Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/406

392 once to their destination, but abide for some time near the house of death. They climb from rock to rock, and clamber from tree to tree, subsisting upon such stuff as they can gather up, and trying by night to get back into the house. They do this in order, if possible, to possess the person most closely connected with them, or his soul. Thus, for example, the deceased husband wants to take his wife, the wife her husband, the son his parents, etc., into the other world with him. They consequently believe that serious illness is caused by the efforts of a dead relative to entice the soul out of the body.

As soon as the doctor has come into the hut of the sick man a young hen is offered him, which he slaughters in honor of the venerable ruler of the death kingdom of Kadungayan. He examines the fowl's entrails and then pronounces his diagnosis, but not before he has made himself acquainted with the condition of the patient, saying something like this: "The soul of the patient, having looked upon his grandfather's (or his son's, etc.) soul, is at such a place. It is necessary, in order to bring him back, to slaughter so many swine and a buffalo," etc. At the same time he takes the guitar already spoken of and makes a terrible racket on it; then declares, "Behold the sick man's soul has taken leave of the soul of his dead grandfather" (or whatever relative it may be) "to return—it is already nearing the patient." If the patient has a turn for the worse, the medicine-man is called a second time, and declares that his soul has gone away again; that it is restrained by this or that spirit; that it seems to be already at home in the other life, or is about to unite with the spirit of the deceased relative. More pigs, more buffaloes, must be killed to move the soul to come back. Many well persons participate in the consumption of the sacrificed animals, and the sacrificing priest manages to convey the lion's share of the meat to his own house. The families of patients often become heavily indebted in consequence of these offerings.

The Quianganes believe in the reality of dreams, particularly if they relate to the life beyond. Thus a sick man told that he dreamed that his soul had gone up to the sky, where it had feasted itself and drunk to intoxication. The other souls, which lived in houses built in the Quiangane style, did the same. He also observed that Quianganes whose heads had been cut off in battle with the Mayoyaos had new heads, but very small ones. The pleasant belief prevails that the "substance" of the wine called bubud prepared by them is peculiarly enjoyed by the spirits and demons. The belief furnishes them with convenient excuses for indulgence. The occasions for the most profuse consumption of bubud are the beginning of field-work, when cattle according to the means of the farmer are also slaughtered, in cases of illness