Later Religious Myths and Miracles
Among stories that date no farther back than the Spanish conquest we find the usual tales of sacred springs, of visions, and of blessed objects. The Church of the Holy Infant, in the city of Cebu, contains an image of the Christ child, about fifteen inches in height, carved in ebony, preserved in much state and loaded with a profusion of ornament. The priests tell you that it was made in heaven, thrown to the earth, and found in 1565 by a soldier who recovered from an illness when he touched it. It was taken to the convent in Cebu, where the clergy emplaced it with great ceremony, and where on the 20th of January in every year it is dressed in a field marshal’s regalia, receives a field marshal’s salute, and is worshipped by thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the archipelago. So many women wrought themselves into an insane frenzy during these January feasts that their sacred dances, which were once a part of the ceremonies, had to be stopped. When the town was burned this statue saved itself from the flames, as did the bamboo cross near the church, which is said to be the same that was erected by the monk, Martin de Rada, on the day when the Spanish landed, more than three centuries ago. Matter-of-fact historians allow that the figure of the child may have been left there by Magellan. It worked miracles of a surprising character for years after his death, and the first settlement in Cebu was called The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in its honor. The customary discrepancies between the piety and the practice of the conquerors existed in the Philippines, as in the Antilles. They slew the natives until the survivors threw up their hands and professed the right religion; then they shot twenty-four thousand Chinese who had settled in and about Cebu, thus reducing themselves to a wretched state, for these Spaniards had depended on the Chinese as their servants, cooks, farmers, laborers, shoemakers, and tailors. It is worthy of note that other missionaries had shown activity, but with less result, for their methods had been more conciliatory. The Mahometanism that had been introduced by Moslem preachers from Arabia got no farther than Sulu, and the Confucianism imported by Chinamen seems to have obtained no permanent hold. Through all changes the Holy Child remained uninjured, and he continues his good work to this day.
When the Sulu pirates had fallen upon a year of such bad business that they reaped a profit of barely fifty per cent, on their investment in ships and weapons, there was great discontent among them. Prizes were few and defeats occasional. Looking back on their highest hill, as they sailed away, and fearing that when they returned it might be with but half a cargo of gold and rum and Christians, so many of them wept for the misery of this thought that to this day the height is known as Buat Timantangis, or Mount of Tears. In one dull season, when the pirates were almost mutinous because of their continued ill-fortune, it occurred to one of the captains that an image to which the Christians prayed so earnestly and with such good effect might do as much for him as for some other natives. In his barbarian mind there was no absurdity in trying to persuade a gentle Virgin or a pure-minded Saint to deliver into his hands the goods and persons of those who knelt before their effigies. A sacred image was “good medicine” for Spaniards and Tagalogs, and should, therefore, be good medicine for Mahometans. Thus, he bethought him of the statue now known as the Virgin of Antipolo, that came from Spain by way of Mexico in charge of early missionaries. To think was to act. He raided the village where it had been enshrined and attempted to carry it off; but the statue had warned the faithful of its peril, and the marauders were met and driven off by a powerful force. The Virgin of Antipolo became one of the most influential of all the guardians of the islands, and to this day is especially besought by mothers who ask for her intercession on behalf of their sickly children. Holy water taken from her shrine will cure the sufferer, and the mother then performs a public penance in thankfulness. Before the American arrival, with its sudden imposition of new ideas on an old society, it was no uncommon thing to see on Good Friday a company of the richest women in Manila, poorly attired and with bare feet, dragging through the streets a heavy cross thirty feet in length. This was in fulfilment of vows they had made at the shrine of Antipolo.
This Virgin of Antipolo is likewise known as Our Lady of Good Voyage and Peace. She arrived from Mexico in a state galleon in 1626. On the voyage she calmed a storm so quickly that the priests proclaimed her special sanctity, and ordered her to be received in Manila with salutes of bells and guns. While the Jesuits were building a church for her she would often descend from her temporary altar and stand in an antipolo tree (Astocarpus incisa). People cut pieces from this tree for charms against disease and misfortune, until Father Salazar ordered that the trunk should be its pedestal. In an early rebellion the Chinese insurgents threw the statue into the fire. Flames were all about it, yet not a hair, not a thread of lace was singed, and the body of brass was unmarked by smoke. Angered at this defiance of their power, a Chinaman stabbed it in the face, and, curiously, the wound remains to this day in protest against the savagery that incited it. When for a second time the Virgin passed unscathed through a conflagration the Spanish infantry bore her on their shoulders about the streets, shouting in the joy of her protection. A galleon having been endangered by rocks and bars in Manila Bay, the captain borrowed this statue, prayed that it would secure the safety of his ship, and, to the wonder of all, his vessel rode proudly up to the city gates, for the Virgin had ordered that the rocks should sink deeper beneath the sea. Twice afterward she did a like service to captains who borrowed the figure as a safeguard on the long voyage to Mexico and back, for each time she suppressed great storms. At the time of the assault on Manila by the Dutch she assisted in the defeat of the strangers, though St. Mark was associated with her in the victory. He had told the governor in a dream that success should attend the Spanish arms if his people would carry the Virgin into the fight. This was done, and the Dutch lost three ships with their cargoes. She was finally domiciled in the town of Antipolo, which, beside being famous as a shrine, has been one of the most noted resorts for brigands in the Philippines. The village of four thousand people subsists largely on the money spent by pilgrims to her church.
Every family in the Christian communities has a little statue of the Virgin or of a patron saint, to which prayers are addressed. Occasionally as much as a thousand dollars will be paid for one of these images, for some have more power than others. When Tondo caught fire and was reduced to ashes, the houses of mat and bamboo burning like paper, one thing alone survived the flames: a wooden statue of Mary. This token of a special watch upon the figure immediately raised its importance, and it was attired in the dress and ornaments of gold in which it may now be seen. Not all the domestic saints are brilliantly dressed or originally expensive. One Filipino family worshipped a portrait of Garibaldi that adorned the cover of a raisin box, while a native elsewhere was found on his knees before a picture from an American comic paper that represented President Cleveland attired as a monk and wearing a tin halo. Both of these pictures had been placed on altars, and candles were burned before them.
Another statue of great power is in the church at Majajay. It was sent there from Spain in charge of the friars, and is especially besought by invalids, for it is a general belief that whosoever will reach the church with breath enough remaining in him to recite certain prayers before this image shall have fresh lease of life; yea, though he were at his last gasp.
Some of the attacks made on the friars in the Philippines have been construed into attacks on the Church, but this is wrong. For the good of the Church, no less than of the people, it is desired to purge the islands of these ancient offenders. They have used religion as a cloak for evil, have encouraged, in private, vices they preached against in public, have availed themselves of famines and other distresses to force money from the poor, and have fathered as many half-castes as the Spanish soldiers have. As to their offspring, Filipino wives have quieted jealous husbands by assuring them that the appearance of a European complexion in a hitherto brown family was a special favor from St. Peter,—a miracle ordered by the keeper of heaven as a reward for piety and good works. Hence, one hears much of St. Peter’s children in the Philippines. Some of the white inhabitants have nevertheless been conspicuous for virtue. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, for example, the first ruler of the islands, was so good that for years after his death his body, now in the St. Augustine Monastery, Manila, underwent no decay or change, but was like that of a man in sleep.
Alitagtag, north of Bauan, became in 1595 a resort of ghosts and devils that congregated about a spring near the village, so that the people were afraid to go there for water. A native headman took wood from a deserted house, made a cross of it, and set it up near the spring to spell away the fiends. As the people still feared, a woman of courage ventured near the place to find that a stream of cold, pure water was flowing from one of the arms of the cross. To further assure the people that the evil spirits had been mastered the cross arose from the earth and stalked about the fields, surrounded by bright lights. Thereupon the clergy ordered that it should be adored, and from that time it became an object of worship, healing diseases, dispelling plagues, and killing locusts. When the priests at Bauan announced that they intended to move the cross to Lake Bombon, the priest of Taal, being jealous of his brothers in the other town, hired some natives to steal it and take it to his house. No sooner had the men assembled for this purpose than sheets of green fire fell about the cross, defending it from their approach, and in a frenzy of contrition they ran back, solemnly vowing that they would never make a similar attempt again. The cross was, therefore, taken to Bauan, where it did service for the people by terrorizing a band of pirates and by stopping an eruption of the Taal volcano in 1611. This peak of Taal had been a resort of devils from time immemorial, and it had been a frequent duty of the Church to pray them into silence. In the year just named Father Albuquerque headed a procession that ascended the mountain for this purpose. Near the summit he paused and lifted the cup containing the blood of Christ. Dreadful noises were heard, like the laughter of ten thousand fiends, in vaults below. Then, with a groan and crash, the earth split and two craters appeared, one filled with boiling sulphur, the other with green water. The cross was sent for. It was brought by four hundred natives. When it was put into the priest’s hands he lifted it toward the sky and all united in prayer. During this petition, while every head was bent and all eyes were shut, the craters softly closed and Taal was as it had been before. Yet the demons still linger about the mountain. Not many years ago an Englishman tunnelled the peak for sulphur. The fiends of the volcano shook the roof down on his head and he perished. In May it has been a custom to hold a feast in honor of this cross, if the natives furnish the necessary candles and raise ten dollars for the officiating priest.
Bangi, in Ilocos Norte, had a shrine in which was the image of a child with a lamb. Herbs pressed against it would cure all diseases. For years a dispute was carried on between clerical factions as to whether it represented St. John the Baptist or Christ. Bishop Miguel Garcia, having undressed it and examined it thoroughly, decided it to be a Chinese idol. Thereupon it was broken and burned as a thing unholy.
Our Lady of Casaysay, in Batangas, is so esteemed that ships salute her in passing. She was found by a fisherman in his net. He took her to a cave, not knowing what to make of his strange find, and intending to keep her there probably as a treasure not to be shared by his neighbors. She astonished and disappointed him by proclaiming herself with flashing lights of beautiful color and with loud music. As these demonstrations frightened the peaceable rustics, the Virgin left her cave, visited a native woman, spoke kindly to her, and was thereupon provided with a shrine, where she might be adored with proper ceremony.
The statue of St. Joaquin at Gusi is remarkable because every year it runs away and spends two weeks with its wooden wife, the figure of St. Ann, at Molo.
Manila once had a saint that wagged its head approvingly at certain points in the sermon. This conduct drove so many women into hysterics, and crowded the church so dangerously with people who went to see the miracle, that the archbishop discountenanced its action, and ordered that it should be quiet thereafter. Quiet was easily secured by cutting the string attached to the saint’s neck. The padre was accustomed to pull this during his discourse whenever he wished his congregation to believe that the saints approved his eloquence or endorsed his doctrine.
Holy water from the Conception district of Panay saves life, and San Pascual Bailon cures barrenness. A Manila milkman who was punished for selling watered milk expressed surprise at the complaints of his customers, because no wrong had been committed, inasmuch as he had used nothing but holy water, which was far superior to milk. Water from the prison well at Iloilo was held at so high a value that the prison-keeper made a fortune from it, as it was given out that Christ and the Virgin had been seen bathing in the well. Our Lady of the Holy Waters presides over the hot springs below Maquiling Mountain, an old crater. Another popular place of pilgrimage is the shrine at Tagbauang, near Iloilo, where illnesses are cured at a high mass in January.
One of the last recorded appearances of the Virgin was in 1884, when a band of robbers in Tayabas killed a plantation manager, wounded several laborers, and ransacked the house of the owner. While in one of the bedrooms tying clothes, jewelry, and other loot into parcels for removal, the Virgin appeared, and standing in the door looked with severity and distress on the bandits. They immediately left their plunder and ran pell-mell from the building. Some of these robbers were arrested, but the Virgin had compassion on them for leaving the proceeds of their raid, so none was garroted or even sentenced. Some go so far as to say that the Virgin had nothing to do with their escape from punishment, alleging that the officers of the law had conspired with them, and that the Spanish courts were even worse than those of a land that shall be nameless in respect of their slowness and the facilities they offered for adjournments, retrials, and appeals on grounds that if presented in any other cause than that of a breaker of the law would be laughed to scorn. Filipino bandits often wear medals of the Virgin and saints to protect them from harm, and some are made bold by confidence in their protection. It is a belief of theirs that they will never be punished for any crime they may commit in Easter week, for the rather obscure reason that Christ pardoned the thief on the cross on Good Friday.
A curious chapel on a bluff near Pasig, overlooking the river of that name, has the form of a pagoda. It was built as a thank-offering by a Chinaman who, having been endangered by a crocodile, and having called on men and joss without receiving an answer, prayed volubly to the Christians’ God as he swam toward the shore, and promised to erect a chapel in return for his life. His prayer was answered, for the crocodile was turned to stone, and may now be seen in the bed of the stream, while the grateful Mongol kept his word, and also joined the church.