12 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. XII. 



and thereby ensure plentiful harvests. When the sultan was asked 

 whether he would sell his jar for £20,000, he answered that no offer in 

 the world could tempt him to part with it." * 



This desire for old jars was by no means confined to the traders and 

 Japanese, for the tribes of the interior had secured a great number of 

 them at a very early period, and later when the supply from the coast 

 had ceased, they began to mount in value until a man's wealth was, and 

 still is, largely reckoned by the number of old jars in his possession 

 (compare PI. III). As they were handed down from one generation 

 to. another, they began to gather to themselves stories of wondrous 

 origin and deeds, until to-day certain jars have reputations which extend 

 far beyond the limits of the tribes by which they may be owned. While 

 among the Tinguian of Abra, the writer continually heard tales of a 

 wonderful jar called Magsawi (PI. IV). It was credited with the ability 

 to talk; sometimes went on long journeys by itself; and was married to 

 a female jar owned by the Tinguian of Ilocos Norte. A small jar at 

 San Quintin, Abra, was said to be the child of this union and partook 

 of many qualities of its parents. 2 The history of this jar as related by 

 its owner, Cabildo of Domayco, is as follows: " Magsawi, my jar, when 

 it was not yet broken talked softly, but now its lines are broken, and the 

 low tones are insufficient for us to understand. The jar was not made 

 where the Chinese are, but belongs to the spirits or Kabonian, because 

 my father and grandfather, from whom I inherited it, said that in the 

 first times they (the Tinguian) hunted Magsawi on the mountains and 

 in the wooded hills. My ancestors thought that their dog had brought 

 a deer to bay (which he was catching), and they hurried to assist it. 

 They saw the jar and tried to catch it but were unable; sometimes it 

 disappeared, sometimes it appeared again, and, because they could not 

 catch it they went again to the wooded hill on their way to their town. 

 Then they heard a voice speaking words which they understood, but 

 they could see no man. The words it spoke were: 'You secure a pig, 

 a sow without young, and take its blood, so that you may catch the jar 

 which your dog pursued.' They obeyed and went to secure the 

 blood. The dog again brought to bay the jar which belonged to Kabon- 

 ian (a spirit). They plainly saw the jar go through a hole in the rock 



1 Jagor, Travels in the Philippines, p. 162. In Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, Vol. I, 

 1869, pp. 80-82, Jagor describes an ancient burial cave in Southern Samar. 

 In it were found broken pieces of crudely decorated pottery associated with human 

 remains. 



2 Other jars credited with the ability to talk were seen by the writer, and similar 

 jars are described by travelers in Borneo. See Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak and 

 British N. Borneo, Vol. II, p. 286; Hein, Die bildenden Kunste bei den Dayaks 

 auf Borneo, p. 139; also St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East. — The idea 

 of sex in jars is widespread throughout the Archipelago. 



