46 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



in another part of the world, there were some girls who laughed 

 at small animals, and that Kilat turned their heads around so that 

 they had to walk facing backward. 



The Bagobo is highly imitative, very ready to incorporate the 

 myths and customs of other tribes, yet he borrows and assimilates 

 in a manner peculiarly Bagobo. The interpretation that he will 

 make of a bamboo trunk mottled with darkish spots, or of the 

 baying of a dog at night, while it may conform in general outline 

 to wide-sweeping Malay tradition, will yet have a characteristic 

 Bagobo touch, since the background of Bagobo experience is not 

 identical with the background of Bilaan, or of Tagakaola, or of 

 Visayan experience. His response to natural phenomena will be 

 somewhat different from that of any other group having a similar 

 environment. 



Below are sketched in outline a few typical myths concerning 

 natural phenomena. 



Before time began, the sky, the sun and moon, and all of the 

 heavenly bodies, the land and all green things that grow on the 

 earth, the sea and rivers and rocks, were created by Pamulak 

 Manobo. lie also made people of every race and tribe that are 

 now in the world. Another widely-told story, 08 that is repeated in 

 slightly varying versions, gives a different origin to the stars. 

 The moon is the mother of the stars and the sun is their father. 

 Each star is one small fragment of the body of the moon's little 

 daughter, whom the sun killed at her birth and cut into small 

 pieces, because of his bitter disappointment that the child was not 

 a boy. He scattered the bright sherds by handfuls over the sky, 

 and they became the stars. " 



The earth is Hat, and is shaped like a circle, over which the 

 sky fits down snug, like a cap or a circular box-lid; and thus we 

 get tin' line of the horizon, commonly called the "root of the sky," 

 or the "border of the heaven." At first, the sky hung low over 

 the earth, and through it the sun and the moon traveled close 

 together, for then they were on friendly terms: but the sky \\;is 



•• This story, and several other myths associated with natural ]>henomcna, are given 

 in Jour. Am. Folk-lore, vol. 2f>, pp. 15 — 19. 1913. Of. also Beyer's Manobo tale, "The 

 origin of the stars." Philippine, Jour. Sci., vol. 8, p. 91. April, 11)13. 



sg A Mantra legend represents the sun as engaged in a perpetual attempt to destroy 

 the slar-rhildrcn. Cf. R. Maktin : Die Inlandstiiinmr der malayischcn llalbinsel. p. 



977. 1905. 



