dogedog had always been very lazy, and now that his father and mother were dead and he had no one to care for him, he lived very poorly. he had little to eat. his house was old and small and so poor that it had not even a floor. still he would rather sit all day and idle away his time than to work and have more things.
one day, however, when the rainy season was near at hand, dogedog began thinking how cold he would be when the storms came, and he felt so sorry for himself that he decided to make a floor in his house.
wrapping some rice in a banana leaf for his dinner, he took his long knife and went to the forest to cut some bamboo. he hung the bundle of rice in a tree until he should need it; but while he was working a cat came and ate it. when the hungry man came for his dinner, there was none left. dogedog went back to his miserable little house which looked forlorn to him even, now that he had decided to have a floor.
the next day he went again to the forest and hung his rice in the tree as he did before, but again the cat came and ate it. so the man had to go home without any dinner.
the third day he took the rice, but this time he fixed a trap in the tree, and when the cat came it was caught. [92]
“now i have you!” cried the man when he found the cat; “and i shall kill you for stealing my rice.”
“oh, do not kill me,” pleaded the cat, “and i will be of some use to you.”
so dogedog decided to spare the cat’s life, and he took it home and tied it near the door to guard the house.
some time later when he went to look at it, he was very much surprised to find that it had become a cock.
“now i can go to the cock-fight at magsingal,” cried the man. and he was very happy, for he had much rather do that than work.
thinking no more of getting wood for his floor, he started out at once for magsingal with the cock under his arm. as he was crossing a river he met an alligator which called out to him:
“where are you going, dogedog?”
“to the cock-fight at magsingal,” replied the man as he fondly stroked the rooster.
“wait, and i will go with you,” said the alligator; and he drew himself out of the water.
the two walking along together soon entered a forest where they met a deer and it asked:
“where are you going, dogedog?”
“to the cock-fight at magsingal,” said the man.
“wait and i will go with you,” said the deer; and he also joined them.
by and by they met a mound of earth that had been raised by the ants, and they would have passed without noticing it had it not inquired:
“where are you going, dogedog?” [93]
“to the cock-fight at magsingal,” said the man once more; and the mound of earth joined them.
the company then hurried on, and just as they were leaving the forest, they passed a big tree in which was a monkey.
“where are you going, dogedog?” shrieked the monkey. and without waiting for an answer he scrambled down the tree and followed them.
as the party walked along they talked together, and the alligator said to dogedog:
“if any man wants to dive into the water, i can stay under longer than he.”
then the deer, not to be outdone, said:
“if any man wants to run, i can run faster.”
the mound of earth, anxious to show its strength, said:
“if any man wants to wrestle, i can beat him.”
and the monkey said:
“if any man wants to climb, i can go higher.”
they reached magsingal in good time and the people were ready for the fight to begin. when dogedog put his rooster, which had been a cat, into the pit, it killed the other cock at once, for it used its claws like a cat.
the people brought more roosters and wagered much money, but dogedog’s cock killed all the others until there was not one left in magsingal, and dogedog won much money. then they went outside the town and brought all the cocks they could find, but not one could win over that of dogedog.
when the cocks were all dead, the people wanted [94]some other sport, so they brought a man who could stay under water for a long time, and dogedog made him compete with the alligator. but after a while the man had to come up first then they brought a swift runner and he raced with the deer, but the man was left far behind. next they looked around until they found a very large man who was willing to contend with the mound of earth, but after a hard struggle the man was thrown.
finally they brought a man who could climb higher than anyone else, but the monkey went far above him, and he had to give up.
all these contests had brought much money to dogedog, and now he had to buy two horses to carry his sacks of silver. as soon as he reached home, he bought the house of a very rich man and went to live in it. and he was very happy, for he did not have to work any more.92 [95]
1 this incident is strikingly similar to the story in north american folk-lore of the maiden captured and carried upward by a vine. several other points of likeness appear in the lore of malaysia, polynesia, and america.
2 see preface, p. vii.
3 this incident is unique so far as american or european folk-lore is concerned, yet it is common in tinguian tales, while similar stories are found among the neighboring ilocano and igorot tribes of the philippines, as well as in borneo, java, and india.
4 the belief that beauty is capable of radiating great light is not peculiar to tinguian tales, for it is also found in the malay legends and in those of india. it is not impossible that they had a common origin.
5 the betel-nut is the nut of the areca palm. it is prepared for chewing by being cut into quarters, each piece being wrapped in betel-leaf spread with lime. it produces a blood-red spittle which greatly discolors the teeth and lips, and it is used extensively throughout the philippines. while it appears to have been in common use among the tinguian at the time these stories originated, it has now been displaced by tobacco, except at ceremonies when it is prepared for chewing; it is also placed on the animals offered for sacrifice to the spirits. throughout the tales great significance is given to the chewing of betel-nuts before names are told or introductions given, while from the quids and spittle it appears to have been possible to foretell events and establish relationships.
6 compare with the story of ph?ton in bulfinch, the age of fable, p. 50.
7 the tinguian have no calendar, but reckon time by the recurrence of the moon.
8 it is the present custom of the tinguian to make numerous ceremonies for the spirits. these vary in length from a few hours to seventeen days. during this period animals are slaughtered, small houses are built, mediums deliver messages from the spirits, and there is much feasting and dancing.
9 when ripe, the betel-nut is covered with a golden husk, and it is possibly because of this that they were said to be covered with gold. the present-day tinguian, in place of sending the betel-nut, sends a small piece of gold to any relative or friend whom he specially wishes to induce to attend a ceremony.
10 this seems to be peculiar to tinguian folk-lore.
11 except when she is in mourning a tinguian woman’s arms are always covered with beads placed strand above strand.
12 the parents of a boy choose his bride when the children are very young. a great celebration is then held, and relatives and friends of both parties decide on the price to be paid for the girl. partial payment is made at once, and the remainder goes over until the marriage proper takes place, when the boy and girl are about twelve or fourteen years of age. in this instance ini-init makes the customary payment for his bride, though the marriage had already taken place.
13 the friends and retainers pound rice and prepare food for all the guests who attend the ceremony.
14 a spirit house is one of the small houses built during a ceremony.
15 reference is probably to ancient chinese jars.
16 the custom, which still exists to a certain degree, was to offer food to a guest before any matter was discussed. in ancient times this was considered very necessary, as it still is among the apayao who live north of the tinguian. with them to refuse food is to refuse friendship.
17 a drink made of fermented sugar-cane.
18 the old jars possessed by the tinguian today have notches broken in the rim, one for each generation through whose hands it has passed.
19 when the first negotiations are made the boy’s parents offer some gift, nowadays usually a small bead. if this is accepted it signifies the willingness of the girl’s parents to consider the match.
20 see note 1, p. 15.
21 the music for the dances is made by beating on drums and copper gongs. a man and a woman enter the circle, each carrying a large square of cloth on outstretched arms. keeping time to the music with their hands and feet, they move about, coming near to each other and then drawing farther apart the woman follows the movements of the man and finally places her cloth on his outstretched arms, thus ending the dance; another couple then takes their place.
22 an interesting parallel to this is found in the dayak legend of limbang, where a tree springs from the head of a dead giant; its flowers are beads; its leaves, cloth; and the fruit, jars. see roth, the natives of sarawak and british north borneo, vol. i, p. 372.
23 throughout the tinguian tales the characters are frequently described as changing themselves into oil, centipedes, birds, and other forms. this power is also found among the heroes of dayak and malay tales. see roth, op. cit., vol. i, p. 312; perham, journal straits branch r., asiatic society, no. 16, 1886; wilkinson, malay beliefs, pp. 32, 59 (london, 1906).
24 the tinguian place a tame rooster in an open spot in the forest and surround him with a line to which slip nooses are attached. the crowing of this bird attracts wild ones which come to fight him and are caught in the nooses.
25 the water buffalo now used as the beast of burden throughout the philippines.
26 the ordinary dress of the tinguian man is a clout and a striped belt, in which he carries his tobacco and small articles. some of them also possess striped cotton coats, which they wear on special occasions.
27 see note 2, p. 12.
28 see note 1, p. 13.
29 this peculiar idea, which frequently appears in tinguian tales, is also found in javanese literature. see bezemer, volksdichtung aus indonesien, p. 47 (haag, 1904).
30 see note 3, p. 15.
31 the powerful deeds of these heroes often resemble the miraculous achievements of biblical and ancient times.
32 see note 2, p. 20.
33 the tinguian of today do not possess soap, but in its place they use the ashes from rice straw, or not infrequently they soak the bark from a certain tree in the water in which they are to wash their hair.
34 the lawed vine. in ancient egypt and in india it was a common belief that friends or relatives could tell from the condition of a certain tree or vine whether the absent one was well or dead: if the vine thrived, they knew that all was well, but if it wilted they mourned for him as dead. it is interesting to find the identical belief in the northern philippines.
35 the tinguian stove consists of a bed of ashes in which three stones are sunk, and on these the pots are placed.
36 it appears that these people of ancient times possessed the same weapons as those of today. the tinguian ordinarily wears a head-ax thrust into his belt, and when at work this is his hand tool. when on a hunt or during warfare he also carries a wooden shield and a steel-pointed spear from eight to ten feet in length. for attacks at a distance he depends on the spear, but in a close encounter he uses his head-ax and shield, the latter being oblong in shape and having two prongs at one end and three at the other. the two prongs are to be slipped about the neck of the victim while the head-ax does its work, or the three prongs may be slipped about the legs in the same way.
37 from this and other incidents it is evident that these people talked with the lightning and thunder. they still have great regard for the omens derived from these forces; but it is now believed that thunder is the dog of kadaklan, the greatest of all the spirits, and that by the barking of this dog, the god makes known his desires.
38 stories in which animals come to the assistance of human beings are found in many lands. one of those best known to europeans is where the ants sort the grain for cinderella.
39 see note 2, p. 21.
40 it was the ancient custom to place the heads of slain enemies at the gate or around the town, and this practice still prevails with some of the surrounding tribes. more recently it was the custom to expose the head at the gate of the town for three days, after which followed a great celebration when the skulls were broken and pieces were given to the guests.
41 in their beliefs of today the tinguian recognize many giants, some with more than one head. in a part of the ritual of one ceremony we read, “a man opens the door to learn the cause of the barking and he sees a man, fat and tall, with nine heads.”
42 a large bamboo pole, with all but the end section cut out, serves for a water bucket.
43 a long bamboo pole, in one end of which a hard-wood point is inserted. this is thrust into the ground, and in the hole thus made the grain or cuttings are planted. this old method is still in use in some sections of the mountains, but on the lowlands a primitive plow is used to break the soil.
44 in european, asiatic, african, and malaysian lore we find stones of beings with star dresses: when they wear the dresses they are stars; when they take them off they are human. see cox, an introduction to folklore, p. 121 (london, 1904.).
45note 1, p. 9.
46 see note 1, p. 12.
47preface, p. vii.
48 it is the custom to have a small bamboo house built from fifteen to twenty feet from the ground near the rice fields, and in this someone watches every day during the growing season to see that nothing breaks in to destroy the grain. often flappers are placed in different parts of the field and a connecting string leads from these to the little house, so that the watcher by pulling this string may frighten the birds away from the grain.
49 see note 1, p. 18.
50preface, p. vi.
51 the nights in the mountains are cold, and it is not at all uncommon in the early morning to see groups of people with blankets wrapped tightly about them, squatting around small fires in the yards.
52 see note 2, p. 12.
53 see note 1, p. 13.
54 see note 1, p. 17.
55 compare with the biblical story of the loaves and fishes. for similar incidents among the igorot of the philippines, in borneo, and in india, see jenks, the bontoc igorot, p. 202; seidenadel, the language of the bontoc igorot, pp. 491, 41 ff. (chicago, 1909); roth, the natives of sarawak and british north borneo, vol. i, p. 319; tawney, katha sarit sagara, vol. ii, p. 3 (calcutta, 1880); bezemer, volksdichtung aus indonesien, p. 49 (haag, 1904).
56 see note 1, p. 15.
57 see note 3, p. 15.
58 there appear to have been two classes of spirits, one for whom the people had the utmost respect and reverence, and another whom they looked upon as being of service to mortals.
59 see note 1, p. 30.
60 the word used in the original is langpadan, meaning mountain rice. this variety requires no irrigation and is planted to some extent at the present day, but the great bulk of the grain now used is grown in wonderfully terraced fields on the mountain sides, where water for irrigating is brought from distant streams through a system of flume and bamboo tubes. the fact that only the mountain rice is mentioned in the tales reflects a very ancient life before irrigated fields were known.
61 see note 1, p. 45.
62 the labeug is the omen bird and is believed to be the direct messenger of kadaklan, the great spirit, to the people.
63 see note 1, p. 34.
64 see note 1, p. 8.
65 see preface, p. vii.
66 before the bundles of ripened rice can be put into the granary a ceremony is made for the spirits. the blood of a pig is mixed with cooked rice and put in the granary as an offering for the spirit who multiplies the grain, otherwise the crop would run out in a short time.
67 see note 1, p. 9.
68 the spirit who stands next in importance to kadaklan, the great spirit. it was he who taught the people all good things, and finally he married a woman from manabo in order to bind himself more closely to them. see “how the tinguian learned to plant.”
69 this story is considered by the tinguian to be of rather recent origin. they believe that sayen lived not so very long ago, yet the stories woven around him are very similar to the ancient ones.
70 see “the alan and the hunters.”
71 the tinguian now use flint and steel for making a flame, but it is not at all uncommon for them to go to a neighbor’s house to borrow a burning ember to start their own fire.
72 the neighboring ilocano, a christianized tribe, know the komow as a fabulous bird which is invisible, yet steals people and their possessions.
73 see note 1, p. 59.
74 see note 2, p. 20.
75 this tale is of special importance to the tinguian since it explains how they learned two of the most important things of their present life—to plant and to cure the sick. it also shows how death came into the world.
76 see note 1, p. 59.
77 it is a common sight in a tinguian village early in the morning during the dry season to see a number of men armed with spears and head-axes leaving for the mountains. they usually take with them, to assist in the chase, a string of half-starved dogs. often a net is stretched across the runway of game, and then, while some of the hunters conceal themselves near by, others seek to drive the game into the net, where it is speared to death.
78 ancient chinese jars are found throughout the interior of the philippines and are very closely associated with the folk-lore of the tinguian. some of the jars date back to the 10th century, while many are from the 12th and 14th centuries, and evidently entered the islands through pre-spanish trade. they are held in great value and are generally used in part payment for a bride and for the settlement of feuds. for more details see cole, chinese pottery in the philippines, pub. field museum of nat. hist, vol. xii, no. 1.
79 this cave is situated in the mountains midway between patok and santa rosa. in this vicinity are numerous limestone caves, each of which has its traditions.
80 cabildo of domayco, the envied owner of this jar, has refused great sums offered for its purchase, and though men from other tribes come bringing ten carabao at one time, they cannot tempt him to sell.
81 these beautiful agate beads are still worn by the tinguian women, who prize them very highly. they are rarely sold and each is worth more than a carabao.
82 the alan are supposed to be deformed spirits who live in the forests. they are as large as people, but have wings and can fly. their toes are at the back of their feet, and their fingers point backward from their wrists.
83 the name by which spirits call human beings.
84 this treatment of the alan is typical of that accorded to the less powerful of the spirits by the tinguian today. at the ceremonies they often make fun of them and cheat them in the sacrifices.
85 known to the tinguian as banog. this bird occupies much the same place with the tinguian as does the garuda in east indian folk-lore.
86 this tale gives to the tinguian his idea of the future world. sogsogot is supposed to have lived only a short time ago, and his experiences are well known to all the people.
87 see note 1, p. 15. practically this same tale is told by the neighboring ilocano, from whom it may have been borrowed; but here the tinguian custom of paying a marriage price is introduced.
88 this type of story is also found farther to the south, where the cleverness of the small animal causes him to triumph over the strong.
89 the tinguian house contains neither tables nor chairs. the people usually squat on the floor, sitting on their heels; if anything is used as a seat it is a bit of cocoanut shell or a small block of wood.
90 here we have a proverbial tale, one in which the tinguian expresses the idea, “haste makes waste.”
91 another version of this tale is found in british north borneo in the story of the plandok and the crab, while to european children it is known as the race between the turtle and the hare.
92 the story shows the influence of the christianized natives, among whom cock-fighting is a very popular sport. it is found only among those tinguian who come into contact with this class.
