Apayao (Isneg)

(map)

Long ago, when there were still few people in the world, food was plentiful, and people lived at ease. One anito became upset at their happiness and caused a long drought. Rivers and streams dried up, and plants and livestock began to die. The people prayed to the good anito to bring rain. On the seventh day of their prayers, a heavy rain and strong wind began. It increased in violence and lasted three days, until all the world was water. All living creatures drowned. Then the waters receded to form the ocean.

Laurence L. Wilson, Apayao Life and Legends (Baguio?: P.I., 1947), 95-96.

During the flood, only one mountaintop was not covered by water, and most people and animals that did not find space there were drowned. One man saw a cat floating on a coconut, and he wanted to get the coconut from it.

"Please give me the coconut," he said to the cat.

"No. This is all I have left after the flood."

The water went down, and the coconut settled on the ground. It sprouted and grew. The man took care of the coconut tree, and the cat lived with the man. Now, when people split and grate coconuts, the cat comes and asks for some. They like coconut meat, and the women give them some so that they stay near the house.

Laurence L. Wilson, Apayao Life and Legends (Baguio?: P.I., 1947), 97.

A man named Magtongay once lived with his family in Karogawan. He had pet birds, cats, and a dog, and he loved them well.

Once, while he was hewing a board for a new house, one of his birds came to him and said, "Magtongay, you should be building a boat, not a house. There is another great flood coming, which may arrive any time."

Magtongay made a boat. The bird told him to fasten it, so he found a long rattan with which he tied it to a tree near his house.

One night he was awakened by a fierce storm, and the rain continued to fall even more heavily the next day, until everything was flooded. He took his dog, cats, and birds and jumped into his boat. His brother had made a raft. Since his boat was too small, he told his brother to take his wife and children on the raft.

His brother's raft drifted to the summit of a mountain called Wayan. The water rose so high that Magtongay was forced to cut the rattan holding his boat, and he drifted on the water for two days, finally landing among people whose language was strange to him. He became acquainted with their ways and made friends there, but he never saw his family again.

Laurence L. Wilson, Apayao Life and Legends (Baguio?: P.I., 1947), 110-111.