The story of Sicalac and Sicavay is a central Visayan myth
explaining the origin of the first man. The following story is taken from the
book, The Philippine Islands, 1493-1503, Vol. V., 1582-1583, edited by Emma
Helen Blair. It is an account of various Spanish explorers on the geography of
the Philippines and the various mythological stories they encountered. Sicalac
and Sicavay is a story among the Pintados, who are described as fair-skinned
people whose males decorate their whole body with tattoos. These lived in the
islands of central Visayas (Cebu, Bohol, Leyte).
The story also explains the origin of the islands Cebu and
Samar, the origin of concubinage, and the origin of stealing.
The people of the coast, who are called the Yligueynes
[Hiligaynons, or the Ilonggos], believe that heaven and earth had no beginning,
and that there were two gods, one called Captan and the other Maguayen. They
believe that the land breeze and the sea breeze were married; and that the land
breeze brought forth a reed, which was planted by the god Captan. When the reed
grew, it broke into two sections, which became a man and a woman. To the man
they gave the name of Sicalac, and that is the reason why men from that time on
have been called lalac [lalaki, man]; the woman they called Sicavay, and
thenceforth women have been called babayes [babae, woman].
One day the man asked the woman to marry him, for there were
no other people in the world; but she refused, saying that they were brother
and sister, born of the same reed, with only one knot between them; and that
she would not marry him, since he was her brother. Finally they agreed to ask
advice from the tunnies [tuna fishes] of the sea, and from the doves of the
air; they also went to the earthquake, who said that it was necessary for them
to marry, so that the world might be peopled. They married, and called their
first son Sibo [Cebu]; then a daughter was born to them, and they gave her the
name of Samar. This brother and sister also had a daughter, called Lupluban.
She married Pandaguan, a son of the first pair, and had a son called Anoranor.
Pandaguan was the first to invent a net for fishing at sea;
and, the first time when he used it, he caught a shark and brought it on shore,
thinking that it would not die. But the shark died when brought ashore; and
Pandaguan, when he saw this, began to mourn and weep over it—complaining
against the gods for having allowed the shark to die, when no one had died
before that time. It is said that the god Captan, on hearing this, sent the
flies to ascertain who the dead one was; but, as the flies did not dare to go,
Captan sent the weevil, who brought back the news of the shark’s death. The god
Captan was displeased at these obsequies to a fish. He and Maguayen made a
thunderbolt, with which they killed Pandaguan; he remained thirty days in the
infernal regions, at the end of which time the gods took pity upon him, brought
him back to life, and returned him to the world.
While Pandaguan was dead, his wife Lubluban became the
concubine of a man called Maracoyrun; and these people say that at that time concubinage
began in the world. When Pandaguan returned, he did not find his wife at home,
because she had been invited by her friend to feast upon a pig that he had
stolen; and the natives say that this was the first theft committed in the
world. Pandaguan sent his son for Lubluban, but she refused to go home, saying
that the dead do not return to the world. At this answer Pandaguan became
angry, and returned to the infernal regions. The people believe that, if his
wife had obeyed his summons, and he had not gone back at that time, all the
dead would return to life.