TRADITIONS OF THE TINGUIAN 



A STUDY IN PHILIPPINE FOLK-LORE 

 INTRODUCTION 



For the purposes of our study, the tales have been roughly divided 

 into three parts. The first, which deals with the mythical period, con- 

 tains thirty-one tales of similar type in which the characters are for the 

 most part the same, although the last five tales do not properly fit into 

 the cycle, and the concluding story of Indayo is evidently a recent ac- 

 count told in the form of the older relations. 



In the second division are the ritualistic and explanatory myths, the 

 object of which seems to be to account for the origin of or way of con- 

 ducting various ceremonies; for the belief in certain spirits and sacred 

 objects ; for the existence of the sun, moon, and other natural phenomena; 

 for the attainment of fire, food plants, birds and domestic animals, as 

 well as of magical jars and beads. Here it should be noted that some of 

 the most common and important beliefs and ceremonies are, so far as is 

 known, unaccompanied by any tales, yet are known to all the popula- 

 tion, and are preserved almost without change from generation to gen- 

 eration. 



Division three contains the ordinary stories with which parents 

 amuse their children or with which men and women while away the 

 midday hours as they lounge in the field houses, or when they stop on 

 the trail to rest and smoke. 



None of the folk-tales are considered as the property of the tellers, 

 but only those of the third division are well known to the people in gen- 

 eral. Those of the first section are seldom heard except during the dry 

 season when the people gather around bonfires in various parts of the 

 village. To these go the men and women, the latter to spin cotton, the 

 former to make fish nets or to repair their tools and weapons. In such 

 a gathering there are generally one or more persons who entertain their 

 fellows with these tales. Such a person is not paid for his services, but 

 the fact that he knows "the stories of the first times" makes him a wel- 

 come addition to the company and gives him an enviable position in the 

 estimation of his fellows. 



The purely ritualistic tales, called diams, are learned word by word 



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