The World of Agusan Manobo Music
Rituals in the Cosmos
Manobos make or do a myriad of rituals that correspond to their various everyday activities in the cosmos. They intrude into nature with their hunting and forest swidden activities (lower right domain where they deal with the “bound nature spirits from the mountains”) and fish (upper left domain where they encounter the spirits of water and the skyworld).
Cross-cutting the two domains (mountainworld and seaworld) are curing rituals that pertain to the ginhawa entity of the self (lower right) and to rites of separation that deal with the umagad (soul) of the self.
In all these rituals, Manobo verbalize the obligation to be seen by spirits of nature or external reality, so that spirits will not pose a danger to them. It is for this reason that the most important element in all Manobo rituals is the display objects that essentially indicate the ritual doers’ or sponsors’ presences in specific locations of their cosmos.
