sees in this Orient), which had only
two nodules. That bamboo, floating on the water, was carried by the
waves to the feet of the kite, which was on the seacoast. The kite,
in anger at what had struck its feet, opened the bamboo by picking it
with its beak. When it was opened, out of one nodule came man and from
the other woman. After various difficulties because of the obstacle
of consanguinity in the first degree, one of the gods namely, the
earthquake, after consulting with the fish and birds, absolved them,
and they married and had many children. From those children came the
various kinds and classes of people. For it happened that the parents,
angered at having so many children idle and useless in the house,
took counsel together; afterward the father one day gave way to his
anger, and was desirous of punishing them with a stick which he had
in his hand (a thing which they can never do). The children fled,
so that some of them took refuge in the chambers and innermost parts
of the house, from whom they say came the chiefs; others escaped
outside, and from them came the freemen, whom they call timauas;
others fled to the kitchen and lower parts, and they are the slaves;
others fled to various distant places, and they are the other nations.

108. It is not known whether there was any temple [25] in all these
islands, or any place assigned in common for worship; or that the
people ever assembled for public functions. In private they were
wont to have in their own houses (and not outside them in any cave
or like place) some kind of altars, on which they placed their idols,
and before them a small brasier with burning aromatics. But although
they had no temples, they did not lack priests or priestesses
for the sacrifices, which each one offered for his own purpose or
necessity. The Tagalogs called those cursed ministers catalonan,
and the Visayans babaylan. Some were priests by inheritance and
relationship; others by the dexterity with which they caused themselves
to be instructed and substituted in the office of famous priests by
gaining their good-will. Others were deceived by the devil with his
wonted wiles, and made a pact with him to assist them, and to hold
converse with him through their idols or anitos; and he appeared to
them in various forms. The method of making the sacrifices hinged
on the different purposes for which they were intended. If it were
for a feast of ostentation and vanity that was being made to