68 [372]

In an early time, the Tinguian were like the alzado, [373] and hunted heads.  The men from one town started to another on the other side of the Abra river to get heads.  While they were on the way, it rained very hard; and when they reached the river, they could not get across, so they prayed to the Spirit that he would give them wings to cross.  They at once became birds; but when they reached the other side of the river, they could not resume the forms of men.  Some of the men’s wives had just died, and they had bark bands on their heads, as is the Tinguian custom.  When these became birds, their heads were white; but those of the others were black, and so they are to this day.

69

A mother had a very lazy boy who could do nothing.  One day she went away to get something, and she put a big basket over the boy.  When she came home, she took the basket up, but instead of the boy there was a bird which flew away, crying “sigakok, sigakok, sigakok,”—­“lazy, lazy, lazy.”  And so that bird is called sigakok.

70

A long time ago there was a young man who cut all the trees in a little wood.  When he had cut up them, he burned them, and he planted rice in the field.  In a few days the rice was ready to cut and the young man went to find a girl for him to marry.  He found a girl in the other town.  He married her and he took her with him to his home.  When they got home the man said to his wife, “Let us go to see our rice.”  They went to see the rice.  At midday they went home.  The next day the man sent his wife to go to cut the rice.  When she got to the rice, she thought to herself that she could not cut it in a month.  Said she to herself, “I want to be a bird.”  She lay down on the floor in a little house that the man had made.  She put her hat over her to be her blanket.  Then she became a bird which we call kakok now.  Her cloth became her feathers.  In the morning the man went with some rice for his wife to eat.  When he got there, he could not see his wife.  He walked and walked, but he did not find her, then he came to the little house.  He saw his wife’s hat, and he picked it up.  The bird flew away, crying “kakok, kakok.”

71

In the first time Ganoway was the man who possessed a dog which caught many deer; and Kaboniyan allowed.  The dog pursued the deer which went in a cave in the rock.  The dog went in also, and Ganoway followed into the hole in the rock.  He walked, always following the dog which was barking, and he felt the shrubs which he touched.  The shrubs all had fruit which tinkled when he touched them.  Then he broke off those branches which tinkled as he touched them, and Kaboniyan allowed.  He came to the end of the cave in the rock which was at the river Makatbay, and his dog was there, for he had already caught the deer, which was a buck.  It was light in the place where he was, at the river Makatbay, and he looked at the