The people of the Philippines, their religious progress and preparation for spiritual leadership in the Far East,

30 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES
receives the title "magani," which means more than Colonel
or General to civilized men. While the killing custom has
been abolished by law, many men who are called maganis
are still living.
A special class of Bagobos, called mabaleean, are exorcists,
mediums or shamans, and are able to converse with some of
the spirits and secure their good will by ceremonies and
offerings. It is these mabaleeans who perform all the priestly
offices of the tribe. Usually they are women past middle
life, though men may be mabaleeans also. Any woman may
be warned by dreams, visions or other mabaleeans that she
is called to the profession. Then she is given several months'
training, for she must know the use of medicinal herbs, she
she must be expert in midwifery, she must know the correct
building of shrines and the proper conduct of ceremonies.
It is she who weaves the red garments worn by the magani,
and she may herself wear garments of red cloth. The regulations to be observed at childbirth are quite as voluminous
as a treatise on obstetrics, but they are all connected with
placating the spirits which lurk about, ready to take advantage of one violation of the correct procedure. Marriage,
sickness and death, are also occasions for special intervention by the mabaleeans. In case of stubborn illness, betel
nuts, leaves, food, clothing, and some other articles are placed
on a palm bark, and on top of it is placed the figure of a
man. This is passed over the body of the patient, while the
mabaleean says to the spirits:
"You may have the 'man' in this dish, in exchange for
the sick man. Now please pardon anything this sick man
may have done, and let him be well again."
Then the dish is taken away and hidden so that the sick
person may not see it again, for if he should do so, the illness
would return.
The Bagobos believe that two kinds of spirits or gimikod
are in every man, one on his right side, the other on his left.
Upon death, the gimikod on the right side goes to a place
where it is always day, an ideal Bagobo village. The gimikod