The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Book of Filipino Riddles, by Various

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Title: A Little Book of Filipino Riddles

Author: Various

Release Date: December 15, 2004 [EBook #14358]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE BOOK OF FILIPINO RIDDLES ***

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Philippine Studies
I

A Little Book of Filipino Riddles

Collected and Edited
by
Frederick Starr

World Book Co.
Yonkers, New York
1909

Copyrighted 1909 by Frederick Starr
The Torch Press Cedar Rapids, Iowa

This Little Book of
Filipino Riddles
Is Dedicated To
Gelacio Caburian
Casimiro Verceles
Rufino Dungan
of
Agoo, Union Province

INTRODUCTION

Although I had already inquired for them from Ilocano boys, my first
actual knowledge of Filipino riddles was due to Mr. George T. Shoens,
American teacher among the Bisayans. He had made a collection of some
fifty Bisayan riddles and presented a brief paper regarding them at
the Anthropological Conference held at Baguio, under my direction, on
May 12-14, 1908. My own collection was begun among Ilocano of Union
Province from whom about two hundred examples were secured. Others
were later secured from Pangasinan, Gaddang, Pampangan, Bisayan and
Tagal sources. My informants have chiefly been school-boys, who spoke
a little English; they wrote the text of riddle and answer in their
native tongue and then we went over them carefully together to make
an English translation and to get at the meaning. Many Filipinos
know how to read and write their native language, although few have