The Manobos perceive their cosmos as having been made up of four domains: two concerning the bipolar world of mountainworld (lower right) and seaworld (upper left) and two concerning the self, living (ginhawa, lower left) or separated (soul, upper right). The skyworld--like an inverted saucer--spans the borders (horizons) of the mountainworld and the seaworld. The Manobos also construe different vertical layers in the cosmos, but these are not represented here.

    The cosmos teems with life and things in it are “owned” by “bound spirits,” who sometimes approach persons making them ill (see lower arrow). Manobos also verbalize that illnesses are caused by “envious” souls of dead relatives who would ironically solicit the help of nature spirits in order to inflict harm on their relatives (upper arrow). Thus, animate presences of the cosmos are in constant interaction with one another. At the center of the cosmos is the self who imagines its place in the cosmos (inner circle 1), followed by the household world (2), the world of everyday life where one has to travel to make a living (3), and the distant unfamiliar regions (4 and 5) that are creatively imagined because they lie beyond the realm of the human senses. The origin of illness-causing spirits is important in healing sicknesses because without knowledge of those origins, it is not possible to remake the order of things that the cosmos is in Manobo society.