The Story of the Tikgi
Tinguian
“Tikgi, tikgi, tikgi, we will come to work for you. Let us cut your rice.”
Ligi[65] had gone to the field to look at his growing rice, but when he heard this sound he looked up and was surprised to see some birds circling above and calling to him.
“Why, you cannot cut rice,” said Ligi. “You are birds and know only how to fly.”
But the birds insisted that they knew how to cut rice; so finally he told them to come again when the grain was ripe, and they flew away.
No sooner had the birds gone than Ligi was filled with a great desire to see them again. As he went home he wished over and over that his rice were ready to cut. As soon as Ligi left the field the tikgi birds began using magic so that the rice grew rapidly, and five days later when he returned he found the birds there ready to cut the ripened grain. Ligi showed them where to begin cutting, and then he left them.
When he was out of sight, the tikgi said to the rice cutters:
“Rice cutters, you cut the rice alone.” And to the bands which were lying nearby they said: “Bands, you tie into bundles the rice which the cutters cut”
The talking jars
Playing the nose flute
And the rice cutters and the bands worked alone, doing as they were told.
When Ligi went again to the field in the afternoon, the tikgi said:
“Come, Ligi, and see what we have done, for we want to go home now.”
Ligi was amazed, for he saw five hundred bundles of rice cut. And he said:
“Oh, Tikgi, take all the rice you wish in payment, for I am very grateful to you.”
Then the tikgi each took one head of rice, saying it was all they could carry, and they flew away.
The next morning when Ligi reached the field, he found the birds already there and he said:
“Now, Tikgi, cut the rice as fast as you can, for when it is finished I will make a ceremony for the spirits, and you must come.”
“Yes,” replied the tikgi, “and now we shall begin the work, but you do not need to stay here.”
So Ligi went home and built a rice granary to hold his grain, and when he returned to the field the rice was all cut. Then the tikgi said: “We have cut all your rice, Ligi, so give us our pay, and when you go home the rice will all be in your granary.”
Ligi wondered at this, and when he reached home and saw that his granary was full of rice, he doubted if the tikgi could be real birds.
Not long after this Ligi invited all his relatives from the different towns to help him make the ceremony for the spirits.[66] As soon as the people arrived, the tikgi came also; and they flew over the people’s heads and made them drink basi until they were drunk. Then they said to Ligi:
Tinguian potters at work
Seeding and combing cotton
“We are going home now; it is not good for us to stay here, for we cannot sit among the people.”
When they started home Ligi followed them until they came to the bana-asi tree, and here he saw them take off their feathers and put them in the rice granary. Then suddenly they became one beautiful maiden.
“Are you not the tikgi who came to cut my rice?” asked Ligi. “You look to me like a beautiful maiden.”
“Yes,” she replied; “I became tikgi and cut rice for you, for otherwise you would not have found me.” Ligi took her back to his house where the people were making the ceremony, and as soon as they saw her they began chewing the magic betel-nuts to find who she might be.
The quid[67] of Ebang and her husband and that of the tikgi went together, so they knew that she was their daughter who had disappeared from their house one day long ago while they were in the fields. In answer to their many questions, she told them that she had been in the bana-asi tree, where Kaboniyan[68] had carried her, until the day that she changed herself into the tikgi birds and went to the field of Ligi.
Ligi was very fond of the beautiful girl and he asked her parents if he might marry her. They were very willing and decided on a price he should pay. After the wedding all the people remained at his house, feasting and dancing for three months.
The Story of Sayen[69]
Tinguian
In the depths of a dark forest where people seldom went, lived a wizened old Alan.[70] The skin on her wrinkled face was as tough as a carabao hide, and her long arms with fingers pointing back from the wrist were horrible to look at. Now this frightful creature had a son whose name was Sayen, and he was as handsome as his mother was ugly. He was a brave man, also, and often went far away alone to fight.
On these journeys Sayen sometimes met beautiful girls, and though he wanted to marry, he could not decide upon one. Hearing that one Danepan was more beautiful than any other, he determined to go and ask her to be his wife.
Now Danepan was very shy, and when she heard that Sayen was coming to her house she hid behind the door and sent her servant, Laey, out to meet him. And so it happened that Sayen, not seeing Danepan, married Laey, thinking that she was her beautiful mistress. He took her away to a house he had built at the edge of the forest, for though he wished to be near his old home, he dared not allow his bride to set eyes on his ugly mother.
For some time they lived happily together here, and then one day when Sayen was making a plow under his house, he heard Laey singing softly to their baby in the room above, and this is what she sang:
“Sayen thinks I am Danepan, but Laey I am. Sayen thinks I am Danepan, but Laey I am.”
When Sayen heard this he knew that he had been deceived, and he pondered long what he should do.
The next morning he went to the field to plow, for it was near the rice-planting time. Before he left the house he called to his wife:
“When the sun is straight above, you and the baby bring food to me, for I shall be busy in the field.”
Before he began to plow, however, he cut the bamboo supports of the bridge which led to the field, so that when Laey and the baby came with his food, they had no sooner stepped on the bridge than it went down with them and they were drowned. Sayen was again free. He took his spear and his shield and head-ax and went at once to the town of Danepan, and there he began killing the people on all sides.
Terror spread through the town. No one could stop his terrible work of destruction until Danepan came down out of her house, and begged him to spare part of the people that she might have some from whom to borrow fire.[71] Her great beauty amazed him and he ceased killing, and asked her to prepare some betel-nut for him to chew, as he was very tired. She did so, and when he had chewed the nut he spat on the people he had killed and they came to life again. Then he married Danepan and took her to his home.
Now it happened about this time that the people of Magosang were in great trouble. At the end of a successful hunt, while they were dividing the meat among themselves, the Komow,[72] a murderous spirit that looks like a man, would come to them and ask how many they had caught. If they answered, “Two,” then he would say that he had caught two also; and when they went home, they would find two people in the town dead. As often as they went to hunt the Komow did this, and many of the people of Magosang were dead and those living were in great fear. Finally they heard of the brave man, Sayen, and they begged him to help them. Sayen listened to all they told, and then said:
“I will go with you to hunt, and while you are dividing the meat, I will hide behind the trees. When the Komow comes to ask how many deer you have, he will smell me, but you must say that you do not know where I am,”
So the people went to hunt, and when they had killed two deer, they singed them over a fire and began to divide them. Just then the Komow arrived and said:
“We have two,” replied the people.
“I have two also,” said the Komow, “but I smell Sayen.”
“We do not know where Sayen is,” answered the people; and just then he sprang out and killed the Komow, and the people were greatly relieved.
Now when Kaboniyan,[73] a great spirit, heard what Sayen had done, he went to him and said:
“Sayen you are a brave man because you have killed the Komow, Tomorrow I will fight with you. You must remain on the low ground by the river, and I will go to the hill above.”
So the following day Sayen went to the low ground by the river. He had not waited long before he heard a great sound like a storm, and he knew that Kaboniyan was coming. He looked up, and there stood the great warrior, poising his spear which was as large as a big tree.
“Are you brave, Sayen?” called he in a voice like thunder as he threw the weapon.
“Yes,” answered Sayen, and he caught the spear.
This surprised Kaboniyan, and he threw his head-ax which was as large as the roof of a house, and Sayen caught that also. Then Kaboniyan saw that this was indeed a brave man, and he went down to Sayen and they fought face to face until both were tired, but neither could overcome the other.
When Kaboniyan saw that in Sayen he had found one as strong and brave even as himself, he proposed that they go together to fight the people of different towns. And they started out at once. Many people were killed by this strong pair, and why they themselves could never be captured was a great mystery. For it was not known that one was the spirit Kaboniyan, and the other the son of an Alan.
If he was surrounded in a river, Sayen would become a fish[74] and hide so that people could not find him. And if he was entrapped in a town, he would become a chicken and go under the house in a chicken-coop. In this way he escaped many times.
Finally one night after he had killed many in one town, the people decided to watch him, and they saw him go to roost with the chickens. The next day they placed a fish trap under the house near the chicken-coop, and that night when Sayen went under the house he was caught in the trap and killed.