recognizing that similarity of incidents does not necessarily mean
identity of origin, we must still give full credit to the effects
of borrowing, even over great distances. The easy communication
along the coast during the past four hundred years and the contact
with Spanish and Christianized officials and traders will readily
explain the likeness of the tales in Division III to those held in
distant islands, or even in Europe, but, as just noted, these are
now undergoing change. Doubtless a similar inflow had been taking
place, although at a slower rate, long before the Spaniards reached
the Islands, and Tinguian mythology has grown up as the result of
blending of native tales with those of other areas, the whole being
worked over and reshaped until it fitted the social setting.

Previous writers--among them Ratzel and Graebner [77]--have sought
to account for certain resemblances in culture, between Malaysia,
Polynesia, and America, by historical connection. A part of our
material--such as that of the blood-clot child (p. 125), [78] the
rape of the maiden by the vine which carries her to the sky (p. 33),
the magic flight (p. 75), and magic growth (p. 38) [79]--may seem
to lend support to such a theory. These similarities are assuredly
suggestive and interesting, but it appears to the writer that the
material is too scanty and the folklore of intervening lands too
little known to justify us in considering them as convincing proof
of borrowing over such immense distances. [80]


General Results

Our study has brought out certain general results. We have seen
that Tinguian folklore has much in common with that of other tribes