Continuing the ceremony, the high priest made several efforts to dance, but always with the same result. He chanted, however, frequently, but always made use of many words that had been taught him by his spirit and which were unintelligible to my interpreters.
After about two hours we all left the religious building and took up our positions around the sacrificial table, the priests in the center. Those whose spears, daggers, bracelets, and other property had been consecrated by the waving of a priest's headdress now deposited them under or near the table.
The high priest was the principal officiant, but was assisted by his fellow priests from the Agúsan and by the new local priests. None of the priests of the old religion took any part, the old gods being supposed to have yielded to the new Magbabáya.
The only divergences from the usual ceremonial proceedings on the occasion of a sacrifice were the placing of the sacred headdresses over the victim and the omission of omen taking, blood libation, and blood drinking. The pig was killed by plunging a dagger through its left side, the blood was caught in a pan, and the meat was consumed in a subsequent feast in which the priests did not participate, not being permitted, they said, by their respective deities.
The scene that followed the killing of the pig was indescribable. The priests covered their heads and faces with their sacred kerchiefs and trembled with intense vehemence, some leaning against the posts of the sacrificial table, the high priest himself groveling on the ground on all fours, unable to arise from sheer exhaustion. When the death-blow had been dealt to the victim they broke into the mystic words, "túñgud, túñgud, tagáan," with loud coughs at the end. These words were taken up by the bystanders and shouted with vehemence. Many of them, especially the small girls, fell into paroxysms of trembling. Many of the men and adult women divested themselves of their property, such as necklaces, bracelets, and arms, and laid them near the sacrificial table. Others promised to make an offering as soon as they could procure one.
THE REAL NATURE OF THE MOVEMENT AND MEANS USED TO CARRY ON THE FRAUD
I can state unqualifiedly that the whole movement carried on in the Agúsan Valley among the Mandáyas, Debabáons, and Mañgguáñgans of the Sálug-Libagánon region was a fraud from beginning to end. I state this on the testimony of the high priest who introduced it into the Agúsan Valley, on that of the other priests, and on my own discovery of the fraud. The abandonment of the movement and the open avowal of the Mandáyas of the Karága, Manorígao, Bagáñga, Mánai, and Kasáuman Rivers, who are still bemoaning the loss of many valuables that they had given as offerings, is unimpeachable evidence that the whole movement was a great religious deception.
I have no reason for doubting the wonderful recovery of Meskínan, whose real name was Mapákla, nor do I see any improbability in the report that he fell suddenly under the influence of a spirit, for such an occurrence is not without precedent in Manóboland. I will admit even that at the beginning belief in the revival was sincere, but as time went on and the reputation of the power of Meskínan's spirit became greater, abuses crept in, so that shortly after my arrival in Compostela the whole system became an atrocious deception for the purpose of wheedling innocent believers out of their valuables.
The scheme was most probably engineered by some Mandáyas of the Tágum River in league with one of the men of the Mawab River and two of the upper Sálug. The Mandáyas of the Tágum River have had dealings with Moros from time immemorial, and undoubtedly they learned from them much craft and chicanery. It is far from being impossible that they were prompted by Moros in the present case or that Moros themselves set the movement afoot. I have one reason for being inclined to adopt the latter opinion, namely, that the Moros did actually originate a movement of this kind in the seventeenth century as stated by Combes in his "Historia de Mindanáo," and a similar movement about the year 1877, as is mentioned in one of the Cartas de los PP. de la Compañía de Jesús.