190 Traditions of the Tinguian 



66 



A very lazy boy got a piece of sugar-cane and went home with it. 

 When he got home, he told his mother to take off the outside of the 

 stalk so he might eat it. His mother was angry to see him so lazy and 

 told him that if he could not take it off himself, to stick it up his anus. 

 He did so and became a monkey. 



6 7 



A very lazy girl would not learn to spin, and always pretended that 

 she did not know how. One day she took the cotton and asked the 

 women what to do with it. " Beat it out," they said. Then she asked, 

 "What shall I do with it then?" "Put it in a betel leaf on a stick and 

 spin it." Again she asked, "How shall I spin it?" "If you do not 

 know how to spin, put the stick up your anus." She did so, and became 

 a monkey. After that there were many monkeys. 



68 ' 



In an early time, the Tinguian were like the alzado, 2 and hunted 

 heads. The men from one town started to another on the other side 

 of the Abra river to get heads. While they were on the way, it 

 rained very hard; and when they reached the river, they could not get 

 across, so they prayed to the Spirit that he would give them wings to 

 cross. They at once became birds; but when they reached the other 

 side of the river, they could not resume the forms of men. Some of the 

 men's wives had just died, and they had bark bands on their heads, as 

 is the Tinguian custom. When these became birds, their heads were 

 white; but those of the others were black, and so they are to this day. 



69 



A mother had a very lazy boy who could do nothing. One day she 

 went away to get something, and she put a big basket over the boy. 

 When she came home, she took the basket up, but instead of the boy 

 there was a bird which flew away, crying "sigakok, sigakok, sigakok," 

 — "lazy, lazy, lazy." And so that bird is called sigakok. 



70 



A long time ago there was a young man who cut all the trees in a 

 little wood. When he had cut up them, he burned them, and he planted 

 rice in the field. In a few days the rice was ready to cut and the young 



1 A story accounting for the origin of the kdlau, a bird. 



2 See page 10, note 1. 



