Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Study of Tinguian Philippine Folk-Lore
This paper is based on a collection of Philippine folk-tales recently published by the Field Museum of Natural History.1 The material appearing in that publication was gathered by the writer during a stay of sixteen months with the Tinguian, a powerful pagan tribe inhabiting the mountain districts of Abra, Ilocos Sur, and N orte, of Northern Luzon. In social organization, government, manner of house building, and many other details of material culture this tribe differs radically from the neighboring Igorot. Observation has also led me to the conclusion that the religious organization and ceremonies of this people have reached a higher development than is found among the near-by tribes, and that this complexity decreases as we penetrate toward the interior or to the south. In the main the folk-tales are closely asso ciated with the religious beliefs of the present day, and hence it seems unlikely that they will be found, in anything approaching their present form, far outside the districts dominated by this tribe. Nevertheless, isolated incidents corresponding to those of neighboring peoples, or even of distant lands, occur several times.
In the following pages an attempt has been made to bring together the culture of this people, as it appears in the myths, and to contrast it to present day conditions and beliefs. In this way we may hope to gain a clearer insight into their mental life, and to secure a better idea of the values they attach to certain of their activities than is afforded us by actual observation or by direct inquiry. It is also possible that the tales may give us a glimpse of the early conditions under which this people developed, of their life and culture before the advent of the European.
It should be noted at the outset that no attempt is here made to reconstruct an actual historical period. As will appear later, a part of the material is evidently very old; later introductions to which approximate dates may be assigned have assumed places of great importance; while the stories doubtless owe much to the creative imagi nations of successive story tellers.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
