Chapter I: Preface

The folk-tales in this volume, which were collected in the Philippines during the years from 1908 to 1914, have not appeared in print before. They are given to the public now in the hope that they will be no mean or uninteresting addition to the volumes of Oriental Märchen already in existence. The Philippine archipelago, from the very nature of its geographical position and its political history, cannot but be a significant field to the student of popular stories. Lying as it does at the very doors of China and Japan, connected as it is ethnically with the Malayan and Indian civilizations, Occidentalized as it has been for three centuries and more, it stands at the junction of East and West. It is therefore from this point of view that these tales have been put into a form convenient for reference. Their importance consists in their relationship to the body of world fiction.

The language in which these stories are presented is the language in which they were collected and written down,--English. Perhaps no apology is required for not printing the vernacular herewith; nevertheless an explanation might be made. In the first place, the object in recording these tales has been a literary one, not a linguistic one. In the second place, the number of distinctly different languages represented by the originals might be baffling even to the reader interested in linguistics, especially as our method of approach has been from the point of view of cycles of stories, and not from the point of view of the separate tribes telling them. In the third place, the form of prose tales among the Filipinos is not stereotyped; and there is likely to be no less variation between two Visayan versions of the same story, or between a Tagalog and a Visayan, than between the native form and the English rendering. Clearly Spanish would not be a better medium than English: for to-day there is more English than Spanish spoken in the Islands; besides, Spanish never penetrated into the very lives of the peasants, as English penetrates to-day by way of the school-house. I have endeavored to offset the disadvantages of the foreign medium by judicious and painstaking directions to my informants in the writing-down of the tales. Only in very rare cases was there any modification of the original version by the teller, as a concession to Occidental standards. Whatever substitutions I have been able to detect I have removed. In practically every case, not only to show that these are bona fide native stories, but also to indicate their geographical distribution, I have given the name of the narrator, his native town, and his province. In many cases I have given, in addition, the source of his information. I am firmly convinced that all the tales recorded here represent genuine Filipino tradition so far as the narrators are concerned, and that nothing has been "manufactured" consciously.

But what is "native," and what is "derived"? The folklore of the wild tribes--Negritos, Bagobos, Igorots--is in its way no more "uncontaminated" than that of the Tagalogs, Pampangans, Zambals, Pangasinans, Ilocanos, Bicols, and Visayans. The traditions of these Christianized tribes present as survivals, adaptations, modifications, fully as many puzzling and fascinating problems as the popular lore of the Pagan peoples. It should be remembered, that, no matter how wild and savage and isolated a tribe may be, it is impossible to prove that there has been no contact of that tribe with the outside civilized world. Conquest is not necessary to the introduction of a story or belief. The crew of a Portuguese trading-vessel with a genial narrator on board might conceivably be a much more successful transmitting-medium than a thousand praos full of brown warriors come to stay. Clearly the problem of analyzing and tracing the story-literature of the Christianized tribes differs only in degree from that connected with the Pagan tribes. In this volume I have treated the problem entirely from the former point of view, since there has been hitherto a tendency to neglect as of small value the stories of the Christianized peoples. However, for illustrative material I have drawn freely on works dealing with the non-Christian tribes, particularly in the case of stories that appear to be native; and I shall use the term "native" to mean merely "existent in the Islands before the Spaniards went there."

In the notes, I have attempted to answer for some of the tales the question as to what is native and what imported. I have not been able to reach a decision in the case of all, because of a lack of sufficient evidence. While the most obvious sources of importation from the Occident have been Spain and Portugal, the possibility of the introduction of French, Italian, and even Belgian stories through the medium of priests of those nationalities must not be overlooked. Furthermore, there is a no inconsiderable number of Basque sailors to be found on the small inter-island steamers that connect one end of the archipelago with the other. Even a very cursory glance at the tales in this collection reveals the fact that many of them are more or less close variants and analogues of tales distributed throughout the world. How or when this material reached the Philippines is hard to say. The importation of Arabian stories, for example, might have been made over many routes. The Hindoo beast-tales, too, might have quite circled the globe in their progress from east to west, and thus have been introduced to the Filipinos by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Again, the germs of a number of widespread Märchen may have existed in the archipelago long before the arrival of the Europeans, and, upon the introduction of Occidental civilization and culture, have undergone a development entirely consistent with the development that took place in Europe, giving us as a result remarkably close analogues of the Western tales. This I suspect to have been the case of some of our stories where, parallel with the localized popular versions, exist printed romances (in the vernacular) with the mediaeval flavor and setting of chivalry. To give a specific case: the Visayans, Bicols, and Tagalogs in the coast towns feared the raids of Mindanao Mussulmans long before white feet trod the shores of the Islands, and many traditions of conflicts with these pirates are embedded in their legends. The Spaniard came in the sixteenth century, bringing with him stories of wars between Christians and Saracens in Europe. One result of this close analogy of actual historical situation was, I believe, a general tendency to levelling: that is, native traditions of such struggles took on the color of the Spanish romances; Spanish romances, on the other hand, which were popularized in the Islands, were very likely to be "localized." A maximum of caution and a minimum of dogmatism, then, are imperative, if one is to treat at all scientifically the relationship of the stories of a composite people like the Filipinos to the stories of the rest of the world.

A word might be added as to the nature of the tales. I have included only "hero tales, serious and droll," beast stories and fables, and pourquoi or "just-so" stories. Myths, legends, and fairy-tales (including all kinds of spirit and demon stories) I have purposely excluded, in order to keep the size of the volume within reasonable limits. I have, however, occasionally drawn upon my manuscript collection of these types to illustrate a native superstition or custom.

Columbia University,

May, 1918.

CONTENTS.

I. HERO TALES AND DROLLS.

1. (a) Suan's Good Luck 1 (b) Suan Eket 2 2. The Charcoal-Maker who became King 10 3. The Story of Carancal 17 4. (a) Suac and his Adventures 29 (b) The Three Friends,--the Monkey, the Dog, and the Carabao 31 5. (a) How Suan became Rich 35 (b) The King's Decisions 37 6. (a) The Four Blind Brothers 42 (b) Juan the Blind Man 43 (c) Teofilo the Hunchback, and the Giant 46 (d) Juan and the Buringcantada 47 (e) The Manglalabas 49 7. (a) Sagacious Marcela 53 (b) King Tasio 55 8. (a) The Story of Zaragoza 64 (b) Juan the Peerless Robber 69 9. The Seven Crazy Fellows 75 10. (a) Juan Manalaksan 79 (b) Juan the Poor, who became Juan the King 81 11. (a) Lucas the Strong 89 (b) Juan and his Six Companions 92 (c) The Story of King Palmarin 98 12. (a) The Three Brothers 116 (b) Three Brothers of Fortune 118 (c) Pablo and the Princess 120 (d) Legend of Prince Oswaldo 122 13. (a) The Rich and the Poor 137 (b) Lucas the Rope-Maker 140 14. (a) The King and the Dervish 144 (b) The Mysterious Book 145 15. The Miraculous Cow 150 16. The Clever Husband and Wife 152 17. The Three Brothers 155 18. Juan and his Adventures 171 19. Juan wearing a Monkey's Skin 178 20. (a) How Salaksak became Rich 183 (b) Clever Juan and Envious Diego 186 (c) Ruined because of Invidiousness 188 (d) The Two Friends 190 (e) Juan the Orphan 192 21. Is he the Crafty Ulysses? 197 22. The Reward of Kindness 207 23. Pedro and Satan 211 24. The Devil and the Guachinango 214 25. Juan Sadut 223 26. An Act of Kindness 227 27. The Indolent Husband 231 28. Cecilio, the Servant of Emilio 237 29. Chonguita 244 30. The Golden Lock 248 31. Who is the Nearest Relative? 257 32. With One Centavo Juan marries a Princess 262 33. (a) The Three Humpbacks 265 (b) The Seven Humpbacks 267 34. (a) Respect Old Age 271 (b) The Golden Rule 271 35. Cochinango 276 36. Pedro and the Witch 279 37. The Woman and her Coles Plant 285 38. A Negrito Slave 287 39. Alberto and the Monsters 291 40. Juan and Maria 295 41. The Enchanted Prince 301 42. The Prince's Dream 304 43. The Wicked Woman's Reward 309 44. The Magic Ring 310 45. (a) Maria and the Golden Slipper 314 (b) Abadeja 316 46. Juan the Poor 319 47. The Fate of an Envious Woman 323 48. (a) The Monkey and Juan Pusong Tambi-Tambi 326 (b) Andres the Trapper 332 49. Juan the Fool 338 50. Juan and his Painted Hat 353 51. Juan and Clotilde 355 52. The Poor Man and his Three Sons 359 53. The Denied Mother 361 54. Tomarind and the Wicked Datu 363

II. FABLES AND ANIMAL STORIES.

55. The Monkey and the Turtle (three versions) 366 56. The Monkey and the Crocodile (two versions) 374 57. The Monkeys and the Dragon-Flies 379 58. The Monkey, the Turtle, and the Crocodile 382 59. The Iguana and the Turtle 383 60. (a) The Trial among the Animals 385 (b) The Pugu's Case 386 (c) Why Mosquitoes hum and try to get into the Holes of our Ears 387 (d) A Tyrant 388 61. The Greedy Crow 391 62. The Humming-Bird and the Carabao 393 63. The Camanchile and the Passion 394 64. Auac and Lamiran 395

III. "JUST-SO" STORIES.

65. Why the Ant is not so Venomous as the Snake 398 66. Why Locusts are Harmful 399 67. How Lansones became Edible 401 68. Why Cocks fight One Another 403 69. Why Bats fly at Night 404 70. Why the Sun shines more brightly than the Moon 404 71. (a) Why the Culing has a Tonsure 407 (b) The Culeto and the Crow 407 (c) The Hawk and the Coling 408 72. (a) Why the Cow's Skin is Loose on the Neck 410 (b) The First Loose-Skinned Cow and the First Tight-Skinned Carabao 411 73. Why the Monkey is Wise 412 74. (a) The Lost Necklace 414 (b) The Cock and the Sparrow-Hawk 415 75. The Story of our Fingers 416 76. Why Snails climb up Grass 417 77. Why the Cuttlefish and Squids produce a Black Liquid 419 78. Why Cocks have Combs on their Heads 420 79. (a) How the Crow became Black 420 (b) Why the Crow is Black 421 (c) The Dove and the Crow 422 80. Why the Ocean is Salty 425 81. (a) Why the Sky is Curved 426 (b) Why the Sky is High 426 82. An Unequal Match; or, Why the Carabao's Hoof is split 428

FILIPINO STORIES GIVEN IN THE NOTES.

[Only stories from my own manuscript collection are listed here. Titles of those given in full are printed in Roman; of those given merely in abstract, in Italics. A "(C)" after a title indicates that the story is taken from one of the native corridos, or metrical romances printed in the vernacular.]

Pedro's Fortunes 15 Pusong 23 Cabagboc 23 Sandapal 23 Sandangcal 23 Greedy Juan 23 Juan Tapon 23 Dangandangan 23 Tangarangan 23 Kakarangkang 29 How Piro became Rich 14 The Cripple and the Blind Man 51 Marcela outwits the King 56 Cay Calabasa (C) 57 Rodolfo (C) 60 Juan and his Six Friends 78 Edmundo (C) 87 The Three Brothers 127 The Priest and his Pupil 148 Abu-Hasan (C) 154 Don Agustin, Don Pedro, and Don Juan (C) 169 The Adarna Bird (C) (two versions) 169 Pedro and the Giants 175 The Monkey becomes King 182 Juan the Ashes-Trader 195 Colassit and Colaskel 195 Juan the Poor 202 Juan Bachiller (C) 202 Mabait and the Duende 217 The Fortunes of Andoy, an Orphan 241 Peter the Violinist 241 Duke Almanzor (C) 251 The Seven Hunchbacked Brothers 268 Juan and his Father 275 Pugut Negro (C) 280 Juan Tiñoso (C) 283 Juan and Maria (C) 298 Pitong 299 The Wonderful Tree 318 King Asuero and Juan the Poor (C) 322 Ricardo and his Adventures 347 Juan and the Robbers 348 The Adventure of Two Robbers 349 Juan Sadut 351 Juan Loco 352 The Monkey and the Crocodile 377 The Battle between the Birds and the Beasts 381 The Bacuit's Case 389 Why the Ant is not so Venomous as the Snake 399 The Origin of Locusts 399 The Origin of Locusts 400 The Adam and Eve of the Tagalogs 402 How Lanzones became Edible 402 The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars 405 The Sun and the Moon 406 Origin of the Monkey 413 The First Monkey 413 The Deer and the Snail 429