There is also another way in which human lives are sacrificed, but it partakes less of ceremonial character than the two previous methods. I was given the names of several warrior chiefs who had practiced it. The following are the details: If the warriors have been lucky enough to kill an enemy during a fray and at the same time to secure human booty in the form of captives, they are said on occasions to turn one or more of these same captives over to their less successful friends in order that the latter may sate their bloody thirst and feel the full jubilation of the victory. I was informed that the victims are dragged out into the near-by forest, speared to death or stabbed, and thrust with broken bones into a narrow round hole. That this is true I have every reason to believe, for I heard these reports under circumstances of a convincing nature. Furthermore, such proceedings would be highly typical of Manóbo character and would probably occur among any people that valued human life so lightly and that cherished revenge so dearly. What could be more natural and more pleasing in the exultation of victory and in the wildness of its orgies than to deliver a captive, probably a mortal enemy, to an unsuccessful friend or relative that he too might glut his vengeance and fill his heart with the full joy of victory?
CHAPTER XXVII
DIVINATION AND OMENS
IN GENERAL
The Manóbo not only consults his priest in order to determine the will of the deities but he himself questions nature at every step of life and discovers, by what he considers definite and unerring indications, the course that he may pursue with personal security and success.
To set down the multitudinous array of these signs would be to attempt a task of extreme prolixity and one encompassed with infinite uncertainties and seeming contradictions.
Upon being questioned as to the origin of these manifold omens and auguries the Manóbo can afford no further information than that they have been tried for long generations and found to be true. Show him that on a given occasion the omen bird's cry augured ill but that the undertaking was a success, and he will explain away the apparent inconsistency. Show him that the omens were auspicious and that the enterprise was a failure and he will ascribe the failure to an unnoticed violation of a taboo or to the infraction of some tribal custom which aroused the displeasure of a deity.
In every undertaking he must have divine approbation to give him assurance. If one omen is unsatisfactory, he must consult another, and if that one fails also, he tries a third, and after various other trials, if all are unfavorable, he suspends or discontinues the work until he receives a more favorable answer. After getting a satisfactory omen he proceeds with the full assurance of success.
There can hardly be said to be professional augurers in Manóboland. Here and there one finds one with a reputation for skill but this reputation is never so great as to overcome differences of opinion on the part of others who also claim to be experts. In fact, where a combination of good and bad omens occurs, it is customary to hold a long consultation until the consensus of opinion inclines one way or the other.