The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 17 of 55 / 1609-1616 / Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

by Unknown

The Missions at Octon and to the Malucas

XIII. In addition to our accustomed labors with the Spaniards and Indians of Arevalo, there has been another of no small importance with a large force of troops, who undertook an expedition to the Malucas. No trifling benefit was carried to the foreigners by Father Francisco Gonzalez, who had been called back thence to the town of Zebu to take the four vows. On his journey he brought back into the way the Indians everywhere, who were turning aside to their madness and their idols. He reestablished Christian customs, baptized children and adults, made stable their fickle and inconstant marriages, and did many more things of the same kind—which, though unwritten, are understood. The following event should not lack a pen. A man entangled by lewd delights, but moved by the fact that he had no example among the repentant people, or by the influence of a festival just then announced, had settled himself to a proper life; but rising in the middle of the night he went out from his house, and was longing for his accustomed delights. While he was doing so, behold two specters, very large and horribly black, wrapped in hanging cloaks, appeared to him. The unhappy man dared to annoy them by approaching and speaking to them. Without answering, they snatched him up and carried him high in air, filling everything with his screams and cries, and struggling in vain. His neighbors, awakened and following the sound of the voice, went round the whole village without finding anything. At last at dawn they found the man among the thick bramble-bushes on the mountains, his body all bruised, and himself half-dead and speechless. When they found him, they took him to our church, and the prayers of many were offered for him, and remedies were applied. At last he recovered his senses and his speech, and cried aloud that he had been punished by the just judgment of God, since he had for a long time neglected the precepts that he had received at confession, and had not done the things becoming a Christian. He then went on to say that when the demons carried him off, they took him to a deep black cave; and just as they were about to hurl him down into it, he was delivered by the intervention of God, to whom he had commended himself. Thus, having confessed his sins, he put on a better way of living.

XIV. The member of the Society who accompanied the general of the Philippines on the expedition to the Malucas, Father Angelo Armano,[5] did his duty during the whole time of the voyage and the war, not without peril on land and sea. He did with energy what could be done in the midst of arms, the noise of artillery, the ambushes of the enemy, and the slaughter. And surely there was great hope of extending religion by this expedition, for the native king himself, when detained at Manila with his son and other chiefs for five years often used to promise the governor that if he would send a fleet to the Malucas again, he himself would give into subjection and obedience to his Catholic Majesty all his vassals, who are estimated at about two hundred thousand souls. This has seemed the quickest way to liberate the Malucan Christians from the new yoke of the Dutch heretics, by which they are oppressed. The multitude of those who have thus far professed the Christian faith there can be estimated only from the Amboynans, of whom the number reaches above twenty thousand. Therefore, although the general came back, home in glory from this expedition, after winning a victory, yet he has expressed his grief more than once that the welfare and salvation of all this great number of islands and tribes should be insufficiently provided for on account of the lack of priests; and he has affirmed that he wishes more earnestly for nothing than that he might have the opportunity of sending forth many of the Society of Jesus on this divine work.

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[1] Latin, Bacchanalia. In Latin countries, the three days before Ash Wednesday are given up to boisterous outdoor merriment, which frequently degenerates into coarse and licentious revelry. Hence, the expression “Bacchanalia” Carnival. In order to counteract these abuses, the Jesuits at Macerata in Italy, introduced, in 1556, some special devotions during the three days. The Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament was held in the church, this custom was adopted by St. Charles Borromeo, in Milan; and it gradually extended to other places, and was developed subsequently into “The Devotion of the Forty Hours,” which is not confined to the Carnival season. This is the explanation of the term “Bacchanalia,” in connection with that church ceremony—Rev. E.I. Devitt, S.J.

[2] Evidently referring to the capture of van Caerden’s fleet by Heredia (see note 26, post).

[3] Flagellation in the Philippines was a custom probably taken from the early Spanish friars, but it has been so discouraged of late years by the church that it is performed only in the smaller villages of the interior and in the outlying barrios of the larger towns, more or less secretly, away from the sight of white men. Especially is it prevalent during Holy Week. Although the Philippine flagellants are called ”penitentes” the flagellation is not done in penance, but as the result of a vow or promise made to the diety in return for the occurrence of some wished-for event, and the ”penitentes” are frequently from the most knavish class. The fulfillment of the vow is a terrible ordeal, and begins back of the small chapel called ”visita” that exists in every village. The ”penitente” wears only a pair of loose thin white cotton trousers, and is beaten on the back by another native first with hands and then with a piece of wood with little metal points in it until the blood flows freely. Thus he walks from visita to visita, with covered face, beating himself with a cord, into the end of which is braided a bunch of sticks about the size of lead pencils. He prostrates himself in the dust and is beaten on the back and soles of his feet with a flail. At every stream he plunges into it, and grovels before every visita. From all the houses as he passes comes the chant of the Passion. (Lieut. Charles Norton Barney, who was an eye-witness of the flagellation—“Circumcision and flagellation among the Filipinos,” in the Journal of the Association of Military Surgeons, September, 1903.)

[4] See Vol. IX, note 13. Roberto Bellarmino, born in 1542, entered the Jesuit order in 1560, becoming one of its most famous theological writers. He was long connected with the college at Rome, and later was successively provincial of Naples, a cardinal of the Roman church (from 1599), and archbishop of Capua (1602–05); he died at Rome, September 17, 1621, Perhaps the most widely known of his works is the Doctrina christiana (Rome, 1598); it passed through many editions, abridgments, and translations, having been rendered into more than fifty languages. See account of these in Sommervogel’s Bibliothèque de la Compagnie dé Jésus, art. “Bellarmino.” “He was the first Jesuit who had ever taken part in the election of a pope”—Cretineau-Joly’s Hist. Comp. de Jésus (Paris, 1859), iii, p. 106. This refers to the election of Paul V (1605).

[5] In the Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library) i, pp. 341–381, is a copy of a letter (dated June 11, 1611) from Father Armano to his provincial, Gregorio Lopez, detailing the achievements of Silva’s expedition to the Moluccas in 1611—on which occasion Silva restored to his throne Zayri, king of Ternate, who had been kept as a prisoner at Manila for five years. Rizal says in his edition of Morga, p. 247, note 1, that this king did not return to his island. He was probably taken back to Manila shortly after this restoration.