Introduction 31 



holds undisputed sway, these well-known tales of past times must tend 

 to cast into the same mould any new facts or experiences which come to 

 them. 



We believe that we are justified when we take the viewpoint of the 

 Tinguian and consider "the stories of the first times" as essentially very 

 old. How old it is impossible to state definitely, but a careful analysis 

 of our material justifies us in believing that they reflect a time before the 

 people possessed terraced rice fields, when domestic work animals were 

 still unknown, and the horse had not yet been introduced into their 

 land. That these are not recent events is attested by the great part 

 they all now play in the ceremonial and economic life. It is evident 

 that outside influences of great importance were introduced at a period 

 later than the time when the Chinese first began to trade along the coasts 

 of the Philippines for the prized jars, which play such an important r6le 

 in the mythology, are not to be identified as those of native make but 

 are ancient Chinese vessels dating back at least to the fourteenth and 

 perhaps even to the tenth centuryCL^ 



It is probable that the glass, porcelain, and agate beads, which are 

 second only to the jars in importance, are exceedingly old. Many an- 

 cient specimens are still in use and are held for as fabulous prices as are 

 those found among the interior tribes of Borneo. Nieuwenhuis has shown 

 that the manufacture of beads had become a great industry in the middle 

 ages, and had extended even to China and Japan, whence the products 

 may have spread contemporaneously with the pottery. 2 



We have seen that, for the most part, the life, customs, and beliefs 

 which appear in our reconstruction of "the first times" agrees closely 

 with present conditions; certain things which seem formerly to have 

 been of prime importance — such as the sending of a betel-nut covered 

 with gold to invite guests to a festival or ceremony — appear to have 

 their echo in present conditions. The betel-nut which played such a 

 momentous part in the old times still holds its place in the rituals of the 

 many ceremonies, although it is not now much used in daily life. The 

 magic of to-day is less powerful than formerly, but is still a tremendous 

 force. The communication of the ancient people with other members of 

 the animate world, as well as with the inanimate and spiritual, and their 

 metamorphosis into animals and the like, offers nothing strange or incon- 

 sistent to the people of to-day. They even now talk to jars, they con- 

 verse with spirits who come to them through the bodies of their mediums, 



^jCole and Laufer, Chinese Pottery in the Philippines (Publication Field 

 Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Series, Vol. XII, No. I, Chicago, 1913). 



1 Nieuwenhuis, Kunstperlen und ihre kulturelle Bedeutung (Int. Arch, fur 

 Ethnographic, Vol. XVI, 1903, pp. 136-154). 



