has been sadly neglected
and even to secure this list has demanded much labor. It suffices
to show how deeply the riddle is rooted in Oriental thought and
indicates the probability that riddles were used in Malaysia long
before European contact.

To what degree Filipino riddles are indigenous and original is an
interesting but difficult question. So far as they are of European
origin or influenced by European thought, they have come from or
been influenced by Spain. Whatever comparison is made should chiefly,
and primarily, be with Spanish riddles. But our available sources of
information regarding Spanish riddles are not numerous. We have only
Demofilo's _Collecion de enigmas y adivinanzas_, printed at Seville
in 1880, and a series of five chap-books from Mexico, entitled _Del
Pegueno Adivinadorcito_, and containing a total of three hundred and
seven riddles. Filipino riddles deal largely with animals, plants and
objects of local character; such must have been made in the Islands
even if influenced by Spanish models and ideas. Some depend upon purely
local customs and conditions--thus numbers 170, 237, etc., could only
originate locally. Some, to which the answers are such words as egg,
needle and thread, etc., (answers common to riddles in all European
lands), may be due to outside influence and may still have some local
or native touch or flavor, in their metaphors; thus No. 102 is actually
our "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;" the Mexican form runs:

"Una arquita muy chiquita
tan blanca como la cal
todo lo saben abrir
pero ninguno cerrar."

But the metaphor "the King's limebox" could only occur in a district
of betel-chewing and is a native touch. Many of the Filipino riddles
introduce the names of saints and, to that degree, evidence foreign
influence; but even in such cases there may be local coloring; thus,
calling rain-drops falling "rods," "St. Joseph's rods cannot be
counted," could hardly be found outside of the tropics. Religious
riddles, relating to beads, bells, church, crucifixes, are common
enough and are necessarily due to outside influence, but even such
sometimes show a non-European attitude of mind, metaphorical expression
or form of thought.

Everywhere riddles vary in quality and value. Many are stupid
things, crudely conceived and badly expressed. Only the exceptional
is fine. Examine any page of one of our own riddle books and you
may criticize almost every riddle upon it