The recent publication of Manolete Mora’s Myth, Mimesis and Magic in the Music of the T’boli (2005) is part of a growing trend where Filipino scholars finally engage in the interpretation of indigenous religious and mythical beliefs and practices.  There have of course been other studies that explore this same territory (see Pambid 2000, McAndrew 2001, Cannell 1999, Aguilar 1998), but these have mainly focused on lowland, Christianized groups and the negotiations between indigenous and Christian frameworks, meanings, symbols, and practices engendered by the colonial experience.    Interpreting indigenous beliefs is both necessary and long overdue.  As a project however it presumes the existence of sufficient data that will serve as a basis for interpretation.  And so, even as we appreciate the further development of Philippine ethnographic scholarship, it seems necessary to raise a Boasian warning that, in the exhilaration of coming free of objectivist shackles, we might become so enchanted with the task of interpretation that we neglect the careful, rigorous description on which our interpretations must rest.     This is particularly true of attempts to interpret indigenous rituals and other religious practices.  Unlike much of the data from lowland, Christianized groups, here the available material is often fragmentary and of variable quality. The heterogeneity of the indigenous groups and the complexity and flexibility of their practices complicate the task of description.  Unless due care is taken, we might end up founding expansive, intricate constellations of poignant, profound meanings on a single, necessarily partial description (following Clifford 1986) of a single religious performance. 

   If the thrust towards interpretation of indigenous rituals and beliefs –and beyond—is to be sustained, then the challenge is to build up the data on which we need to premise our interpretations. It is in this spirit that this article offers the following documentation of a kaligaon ritual.