Filipino Popular Tales. Various
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Juan and his mother came down from the ceiling. In this house they lived like a rich family, for they found much money in one of the rooms. As for the Buringcantada, he never came back to his house after he left it.
The Manglalabas.
Narrated by Arsenio Bonifacio, a Tagalog, who heard the story from his father.
Once upon a time, in the small town of Balubad, there was a big house. It was inhabited by a rich family. When the head of the family died, the house was gloomy and dark. The family wore black clothes, and was sad.
Three days after the death of the father, the family began to be troubled at night by a manglalabas.7 He threw stones at the house, broke the water-jars, and moved the beds. Some pillows were even found in the kitchen the next day. The second night, Manglalabas visited the house again. He pinched the widow; but when she woke up, she could not see anything. Manglalabas also emptied all the water-jars. Accordingly the family decided to abandon the house.
A band of brave men in that town assembled, and went to the house. At midnight the spirit came again, but the brave men said they were ready to fight it. Manglalabas made a great deal of noise in the house. He poured out all the water, kicked the doors, and asked the men who they were. They answered, “We are fellows who are going to kill you.” But when the spirit approached them, and they saw that it was a ghost, they fled away. From that time on, nobody was willing to pass a night in that house.
In a certain barrio8 of Balubad there lived two queer men. One was called Bulag, because he was blind; and the other, Cuba, because he was hunchbacked. One day these two arranged to go to Balubad to beg. Before they set out, they agreed that the blind man should carry the hunchback on his shoulder to the town. So they set out. After they had crossed the Balubad River, Cuba said, “Stop a minute, Bulag! here is a hatchet.” Cuba got down and picked it up. Then they proceeded again. A second time Cuba got off the blind man’s shoulder, for he saw an old gun by the roadside. He picked this up also, and took it along with him.
When they reached the town, they begged at many of the houses, and finally they came to the large abandoned house. They did not know that this place was haunted by a spirit. Cuba said, “Maybe no one is living in this house;” and Bulag replied, “I think we had better stay here for the night.”
As they were afraid that somebody might come, they went up into the ceiling. At midnight they were awakened by Manglalabas making a great noise and shouting, “I believe that there are some new persons in my house!” Cuba, frightened, fired the gun. The ghost thought that the noise of the gun was some one crying. So he said, “If you are truly a big man, give me some proofs.”
Then Cuba took the handle out of the hatchet and threw the head down at the ghost. Manglalabas thought that this was one of the teeth of his visitor, and, convinced that the intruder was a powerful person, he said, “I have a buried treasure near the barn. I wish you to dig it up. The reason I come here every night is on account of this treasure. If you will only dig it up, I will not come here any more.”
The next night Bulag and Cuba dug in the ground near the barn. There they found many gold and silver pieces. When they were dividing the riches, Cuba kept three-fourths of the treasure for himself. Bulag said, “Let me see if you have divided fairly,” and, placing his hands on the two piles, he found that Cuba’s was much larger.
Angry at the discovery, Cuba struck Bulag in the eyes, and they were opened. When Bulag could see, he kicked Cuba in the back, and straightway his deformity disappeared. Therefore they became friends again, divided the money equally, and owned the big house between them.
Notes.
A Pampango version, “The Cripple and the Blind Man” (I have it only in abstract), is almost identical with the second part of “The Four Blind Brothers.” A blind man and a cripple travel together, blind man carrying, cripple guiding. Rope, drum, hatchet, etc. But these two companions do not quarrel over the distribution of the wealth: they live peacefully together.
I have printed in full five of the versions, because, while they are members of a very widespread family of tales in which a poor but valiant hero deceives and outwits a giant, ogre, ghost, or band of robbers, they form a more restricted brotherhood of that large family, and the deception is of a very definite special sort. The hero and the outwitted do not meet face to face, nor is there a contest of prowess between them. Merely by displaying as tokens of his size and strength certain seemingly useless articles which he has picked up and carried along with him on his travels, the hero frightens forever from their rich home a band of robbers or a giant or a ghost, and remains in possession of the treasures of the deceived one.
Trolls, ogres, giants, robbers, dragons, are proverbially stupid, and a clever hero with more wits than brawn has no difficulty in thoroughly frightening them. Grimm’s story of “The Brave Little Tailor” (No. 20), with its incidents of “cheese-squeezing,” “bird-throwing,” “pretended carrying of the oak-tree,” “springing over the cherry-tree,” and “escape from the bed,” and opening with the “seven-at-a-blow” episode, is typical of one large group of tales about a giant outwitted. (For an enumeration of the analogues, see Bolte-Polívka, 1 : 148–165; for a fuller discussion of some of them, see Cosquin, 1 : 96–102.) In another group the hero takes service with the giant, dragon, etc., keeps up the deception of being superhumanly strong, but gets the monster to do all the work, and finally wins his way to wealth and release (see Grimm, No. 183; Von Hahn, No. 18 and notes; Crane, 345, note 34; Dasent, Nos. v and xxxii). Then there is the group of stories in which the cannibal witch is popped into her own oven, which she had been heating for her victim (cf. Grimm, No. 15; and Bolte-Polívka, 1 : 123).
Our particular group of stories, however, seems to owe little or nothing to the types just mentioned. It appears to belong peculiarly to the Orient. In fact, I do not know of its occurrence outside of India and the Philippines. That the tale is well known in the Islands at least as far north as central Luzon, our five variants attest; and that it is fairly widespread in India—I refer particularly to the method of the deception, for on this the whole story turns—three Hindoo versions may be cited as evidence.
(1) “The Blind Man, the Deaf Man, and the Donkey” (Frere, No. 18) presents many close correspondences to “Juan the Blind Man.” In the Indian tale a blind man and a deaf man enter into partnership. One day, while on a long walk with his friend, the deaf man sees a donkey with a large water-jar on its back. Thinking the animal will be useful to them, they take it and the jar with them. Farther along they collect some large black ants in a snuff-box. Overtaken by storm, they seek shelter in a large, apparently deserted house, and lock the door; but the owner, a terrible Rakshas, returns, and loudly demands entrance. The deaf man, looking through a chink in the wall, is greatly frightened by the appearance of the monster; but the blind man boldly says that he is Bakshas, Rakshas’s father. Incredulous, the Rakshas wishes to see his father’s face. Donkey’s head shown. On his desiring to see his father’s body, the huge jar is rolled with a thundering noise past the chink in the door. Rakshas asks to hear Bakshas scream. Deaf man puts ants into the donkey’s ear: the animal, bit by the insects, brays horribly, and the Rakshas flees in fright … (Rakshas returns the next morning, and seeing the blind man, deaf man, and donkey, laden with treasures, leaving his house, he determines to be avenged; but by a lucky series of accidents the travellers succeed in discomfiting and thoroughly terrifying the Rakshas and his six companions summoned to help him, and travel on). In the division of the spoils, the deaf man attempts to cheat the blind man, who in a rage gives him so tremendous a box on the ear, that his hearing is restored! In return, the deaf man gives his neighbor so hard a blow in the face, that