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Jenks, Albert Ernest, 1869-1953

"The Bontoc Igorot"

Fu'-kan,
Lu-ma'-wig's wife, bore him several children. One day she spoke very
disrespectfully to him. This change of attitude on her part somewhat
unbalanced him, and he put her with two of her little boys in a large
coffin, and set them afloat on the river. He securely fastened the
cover of the coffin, and on either end tied a dog and a cock. The
coffin floated downstream unobserved as far as Tinglayan. There the
barking of the dog and the crowing of the cock attracted the attention
of a man who rushed out into the river with his ax to secure such a
fine lot of pitch-pine wood. When he struck his ax in the wood a voice
called from within, "Don't do that; I am here." Then the man opened the
coffin and saw the woman and children. The man said his wife was dead,
and the woman asked whether he wanted her for a wife. He said he did,
so she became his wife.
After a time the children wanted to return to Bontoc to see their
father. Before they started their mother instructed them to follow
the main river, but when they arrived at the mouth of a tributary
stream they became confused, and followed the river leading them
to Kanyu. There they asked for their father, but the people killed
them and cut them up.


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