Sinukuan's Animal Court

About the legend

Being

Kapampangan Mountain King and Judge of the Animals

Cultural meaning

In Kapampangan tradition, Sinukuan is the great figure of Mount Arayat, the lone mountain of Pampanga. He is strong and wise, and he can change his shape whenever he likes. In old Pampanga tales he is a king, the judge of the animals or the ruler of all plants and animals, and Pampangans have long told many stories about him.

Fun fact

In real life, father mosquitoes never bite. They drink sweet nectar from flowers. Only mother mosquitoes bite, because they need extra food for their eggs.

Cultural notes

Mount Arayat stands alone on the flat farmland of the Central Luzon plain in Pampanga and rises to about 1,026 meters above sea level, so it can be seen from far across the province. Local legend says Sinukuan lives at the White Rock, a rock dome inside the mountain's broken crater. This story was written down as "The Trial among the Animals," told by Domingo Pineda of Pampanga, in Dean S. Fansler's Filipino Popular Tales (1921). Fansler printed four more versions of the same chain: "The Pugu's Case" and "The Bacuit's Case" from Pampanga, "Why Mosquitoes Hum" from Tagbilaran in Bohol, where Mangla, king of the crabs, hears the case, and "A Tyrant," a Tagalog version in which a snail takes the turtle's place. Fansler called it a "clock" story and was sure the cycle was native to the Philippines, and he compared it with a Malay tale, "Who Killed the Otter's Babies?" In another Pampangan tale in the same book, "Why the Crow Is Black," Sinukuan rules over all plants and animals. In other tellings Sinukuan is a woman, Mariang Sinukuan; this story follows Fansler's tale, where Sinukuan is a man.

About this retelling

Traditional retelling of a Kapampangan animal tale "The Trial among the Animals," a Pampanga tale printed by Dean S. Fansler in 1921, retold for children.

The old tale gives this story its frame and every step of the trial: Sinukuan in his cave on Mount Arayat, his power to take the shape of the animals who come to him, the animals choosing him as their judge, the bird's complaint against the noisy frog, the frog afraid of the turtle's house, the turtle afraid of the firefly's fire, the firefly afraid of the mosquito, and the mosquito who has no good reason and loses his voice during three days of confinement. In the old tale, Sinukuan left the town because the people there envied him and plotted against his life; we left out the plots. We gave the mosquito a sharp nose instead of a dagger and turned his prison into three quiet days in a corner of Sinukuan's cave. In the old tale the hearings stretch over more than one day and the mosquito loses his voice entirely; ours happen in one day and night, and the mosquito keeps a faint hum. The old ending says the male mosquito has had no voice ever since and is afraid to carry his dagger; ours says father mosquitoes have only a faint hum and never poke anyone. Sinukuan taking each animal's shape during the trial, the bird fetching the animals and watching every hearing, the mosquito's answer, the bird's apology to the frog and all the words the characters speak were written for Filipino Tales.

Sources

• Dean S. Fansler, "Filipino Popular Tales" (American Folk-Lore Society, 1921), Tale 60: "The Trial among the Animals" (Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive (1921 scan))

Themes

• Fairness
• Listening
• Patience
• Pampanga
• Mount Arayat
• Kapampangan
• Animal fables
• Bedtime

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