Of the ceremonies connected with death we learn very little except that
the women discard their arm beads, the mourners don old clothing, and
all wail for the dead (pp. 44, 90). Three times we are told that the
deceased is placed on a tabalang, or raft, on which a live rooster is
fastened before it is set adrift on the river. In the tales the raft
and fowl are of gold, but this is surprising even to the old woman
Alokotan, past whose home in Nagbotobotan all these rafts must go
(p. 131).

Up to this time in our reconstruction of the life of "the first
times" we have mentioned nothing impossible or improbable to the
present day Tinguian, although, as we shall see later, there are some
striking differences in customs and ideas. We have purposely left the
description of the people and their practice of magic to the last,
although their magical practices invade every activity of their lives,
for it is here that the greatest variations from present conditions
apparently occur.

These people had intimate relations with some of the lesser spirits,
especially with the liblibayan, [27] who appear to be little more
than their servants, with the evil spirits known as banbanayo,
[28] and with the alan [29] (p. 123). The alan, just mentioned,
are to-day considered as deformed spirits who live in the forests:
"They are as large as people but have wings and can fly; their toes
are at the back of their feet and their fingers point backwards from
their wrists." The several references to them in the tales such as
"you alan girls whose toes on your feet turn out" indicate they were
so considered in the first times (p. 161). Some of them are addressed
as "you alan of the springs," and in one instance a man dives down
into the water where the alan live (p. 148), but in general their