Origin Myths among the Mountain Peoples of the Philippines

Beyer, H. Otley (Henry Otley), 1883-1966Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
93K words
Chapters
10

Tags

English Originals Folk LiteratureCulture AnthropologyAcademic StudyCreation MythsOral TraditionMountain PeopleExotic CultureFolk LegendPhilippine Peoples

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Origin Myths among the Mountain Peoples of the Philippines by H. Otley BeyerAuthor: Beyer, H. Otley (Henry Otley), 1883-1966,Language: English, Class: BL: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Religion: General, Miscellaneous and Atheism, Release Date: Jun 18, 2014

Editor's review

This book is H. Otley Beyer's thematic record of origin myths among the mountain peoples of the Philippines, a public-domain work in the field of religion and folklore studies. Beyer collected and organized oral narratives from several mountain groups in ethnographic fashion, providing traceable textual material for comparative mythology and Southeast Asian folklore research. Its value lies not in theoretical construction but in preserving samples of oral tradition from a particular period, making it suitable for use as primary source material. Readers should note the recorder's collecting perspective and the limitations of his era, understand the mythic texts in relation to the social context of the ethnic groups, and avoid decontextualized single interpretations. The English is rather academic; slow reading with categorized notes is advised to facilitate comparison with mythic materials from other regions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read group by group, first summarizing the core motif of each myth and then comparing across groups
  2. Consult background material on Southeast Asian ethnography to understand the social context of the subjects
  3. Keep a motif index with notes, marking recurring images and narrative structures
  4. Distinguish the recorder's paraphrase from the original oral form and maintain a critical awareness of the text

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10

FAQ

Is this book a collection of myths or an academic study? It is closer to an ethnographic record and compilation, focused on collecting and presenting oral origin narratives of Philippine mountain peoples rather than constructing a systematic theory of myth. Readers may use it as primary material; theoretical analysis requires other scholarly works.
Can non-specialist readers understand it? Readers with English reading ability and an interest in folklore can attempt it, but the book involves ethnic names, local concepts, and academic phrasing, which can feel remote without background knowledge. It is advisable to first learn the basic distribution of Philippine mountain peoples before entering the text.
Can the mythic material in the book be cited directly? It can be cited as public-domain literature, but attention should be paid to the historical context of the author's collection and paraphrase, clearly distinguishing original oral content from the recorder's formulation. For research, cross-check other ethnographic sources and avoid treating a single record as the complete picture of a given ethnic group.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Beyer, H. Otley (Henry Otley), 1883-1966 Author · American · 1883–1966

H. Otley Beyer (Henry Otley Beyer, 1883–1966) was an American anthropologist who long conducted research on the ethnic cultures and archaeology of the Philippines. His work centered on the cultures of the Philippine archipelago, with particular attention to the oral traditions and belief systems of mountain peoples. His representative work, Origin Myths among the Mountain Peoples of the Philippines, focuses on the origin myths of these mountain communities, recording and comparing related narratives and offering early ethnographic material for understanding local cosmology and cultural identity. Because public information is limited, his full education, posts, and academic career cannot be described in detail; yet his surviving work shows a combination of fieldwork and textual documentation, with an emphasis on cultural origins and comparative mythology. These results are still cited in Philippine ethnology and folklore studies and retain foundational reference value, reflecting his concern for preserving local culture.