Anting-Anting Stories
And Other
Strange Tales of the Filipinos
By
Sargent Kayme
Boston: Small, Maynard & Company 1901
Copyright, 1901, by
Small, Maynard & Company
(Incorporated)
Entered at Stationers’ Hall
Press of
J. J. Arakelyan
Boston, U.S.A.[V]
Foreword
The life of the inhabitants of the far-away Eastern islands in which the people of the United States are now so vitally interestedopens to our literature a new field not less fresh and original than that which came to us when Mr. Kipling first publishedhis Indian tales. India had always possessed its wonders and its remarkable types, but they waited long for adequate expression.No less wonderful and varied are the inhabitants and the phenomena of the Philippines, and a new author, showing rare knowledgeof the country and its strange peoples, now gives us a collection of simple yet powerful stories which bring them before uswith dramatic vividness.
Pirates, half naked natives, pearls, man-apes, towering volcanoes about whose summits clouds and unearthly traditions floattogether, strange animals and birds, and stranger men, pythons, bejuco ropes stained with human blood, feathering palm treesnow fanned by soft breezes and now crushed to the ground by tornadoes;—on no mimic stage was ever a more [VI]wonderful scene set for such a company of actors. That the truly remarkable stories written by Sargent Kayme do not exaggeratethe realities of this strange life can be easily seen by any one who has read the letters from press correspondents, our soldiers,or the more formal books of travel.
Strangest, perhaps, of all these possibilities for fiction is the anting-anting, at once a mysterious power to protect itspossessor and the outward symbol of the protection. No more curious fetich can be found in the history of folk-lore. A button,a coin, a bit of paper with unintelligible words scribbled upon it, a bone, a stone, a garment, anything, almost—often a thingof no intrinsic value—its owner has been known to walk up to the muzzle of a loaded musket or rush upon the point of a bayonetwith a confidence so sublime as to silence ridicule and to command admiration if not respect.
The Editor.[VII]