It is customary for the guilty one to make at least a partial payment immediately after the arbitration, and to treat the assembly to a banquet in which it is good form for the two opponents to close the breaches of friendship by generous quaffs to each other's health.
CHAPTER IV
RELIGIOUS IDEAS AND MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS IN GENERAL
A BRIEF SURVEY OF RELIGION
A study of Manóbo religion is difficult because of the natural secretiveness and suspiciousness of this primitive man, because of his dependence for his religious ideas on his priests, because of the variations and apparent contradictions that arise at every step, and, finally, because of his inability to expound in a satisfactory manner the beliefs of his religious system.
THE BASIS, INFLUENCE, AND MACHINERY OF RELIGION
The religious belief of the Manóbo is an essential part of his life. On his person he often carries religious objects. The site for his home is not selected till omens and oracles are consulted. In his method of cooking there are religious rules. He can not procure his meat from the forest nor his fish from the streams without making an appropriate offering. He sows and harvests his rice under the auspices of certain deities. His hunting dogs are under the protection of a special divinity. His bolo and his spear must answer a special magic test. He can not go forth to fight till divination and sacrifice have assured him success. All the great events of his life--his marriage, the pregnacy[sic] and parturition of his wife, death, burial, war--all are consecrated by formal, and often public, religious rites.
As far as I have been able to judge, fear of the deities of evil spirits, of the dead--of all that is unintelligible, unusual, somber--is the mainspring of the Manóbos religious observances and beliefs.