[97] The custom of placing in the mouth of the corpse gold or other means for the purchase of necessities and, in particular, of a safe passage, is much ridiculed by Lucian, in those ancients of theirs negotiating for the boat and ferry of Charon; and indeed it served no other end than to excite the covetousness of those who, to profit by the gold, opened the sepulchres and disinterred the dead—­as Hyrcanus and Herod desecrated the grave of David, and the Ternates did in Bohol, as we shall later see.” [98]

As for the banquets, they were precisely those which occurred at the ancient festivals and funeral feasts practiced by all countries and nations, sacred and profane. [99]

The observance of silence seems to be what not only the profane writers meant by summoning mortals to the shades and darkness, mute and silent; but what the sacred writers intended in calling death and dead men mute.

In the sacred tongue they called the sepulchre itself “silence,” [100] or “the place of silence”—­on account both of the dumbness of the deceased, who was no longer able to have intercourse with the living, and of the silence and wonder in which the living remained, their grief for the dead, and the solitude in which they sat, depriving them of voice and speech; even more effectual for this was the consideration of the wretchedness, insignificance, and transientness of their own species, which they saw in their neighbor, friend or relative, when in so evil a plight, a threat and warning to them of a like fate. [101] In short, since all these usages arose, partly from some confused perception or conjecture of the natural reason, partly (and more probably) from the blindness and madness into which the devil plunged them, those islanders practiced rites and customs similar to those of former times and nations, for they too were men, subject to the same deception.  Truly in this, as in a thousand other things, is verified that grave saying and query of the Wise Man:  “What is it that is now happening?” and he answers himself, saying, “That which happened in the past.”  Again he asks himself:  “What were the customs of our ancestors?” and again he replies, “Those which will be, and which those who are yet unborn will practice.” [102] The same I would say of the following.

Of feasting and intoxication among the Filipinos.  Chapter XXXIV.

The time for their feasts, wherein they ate and drank to excess (and they drank, too, much more than they ate), was, as we have said, upon occasions of illness, death, and mourning.  Such was also their custom at betrothals, weddings, and sacrifices, and with guests and visitors.  Upon all these occasions there was not a door closed against anyone who might desire to go to drink with them—­for they designate a feast by the term “drinking,” not “eating.”  In the feasts which they held upon occasions of sacrifice, they were wont to place at one side of the table a plate, upon which he who chose would throw, by way