6 Traditions or the Tinguian 



by the mediums, 1 as a part of their training for their positions, and are 

 only recited while an animal is being stroked with oil preparatory to its 

 being sacrificed, or when some other gift is about to be presented to the 

 superior beings. The writer has recorded these dtams from various 

 mediums in widely separated towns and has found them quite uniform 

 in text and content. The explanatory tales were likewise secured from 

 the mediums, or from old men and women who "know the customs." 

 The stories of the last division are the most frequently heard and, as 

 already indicated, are told by all. It is evident even to the casual reader 

 that these show much more evidence of outside influence than do the 

 others; some, indeed, appear to have been recently borrowed from the 

 neighboring christianized Ilocano. 2 



TALES OF THE MYTHICAL PERIOD 



Reconstruction of the Culture. — In the first division certain 

 actors occur with great frequency, while others always take the leading 

 parts. These latter appear under a variety of names, two or more titles 

 often being used for the same individual in a single tale. To avoid 

 confusion a list of the fourteen principal actors and their relationships 

 are given in the accompanying table. It will appear that there are 

 some conflicts in the use of names, but when it is realized that the first 

 twenty-six myths which make up the cycle proper were secured from 

 six story tellers coming from four different towns, the agreement rather 

 than the disagreement is surprising. As a matter of fact there is quite 

 as much variation between the accounts of the same narrator as between 

 those gathered from different towns. 



Table of Leading Characters 3 

 I. Aponitolau. Son of Pagatipanan cT 4 andLanga-an 9 4 of Kada- 

 layapan; is the husband of Aponlbolinayen. Appears under the 



1 Men or women through whom the superior beings talk to mortals. During 

 ceremonies the spirits possess their bodies and govern their language and actions. 

 When not engaged in their calling, the mediums take part in the daily activities of 

 the village. 



2 See page 29. 



1 The initial portion of some of these names is derived from the respectful term 

 apo — "sir," and the attributive copulate nl; thus the original form of Aponitolau 

 probably was Apo nl Tolau, literally "Sir, who is Tolau." However, the story-tellers 

 do not now appear to divide the names into their component parts, and they fre- 

 quently corrected the writer when he did so; for this reason such names appear in 

 the text as single words. Following this explanation it is possible that the name 

 Aponlbolinayen may be derived from Apo nl bolan yan, literally "Sir (mistress) who 

 is place where the moon"; but bolan generally refers to the space of time between the 

 phases of the moon rather than to the moon itself. The proper term for moon is 

 sinag, which we have seen is the mother of Gaygay6ma — a star, — and is clearly 

 differentiated from Aponlbolinayen. 



* 0* — male. 9 — female. 



