BENEDICT. BAGOBO CEREMONIAL, MAGIC AND MYTH 61 



A Bagobo always mounts at the right side of his horse, but to 

 what extent this motor habit is associated with the above tradition 

 concerning the double personality of the animal, cannot be definitely 

 stated. 



TRADITIONS OF MYTHICAL ANCESTORS 



Bagobo tradition records that before time began to be reckoned, 

 before man was made, the universe was peopled by creatures that 

 are now called monkeys' 21 (lutung); but at that primeval period 

 monkeys had the form of man and were in all respects human. 

 After man appeared on the earth, the apes took on their present 

 form. Although the line of separation between monkeys and human 

 beings was then pretty well established, there still lingered a ten- 

 dency toward metamorphosis, by which the simian groups gained 

 an occasional recruit from the ranks of man. 



At the dawn of more authentic oral tradition, there were living 

 in the world very aged people called mona, I2 ° whose home, some 

 say, was at the center of the earth, but others think that the 

 ancestors of the Bagobo, even back to the mona, have always 

 occupied the mountainous sites in Mindanao where their descendants 

 live to-day. The old men were called tuglay, and the old women, 

 tuglibung, names originally given to the first pair of ancestors, and 

 afterward applied to all the mona. The god, Pamulak Manobo, 

 who created the earth and the mona, was assisted by the first 

 tuglibung and tuglay in making the plants and stones and other 

 objects that appeared on the earth. 



Umstanden fur das Tier an dem Menschen riichen kann." Die Inlandstamme der malay- 

 ischen Halbinsel, p. 946. 1905. Mental associations not very different from these are set 

 up with the Bagobo when a person falls from the left-hand side of his horse. 



121 Everywhere in Malay folklore, there are traditions associating men with monkeys, 

 particularly with the gibbon of Borneo, because of its erect position in walking. For 

 several references to traditional accounts, see W. W. Skeat: op. cit., p. 189. 



The Moro say that people who neglected the opportunity of going with Noah "into 

 a box were overtaken by the flood and providentially changed to forms that had some 

 chance to survive. Those who took to the hills became monkeys." C. H. Forbes-Lind- 

 say: The Philippines under Spanish and American rules, p. 504. 1906. 



The same thought is expressed in a Mantra creation myth, which derives their people 

 from two white monkeys that descended to the plains, in company with their descendants, 

 where they gradually took on human form. The others, who stayed behind in the 

 mountains, remained monkeys. Cf. E. Martin : op. cit., p. 979. 



116 Tales of the Mona will be found in Jour. Am. Folk-lore vol. 26, pp. 16, 21, 

 24—42. 1913. 



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