f, and
there celebrate a ceremony known as _Pandoman_. Two bundles of rice are
laid on a mat in the center of the room, and beside them a spear is
thrust into the floor. These are offerings to the great spirits MElu and
Dwata who are besought to give health to the workers while they are
gathering crops. As soon as this offering is made, the men begin to
build the rice granaries; meanwhile the women silently guard the mat and
gifts, for until the new storehouses are completed there must be no
dancing or merry-making. When all is ready for the harvest, the wife of
the owner goes alone to the field, and having cut a few heads of grain,
she carries them back to the house. One portion is placed in the _sabak_
another on a little platform, _gramso_, near to the house, as an
offering to MElu and Dwata; and the balance is cooked and eaten by the
family. The following morning all the women go to the fields to gather
the harvest. When the last bundle has been carried to the house a
celebration begins, agongs and _EdEl_[64] furnish the music for the
dancers, and for a day and a night all feast and make merry; then the
workers return to their homes carrying small gifts of cooked food or new
rice.

[63] This pole which is here known as _sabak_ is the same as the
_tambara_ of the Bagobo. See p. 66 and Fig. 12.

[64] See p. 110 note. [Transcriber's note: 30 pages earlier.]

Aside from clearing the land and helping somewhat with the rice crops,
the men seldom concern themselves with work in the fields but leave the
cultivation of corn, sweet potatoes, tobacco, and the like to the women.

A large part of the food of the tribe is furnished by the fruits and
herbs of the jungle and here again the women are the chief providers.
Although in the sago industry both sexes have well defined duties.

Along the edge of the cogon lands are many large _buri_ palms,[65] from
which a starch commercially known as sago is secured. The men cut down a
tree close to its roots and remove the hard outer bark, thus exposing
the soft fibrous interior (Plate LIII); then a section of bamboo is bent
so as to resemble an adze[sic], and with this the men loosen or break up
the soft interior portion of the trunk. This is removed to a near-by
stream, and is placed in a bark vat into which water is led by means of
bamboo tubes. Here a woman works it with her hands until the starch
grains are separated from the fibrous matter. As the water drains slowly
out the f