HUMAN SACRIFICES IN THE PHILIPPINES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 119, 18 May 1909, Page 2

HUMAN SACRIFICES IN THE PHILIPPINES.

An account of a recent sacrifice in the Philippines of a child to the gods appears in an official report by Mr Allen Walker, the District Governor of Davao, in Moro Land. The account gives full details, and shows that the sacrifice was carefully arranged, and was for the purpose of appeasing the evil spirits. A large number of men and women attended tke ceremony, and it seems a strange note that the name and address 01 each person who participated is shown in the official report. \ "^The account states- that a boy named Sacum' was brought forward and was placed against a small tiee; his hands were tied above his head, and he was fastened to the tree \ ith bejuco strips at his waist and knees. A native named Ansig then placed the point of a spear at the child s right side, below his right arm and above the ribs. The spear was grasped by other natives, who, at a signal from Ansig, forced.it through the child's body. It was then withdrawn, and the body was cut mi wo at the waist. The body was afterwards taken from the tree, and was chopped into bits by the people present, each of whom was allowed to take a small portion as a memento of the occasion. The remainder of the body was buried, It is said that the child did not realise what was to happen to him until the moment when he was tied up, when he Legan to cry; further, that death was al--most Instantaneous, the only cry being uttered when the spear first entered the child's side. Ansig, a man about sixty years of age, says that m his life he has attended, or officiated at, fifty human sacrifices, more or less, both among the Bagobos and the Bilanes, and that the sacrifice of human beings is also a practice among the Tagacolos, although he has never been present at one held by that tribe. The Bagobos do not sacrifice any but old and decrepit or useless slaves, captured from other tribes, but the Bilanes sacrifice even their own people. The report says that the natives who took part in the recent sacrifice were not conscious of wrongdoing, but that upon investigation and proof they have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Sentence, however, has been suspended on their promise to stop the practice.