196 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
an implied moral from which the hearers can profit. 
Thus it is told how people failed to lay iron and a 
certain vine on the grave of a dead person; whereupon 
a spirit immediately observed the omission and stole 
away the body. It is clear that these myths constitute 
a kind of elemental substitute for the two things that 
we call science and moralizing. They not only attempt 
to satisfy curiosity as to the causes that shape the world, 
but point out the lines of conduct that are respectively 
profitable and inexpedient. 
The rather fragmentary nature of these explanatory 
myths is typical of other Phillippine tribes; but 
occasionally some idea is singled out for more elaborate. 
treatment. Thus the majority of the Luzon mountain- 
eers tell at length of a great ancient flood from which 
only a brother and sister escaped. They married and 
after a series of adventures re-populated the world. 
This tale has been recorded so frequently and with so 
many variations that it has clearly obtained a primary 
hold on the mythological imagination of an entire 
series of tribes, and appears to be one of the most funda- 
mental traditions known to the Filipinos. It was told, 
for instance, by the ancient Bisaya, of whose mythology 
and that of the Tagalog only some slight fragments 
have been preserved. It is known, however, that these 
great nations brought their accounts of origins into 
connection with genealogies of gods, heroes, and prob- 
ably personal ancestors. 
Fables. A fourth class of tales are fables, usually 
with animal actors, and similar in many ways to those 
familiar in our own civilization, except for the fact that 
they avoid the specific pointing of a moral. Trickery 
is one of the motives most emphasized. Thus the Ting- 
gian relate how turtle and monkey planted bananas, the 
former in the ground but the ape by hanging them up. 
