110 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



A similar belief is still found among certain native tribes of the 

 Philippines, who have the same name for the spirits of their ancestors. 

 Semper, in speaking of the religious faith of the Iraya and Catalangan 

 tribes inhabiting the western part of Isabela, northern Luzon, near 

 the. seventeenth parallel of latitude, says: 



The faith of both tribes, however, has, in spite of manifold variations, so much of 

 similarity that we may feel safe in assuming in the few recognizable traces, which are 

 also common to all the remaining wild tribes of the land, that we see the remains of 

 a religious faith as it may have prevailed in the purely Malayan period before the 

 arrival of the Mahometans. Besides a few pairs of gods, concerning whose relations 

 and attributes I was not able to become quite clear, they venerate quite particu- 

 larly the souls of their ancestors, which they place in the rank of their lesser gods 

 under the name of "anito." They are house godss, true lares and penates. Here 

 stands in a corner of the house interior a kind of jar, which would have in itself 

 nothing striking about it, but it is easily to be seen that the members of the family 

 treat this comer with great reverence. In the jar one of their anitos has its seat. 

 The space under the house, which ordinarily serves also as a place of burial, is con- 

 secrated through various signs to other anitos; likewise the small spot before the 

 ladder, which is in front of the entrance and beneath the overhanging roof of the 

 house; the hut in which the forges are; and above all certain places before the house 

 which are distinguished by altars resembling little houses. Moreover, the harvest 

 is consecrated to their anitos, to whom the first fruits are offered in great general 

 feasts." 



Myths. — In accounting for the creation of the woi-ld they say that 

 Puntan, a very ingenious being, who lived in an imaginary place 

 before the creation of heaven and earth, as he was about to die, called 

 to his sister, born like himself without father or mother, and gave 

 directions for the disposal of his body. He transferred to her all his 

 powers, so that at his death she should make of his breast and back the 

 sky and the earth; of his eyes the sun and the moon; of his eyebrows 

 the i-ainbow, and so on with the rest of his body; not without some 

 analogy to the less and greater world, like that which poets make daily, 

 and this they took not symbolically, but literally, as scripture and gos- 

 pel, singing it in certain verses, which they knew by heart. Yet with 

 all this, no sort of formal worship, invocation, or prayer was offered 

 to Puntan or his sister to indicate that they were regarded as divini- 

 ties. Other myths and ancient fables and stories of the feats of their 

 ancestors were related and sung in their feasts hx those who took pride 

 in their learning, vying with one another as to who could recite the 

 most couplets.* 



In accounting for the origin of man, they said that everything in the 

 world was derived from a certain earth on the island of Guam, which 

 first became human, then a stone, which gave birth to all men. From 

 this island they were scattered all over the world, and as they sepcrated 



« Semper, Die Philippinen und ihre Bewohner, p. 56, 1869. 

 » Garcia, Vida y Martyrio de Sanvitores, p. 203-204, 1683. 



