Marriages seem to result in reciprocal good understanding and happiness. The wife goes about her manifold duties day after day without a murmur, while her master keeps his weapons in good condition, fishes and hunts occasionally, goes on a trading trip at times, takes part in social gatherings, lends his voice in time of trouble, and goes off to fight if there should be occasion for it.
Faithfulness to the marriage tie is one of the most striking features of Manóboland. Adultery is extremely rare. The husband lives, at least during the first part of the married life, with his father-in-law, and displays toward his parents-in-law the same feelings that he entertains for his own parents. His wife is always under the eyes of her own parents, so that he is restrained from indulging in any marital bickerings.
Pregnancy, birth, and childhood.--The desire for children is strong. Hence voluntary abortion and infanticide are unknown. In case of involuntary abortion, which is comparatively frequent, the fetus is hung or buried under the house. When the child begins to quicken in the womb, the mother undergoes a process of massage at the beginning of every lunar month.
Parturition is effected almost invariably without any difficulty, the umbilical cord is cut usually with a bamboo sliver, the mother sits up to prevent a reflux of the afterbirth into the womb, the child is washed, and the operation is over. If the mother can not suckle her child it is nourished with rice water, sugar cane juice, and other light food, but is not given to another to be suckled. In a few days after her delivery the mother is up and back at her work. A little birth party takes place soon after the birth in which the midwife receives a slight guerdon for her services.
The child is named, without any ceremony, after some ancestor or famous Manóbo, or occasionally receives a name indicative of something which happened at the time of the birth. He is treated with the greatest tenderness and lack of restraint. As he grows up he learns the ways of the forest, and about the age of 14 he is a full-fledged little man. If the child is a girl, she helps her mother from the first moment that she is able to be of service.
Birth anomalies are rare. I have seen several albinos and several people who might be called in a loose sense hermaphrodites.
Medicine, sickness, and death.--The Manóbo attributes some twelve bodily ailments to natural causes, and for the cure of such he believes in the efficacy of about as many herbs and roots. For wounds, tobacco juice and the black residue of the smoking pipe are considered a good remedy. Betel nut and betel leaf are a very common cure for pains in the stomach. The gall of snakes has a potency of its own for the same trouble.
As a rule, all natural remedies are applied externally until such time as they prove unavailing, and the symptoms assume a more serious aspect.