SPIRIT COMPANIONS OF MAN
The umágad,3 or spirit companions of man, as understood by the Manóbo, may be defined as his material invisible counterparts without whose presence he would cease to live. He attributes to these spirits or souls invisibility, power of locomotion, and to at least one of them immortality. He invests not only men, but also animals and such plants as are cultivated by man for his sustenance, with souls or spirits. He will tell you that the soul of rice is like rice, and exists as a separate invisible form beside the visible material entity known as rice. I was given to understand that trees once had souls and in proof of the assertion the narra tree was cited, for even yet, it was explained, it bleeds when cut.4 No other explanation is offered in the case of animals, than that they live and die and dream, therefore they must have a spirit or soul.
3From á-gad, accompany.
4The sap of the narra tree bears a very striking resemblance to blood. Narra is one of the Pterocarpus species.
Vegetable souls in such plants as are used for the nourishment of man, are explained in the following way: The offerings of rice and drink which are set out for the deities, tutelary or other, are partaken of and after repast of the gods the offerings become insipid, because they have lost their "soul." I frequently tested the substantial remains of the spirits' feast and found that they had still retained their pristine savor and strength. No argument of mine, however, could convince my Manóbo friends to the contrary. The spirits had consumed the soul, and there remained, according to their staunch belief, nothing but the outward form and inert bulk of the former offerings.
The Manóbo supposes himself to have been endowed by Mandáit with two invisible companions and he is convinced that without their attendance he could not exist. These souls or spirits are not indwelling principles of life but are two separate indeterminate entities that differ only in two respects from the person whose associates they are. The first difference is that of size, for it is the general belief that they are a trifle smaller than their bodily associates. Besides being smaller, they are invisible. No mortal eye, it is said, except the priest's, has seen a man's spirit companion, and yet it is only for brief intervals that they are absent from their corporal companions. At times they crouch upon the shoulders. When the man is making ready for a journey, they do likewise. When he sets out upon his travels they follow him, one on each side in somewhat the same way as the "guardian angels" of other creeds accompany their wards. I once witnessed a little incident illustrative of this belief. It was on the middle Agúsan, when a mother was about to leave the house of birth. At the last moment she addressed the spirits of her little one, conjuring them to follow and to care for their tender ward.
Hence our souls are as our shadows, our other selves. Notwithstanding the close association between them and their human companions, they are seldom invoked. They are considered to have little, if any, power to help. It is thought that without their presence man would become mad, and in proof of this I was informed of cases where persons, on being awakened rudely and hurriedly, had recourse to the bolo, in a fit of madness due as it was thought, to the absence of their souls.5
5This belief explains the reluctance that the Manóbo, like members of other Philippine tribes, feels in arousing a person hurriedly from sleep.
It is said that when we sleep these spirits wander off for a brief space on their own mystic errands, and their doings are mirrored in our dreams. Hence the strong and abiding belief of the Manóbo in dreams. These strange companions of man have no material wants yet they lead an insecure existence, exposed, as they are, to the insidious attacks of the common foes of mortals. Hence it comes to pass that one of them, while away on its random rambles some unlucky day, is mysteriously kidnaped and finally "devoured" by a ruthless evil spirit.6 As soon as the surviving soul realizes what has taken place, it bemoans the loss of its companion and leaving its corporal companion unattended wends its way, sad and solitary, to the land of Ibú. I have been assured by priests that this companionless soul frequently returns to the scene of sickness and there bemoans with piteous cries the loss of its companion, heaping horrid imprecations on the head of the foul spirit that wrought the evil. Only the priest can hear its wild wail of woe and see its piteous face, all suffused with tears. Upon seeing the spirit's grief the priest renews at once his supplications to his tutelary deities, beseeching them to rescue the captured soul from the clutches of its enemy and thereby save the life of the patient. Should the prayers of the priest prove unavailing, the soul wends its way to the region of Ibú, where, free from the agressions[sic] of earthly enemies, it begins its second and unending existence in the company of its spirit relatives.
6The "souls" of an ordinary priest and of war priests, as also those of the slain, are not subject to such attacks, being under the protection of numerous dieties[sic].