248 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



the lawa to the bera kamati, is called the bang an, and means that 

 men will kill the sister of the possessor of the hand, or will kill 

 his sister's husband. The Iron's is a short line branching upward 

 from the bangan; but koris may be used also as a general term 

 for the lines in the palm. The phrase madat palad signifies that 

 your lines are unlucky, that you will have a short life, and that 

 your wife, too, will soon die. 3 ' 8 



Dreams 



Dreams are of two distinct types, which may be called exploit 

 dreams and warning dreams. 



The exploit dream is characterized by adventures, hairbreadth 

 escapes, strange encounters — all of which are actual exploits per- 

 formed by the evil left-hand soul, which has escaped, temporarily, 

 from the body in which it lives and is wandering about the earth. 37 ° 



The vision, or warning dream, is one in which a person who is 

 living under some stress of anxiety or suffering is visited by a 

 heavenly messenger, who tells him what to do to obtain relief. 

 Several myths illustrate this type of dream, such as the following. 



" Parallel beliefs in the value of signs and portents for the determination of behavior 

 are found in many tribes throughout the Islands. For example, Aduarte says of the 

 Filipino of Nueva Segovia, in 1640: "If the Indians left their houses, and happened to 

 meet anyone who sneezed, they went back home again even though they had gone a 

 day's journey, as if the sneeze had been something in the road. Sometimes they went 

 on, and returned without delay from their destination. If the same thing happened 

 when they began to work, they immediately desisted from their labor. . . On the con- 

 trary, they were very much encouraged and very joyful when the augury was a good 

 one; and although a thousand times the event was opposite to what the augury ... had 

 threatened or promised, they never lacked an excuse for remaining in that error. . ." 

 "Historia. . ." Blair and Rohertson: op. eit., vol. 30, pp. 287—288. 1905. 



One of the pioneer Jesuit missionaries in .Mindanao, Francisco Combes, says: "What 

 they believe in thoroughly are omens, which are almost general in all the islands. There 

 are many of them: of birds, like the limocon ; of insects, like the lizard sic.']-, of acci- 

 dental occurrences, like sneezing; of happenings, like deaths ami earthquakes; of obser- 

 vances, at times of sowing, and of reaping, and of the hunt — all of those have their 

 observances which they fulfil in order to have luck in the work; for they believe that 

 without these it will be unlucky and without any profit." "Historia de Mindanao, Jolcj, 

 etc." 1667. Blaib and Rohertson: op. cit., vol. 40, p. 134. 1906. 



Cf. also, the following references as typical of main such to be found in the Indian 

 sagas. "Alter lie bad set forth he saw an evil omen presenting itself in front of him.'" 

 Somadcva: Katha sarit Bagara: tr. by C. II. Tawni v, vol. 1, p. 283. 1880. "An evil 

 omen present iiiir it-elf to people engaged in any undertaking, if not counteracted by delay 

 and other methods, produces misfortune." Ibid., vol, J, p. 285. 



"•See pp. 58—60. 



