Ritualistic and Explanatory Myths 189 



Then she went to find the men. They had climbed a high tree which 

 stood near the water, and when the alan looked in the water, she saw 

 them in it. She put her hand in the water and tried to get them, but 

 could not; then she looked up and saw them again. " How did you get 

 up there?" she asked. "We climbed up feet first." Then the alan 

 seized a vine and started up the tree feet first. When she had almost 

 reached them, they cut the vine and the alan fell to the ground and was 

 dead. The men came down from the tree and went to the house of the 

 alan. When they got there, they saw three jars: the first was full of 

 dung; the second, of beads; the third, of gold. They took the jars with 

 the beads and gold and went home. 



62 



The earth, which is very flat, was made by the great spirit Kadaklan. 

 He also made the sun and moon, which chase each other over and under 

 the earth. Sometimes the moon almost catches the sun, but it always 

 gets tired and gives up before it succeeds. The sun and moon are the 

 lights of Kadaklan and so are the stones which are stars. The dog of 

 Kadaklan is the lightning. 



63 



Kabonlyan once sent a flood which covered all the land. There was 

 no place for the fire to go, so it went into the bamboo, the stones, and 

 the iron. Now that is why you can get fire out of the bamboo and 

 stones. 



64 



A man planted rice in the high land. When it was grown, he saw 

 that something was eating it, though he had a fence around it. One 

 night he went to watch his field. About midnight he heard many 

 wings and saw some big animals with wings alight in his rice. He ran 

 and caught one, and cut off its wings. The animal was pregnant and 

 soon had a young one. Since then there have been horses on the earth, 

 but people have never seen any more fly. You can see the place on the 

 horse's legs where the wings used to be. 



65 



A lazy man was planting corn in the high land. He would plant a 

 few seeds and then put his planting stick in the ground and lean back 

 on it. After a while the stick grew there and was a tail, and the man 

 became a monkey; 1 



1 In the Bagobo version of this tale, a ladle becomes the monkey's tail. See 

 Benedict, Journal American Folklore, Vol. XXVI, 1913, p. 21. 



