According to Bloughart, Schwartz and several others the Pagu seemed to take great delight in frightening their children with fanciful threats but they were also very pleased when children see through the ruse. As they never used corporal punishment beyond warning slaps for the very young and very seldom raised their voices to their children; instilling fear may have been the main method of discipline. Schwartz, who was from a vigorous German spanking culture, was intrigued by the lack of violence in child raising. He wondered whether this related to the brat child concept where defiance and insolence were expected from children.
The Pagunan bogeyman is more formal than the bogeyman of western lore, who may euphemistically stand for pedophiles and other corrupters of young children. The overt threat is that they will "eat you" in both cases, although also in both cases the threat is amorphous. A difference was that the Pagunan child saw the bogeyman or bogeymen at performances or on paths in the dark. He was more real. Bogeyman masks are all quite pale and those who wear them have their bodies completely covered with dark bark cloth or sooted mud often with their hands whitened so the heads and hands appear disembodied at night or in dimly lit lodges. For the fun of it, adolescents dressed as bogeymen would sometimes roam the settlements at night looking for little children to scare.
Bogeymen took part in performances like those at No Moon festivals where while intermingling with other performers they played mainly to the children. Numerous observers reported the use of sound effects and props such as where masks with hidden cords or on poles take off and seem to float. They also reported that most bogeymen are portrayed by females, as they know how to scare children better. For the child, bogeymen evolve from simply scaring them to providing scary entertainment. It has been argued that they helped children deal with fear. There were reports of certain bogeymen developing a following or fans.
Bogeymen also represent "bad spirits" who may trick the unwary into doing stupid and destructive things. Children have to be careful. They are capricious; one never knows what could happen. But for the Pagu, lacking a concept of evil, it is all very prosaic. Lizard and the Big Wave had defined evil if there was to be one. Afterwards the Pagu were too busy creating a new society and having fun to concern themselves with Evil in their lives. There was relative abundance and life was good.
This particular mask with its prominent teeth is more refined than most. Some, presumably early ones or ones carved by young adolescents, are quite primitive and rough textured from the coral stone used to shape and sand them. Some were painted with a light mud and stained with blood, betel juice and other dyes.
This replica is more carefully carved and finished than was the original which had extensive dry rot. This is a continuing problem I've had with the artist Rohban who seems unwilling to compromise his perfectionist approach for the sake of authenticity. With limited funding these kinds of problems are unavoidable. The bogeymen masks tended to be replaced by missionary masks in the late Nineteenth Century when the missionaries had succeeded in setting up schools for their converts. It was common knowledge among all children that the pupils in these schools were beaten frequently and sometimes severely. The missionary became a more realistic and effective way to scare young children than the bogeyman. Adolescents switched to missionary masks to frighten children.
