During my stay with this tribe I heard parts of many folk-tales, some
chanted, others told with gravity, and still others which caused the
greatest levity. My limited knowledge of the dialect and pressure of
other work caused me to delay the recording of these tales until I
should begin a systematic study of the language. Owing to unforeseen
circumstances, that time never came, and it is now possible to give only
the slightest idea of a very rich body of tales.[54]
[54] Since this was written MISS BENEDICT has published an excellent
collection of Bagobo Myths (_Journal of American Folklore_, 1913, XXVI.
pp. 13-63.)
In the main these stories are an attempt to account for the present
order of things. In the tale which we quoted in part, at the beginning
of the paper, we are told of an all-powerful being who created the earth
and all that is. Other spirits and many animals inhabited the sky and
earth which the creator had made. Of the latter only one, the monkey, is
named. He and his kind, we are told, once inhabited and owned all the
world, but were dispossessed by two human beings, Toglai and Toglibon,
from whom all the people of the world are descended. After their death a
great drought caused the people to disperse and seek out new homes in
other parts. They journeyed in pairs and because of the objects which
they carried with them, they are now known by certain names. One couple,
for instance, carried with them a small basket called _bira-an_, and for
this reason their children are known as Bira-an (Bila-an). From the time
of the dispersion until the arrival of the Spaniards we learn that
certain mythical heroes performed wonderful feats, in some cases being
closely identified with the spirits themselves, in others making use of
magic, the knowledge of which seems to have been common in those times.
The two following tales are typical of those commonly heard in a Bagobo
gathering. The first was told by Urbano Eli, a Bagobo of Malilla.
"After the people were created a man named LumabEt was born. He could
talk when he was one day old and the people said he was sent by Manama.
He lived ninety seasons and when still a young man he had a hunting dog
which he took to hunt on the mountain. The dog started up a white deer
and LumabEt and his companions followed until they had gone about the
world nine times when they finally caught it. At the time they caught
the deer LumabEt's hair was grey and he was an old man. All the time he
was gone he had only one banana and one camote with him for food. When
night came he planted the skin of the banana and in the morning he had
ripe bananas to eat, and the camotes came the same way. When he had
caught the deer LumabEt called the people to see him and he told them to
kill his father. They obeyed him and then LumabEt took off his headband
and waved it in the air over the dead man, and he at once was alive
again. He did this eight times and at the eighth time his father was
small like a little boy, for every time the people cut him in two the
knife took off a little flesh. So all the people thought LumabEt was
like a god.
"One year after he killed the deer he told all the people to come into
his house, but they said they could not, for the house was small and the
people many. But LumabEt said there was plenty of room, so all entered
his house and were not crowded. The next morning the _diwata_,
_tigyama_, and other spirits came and talked with him. After that he
told the people that all who believed that he was powerful could go with
him, but all who did not go would be turned into animals and _buso_.
Then LumabEt started away and those who stayed back became animals and
_buso_.
"He went to the place Binaton, across the ocean, the place where the
earth and sky meet. When he got there he saw that the sky kept going up
and down the same as a man opening and closing his jaws. LumabEt said to
the sky 'You must go up,' but the sky replied 'No.' At last LumabEt
promised the sky that if he let the others go he might catch the last
one who tried to pass; so the sky opened and the people went through;
but when near to the last the sky shut down and caught the bolo of next
to the last man. The last one he caught and ate.
"That day LumabEt's son Tagalion was hunting and caught many animals
which he hung up. Then he said he must go to his father's place; so he
leaned an arrow against a _baliti_ tree and sat on it. It began to grow
down and carried him down to his father's place, but when he arrived
there were no people there. He saw a gun, made out of gold, and some
white bees in the house. The bees said 'You must not cry; we can take
you to the sky,' So he rode on the gun, and the bees took him to the sky
and he arrived there in three days.
"One of the men was looking down on the land below, and all of the
spirits made fun of him and said they would take out his intestines so
that he would be like one of them and never die. The man refused to let
them, and he wanted to go back home because he was afraid; so Manama
said to let him go.
"The spirits took leaves of the _karan_ grass and tied to his legs, and
made a chain of the grass and let him down to the earth. When he reached
the earth he was no longer a man but was an owl."
(2) The second tale, which was recorded by P. Juan Doyle, S. J., is as
follows:
"In one of the torrents which has its origin at the foot of Apo, there
were two eels which, having acquired extraordinary magnitude, had no
room in so little water, on account of which they determined to
separate, each one taking a different direction in search of the sea or
the great lakes. One arrived, happily, at the sea by the Padada river,
and from it came eels in the sea. The other descending a torrent,
swimming and confining himself as well as he might, enclosed in these
narrow places, said to himself 'I haven't the slightest idea of what the
sea is, but it appears to me that when I see before me an extraordinary
clearness on a limpid surface, that must be the sea, and with one spring
I will jump into it.' So saying, he arrived at a point where the torrent
formed a cascade. He noticed that it cut off the horizon and to his view
it appeared of an extraordinary clearness; he thought he could swim
there without limit, and at his pleasure, and that this, in fine, must
be the sea. He darted into it, but the unhappy one was dashed against
the rocks, and too fatigued to swim through the rough waters, he lost
his life. His body lay there inert and formed undulations which are now
the folds which the earth forms to the left of Mt. Apo."