(1) All chickens and pigs were to be killed at once; otherwise they would devour their owners.
(2) No more crops were to be planted.
(3) A good building for religious purposes was to be erected in each settlement.
(4) In each settlement there was to be one priest6 who must have received his power from Meskínan himself, and several assistants7 who were to help to propagate the news and to perform the prescribed services in distant "churches."
(5) The services were to consist of praying to Meskínan, performing sacred dances in his honor, and forwarding offerings to him.
6Called pun-ó-an.
7Tai-tái-an, that is, "bridges," meaning probably that these emissaries were to be the bridge over which the religious doctrines would pass in spreading from settlement to settlement.
My informant described to me how several people of Máwab settlement went over the Libagánon for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of the numerous messages and of the ceaseless rumors. On their return they reported that Meskínan was truly a deity; that his body was all golden; that he ate only the fragrance of offerings made to him; and that he bestowed his special protection on those alone who made these offerings. The visitors to Libagánon brought the news that the toppling over8 of the world would take place within one moon, and that the orders of Meskínan, the Magbabáya, should be carried out at once, for otherwise, when the day of destruction arrived, all would be irretrievably lost; husband would be separated from wife, and mother from child; pigs and chickens would prey upon whomsoever they could catch, and all would live a life of darkness and despair. But those who had complied with instructions would be saved; their bodies, at the moment of the fall of the world, would become golden and they would fly around in the air with never a care for material wants, the men on their shields, and the women on their combs.
8Kíliñg.
A high priest from the Tágum River conferred a "Magbabáya"9 or spirit upon my informant and upon several others who were to act as his assistants and emissaries.
9As the narration proceeds an attempt will be made to explain this term.
The people who had assembled at Máwab settlement decided accordingly to erect an immense house for the performance of the religious acts enjoined by the Magbabáya of Libagánon. In this edifice they passed one month in expectation of the impending cataclysm. Men, women, and children, half starving as my informant assured me, danced and sang to the sound of drum and gong, while he and his assistants broke out at intervals into supplications to the Magbabáya of Libagánon and fell into the state of violent exaltation that was the outward manifestation of the fact that a spirit had taken possession of them.