to instruct this people, for they were the first preachers of Jesus Christ in Bohol.  They entered the island with much confidence and consolation, on learning that its people, 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 is a notable stimulant, also strengthening the teeth, hardening the gums, and sweetening the breath.  Consequently both Spaniards and Indians make much use of it, and always carry it in their mouth, as they use the coca in Piru.  With the juice of this plant, then, they anointed the dead body, and so injected it through the mouth that it penetrated