Religious Rivalry: the Christian Position

A few Buguias residents appear to have converted to Christianity primarily to avoid ritual expenses. Devout Christians disparage this motive, and they were not surprised that several economically moved converts returned to Paganism on discovering that their new faith did not bring them wealth. Some persons formerly argued that Christians, being unencumbered by rituals, would become more prosperous than their Pagan neighbors, but this view is no longer tenable. Yet the economic debate continues. The most sophisticated Christian thinkers claim that whereas mass butcherings sensibly disposed of excess livestock in the past, today they only consume scarce capital. Moreover, they argue, a couple that saves in order to educate their children—rather than to feast the community and enhance their own prestige—should be respected as self-sacrificing rather than denigrated as self-serving.

The Christian judgment against Paganism aims squarely at the religious-economic linkage the traditionalists expound. They accuse Pagans of subordinating their religious practices to the base desire for worldly riches. Christians point to the silver coins over

which manbunungs chant prayers as evidence that their Pagan neighbors actually worship money. Similarly, in pedit, taro slices soaked in hog blood symbolize coins, naked evidence of Pagan materialism. Christians accuse traditional priests of asking the ancestors to deliver the wealth of Christian outsiders into the hands of feast celebrants, or to send diseases from Buguias to other communities. Some Christians, most notably the Belgian priest, argue that Paganism is based on fear: fear of the ancestors and spirits, and fear for one's afterlife position. Christianity offers an escape from this fear, they say, through its assurance of love, joy, and salvation for all believers.

Christians also censure fervent Pagans for abusing their bodies by working too hard. Elderly men and women in the Pagan community often continue to toil in their fields even when they are ill, a pattern the Christians interpret as further evidence that they value money above all else. Some also disparage certain devout Pagans for wearing tattered clothing, quipping that one can easily distinguish an elderly Christian from an elderly Pagan at some distance. They also claim that the poor Pagan is effectively more impoverished than a poor Christian because the Pagan has to reserve much of his or her money for religious contingencies.

At least one individual converted to Christianity because he felt betrayed by Pagan practitioners. This man, who was studying to become a Pagan priest, noticed at his father's funeral that the corpse was wrapped in a woman's burial blanket, a grave insult to the dead. He convinced himself that this "error" was actually a deliberate move to anger the ancestors and thus withdraw favor from his family line. Pagan leaders insisted it was an honest mistake, and unsuccessfully urged him to consider his advanced age and investment in traditional learning.

The refusal of the Pagans to allow traditional cultural practices to be unlinked from their religious content has created a final arena of conflict. Unlike their counterparts in most other Cordilleran areas, Pagan leaders in Buguias allow no ritual actions to take place in secular contexts. If one wishes to dance to the gongs and drums, one must mark the event with sacrifices. Buguias schoolchildren's annual community performances thus feature dances from other Cordilleran regions rather than those of their own ancestors. Christians point approvingly to the northern Pagans for their less hidebound attitude in this regard.