The Tinguian: Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine TribeCole, Fay-Cooper
Religion
The Tinguian: Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe
Cole, Fay-Cooper
Tinguian (Philippine people)
The pay of a medium is small, usually a portion of a sacrificed
animal, a few bundles of rice, and some beads; but this payment is
more than offset by the restrictions placed on her. At no time may
she eat of carabao, wild pig, wild chicken, or shrimp; nor may she
touch peppers--all prized articles of food.
The inducements for a person to enter this vocation are so few that a
candidate begins her training with reluctance; but, once accepted by
the spirits, the medium yields herself fully and sincerely to their
wishes. When possessed by a spirit, her own personality is submerged,
and she does many things of which she is apparently ignorant, when
she emerges from the spell. Oftentimes, as she squats by the mat,
summoning the spirits, her eyes take on a far-away stare; the veins
of her face and neck stand out prominently, while the muscles of
her arms and legs are tense; then, as she is possessed, she assumes
the character and habits of the superior being. If it is a spirit
supposed to dwell in Igorot or Kalinga land, she speaks in a dialect
unfamiliar to her hearers, orders them to dance in Igorot fashion,
and then instructs them in dances, which she or her townspeople could
never have seen. [124] At times she carries on sleight-of-hand tricks,
as when she places beads in a dish of oil, and dances with it high
above her head, until the beads vanish. A day or two later she will
recover them from the hair of some participant in the ceremony. Most
of her acts are in accordance with a set procedure; yet at times she
goes further, and does things which seem quite inexplainable.
One evening, in the village of Manabo, we were attending a
ceremony. Spirit after spirit had appeared, and at their order dances
and other acts had taken place. About ten o'clock a brilliant flash
of lightning occurred, although it was not a stormy evening. The body
of the medium was at that time possessed by Amangau, a head-hunting
spirit. He at once stopped his dance, and announced that he had
just taken the head of a boy from Luluno, and that the people of
his village were even then dancing about the skull. Earlier in the
evening we had noticed this lad (evidently a consumptive) among
the spectators. When the spirit made this claim, we looked for him,
but he had vanished. A little later we learned that he had died of
a hemorrhage at about the time of the flash.
Such occurrences make a deep impression on the mind of the people,
and strengthen their belief in the spirit world; but, so far as could
be observed, the prestige of the medium was in nowise enhanced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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