53

When Itneg [354] go to hunt or have to sleep anywhere that spirits can get them it is good to use sobosob [355] or banal under them for a mat.

Two men were in the mountains and had no mats to sleep on, so they pulled much sobosob and put it under them.  That night the evil spirits came to get them but did not come very near.  The men heard them say that they wanted to get them, but that it was bad for them if they got near the sobosob, so they left them alone.

(Sobosob and banal are sometimes put with the plow iron over a new grave as an added protection.)

54

In the first time, three Tinguian went to hunt.  At night they lay down to sleep and one of them, who had a kambaya, [356] had not gone to sleep when two spirits came near and saw him under the blanket.  One turned to the other and said, “Here we have something to eat, for here is a little pig.”  Then that man took the blanket from the other man and put his blanket in its place, and the spirits came and ate that man.  So we know it is bad to use that kind of blanket when you go where the spirits can get.

55

A man and woman had a beautiful daughter whom they always kept in the house. [357] One day while they were away in the fields, the girl went outside to pound rice.  While she pounded, the spirit Bayon who lives in the sky came to see her.  He was like a fresh breeze.  Then the girl was like a person asleep, for she could not see nor hear.  When she awoke in the sky, she dropped her rice pounder so that it fell near her home and then the people knew she was above.  Bayon changed her two breasts into one large one, which he placed in the middle of her chest.  When her parents made Sayang, the mediums called Bayon and his wife to come.  They still come when some one calls them in the Sayang.  The woman’s name is Lokadya.

56

In the first times men went to the mountains to hunt deer and hogs.  One man kept his dog in the open land outside of the forest, to wait for the game.  While he waited there with his dog, the big bird Banog came to take him away; and it flew with him over the mountains near to Licuan. [358] The bird took him to her nest in the tree.  There were two young birds in the nest.  When the bird laid him in the nest he was on a branch of the tree.  Three young pigs were in the nest.  The bird went away to get animals.  After it went away, the man cut the meat in small pieces for the young birds, and the man ate also because the tree was big and he could not go away.  The bird brought deer and pigs all the time, and the man always cut the meat in small pieces.  After a while the two young birds could fly near to the nest.  When they were standing outside of the nest he held on to their wings and the birds flew down under the tree.  Then the man took his bolo and cut off their heads and took them to his town and made layog [359] for the heads.  After the man’s layog, he wanted to go to alzados [360] town to fight them.  He had been near to the alzados town about one month.