Note 32 — Chapter XVIII

There are offerings and sacrifices among the Mindanao heathen. The first [pagcayog] consist in offering rice, buyo, and money before a small idol of bayog [Pterospermum] wood (placed on a small altar adorned with bamboo and bonga [Areca]), called diuata or Manáug. This idol, which is a poorly-made image, has for eyes the red fruit of the tree called mabugaháy, and is painted with the sap of the narra. The blood sacrifices are of animals, and even of human beings. The first are called talíbong, if the animal sacrificed is a cock, and pag-balílig, if it is a hog. In either case, the priestesses (bailanes) having assembled, to the sound of the agun and guímbao, are clad according to rule; that is, with embroidered handkerchiefs on the head; magnificent red shirts, rich glass beads hanging from the neck; silver medals fastened to the breast; large gold earrings with strings of beads; a jabol or dagmay which serves them as a skirt, and is very skilfully woven and figured with crocodiles and other designs; at the girdle, in the midst of fragrant flowers and hawk’s-bells, they carry the balarao or dagger with which the sacrifice of the victim is made; on the arms precious bracelets of ságai-ságai and pamóans; and on the feet hoops and hawk’s-bells, which sound in cadence with the dance which legalizes such ceremonies. When the priestesses have taken their places about the altar, upon which the victim is to be sacrificed, they commence their dances to the sound of the culintangan, some of them playing on the guimbao and the agun. They walk about the altar; they tremble and belch, while singing the “miminsad,” until they fall senseless to the ground like those stricken with epileptic fits. Then the spectators go to them, fan them, sprinkle them with water, and the other women bear them up in their arms until they recover consciousness. Then they repeat the ceremony and the chief priestess buries her balarao in the heart of the hog or slits the cock’s neck. Thereupon, she sucks up the blood which gushes forth from the victim, partaking thus of the sacrifice. The other bailanes do the same. During the epileptic fit, they assert that Mansilatan has appeared to them and notified them of the good or ill outcome of the war, sickness, harvest, or whatever they have been investigating. Then it all ends in excessive eating and drinking. The human sacrifice is called huaga, and is only practiced among the Bagobos and most barbarous heathen of Mindanao. The victim is offered to the Mandarangan, the god of the mountain or volcano of Apo; this person’s value is generally apportioned among those who participate in the sacrifice, and he who pays most is the first to wound the unfortunate victim. The latter is cut into mincemeat in a moment amid the horrifying cries of his infamous executioners. Thanks to the painstaking vigilance of the authorities of that district, and to the incessant care of the missionaries, so impious and criminal a ceremony is almost entirely eradicated, and is only practiced in secret, in the densest woods. In addition to the huaga, there are true cases of cannibalism among the Baganis, who are wont to eat the raw entrails of those who fall before their lances, krises, and balaraos in battle. They do that as a mark of bravery. They have a proverb which says: “I am long accustomed to eat the entrails of men.” (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, cols. 657, 658.)