67
A very lazy girl would not learn to spin, and always pretended that she did not know how. One day she took the cotton and asked the women what to do with it. “Beat it out,” they said. Then she asked, “What shall I do with it then?” “Put it in a betel leaf on a stick and spin it.” Again she asked, “How shall I spin it?” “If you do not know how to spin, put the stick up your anus.” She did so, and became a monkey. After that there were many monkeys.
68[70]
In an early time, the Tinguian were like the alzado,[71] 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.