position in the estimation of his fellows.

The purely ritualistic tales, called diams, are learned word by word
by the mediums, [2] as a part of their training for their positions,
and are only recited while an animal is being stroked with oil
preparatory to its being sacrificed, or when some other gift is about
to be presented to the superior beings. The writer has recorded these
diams from various mediums in widely separated towns and has found
them quite uniform in text and content. The explanatory tales were
likewise secured from the mediums, or from old men and women who
"know the customs." The stories of the last division are the most
frequently heard and, as already indicated, are told by all. It is
evident even to the casual reader that these show much more evidence
of outside influence than do the others; some, indeed, appear to have
been recently borrowed from the neighboring christianized Ilocano. [3]


TALES OF THE MYTHICAL PERIOD

Reconstruction of the Culture.--In the first division certain actors
occur with great frequency, while others always take the leading
parts. These latter appear under a variety of names, two or more
titles often being used for the same individual in a single tale. To
avoid confusion a list of the fourteen principal actors and their
relationships are given in the accompanying table. It will appear that
there are some conflicts in the use of names, but when it is realized
that the first twenty-six myths which make up the cycle proper were
secured from six story tellers coming from four different towns,
the agreement rather than the disagreement is surprising. As a matter
of fact there is quite as much variation between the accounts of the