3Máñg-gad (chattel) and bin-ó-tuñg (purchase slave) are the ordinary terms of reproach used by an angry husband toward his wife and refer to her domestic status as originating in the marriage payment.
4Some say that spots upon the moon are a cluster of bamboos; others, that they are baléte trees, and others again, that they are the taro marks referred to.
THE STORY OF THE IKÚGAN,5 OR TAILED MEN, AND OF THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE AGÚSAN VALLEY
5From i-kug, tail.
It seems that long, long ago a ferocious horde of tailed men, Tíduñg,6 overran the Agúsan Valley as far south as Veruéla. They were tailed men from all accounts, the tail of the men being like a dagger, and that of the women like an adze of the kind used by Manóbos. For 14 years they continued their depredations, devastating the whole valley till all the Manóbos had fled or been killed, except one woman on the Argáwan River or, as some say, on the Umaíam.
6It would be interesting to know whether these Tíduñg were members of a tribe in Borneo that made piratical raids to the Súlu Archipelago.
When the Manóbos first arrived in the Agúsan Valley they tried to withstand the tailed men. The Manóbos of the Kasilaían River are said to have dug trenches and to have made valiant resistance, but were finally obliged to flee to the Pacific coast.7 It is said that when encamped near the present site of San Luis these tailed folks slept on a kind of nettle8 and being severely stung, took it for a bad omen and returned.
7It is true that the Manóbos of the Tágo River, province of Surigao, claim kinship with those of the Kasilaían and Argáwan Rivers, but their migration from the Agúsan Valley seems to have been comparatively recent, if I may believe their own testimony.
8Ság-ui.