A Study in Tinguian Folk-Lore | Page 2

to rest and smoke.
None of the folk-tales are considered as the property of the tellers, but only those of the third division are well known to the people in general. Those of the first section are seldom heard except during the dry season when the people gather around bonfires in various parts of the village. To these go the men and women, the latter to spin cotton, the former to make fish nets or to repair their tools and weapons. In such a gathering there are generally one or more persons who entertain their fellows with these tales. Such a person is not paid for his services, but the fact that he knows "the stories of the first times" makes him a welcome addition to the company and gives him an enviable position in the estimation of his fellows.
The purely ritualistic tales, called diams, are learned word by word by the mediums, [2] as a part of their training for their positions, and are only recited while an animal is being stroked with oil preparatory to its being sacrificed, or when some other gift is about to be presented to the superior beings. The writer has recorded these diams from various mediums in widely separated towns and has found them quite uniform in text and content. The explanatory tales were likewise secured from the mediums, or from old men and women who "know the customs." The stories of the last division are the most frequently heard and, as already indicated, are told by all. It is evident even to the casual reader that these show much more evidence of outside influence than do the others; some, indeed, appear to have been recently borrowed from the neighboring christianized Ilocano. [3]
TALES OF THE MYTHICAL PERIOD
Reconstruction of the Culture.--In the first division certain actors occur with great frequency, while others always take the leading parts. These latter appear under a variety of names, two or more titles often being used for the same individual in a single tale. To avoid confusion a list of the fourteen principal actors and their relationships are given in the accompanying table. It will appear that there are some conflicts in the use of names, but when it is realized that the first twenty-six myths which make up the cycle proper were secured from six story tellers coming from four different towns, the agreement rather than the disagreement is surprising. As a matter of fact there is quite as much variation between the accounts of the same narrator as between those gathered from different towns.
TABLE OF LEADING CHARACTERS [4]
I. Aponitolau. Son of Pagatip��nan [male] and Langa-an [female] [5] of Kadalayapan; is the husband of Aponibolinayen. Appears under the following names: (a) Ligi, (b) Albaga of Dalaga, (c) Dagdagalisit, (d) Ingiwan or Kagkag��kag, (e) Ini-init, (f) Ling-giwan, (g) Kadayadawan, (h) Wadagan, (i) Awig (?)
II. Aponigawani. Sister of Aponitolau and wife of Aponibalagen.
III. Aponibolinayen. Daughter of Pagbok��san [6] [male] and Ebang [female] of Kaodanan. Wife of Aponitolau. Appears as (a) Ayo, (b) Dolim��man (?).
IV. Aponibalagen. Brother of Aponibolinayen, and husband of Aponigawani; also appears as Awig.
V. Kanag. Son of Aponitolau and Aponibolinayen. Appears as (a) Kanag kabagbagowan, (b) Balokanag, (c) Dumanau, (d) Ilwisan, (e) also at times is identified with Dumalawi, his brother.
VI. Dapilisan, wife of Kanag.
VII. Dagol��yan. Son of Aponibalagen and Aponigawani. Also appears as Dondony��n of Bagonan--the blood clot child.
VIII. Alokot��n. An old woman who acts as a medium. Her home is at Nagbotobot��n, where the rivers empty their waters into the hole at the edge of the world.
IX. Gawigawen [male]. A giant who owns the orange trees of Adasin.
X. Giambolan [male]. A ten-headed giant.
XI. Gaygay��ma. A star maiden who marries Aponitolau. The daughter of Bagbagak [male], a big star,--and Sinag [female], the moon--.
XII. Tabyayen. Son of Aponitolau and Gaygay��ma. Half brother of Kanag.
XIII. Kabkabaga-an. A powerful female spirit who falls in love with Aponitolau.
XIV. Asibowan. The maiden of Gegen��wan, who is related to the spirit Kaboniyan. The mistress of Aponitolau.
In consequence of modern rationalism there is a tendency on the part of a considerable number of the Tinguian to consider these tales purely as stories and the characters as fictitious, but the mass of the people hold them to be true and speak of the actors as "the people who lived in the first times." For the present we shall take their point of view and shall try to reconstruct the life in "the first times" as it appears in the tales.
The principal actors live in Kadalayapan and Kaodanan, [7] towns which our chief story teller--when trying to explain the desire of Kanag to go down and get fruit--assures us were somewhere in the air, above the earth (p. 141). [8] At other times these places are referred to as Sudipan--the term by which spirits are supposed