HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



Nufoor in Geelvink bay (New Guinea) presents again some features 

 more nearly like those farther west. The Javanese incident of the 

 wife's being able to produce food magically reappears, together with 

 the concealment of the wings, and their discovery by accident. The 

 story is told to account for the origin of the families of the sultans of 

 Tidore, Djatak, Batjan, and Ternate, and is evidently thus a modern 

 adaptation of the material. 



If we turn now northward, the essential elements of the tale may be 

 followed to the Philippines. Among the Visayans 1 of Panay the tale 

 appears in practically the same form as in Sumatra, the main differ- 

 ences being that after the sky-wife has discovered her hidden wings 

 and flown away, the husband ascends on an eagle, and does not secure 

 her again until he has performed a number of tasks set by her grand- 

 mother, in the accomplishment of which he is aided in familiar fashion 

 by a series of animals. Among the tribes of northern Luzon the story 

 has been recorded among the Igorot 2 and the Tinguian. 3 In both 

 forms the sky-maidens are said to be stars who come down to eat 

 sugar-cane. The Igorot tale relates that the wife sewed wings upon 

 herself and children and flew back; the Tinguian form shows a sus- 

 picion of Indian influence in the chair or ladder let down from the 

 sky, by which both man and wife ascend. 



Before proceeding to consider other fields of distribution of the 

 tale, it will be well to summarize briefly the results already attained. 

 The survey of the Indonesian area has established the fact that the 

 story is known from one extreme of the region to the other. In the 

 Javanese forms, and also in those from the Sangir islands, Halmahera, 

 and the northern Philippines, Indian elements of characteristic type 

 appear. Inasmuch as Indian culture impressed itself deeply on the 

 Javanese during the early centuries of our era, and as the Hindu- 

 Javanese kingdoms had wide trade and other relationships through- 

 out the archipelago, it seems probable that the tale, wherever we find 

 it here, may be traced to an Indian source. 4 That such influences 

 should extend as far north as the Tinguian may seem improbable, 

 yet among this tribe other suggestions of Hindu influence may be' 

 traced, both in their mythology and in other features of their culture. 



Thus far the area over which the story has been traced has been 

 continuous or nearly so. We have now to consider two isolated in- 



1 Maxfield and Millington, Visayan Folk-tales, Journ. Amer. Folk-lore, vol. xx, pp. 95 sq. 



2 Seidenadel, The First Grammar of the Language Spoken by the Bontoc Igorot, Chicago, 

 1909, pp. 548 sq. 



3 Cole, Traditions of the Tinguian, Anthropological Series, Field Museum, vol. XIV, no. I, pp. 

 108 sq. 



4 Cf. Pleyte, op. cit., pp. 296, 306, where he adopts a contrary view. 



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