“According to an old man of the Long Kiputs of Borneo, the stars are holes in the sky made by the roots of trees in the world above the sky projecting through the floor of that world. At one time, he explained, the sky was close to the earth, but one day Usai, a giant, when working sago with a wooden mallet, accidentally struck his mallet against the sky; since which time the sky has been far up out of the reach of man.”
A different explanation of why the sky went up is current in British North Borneo. It is embodied in the story of “The Horned Owl and the Moon” (Evans, JRAI 43 : 433):—
“The moon is male and the Pwak (horned owl) is female.
“Long ago, when the sky was very low down, only a man’s height from the ground, the moon and the Pwak fell in love and married. At that time there was a man whose wife was with child. The woman came down from the house, and as the heat of the sun struck her on the stomach, she became ill, for the sky was very low. Then the man was very angry because his wife was ill, and he made seven blow-pipe arrows. Early the next morning he took his blow-pipe with him and went to the place where the sun rises, and waited. Now at that time there were seven suns. When they rose, he shot six of them and left one remaining; then he went home. At the time the man shot the suns the Pwak was sitting on the house-top in the sky combing her hair. The comb fell from the sky to the ground, and the Pwak flew down to get it; but when she found it, she could no longer fly back to the sky; for, while she had been looking for the comb, the sky had risen to its present place; since, when the man had shot the six suns, the remaining sun, being frightened, ran away up into the air and took the sky with it. And so on the present day, whenever the moon comes out, the Pwak cries to it; but the moon says to it, ‘What can I do, for you are down there below, while I am up here in the sky?’ ”
An Unequal Match; Or, Why the Carabao’s Hoof is Split.
Narrated by Godofredo Rivera, a Tagalog from Pagsanjan, La Laguna.
Once a carabao and a turtle met on a road. They walked in the woods, and had a fine talk together. The turtle was a sort of humorist, and was constantly giving exhibitions of his dexterity in getting food by trickery. But he was especially anxious to win the friendship of the carabao; for he thought that, if they were friendly, this big fellow would help him whenever he got into trouble. So he said to the carabao, “Let us live together and hunt out food together! thus we shall break the monotony of our solitary lives.”
But the carabao snorted when he heard this proposal; and he replied, “You slow thing! you ought to live with the drones, not with a swift and powerful person like me.”
The turtle was very much offended, and to get even he challenged the carabao to a race. At first the carabao refused to accept the challenge, for he thought it would be a disgrace for him to run against a turtle. The turtle said to the carabao, “If you will not race with me, I will go to all the forests, woods, and mountains, and tell all your companions and all my friends and all the animal kingdom that you are a coward.”
Now the carabao was persuaded; and he said, “All right, only give me three days to get ready for the race.” The turtle was only too glad to have the contest put off for three days, for then he too would have a chance to prepare his plans. The agreement between the turtle and the carabao was that the race should extend over seven hills.