Posts Tagged ‘spirits’

“Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 2

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

Mr and Mrs Butnah Pea-nah-bee-gall

“We also fear the bahl-bahl spirits. These are wicked demonic spirits that live in the rocks and trees.

The bahl-bahl are the cause of all sickness and we have to be very careful about what we do so as not to offend them.

Our ancestors told us all about the different things that can make the bahl-bahl spirits angry enough to make us sick. We have to be careful about everything, even what foods are taboo and what foods must not be eaten together.

There are signs from the birds too, which warn us not to do certain things. Some of the old people have dreams which are warning signs of impending danger.

When we get sick, the shamans in the family can tell what spirit made us sick and they know what kind of divination to do to determine what will pacify the spirit and restore the person’s health. “It is really difficult to cure sickness because we don’t have many pigs and chickens which are needed for the sacrifices.”

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“Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 3

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

If there is a taboo at birth, the baby is buried alive under the house.

“If you ask me, we find sickness especially hard to deal with, especially if we have a lot of children because they are always getting sick and needing to be sacrificed for. This is because children easily annoy the spirits by breaking the taboos. It is not always the person who breaks the taboo who gets sick either.

“We are really scared of sickness because we have so much of it. We do not name our children until they are about 2 years old because we know that they will have constant sickness and be likely to die before that age. Sometimes, in order to obey the taboos, we have to bury our children at birth.

For instance if a baby has its umbilical cord wrapped around its neck at birth, that is a bad omen and the baby must be buried. We have to crush up some ginger root and stuff it down the babies throat and then place it in a shallow grave under the house. We don’t like doing this because many times we hear the baby screaming from under the ground for a long time.

“We also have to worship and obey our ancestral spirits because they control every part of our lives. They are the ones who control our crops and give power to the tribal leaders and who also help us catch wild deer and pigs.

Without their help our crops would not grow and we would experience floods, storms and earthquakes. They also help us defeat our enemies and keep away warring neighbors.”

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“Unripe Ones – From Fear to Faith” Part 7

Posted by Lance and Laura Ostman on Friday, March 30th, 2007

Tudd-ha Ahn-see-ha-gun

“We were sad about our chief because even though he had encouraged us to listen, he turned away when he realized that we were no longer going to follow his dee-wah-tah spirits.

“He tried to scare us with threats from the dee-wah-tah, but it was too late. We belonged to the Lord now and we told him that we would not follow him or his spirits any more. He tried really hard to draw us away from listening to the missionaries.

“It wasn’t long before the Lord stopped him by allowing him to die of a throat disease where he could not talk anymore. He died without being able to draw anyone away from the truth. We were really sad but we knew that God was in control. Some of the spirits came back and tried to reclaim us, but when we called on the Lord they disappeared.

“We were really eager to learn more and so the missionaries continued to teach us. We were so excited about our new life in the Lord and it was not long before there were no more sacrifices in our place and no one was following the old ways. Most of the village shamans and spirit men had turned to the Lord so even if anyone wanted to follow the ways of the ancestors there was no one to lead them. Those who wanted to continue in the old ways moved away to other places where the people were still doing that.

“As we learned more about the Lord, we became concerned about our fellow Higaunon in other villages. We questioned the missionaries about why it took so long from when Jesus told His followers to take the message to the whole world to actually bringing it to our place. We wanted to know what happened to our ancestors who never heard.

“Anyway it seemed to us that 2000 years was a really long time to bring the message to our place and we didn’t want it to be a long time before it reached other Higaunon villages. So we began to discuss and pray about how we could take the message of salvation to the rest of the Higaunon people.”

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