like those in the neighboring island of
Sebu, did not practice polygamy--an affliction which to the fathers
in Ibabao and Leite was a source of great sorrow, since they found in
this evil custom a serious impediment to the conversion of many who
were not otherwise hindered from receiving holy baptism. Not only were
the Boholans free from this, but none of their immoral practices (for
they had others) could hinder their conversion; for all at once they
abandoned all of these, together with their idolatry. Those fathers
wrote to us concerning two in particular, of which--although they are
not peculiar to the people of that island, but are general among all
the others--I desire to give an account for the better understanding
and greater clearness of this narrative; one relates to their dead,
and their mode of shrouding and burying them; the other, to their
feasts, festivals, and drunken revels. I shall speak of the general
practices in both, beginning with the first.

The manner which the Filipinas had of shrouding and burying their
dead. Chapter XXXIII.

The first and last concern of the Filipinos in cases of sickness was,
as we have stated, to offer some sacrifice to their anitos, or divatas,
which were their gods. These sacrifices were offered, as we have said,
with dancing to the sound of a bell; and it would happen, as I have
sometimes heard, that in the most furious part of the dance and the
bell-ringing, when the catolona or bailana was exerting most force,
all at once she stopped at the death of the sick person. After the
death there followed new music, the dirges and lamentations, which
were also sung, accompanied by weeping, not only by the mourners but
by others--the former on account of their sorrow and grief; the latter
for their wages and profit, for they were hired for this purpose, as is
and has been the custom among other nations of greater reputation. To
the sound of this sad music they washed the body of the dead person,
perfuming it with the gum of the storax-tree and other aromatics which
they are wont to use, and clothing it in the best garments which the
dead man possessed; then, after having kept and mourned over it for
three days, they buried it. Others anointed the body with aromatic
balsams which prevent corruption, especially with the juice of a sort
of ivy which grows there abundantly, and is truly a very valuable
drug, which they call _buyo_. [92] It is very pungent, and for the
living