Filipino Popular Tales

D >> Dean S. Fansler >> Filipino Popular Tales

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45

"That is impossible," says Juan.

"Why impossible?" cries the old woman. "The rice will have a smoky
taste if you don't."

"All right," says Juan, getting up. He goes to the fireplace and thinks
for a little while. Then he jumps up to the rafters of the ceiling,
which are but two feet above his head. He goes just above the pot,
adjusts his feet very well, and then lets himself fall. The pot is
broken to pieces. The old woman wakes up at the noise of the crash,
and says, "What is that, Juan? Is the rice cooked?"

"Why do you ask me that?" says Juan impatiently. "You told me to step
on the pot, and now you ask me if the rice is cooked!"

She goes out to the kitchen; and when she sees her broken pot, the old
woman becomes truly angry. She drives Juan from the house, telling him
that he cannot live with her any more because he is too troublesome.

Juan now goes off, and wanders from town to town. Sometimes he is
obliged to work in order to get anything to eat. Finally he comes
to a large town where the people wear shoes and carry umbrellas. He
becomes enchanted with the shoes and umbrellas: so he works hard, and
saves enough money to buy both. But he surprises every one who sees
him; for he carries his shoes dangling at his belt, and his umbrella
closed under his arm. Some of the more curious fellows follow after
him. They see that, although it rains or the sun is very hot, Juan
never opens his umbrella except when he sits to rest under a tree;
and also that he never puts his shoes on when he is on dry land,
but only when he is crossing a river. At last they ask him why he
does such foolish things. Juan says, "Don't you know that there are
many worms and loose branches in a tree? If, for example, a snake
should fall down, well, it would hit my umbrella. As for the shoes,
it is better for one to wear his shoes when he crosses a river,
for there he cannot see the ground." The people leave him alone;
but some persons think he is wise, and imitate his example.

Juan goes on with his travels. At last he falls in love. He serves
the girl's parents, and becomes their cook. He always keeps the
best parts of the chicken for the girl and himself, and gives only
the bones to the parents. They ask him why he gives them the worst
parts. Juan replies, "I do that because you are our supporters. The
bones, compared with a house, are the foundation and framework." The
parents find Juan's reasoning so good, that they at once marry their
daughter to him. After this Juan is a good and sensible fellow,
and does not do foolish things any more.

Notes.

This long, loosely-constructed droll is not of any fixed length,
according to the narrator; adventures are added or omitted at the
caprice of the story-teller. It would be useless to attempt to parallel
the tale as a whole, because of the very nature of its composition. The
separate incidents, however, we may examine, pointing out analogues
already in print, and citing others from my own manuscript collection.

(1) "If it smells bad, it's dead." This joke is common among the
Tagalogs and Pampangans, and forms the basis of many of their comical
stories. As an example I will give the opening of a story entitled
"Ricardo and his Adventures" narrated by Paulo Macasaet, a Tagalog
from Batangas:--

Ricardo and his Adventures.

Once there was a widow who had a son named Ricardo. One day the mother
said to the boy, "Ricardo, I want you to go to school, so that you
may learn something about our religion." Ricardo was willing enough,
so he took his Catechism and set out. Instead of going to the school,
however, he went to a neighboring pond and listened to the merry
croaking of the frogs. When eleven o'clock came, he went home and
told his mother about the real school. The poor woman was very happy,
thinking that her son was spending his time wisely. Ricardo took great
delight in joining the chorus of the frogs, for his mother gave him
food as a reward for his diligence.

One morning the woman asked her son to read his lesson. The boy opened
his Catechism and croaked very loudly. His mother was glad when she
heard that her son could croak so well, because she thought that that
was the way to read the book.

As Ricardo was playing with his schoolmates one day, he saw a dead
cat. It smelled very bad, so he left the pond and went home. He
said, "Mother, I saw a cat lying near our school. It had a very bad
odor." The mother said, "My son, remember this: whenever a body smells
bad, you may be sure that it is dead." Ricardo repeated the words of
his mother many times to himself, and learned them by heart.

One day, when he was on his way to the pond, Ricardo smelled something
bad. He looked in every direction, but he could not find anybody. So
he said, "Since I cannot find any dead body here, I must be the one
who is dead." He lay down on the ground, and said, "Ricardo is dead! I
cannot eat any more. O how unhappy I am!" While he was lying there,
he saw a ripe guava above his head. He exclaimed, "Delicious fruit,
you are very fortunate! If I were alive, I would eat you." He wished
to get the fruit, but he dared not do so. After a while, when he
could no longer smell the stink, he got up and went home, and told
his mother his story.

[As the rest of the story is not droll, and is in no way connected
with our present tale, it may be given in abstract.]

One day Ricardo learned from his mother how his father had been
killed by a giant who had afterwards carried away his sister. The
boy set out in search of the giant. An old man along the way, whom he
treated kindly, gave him two bottles of magic water,--one that would
make invulnerable the man who should drink it, another that would take
away all the strength of him on whose head it should be poured. Later
a leprous old woman to whom he gave some food presented him with
a magic saddle that would carry him through the air. So equipped,
he soon arrived at the cave of the giant. He succeeded in killing
that seven-headed monster and in freeing his sister and many other
prisoners. Ten barrels of money were found in the cave. Of these,
Ricardo took two; the rest he gave to the prisoners he had freed. Later
Ricardo married a beautiful woman named Lucia.

(2) Destruction of the singing rice-pot. Another Tagalog form of this
incident, likewise connected with Juan's experiences while cook for a
band of robbers, was collected from Singalong, Manila. It was related
by Crisanto H. Aragon, and runs as follows:--

Juan and the Robbers.

Once there was a young man named Juan, who left his parents to seek
his fortune. While he was wandering in the mountains, he reached
the cave of some robbers. Juan decided to be a robber, and asked the
chief to admit him. The chief accepted Juan.

One night Juan was left alone in the cave, for his companions had gone
to town to make a raid. Before leaving, the chief said, "Juan, you
will stay here and take care of our property. If you hear a noise, take
your bolo and kill whoever makes that noise, for he is our enemy. Cook
some rice, so that when we return we may have something to eat."

While Juan was cooking the rice, to his great surprise he heard a
noise. Faithful to the command that had been laid upon him, Juan
took his bolo and walked around the cave to see where the noise came
from. When he reached the kitchen, he noticed that the noise was
louder. After a careful observation, he concluded that it was coming
from the rice-pot. "The enemies must be here," said Juan, pointing
to the rice-pot; and, without a moment's hesitation or fear, Juan
smashed the pot into a thousand pieces. The noise stopped at once,
and Juan was satisfied.

When the robbers came home and asked Juan for rice, he told them what
had happened. The chief realized that the fault was his, so he only
laughed at Juan; but, from that time on, Juan was never allowed to
stay alone in the cave.

One night the robbers decided to rob the captain of the Municipal
Police in a town near by. When they reached the captain's house, they
saw that it was empty: so they took everything they could find. Juan
entered the captain's bedroom, but, instead of searching for valuables,
he took the captain's uniform and put it on. Then Juan went out to
join his companions. But as soon as the robbers saw the uniformed man,
they thought it was the captain, and ran away as fast as their legs
would carry them. Juan ran too, for he thought that the captain must
be after them. The robbers were so frightened, that they separated;
but Juan decided to follow the chief. Finally the chief became so
tired, that he made up his mind to stop and fight his pursuer; but
when Juan came up, the chief recognized him, and it was only then
that both of them felt that they had gotten rid of the real captain.

For a Santal story of a stupid hero joining a band of thieves, see
A. Campbell, "Jhorea and Jhore," pp. 11-12; Bompas, p. 19.

(3) Adventure with the crabs. Compare "The Adventures of Juan" (JAFL
20 : 106), in which Juan's mother sends her foolish son to town to
buy meat to eat with the boiled rice. He buys a live crab, which he
sets down in the road and tells to go to his mother to be cooked for
dinner. The crab promises, but, as soon as Juan's back is turned,
runs in another direction. Clearly our version of the incident is
superior to this.

(4) Juan as a thief. With this incident may be compared another
Tagalog story, narrated by Adolfo Scheerer. It is entitled--

The Adventure of two Robbers.

There were once two robbers, who, hearing of the trip that a certain
family was about to make, decided to rob them during the night. They
were encouraged in their purpose by the thought that everything in
the house would be in a state of great confusion. During the night
the two thieves climbed a tree which grew close by a window of this
house. From this place they could easily observe what the people
inside were doing. As they sat there waiting, they saw two servants
packing something which seemed to be very heavy. They believed that
the bundle contained much money, so they decided to steal it.

In the dead of night one of the robbers went up into the house, took
the bundle, and passed it to his companion below. When he joined the
other, they took to their heels, carrying the bundle between them on
their shoulders. When they had gone some way, the one in the rear began
to get curious as to what they were carrying, so he cut an opening in
the mat that was wrapped around the contents. To his great surprise,
he noticed a human toe stick out; and he at once shouted, "Man, man,
man!" The one in front took this shout as a warning that some one was
chasing them, so he ran faster. The other only continued to shout,
"Man, man!" but his companion paid no attention to him. Finally his
foot caught in the root of a tree, and he fell down. When he understood
the situation, the two villains left the bundle and ran away.

(5) Frightening robbers under tree. This incident is widespread, and
has made its way into many Maerchen cycles. It is distinctly comic in
its nature. For references to its occurrence, see Koehler-Bolte, 99
and 341 (sub "Herabwerfen der Thuer"); Crane, 380, note 19; Cosquin,
I : 243 f.; and especially Bolte-Polivka, I : 521-525 (on Grimm,
No. 59), episode F.

(6) Walking on his own soil. This trick of Juan's we have already
met with in "King Tasio," No. 7 (b).

(7) Cooking rice-measures. Juan's misunderstanding about cooking two
measures of rice is almost exactly paralleled in a Santal story in
Bompas, No. I. The story is entitled "Bajun and Jhore," and this is
the first of a series of noodle-like incidents:--

Once upon a time there were two brothers named Bajun and Jhore. Bajun
was married, and one day his wife fell ill of fever. So, as he was
going ploughing, Bajun told Jhore to stay at home and cook the dinner,
and he bade him put into the pot three measures of rice. Jhore staid
at home, and filled the pot with water and put it on to boil; then
he went to look for rice-measures. There was only one in the house;
and Jhore thought, "My brother told me to put in three measures,
and if I only put in one, I shall get into trouble." So he went to a
neighbor's house and borrowed two more measures, and put them into the
pot, and left them to boil. At noon Bajun came back from ploughing,
and found Jhore stirring the pot, and asked him whether the rice was
ready. Jhore made no answer: so Bajun took the spoon from him, saying,
"Let me feel how it is getting on!" but when he stirred with the spoon,
he heard a rattling noise; and when he looked into the pot, he found
no rice, but only three wooden measures floating about. Then he turned
and abused Jhore for his folly; but Jhore said, "You yourself told
me to put in three measures, and I have done so." So Bajun had to
set to work and cook the rice himself, and got his dinner very late.

This ludicrous mistake suggests a not dissimilar droll of the Tinguian
(Cole, 198, No. 86):--

A man went to the other town. When he got there, the people were
eating bamboo sprouts (labon). He asked them what they ate, and they
said pangaldanen (the bamboo ladder is called aldan). He went home and
had nothing to eat but rice: so he cut his ladder into small pieces,
and cooked all day, but the bamboo was still very hard. He could
not wait longer, so he called his friends, and asked why he could
not make it like the people had in the other town. Then his friends
laughed and told him his mistake.

For an almost identical Santal story, see Bompas, No. CXXIV, "The
Fool and his Dinner."

(8) The last two episodes--wearing of shoes only when crossing rivers
and raising umbrella under tree, and the division of the fowl--we have
discussed in the notes to No. 7 (see pp. 63-64, [9], [8]). Add to the
bibliography given there, Bompas, No. CXXVIII, "The Father-in-law's
Visit," which contains a close parallel to the first episode.

In conclusion I will give two other Filipino noodle stories,
which, while not variants of any of those given above, have the
same combination of stupidity and success as that found in "Juan the
Fool." The first is an Ilocano story narrated by Presentacion Bersamin
of Bangued, Abra, and runs thus:--

Juan Sadut.

Juan Sadut was a very lazy fellow. His mother was a poor old woman,
who earned their living by husking rice. What she earned each day
was hardly enough to last them until the next. When a boy, Juan was
left at home to watch over their hens and chickens. One day, as his
mother went to work, she told Juan to take care of the little chicks,
lest a hawk should get them. Now, Juan had been told this so many
times, that he had grown tired of watching chickens: consequently,
when his mother went away, he tied all the chickens and hens together,
and hung them on a tree. He did this, because he thought that no bird
of prey could see them there. In the evening, when his mother came
home, she asked if everything was all right. Juan said, "Nana, I tied
all the hens and chickens by their legs, and hung them in that tree,
so that they would be safe." The mother asked where they were. Juan
showed them to her, but they were all dead. The mother was angry,
and whipped Juan very severely.

Time passed on, and Juan grew up to be a man; but he was as lazy as
ever. He wanted to get married, but the girl he had picked out was the
daughter of a rich man; and his mother told him that he was not a good
match for the girl, for they were very poor, and, besides, he was too
lazy to support a wife. Still Juan was determined to marry the girl,
and he thought out a way to get her. One day Juan went to work in the
fields, and earned a peseta. The next day he earned another. Then he
said to his mother, "Nana, please go to the father of Ines Cannogan
(for such was the name of the girl) and borrow their salup (a half
cocoanut-shell used for measuring). The mother went, and Ines asked
her who had sent for the salup. The mother told her that her son
Juan was a merchant that had just arrived from a successful trip. So
the salup was lent. When returning the measure, Juan put the two
pesetas in the husk of the cocoanut-shell, and told his mother to
take it back to Ines, pesetas and all. When Ines examined the salup,
she found the pesetas, and told her father all about them.

Not long afterwards Juan sent his mother again to borrow the
measure. Again Juan returned it with money sticking in the husk of
the shell. This he did several times, until at last Ines's father
believed that Juan was very rich. Juan now had a chance to talk with
Ines's father about his daughter, and of course the old man accepted
his proposal immediately. So Juan and Ines were married.

After their marriage, when the old man found out that his new
son-in-law was not only very poor, but also very lazy, he repented
of his rashness. However, he compelled both Juan and his wife to
go work on his farm. Once, when Ines was taking her siesta, many
wild cocks and hens came to eat the rice which she had put in the
sun to dry. Juan was too lazy to get up and drive them away, so he
took Ines's gold hairpin and threw it at the birds. When Ines awoke,
she missed her hairpin. Juan told her what he had done with it. She
scolded him so severely, that he felt hurt, and began to weep bitterly,
for even his wife disliked him.

The next day Juan went to look for the hairpin at the place where
he had thrown it. To his great surprise, he found a bush with golden
branches, and on one of them was the hairpin. Immediately he called
his wife. They pulled up the bush, and discovered at its roots a
jar full of gold and silver money. Now Ines was very proud of her
husband's luck. They went to the town to tell their father of their
good fortune. From now on, the old man no longer hated Juan, hut
loved him, and gave him all his property to supervise.

Thus Juan Sadut became a rich man without any effort. Fortune favors
the lazy--sometimes.

The other story comes from the other end of the Archipelago, from the
province of Misamis. It was narrated by Antonio Cosin of Tagoloan,
Misamis, and is a Visayan tale. As may easily be seen, it is distantly
related to Grimm, No. 7, "A Good Bargain." For the "sale to animals"
comic episode, see Grimm's notes; Clouston, "Book of Noodles," p. 148;
and Bolte-Polivka, 1 : 60. For the "sale to statue" incident, which
is analogous to our third episode below, see Clouston, ibid., p. 146;
Crane, 379, note 12; Cosquin, 2 : 178. The story follows:--

Juan Loco.

A great many years ago there lived a certain fool that went by the name
of Juan Loco. He was the son of a butcher, in so far as the following
experiences of his are concerned; he had many other experiences that
are not recorded in this story.

Juan could not be intrusted with anything, he was such a dunce; but one
day he persuaded his father to let him go out and sell meat. So about
eight in the morning Juan left home with about three pesos' worth
of pork, full of many a hopeful expectation. After having wandered
through many streets, he noticed that a big horse-fly was following him
with an imploring murmur. Imagining that the fly wanted to buy meat,
this sapient vender said to it, "Do you want to buy meat?" The fly
answered with a "buzzzzz." For Juan this was a sufficient answer:
so he left one-third of the pork with the fly, saying that he was
coming back again for his pay. Next he met a hungry and greatly-abused
pig, and he asked it if it wanted to buy meat. The pig merely said,
"hack, hack," and gave a few angry nods, but Juan understood it to
be saying, "Yes:" so he threw it one-half of the meat he had left,
with the same warning as he gave the fly,--that he was coming back
to collect the price of the meat. His third customer was himself, or
his reflection. Warm, tired, and thirsty from his wanderings, he came
to a well, where he thought he would take a drink. On looking down,
however, he saw a man in the bottom of the well. When Juan shouted
to him and made gestures, the man--or his reflection and the echo of
his own voice--returned some sort of inarticulate sound, and made
the same gestures as Juan. For the third time this sufficed for a
"Yes." So Juan threw the rest of his pork down the well, and said he
would come back for his money.

Now comes the collection, which he found to be quite easy. He
entered a dry-goods store, where he saw a fly on the hand of the
shop-keeper. Juan talked to the fly and demanded his money. It
did not answer: so he began chasing it around the room, sometimes
striking at it when it was on some customer's hand. At last, tired
of the disturbance, the shop-keeper paid him off to get rid of
him. Next Juan came to a garden where there was a pig. With the pig
he encountered the same obstinate silence. He began to chase the pig,
and he beat it whenever he was near enough to hit it. When the owner
of the animal saw what he was doing, and realized that he was crazy,
he paid him off, too. Now, as to his third customer. The reflection
in the pool simply mocked him and made him disgusted. So Juan got a
long pole and stirred the bottom of the well. When he found that this
treatment simply made his customer disappear, he began shouting at the
top of his voice. Finally the owner of the well came; and, to avoid
further disturbance, he also paid him off, for every one could easily
see that the vender was crazy (loco) from the way he talked and acted.

So Juan went home in ecstasy. He received much praise from his father,
who promised to let him sell meat every day; and the poor fellow
gloried in being thus praised.

For other noodle stories of the Filipinos, see our No. 9 and JAFL 20
: 104-106.

TALE 50

Juan and his Painted Hat.

Narrated by Adolfo Scheerer, a Tagalog from Manila, who heard the
story from their native servant some fifteen years ago.

There once lived a man by the name of Juan, who did nothing but fool
people all the time. Once, when he had only seventy pesos left in his
pockets, he determined to resort to the following scheme: he bought
a balangut hat (a very cheap straw), and painted it five different
colors. In the town where Juan was to operate, there were only three
stores. He went to each one of them and deposited twenty pesos,
saying to the owner of each, "I will deposit twenty pesos in your
store, and to-morrow afternoon I will bring some friends here with
me. We will perhaps take some refreshments or buy some goods, but in
any case I will see to it that the total amount of the things we take
is not over the twenty pesos. Then, when we leave, do not ask me to
pay you for the things. I will simply make you a bow with my hat,
and your attendants should thank me with much courtesy. That mere
bow with my hat is to be the payment. You may keep the twenty pesos,
but you must also keep this little plan a secret." The owners of the
three stores promised.

The next day Juan was walking in the street with his painted hat on,
when one of his friends met him. "Halloo, Juan!" exclaimed his friend,
"where did you get that funny hat?"

Juan looked serious, and said, "Don't be foolish! Don't you know that
this hat is the only means I have of earning a living?"

"Means of living?" returned the other.

"Why, of course. I can go in any store, take anything I please,
and pay for it with a mere bow of my hat."

By this time two other friends of Juan had come along, and they
too were surprised to see what Juan had on his head. To convince
them of the marvellous character of the hat, Juan took his friends
to one of the stores. There they sat down, and Juan ordered some
refreshments. They ate much, and of the best that the store could
furnish. After they had had enough, Juan stood up, made a bow to the
proprietor with his hat, and then they all left. Then they visited
another store, where the same thing took place.

The friends of Juan were very much astonished, and each wished to
possess the hat. One offered him a thousand pesos for it; another, two
thousand; and the third, one-half of all his property, which amounted
to about five thousand pesos. Juan, of course, was willing to sell it
to the highest bidder; but when the sale was about to be concluded,
the buyer began to doubt the power of the hat. So he asked Juan to
take him to another store to prove once more the qualities of the hat,
after which trial, he said, he would pay him the money. Juan took
his friend to the third store, and the friend was now sure that the
hat could really work wonders. So he paid Juan the five thousand pesos.

When he had received the money, Juan left his friends, went on board
ship, and sailed away to a foreign country. One day the friend who
had bought the hat desired to make a showing with it. So he invited
several friends, among them some ladies. He took them to one of the
stores, and there ordered some refreshments to be served them. When
they had finished, the man bowed with his hat, and started to leave.

"Thank you, sir!" said the owner of the store, "but where is my
payment for the refreshments you have just eaten?"