The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55, 1690-1691 / 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 Natives of the Southern Islands

[Francisco Combés, S.J.,[1] in his Historia de las islas de Mindanao, Iolo, y sus adjacentes (Madrid, 1667), devotes a number of pages to the peoples of Mindanao and other islands. This matter we translate from the reprint issued (Madrid, 1887) by Pablo Pastells, S.J., and W. E. Retana, book i, chapters ix–xviii.]

Chapter IX

Of the nations of these islands and those adjacent to them

Four nations have renown in this island, the Caragas,[2] Mindanaos,[3] Lutaos,[4] and Subanos.[5] That of most renown is the nation of Caraga, which, although it is the smallest numerically, has been the greatest in deeds. In times past that nation was the scourge of the islands, as is today proclaimed by the depredations that still are fresh in memory in the islands of Pintados—especially so in that of Leyte, where there is scarce a village which has not bewailed its ruin. A good part of this ruin extended to Ours, the pirates having pillaged our town of Palo and destroyed all the villages of the coast, taking prisoner the father ransomer,[6] who exercised that office for all the jurisdiction, and obliging those who lived in the villages to retire into the mountains. Those nations maintained themselves by their own valor, without protection of the pagan kings; they were bold against all, and no one dared to do anything to them. They are a brave nation on sea and land, and on land they are the first nation of the islands; and by their aid great exploits have been accomplished, as was seen in the conquest of the lake of Malanao, and in all others that have occurred since they were subdued by the gospel and the Catholic arms.

The second nation in estimation is the Mindanao, which includes the kingdoms of Buhayen; for in olden times they were all one nation, and today, although various petty rulers govern them, they are one in customs and language. They are a nation of some valor, and with their policy of being subject to kings they have acquired esteem among the other nations, whom they have united under one political government for achievements that are too great for their own courage. They are treacherous and of little faith, as they are now swayed by the impious worship of Mahomet.

The third nation is the Lutaya. It is a nation common to these islands of Mindanao, Jolo, and Basilan. In all these islands it preserves the name of Lutao, for since that is their vocation it well explains their nature. For Lutao means, in those languages, “he who swims and goes floating over the water.” Such is the nature of these people that they know no other house than the ship. In the villages which they have formed they well show the inclination with which they were born; for they are so fond of living on the sea that their houses are built in it, in places which the low tide leaves exposed. In that way they can set upright the trunks of the trees with which they must form their houses, driving them down according to the load which they have to sustain. When it is high tide the houses are very far from the shore, and the water in between is so deep that brigs and craft of heavier tonnage can sail there. These people hate the land so thoroughly that they do not trouble themselves at all about its cultivation, nor get any benefit from it. All their labor lies in fishing, and they get from that the means of barter for whatever they need, even for the wood that they burn and the logs from which they build their houses and craft. Since they are so slightly attached to the land, they easily move to other parts, and know no fixed abode except the sea; for although they recognize villages, in which they assemble, they seldom live in these, for they are scattered through the bays and beaches suitable for their fishing. They live under the kings of Mindanao and Jolo, and the chiefs of the same, and those of the island of Basilan; today with some, tomorrow with others, according to the district in which they are. Those of this island are scattered along all the coast which extends from Samboangan to the river of Mindanao, and have no fixed dwelling in any other part—except some of them who have settled in the city of Cebú and a few others in the village of Dapitan. They are equally esteemed in all parts as being the sinews for the wars of these regions (their campaign field being the sea), and also for their skill in constructing vessels fit for the wars of these regions, and their skill in managing them.

By their constant communication with,all the nations (as they go to all parts for their advantage), and because of their method of living—which is so in the manner of traders, enjoying the fruits of the land—and by the alertness of their intelligence, they are the most capable, the most clear-sighted, and the most crafty people of these islands. Therefore, they maintain the supremacy in everything, and, although they are the smallest in number, and everywhere the most foreign [of all these peoples], they are today the kings, and hold the rulers as their slaves; for now by loans, now by violence, and now by private vengeance, they have established the entire slavery of these islands.

As their work causes but little exertion, naturally they grow up lazy, and only shake off their laziness for the gains and advantages of an industry like trading and sea piracy. And since the gains derived from that source are sure, both because the cunning employed by them is that of finished robbers, and because their wings are those of royal falcons, they are most eager for that exercise, as they are assured by these advantages from all danger; for, whether it be because of the swiftness of their ships or because of their skill in rowing them, no ship of ours has ever been able to overtake them. Assured on that point, they have pillaged whatever their greed has dictated to them. Their method of attack is for all of them to land at once with a terrifying and barbaric cry, the awfulness of which strikes terror to the people as they are caught defenseless and separated and thus incapable of resistance.

They are more circumspect on the sea, when danger does not oblige them to make resistance. For since these natives do not fight for reputation, but only for gain, they seek to assure that, and not to buy it too dear with their blood. Therefore, when they meet a ship which they think cannot make any resistance they go to it in certainty of making it a prize, and that they will catch it a half-legua from shore. However small it be, they do not care to seize it if there is any danger. They continue to row about it, until they cause it to waste its powder in spectacular warfare, and then, when they see it weakening, they attack it with great valor throwing by hand so many missile weapons that no man can [safely] show his face; and when they get within range there is rarely a man who is not wounded, for they hurl these missiles in showers. No matter how well equipped a boat may be, if once it gets within their range it has to surrender; for then their men, both sailors and soldiers hurl their arrows with both hands, so that they confuse those who uncover themselves for the fight. But by startling them from a distance, that danger is not imminent, and less resistance suffices. In order that this may be better understood, I shall relate some attested incidents of such encounters. One happened to an inhabitant of Dapitan, with whom I sailed for many days. He, when going toward his village in a small boat, met the fleet of the Joloans. A ship with one piece immediately left the fleet to pursue him. The Indian carried a musket, and after he had discharged it the enemy, recognizing it, moderated their zeal, and coming within range discharged their own piece. Then they backed water in order to load again and repeated the attack, always keeping a close watch on the musket. In this way they made three attacks, until at the third their piece became enraged, and breaking its carriage, fell into the sea. Thereupon the enemy dared attempt nothing more, and retired. The same fortune happened to Father Antonio Abarca,[7] of our Society, of whom we shall make honorable mention later. He, having left me in Dapitan in order to go over to Bohol, on that same day while sailing toward that island, and while still one legua away from it, found three hostile joangas of Joloans at another island, small and uninhabited, called Illaticasa, which attacked him at the same time. There was but one firearm in the ship, and the father was the only one who knew how to manage it. He seeing himself so far from land, and pursued by an enemy so keen and so swift on the sea, availed himself of his courage, which was great, and of his skill, which was remarkable; and, adroitly fighting, he kept firing at the enemy, until he gained shore, being almost all the time in range of them, and so near that they talked to one another. By that means he saved himself and his people—a thing that would have been impossible in any other manner; but his defense was so fiery that in less than half an hour he fired the gun more than thirty times.

These people are the instruments of all the exploits by sea, for of all the other nations no one will embark unless he is forced; and on account of the little effectiveness that is found by experience in all the others, our enemies, who are watchful for their own safety and for fortunate results, are not hindered by those other peoples. Consequently, he who has most men from this nation is considered the most powerful and is the most feared, as they have power to infest the seas and coasts, making captives and pillaging, and making themselves masters of the crossings and passages necessary for communication with the other islands.

For that same reason the Mindanao has become so feared in these latter years that although he of Buhayen is the true and legitimate king, he is coming to be less esteemed; for since the Mindanao king has many Lutaos, he has also power to make war. And although the king of Buhayen has twenty-fold more vassals, he can make no one uneasy because he has no subjects of this nation; consequently, he has no weight in these islands. For the wars of these nations, now because of their little permanence, now because of the natural ruggedness of their settled parts, are but seldom offensive by land; for the enemy are immediately perceived, and the less powerful avail themselves of the shelter of the mountains. Since the people are of little endurance and less subordination they cannot sustain long campaigns. Therefore, at most the valiant ones set an ambush, and according to the way it falls out the campaign is finished without the spoils being surrendered; for their articles of value, as there is so little good faith among them, are always kept buried, or are so light that they are carried along with them. On that account he alone is judged powerful who has people to make war by sea. In ancient times this power caused all this island to pay tribute to the king of Mindanao in order to be free from his attacks. In the time of Buisan, the father of Corralat, they had hopes of rendering all the islands of Pintados tributary; and, though the island of Burney is so out of the way, more than twenty thousand vassals pay tribute to him in the villages called Suaco. For the same reason, although the Joloan nation is so small, it has become the most distinguished in these islands; for on sea it equals the strength of the Mindanaos, as they have as many or more vassals of the Lutao nation.

The fourth nation is the Subano. They are the settlers along the rivers. To them is due the name suba, which is the equivalent of “river” in the general language of these nations. It is the nation of least esteem, both because of their natural barbarousness, for they live in the plains with as little association with one another as have brutes (one house being located a legua’s distance from another, according to where each one wishes to build his hut); and because of their poverty, which is dire. For since they have no other intelligence than [what is required for] their work, their slothfulness reduces their efforts to what necessity [only] requires, so that what is abundant for a laborious life is always lacking with them. They are deficient in civilized ways, along with human intercourse, as they are born so hostile and so averse to communication [with others] that they grow old in their rude settlements without curiosity drawing them from their place of residence, or without their seeing the sea, although some of them live where they hear news of the horror of its tumults and movements. If either necessity or gain has made them give a glance at their rivers, they are satisfied with that, and do not seek a better fortune with its dangers. This inertia forbids them, incapable of giving force to their ambition, from following its impulses with [favoring] winds.

They are as cowardly as treacherous, the one being the consequence of the other. He who better plans a bit of treachery and comes out most safely is considered the most valiant. As they all know one another, they look out for one another, and build their houses so high up that a pike cannot reach and wound them. Their usual practice is to seek a very high tree, where they can build their nests safely; and, their houses being so unostentatious in size and furnishing, a tree holds them easily. The ladder by which they ascend is a log, some grooves that they cut in it serving as steps. On the coming of night they draw this ladder up and thus sleep secure. They teach us the little with which life is satisfied, and the fatigues which our ambition and pride give us; for in order to satisfy our ambition and pride we take upon us so many cares, which, so far as life is concerned, are superfluous, and are not the least of the accidents which our life suffers. This nation is almost wholly in vassalage to the Lutaos, and every village recognizes some chief[8] of the latter nation to whom they pay tribute; and that chief bears himself as a king among them, and makes and unmakes at his will. In the beginning, this authority entered under color of protection and support against the king of Mindanao, and remained in enthroned tyranny, so that today most of this nation are slaves of the Lutaos—their want of intellect subjecting them to a thousand cheats, and their want of protection to a thousand outrages. For since the Lutaos are so alert a nation, and so sharp in their affairs, they have gradually bought the Subanos by trading with them, becoming masters of their entire freedom.

Chapter X

Of the noble and brave nation of the Dapitans

Of this island, which has given empires to so many kings, without doubt the crown is the village of Dapitan; and, although it is so small at present, it has been one of the most densely populated in the past, the one most respected for its power, and in our times the whole, both of these conquests and of their Christian churches. In a small number, reduced to one single village, there is inclosed a nation[9] apart from all the others, and superior to all those discovered in nobility, valor, fidelity, and Catholicism. They are descended from the island of Bool, where they anciently occupied the strait made by that island and the island of Panglao, which remains dry at low tide, but at high tide allows a galliot to pass. Therefore many brazas in the sea stand, even today, certain columns of upright wood, as honorable witnesses of the location so gloriously occupied by this nation, and today the venerable ruins of poor although adequate buildings which they sustained. They occupied both shores and the entire island of Panglao. There they conquered the famous people of Bohol; for as their nation was the less numerous in that island, they were obliged to sustain their name by their deeds. The Boholans, conquered and put to flight, abandoned the site which they occupied from the shore of the strait to the coast of Baclayon and took refuge on the river of Loboc, where their name is still preserved in a few families descended from that stock which conquered that island, and only the valor of the Dapitans subdued.[10] According to the ancient law of the land the Dapitans can call the Boholans their slaves since less title was sufficient for that in the days of their antiquity, and the most authoritative reason was always that of war.

War exiled the Dapitans from their country, a proof of their valor and the unforeseen accidents of their misfortunes; for they were the only people of all the archipelago who were renowned among foreign princes for their exploits, and to them alone were embassies made. It happened then that in an embassy sent by the king of Terrenate, the most warlike and powerful king known, his ambassador lost [due] respect for the house of the Dapitan princes—then represented by Dailisan and Pagbuaya, who were brothers—by making advances to a concubine. They punished the crime more by the laws of offended and irritated fury than by those of reason, with hideous and indeed cruel demonstrations of contempt, by cutting off the noses and ears of the ambassador and his men. When they had returned to Terrenate, the horrid aspect of his subjects aroused the wrath of the king. He armed all his power in twenty joangas to oppose the Dapitans. His general, doubtful of the outcome, as he knew the valor of those with whom he had to do, made use of a trick by which he assured a deceitful victory. He sent his joangas in, one by one, giving out that they were traders, and under the security of friendship—excusing the above occurrence, in order to divert the attention [of the Dapitans], with the laws of punishment, deserved because of the boldness of their men. The Dapitans, seeing that the Ternatans were attending only to the sale of their goods, lost their caution, and came up with the same confidence as ever. When the Ternatans had all their fleet together, and saw that of the Dapitans, they closed with them. Although the latter placed themselves in a position of defense, they retreated before that multitude, and the terror of arms to which they were unaccustomed; for the Ternatans already had muskets and arquebuses, the use of which they had before other nations, because of their trade with the Portuguese.[11] The frightful effects of these, as terrible by their ruin as by their novelty, worked on the minds of the Dapitans. Dailisan was killed in that fray, and his brother Pagbuaya was left the reigning prince. He, seeing how he was involved with the Ternatans, and how much at the mercy of their new [arms][12] was the place occupied by the Dapitans—where the Ternatan ships could succeed in anchoring under the houses of the Dapitans, and using their arms, fight them in safety—resolved to seek another place, better defended. He also thus resolved because these nations regard as unlucky the place where fortune has once shown itself hostile to them, and immediately abandon it as accursed. Even today, in these islands, it is a fact that the house where a chief dies is abandoned by his people and it remains alone, waiting its ruin.[13] He sought then a place where, their valor and its ruggedness joining hands, they could make up, aided by the strength of the site, for the small number of their nation. As there were no hills on their coasts, and they were unable to restrain their noble and warlike nature to the confinement and gloomy prison of the retired mountains, where they would be deprived of the trade and benefits of the sea, they crossed to the island of Mindanao, a crossing of fifteen leguas, and twenty from their village, and seized a small rugged hill, which would allow itself to be monopolized by their valor.

The people who elected to follow Pagbuaya numbered one thousand families of freemen, his subjects, without taking into account the unmarried men. In these nations, where there is a law of dowry—or rather a law for the purchase of wives—there are many men who are denied the bonds of matrimony because of their poverty. Neither do we reckon the slaves of the prince, who exceeded five hundred, and many other families of the Lutao nation, who as they now live under the protection of the kings of Mindanao and Jolo, lived then also under the protection of the Dapitan princes.

They had occupied the new site but a short time when their renown caused anxiety to the most remote princes, who were fearful of their power. Consequently, the king of the great island of Burney was the first to send his ambassador with two joangas, soliciting their friendship. While they were yet awaiting the resolution of the Dapitans, the brave Magallanes sighted their coasts with his squadron, as we shall relate in the second book. They immediately made peace with him, being pleased, as brave men, with the valor which they recognized in the unknown people.[14] The Borneans were sent away with the message that the Dapitans wished no other friendship than that of their new guests. They have preserved that friendship to this day, as noble people, without any complaint [arising] of their loyalty, even to the lowest slave; and their exploits in favor of our arms have deserved much praise. For the son of that Pagbuaya, called Manooc, following the fidelity of his father, and surpassing it with the good fortune of being a Christian, aided the Spaniards in their first conquests of these islands—especially in the conquest of Manila, the capital of all these islands; and later in the conquest of Camarines, taking at their own expense, in all these feats of arms, their men and the nations subject to them.

That prince, who, as he was the first to become acquainted with the Spaniards (having shared the knowledge of them which his father acquired with the first sight of the squadron of Magallanes), was the first to receive the blessing of acquaintance with our holy faith, giving renown equally to his own banners and to those of our king and sovereign, and receiving the name Don Pedro Manuel Manooc—continued the greatness of his deeds. For besides the services rendered in Manila and the province of Camarines, he sustained war against Mindanao and Jolo, and attacked them with his fleets in their very houses. On one occasion, when among others he went to attack Jolo, he met the king himself, who was also going out with his fleet of twelve joangas. Manooc defeated him and captured his flagship, and, at the cost of many killed, the king escaped as a fugitive, by hastening to the land. He made war on the Caragas, who were the terror of the islands at that time. He subdued the village of Bayug of the Malanao[15] nation, who were subject to the Mindanaos, without our arms having any other protection amid so many enemies than that of his valor which made easy so many undertakings. That prince was the father of Doña Maria Uray, who is today living as an example and ornament of these nations because of the perfection of her virtues—which she prefers to a better fortune, for she has spurned marriage with the kings of Jolo in order that she might not subject her faith to the outrages of barbarous and faithless princes. Don Pedro Manuel Manooc left orders that he was to be buried in the city of Cebú, as he had ordered in his will that his bones be taken to that cathedral. His children carried out his orders, thereby showing both their affection to us and their devotion to him.

The women were not inferior in merit. For Doña Madalena Baloyog, the sister of Don Pedro Manuel Manooc, had so great authority among the barbarous Subanos that she alone by her discretion reduced more of them than did the arms of her people by their valor and courage. She obtained the name of pacifier, mistress, and sovereign of the hard hearts of the chiefs of the Subanos. Her authority was so manifest to our men that, the natives of the river of Butuan having rebelled, and killed their alcalde-mayor and their minister, a secular priest, who was then in charge of it,[16] it was sufficient for her to assure them of pardon for the deed, and to secure to us their pacification and due obedience forever.

The cousin of Don Pedro Manuel Manooc was Laria, who competed in all things for the greatness of his cousin. He served in the conquest of Maluco with the same nobility and valor, and would receive no pay or rations for his men. In the seven times when the island of Jolo was attacked in war, he took part in all of those conflicts, always showing himself remarkable for his princely actions and soldierly valor.

A son worthy the nobility of such a father was Don Gonçalo Maglenti, the husband of Doña Maria Uray, whom we mentioned above, and the father of Don Pedro Cabelin. The latter is still living and is nowise inferior in his deeds and fidelity to his forbears, as he was reared from childhood with so good merits of nobility and Christian warfare—accompanying his father from the age of seven years, on all occasions of danger; thus he came to despise danger so thoroughly that at the age of thirty (his present age) the enemies of God and of our king whom he has killed in hand-to-hand combats, in various frays, surpass two hundred. Don Gonçalo, then, the father of so illustrious a son, left him enough examples to emulate his valor, for in accordance with his surname (which means “he who hurls down thunderbolts”), his valor hurled them in a constant shower. He opposed the might of the Mindanaos at the time of their greatest arrogance, when they threatened all these islands with their arms. He always went in pursuit of their fleets and of those of the Malanaos which were sent by way of the bay of Pangil[17] to aid the Mindanaos, for he was an ally for the defeat of their plans. He subdued from the bay of Pangil to the village of Sidabay, ten leguas from Samboangan, all of the villages scattered through sixty leguas along the coast (formerly many more and superior in number). His care watched perpetually over the islands, and of his own accord he despatched advices to Cebú and Oton at the first rumor of hostile fleets, by means of which the evil designs of the enemies might be frustrated. That care merited for his nation exemption from the tribute and from all personal service, which its natives enjoy today by concession from his Majesty.

In this site the Dapitans—now reduced to the enterprises of his valor to so small a number that they scarce exceed one hundred families—alone and strangers, have defended themselves from the power of all the pirates of these islands, all of whom, pursuing them with their vengeance and injuries, have attempted to extirpate them entirely. And as they have the land so at their mercy, with nations who have inherited so much internal hatred [to the Dapitans] at being subdued by this noble nation, the former have been unable to get one single captive out of their hands, and their sieges are always left crowned with triumphs. For Buhisán, the father of Corralat, and the most warlike of the kings of Mindanao, with one hundred joangas and the incentive of his own person and presence, returned within fifteen months, his haughtiness undeceived. The Joloans, notwithstanding their power, had no better fortune, and left behind seven joangas in the enterprise that they attempted—although the opportunity was so in their favor, when there were scarcely ten men in the stronghold, as the majority had gone to various places for their trade.

Among the Subanos—the ports of their conquest, which surround them on all sides—their valor is so accredited, that a Dapitan has nothing to fear among a hundred of them. For if they see him ready for them, they do not dare to attack him, however thirsty for his blood their hatred makes them; for the Subanos are all the triumphs of the arms of the Dapitans, of which the sound and rigorous execution has drawn the former from their mountains, and made settlements of men from savages scattered among the thickets, who are reduced to more civilized life. Thus has been established a province which, in our time, has been given separate an alcalde-mayor, namely, that of Iligan; and by that province is secured to our arms an opening for the conquest of Mindanao and Jolo, as we have thereby had soldiers, pilots, and most skilful sailors, who are better than all those who sail in these islands. Their village remains as a stronghold opposed to the petty rulers of those peoples.

They are a very prudent race, and are quite Hispanicized in their customs, and by the modesty of their bearing naturally deserved respectable. Thus they do not endure the outrages that the other subdued nations endure, now from the boldness of the soldiers, now from the exigencies of our necessities; for they attend to all things willingly, considering it an honor to satisfy our desires. Consequently, in respect and esteem they are the princes of these islands.

In matters of the Christian faith they yield in no wise to the most pious European nation or to the loyalty of the most distinguished. They are the ones who guard religion. The minister who visits the ports of their coast, with four Dapitans whom he takes as a guard goes as safely as if he were taking an infantry regiment; and no misfortune has ever happened to such an arrangement. For although misfortunes have been experienced in the infidelity of the native Subanos, yet they have been invited by the confidence of the father missionaries, who have gone among them without that valiant guard, as will be seen in the course of this history. Finally, the faith of this island and those near by is owing to the Dapitans; and, to their fidelity and valor, the glorious confidence of our arms.

Chapter XI

The settlers of these islands, and their origin

The owners of these islands are those who people the mountains. They, enamored with their peaceful mode of living, and fed with the happy returns of their cultivation, built their nests there and lost their liking for the coast and love for its occupations. Thereupon, as they were reared in so deep retirement, which is especially great and unconquerable in these natives, because of their slothfulness and because they are so dead to curiosity, by which they have grown old in their gloomy retreats, they gradually became mountaineers; and, their intercourse with other peoples ceasing, they became less alert and more barbarous, allowing the foreign traders to seize the coasts, harbor-bars, and rivers which they found deserted. Since by their trade, and in every way, the latter were making themselves masters of all things, the aborigines, being less valiant, yielded to the foreigners, as these were more civilized. Consequently, on the south coast the rulers of those peoples are the Lutaos, who bear themselves among these nations as princes. In some parts those peoples are called Subanos, as in the jurisdiction of Iligan and Samboangan; in Mindanao, they are called Manobos[18] and Mananapes[19] which is equivalent to “brutes.” In Jolo, they are Guinuanos [i.e., Guimbanos], and in Basilan they are called Sameacas,[20] and they are subject in all places equally to the fortune of the Lutaos. No other origin to these peoples can be conjectured than one general to these islands—whose language, since its structure is founded on Malayan roots, shows by its origin the origin of its natives. To this testimony corresponds the arrangement of these islands, which are strung out in a series from Burney and Macaçar, so that there is scarcely any considerable break, and there is no such correspondence in any other part.

The Lutaya nation are new in these islands, and live more on the seas than on their plains. They have no greater stability than is promised by a log in the water where no firm foundation can be laid. They scarcely take their feet from their boats. Their Moorish dress of turban and marlota [i.e., a Moorish robe], their arms and worship, clearly show their origin. With all this agrees their more polished language, which they speak, emulating the grandeur of the princes of these nations who have made an ostentation of speaking it—indeed, because their own especial language approaches more nearly to it than any other, for they owe to it a great number of their words.[21] As the Moorish faith [i.e., Mahometanism] is recent in India,[22] and thence has steadily spread through these kingdoms it can be understood that this nation [i.e., the Lutaos] occupied these coasts but a short time ago. The Lutaos of this island who are subject to Corralat and the Buhayens (both through commerce and by the submission which they observed toward the king of Ternate) show that they are branches of that stock. They recognize even their protection, which in olden times was the greatest obligation, and give them aid in their wars and protect them from their enemies. By the prowess of the Lutaos those rulers were encouraged to cause grievous depredations among these islands, until the Spaniards established themselves so strongly in Ternate that, checked by that, as a bulwark of the islands, the Moro chiefs did not attempt to pass farther, being content with placing their domestic affairs in safety without risking it for foreign [gains].

There are black negroes in this island, who pay tribute to no one. They resemble those of the island of Negros, and of the uplands about Manila, called Aetas. They live more like brute beasts than like men, and they flee from the sight of all, doing ill to whomever they can. They recognize no village, nor in a land of so many inclemencies do they have any other shelter than that of the trees. They can be seen daily in the bay of Pangil. In the village of Layauan, where I was making the visitation, there appeared to be many of them. They have no other adornments than those which they inherited from nature; and pay so scant respect to decency that they do not secure even what is requisite. Their arms are the bow and arrows dipped in poisons, which they know and with which they prepare the arrows. It appears probable, from what we know of other islands, where these people are found gathered in the most inaccessible mountains, that these are the first ones that occupied all these islands; but, as they are more ancient and are so shut in, nothing more is known of their origin than what is evident from this land, connected by its islands in a chain with those of Burney, Macaçar, and Great Maluco. This nation maintains only one excellence—at the cost, [however,] of its brutal condition and wretched mode of life—namely, its liberty. No power, not even that of our Spaniards, has been able to subjugate them. They are so free in their indomitable barbarism that they will not suffer any subordination among them, not even that which fraternal feeling for their own people might bring about if they recognized dignities or any organized form of social life.[23]

The Lutaos of Jolo have all their communication with the Borneans, raising the trident of their king[24] in the villages of that enormous island. There they are judged to be one people [with the Borneans], and are declared such by the fraternal intercourse that they maintain among themselves—being related by marriage, and conspiring together with their arms for the invasion of these islands, where their squadrons are seen daily under one and the same banner.

But the rulers and nobility of all the islands of Jolo and Basilan recognize as the place of their origin the village of Butuan (which, although it is located in this island, is within the pale of the Visayan nation) on the northern side, in sight of the island of Bool, and but a few leguas away from Leyte and from Bool, islands which are in the same stage of civilization. Therefore, that village can glory at having given kings and nobility to these nations. It is not so long ago since the branches which flourish so well today were lopped from their trunk, that the memory charged with the event that divided them can have forgotten it. The old king of Joló who is now living [i.e., Bongso], saw the one who was dismembered from his people, and whom misfortunes exiled from his fatherland in order to make him venture on another’s land, thus giving him the foundation of so warlike a kingdom, which is so feared in these regions. Inasmuch as the tender beginnings of this new kingdom gathered encouragement from the protection of our arms, which it enjoyed for some time as pacific and tributary, it will be well to relate its beginnings before time obscures them.

The dissensions of two brothers obliged the less powerful to seek, by way of exile, a path to liberty which oppression denied him. Those affected to him accompanied him, and with them, seeking a land to his liking, he hit upon the island of Basilan. The one who stirred up that people was named Paguian Tindig,[25] then a title of nobility, and today the legacy of kings and princes of the blood royal in the island of Joló. In his company he took his cousin, one Adasaolan, whom his fate gave to him in order to maintain its enmity to him. Some of those in his company allowed themselves to be led away by the fertility and abundance of this island and remained behind, captivated by its advantages. With the rest Tindig went to Joló, whither the report of its wealth, the advantages of its seas and islands, and the fertility of its mountains carried him. They easily conquered the natives, who were barbarians and unaccustomed to the rigors and ambitions of war. They remained as rulers of the island, and their prince was Paguian Tindig, who, as subject to the Spaniards (who had already subdued the river of Butuan), continued in the same allegiance and paid them tribute. His cousin Adasaolan he married to a daughter of Dimasangcay,[26] the king of Mindanao named Paguian Goan (a dangerous plan) in order to give himself power in the rivalry [with his brother]. The mother of Corralat, by name Imbog, was a Joloan, and with the communication indispensable to relationship easily infected Adasaolan with the perfidy of Mahomet, and the tyranny and violence of his law; and he, puffed up by the favor of the Mindanao king, and confident of his help, which their relationship promised him, planned to kill his cousin, in order that he might remain absolute master of the island. He blockaded him, unprepared, in his house with four hundred men who had gathered to his standards. But in a happening not expected or feared, love acted, being forewarned, and innocence, being offended. And since there is no confusion that blinds the courage of foresight, he had taken the precaution to pour down along the supports of the house (which are here called arigues, and are of strong wood) a quantity of oil, which rendered the scaling more difficult; and the besiegers, finding more resistance than their presumption imagined, and yielding to so great force, retired. Tindig recognized the difficulty in which he was, and considered war as declared and broken out; and, in order not to stain it with blood at the cost of his men, planned to absent himself and look for aid, respect for which would ensure his condition. He went to Manila for that purpose, having repressed the forefront of his danger, and, as a tributary and subject prince, easily secured the pledge of our arms for his help; and, because he alone could measure the force with the necessity, the means was left to his choice. He thought that two well-armed caracoas would be enough, and, although a powerful fleet was offered him, he refused to accept it; for he considered himself as invincible in his joanga, if reënforced by two Spanish caracoas.

His absence made his rival powerful, for the party without a leader readily unites with that side that has one; and, the cause of the rivalry being wanting, tyranny easily united the forces of the island. Eight well-armed joangas were prepared by Adasaolan, which were given to him by Buhisan, the father of Corralat; and Tindig, having come within sight of Joló, went ahead with a lack of caution, to prepare his people, as he did not believe that the party of his cousin was so in the ascendancy. The enemy who were awaiting him, all ready, as soon as they saw his joanga without the shelter of the caracoas, all surrounded it and boarded it, with the determination to finish the war at one stroke. Ours who were coming behind could not aid him; for he had gone on ahead, as we have said, to advise his men, and to notify his enemies of the war, so that fear could accomplish what he desired without recourse to arms. Overcome by the multitude rather than yielding to force, he was killed. He died unconquerable, his death leaving the tyrant assured of power. The king of Joló, Raya Bongso, who was punished by Governor Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, in his conquest of Joló, is a good witness of this contest. He, without much questioning, showed even the wounds that he received on that occasion, fighting, although but a lad, at the side of Paguian Tindig, who was his relative.

The Spaniards having arrived, and the cause of their fighting (the protection of him who had fallen) being now removed, and not finding anyone with whom to fight, returned to Manila. The tyrant, flushed with his victory, and being greedy with the hopes that great captures were assured to him in the islands with alliance with the Mindanaos and Borneans, united himself to them; and following their fleets, with so good masters of piracy his people became so great pirates, that they surpassed all in deeds, and by themselves caused so great havoc throughout the islands that they have proved the heaviest scourge that these natives have suffered. And refusing obedience to his Majesty and the tribute which they have always paid, that principality [of Joló] was founded and has less antiquity in these islands than the Spaniards.[27]

Chapter XII

Beliefs and superstitions of these islands

The general condition of these islands is paganism. From Sangil to Samboangan, the dwellers along the beach follow the law of Mahomet, as well as those of the islands of Basilan and Joló. This last is the metropolis of the false religion, and the Mecca of this archipelago; for there is the tomb of their first master, concerning whom the caciques [i.e., Kasis], for the credit of his deceits, have been establishing innumerable fables, which have already become a lying tradition in this century. One is that he came from Paradise with three others, of whom one went to Java, and another to Burney, and the other two landed at Joló, and thence one went to Mindanao. He of Mindanao was ill received; and because of that, and of having been shipwrecked in the sea by driving on a reef, he went in anger to an island to become a hermit, walking upon the water. But he who was wrecked in a ship could ill keep his footing in the water. Such is the character of lies, that some are quite contrary to others. The outfit that he carried consisted of a net, and it is said that he caught fish on the mountain with it, by dragging it over the ground. But if he found fish on the mountain then the fish surely could not escape him, unless indeed it were a flying-fish. When his followers went to seek him, Satan had already carried him away, and they found only the net—and that stretched out, for it had been placed to dry. From that point they took occasion to discuss so disconnected bits of nonsense as we have mentioned. Thereupon he who remained in Joló obtained the chair of the evil [doctrine], and, as he is accredited with not fewer deceits, he was able to authorize his person and his doctrine with the barbarians; for he also gave them to understand that he could get fresh water from the sea, that he could sail on land, and could establish fisheries on the mountain, as did the other. The use of these errors gave authority for the common people to invent others. They believe that the enchanted boat which they never saw, and whose anchorage they never knew, still exists. The respect that his deceits gained him in life became ignorant and infamous adoration at his death. A sepulcher was erected for him, which became the mausoleum of his memory, and the Mecca of his deceits. They erected it on the famous hill [of Joló], and it was very elegant.[28] At its foot they planted the singular fruit which they call the king’s fruit,[29] which is unique in this archipelago, and of which no one ate except himself, although for devotion the shells were given to the others. As we said, they planted many jasmines, and made their defenses there, so that animals might not defile the mausoleum. As an entrance to it, there was arranged in front of it a little house which was placed at the beginning of the stockade, as if it were an entrance into the well of St. Patrick. There they made their offerings, all of which went to the benefit of the prebendaries of the house, who were generally of the blood of the hypocrite. Thence they took their auguries for the war, for, putting water in a vase, together with some earth from the sepulcher, if it became bitter to the taste the outcome would be bad; but if sweet, it would be happy. It is said that this test was made for the war waged on them by Don Sebastian, in consequence of which the king was always inclined to treat for peace.

By the entrance of our forces upon the hill, that place lost its worship and esteem; for the soldiers turned it all upside down, and dug it up in the hope of finding some treasure, and found no trace of a human body. The Indians were terrified at their boldness, and asked whether those who dared to do so much would not die. Thereupon, those people were left with only the staff [of that teacher], which the Kasis [caciques] keep; for that is the staff of all virtues, and in going out with it (which is at the time of any necessity), all make it great reverence, and attend to all that is asked of them. For if they do not do so, he excommunicates them, with two blows with it which he gives on the house or the boat, and there can be neither health in the one or good luck in the other. All these are the artifices of cupidity, which holds them fast in a deceitful fear by vain terrors.

The other relic is the cap,[30] which is the hereditary possession of the kings, and to swear by it is to use the sanction of a great sacrament.

Notwithstanding so many lies that are made up to sustain this deceit, there are but few who esteem it; and in general they are all atheists, and those who have any religion are sorcerers. For as Moros, beyond not eating pork, and practicing circumcision, and [having] a multiplicity of women, they know not anything. They drink wine more than we do, and all their happiness consists in drunken revels—[to them] a positive act of greatness; and thus all their knightly deeds consist in emptying more or fewer jars [of wine], and there is a wedding in which they empty two hundred. All their festivals consist in this. They live in all respects like men without any law who do not know God, and without any mode of worship, and unmindful that there is such in the world. All regard the law as little more or less, and, according to the land they inhabit, follow its customs and laws. Accordingly they are neither Moors, heathen, nor Christians, but barbarous atheists. Corralat, who has civilized his country somewhat, has his mosque, and makes his people attend it. But when they leave their village, each one does as he pleases—except some of the chiefs, who, following the example of the king, have made it a point of honor to appear to be Moors. But the common people, assuredly, lay no stress on that point.

What they believe in thoroughly are omens, which are almost general in all the islands. There are many of them: of birds, like the limocon;[31] of insects, like the lizard; of accidental occurrences, like sneezing; of happenings, like deaths or earthquakes; of observances at time of sowing, and of reaping, and of the hunt—all of these have their observances, which they fulfil in order to have luck in the work; for they believe that without these it will be unlucky, and without any profit. Therefore, they do not undertake those things, since in many districts it is considered an omen when anyone asks for a portion of what may be caught (as for instance, of the hunter or fisher), if we say to him when he goes to try his luck: “Divide with me what you shall catch.” They consider that as a bad omen, and return to their house, for they believe that they will catch nothing.

Those who are atheists knowingly are the dwellers in mountains; for they have no mosques, or shrines, or any method of praying to God. Those upon whom they call in their illnesses are their ancestors, saying “Alas, my mother!” or “my grandfather.” That is rather the natural expression of pain than a prayer in which they experience any efficacy. Where there are some to whom the devil talks (which was more usual in their antiquity), such people offer him their sacrifices,[32] and the Indians have recourse to them in their illnesses, so that they could make the same efforts for them. Today the Christian truth has obscured the falsity of hell. At most, the descendants of those ministers of the devil, who were generally women, do what they saw them do without the devil taking any notice of them or talking to them. Others, who lay but small stress on all that, do what they heard said was the custom in the days of their antiquity, let happen what would. But they do it with so little earnestness that it appears to be levity rather than religion. With the same fervor they follow any other rule, so that they always remain without any law, unless it be where the energy and incessant constancy of the missionaries has made them forget their ancient customs, and with continual instruction has made it easy for them to accept the new things of our holy faith.

In Caraga there was a barbarous custom to make their ships lucky, namely, to vow to them the first time upon some name, which was generally the name of one of their captives.

That which has great value in all parts is sorcery; and they hold it in such high esteem that the father hides it from the son, and unless they receive a great profit they refuse to communicate any secret of it. The famous sorcerers are feared, although there is no one who is not ashamed of being called thus, and the word “sorcerer” is one of the insulting words of these natives. My judgment from seeing these [sorceries], so alike, is that they are implicit compacts made with their ancestors. For it also seems impossible that there are herbs of so powerful poison that they can kill so instantly that some persons kill, with only the breath alone by chewing those herbs; and others, by burying those herbs where one has to pass. They also use figures, which they dedicate to him whom they wish to harm, and these accordingly torment him; the figure continues to aggravate the evil upon the sorcerer’s enemy. Others work by letters, and that is peculiar to the Moro Kasis [caciques], although the most of all this is fabulous; but as they imagine that it is true, for any accident for which they find no remedy, and of whose cause they are ignorant, they throw the blame on the sorcerer. It is recounted of the king of Burney that, on learning the name of one, he can kill him if he chooses. Sargento-mayor Pedro Duran Monforte having made war in his land, the king was informed of his name, and said that since he knew his name, therefore Monforte could not live much longer, and with that he consoled his people. But thanks to God, the sargento-mayor has been living for three years since that threat. Thus are all their affairs.

He who unites the excellency of a powerful sorcerer to Mahometan ardor is King Corralat. He causes the fish to enter his boat. While one of our fathers was in his boat, a fish leaped in; the king picked it up and, giving it to the father, said: “This is for the father.” It is also related that he makes a piece of artillery float on the surface of the water by placing an oar in its mouth. He has a saker, which according to report, when fired, serves him as a good or evil augury. The fact is, that he talks very familiarly with the devil. According to the tale of a Spaniard (and one for which he vouched to me), when he was going from Samboangan on a certain embassy, just as he entered the river the favorite of Corralat told him that, the night previous, his king had asked him whether any ship were to be seen. To his negative answer the king said to him: “Then take note that three ships will arrive tomorrow, and one of them will be Spanish.” That was a fact, for two ships from Java entered, and that of the said Spaniard. Thereupon the favorite exclaimed: “Great Saint Corralat, there is no other truth.” With such things he has established so much credit that if God do not bury his body in the depths [of the sea], the Mindanaos will worship him and will found another house of Mecca, such as they had in Joló. With that he has become a greater king than any of his forbears; for their fear of him is incredible, as they recognize in him one who has superior power to avenge himself. Consequently, they do not dare undertake anything against his will; for they regard it as certain that they will be unlucky. Since the devil has been so advantaged by that way, he manages to make their fears come out true at times, by which credit for the others is assured.

Chapter XIII

The moderation of their conduct, and the sobriety of their living

Among all the Indians it is a general fact that in what relates to their own persons natural law is more conspicuous, and has a more firmly established empire, than have the nations. Part of that is founded on the slothfulness of their natures, and part on the rudeness of their civilization; the former makes them content with little, and the latter causes them to ignore the niceties of art. Their food proves the first well; and the havoc that they cause, the second. The food is very poor among the wealthy, and requires little labor; for they neither know condiments nor for that purpose are drugs valued among them, of the use of all which they are ignorant. Both slave and ruler, plebeian and prince, eat bread; for, since that consists of a little boiled rice, one cannot eat it more adorned than the other. Since all of them are bakers of this bread, he who wishes to clean it better eats it whiter. He who has no slaves to relieve him from that eats it as he chooses; and, consequently, there is no one who does not know how to cook his food. For they are under the daily necessity, even the richest, of making it; and, as ostentation in ordinary life is so little, it is unavoidable that service is lacking to them on their voyages and navigations, so that they are forced to use their own hands. Those who do not obtain rice—either because the land does not bear it, or because it is limited in any year—eat of many roots, which supply the lack fully, and which require no other preparation than boiling. He who is so well served that he obtains a little fish, venison, or pork, with water and salt alone makes his stew, without the knowledge of other kinds of pottages. In order to give their food a sharp flavor, they are wont to cook it with some herbs of a sour taste. Consequently, in the seasoning of their food they consume nothing, so that they save the cost of butter, oil, vinegar, and all spices. They are accustomed to make their puches [i.e., a sort of pap] and poleadas [i.e., a sort of fritter] from cocoanut milk and the honey made from sugarcane, which are their preserves and royal cakes. But such is at a great wedding or at a feast, where their desire for ostentation arouses their endeavors. Such were presented to me by the king of Joló, Panguian Bachal, while I was visiting at his court. They consisted of a half-dozen small cakes made of rice flour and kneaded with cocoanut-milk, and baked until they turned dark, so that they appeared to be cinnamon to the sight. In fact the color was due to the toasting and to a preserve, like turpentine, made from the fruit of the durion with honey made from sugarcane. This is enough to turn the strongest stomachs—as it were, the chief dainty for the stomach of a bull—oppressive, as it was all night to the Queen mother;[33] and we satisfied ourselves with looking at it.

Their clothing is very simple, without stiffening or linings. All are dressed after the same style, and innovations due to curiosity are not allowed. As the country is so hot, they dress very loosely, a fact which makes the cutting out very easy. Each one is the tailor of his own garments. This is the reason why the Indians are so lacking in the communal idea, and are so hostile to assembling and uniting in villages; for since their misery and laziness make them content with the easiest and most natural, which all obtain, they do not need one another. For in each house are found all the trades, and no one makes use of them unless his own necessity compels him. If one goes to fish, he is content with what will satisfy either his appetite or his necessity; and the desire of acquiring does not make him break with his laziness in order to work.

Returning to their clothes, the stuffs worn are generally common to nobles, and plebeians, kings and slaves, and there is no difference between them—except it be in something extraordinary, in which the obligation and ostentation of their chief persons induces them to depart from their accustomed use. At such times they are wont to wear silks and very beautiful stuffs, with buttons and gold lace. Their krises (which are their inseparable weapons) have gilded scabbards and hilts of massy gold. I have seen some of them which were valued at nine slaves each, all covered with precious stones and perhaps encrusted with pearls. But in daily appearance all resemble one another, both in the garments in which they dress and in the fashions that they employ. These clothes consist of breeches and short jacket [ropilla]—or skirt, to be more accurate. That is not worn over a shirt, for with them the first garment is not the shirt, but the skirt, for it is all one. Sometimes they wear a jacket with long skirts cut in the French style; which, although it can be buttoned, is generally worn open, with the breast exposed. In this particular this nation is quite different from the others of this region. They use another style of cut; the skirts and sleeves each ending in a point, and the ends which ought to close over the bosom are brought together in double points, fastened either with a button or with a knot, so that almost all the breast is left open. The breeches are full and white, resembling those which the Spaniards wear for the sake of cleanliness under their black ones. They are girt with a bit of native linen, so long that after having been knotted it hangs from the waist to the knees; and it serves to make their garb more decent than it would be because of the meagerness and thinness of the breeches. Or if they do not have that, then they use two brazas’ length of the same cloth or silk, which at its full width they wind about the body, joined in front with one end crossed below the other. In that manner they cover the breeches entirely, and the clothing is much more decent. In this usage, the gala costumes have special elaboration, and it displays their ostentation; for they are wont to wear cloth that is valued at thirty or forty reals of eight. They also wear breeches of the Malay fashion, which are closed like ours, although they are not so tight. It is the rule that they must be of silk with a gold fringe below, or with border and buttons of the same which among these people is always of filigree or of solid gold. In that they consider only ostentation, without any risk of waste.

On the head, in the Moorish style, is worn a turban. Its use throughout the Indias is general, but among these people inviolable. I do not know whether it is because even their hearts are tinged with their cursed worship, or because of hatred to our nation and to our customs, or because of flattery to their natural arrogance—through which they will never, of themselves, come to depreciate their own things. Even yet throughout the islands, those who are esteemed as chiefs are ashamed of appearing without hats.

The clothing of the women is plainer, and such that it becomes indecent; for from the small mantas or textiles of these regions, which are all very thin, they make a sack nine palmos long and open at both ends. They gird this in at the waist as much as may be necessary, so that it falls to the feet; what is left they allow to fall over the legs, and it does not even reach to the knees, or necessarily serve for the decency which modesty requires. They adjust it by drawing it close to one side of the body, and by making folds on the other side of all the extra width in proportion to their body. This sack, which by day is a garment—so shameful to decency, because it so ill satisfies it—serves at night for mattress, sheets, and curtain. For on retiring they ungird the sack, and the part which they doubled about the knees they put up to the head. That is all the opulence and comfort that their beds can boast of, which are made of a thin mat. These are their Holland and Rouen linens, which serve for their opulence and their fastidious cleanliness. That is their whole wealth of quilts and covers, which protect them from the cold and from the mosquitoes. All is so exactly adapted to necessity, that there is no difference between the chief women and the slaves—as I saw in Joló in the queen herself, and in Samboangan in many other women, not inferior to her in vanity. However, the women of highest rank, on retiring let fall a curtain without a covering. And that is all their ostentation and the necessary obligation of modesty for the protection from sight of those who are careless concerning their manner of sleeping, in houses where there is no division of apartments, and where there can be no rooms for the multitude that inhabit them, and where the others throw themselves down pellmell on the floor. At most, the master is protected by that little grandeur. This is in regard to the bed, for in dress no difference is known.

The gala dress of the women of this nation consists wholly of the shirt [sayuelo] which is made in the style usual to the Indians. It is however, drawn close about the breasts, and the sleeves are very long, at times each sleeve taking three or four varas of cloth. The sleeve is gathered at the wrist in a very fine and graceful plait, as the goods that they wear are so delicate. They heighten that gala dress with the wealth of gold, the use of which among these Indias extends to the wrists, which they cover with bracelets, either solid or hollow, and a finger in width. On days of great display they generally wear three or four pairs. The work is beautiful, and these add much to their gay and festive appearance; and they show off the arm loaded with such rich bracelets. For cloaks or mantles they wear textiles of fine silk, and at times of gold [tissue], which they call patolas[34] which is a very beautiful and rich kind of goods. Generally, when they leave the house they all wear very long black cloaks; that partly moderates the ugliness and utter indecency of their dress—which of itself is, I know not whether more ugly or more immodest, with its sack above mentioned, which serves them as shirt and petticoat, without its having any distinction either for station, rank, or display.

The houses in which they reside have what is sufficient for their shelter and poor lodging. They have no salons where they can walk, or higher stories where they can amuse themselves, than that which separates them from the ground. This is made with logs, upon which as columns they build their sills, to which they fasten the ends of the beams with their keys. The roof is thatch, which nature furnished, a provision very suitable to the needs of the country—which, as it is so subject to earthquakes, does not allow a greater weight without danger to the buildings. The floor is of bamboos, split or otherwise prepared; for, as these are hollow, they can be split with the same ease, thus avoiding the trouble and niceties of carpentry. Thus the floor is like a grating, and is a necessary precaution of their natural laziness and dirtiness; for by this way of making their floors they avoid having to sweep them, since the houses can so easily be washed and rid of all dirt. They have no benches or chairs, and thus they get rid of the encumbrance of much furniture. They consider a seat on the floor as more secure. They use tables somewhat; these are round and hollowed out in the middle, in the manner of an ordinary brasier, and are built wholly for use rather than for display. In that hollow they put all their dishes, which consist of boiled rice, and fish of the same stew, without there being any danger of the food being spilled out. They use no tablecloths or napkins; and, although they use dishes somewhat, they do not usually feel the lack of these, as the trees with their wide leaves furnish them a cleaner table-service, and the bamboos make them very tasteful jugs and bowls which are formed from their lengths between knots. These also form their jars; for there is a kind of bamboo from which they make jars containing three or four azumbres.[35] By cutting four joint-lengths and boring holes in them, they fill a good jar. The cocoanuts yield them cups, for here these are very common.

Chapter XIV

The laws of their private conduct and the general laws of their government

Following are the laws pertaining to them privately as persons. They are as much adapted to the nature of the world (although more clothed with innocence), as they are to their laziness and cupidity which prohibits them from all expense which is not necessary for life, as superfluous. For that I have always said of these natives that they are fine philosophers, adapted to nature. The laws which touch on other matters and have to do with their neighbors are quite at variance with the laws of nature; and these extend to a tyranny so manifestly cruel that at times and in some things it comes to be brutality. I have seen a son who held his father as slave, and, vice versa, a father who held his son as slave; for if one make an outlay for another, they take account of it, as would be done in the case of a stranger. Inasmuch as this son had freed his father by buying him from his master, that man was reckoned as his son’s slave, and the same would be true of the son. It may happen that a chief lowers himself [by having intercourse] with his slave-woman, and the son whom she bears may be so cruel that at the death of his father he makes his own mother his slave. Even if, while they are at peace, these points are not cleared up, and the inner tyranny employs external civility, yet, if dissensions alter these relations, and they are divided, the men avail themselves of those rights, and subject their mothers to whatever they choose, and do not allow them to leave their houses. Thus do they come to be served by their mothers at all times. In regard to those who descend from them, there is even less shame; and among another kind of relations is an utter disregard of nature in this respect, for their own nephews are the slaves of their uncles, and, vice versa, uncles are slaves of their nephews.

They do not know what charity is. Consequently, whatever benefits they confer are all placed on account as debts, which their tyranny estimates wholly to their own satisfaction. Unfortunate he whom abandonment or orphanage has flung into the house of another, for now for his sustenance, and again for his rearing, he must become a slave. Kindness is shown at the cost of liberty. Although that was general throughout the islands, in this island it is excessive, as it is a tenet of the perfidious sect of Mahomet; and its cruelty has left no liberty that it has not opposed. Therefore, there is not in this nation the middle class that is found in the others which forms the common people out of the freemen; for there are no freemen, nor any mean between chiefs and slaves. Their community is composed of but two extremes, so far separated. It is a fact that there are many ways by which to reduce men to such a condition, and there is no escape from the injury. For, since self-interest is the advantage of those who are powerful, it unites them against the unfortunate one who dares to proclaim the offense that has been done to him, while his punishment conciliates so many other offenders who might perplex justice; and fear shuts the mouths of those whom the same fortune might gain to his favor in the support of his testimonies. Therefore, when it comes to proof there is always a lack of witnesses for innocence; while on the contrary there is for tyranny an oversupply of ocular witnesses of things that they have never seen or heard. When some stranger goes to a village to trade where he does not have the guaranteed patronage of many powerful relations, in the case of any neglect that is shown him in courtesy or in the laws, they bring such a case against him that to get out of it well he abandons his business and perhaps with his business his freedom. The worst of it is that the punishment is always more than the offense, for the just pay as if they were sinners. Their avarice or tyranny not satisfied with the vengeance taken on the criminal makes the offense related to the very blood, in order to extend their cupidity farther. Hence it is that on account of the crime committed by a single one, they make all the relations slaves. I saw four brothers who were all deprived of their inherited freedom because of the incivility and weakness of one. Finding myself in Iligan—a nation which, as it is so new, is even yet throwing out the sparks of this tyrannical fury it happened that a common woman spoke some insulting words to another woman who had rank; and the latter’s husband, coming to me to make a complaint, said to me, exaggerating the offense: “Father, if the Spaniards were not here, and we could rule ourselves by our own laws, we would have made mincemeat [gigote] of that woman with a campilan, and slaves of her brothers and sisters and relatives.” Finally, he whom avarice rules with a tyrannical power (for all their laws end in self-interest) gets usury from his offense and employment from his crime.

Avarice rules in all their judgments; and the purse becomes the gallows of all crimes. Money is the vengeance of the aggrieved parties, and the sponge for injuries. When they are paid for, no spot or sign of the offense is left. Although there are crimes which bear especially a capital penalty, yet there is no penalty that cannot be redeemed by money or goods. He who has no possessions at all has still liberty, and can surrender that also. That is the road most traveled by which some come to be the slaves of others; and perhaps the chief, if he be poor, may be the slave of another who is a plebeian. When anyone is caught in adultery, if sudden wrath does not execute him, which is but seldom, the wounds are passed on to his purse, in the endeavor to destroy him, and the husband subjects his own wife to the same harshness and penalty. For here all persons have a separate purse, and the husband is not master of what his wife possesses but only of what pertains to him. Nor, under pretext of managing her possessions, does he have more to do with it than the extent of her permission; and she is always mistress of her own possessions. Thus she pays a fine to her own husband, as if she were a stranger to him. Having received this, the aggrieved party remains as satisfied as when, among the Spaniards, one sword has pinned both guilty ones together. The offender retains a privilege truly insulting and barbarous—that for one year he may have intercourse with the woman without her husband complaining. Then the husband and wife return in all peace to cohabit as before, the offense being again at risk, for another atonement.

They especially abhor theft, and they have assigned an ignominious penalty for the thief, as a warning. This is to cut off the joints of his fingers, more or fewer according to the crime. That perhaps obliges them to pass from the hands to the toes, the penalty being proportioned to the misdeeds of greater atrocity. But that penalty can also be redeemed, as can the others, by money.

Notwithstanding that, some crimes they regard as so capital that they do not respect petitions or allow bribes, and death is the necessary punishment for them. The unnatural crime is one of them, and the severity of the execution well shows their natural horror, for such people are burned, and their houses; and nothing that they possessed is allowed to escape from this rigor, as being contaminated. Or, having caged the offenders, they throw them into the sea, and destroy their houses and fields, by such punishment to make demonstration of their abhorrence.

The most feared crime is that which they call sumban, which is incest in the first degree; for they regard it as assured by long experience and knowledge inherited in tradition from their ancestors, that the land which allows that crime is bound down by wretchedness and misfortunes until its infamy is purged by the rigorous chastisement of the offender. There is no other means which can placate the wrath of heaven. Consequently, when they suffer long droughts, or other general plagues from heaven, they immediately attribute them to this. A case of that nature came to my notice in the year fifty-one, when the drought was general, and so great that even the water of the rivers failed, and that river which had any water that found its way to the sea was rare. The Indians of the village which was in my care on the coast of Siocon came to tell me that it was a punishment from the sky, and that it had been demanded by the awfulness of such crime on the coast of Mindanao, where they said that a mother was living in marriage with her son. They petitioned me to have the offenders punished, and warned me that the punishment should be death without remission, such being their custom, without admitting satisfaction by any other penalty, however excessive it be. The same report was current in the island of Basilan. However, it was without other foundation than that the Indians are gossipy and suspicious, ignorant of the secrets of the sky and ruled by the traditions of the past. They are ruled in that island by greater fear, as they retained more accurately in their memory certain cases that served them as examples and warnings. For, at a certain time, the sky was so leaden that for two years not a drop of rain fell. There was an Indian who violated the respect that he owed to his blood and to nature, with regard to a daughter of his. Although he tried to bury the crime in the depths of his silence, it cried out to the sky as an offense, and was heard distinctly as a sin; for the effect, as ungrateful as evil, always turns against its cause. He was a person of influence, and respect for him did not allow any investigation to be made; but, the villages grieving over the public calamity, and unable to endure their forced famine, men trampled under foot respect and laws, in their judgment that tolerance in so execrable an evil had also vexed and hardened the sky. By common consent they seized father and daughter, and, shutting them up in a cage well weighted with stones, threw them into the sea. In return they experienced from the sky approbation for their avenging zeal, in the heavy rain with which it received them. For at all times God preserves the credit to virtue, and even among barbarians imposed penance on vice, so that those who became familiars of vice could have no excuse.[36]

The Joloans executed the same punishment with equal severity, but through malicious information. God, who is always the protector of innocence, shielded the wretched; for when they cast two other fathers in the same manner [into the water], he took away the weight of the stones, and gave the men strength to keep afloat, without abandoning them for a whole day, so that, the report of the matter having reached the king, the wonder forced him to seek new information, by which he discovered falsity and recognized innocence. In all the nations innocence considers God as its advocate, and in desperate cases rests secure on His protection.

Judges in suits or causes follow the simple laws of nature, and have no embarrassment of laws and doubts and contrary interpretations. They have no delays by reports or prolixity of writs, for they do not waste a single dedo[37] of paper in that. The accusation, the plea, and the evidence are quickly heard—all in the manner of the time of Noah. If there is no testimony, they admit the parties to the oath, which contains terrifying imprecations. With that plea the party is usually content; for the obligation and risk, to which he is exposed by results which are reckoned as punishments of heaven against perjured ones if the rigor of their imprecations is executed, are greatly feared. If perchance the party is satisfied that he has truth on his side, at his petition they do not rest content with that trial, but judgment of red-hot coals or hot iron,[38] such as was resorted to in España and other countries, in centuries ruder and more immune from laws by the privilege of their innocence and goodness. If the persons are burned, then their punishment is proceeded with; and if not, the accuser is obliged to make requital. That custom seems to have been communicated by the Moros by way of Terrenate, where it is still observed. However, no one is burned, for since the Ternatans are so skilled in sorcery, they know herbs of such efficacy and bewitchments of such power, that they communicate it to the hands so that they can handle the iron with impunity, as if it were a nosegay of flowers. Also many of those whom they bury alive, that being the punishment of adultery and rape, escape. I say this, for it often occurred that persons escaped from the execution of this test, in the sight of the Spaniards at Ternate, women whose guilt was notorious, but who cleared themselves of suspicion among their people by this proof. I was told many happenings of this sort, during the time that I spent in those islands [i.e., the Moluccas]; and I was assured that it was done by means of an herb, and I was shown some that were famous in its knowledge. These were the ones to whom the accused had recourse in all their exigencies, suborning their expertness with a quantity of money.

Chapter XV

The form of government of these natives

The kings, although so tyrannical in government, and in power so beyond the affliction and trouble which authority and ostentation incur, yet according to the condition of their poverty maintain the form and authority of a court. Peace affairs are in charge of a chief justice or counselor, called zarabandal. That is the greatest court title and he decides the causes and suits, and advises concerning the sentence. In the outside villages where the king does not reside, the chiefs meddle wherever they wish, without other law than their power and will, and their unbridled greed; and the one injured has no recourse, for, in quarrels between the plebeians and chiefs, the king always takes the part of the latter—who are more powerful, and are those who can make trouble for him, and even deprive him of his kingdom. For his principate is founded more on the recognition that they make of his nobility than on any absolute power which secures to him their vassalage; since a slave will say “no” to the king in what does not suit him. That happened in Joló, in the presence of Father Alexandro Lopez. When the father was negotiating through the medium of the king to have the ransom for a Christian put at a humane figure, the other, a Joloan slave by condition, who had the Christian in his power, said to the very face of the king, when the latter asked him to conform to the prices settled upon in the treaty of peace,[39] that he would not do it; and that was the end of the matter. That signified that the king’s power in execution extended just so far as his vassals wished, and that they would obey him just so far as it pleased them.

They have established orders of nobility, with a distinction of titles which aggrandize it. Some are called Tuam, which is the same as “Señor” or the title applied to men in España. Others are given the title of Orancaya, which signifies “rich man;” it is the greatest title, and equivalent to grandee of their kingdom. It is equivalent to the same title that España gave to its grandees when his Majesty used more simplicity, and called them Ricos-Homes [i.e., “rich men”]. The rest are called chiefs, and correspond to what we call caballeros and Hijos-dalgo [i.e., “knights and nobles”]. They have no greater dignity than the honor. Those of the blood royal are called cachiles following the custom and style of the kings of Maluco, Terrenate, Tidores, and Xilolos. The same in the peculiar style of Joló are called Paguian.

The Orangcayas or Ricos-Homes become the rulers of vassals, and have some villages in their charge. In those villages, although the king is recognized, and tribute sent to him, in all else those rulers are absolute; and especially in government affairs are they independent. They are the ones who tyrannize most ungovernably over the people; for whatever fine the king imposes upon them, or whatever gift he requests from them, they lay hands upon their subjects, and, as if they were slaves they take away the son from the father in order to sell him. That has been the case so often that, even since they have been made subject to our government, it has been necessary to examine with close attention, whenever they bring any slave to sell, the reason for his slavery; for it has been found that they sell us many slaves without any other right than that of their tyranny, relieving their necessities and making their payments with the first person whom they meet—bringing him, beguiled by some other pretext, to the Spaniards; and the injury was suffered without any complaint, because of the incapacity and dullness of the poor Subanos. The latter, as they are so unused to intercourse with us, and so shut up in their own lives, had no arguments to oppose to what they did not understand; and showed their wonder, surprise, and bashfulness in brute silence. For that reason, where the Orangcayas govern (which are almost all villages of the Subanos or Indians of the mountain), there is scarce one who enjoys liberty. Those chiefs hold them so under their power, that they regard the very leaders and chiefs of the Subano nation as their slaves. That I experienced on a visit which I made on a dangerous occasion, when in order to assure the minds of the people I took with me a Lutao chief who was the absolute master before the Spaniards entered, and to whom they still paid hereditary respect along all the coast of Siocon. Being, then, with all the people and chiefs of the nation assembled together in a village, and I endeavoring to honor them with signs of the greatest affection, the Lutao said: “Do not pay any attention to these people, Father, for they are all my slaves.” This he said in a place where we two and the chiefs of the village were alone. I thought that that contempt and arrogance would arouse them; but on the contrary, it softened them, as the affection and presents of a loving prince would his humble vassal. And, although they were not slaves, the respect in which they were born gives the chiefs so much authority, that although we [Spaniards] possess the rule, they, as chiefs, command the people. And, as the latter were reared in that tyranny, their natural disposition made them show respect and natural submission; for, notwithstanding the immunity that our arms give them, they obey those chiefs better than they do us. May that be tempered in part by the Christian government, and the vigilance of our father ministers, and the recourse which they find in the royal officials. For a chief of those natives who was governor of the village of Baluasan, near to Samboangan, when speaking of the wretched subjection in which the Lutaos held them, and the good fortune that had come to them with the entrance of our government, by restraining the Lutao tyranny, and giving arms to persecuted liberty, spoke to me these words: “If you [Spaniards] had not arrived when you did, there would now not be any of us left; for we would already have been finished, and bartered for goods with the people of Macasar.” These words consoled me, on account of the fidelity which the interest and recognized advantages of that barbarian guaranteed.[40]

Such was the government maintained by Corralat. And since he made all of them so powerful, giving them special power by laws, he was very acceptable to the princes of his nation and therefore most secure. These men, then, are the ones who grieve over the losses sustained by the change, who see themselves put under holy laws and just—they who before had no other laws than those of their own will, and their unbridled ambition, laws from which the others suffered as a servile, cowardly, and rude nation.

Chapter XVI

Some peculiarities of the customs of the Subanos

The customs of the Subanos or Indians of the mountains there is no reason for relating; for with more hideous extremes they maintain the evils of the Lutaos, while those peculiar to them are, as it were, the brutal creatures among other citizens. But that even will add praises to the changes that have resulted from the skill of the Omnipotent, and to the zeal of the missionaries, by whose means virtue produced the civilized and Christian conduct which now is theirs. Their dress approaches that of the inhabitants of the beach with whom they have communication. Accordingly, those who traffic with Lutaos or Moros dress in their style; while those familiar with the Visayan nations (such as the peoples of Caraga and the coast of Dapitan), through commerce with them, follow their custom. All their government is confusion, and they wage war, not some nations with others, nor one village with another, but all are, as it were, enemies of the human race. Armed against one another, without subordination or greater subjection than what the might and act of violence of the boldest obtained, they had no other laws in their causes that the might of the one provoked to avenge himself; and his rigor, even in the worst cases, was appeased by gifts. Thus when a Subano came to acquire a poor capital that would enable him to pay for a murder, he committed the murder with the greatest safety, in order that he might be enrolled in the number of valiant and to have authority as such to wear a red turban. Because of that barbaric vanity they would kill their best friend, if they caught him asleep or off his guard; for the barbaric courage of these nations does not consider posts of reputation, but those of security. In Caraga there was a more atrocious custom; for, in order to be able to clothe oneself in the dress of the valiant—namely, a striped turban, and breeches of their peculiar style (which they call baxaque) with similar stripes—one must have killed seven men.[41]

The peculiarity of this nation, and the thing that gives them some excellence and esteem, is that their women are more chaste and modest. They esteem virginity, and keep it inviolate, even to advanced age, for the vocation of matrimony. It is true that this virtue is aided by their natural disposition, which furnishes for the defense of chastity their native stupidity and shyness; but therewith they succeed in an undertaking which among Lutaos and the other nations of these islands is rare and difficult indeed. This has secured them so much esteem and confidence in this region that the chiefs of high standing among the Lutaos, in order to guard their daughters more safely, have them reared among Subanos; and they do not take them into the dangerous camp of their own nation unless it is to establish them in marriage, and with that station, in safety, as they think. Among this nation there is a class of men who profess celibacy[42] and govern themselves by natural law, and they are very punctual and perfect in their observance of it; and such is the feeling of security in regard to them, that they are allowed to go about among the women without any fear or suspicion. Their dress is throughout like that of the women, with skirts of the same fashion. They do not use weapons, or engage in anything else that is peculiar to men, or communicate with them. They weave the mantas that are used here, which is the proper employment of women, and all their conversation is with women. Therefore, the purpose of life which they follow comes to be more extraordinary by its peculiarity and by its perils, considering both the nature of that country, and the little regard that they give to their dangers. So satisfied do they live, either from their own purpose or from their natural disposition, that they have never discredited their position with weaknesses. They were, so to speak, hermits of their religion, and were held in high esteem. And in fact the constancy of their life and modesty of their customs, obliged one to have respect for them. In a nation so barbarous and who knew not God, it appears a prodigy worthy of wonder that one of the special providences of His Divine Majesty, to place such examples of virtue in a country where vice had absolute control, so that the experience of the eyes causes them to esteem what God’s love did not obtain. I have known two of these men, and one of them I baptized, to my especial consolation, while visiting the coast of Siocon, which extends for twenty leguas from Samboangan toward Dapitan. His reputation reached me in a different village, for in his own they kept him closely concealed, whether it were for the sake of their ancient observances I do not know. Like a holy man of his law, or because of some fear, he also kept himself hidden; for, as he afterward told me, they had terrified him by telling him that if the Spaniards caught him they would put him in the galleys. By that means, to him whom the pathway of salvation was most easy, they filled it with such difficulties that they made it impossible for him. I knew that they would refuse to let me see him for those same reasons, and therefore made use of a trick and of a dangerous resolution, to catch him. For near the village, which was located on the beach in the shade of trees (the poverty of these barbarians not suffering more shelter), and where in a few hours they would suffer from hunger, having them all before me I told them that if the lavia[43] whom they had hidden did not come, then the mass would not begin. Labia is the name they give to those of this profession. The name of this one was Tuto. I added that no one must return to his house until he arrived, and that if he delayed too long, I would go to Samboangan with the chief of the village and the Subanos of importance. That was the same to them as if I were taking them to the galleys; so much does their wretchedness grieve to leave the wretchedness in which they were born, and their lack of intelligence to appear before reasonable people and Spaniards. Without allowing them to talk, or to question whether he was there or not, or where, but assuming that it was a well-known thing, I turned to a relative of the governor, and said to him: “Go for him quickly, for I shall not move from this spot until he comes.” He departed without a word, and all of the people remained motionless, staring with fright. When they recovered their equanimity, their whole attempt was to excuse their negligence by empty excuses, which I accepted in order to calm their minds. Inside of an hour I found in my presence him whom I desired so much. He, seeing the love with which I received him, and how differently my purpose was declared from that which his fears gave him to understand, recovered his courage in full, and immediately offered himself for baptism—a matter which I was unwilling to defer, in order that I might leave him with his salvation assured. Consequently, after instructing him briefly, I baptized him, and called him Martin, as that happy lot came to him on that saint’s day.[44] He satisfied my hopes and hastened to me every time when I afterward visited his village of Malande, very punctually, and always with some special refreshment both for me and for him who in my company had acted as his sponsor.

The other lavia whom I saw was in one of the Joloan islands, called Pangutara.[45] Him I found to be already a Christian, whom Father Alexandro Lopez, a great apostle of the Joloans, had reduced and baptized in Samboangan, and called Santiago. This man is naturally very well dispositioned and has no moral defects, and he is a man of a celestial peace and serenity. He is always bubbling with laughter, which is the effect of the security of his soul; for, when the conscience has nothing to fear, the heart has gladness to scatter abroad.

I must not neglect to tell one thing that I noticed in regard to the nature of the people of this profession, from what I could gather from the exterior of those two, which seems to me to be the reason that takes them along the pathway so unusual and difficult in a climate so hot, and lands so dangerous (as he who has had experience in these islands, and who knows the wretchedness of their natives in this region, will know). For the physiognomy of those men is that of eunuchs, and their natural disposition and condition are so cold, that it made me think that they must be so naturally, and that nature kept her virtue under control in this region. But since they behave in all other things with so blameless a life, I shall always consider them as prodigies of the divine Providence in favor of virtue. For no one despises virtue as a thing unknown, since even to barbarians virtue is painted in so natural colors that they respect it naturally, without more external credit than their native security.

This sole spark of good morals have I found among the so great darkness in which the Subanos live. However, they have another custom belonging to the same aspect of their lives, so vile that it is sufficient to obscure greater lights than those of that small spark; for among them is more acceptable the exchange that they make of their women with one another—the husbands mutually agreeing upon this exchange, and celebrating the hideous loan and the vile restitution with dances and drunken revels, according to their custom. Their feasts are like their customs, and one is the manifestation of the other.

Chapter XVII

Burials and marriages of those natives

I have kept these two acts, so contrary in their effects, in order to present them in one place in this chapter, inasmuch as they are of greater display and magnificence, and in them, in spite of the simplicity of those natives, the serious predominates. In the first, which is practiced with their dead, I know not whether to praise more their piety or their generosity and grandeur, or to which of the two virtues recognition is due; for both are carried to the greatest extreme. For their liberality, the obligations of their piety (which declares itself in those attentions a debtor to nature), passes by and tramples under foot the laws of their poverty and the natural simplicity of these Indians, and makes demonstrations superior to their fortune, clothing their dead with the magnificence of princes. In the shroud alone, they clothe the dead person in a hundred brazas of fine muslin, which serves him as a shirt. Over that they place rich patolas, which are pieces of cloth of gold, or of silk alone, worked very beautifully, and of great value, pious generosity endeavoring to give him the best and to clothe him in the finest and most precious garments. It is a law, established by immemorial custom, that the children and near relatives each clothe the deceased in a piece of gauze or of sinampuli (another fabric of equal estimation) arranging it with such loops and knots that they find space for it all. In regard to the dress, this custom is in force even to this day, and no man who respects himself has ever failed in this law. There is no one so poor and so wretched that he does not own a piece [of cloth] eight brazas long, which is reserved for his burial. They have abandoned other demonstrations, or rather, exchanged them for Christian ones, of which we shall speak at the proper place. In that regard they give oldtime Christians much to emulate. For formerly they buried with their dead most of their treasures—gold, bells, and other things, which are highly esteemed among them. Those things were so sacred to reverence that no one, however abandoned and audacious he might be, had the courage to stretch forth his hand to take them—although he could have done so with great safety to himself, as their dead are buried in caves, islets, or solitary mountains, without other guard than their imaginary religion. On the day on which they buried the deceased, about his sepulcher they planted palms, jasmines, and other flowers peculiar to this region. If the deceased was a king, or a prince of equal nobility, they placed a tent above the grave with four white banners at its sides, while inside it they burned perfumes as long as the time of lamentation or memorial lasted, perhaps setting aside some slaves for that employ, in order to make it more lasting.

This heathen display has given way to Christian demonstrations of sumptuous honors and abundant alms which they give for their deceased, as we shall relate in the proper place. But I shall not defer the telling of one which may prove a matter of reprehension to our neglect and forgetfulness, in what is more important to us, namely, that they are wont to have the coffin prepared during the lifetime for their burial. They make those coffins out of one single piece, and from incorruptible woods. They keep them under their houses where they can see them whenever they descend from or ascend to their houses; and they are open to the gaze of all who pass along the street. That is a care that it would be right for them to have learned from the oldtime Christians, whom the faith of what they hope for, ought to arouse with greater demonstrations....

The Subanos follow the Lutaos in some things, their poverty and misery exerting efforts in the worship of their dead, and their barbarism showing itself at the side of their piety, when they throw into the sea, out of grief, the gold of their ornaments, decorations, and their most precious jewels—a custom wellnigh universal in all these islands.[46] But in one island their cruelty is shown especially in their alleviation of their grief and their barbaric pity for their calamity, by giving associates to the deceased, and making them companions of their grief, causing the same havoc and loss in others. Because their father, son, near relative, or anyone whom they had loved had died, they would seize their arms in order to kill the first person whom they met, and without other cause for offense than that of their natural disposition and their barbaric ferocity. Thus with the blood of the unfortunate one did they dry the tears of their own ill fortune, finding consolation in the misfortune of others.

The celebration at their marriages is such that in all that has been discovered nothing else can compare with it; and the Spaniards who daily wonder at it as witnesses always do so with new wonder. For if the marriage is of a chief, the celebration begins a week beforehand, and is concluded a week after with dancing to the sound of their bells and drums. There is open table for all who care to go up into the house. The viands consist of wine, for that is the thing in which they are especially solicitous to show display, while they take no account of the food, although it is not lacking. But the deceiving heat of the wine takes away their taste so strongly that they are mindful of nothing. Its heat serves to give spirit and animation to their songs (which are in honor of him who makes the feast), and sprightliness to their dances. The day of the celebration [of the wedding] when the betrothed couple have to appear for the nuptial blessings, the bride, breaking the strict confinement which she keeps all that time, issues forth with a display and gravity superior to her condition; for her relatives and the other Indians of their partisanship are clad in their gala costume, and armed with lance and shield, and escort the bride. The march is to the accompaniment of bells and Moorish dulzainas [i.e., a sort of wind instrument]. The ladies of honor follow in double file, and they generally consist of all the women of the village, who are invited for the sake of greater display of grandeur. Then the girls follow in the same order, while those of greater social standing and higher rank are borne in chairs richly adorned, and carried on the shoulders of four slaves. At the end comes the bride in a certain very spacious chair which allows room for a lady who supports and assists her, and to two or three girls, who serve her with so singular modesty and gravity that it would cause wonder even if she did not affect so great elaborateness; for she scarcely moves an eyelash or must move her hand, those who accompany her substituting themselves for everything. One dries the sweat from her, another fans her, and a third looks after her clothing. Down a different street comes the bridegroom to meet the bride, with a like or even greater retinue in competition with that of the relatives of the bride. The men are in gala costume, and armed; the women are in festal array; and the chief women in chairs. The dress of the bridal pair must be white, until, the [bride’s] consent having been given, the bridegroom retires, and exchanges it for a red dress. In this ceremony coquetry displays greater affectations: for the bride takes a half-hour to give her answer, and, after it is given she wastes another long half-hour to reach the lattice of the chapel. And it is necessary to sit down to await the bride for that time, amid the laughter of those who a few days before saw her running and leaping about like a mad she-goat, while on this day she deports herself with so great a demonstration of sedateness and virginal modesty. The precision of her steps, they say, is a necessity, because she is coming bound even to the feet. That is the ceremony that they practice for the reception of the husband who is the one who must come to take those bonds and shackles from her.

On that day the house is all hung with a canopy that covers everything, so that neither walls nor ceiling are seen. The bridal-chamber is open to the sight and richly adorned, for on that day everything gleams with splendor and adornment. The bride is seated on a cushion, near a seat made for the groom from cushions in the Moorish style, with embroidery and strips of silk with a quantity of lace. She is served with the same ostentation as in the street, and displays no more animation than a statue. I was present at one of so great display that, besides the display which the Lutaos showed in their weddings, there came at two o’clock of the same day, marching in a company formed of their men, lancers and arquebusiers, an assembly of men who taking position in the plaza de armas, invited the governor and all the Spanish artillery for that afternoon; and for the following day all the paid soldiers—Pampangos and Cagayanes—giving food to all and serving the Spaniards quite in the Spanish fashion, both in the cuisine and in the courtesies. It is an event of so great preëminence that the governor and all his captains and best soldiers go to it, in order to honor and conciliate those people. And any prince can well go to see those ceremonies, for neither actions nor words show that they are barbarians; but [they appear as] the most modest nation in the world, which is celebrating its marriage without any idea of the [carnal] delights of it. They are so moderate in showing their affection that during three days they do not avail themselves of the license of their estate. Such is the way in which they act that the fathers worthily honor it with their presence, and on that day go to their houses, for they are unaccustomed to the modesty and caution unless it is when they confess and anoint them. Everything is dispensed with on that day because of its gravity. We all, then, went on that day with the superior, and the governor and captains. I was very glad to be a witness of so great splendor, modesty, and gravity in natives who are in other things so simple and unceremonious; and to see a sacrament so hazardous treated with so much devotion, in the respect shown to the ministers of it. That chief spent at that feast more than four hundred arrobas of wine, and more than one thousand birds. Although they are poor, in order to meet the obligations of that day satisfactorily they strip themselves, showing an equally generous spirit in such action with the living as is displayed in the fatherland with the dead; for the greatest displays of their grandeur are the funerals and weddings.

Chapter XVIII

Boats and weapons of these natives

The craft used by the Lutaos for war are, like those of terrible pirates, built with particular attention to speed—both for pursuit, and to seek shelter whenever affairs go wrong with them, or when their undertaking is dangerous to them. For since their wars are always waged for greed, and reputation never induces them, they try to advantage themselves quite at their safety; and they readily abandon any undertaking if they see that it will be costly to them. That care and attention, which govern their boat-building, cause their ships to sail like birds, while ours are like lead in this regard. The planking that they use is very thin, and has no other nails, crotches, or knees than a little rattan. Rattan is the substance which here takes the place of hemp, in tying things together, some planks [in the craft] being tied together with it. For that purpose projecting parts are left at intervals on the inside [of the planks] in which holes are made; and through these the ligament passes, without any harm being done to the plank. Upon so light a foundation they build upper works, as high as they wish, of bamboo upon the cates. The cates are buoys which run on both sides from bow to stern, and they act as outriggers for the ship, which is sustained by these two floats. The ship carries more outside than in. The outside scaffolds allow room for two rows of oars, beside that of the hull. Thus small craft of from seven to twelve brazas (which is the largest size) have a crew of sixty men and upwards. I have seen one that was manned with three hundred hands; for, in order to have the rowing more compressed together they use loose oars, each one handling his own. Those oars are certain round blades, which an Indian manages easily. Therefore, when it is necessary they row exactly to the time of their breathing, by inserting more or less of the oar, according to the force they wish to give. For the rowing is excellent and the oar is put directly into the water, because it is trusted solely to the hands, without being fastened to anything. That is a custom that obliges them to have their craft very flat, and to elevate the sides but little, and they are content to leave but one plank out of the water.

These vessels are crescent-shaped. Consequently, there is but a small keel, or little of it in the water, and that part which they rob from stern and bow is left out of the water—three or four brazas of keel or stem, all of which serves for its speed, and there is little to hold the boat back because of its narrowness. Therefore the helm is not managed like the Spanish helm, by the sweep from the end; accordingly, they use two rudders, one at one side and one at the other, where the flat part of the keel begins. One is usually employed for managing the boat, and both of them when it is stormy. With the second they keep the boat from getting unsteady, which would follow from its lightness, that rudder giving the boat more stiffness and serving as ballast. That is a precaution rendered necessary by its very lightness, the vessels that are lightest being those that require most care by being unsteady. In the middle they have a scaffold, four or six brazas long, which they call burulan or baileo. This consists of a floor raised above the rowers, and has its awning, which is called cayanes. Those awnings are made from the leaves of a small palm which grows in the water. That is the quarters for the fighters and the chiefs, for those vessels do not have any stern-cabin; it is, at the same time, the little castle from which they fight. All that structure finds its support and staunchness in what they call the cates, which are the buoys of which we have spoken. They are made of three or four bamboos as thick as the arm, and even larger, and reach from stem to stern. They are so adjusted that they drag through the water about one and one-half brazas away from the vessel. Consequently, they do not allow it to toss about, however violent the waves, but are the arms that keep the boat safe. They are used in general by all the craft of these islands, and by those of Burney and Maluco; for, since their ships are of no account without this security, they have no safety in the sea nor do the Indians dare to embark. From this circumstance Molina, who represented to the Council that buoys ought to be fastened to the ships so that they could sail or float with a support made of certain bags blown up and thrown alongside, derived his argument. He thought that that would assure the fleets, as they could not then sink, as he had experienced, even if they filled with water. It might have proved successful indeed, and in favor of his discourse, if some heavy sea raised by the hurricanes would not prove sufficient to burst the bags and drag them away from the sides; for hurricanes have more than sufficient violence to break up the stern and destroy the ship. That has been well known by actual experience here; for a few hours of a severe storm are sufficient to destroy the fastenings; and those ships would be wrecked daily if the voyages were not so short, and the vessels of so small burden that they can find shelter in any port. When necessity arises, the men in them beach the vessels themselves, and do so more easily when they go in a fleet, as then they unite their forces. The crossings are so short, because of the multiplicity of islands, that the weather never catches them in such a way that they can not soon escape by drawing near to one land or another. For fair weather this appliance is very useful, so that they take comfort in them freely.

In regard to their weapons, the Lutao nation is the most curious in these islands; for all glory in having the most precious and the finest arms possible. All of them from their earliest age wear their weapons, with so careful a regard to this matter that no one dares to leave his house without his weapons. The wearing of weapons is so much a matter of reputation with them, that they consider it an insult to be obliged to appear without them, regulating their punctiliousness in this region very much according to the laws of España. It casts much shame upon the negligence into which our military force has fallen, by the poor reputation of those here who profess arms, who in the sight of these nations are not ashamed to be seen without swords or daggers; and those which they carry well demonstrate the care with which they serve in their posts, since they necessarily satisfy outward appearance, although they would be useless on occasion. I speak of the simple and common soldiers; and, since this care is lacking in most of them, it ought to be felt more, and with effect, by those who can remedy it. The weapon worn by the natives of the cities is a wavy dagger, which they call a kris. Its blade is engraved with channels and water-lines, which make it very beautiful. The hilt is a small idol, made of ivory for the common man, and of gold for the chiefs, studded with gems which are highly esteemed among them. I saw one worn by the commander Socsocan[47]—who was the lord of Samboangan when our men conquered it—which was valued at ten slaves. The scabbard was gilded with the same neatness, and at some time had been covered with sheets of gold. I saw a scabbard in Joló, which had a pearl as large as a musket-ball at the end of the chape. The blades are very fine, and, although so small (being scarcely two palmos in length), they are valued at twelve, twenty, or thirty reals of eight.

Such are their arms in peace; those of war, for fighting on the land, are lances and shields. The shield is round among the coast-dwellers of the south, and in the islands of Basilan and Joló. In the rest of this island, the general custom of the long and narrow shield which is used in all the other islands is followed; with these, they shield and protect all the body. From these weapons the kris is inseparable, and they use it at close quarters, and after they have used the lance, which they throw in the usual manner. Their lances show the same care as their krises, and are very much ornamented and engraved, and have their covers gilded. The shaft is of the finest ebony, or of some other beautiful wood; and at intervals they put rings of silver or tin on it. The head is of brass, which is used here, and so highly polished that it vies with gold. It is chased so elaborately that there are lances that are valued at one slave each. At the end they fasten a large hawk’s-bell, which they fix upon the shaft in such a manner that it surrounds it; and when they shake the lance it sounds in time with the fierce threats and bravadoes. The valiant use them and as man-slayers, give warning to those who do not know them and those of less valor, so that they may avoid them as they would vipers.

The arms used on sea and land—besides those of the plain, in places where the people fortify themselves with the resolve to defend themselves—in addition to the one mentioned (which are the most deadly), are the bagacayes, which are certain small bamboos as thick as the finger, hardened in the fire and with points sharpened. They throw these with such skill that they never miss when the object is within range; and some men throw them five at a time. Although it is so weak a weapon, it has such violence that it has gone through a boat and has pierced and killed the rower. Brother Diego de Santiago told me, as an eyewitness, that he being seated saw that thing (which appears a prodigy) happen in the same vessel in which he had embarked with a garrison. To me that seemed so incredible that I wished immediately to see it myself; and, cutting a bagacay, I had it thrown at a shield. In Samboanga I saw a bull which was killed immediately by a bagacay which a lad threw at it, which struck it clear to the heart. It is a thing that would cause laughter in Europa, and there would be little esteem for the valor which does not despise such weapons, and they would jest at so frail violence. But it is certain that, at close range, there is no crueler weapon; and it is also certain that, the day on which these Moros have bravery enough to get within range, on that day any ship must yield. For they send in such a shower of these bagacayes that scarce a man is unwounded; while many are stuck like bulls, so that they cannot move for being laden with so many weapons. Then the rowing ceases, and they discharge the missiles with both hands and some from each finger, both rowers and fighters. That throws their opponents into disorder, and they are unable to manage their weapons. There must be many in España who were in the dangerous sieges which Governor Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera undertook against the kings of both Mindanao and Joló—where, in the so great mortality which the glorious boldness and military honor of our men incurred, the most of those who fell, to exalt their fame forever, were slain by arms so weak and apparently contemptible. In the same way they use stakes hardened in the fire which they hurl with accuracy, and which inflict even more damage. The lance is used in the same way, and they hurl it with so extraordinary violence that they pierce a steel-covered shield and transfix the soldier with it, as has been seen often. In an engagement that Captain Gaspar de Morales[48] fought in Joló, his steel-covered shield did not avail him; but the lance passed through it and his arm, and did not fall short of giving him a mortal wound in the breast.

The Negrillos of this island use the bow and arrow, as these are the weapons least difficult to obtain, and more natural [to them], as requiring less skill. They poison arrows, and the wound is consequently always dangerous. The wooden points of the arrows are so hard that those people have no occasion to regret the lack of iron.[49]

The use of the blowpipe [zarbatana], which is one braza long, has extended from the Borneans to the Joloans, and even to the Lutaos of this island. By blowing through it they discharge certain small darts smeared with so deadly a poison that if one single drop of blood is drawn, death is certain to result, if the antidote is not quickly applied. When our soldiers have to make an expedition to Burney, where other weapons are rarely used, they go prepared with the most efficacious antidotes—namely, human excrement, as has always been happily experienced. These blowpipes are sometimes used also as lances, having the iron fastened at one side, so that, if the shot is not accurate, they use it alternately as a lance. Then when the opportunity is offered they make use of their darts. They are so good shots that they can bring down the smallest bird at twenty or thirty paces.

The Joloans who are called Ximbanaos,[50] and are more ferocious and of greater determination, are armed from top to toe with helmet, bracelets, coat-of-mail, greaves, with linings of elephant-hide—armor so proof that nothing can make a dint on it except firearms, for the best sword or cutlass is turned. That was an experience acquired by many in the conquest of the Joloans by General Don Pedro de Almonte Verastigui,[51] who had brought from Ternate braggarts of that nation, who wielded the campilan or cutlass—a weapon made for cutting off heads, and for splitting the body from top to toe. But they could effect nothing, notwithstanding the heavy blows of those cutlasses; and retired like cowards, giving as an excuse that their weapons would not cut, and that they were only succeeding in ruining them, for they were all nicked by the strong resistance. From the shoulders rise two irons to the height of the helmet and morion by which they protect the head from being cut off. They knot the flaps of their skirts on the breast or coat-of-mail, so that they can bend the knee to the ground, according to their method of fighting, when the case demands it. They wear a plume of feathers above the forehead, such as is seen on mules. They leave nothing unarmed, even to the eyes, which are armed by fierceness—both because of the terrific appearance of their arms, and by the fierceness which they affect. It is the fitting dress, among them, for princes and braggarts. When they put it on they generally take some opium,[52] and, rendered furious and insensible [to danger] by it, they enter amid the vessels of a squadron madly, and destroy it with great slaughter. For their arms are lance, kris, or dagger; and with their bounds and leaps, in which they indulge according to their barbarous method of fighting, they appear in many places, always endeavoring to bring down many [of their foes]. Hence, in order that any ball may strike them, it is necessary that it cause disaster in the troop—besides the injuries that their fury has executed in safety, armed so proof against those who dress as lightly as the heat and roughness of the country compel.

The Mindanaos use a weapon quite distinct from that of the Ternatans. It is a campilan or cutlass of one edge, and heavier than the pointless Turkish weapon. It is a very bloody weapon, but, being so heavy, it is a danger for him who handles it, if he is not adroit with it. It has only two forms of use, namely, to wield it by one edge, and to raise it by the other, in order to deal another stroke, its weight allowing time for the spears of the opponents to enter. They do not gird it on, as that would be too much trouble, but carry it on the shoulders, in the fashion of the camarlengos[53] who carry the rapiers on their shoulders in public ceremonies in front of their princes. Besides that weapon the Mindanao uses lance, kris, and shield, as do the other nations. Both these and those have begun to use firearms too much, having acquired that from intercourse with our enemies. They manage all sorts of artillery excellently, and in their fleets all their craft carry their own pieces, with ladle, culverins, esmerils, and other small weapons.[54]

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[1] Juan Francisco Combés was born at Zaragoza on October 5, 1620. At the age of twelve he entered the Jesuit order as a novice, at Tarragona; after six years of study there, he wished to enter the Philippine missions, and was therefore sent to Mexico to await an opportunity for going to the islands. This did not come until 1643, when Diego de Bobadilla went from Acapulco with forty-seven Jesuit missionaries, of whom Combés was one; five of these died in an epidemic, which carried away one hundred and fifteen of the people on the ship. Combés completed his theological studies at Manila, and was ordained in 1645, being soon afterward sent to Zamboanga. He remained in Mindanao twelve years, often acting as ambassador of the governors to Corralat and other Moro chiefs, and ministering in various places; in 1657 he returned to Manila, where he spent two years, and then three years in Leyte. He was then recalled (1662) to Manila, and tried to induce the authorities there to maintain the forts in the Moro country; but his efforts failed. In 1665 he was sent as procurator for his order to Madrid and Rome; but he died on the voyage, December 29 of that year. (Retana and Pastells’s ed. of Hist. de Mindanao, col. vi–xix.)

[2] Of the Caragas, Blumentritt says (Tribes of the Philippines, Mason’s translation, p. 535): “In older works are so named the warlike and Christian inhabitants of the localities subdued by the Spaniards on the east coast of Mindanao, and, indeed, after their principal city, Caraga. It has been called, if not a peculiar language, a Visaya dialect, while now only Visaya (near Manobo and Mandaya) is spoken, and an especial Caraga nation is no longer known.” It is quite probable that the term Caragas was only a local name applied by the people of this district to themselves or applied to them by the Spaniards; and if they ever did exist as a separate people they have been completely absorbed by the surrounding peoples.

[3] The Mindanaos (properly Maguindanaos, “people who come from the lake”) are mentioned by Pigafetta (Vol. XXXIII, p. 239); they live now, as formerly, principally about the Rio Grande, and they gave name to the island of Mindanao. They are Mahometan Moros and were the chief obstacle of the Spaniards in Mindanao, but were finally brought under control by General Weyler, and their power and importance is now almost gone. Their political achievements are the only ones of consequence ever made by peoples of the Philippines. See Census of Philippine Islands, i, pp. 466–467.

[4] Blumentritt (Tribes of the Philippines) identities the Lutaos with the Mono of the district of Zamboanga, who are frequently called Ilanos, and adds that the name appears to be the Hispanicized form of the Malay Orang-Laút (“Men of the Sea”). The description given by Combes fits rather the Orang-Laút themselves than the Ilanos, who live along the seacoast west of Malabang, and are few in number. The Orang-Laút, called also “Sea Gypsies,” “Bajau” and “Sámal-Laút” (“Sámal of the Sea”) are found throughout the Malay Archipelago (in the Philippines along southern Mindanao and throughout the Sulu Archipelago), and live for mouths in their small boats. Their original home was Johore and the islands in the strait of Malacca; and they are only imperfectly Mahometanized, some being quite pagans. The Sámal living in towns in Zamboanga and the Sulu Archipelago are probably descendants of the Sámal-Laút who have abandoned their wandering life. See Census of the Philippines, i, pp. 464, 475, 476, 563.

[5] The Subanon (Spanish form “Subanos”), or “Men of the Rivers” are an important pagan tribe of western Mindanao, who are found in the mountains of Zamboanga, and extending eastward slightly into Cottabato, Misamis, and Dapitan. For a modern description that agrees essentially with that of Combés, see Census of the Philippines, i, pp. 552–560.

[6] Spanish, redentor; in religious orders, the father appointed to attend to the ransoming and return of Christians held captive by Mahometan enemies.

[7] Antonio de Abarca, S.J., was born in Villalba in the diocese of Cuenca, September 13, 1610. He entered the Society March 23, 1628, went to the Philippines in 1632, and took his final vows, January 21, 1649. He was a missionary in Mindanao and the Visayan Islands, and rector of Carigara and Cebú. While going to Rome as procurator, he died at sea (January 23, 1660), near Acapulco. (Combés, Pastells and Retana ed., col. 694.)

[8] This chief is called timoly by the Subanos; hari-hari by the Mandayas; masali campo, by the Monteses; matado, by the Manobos; bagani, by the Bagobos; and dato and sultán by the Mahometans and Moros. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 655.)

[9] The so-called Dapitan nation was a Visayan tribe and lived in Mindanao in the present comandancia of Dapitán in the province of Misámis. Strictly speaking they can be called a distinct tribe with no greater accuracy than can the Caragas. See Blumentritt’s Tribes of the Philippines (Mason’s translation); and Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 779.

[10] Baclayón is a village on the extreme southwest coast of Bohol. Loboc is a village of southern Bohol, and two miles inland. (Philippine Gazetteer.)

[11] The Portuguese had discovered the Moluccas before Magallanes set out on his memorable voyage in 1519. See Vol. XXXIV, pp. 39, 153.

[12] The text which we follow reads “y quan a fauor de sus nueuas.” “Nueuas” may possibly be a misprint for “navios,” in which case the phrase would read “how much at the mercy of their ships.”

[13] Even yet infidels abandon a house in which the head of the family has died. Father Pastells says that while crossing the island of Mindanao with Father Heras in 1878, one Sálug died in the house of Silungan, a freedman recently redeemed by the said missionaries. He was baptised before death by Father Pastells. Silungan demanded from the religious the value of the house, which he proposed to abandon. The fathers, however, answered him that since the freedman had died with baptism, the house was purified. This satisfied the heathens, and they did not insist on their demand. (Pastells and Retana’s edition of Combés, note 13, col. 655.)

[14] This refers to Legazpi’s and not Magallanes’s expedition. Pagbuaya made friendship with the former, and gave him a pilot to guide him to the inland of Panglao. In book two of Combés’s Historia, chapter II, is related rightly the occurrence with regard to the king of Borneo, after the arrival of Legazpi. Combés says that the Dapitans imagined that the Spaniards were eating fire when they smoked, and the hard white sea-biscuits they imagined to be stones. The noise of the artillery they took to be thunder, and the sword with which each one was girt, they thought to be a tail.

[15] The term “Malanao” is derived from “ma,” “people of” and “lanao,” “lake,” and has long been used to distinguish the Moros living on the watershed of Lake Lanao. See Census of the Philippines, i, p. 473.

[16] In 1596, Fathers Valerio de Ledesma and Manuel Martinez first established the mission of the River of Butuan. That same year, there not being as yet any division into bishoprics, the Manila ecclesiastical cabildo (as the see was vacant), gave Mindanao into the formal possession of the Society of Jesus, an act that was confirmed by Francisco Tello, as viceroyal patron. Later, the question of the jurisdiction about Lake Malanao was argued in court between the Jesuits and Recollects, and was decided in favor of the former by Juan Niño de Tabora, a sentence confirmed by Corcuera September 5, 1637. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, cols. 655, 656.)

[17] The bay of Panguil or Pangil takes its name from a fruit, pangi (Hidnocarpus polyandra—Bl.), which is carried down to the coast by the rivers. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 759.)

[18] The Manobos are a Malay head-hunting heathen tribe of northern Mindanao who live in the interior about the watershed of the Agusan River. “Manobo” is a native word, which, in the Bagobo language of the gulf of Dávao, means “man.” Blumentritt (with whom Retana agrees) says that the correct form of the name is “Manuba” or “Man-Suba,” i.e., “river-people.” The term might possibly be extended to the mountain people of Misamis province. See Census of the Philippines, i, pp. 461, 473; Blumentritt’s Tribes of the Philippines (Mason’s translation); and Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 780.

[19] Blumentritt (Tribes of the Philippines, Mason’s translation) says of the Mananapes: “A heathen people alleged to dwell in the interior of Mindanao, possibly a tribe of Buquidnones or Manobos.” Retana (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 780) says that the appellation is equivalent to “Manap,” and is not the name of a tribe, but merely a nickname to indicate that those bearing that name are wild like beasts.

[20] Retana (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 780), derives “Sameacas” from “Sumasacas,” a word which he says is equivalent to the Visayan “tagasaca,” “people of the uplands.” According to him, they are Malayan Moros, but Montero y Gay (Blumentritt’s Tribes of Philippines, Mason’s translation) says that they are heathen. It should be observed that Retana is not always a safe guide in etymological and ethnological matters.

[21] This entire sentence is, like many others of Combés, of loose and vague construction. Apparently what he means is, that the Lutaos had, like the Javanese, a polite and a vulgar tongue; and that the former more closely resembles the Sanskrit (since he implies that the Lutaos came from India).

[22] The Spaniards, mindful of their own struggles with the Moors of Spain (Moros) called all Mahometan peoples Moors.

[23] See Vol. XXXVI, p. 174, note 33.

[24] A classic allusion, occasioned by the marine life and habits of the Lutaos.

[25] Paguian Tindig is equivalent to “just king.” In their literal sense, both words signify “he who causes persons and things to pass by the right path.” (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 727.)

[26] Elsewhere written Limansacay; see Vol. IV, pp. 241–278, the account of Gabriel de Ribera’s expedition against the Mindanaos in 1579.

[27] Such was the first outbreak of hostilities which caused the rebellion of the Moros of Joló against Spain, and originated the piracy of that small archipelago, which wrought so much ruin, and caused so much bloodshed and depopulation among the Visayan and Tagálog islands. (Pastells and Retanas Combés, col. 658.)

[28] Regarding the introduction of Mahometanism in those islands, see Vol. IV, pp. 150, 151, 168, 178.

[29] A common name for the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), a fruit of delicate flavor and highly prized; this tree grows in Joló and Mindanao. (Official Handbook of Philippines, p. 316.)

[30] Becoquin: “A sort of cap made with a piece of cloth.” When the Joloans made a treaty with the Jesuit Lopez, they ratified it by an oath taken “on the becoquin or cap of Tampan, one of the old-time ministers of their deceit.... When the princes of Joló swear by this becoquin, using this ceremony, it is the strongest oath that they can take, and that which is most respected.” (Combés, Hist. de Mindanao, col. 478, 785.)

[31] The limocon (Calcophups indica) is a species of turtledove with red feet and beak. It is very beautiful, its plumage being green on a white background. See Delgado’s Historia, p. 830.

[32] There are offerings and sacrifices among the Mindanao heathen. The first [pagcayog] consist in offering rice, buyo, and money before a small idol of bayog [Pterospermum] wood (placed on a small altar adorned with bamboo and bonga [Areca]), called diuata or Manáug. This idol, which is a poorly-made image, has for eyes the red fruit of the tree called mabugaháy, and is painted with the sap of the narra. The blood sacrifices are of animals, and even of human beings. The first are called talíbong, if the animal sacrificed is a cock, and pag-balílig, if it is a hog. In either case, the priestesses (bailanes) having assembled, to the sound of the agun and guímbao, are clad according to rule; that is, with embroidered handkerchiefs on the head; magnificent red shirts, rich glass beads hanging from the neck; silver medals fastened to the breast; large gold earrings with strings of beads; a jabol or dagmay which serves them as a skirt, and is very skilfully woven and figured with crocodiles and other designs; at the girdle, in the midst of fragrant flowers and hawk’s-bells, they carry the balarao or dagger with which the sacrifice of the victim is made; on the arms precious bracelets of ságai-ságai and pamóans; and on the feet hoops and hawk’s-bells, which sound in cadence with the dance which legalizes such ceremonies. When the priestesses have taken their places about the altar, upon which the victim is to be sacrificed, they commence their dances to the sound of the culintangan, some of them playing on the guimbao and the agun. They walk about the altar; they tremble and belch, while singing the “miminsad,” until they fall senseless to the ground like those stricken with epileptic fits. Then the spectators go to them, fan them, sprinkle them with water, and the other women bear them up in their arms until they recover consciousness. Then they repeat the ceremony and the chief priestess buries her balarao in the heart of the hog or slits the cock’s neck. Thereupon, she sucks up the blood which gushes forth from the victim, partaking thus of the sacrifice. The other bailanes do the same. During the epileptic fit, they assert that Mansilatan has appeared to them and notified them of the good or ill outcome of the war, sickness, harvest, or whatever they have been investigating. Then it all ends in excessive eating and drinking. The human sacrifice is called huaga, and is only practiced among the Bagobos and most barbarous heathen of Mindanao. The victim is offered to the Mandarangan, the god of the mountain or volcano of Apo; this person’s value is generally apportioned among those who participate in the sacrifice, and he who pays most is the first to wound the unfortunate victim. The latter is cut into mincemeat in a moment amid the horrifying cries of his infamous executioners. Thanks to the painstaking vigilance of the authorities of that district, and to the incessant care of the missionaries, so impious and criminal a ceremony is almost entirely eradicated, and is only practiced in secret, in the densest woods. In addition to the huaga, there are true cases of cannibalism among the Baganis, who are wont to eat the raw entrails of those who fall before their lances, krises, and balaraos in battle. They do that as a mark of bravery. They have a proverb which says: “I am long accustomed to eat the entrails of men.” (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, cols. 657, 658.)

[33] Referring to Tuambaloca, the queen of Raya Bongso; Bactial (misprinted Bachal in the Combés text) was his bastard son, who for a time ruled Joló, during his father’s life.

[34] These patolas are mentioned by Pigafetta in his relation. See Vol. XXXIV, p. 59.

[35] A measure of capacity equivalent to about one-half an English gallon, or two liters.

[36] This last sentence is in the language of the Inquisition, the original being ”y aun entre barbaros puso con sambenito al vicioso, para que no tengan escusa los que se le hizieron Familiares.” “Sambenito” (translated “penance”) is the “garment worn by penitent convicts of the Inquisition;” or “an inscription in churches, containing the name, punishment, and signs of the chastisement of those doing penance.”

[37] The dedo is a measure equivalent to one forty-eighth of the vara or Spanish yard.

[38] Father Pastells has seen the immediate effects of the execution of judgment by boiling water, and cured a young man, who had thrust his hand into boiling water, by sentence of the chiefs, in order to prove his innocence. The judgment of plunging the parties into water is also practiced, and he who remains in the water the shortest time is adjudged the criminal. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 659.)

[39] These prices are mentioned in Vol. XLI, appendix.

[40] One of the chief causes of the great depopulation of Mindanao and the Visayan Islands was the slavery produced by the piracy of the Lutaos, encouraged by the Moros of Borneo, Célebes, Gilolo, Macazar, Ternate, and the other Moluccas, who brought the slaves in the markets to which they were conveyed. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 659.)

[41] The Baganis, who dress in the manner described by the author, generally count the number of their victims, by placing on the edge of the shield as many locks of hair as the assassinations that they have committed. One Macusang gave Father Pastells his shield as a present, as a sign that he would kill no more Christians; and that shield held one hundred and eight locks of hair. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 659.)

[42] Now called bido. They dress like women; and some think them hermaphrodites. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 659.)

Henry Ling Roth, in his Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo (London, 1896), i, pp. 270, 271, describes these men in women’s attire as found in Borneo, where they are called Manang bali. Before such assume women’s dress they are unsexed; and thenceforth they endevour to imitate as nearly as possible the women in everything, he who can best do so being regarded as the most successful. Their services are in great demand and they generally grow wealthy, when in order the better to act their assumed character as women, the manang bali takes a husband. The latter is despised by the women and disliked by the men of the tribe, and is completely under his so-called “wife’s” domination. Men are not brought up in this office as a profession, but one becomes a manang bali from pure choice, or by sudden inclination, at a mature age. He is always a person of great consequence in the village, and may become the chief. He has many cares, and acts often as a peacemaker, in which he excels, all little differences being brought to him. His wealth is often at the service of his followers, and he is ready to help in times of trouble and distress. When the manang bali marries, he generally adopts some children; and if he has had children before he becomes a manang bali, he must give them their portions and start in that career unencumbered.

Cf. the “berdashes” among the North American Indians; see Jesuit Relations (Cleveland reissue), lix, pp. 309, 310.

[43] Retana (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 786) derives “labia” from “labi” and “a” “he who advantages the others.” “Tuto” is said by Retana (ut supra, col. 790) to be equivalent to “tuud-tuud” meaning “in real truth.”

[44] Either the eleventh or twelfth of November. The first date is the day of St. Martin, the blessed confessor; and the second that of St. Martin, pope and martyr, who was martyred in 655.

[45] The island of Pañgutarang, of the Sulu group. It is about 11 × 9 miles in extent, and is low, but is densely inhabited and has considerable trade with Joló. It has some settlements of the Sámals, the descendants of the Sámal Laút or “sea gypsies.” See U. S. Philippine Gazetteer, and Census of the Philippine Islands, i, p. 464.

[46] At present, when anyone dies, those of his house break out into uncontrollable lamentations, and the father or husband becomes so beside himself at times that, seizing his bolo, he slashes right and left whatever he finds, destroying his clothes, furniture, utensils, and even the very floor of the house; and it is necessary to lay hold of him in order to avoid a worse ending to such uncontrolled actions. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 660.)

[47] Socsocan (Sofocan, Sogsocan) was a Basilan by birth and one of the most esteemed of Corralat’s chiefs. He became friendly to the Spaniards and served them well as commander of the Lutaos. His name is said to signify “he who penetrates the fortresses or the ranks of the enemy.” (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 735.)

[48] Captain Gaspar de Morales was made admiral of the squadron in Joló. He fought bravely in La Sabanilla and in Joló, where he was severely wounded. He became commandant of the stronghold and afterward was governor of the Joloan fort. As governor he was an utter failure; for by his avarice and licentiousness he occasioned the insurrection of Salibansa (whose daughter he had seized), and the loss of the Sulu archipelago for more than two centuries. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 723.)

[49] Among woods of extraordinary hardness is the magconó (Xanthostemon verdugonianus naves). This wood is so hard that if a nail be driven into its heart and it be afterward sawn apart, one does not observe where the saw strikes the nail, and it said that both substances are of equal hardness. Father Pastells asserts that he has seen bits of this wood that have been converted into real flint after only twenty-five years. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 660.)

[50] Of these people, properly called Guimbajanos (Guinbajanos, Guimbanos, Guimbas, and Quimpanos), Blumentritt (Tribes of the Philippines, Mason’s translation) says: “The historians of the seventeenth century, under this title, designated a wild, heathen people, apparently of Malay origin, living in the interior of Sulu Island. Their name is derived from their war drum (guimba). Later writers are silent concerning them. In modern times the first mention of them is by P. A. de Pazos and by a Manila journal, from which accounts they are still at least in Caroden and in the valley of the Loo; it appears that a considerable portion of them, if not the entire people, have received Islam.” Retana (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 779) derives the name of these people from guimba, “a mountain.” They are not mentioned under this name by the Census of the Philippines.

[51] Pedro de Almonte Vérastegui, of Sevilla, was a brave soldier, who served as general and sargento-mayor, and admiral of an expedition against Maluco. He was especially distinguished for his honesty and uprightness. In Sibuguey he attained equal merit with Corcuera, and in 1638 conquered Joló. Diego Fajardo assigned him the encomienda of Lorenzo Cañete, left vacant (July 1, 1645), by the death of the latter’s son. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 695.) Almonte Vérastegui has often been mentioned in this series.

[52] The Chinese, during the Spanish régime of the Philippines, were allowed to smoke opium under certain rules; but its use was prohibited to the natives, although it was at times used secretly. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 781.)

[53] The former officer of the crown of Aragon, who was assigned to duty immediate to the king’s person. He enjoyed several privileges, one of them being to hold the royal sword naked in public ceremonies. (Dominguez, Diccionario nacional.)

[54] The arms of the natives of Mindanao, like their clothes, are manufactured by themselves. The spears and campilans are said to be finely tempered. They themselves adjust the dies for their pataquias. The sheaths, like the hafts of their krises, are of gold richly engraved. The haft of the kris used by Dato Ayuman of Tabiran was of solid gold, and was engraved with sentences from the Koran in Arabic characters. The usual weapons are: campilans, krises (straight and wavy), machetes, bolos, ligdaos, súndanes, various kinds of spears, balaraos, and badis. They use coats-of-mail made of brass, tortoise-shell, malibago [-bark], or very thick cloth, or long sashes wound about the breast. Spears and arrows are generally poisoned with the resin of the tree called quemandag or the poison of red ants or scorpions; and the points of their daggers and balaraos are also poisoned. They also use darts made of steel, iron, bone, palm-wood and bamboo. For defense they construct traps, dig pits, and set bamboo points. They use also various kinds of lantacas and other kinds of firearms, with which the Chinese supply them, or which they manufacture themselves. These were considered contraband of war during the Spanish régime. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 782.)