Gods and Spirits

The Buguias Pantheon

Religious ideology was open to personal exegesis. While the Buguias people generally shared the complex Cordilleran hierarchies and genealogies of heavenly, earthbound, and underworld deities and spirits, their interpretations seem to have been heterodox. At least in the modern period, even the relationship between the two chief gods, Kabigat and his brother Balitok, and the secondary members of the pantheon, such as Wigan and Bangan, are uncertain. To some, Bangan and Kabigat are siblings, to others, husband and wife.^[1] Above all reigns Kabunian, but again the nature of this ultimate godhead, as well as his connections with the more active heavenly beings, was fluid (see W. H. Scott 19360 [1969]). In one perhaps idiosyncratic conception, all deities are said to occupy dual incarnations: a primary being that remains in the sky-world, and a secondary shadow—intermediary to humankind—dwelling underground.

Gods were considered generally benevolent, and they received numerous petitions for succor. Each deity had his or her specialty. Balitok, for example, offered help in the curing of wounds. To invoke a god's intervention, a priest, or manbunung , had to recite the correct prayers and direct the proper offerings. Chickens were commonly sacrificed; after the gods had feasted on the spiritual essences, the participants consumed the flesh.

Spirits: Dangerous, Neutral, and Helpful

Buguias residents had to be wary of a variety of dangerous spirits. Imbag Bagisan, the underworld god of the hunt, provoked great fear. Accompanied by gruesome dogs, he prowled the earth, sating his hunger with human souls. Except on those occasions when his wife intervened on the victim's behalf, he could only be appeased with two chickens, a pig, or a dog. A variety of usually malicious spirits, generally called anitos , were capable of causing similar harm. The mante-es-bilig , denizens of thickets, caused lingering sickness, curable only through the sacrifice of a female chicken.

The sky-dwelling mante-ed-tongdo wielded potent curses that might require the offer of a water buffalo. The bet-tattew , visible as flickering evening lights, could carry away unwary human souls. More dangerous still were the te-tets , ghostly vampires that sucked life directly from the heart; little could be done to save their victims.

More commonly encountered were timungao , beings who could be either benign or vicious, depending on their individual temperaments. Timungao generally dwelled near boulders in clear-running streams, and as a rule they distanced themselves from raucous human activities. Their society closely paralleled that of humans; they were born, grew up, married, bore children, aged, and accumulated property. Usually invisible to human beings, they commonly appeared only in dreams. Occasionally a female timungao would deign to wed a man during such an encounter. The bewitched groom might then abandon the human world, unless he were divorced, at some expense, from his nocturnal companion.

But for the most part, timungao were disgusted by human dirt, noise, and dietary habits. People disturbed them by trespassing in their clear streams, by fighting among themselves, and particularly by killing and eating their pet frogs (distinguishable by their unusual number of toes). As the timungao's revenge could be deadly, one had to be careful to eat only frogs with the normal configuration of digits. Timungao were also known to harm disrespectful trespassers, although most would tolerate a person who called out and apologized beforehand. Sometimes a timungao would intervene in strictly human affairs, dispensing swift punishment on those guilty of deceiving others. Illness usually befell the delinquent party, although a mischievous timungao might be satisfied simply by urinating on the miserable offender. A good-natured sprite could even bring fortune to a deserving human, but in general these ubiquitous beings required continual appeasing since humans could not help but disturb them.

More influential than either gods or nature spirits were the souls of the dead. They usually helped the living, but they too required continual homage. By the late American period, ancestor worship formed the core of local religion, although it is not at all clear whether this was true in earlier times.

The souls of individuals who died horrible or premature deaths could become malicious in their unhappiness. The spirits of the

drowned (nagalnad ) tried to assuage their loneliness by drowning others. More dangerous were the awil , souls of those who had died particularly violent deaths. The awil of nineteenth-century Spanish soldiers killed in the vicinity caused untold harm in their never-ending quest for revenge.

To avert trouble, a person had to be on constant watch for signs from the spirits. Negative travel omens, such as the crossing of one's path by an unliked or rare animal, delayed many journeys. Even an impropitiously timed sneeze or an oddly behaving dog could ruin a business transaction. Neither did nightmares bode well, as all dreams were considered serious messages from the other realm. On waking, one would hope that by cleansing in clear water the vision could be washed away. If truly impressed, however, the dreamer would seek expert counsel, hoping that what seemed a fright was actually an encoded charm.

Spiritual Curing, Prevention of Harm, and Blessings

The person most often consulted in such cases was a female spirit medium (mansib-ok ). Mediums differed in their diagnostic methods, but most would dangle a bit of iron near the afflicted person's face, and by observing the metal's movement discern the supernatural agent and then recommend the appropriate ceremony (see Sacla 1987). The few male practitioners usually divined by scrutinizing patterns in the dregs of a cup of rice beer.

Having diagnosed her client, the medium would usually refer the individual to a priest (manbunung). Only a priest could perform the requisite sacrifice and chant the correct prayer to the responsible entity. Every supernaturally induced affliction required a different ceremony; one current-day manbunung has recorded the procedures of fifty-nine separate rituals.

Other rituals functioned to secure general blessings from benevolent nonhuman agents. Laymen chanted many simple prayers in the course of daily activities. Drinking sessions formed the most common occasions; before imbibing any alcohol, a person would toss a small amount to the ground, giving its vapors to the gods and ancestors, who would then be beseeched for general assistance. Rituals to secure good harvests, however, were few. Most

were concerned with rice culture; the all-important sweet potato was essentially ignored in ritual life.

Not all supernatural signs were negative. An oddly behaving animal, or especially the presence of a specific animal at a specific place and time (sangbo ), could presage good fortune. A dream too could bode well, depending, of course, on the medium's reading. The ancestors would also convey requests through specific signals. A deceased grandfather, for example, might appear in a dream requesting blankets. The dutiful grandchild would then accord him honor in a blanket-bestowing ritual. Major ceremonies for the ancestors, however, were not usually initiated through such specific requests. Most occurred at intervals dictated largely by the life-stage and social position of the celebrant. Such prestige feasts (pedit ) formed the heart of religious belief and practice. Before analyzing them, however, it is necessary to link the religious beliefs discussed above with the environmental patterns outlined in chapter 2.

Religion and the Landscape

The relationship between community and environment in prewar Buguias was shaped by religious ideology and practices. Rituals guided economic endeavors and social relations, which in turn structured the subsistence activities that transformed the landscape. The supernatural also touched the land directly, as a number of spiritual beings were believed to inhabit specific places where they could influence human activities.

Ritual requirements molded the very dietary basis of subsistence in prewar Buguias. It was, in part, the ancestors' hunger that motivated their descendants to raise hogs. The living, of course, received quality food as their part of the bargain, and materialist scholars (such as Harris 1979) would regard their religious justification as merely a rationale or cultural epiphenomenon. Certainly most humans do crave meat and fat regardless of their forebears' demands. But in settled agricultural areas, meat production entails effort, and different individuals and cultural groups exhibit varying degrees of enthusiasm about exerting the labor needed to produce extra increments of animal flesh. The people of Buguias could have thrived on less meat; their neighbors, the Bontocs and Ifugaos, did

so without much ill effect. But the Buguias villagers, motivated in part by their beliefs, produced a surfeit of meat. As hogs and people ate the same laboriously cultivated sweet potatoes, dry fields had to produce tubers well in excess of minimal subsistence requirements (see Brookfield [1972] for a discussion of "ritual intensification").

Much the same could be argued for pond-field agriculture. Rice, even though usually fermented, did provide quality nutrition, and since rice terraces produced abundantly, their construction might well have been justified without a ritual rationale. But rituals required great quantities of rice beer—the ancestors demanded as much. Beer could be brewed from millet or corn, but the resulting product was considered contemptible. Prestige, wrapped in religion, played an inescapable role; no baknang couple could claim respect unless they were generous with alcohol made from rice.

The spirit realm also reflected directly on the landscape, albeit in relatively minor ways. Buguias religion was focused on a sky-world that touched the earth more at sanctified times than in sacred places. And while consumption in ritual feasts could be a holy experience, production was generally rather mundane. A few meager rituals blessed the rice fields, but other crops were ignored. It was rather through the timungao and other nature spirits that the supernatural directly impinged upon the landscape.

Each of the many timungao dwelled in its own specific abode. Such places were separated from human life not because they were sacred but rather because they were dangerous. If a man tried to cut a sprite's tree, his hand could be severely and immediately "deformed." Buguias residents usually left untouched the large trees and brushy thickets known to harbor timungao. Several potential irrigation sources remained untapped, as timungao were especially vexed when their waters were muddied. But ultimately, even the timungaos' favored havens were vulnerable if any one individual was willing, and able, to offer the necessary propitiation. Here too, class had its way.

The distribution of timungao may also have shaped conceptions of the community's territory. In one specific prayer, a manbunung had to ask forbearance of every timungao inhabiting Buguias and surrounding locales. These beings were not known by personal names, but rather by their locations of residence, and if any dwell-

ing sites were ignored in this petition, bad luck could ensue. This perhaps helped create and sustain Buguias's extremely intricate system of toponyms, in which even inconsequential sections of uninhabited slope are individually named.^[2]