PRIESTS----THEIR FUNCTIONS, ATTRIBUTES, AND EQUIPMENT
The performance of nearly all the greater religious rites is left to the priests who are of two classes--bailán or ordinary priests, and bagáni or war priests. It is the prerogative of these priests to hold communication with their familiar spirits; to find out from them their desires; to learn the doings of the unfriendly spirits, and the means to be taken for a mitigation of the evil in question.
The ordinary priests are simple intermediaries, claiming no wondrous powers, making use of no deceptive nor mercenary methods, as far as my observation goes, with no particular dress and little paraphernalia, having no political influence, but possessing, in all that concerns religion, paramount authority. Their title to priesthood is derived from violent manifestations, such as trembling, perspiring, belching, semiunconsciousness, that are believed to be a result of communication with their familiars.
The war priests have blood spirits for their favorites, and accordingly perform their rites only in matters that concern war and wounds.
Ceremonial accessories consist of a few heirlooms, a small altar house, a wooden oblation tray, a one-legged stand, a sacrificial table, ceremonial decorations, sacred images, and sacrificial offerings.
The religious rites peculiar to the ordinary priests, consist of betel-nut offerings, the burning of incense, invocations, prophylactic fowl waving, omen taking, blood unction, the child ceremony, the death feast, the rice-planting ceremony, the hunting rite, and the sacrifice of pig or fowl.
The ceremonies peculiar to the warrior priests, besides the betel-nut tribute to the war spirits and invocation offered to them, are: Invocation and offerings to the spirit companions or "souls" of the living enemy, special forms of divination connected with war, a special invocation to the omen bird preparatory to the war raid, placation and propitiation of the tutelary war deities by invocation, by sacrifice, and ceremonial cannibalism; and, probably, in the remote districts, by human sacrifice.