ating
and singing the prowess of the deceased; then each one went home. This
ridiculous ceremony is called tibao. The Indians even yet retain
the oldtime custom of this assembly, but all superstition and error
have been removed from it, and they unite to pray for the deceased;
but it is not without inconveniences that ought to be remedied.

444. The mourning consisted in fasting, and during the days of mourning
they lived only on vegetables. This fasting or abstinence was called
sipa by the Tagalogs. In dress the Visayans wore white, as do the
Chinese in sign of mourning, and this is even yet the custom in some
villages; but black is the most usual color for mourning in the rest
of the islands. With this kind of mourning they cover all the body,
so that the face may not be seen, especially if they are women and if
the mourning is thorough. During the mourning the men may not wear
a hat; but, instead, a black cloth wound about the head. They wear
mourning for any deceased relative, even though he be related only
very distantly; but the mourning is greater or less according to the
degree of relationship, both in manner and in duration of time.

445. From the above is inferred the belief of these Indians in the
transmigration of the souls of the deceased. In this they agree not
only with the Chinese, who believe in this peculiar error, but also
with other Indians whom Torquemada mentions in his second volume. The
similarity that they might relate in rites, both with the Indians of
Nueva Espana and Peru, and with other nations of greater antiquity,
may be compared by the curious reader, by reading the entire book
of the Origin of the Indians, and by tracing there that of these
Indians. [351]

446. It is an assured fact that the oldtime heathen of these islands
knew that after this life there was another one of rest, or let us
say paradise (for Bathala Maycapal alone in their belief lived in the
sky); and that only the just and valiant, those who had moral virtues
and lived without harming anyone, went thither to that place as a
reward. In the same way, as all of them believed in the immortality
of the soul in the other life, they believed in a place of punishment,
pain, and sorrow which they called casanaan, where the wicked went, and
where, they said, the devils dwelt. Consequently, the transmigration of
the souls of their deceased to other living bodies was a sign of rest
to them. Since no one desired his relatives to