9The nearest settlements to the channel through which Dábau must have passed were several kilometers distant.
On the appointed day he is said to have seized the trunk of a palma brava palm and, using it for a pole, to have poled his bamboo raft from Butuán to the mouth of the Maásin Creek, near Veruéla, in one day.10 With him lived his sister, also a person of extraordinary strength, for it is on record that she would at times pluck a whole bunch of bananas and throw it to her brother on a neighboring hill.
10This trip is a row of from 8 to 12 days in a large native canoe and under normal conditions.
PECULIAR ANIMAL BELIEFS
There is, besides the various omens taken from birds, bees, dogs, and mice, a very peculiar observance prevailing among the tribes of eastern Mindanáo with regard to members of the animal kingdom. This strange observance consists in paying them a certain deference in that they must not be laughed at, imitated, nor in anywise shown disrespect. This statement applies particularly to those creatures which enter a human haunt contrary to their usual custom. To laugh at them, or make jeering remarks as to their appearance, etc., would provoke the wrath of Anítan11 the thunder goddess, who dwells in Inugtúhan. If they enter the house, they must be driven out in a gentlemanly way and divinatory means resorted to at once, for they may portend ill luck.
11Called also Á-nit and In-a-ní-tan.
I have myself at times been upbraided for my levity toward frogs and other animals. I also received numerous accounts of disrespect shown to brute visitors to a house and of the ill results that might have followed had not proper and timely propitiation been made to Anítan. The two following incidents, of which the narrators were a part, will sufficiently illustrate the point.
Two Manóbos of the Kasilaían River entered a house and, upon perceiving a chicken that was afflicted with a cold, began to make unseemly remarks to it by upbraiding it for getting wet. Shortly after it began to thunder and, remembering the offense that they had committed, they had recourse to their aunt, a priestess, who decided that Anítan was displeased and had to be propitiated. Finding no other victim than a hunting dog, for the chicken was considered by her ceremonially unclean, she at once ordered the dog to be killed for Anítan. The thunder and the lightning passed away promptly. It may be noted here that the dog may have had considerable value, for a really good hunting dog commands as high a value as a human life.
In another case on the same river the narrator had captured a young monkey. When he arrived at the house its uncouth appearance caused a little merriment and induced the owner to place upon its head a small earthen pot in imitation of a hat. Almost immediately the first mutterings of thunder were heard, and the owner, remembering his indiscretion, slew the monkey and offered it in propitiation to Anítan. As he had expected he averted the danger that he feared from the threating[sic] thunderbolts.