Preface.

 The folk-tales in this volume, which were collected in the Philippines during the years from 1908 to 1914, have not appeared in print before. They are given to the public now in the hope that they will be no mean or uninteresting addition to the volumes of Oriental M?rchen already in existence. The Philippine archipelago, from the very nature of its geographical¹ position and its political history, cannot but be a significant field to the student of popular stories. Lying as it does at the very doors of China and Japan, connected as it is ethnically² with the Malayan and Indian civilizations, Occidentalized as it has been for three centuries and more, it stands at the junction⁴ of East and West. It is therefore from this point of view that these tales have been put into a form convenient for reference. Their importance consists in their relationship to the body of world fiction.

 

The language in which these stories are presented is the language in which they were collected and written down,—English. Perhaps no apology is required for not printing the vernacular⁵ herewith; nevertheless an explanation might be made. In the first place, the object in recording⁶ these tales has been a literary one, not a linguistic⁷ one. In the second place, the number of distinctly different languages represented by the originals might be baffling even to the reader interested in linguistics⁸, especially as our method of approach has been from the point of view of cycles of stories, and not from the point of view of the separate tribes telling them. In the third place, the form of prose tales among the Filipinos is not stereotyped⁹; and there is likely to be no less variation between two Visayan versions of the same story, or between a Tagalog and a Visayan, than between the native form and the English rendering¹⁰. Clearly Spanish would not be a better medium than English: for to-day there is more English than Spanish spoken in the Islands; besides, Spanish never penetrated¹¹ into the very lives of the peasants, as English penetrates¹² to-day by way of the school-house. I have endeavored to offset¹³ the disadvantages [xi]of the foreign medium by judicious¹⁴ and painstaking¹⁵ directions to my informants in the writing-down of the tales. Only in very rare cases was there any modification¹⁶ of the original version by the teller¹⁷, as a concession¹⁸ to Occidental standards. Whatever substitutions I have been able to detect I have removed. In practically every case, not only to show that these are bona fide native stories, but also to indicate their geographical distribution, I have given the name of the narrator, his native town, and his province. In many cases I have given, in addition, the source of his information. I am firmly convinced that all the tales recorded here represent genuine Filipino tradition so far as the narrators are concerned, and that nothing has been “manufactured” consciously.

 

But what is “native,” and what is “derived”? The folklore¹⁹ of the wild tribes—Negritos, Bagobos, Igorots—is in its way no more “uncontaminated” than that of the Tagalogs, Pampangans, Zambals, Pangasinans, Ilocanos, Bicols, and Visayans. The traditions of these Christianized tribes present as survivals, adaptations, modifications²¹, fully²² as many puzzling and fascinating problems as the popular lore²⁰ of the Pagan peoples. It should be remembered, that, no matter how wild and savage²³ and isolated²⁴ a tribe may be, it is impossible to prove that there has been no contact of that tribe with the outside civilized²⁵ world. Conquest is not necessary to the introduction of a story or belief. The crew of a Portuguese²⁶ trading-vessel with a genial²⁷ narrator on board might conceivably be a much more successful transmitting-medium than a thousand praos full of brown warriors²⁸ come to stay. Clearly the problem of analyzing²⁹ and tracing the story-literature of the Christianized tribes differs only in degree from that connected with the Pagan tribes. In this volume I have treated the problem entirely³⁰ from the former point of view, since there has been hitherto a tendency to neglect as of small value the stories of the Christianized peoples. However, for illustrative material I have drawn³¹ freely on works dealing³² with the non-Christian tribes, particularly in the case of stories that appear to be native; and I shall use the term “native” to mean merely “existent in the Islands before the Spaniards went there.”

 

In the notes, I have attempted to answer for some of the tales the question as to what is native and what imported. I have not been able to reach a decision in the case of all, because [vii]of a lack of sufficient evidence. While the most obvious sources of importation from the Occident³ have been Spain and Portugal, the possibility of the introduction of French, Italian, and even Belgian stories through the medium of priests of those nationalities must not be overlooked. Furthermore, there is a no inconsiderable number of Basque sailors to be found on the small inter-island steamers that connect one end of the archipelago with the other. Even a very cursory³³ glance at the tales in this collection reveals the fact that many of them are more or less close variants³⁴ and analogues³⁵ of tales distributed throughout the world. How or when this material reached the Philippines is hard to say. The importation of Arabian stories, for example, might have been made over many routes. The Hindoo beast-tales, too, might have quite circled the globe in their progress from east to west, and thus have been introduced to the Filipinos by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Again, the germs of a number of widespread M?rchen may have existed in the archipelago long before the arrival of the Europeans, and, upon the introduction of Occidental civilization and culture, have undergone a development entirely consistent with the development that took place in Europe, giving us as a result remarkably³⁶ close analogues of the Western tales. This I suspect to have been the case of some of our stories where, parallel with the localized popular versions, exist printed romances (in the vernacular) with the mediaeval flavor and setting of chivalry³⁷. To give a specific case: the Visayans, Bicols, and Tagalogs in the coast towns feared the raids of Mindanao Mussulmans long before white feet trod the shores of the Islands, and many traditions of conflicts with these pirates are embedded³⁸ in their legends. The Spaniard came in the sixteenth century, bringing with him stories of wars between Christians³⁹ and Saracens in Europe. One result of this close analogy of actual historical situation was, I believe, a general tendency to levelling: that is, native traditions of such struggles took on the color of the Spanish romances; Spanish romances, on the other hand, which were popularized in the Islands, were very likely to be “localized.” A maximum of caution and a minimum of dogmatism, then, are imperative⁴⁰, if one is to treat at all scientifically the relationship of the stories of a composite people like the Filipinos to the stories of the rest of the world.

 

[viii]A word might be added as to the nature of the tales. I have included only “hero tales, serious and droll,” beast stories and fables⁴¹, and pourquoi or “just-so” stories. Myths, legends, and fairy-tales (including all kinds of spirit and demon⁴² stories) I have purposely excluded, in order to keep the size of the volume within reasonable limits. I have, however, occasionally drawn upon my manuscript collection of these types to illustrate⁴³ a native superstition⁴⁴ or custom.

 

Columbia University,

 

May, 1918.

 

1 geographical   

adj.地理的；地区(性)的

参考例句：

• The current survey will have a wider geographical spread.当前的调查将在更广泛的地域范围內进行。
• These birds have a wide geographical distribution.这些鸟的地理分布很广。

2 ethnically   

adv.人种上，民族上

参考例句：

• Ethnically, the Yuan Empire comprised most of modern China's ethnic groups. 元朝的民族成分包括现今中国绝大多数民族。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• Russia is ethnically relatively homogeneous. 俄罗斯是个民族成分相对单一的国家。 来自辞典例句

3 occident   

n.西方；欧美

参考例句：

• Our cultural beliefs caused many problems traveling through the Occident.我们在文化上的信仰导致了许多在西方国家旅游时的问题。
• Almost every great occident philosopher discussed this problem after Descartes.笛卡尔以后，几乎所有伟大的西方哲学家都对这个问题进行了深刻的探讨。

4 junction   

n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站

参考例句：

• There's a bridge at the junction of the two rivers.两河的汇合处有座桥。
• You must give way when you come to this junction.你到了这个路口必须让路。

5 vernacular   

adj.地方的，用地方语写成的；n.白话；行话；本国语；动植物的俗名

参考例句：

• The house is built in a vernacular style.这房子按当地的风格建筑。
• The traditional Chinese vernacular architecture is an epitome of Chinese traditional culture.中国传统民居建筑可谓中国传统文化的缩影。

6 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

7 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

8 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

9 stereotyped   

adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的

参考例句：

• There is a sameness about all these tales. They're so stereotyped -- all about talented scholars and lovely ladies. 这些书就是一套子，左不过是些才子佳人，最没趣儿。
• He is the stereotyped monster of the horror films and the adventure books, and an obvious (though not perhaps strictly scientific) link with our ancestral past. 它们是恐怖电影和惊险小说中的老一套的怪物，并且与我们的祖先有着明显的（虽然可能没有科学的）联系。

10 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

11 penetrated   

adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The knife had penetrated his chest. 刀子刺入了他的胸膛。
• They penetrated into territory where no man had ever gone before. 他们已进入先前没人去过的地区。

12 penetrates   

v.穿过( penetrate的第三人称单数 )；刺入；了解；渗透

参考例句：

• This is a telescope that penetrates to the remote parts of the universe. 这是一架能看到宇宙中遥远地方的望远镜。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dust is so fine that it easily penetrates all the buildings. 尘土极细，能极轻易地钻入一切建筑物。 来自辞典例句

13 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

14 judicious   

adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的

参考例句：

• We should listen to the judicious opinion of that old man.我们应该听取那位老人明智的意见。
• A judicious parent encourages his children to make their own decisions.贤明的父亲鼓励儿女自作抉择。

15 painstaking   

adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的

参考例句：

• She is not very clever but she is painstaking.她并不很聪明，但肯下苦功夫。
• Through years of our painstaking efforts,we have at last achieved what we have today.大家经过多少年的努力，才取得今天的成绩。

16 modification   

n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻

参考例句：

• The law,in its present form,is unjust;it needs modification.现行的法律是不公正的，它需要修改。
• The design requires considerable modification.这个设计需要作大的修改。

17 teller   

n.银行出纳员；(选举)计票员

参考例句：

• The bank started her as a teller.银行起用她当出纳员。
• The teller tried to remain aloof and calm.出纳员力图保持冷漠和镇静。

18 concession   

n.让步，妥协；特许(权)

参考例句：

• We can not make heavy concession to the matter.我们在这个问题上不能过于让步。
• That is a great concession.这是很大的让步。

19 folklore   

n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• In Chinese folklore the bat is an emblem of good fortune.在中国的民间传说中蝙蝠是好运的象征。

20 lore   

n.传说；学问，经验，知识

参考例句：

• I will seek and question him of his lore.我倒要找上他，向他讨教他的渊博的学问。
• Early peoples passed on plant and animal lore through legend.早期人类通过传说传递有关植物和动物的知识。

21 modifications   

n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变

参考例句：

• The engine was pulled apart for modifications and then reassembled. 发动机被拆开改型，然后再组装起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The original plan had undergone fairly extensive modifications. 原计划已经作了相当大的修改。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

23 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

24 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

25 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

26 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

27 genial   

adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的

参考例句：

• Orlando is a genial man.奥兰多是一位和蔼可亲的人。
• He was a warm-hearted friend and genial host.他是个热心的朋友，也是友善待客的主人。

28 warriors   

武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I like reading the stories ofancient warriors. 我喜欢读有关古代武士的故事。
• The warriors speared the man to death. 武士们把那个男子戳死了。

29 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

30 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

31 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

32 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

33 cursory   

adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的

参考例句：

• He signed with only a cursory glance at the report.他只草草看了一眼报告就签了名。
• The only industry mentioned is agriculture and it is discussed in a cursory sentence.实业方面只谈到农业,而且只是匆匆带了一句。

34 variants   

n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体

参考例句：

• Those variants will be preserved in the'struggle for existence". 这些变异将在“生存竞争”中被保留下来。 来自辞典例句
• Like organisms, viruses have variants, generally called strains. 与其他生物一样，病毒也有变种，一般称之为株系。 来自辞典例句

35 analogues   

相似物( analogue的名词复数 )； 类似物； 类比； 同源词

参考例句：

• A vegetarian gets protein not from meat but from its analogues. 素食者所摄取的蛋白质不是来自肉类而是来自近似肉类的食物。
• Moreover, it tends to foster the human qualities that I admire most-courage and its analogues. 不但如此，它还能培养我最景仰的那些德性-勇敢和诸如此类的东西。

36 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

37 chivalry   

n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤

参考例句：

• The Middle Ages were also the great age of chivalry.中世纪也是骑士制度盛行的时代。
• He looked up at them with great chivalry.他非常有礼貌地抬头瞧她们。

38 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

39 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

40 imperative   

n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的

参考例句：

• He always speaks in an imperative tone of voice.他老是用命令的口吻讲话。
• The events of the past few days make it imperative for her to act.过去这几天发生的事迫使她不得不立即行动。

41 fables   

n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说

参考例句：

• Some of Aesop's Fables are satires. 《伊索寓言》中有一些是讽刺作品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Little Mexican boys also breathe the American fables. 墨西哥族的小孩子对美国神话也都耳濡目染。 来自辞典例句

42 demon   

n.魔鬼，恶魔

参考例句：

• The demon of greed ruined the miser's happiness.贪得无厌的恶习毁掉了那个守财奴的幸福。
• He has been possessed by the demon of disease for years.他多年来病魔缠身。

43 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

44 superstition   

n.迷信，迷信行为

参考例句：

• It's a common superstition that black cats are unlucky.认为黑猫不吉祥是一种很普遍的迷信。
• Superstition results from ignorance.迷信产生于无知。