48 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Tradition says that in the moon live many people who are liko 

 the Bagobo. There is a great pananag tree there, with a white 

 monkey sitting on one of its branches. This is what causes the 

 phenomenon of "spots" l03 on the face of the moon. We can make 

 out the shape of the monkey and of the tree rather indistinctly, 

 but all the old men know that they are there. They say, however, 

 that if anybody should clearly see the white monkey sitting on the 

 tree he would instantly drop dead, or he taken with a fatal illness. 

 It appears that the clouds are all afraid of this monkey, and this 

 is the reason why, on a moonlight night, the clouds are often seen 

 Hitting over the face of the moon, and then fleeing away into the 

 sky. Yet the monkey in the moon is a good animal, and the friend 

 of man, for he is continually fighting with the evil huso. According 

 to another myth, the clouds are not personified hut are said to be 

 the white smoke arising from the fires of the diwata in the heavens. 

 The phenomena of thunder and lightning are referred to an 

 enormous horse, Kilat by name, that belongs to one of the diwata. 

 Kilat runs and fights, prances and gambols in the sky, making 

 lightning Hash when he shakes his bright mane, sending out thunder- 

 claps when he neighs in a mighty, roaring voice. The power of 

 this mythical animal is feared like that of huso, since the heaviest 

 peals of thunder indicate that Kilat is about to drop down to earth, 

 bringing sickness and death to domestic animals and to the Bagobo. 

 When Kilat's voice is heard at its loudest, they cut up a lemon 

 in water and throw the water here and there on the ground, since 

 this will frighten him back to his place in the sky. There is an 

 interesting tradition connected with certain small, bluish-black 

 -tones, several inches long, that are, perhaps, of meteoric origin. 

 The Bagobo use them for whetstones and for scouring-bricks, but 

 they say that they are the teeth of Kilat which dropped out of his 

 mouth when it was wide open for emitting thunder-claps, or that 



let out the stars, the sun sent the lighting spirits ldu to attack him. When the moon 

 is hard pressed bj the liiu, an eclipse occurs. Then all the people on earth, mindful of 

 the moon's kindness to them, cry out "Set I lie moon free, you liiu I" Sometimes these 

 ^ ] i i r i 1 s attack the sun, and then an eclipse of the sun lakes place. Cf. Die Religion der 

 Batak, pp. 43 — 14. 1909. 



)ul Some peninsular Malay groups think the spots on the moon to be an inverted 

 banyan tree. Cf. W. W. Skkat: Malay magic, p. 13. 1900. The Manobo call the spots 

 a bunch of taro leaves that the sun, in anger, threw at the face of the moon. Cf. 

 II. < >. Bktib; op. cii. y p. 91. The same author calls attention to the beliefs of other 

 groups: that the spots are a cluster of bamboos, or a baliti tree. Cf. he. cit., footnote. 



