
Wapulaney moiety of Wemale tribe.
Wayang, puppet and puppet theatre in Java.
Wemale, tribe in Ceram, Moluccas, Indonesia.
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A Structural Study of Bagobo

Myths and Rites

University of San Carlos

Quarrels and Rites

3. Mebuyan and death

Kruyt, P. and F. Sarasin, Johann Warneck and others3 who had

3. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 279-282.

Benedict, Ceremonial: p . 188 (footn. 294).

Benedict, loc. cit” p. 25.

It should only be a pattern of thought，original or adopted,

world. Finally the two women, Tuglibong and Mebuyan, may

and would get the correct emphasis.

15. Cole, W ild Tribes, p. 56.

blood-feud would make close and real community life difficult,

less known and more numerous Bilaan, close neighbours of the

C hapter Two ：TUGLIBONG

The Bagobo myths noted by Benedict are rather concise and

whose activities seem to bear on primeval events. It describes

27. Benedict, Myths, p . 15.

In the myths quoted above the primeval beings were all

28. Benedict, loc, cit” p . 16.

“virgin”. “Libon” can mean “virgin” in Visayan. According

3 1 . Felix de la, Diccionario Bisaya, Encamacion ， Espanol, p. 201， A.

creator accomplishes almost everything; in another the im ­

II. The Mythical Beings

1 . The M ythical Beings and the Scorching Period

The myths cited above seem to have been intended to reveal

34. Benedict, Myths, p . 16.

sea. Perhaps we have here originally two myths, a creation and

2. The A fte rm ath of the Firebrand Period

In mythical times life had no stable forms or divisions. It

Lumabat and Mebuyan to be discussed further in the next two

at this stage that Lumabat and his sister, Mebuyan, appeared.

III. Tuglibong and the Sky

The feeling* that the sky is a seat or source of evil may be

Celebes, the Olu Ngadju52 in Borneo, some tribes in Flores, in

2. The Q uarrels and Progressive C reation

Tuglibong's quarrel or her action of pounding, or both,

Fischer, loc. cit., p. 217.

Fischer, loc. cit.} p. 225—227.

S. Pestle and A rgum ent

Tuglibong was pounding and scolding the sky at the same

56. Schaerer, Gottesidee， pp. 18-20， 126.

the underworld, is the symbol of competition and of creative

IV. Rituals Connected with Pounding

1 . Bagobo R itu a l M usic

It has been pointed out that pounding in the myth of

59. Benedict, Ceremonial, p. 100.

as a symbol and harbinger of good things, if, for instance,

Benedict， loc. cit., p. 110.

Jensen, Drei Strome, p , 114.

Benedict, Ceremonial, p . 146 (footn. 213).

Benedict， loc. cit.. p. 252.

spirit in mythical times. Salingolop was a hero and a giant.

2. Subanon R itu a l M usic and Dance

Later it will be seen that the Wemale have much more in

65. Christie, Subanon, p. 73-74.

jumping backward around a sort of May pole in the centre,

3. The P alak p ak and the Pestle

creator accomplishes almost everything; in another the im

The buklug of the Subanon is performed in times of sow

The separation of sky and earth brought about by Tug

Bagobo, “Mandarangan”，seems to mean “the scorcher，，

The quarrel of Lumabat and Mebuyan100 is related as fol