(j) Omens were multitudinous.

The ancient Filipinos

saw the footprints of their gods everywhere.

(k) Divination, particularly by means of the pig's liver, was used to secure the answer of the gods to important questions.

(1) The baliti tree was given special reverence as the supposed home of the nonos.

(m) Myths and fables, explaining the origin of all common objects, and explaining the origin of customs and mores, were very numerous.10

It is interesting how similar is the development of peoples of all parts of the world. The Occidental, in looking back upon his own ancestry, need go back only to the sixteenth century to hear Montaigne assert that "the day will never come when the common run of men will cease to believe in witchcraft"; and he need only go back to the fourth century to read from Jerome, the great Christian scholar, that "when I was a boy living in Gaul, I saw the Scottish people in Britain eating human flesh, and though they had plenty of cattle and sheep at their disposal, yet they would prefer a ham of herdsman, or a slice of the female breast as a luxury." Cannibalism is a custom of which the Filipino cannot boast in his ancestry, but after all, what makes the difference is not what one's ancestors did, but what one's children are going to do.

established the faith of Mohammed throughout the state of Juhur. Makdum made his way northward to Mindanao and Sulu, making some converts in these Islands, about the year 1380. It is reported that the town of Bwansa, formerly the capital of Sulu, built a mosque for him and that some of the chiefs accepted his faith. The Island of Sibutu claims his grave.

Some ten years after Makdum's death, there came into Sulu a Raja (or Prince) named Baginda. He hailed from Manengkabaw in central Sumatra, the home of many Malayan dynasties. Beginda brought with him an army of invasion, which soon overcame all resistance.2 "It is not improbable," says Saleeby, "that the reason why Raja Baginda could conquer the people of Bwansa and become their supreme ruler, is because he had the first firearms they had ever seen." Raja Baginda received from the Raja of Java a gift of two elephants, which were let loose and turned wild. Their offspring became the terror of Jolo. The chief who killed the last wild elephant was given the hand of the sultan's daughter in marriage. Elephant skeletons are still found in Sulu.

The greatest man in Sulu history, a man who bore the stamp of exceptional talents, was Abu Bakr. His origin is uncertain. One tradition says that he himself came from Mecca; another that his father Baynul Abidin came from Hadramut, Arabia, settled in Malacca, married the daughter of the Sultan of Juhur, and became the father of three very great sons of whom Abu Bakr was the second. The oldest of the three, says this story, founded the sultanate of Brunei, in Borneo, while the youngest, Kabungsuwan, became the illustrious conqueror of Mindanao. The tradition that these three men were brothers is probably false.

As for Abu Bakr, the Moros say that he was a very famous authority in law and religion in the city of Malacca. He traveled eastward and finally settled in the Island of Basilan.

"The History of Sulu," N. M. Saleeby, Bureau of Science, Division of Ethnology Publications, Vol. IV, Part II.

Ibid., p. 159.

At the invitation of the people of Sulu he took up his residence in Bwansa, Sulu, about the year 1450, and married Princess Paramisuli, the daughter of Raja Baginda. He persuaded both people and chiefs to become real Mohammedans and to abandon their former gods. Upon Baginda's death, Bakr inherited all of his father-in-law's power over Bwansa and the Island of Sulu and a great deal more, for he claimed direct descent from Mohammed, and declared himself Sultan. Today the Sulus reverently refer to him as "Sultanash-sharif-al-Hashim." Bakr remodeled the government after the pattern of an Arabian sultanate, giving himself all the powers of a caliph. He even induced the natives to give him all the territory within the sound of the royal gong, and all the shores of the island as his personal property. He had a code of laws made, which reconciled the local customs with Mohammedan laws and the precepts of the Koran. He reigned for thirty years until his death about 1480.

Beyond a doubt, the ease with which Bakr transformed the Sulus and became their head is in part due to the fact that he brought exactly the doctrines that they wanted to believe. Islam gave their practice of piracy a religious sanction. For the Sulus were the terrors of their neighbors when the curtain of history rolled up. In one of the earliest accounts of them they had repulsed an expedition from Champa with heavy loss. Bandjarmasin, Borneo, finding the Joloanos dangerous enemies, sent one of its choicest princesses to marry the chief of Sulu and thus purchase his friendship. In 1368, a Chinese writer reported that the Sulu pirates had just returned from the city of Brunei with large booty. While, therefore, Islam confirmed the piratical habits of the Moros, furnishing them with a philosophy which legitimatized murder and pillage, it did not start them in this evil way.

The influence of Islam in Sulu was profound. It introduced a new form of government, a new alphabet, new science, new art, and new methods of warfare. It introduced a new religion, but as an addition to the old, not as a substitute. For to this day Mohammedanism in Moroland is a veneer. Pagan beliefs are held and pagan ceremonies practiced, which

are forbidden by Islam. In spite of the panditas (priests), multitudes of songs are preserved by memory, and are sung on journeys, at dances, and during all festivities, about the mythological heroes and pagan gods which the Moros derived from India. The greatest of their heroes, Bantugun, is probably identical with Indra.3

Their other heroes have been identified in detail with the gods of the Hindus. Around Lake Lanao these songs are best known, because that region has been most secluded from foreign communication.

Moreover, the Moros venerate their departed ancestors, whose bones they preserve as possessing peculiar power to keep away harm. They think that the entire world is alive with dewas and hantus, and they make offerings to these spirits in much the same manner as the pagan tribes do. "Get the Moro," says Dr. Saleeby, "in a position of pressing danger, where he stands face to face with disease or death, then he may forget 'Allah' and Mohammed, and call for Bantugun, his hero god and the god of his forefathers. In the Mindanao campaign of 1904 the panditas invoked 'Allah' and Mohammed, but the masses looked for help from Bantugun and trusted in his power. They actually believed that he appeared to Datu Ali in human form, strengthened him, and gave him a belt to wear for his protection."

The last wave of immigrants to the Philippines, called Samals, were more or less Mohammedanized, before they reached the Islands. At their head was the famous Kabungsuwan, who came from Jahur (Malacca), somewhere around the year 1475 and converted and dominated the Cottabato valley. That this great leader was a brother of Abu Bakr, "is neither true," says Saleeby, "nor based on any written record whatsoever," but the Moros insist upon it nevertheless. Perhaps Kabungsuwan used the Samals who came with him as fighters in conquering the tribes of the Coftabato valley. Having swords and perhaps gunpowder, he was more than a match for the natives, who were armed only with bows and wooden arrows. The pagans who confessed

8 "Origin of the Malayan Filipinos," N. M. Saleeby, 1912.