"Una arquita muy chiquita
tan blanca como la cal
todo lo saben abrir
pero ninguno cerrar."


But the metaphor "the King's limebox" could only occur in a district
of betel-chewing and is a native touch. Many of the Filipino riddles
introduce the names of saints and, to that degree, evidence foreign
influence; but even in such cases there may be local coloring; thus,
calling rain-drops falling "rods," "St. Joseph's rods cannot be
counted," could hardly be found outside of the tropics. Religious
riddles, relating to beads, bells, church, crucifixes, are common
enough and are necessarily due to outside influence, but even such
sometimes show a non-European attitude of mind, metaphorical expression
or form of thought.

Everywhere riddles vary in quality and value. Many are stupid
things, crudely conceived and badly expressed. Only the exceptional
is fine. Examine any page of one of our own riddle books and you
may criticize almost every riddle upon it for view-point, or form,
or flavor. We must not demand more from Filipino riddles than from
our own. Some knowledge of local products, customs, conditions, is
necessary for the understanding of their meaning; when understood,
they are fully equal to ours in shrewdness, wit and expression. Krauss
emphasizes the fact that everywhere riddles tend to coarseness and
even to obscenity and discusses the reasons. What is true elsewhere
is true here; a considerable number of Filipino riddles are coarse;
we have introduced them but emphasize the fact that any scientifically