Money Fails to Grow on Tree, Cultist Gives Followers Poison, Killing 68

A local official confirmed Friday that a religious leader fed poisoned food to dozens of people in a remote village after failing to make money grow on a tree, then killed himself.

A total of 68 people died, but five survived by only pretending to eat the poison-laced gruel.

Helicopter-borne soldiers Friday reached the mountainside death site in Sinasa village, about 25 miles from Davao and 600 miles southeast of Manila. They said the bodies of men, women and children were lying “like they were sleeping” inside a long bunkhouse and four huts, 11 days after they died.

Generoso Bangunan, the local cultural minorities officer in Davao city, gave the first detailed account of how religious leader Mangayanon Butaog fed followers poison, telling them: “Go to sleep. . . . When you awake, . . . you will be gods.”

Bangunan said he learned of the Sept. 9 mass murder or suicide last Sunday from a survivor, whom he identified only as Pininsaan. Bangunan quoted Pininsaan as telling the following story:

Before the mass poisoning, Butaog--variously described as a religious leader and medicine man--had hacked a tree and promised the tribesmen that its leaves, when dry, would turn into money.

Days later, Butaog returned from what he said was a meeting with “the highest of gods” on a mountaintop and prepared the gruel, which he mixed with liquid from a bottle marked with a skull and crossbones. He served the potion to his followers, hacked to death his wife and two small children, then killed himself.

Pininsaan said some did not know what was in the food. But he and four others did. They took their share, pretended to eat it, then spit it out and lay down and pretended to be asleep.