United States or Saint Pierre and Miquelon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The greatest of all Bagobo ceremonies the GinEm may be given by the datu within three or four months after the appearance of the constellation Balatik, when the moon is new or full.
Returning to the house of the datu, the people continue the dancing and merry-making throughout another night. This is the constellation Orion which appears early in December. We have already seen that this offering sometimes occurs during the GinEm ceremony.
Gohn, a planter of Santa Cruz who has witnessed a number of these ceremonies, says that with the Bagobo of that place it was customary for the datu to baptize the women prior to the day of GinEm. On the second day, a mabalian provided a long palm leaf, and a number of betel nut buds which, she said, represented streams, rivers, tribes, and individuals.
These are, in the main, very similar throughout the Bagobo belt, but to avoid confusion the description here given of the two greatest events of the year the GinEm ceremony and the human sacrifice deals with Cibolan, unless expressly stated to the contrary.
Gohn informs me that at midnight during the last GinEm made by Datu Ali in Santa Cruz, a gun was fired, and the datu said that a sacrifice should have taken place at that time. The festival may last one or more days. The last held in Cibolan extended through two days and nights.
This seems to be the only occasion when human flesh is tasted, despite the fact that the members of this tribe have been frequently referred to as cannibals. The warriors of Cibolan and Malilla formerly carried heads of enemies to their towns and made use of them during the GinEm ceremony, while at Bansalan and Digos a lock of hair, cut from the head of the slain, answered the same purpose.
He allows some of the blood from the offering to drip onto the poles, at the same time begging the spirits not to let the people fight or quarrel during the GinEm, "for blood is now being offered." In at least two recent offerings the datu urged the spirits to be content with this offering of a fowl, since it was impossible for them to kill a man.
Word Of The Day