The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 44, 1700-1736 / 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

JESUIT MISSIONS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

[In 1618 two unusually brilliant comets were visible in the Philippines; their effects on the minds of the people are thus described (fol. 5):][1] There was great variety and inaccuracy of opinion about the comets; but through that general although confused notion which the majority of people form, that comets presage disastrous events, and that the anger of God threatens men by them, they assisted greatly in awakening contrition in the people, and inciting them to do penance. To this the preachers endeavored to influence them with forcible utterances, for the Society had not been behind [the other orders] in preparing the city for the entire success of the jubilee;[2] for there was one occasion when eleven Jesuits were counted, who, distributed at various stations, cried out like Jonah, threatening destruction to impenitent and rebellious souls. God giving power to their words, this preaching was like the seed in the gospel story, scattered on good ground, which not only brought forth its fruit correspondingly, but so promptly that those who heard broke down in tears at hearing the eternal truths; and, like thirsty deer, when the sermon was ended they followed the preacher that he might hear their confessions, already dreading lest some emergency might find them in danger of damnation. This harvest was not confined within the walls of Manila, but extended to its many suburbs, and to the adjacent villages, in which missions had been conducted. Not only was there preaching to the Spaniards, but to the Tagálogs, the Indian natives of the country—who, in token of their fervor, gave from their own scanty supply food in abundance to the jails and prisons, Ours aiding them to carry the food, to the edification of the city. To the Japanese who were living in our village of San Miguel—exiles from their native land, in order to preserve their religion, who had taken refuge in Manila, driven out from that kingdom by the tyrant Taycosama—our fathers preached, in their own language. And it can be said that there was preaching to all the nations, that which occurred to the apostles in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost being represented in Manila; for I believe that there is no city in the world in which so many nationalities come together as here. For besides the Spaniards (who are the citizens and owners of the country) and the Tagálogs (who are the Indian natives of the land), there are many other Indians from the islands, who speak different tongues—such as the Pampangos, the Camarines [i.e., the Bicols], the Bisayans, the Ilocans, the Pangasinans, and the Cagayans. There are Creoles [Criollos], or Morenos, who are swarthy blacks, natives of the country;[3] there are many Cafres, and other negroes from Angola, Congo, and Africa. There are blacks from Asia, Malabars, Coromandels, and Canarins. There are a great many Sangleys, or Chinese—part of them Christians, but the majority heathens. There are Ternatans, and Mardicas (who took refuge here from Ternate); there are some Japanese; there are people from Borney and Timor, and from Bengal; there are Mindanaos, Joloans, and Malays; there are Javanese, Siaos, and Tidorans; there are people from Cambay and Mogol, and from other islands and kingdoms of Asia. There are a considerable number of Armenians, and some Persians; and Tartars, Macedonians, Turks, and Greeks. There are people from all the nations of Europa—French, Germans, and Dutch; Genoese and Venetians; Irish and Englishmen; Poles and Swedes. There are people from all the kingdoms of España, and from all America; so that he who spends an afternoon on the tuley[4] or bridge of Manila will see all these nationalities pass by him, behold their costumes, and hear their languages—something which cannot be done in any other city in the entire Spanish monarchy, and hardly in any other region in all the world.

From this arises the fact that the confessional of Manila is, in my opinion, the most difficult in all the world; for, as it is impossible to confess all these people in their own tongues, it is necessary to confess them in Spanish; and each nationality has made its own vocabulary of the Spanish language, with which those people have intercourse [with us], conduct their affairs, and make themselves understood; and without it Ours can understand them only with great difficulty, and almost by divination. A Sangley, an Armenian, and a Malabar will be heard talking together in Spanish, and our people do not understand them, as they so distort the word and the accent. The Indians have another Spanish language of their own; and the Cafres have one still more peculiar, to which must be added that they eat half of the words. No one save he who has had this experience can state the labors which it costs to confess them; and even when the fault is understood in general, to seek for a specific account of the circumstances is to enter a labyrinth without a clue. For they do not understand our orderly mode of speech, and therefore when they are questioned they say “yes” or “no” as it occurs to them, without rightly understanding what is asked from them—so that in a short time they will utter twenty contradictions. It is therefore necessary to accommodate oneself to their language, and learn their vocabulary. Another of the very serious difficulties is the little capacity of these people to distinguish and explain numbers, incidents, and circumstances; add to this the unbridled licentiousness of some, in accordance with the freedom and opportunities [for vice] in this land, the continual backsliding, and the few indications of fixed purpose. In others, who are capable and explain their meaning well, is found a complication of perplexities—with a thousand reflections, and bargains, and frauds, and oaths all joined together; and faults that are extraordinary and of new kinds, which keep even the most learned man continually studying them. The heat of the country, and the stench or foul odor of the Indians and the negroes, unite in great part to make a hardship of the ministry, which in these islands is the most difficult; and on this account I regard it as being very meritorious. The annual confessions last from the beginning of Lent until Corpus Christi. In our college of Manila the church is open from daylight until eleven o’clock, and from two o’clock until nightfall; and always some fathers are present to hear confessions—for this is done not only by the active ministers, but by the instructors, when their scholastic duties give them opportunity; and I have known some fathers who remain to hear confessions during seven, eight, or more hours a day.

It makes them bear all these annoyances patiently, and even sweetens these, to see how many souls are kept pure by the grace of God, in the midst of so many temptations, like the bramble in the midst of the fire without being burned. There are many who are striving for perfection, who frequent the sacraments, who maintain prayer and spiritual reading, and who give much in alms and perform other works of charity. And it is cause for the greatest consolation to see, at the solemn festivals of the Virgin and other important feasts, the confessional surrounded by Indians, Cafres, and negroes, men and women, great and small, who are awaiting their turns with incredible patience, kept there through the grace of God, against every impulse of their natural dispositions and their slothfulness. And at the season of Lent it is heart-breaking to see the confessor, when he rises from his seat, surrounded by more than a hundred persons of all colors, who go away disconsolate because they have not obtained an opportunity to make their confessions; and in this manner they go and come for eight or ten days, or a fortnight, or even more, with unspeakable patience, but with such eagerness that when the confessor rises they go following him throughout the house, calling to him to hear their confessions. This is done even by boys of seven to twelve years, and hardly with violence can they be made to leave the father, and they continue to call after him; and some remain in the passages, on their knees, asking for confession, so great is the number of the penitents—to which that of the confessors does not correspond by far, nor does their assiduity, even if there were enough of them. The Society is not content with aiding those who come to seek relief in our church, and attending the year round all the sick, of various languages, who summon them to hear confession; but its laborers go forth—as it were, gospel hunters—to search for penitents. They assist almost all who are executed in the city; every week they go to the jails and hospitals; in Lent they hear confessions in all the prisons, and at the foundry, those of the galley-slaves. And in the course of the year they hear confessions in the college of Santa Ysabel—in which there are more than a hundred students, who are receiving the most admirable education—and in the seminary of Santa Potenciana, the students frequenting the sacraments often; and, in fine, they go on a perpetual round in pursuit of the impious.

The confessional is, as it were, the harvesting of the crop; and the pulpit is the sowing, in which the seed of the gospel is scattered in the hearts of men, where with the watering of grace it bears fruit in due time, according to the coöperation [of the Holy Ghost?]. With great constancy and solicitude the Society contributes to the cultivation of these fields of Christianity, with preaching. In Manila the Society has, besides the sermons from the holy men of the order, other endowed feasts, and the set sermons[5] in the cathedral and the royal chapel. When necessity requires it, a mission is held, and the attendance is very large, although hardly a fifth of those who hear understand the Spanish language; this to a certain extent discourages the missionaries, as does even much more the fact that they do not encounter those external demonstrations of excitement and tears that they arouse in other places. This originates from the characteristic of a large part of the audience, that these attend with due seriousness only to certain undertakings; and the distractions of their disputes and business affairs, and their indolence and the air of the country, dissipate their attention beyond measure. Their imaginations, overborne with foolish trifles, and accustomed to our voices, become so relaxed that even the most forcible and persuasive discourses make little, if any, impression. Nevertheless, there are many in whom the holy fear of God reigns, and the seed of the gospel takes root—which they embrace with seriousness and simplicity, as the importance of the subject demands. The marvel is, that many Indians and a great many Indian women, only by the sound of [the preaching in] the mission, and without understanding what they hear, are stricken with contrition, confess themselves, and receive communion, in order to gain the indulgences—to their own great advantage, and to the unspeakable consolation of their confessors at seeing the wonderfully loving providence of God for these souls.

This fruit and this consolation are most evident in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,[6] which are explained through most of the year in our college. The principal citizens make their retreat there, and in the solitude of that retirement God speaks to them within their hearts; and marvelous results have been seen in various persons, in whom has been established a tenor of life so Christian that they may be called the religious of the laymen—in their minds those eternal truths, on which they meditate with seriousness, remaining firm, for the orderly conduct of their lives. The students in the college of San Joseph have their own society, which meets every Sunday, in which they perform their exercises of devotion and have their exhortations, during the course of the year. Every Sunday the Christian doctrine is explained to the boys in the school, and some example [for their imitation] is related to them; and they walk in procession through the streets, chanting the doctrine. The Indian servants of the college have their own assembly, conducted in a very decorous manner, with continual instruction in the doctrine. Every Saturday an address in Tagálog is given to the beatas who attend our church; they have their own society, and exercise themselves in frequent devotions, furnishing an excellent and useful example to the community. Every year they perform the spiritual exercises; and the topics therein are given to them in Tagálog, in our church, by one of Ours. Many devout Indian and mestizo women resort hither on this occasion, to perform these exercises, in various weeks, for which purpose they make retreat in the beaterio during the week required for that; and even Spanish women, including ladies of the most distinguished position, perform their spiritual exercises, and the topics for meditation are assigned to them in our church. This practice is very beneficial for their souls, of great usefulness to the community, and remarkably edifying to all.

The Society also busies itself in the conversion and reconciliation of certain heretics, who are wont to come from the East (as has been observed in recent years), and in catechising and baptizing the Moros or the heathens who sometimes reach the islands—either driven from their route, or called by God in other ways; and He draws them to himself, so that they obtain holy baptism, as has been seen in late years in some persons from the Palaos and Carolina islands, and from Siao. Another of the means of which the Society avails itself for the good of souls is, to print and distribute free many spiritual books in various languages, which are most efficacious although mute preachers. These, removing from men their erroneous ideas by clear exposition [of the truth], and leaving them without the cloak of their own fantastic notions, persuade them, without being wearisome, to abandon vice or error; and then they embrace virtue and the Christian mode of life. In Lent, as being an acceptable time and especially opportune for the harvest, the dikes are opened, in order that the waters of the word of God may flow more abundantly. On Tuesdays there is preaching to the Spaniards, and these sermons usually have the efficacy of a mission, although not given under that name. On Thursdays there is explanation of the doctrine, and preaching, in Tagálog, to the Indians; the attendance is very great, since many come, not only from the numerous suburbs of Manila, but even from the more distant villages. On Saturdays some good example of the Virgin is related, with a moral exhortation; the Spaniards who are members of fraternities attend these, and afterward visit the altars. On Sundays there is preaching to the Cafres, blacks, creoles, and Malabars—who through a sense of propriety are called Morenos, although they are dark-skinned. The sermon is in Spanish, and the greatest difficulty of the preacher is to adapt his language to the understanding of the audience. Various poor Spaniards also attend these sermons, as well as other people, of various shades of color, of both sexes.

Every Sunday certain fathers are sent to preach at the fort or castle, to the soldiers and the other men who live there. The Christian doctrine is chanted through the streets, and in the procession walk the boys of the school; it ends at the royal chapel, where some part of the catechism is explained, and a moral sermon is preached to the soldiers who live in their quarters in order to mount guard. The doctrine is explained at the Puerta Real and at the Puerta del Parián, and there is preaching in the guard-room—where there is a large attendance, not only of soldiers, but of the many people who, on entering or going out from the gates, stop to hear the word of God. Another father goes to the royal foundry, in which the galley-slaves live, where there is such a variety of people—mestizos, Indians of various dialects, Cafres, negroes of different kinds, and Sangleys or Chinese—that exceptional ability and patience are necessary in order to make them understand. Other fathers go to the college of Santa Isabel and the seminary of Santa Potenciana, where they give addresses and exhortations to the students of the former, and the women secluded in the latter. Others go to the prisons of both the ecclesiastical and secular jurisdictions, in order that the prisoners may obtain the spiritual food of the doctrine. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays there is in our church a Miserere, with the discipline [i.e., scourging]; a spiritual book is read to those who are present, and at least once a week an exhortation is addressed to them.

Such is, in general, the distribution of work for our college at Manila in Lent, and therein are engaged nearly all the men in the college, whether priests or students; and in times when there is a scarcity of workers I have seen some helping at two or three posts, and not only ministers and instructors thus occupied, but even the superiors, and men of seventy years old, to the great edification of the community. At Lent is seen in Manila that which occurred at the destruction of Jericho, where, when the priests sounded around the city the trumpets of the jubilee, the walls immediately gave way and fell to the ground. Thus in Manila do the Jesuits surround the walls, calling to every class of people with the trumpets of the jubilee and offering pardon; and at the sound, through the grace and mercy of the Highest, the lofty walls of lawlessness, vice, and crime, fall in ruins. And even the presence of the ark is not lacking to this marvelous success, for it is not to be doubted that the Blessed Virgin, most merciful mother of sinners, aids us with her intercession. [Our author here relates various instances of miraculous aid from heaven, and other edifying cases.]

[Fol. 13:] Father Juan de Torres, with another priest and a brother, went from the college of Manila to conduct a mission at a place which is called Cabeza de Bondoc,[7] about sixty leguas from Manila, in the bishopric of Camarines—the bishop of Nueva Cazeres at that time being his illustrious Lordship Don Fray Diego de Guevara, of the Order of St. Augustine. As soon as that zealous prelate took possession of his see, he began to ask for fathers of the Society, in order that, commencing with the Indians who were already peaceable who reside in Nueva Cazeres, they might establish missions and continue their instructions in other villages which he intended to give them. But the Society, who always have showed due consideration to the other ministers in these islands, not attempting to dispossess them from their ministries—although not always have we found them respond in like spirit—thanked that illustrious prelate for his kindness, without accepting those ministries; and in order that he might see that [the cause of this action] was consideration for the ministers, and not the desire to escape from the labor, Ours consented to conduct a mission in Bondoc, the difficulty of which, and its results, are explained by that prelate in a letter which he wrote to Father Torres, in which he says: “I find that it is true, what was told to me in Manila, when I gave that mission-field to the Society, and I mention it with great consolation to myself; and that is, that it was the Holy Ghost who inspired me to give it—for I see the fruits which are steadily and evidently being gathered therein. For in so many ages it has been impossible to unite those villages, and the Indians in them were regarded as irreclaimable; and now in so short a time those villages have been united, and the Indians, [who were like] wild beasts, appear like gentle lambs. These are the works of God, who operates through the ministers of the Society—who with so much mildness, affection, and zeal are laboring for the welfare of those people.” Great hardships were suffered by those of the Society in these missions, and for several years that ministry was cared for by Ours, until it was entrusted to the secular priests.

The mission of Bondoc gained such repute in the island of Marinduque, distant more than forty leguas from Manila, that its minister, who was a zealous cleric, wrote to the father rector at Manila asking him very humbly and urgently to send there a mission, from which he was expecting abundant fruit. So earnest were the entreaties of this fervent minister that a mission was sent to the said island; it had the results which were expected, and afterward the Society was commissioned with its administration. In nearly all the ministries of secular priests the Society was carrying on continual missions, at the petition of the ministers or at the instance of the bishops.... The Society was held in honor not only by the bishop of Camarines, but equally by his illustrious Lordship Don Fray Miguel Garzia Serrano, a son of the great Augustine and most worthy archbishop of Manila. That most zealous father Lorenzo Masonio preached to the negroes who are in this city and outside its walls, according to the custom of this province, which distributes the bread of the gospel doctrine to all classes of people and all nations. And that holy prelate deigned to go to our church, and, taking a wand in his hand, as the Jesuits are accustomed to do, he walked through the aisle of the church, asked questions, and explained the Christian doctrine to the slaves and negroes. The community experienced the greatest edification at seeing their pastor so worthily occupied in instructing his sheep, not heeding the outer color of their bodies, but looking only at their precious souls—for in the presence of God there is no distinction of persons.

[Fol. 22:] The island of Malindig—named thus on account of a high mountain that is in it, and which the Spaniards call Marinduque—is more than forty leguas from Manila, extends north and south, and is in the course which is taken by the galleons on the Nueva España trade-route.[8] There Ours carried on a mission with much gain, at the instance of its zealous pastor, who was a cleric; and in the year 1622 this island was transferred to the Society by his illustrious Lordship Don Fray Miguel Garzia Serrano, the archbishop of Manila, who was satisfied by the care with which the Society administers its charges, and desirous that his sheep should have the spiritual nourishment that is necessary for their souls—for it was exceedingly difficult for him always to find a secular priest to station there, on account of the distance from Manila, the difficulty of administering that charge, and the loneliness which one suffers there. The Society gladly overcame these difficulties for the sake of the spiritual fruit which could be gathered among those Indians; and our ministers, applying themselves to the cultivation [of that field], went about among those rugged mountains—from which they brought out some heathens, and others who were Christians, but who were living like heathen, without any spiritual direction. They baptized the heathens and instructed the Christians; and, in order that the results might be permanent, Ours gradually settled them in villages which they formed; there are three of these, Bovac, Santa Cruz, and Gasan, and formerly there was a visita in Mahanguin. The language spoken there is generally the Tagálog, although in various places there is a mixture of Visayan, and of some words peculiar to the island. God chose to prove those people by a sort of epidemic, of which many died; and the fathers not only gave them spiritual assistance, but provided the poor with food, and treated the sick. This trouble obliged them to resort for aid to the Empress of Heaven, to whom they offered a fiesta under the title of the Immaculate Conception, during the week before Christmas, with great devotion; and the Virgin responded to them by aiding them in their troubles and necessities.

[Fol. 27:] In Marinduque Ours labored very fervently to reduce the Christians to a Christian and civilized mode of life; and among them was abolished an abuse which was deeply rooted in that island—which was, that creditors employed their debtors almost as if they were slaves, without the debtor’s service ever diminishing his debt. The wild Indians were reduced to settlement; among them were some persons who for thirty years had not received the sacraments of penance and communion. In the Pintados Islands there was now much longing for and attendance upon these holy sacraments, when their necessity and advantage had been explained to the natives.

[Fol. 29:] His illustrious Lordship Don Fray Miguel Garzia Serrano had so much affection for the Society, and so high an opinion of the zeal of its ministers, that he decided to entrust to it the parish of the port of Cavite. This, one may say, is a parish of all the nations, on account of the many peoples who resort to that port from the four quarters of the world; it was especially so then, when its commerce was more opulent, flourishing, and extensive [than now]. It did not seem expedient to the Society to accept this parish; but, in order to show their gratitude for the favor, and to coöperate by their labors with the zeal of that active prelate, they took upon themselves for several months the administration of that port, in which they gathered the fruit corresponding to the necessity—which, with so great a concourse of different peoples there, and the freedom from restraint which exists in this country, was very great. The metropolitan was well satisfied, and very grateful; and he insisted until the Society made itself responsible for the administration of one of the three visitas which the said parish has. This was a village on the shore of the river of Cavite, which on account of being older than the settlement at the port is called Cavite el Viejo [i.e., Old Cavite]; it afterward was located on the shore of the bay, about a legua from the said port—which, in order to distinguish it from this village, is called Cavite la Punta [i.e., Cavite on the Point], because it is on the point of the hook formed by the land; from this is derived the name Cavite, which means “a hook.” The ministry [at Old Cavite] was then small, but difficult to administer, on account of the people being scattered, and far more because of the corruption of morals; for, lacking the presence of the pastor, and the wolves of the nations who come here from all parts for trade, being so near, it might better be called a herd of goats than a flock of sheep—this village being, as it were, the public brothel [lupanar] of that port; and there was hardly a house where this sort of commerce was not established. This was a matter which at the beginning gave the ministers much to do, but with invincible firmness they continued to correct this lawless licentiousness; and by explaining the doctrine, preaching, and aiding the people with the sacraments, they made Christians in morals those who before only seemed to be such in outward appearance and name. Ours continued to reclaim these people to the Christian life, and today this village is one of the most Christian and best instructed communities in all the islands; it has a beautiful and very capacious church of stone, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, and a handsome house [for the minister]. There are in this village, besides the Tagálogs (who are the natives), some Sangleys and many mestizos, who live in Binacayan, which is a sort of ward of the village.

[Fol. 31 b:] Ardently did the apostle of the Indias desire to go over to China for its conversion; but he died, like another Moses, in sight of the land which his desires promised to him. Since then, without looking for them, thousands of heathen Chinese have settled in these islands. As soon as the Society came to these shores, Ours applied themselves, in the best manner that they could, to the conversion and instruction of those people—and even more in recent times, on account of the Society possessing near Manila some agricultural lands, which the Chinese (or Sangleys, as they are commonly called) began to cultivate. Ours were unwilling to lose the opportunity of converting them to our holy faith, so various persons were actually baptized; and, to render this result more permanent, a minister was stationed there, belonging to this field, who catechised them, preached in their own language, baptized them, and administered the sacraments—with permission from the vice-patron, Don Juan Niño de Tabora, and from the archbishop, Don Fray Miguel Garzia Serrano—and it is called the village of Santa Cruz. Their language is very difficult; the words are all monosyllables, and the same word, according to its various intonations, has many and various significations; on this account not only patience and close study, but a correct ear, are required for learning this language. Don Juan Niño de Tabora was the godfather of the first Sangley who was baptized; the most distinguished persons in the city attended the ceremony; and this very solemn pomp had much influence on the Chinese (who are very material), so that, having formed a high idea of the Catholic religion, many of them embraced it. Some were baptized a little while before they died, leaving behind many tokens of their eternal felicity, through the concurrence of circumstances which were apparently directed by a very special providence.

In Marinduque Father Domingo de Peñalver had just induced some hamlets of wild Indians to settle down; he traveled through the bed of the river, getting his clothing wet, stumbling frequently over the stones, and often falling in the water. He went to take shelter in a hut, where there were so many and so fierce mosquitoes, that he remained awake all night, without being able to rid himself of the insects, notwithstanding all his efforts. He reached a hill so inaccessible that it was necessary that some Indians, going ahead and ascending by grasping the roots [of trees], should draw them all up the ascent with bejucos. There he set up a shed, where, preaching to them morning and afternoon, he prepared them for confession, and persuaded them to go down and settle in one place, as actually they did, to live as Christians. For lack of laborers, the Society resigned the district of Bondoc and several visitas, although Ours went there at various times on missionary trips. The people of Hingoso called upon Father Peñalver to assist them, because many in their village were sick, and the cura was at Manila; the father went there, gave the sacraments to the sick, and preached to the rest twice a day in the church. Three times a week they repaired to the church for the discipline, and he offered for them the act of contrition, and almost all the people in the village confessed. Afterward, at the urgent request of the archbishop of Manila, Father Peñalver went to Mindoro, to see if he could reconcile those Indians and their cura, which the archbishop had not been able to secure by various means; the said father went there, and preached various sermons, with so much earnestness and efficacy (on account of his proficiency in the Tagálog language) that in a short time they were reconciled together, the causes of the dispute bring entirely forgotten. This mission lasted two months; he preached twice every day, and heard some two thousand five hundred confessions; at this the illustrious prelate (who was Don Fray Miguel Garzia Serrano) was greatly pleased, and thoroughly confirmed in the extraordinary esteem which he deigned to show the Society.... One of the greatest hardships and dangers experienced by the ministers of Bisayas (or Pintados), in which are the greater part of our ministries, is that they are journeying on the water all their lives; for, as the villages are many and the ministers few, one father regularly takes care of two villages, and sometimes of three or four; and as these are in different islands, he is continually moving from one to another, for their administration. I have known some fathers who formerly had six or seven visitas, and spent nearly all the year traveling from one to another. Nevertheless, so paternal and benignant is the providence of God that it is not known that any minister in Bisayas has been drowned—which, considering the many hurricanes, tempests, storms, currents, and other dangers in which every year many perish and are drowned, seems a continual miracle. To this it must be added that at various times vessels have capsized in the midst of the sea, and the fathers have fallen into the water; but God succored them by means of the Indians, who are excellent swimmers, or by other special methods of His paternal providence.

[Fol. 38 b:] In this year [1628] Manila and the adjoining villages were grievously afflicted with a sort of epidemic pest, from which many people died—some suddenly, but even he who lingered longest died within twelve hours. Some attributed this pest to the many blacks who had been brought here from India to be sold, and who, sick from ill-usage, communicated their disease to others; and some thought that it arose from an infection in the fish, which is the usual food of the poor. Various corpses were anatomized [se hizo anatomia], and the origin of the disease could not be discovered, although it was considered certain that it arose from a poisonous condition, since the only remedy that was found was theriac.[9] In a city where there are so few Spaniards, it is easy to understand the affliction which was felt at seeing the suddenness with which they were dying, since the colony was placed in so great danger of extinction, and the islands of being ruined at one stroke—besides the grief of individual persons at seeing themselves bereft, the wife without a husband, the husband without a wife, the father without children, the children deprived of their parents. All search was made for remedies. Our priests did not cease, day or night, to hear confessions, and to aid the sick and dying; and at the request of the cura they carried with them the consecrated oils, to administer these in case of need. They also carried theriac, after this was discovered to be a remedy, for the relief of the sick; so they exercised their charity at the same time on the souls and on the bodies of men, to the great edification of all.

At San Miguel, one of those attacked by the pest told the father who was hearing his dying confession that he had seen near him two figures in the guise of ministers of justice, who seized people; and that when he had received absolution they went away from him, leaving behind a pestilential odor. The father published this information throughout the village, commanding the people to prepare themselves for confession on the following day, under the patronage of the Blessed Mary and St. Michael. A novenary was offered, and the litanies recited; and in the church the discipline was taken, with other prayers and penances, by which the Lord was moved to have especial mercy on this village—as God showed to a devout soul, in the figure of a ship which sailed through the air, the pilot of which was the common enemy; but he could not enter San Miguel, since there were powers greater than he, who prevented him. Also there were seen in the neighborhood of Manila malign spirits, in the appearance of horrible phantoms, who struck with death those who only looked at them. In the face of a danger so near, many amended their lives, and were converted to God in earnest, making a good confession. Then was seen the charity with which the poor Indians, despising the danger to their own lives, assisted the sick. Among others were two pious married persons, who devoted themselves entirely to aiding the sick, never leaving their bedsides until they either died or recovered; and God most mercifully chose to bring them out unscathed from so continual dangers. With the same kindness He chose to reward Brother Antonio de Miranda, who had charge of the infirmary in our college at Manila, who, on account of his well-known charity and solicitude in caring for the sick, had been commissioned by the father provincial, Juan de Bueras, to devote himself to the care of the sick Indians. But the poison of the pest infected him, so violent being the attack that hardly had he time to receive the sacraments; and he died at Manila on October 15, 1628.... He was a native of Ponferrada, and of a very well known family; he was an exemplary religious, and had been ten years in the Society.

[Fol. 44 b:] In the years 1628 and 1629, at the request of the bishops and of some Indians the Society was placed in charge of various villages of converts. Don Juan Niño de Tabora gave us the chaplaincy of the garrison of Spanish soldiers which is at Iloylo in the island of Panay, and the instruction of the natives and the people from other nations who are gathered there. Also were given to us Ilog in the island of Negros, and Dapitan in Mindanao—of which afterward more special mention will be made.

Map of Mindanao, showing settlements and districts occupied by Jesuits and Recollects

[From MS. (dated 1683) in Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla]

[Fol. 50:] In this time [about 1630] the Christian faith made great advances in Maragondong, Silang, and Antipolo, bringing many Cimarrons (or wild Indians) from their lurking-places. A very fruitful mission was carried on in Mindoro, and on the northern coast of Mindanao; and Father Pedro Gutierrez went along those rivers, converting the Subanos. In Ilog, in the island of Negros, the fathers labored much in removing an inhuman practice of those barbarians, which was, to abandon entirely the old people, as being useless and only a burden on them; and these poor wretches were going about through the mountains, without knowing where to go, since even their own children drove them away. The fathers gave them shelter, fed them, and instructed them in order to baptize them; and there they converted many heathens.

[Fol. 52:] In the year 1631 the cura of Mindoro, who was a secular priest, gave up that ministry to the Society, and Ours began to minister in that island, making one resilience of this and one of the island of Marinduque, and the superior lived at Nauhan in Mindoro; and they began to preach, and to convert the Manguianes, the heathen Indians of that island.

In the year 1631 was begun the residence of Dapitan, in the great island of Mindanao. The first Jesuit who preached in that island was the apostle of the Indias, St. Francis Xavier, as appears from the bull for his canonization. Ruy Lopez de Villalobos came to these islands with his ships, sent by the viceroy of Nueva España, and gave them the name of Philipinas in honor of Phelipe II; and, driven by storms, he went to Amboyno, where the saint then was, in whose care Villalobos died. At the news of these islands thus obtained by the holy apostle, he came to them. The circumstance that this island was consecrated by the labors of that great apostle has always and very rightly commended it to the Society; and Ours have always and persistently endeavored to occupy themselves in converting the Mindanaos; and Father Valerio de Ledesma and others had begun to form missions on the river of Butuan. In the year 1596 the cabildo of Manila, in sede vacante—in whose charge was then the spiritual government of all the islands, as there was no division into bishoprics—gave possession of Mindanao to the Society in due form; and in 1597 this was confirmed by the vice-patron, Don Francisco Tello, the governor of these islands. Possession of it was taken by Father Juan del Campo, who, going as chaplain of the army, accompanied the adelantado, Estevan Rodriguez de Figueroa, when he set out for the conquest of that kingdom.

The first who began to minister to the Subanos in the coasts of Dapitan was Father Juan Lopez; afterward Father Fabricio Sarsali, and then Father Francisco de Otazo, and various other fathers followed, who made their incursions sometimes from Zebu, sometimes from Bohol. In the year 1629 this ministry was entrusted to the Society by the bishop of Zebu, Don Fray Pedro de Arze. The venerable Father Pedro Gutierrez went through those coasts, carrying the gospel of Christ to the rivers of Quipit, Mucas, Telinga, and others; and in the year 1631 a permanent residence was formed, its rector being Father Pedro Gutierrez. The village of Dapitan is at the foot of a beautiful bay with a good harbor (in which the first conquistadors anchored), on the northern coast of Mindanao; it is south from the island of Zebu, and to the northeast of Samboangan, which is on the opposite coast [of Mindanao]. It lies at the foot of a hill, at the top of which there is a sort of fortress, so inaccessible that it does not need artillery for its defense. Above it has a parapet, and near the hill is an underground reservoir for collecting water, besides a spring of flowing water. Maize and vegetables can be planted there, in time of siege; and the minister and all the people retire to this place in time of invasions. I was there in the year 1737 [misprinted 1637], and it seemed to me that it might be called the Aorno[10] of Philipinas.

[Fol. 60:] In the year 1631 and in part of 1632 this province experienced so great a scarcity of laborers that the father provincial wrote to our father general that he would have been obliged to abandon some of the ministries if the fervor of the few ministers had not supplied the lack of the many, their charity making great exertions. Our affliction was increased by the news that the Dutch had seized Father Francisco Encinas, the procurator of this province, who was going to Europa to bring a mission band here—for which purpose they had sent Father Juan Lopez, who was appointed in the second place[11] in the congregation of 1626. But soon God consoled this province, the mission arriving at Cavite on May 26, 1632. On June 18, 1631, they sailed from Cadiz, and on the last day of August arrived at Vera Cruz; they left Acapulco on February 23, 1632, and on May 15 sighted the first land of these islands. Every mission that goes to Indias begins to gather abundant fruit as soon as it sails from España; I will set down the allotment of work in which this band of missionaries was engaged, since from this may be gathered what the others do, since there is very little difference among them all. In the ship a mission was proclaimed which lasted eleven days, closing with general communion on the day of our father St. Ignatius; in this mission, through the sermons, instructions given in addresses, and individual exhortations, the fathers succeeded in obtaining many general confessions, besides the special ones which the men on the ship made, in order to secure the jubilee. Ours assisted the dying, consoled the sick and the afflicted, and established peace between those who were enemies. In Nueva España the priests were distributed in various colleges, in which they continued the exercises of preaching and hearing confessions. They went to Acapulco a month before embarking, by the special providence of God; for there were many diseases at that port, so that they were able to assist the dying. Thirty religious of St. Dominic were there, waiting to come over to these islands; all of them were sick, and five died; and, in order to prevent more deaths, they decided to remove from their house in which they were, on account of its bad condition. It was necessary, on account of their sick condition, to carry them in sedan-chairs; and although many laymen charitably offered their services for this act of piety, Ours did not permit them to do it, but took upon themselves the care of conveying the sick, their charity making this burden very light. In the ship “San Luys” they continued their ministries, preaching, and hearing the confessions of most of the people on the ship—in which the functions of Holy Week were performed, as well as was possible there. Twenty-one Jesuits left Cadiz, and all arrived at Manila except Father Matheo de Aguilar, who died near these islands on May 12, 1632; he was thirty-three years old, and had been in the Society sixteen years—most of which time he spent in Carmona, in the province of Andalusia, where he was an instructor in grammar, minister, and procurator in that college.... The rest who are known to have come in that year with Father Francisco de Encinas, procurator, and Brother Pedro Martinez are: The fathers Hernando Perez (the superior), Rafael de Bonafe, Luys de Aguayo, Magino Sola, and Francisco Perez; and the brothers Ignacio Alcina, Joseph Pimentél, Miguel Ponze, Andres de Ledesma, Antonio de Abarca, Onofre Esbri, Christoval de Lara, Amador Navarro, Bartholome Sanchez; also Brother Juan Gazera, a coadjutor, and Diego Blanco and Pedro Garzia, candidates [for the priesthood].

[Fol. 63 b:] In the islands of Pintados those first laborers made such haste that by this time [1633] there remained no heathens to convert, and they labored perseveringly in ministering to the Christians, with abundant results and consolation.... In the island of Negros and that of Mindanao, which but a short time before had been given up to the Society, the fathers were occupied in catechising and baptizing the heathens and especially in the island of Mindoro, where besides the Christian convents, were the heathen Manguianes, who lived in the mountains, and, according to estimate, numbered more than six thousand souls. These people wandered through the mountains and woods there like wild deer, and went about entirely naked, wearing only a breech-clout [bahaque] for the sake of decency; they had no house, hearth, or fixed habitation; and they slept where night overtook them, in a cave or in the trunk of some tree. They gathered their food on the trees or in the fields, since it was reduced to wild fruits and roots; and as their greatest treat they ate rice boiled in water. Their furnishings were some bows and arrows, or javelins for hunting, and a jar for cooking rice; and he who secured a knife, or any iron instrument, thought that he had a Potosi. They acknowledged no deity, and when they had any good fortune the entire barangay (or family connection) killed and ate a carabao, or buffalo; and what was left they sacrificed to the souls of their ancestors. In order to convert these heathens, a beginning was made by the reformation and instruction of the Christians; and by frequent preaching they gradually established the usage of confession with some frequency, and many received the Eucharist—a matter in which there was more difficulty then than now. Many came down from the mountains, and brought their children to be instructed; various persons were baptized, and even some, who, although they had the name of Christians, had never received the rite of baptism. After the fathers preached to the Christians regarding honesty in their confessions, the result was quickly seen in many general confessions, which were made with such eagerness that the crowds resorting to the church lasted more than two months.

[Fol. 69:] In Maragondong various trips were made into the mountains [by Ours], and although many were reclaimed to a Christian mode of living, yet, as the mountains are so difficult of access and so close by, those people returned to their lurking-places very easily, and it was with difficulty that they were again brought into a village—so that the number of Indians was greatly diminished, not only in Maragondong, but in Looc, which was a visita of the former place, and contained very rugged mountains. In order to encourage the Indians thus settled to make raids on the Cimarrons and wild Indians and punish them, Don Juan Cerezo de Salamanca, the governor ad interim, granted that those wild Indians should for a certain time remain the slaves of him who should bring them out of the hills; and by this means they succeeded in bringing out many from their caverns and hiding-places. Some of these were seventy or eighty years old, of whom many died as soon as they were instructed and baptized. Once the raiders came across an old woman about a hundred years old, near the cave in which those people performed their abominable sacrifices; she was alone, flung down on the ground, naked, and of so horrible aspect that she made it evident, even in external appearance, that she was a slave of the devil. Moved by Christian pity, those who were making the raid carried her to the village, where it was with difficulty that the father could catechise her, on account of her age and her stupidity. He finally catechised and baptized her, and she soon died; so that it seems as if it were a mercy of God that she thus waited for baptism, in order that her soul might not be lost—and the same with the other souls, their lives apparently being preserved in order that they might be saved through the agency of baptism. Blessed be His mercy forever! In Ilog, in the island of Negros, several heathens of those mountains were converted to the faith. An Indian woman was there, so obstinate in her blindness and so open in her hatred to holy baptism that, in order to free herself from the importunities of the minister, she feigned to be deaf and mute. Some of her relatives notified the father to come to baptize her. The father went to her, and began to catechise her, but she, keeping up the deceit, pretended that she did not hear him, and he could not draw a word from her. The father cried out to God for the conversion of that soul, and, at the same time, he continued his efforts to catechise her, suspecting that perhaps she was counterfeiting deafness. God heard his prayers, and, after several days, the first word which that woman uttered was a request for baptism—to the surprise of all who knew what horror of it she had felt. The father catechised and baptized her, and this change was recognized as caused by the right hand of the Highest; for she who formerly was like a wild deer, living alone in the thickets, after this could not go away from the church, and continued to exercise many pious acts until she rested in the Lord.

[Fol. 74 b:] In the year 1596 Father Juan del Campo and Brother Gaspar Gomez went with the adelantado Estevan Rodriguez de Figueroa, who set out for the conquest of this island [Mindanao]. After the death of Father Juan del Campo, Father Juan de San Lucar went to assist that army, performing the functions of its chaplain, and also of vicar for the ecclesiastical judge. Fathers Valerio de Ledesma and Manuel Martinez preached to the Butuans, and afterward they were followed, although with some interruptions, by others, who announced the gospel to the Hadgaguanes—a people untamed and ferocious—to the Manobos, and to other neighboring peoples. Afterward this ministry was abandoned, on account of the lack of laborers for so great a harvest as God was sending us. Secular priests held it for some time, and finally it was given to the discalced Augustinian [i.e., Recollect] religious, who are ministering in that coast, and in Caraga as far as Linao—an inland region, where there is a small fort and a garrison. When Father Francisco Vicente was ministering in Butuan the cazique [meaning the headman] of Linao went to invite him to go to his village; and even the blacks visited him, and gave him hopes for their submission. Thus all those peoples desired the Society, as set aside for the preaching in that island—which work was assigned to the Society by the ecclesiastical judge in the year 1596, and confirmed to them in 1597 by the governor Don Francisco Tello, as vice-patron. And when some controversy afterward occurred over [the region of] Lake Malanao, sentence was given in favor of the Society by Governors Don Juan Niño de Tabora and Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, as Father Combés states in book iii of his History of Mindanao. These decisions were finally confirmed by Don Fernando Valdès Tamon, in the year 1737.

In the year 1607 Father Pasqual de Acuña, going thither with an armada of the Spaniards, began to preach with great results to the heathens of the hill of Dapitan, where he baptized more than two hundred. He also administered the sacraments to some Christians who were there, who with Pagbuaya, a chief of Bohol, had taken refuge in that place. Afterward, Father Juan Lopez went to supply the Subanos of Dapitan with more regular ministrations. He was succeeded by Father Fabricio Sarsali, and he by Father Francisco Otazo and others, as a dependency of Zebu or of Bohol—until, in the year 1629, his illustrious Lordship the bishop of Zebu, Don Fray Pedro de Arze, governor of the archbishopric of Manila, again assigned this mission to the Society; and in 1631 the residence of Dapitan was founded, its first rector being the venerable Father Pedro Gutierrez; and in those times the Christian faith was already far advanced, and was extending through the region adjoining that place, and making great progress.

[Fol. 92:] The island of Basilan, or Taguima, is three or four leguas south of Samboangan, east from Borney, and almost northeast from Joló. It is a fertile and abounding land, and on this account they call it the storehouse or garden of Samboangan. Its people are Moros and heathens, and almost always they follow the commands received from Joló. The Basilans, who inhabit the principal villages, are of the Lutaya people; those who dwell in the mountains are called Sameacas. Three chiefs had made themselves lords of the island, Ondol, Boto, and Quindinga; and they formed the greatest hindrance to the reduction of that people, who, as barbarians, have for an inviolable law the will of their headmen, [which they follow] heedlessly—that being most just, therefore, which has most following. Nevertheless, the brave constancy of Father Francisco Angel was not dismayed at such difficulties, or at the many perils of death which continually threatened him; and his zeal enabled him to secure the baptism of several persons, and to rescue from the captivity of Mahoma more than three hundred Christians, whom he quickly sent to Samboangan. Moreover, the fervor of the father being aided by the blessing of God, he saw, with unspeakable consolation to his soul, the three chiefs who were lords of the island baptized, with almost all the inhabitants of the villages in it; and in the course of time the Sameacas, or mountain-dwellers, were reduced—in this way mocking the strong opposition which was made by the panditas, who are their priests and doctors. [Here follows an account of the conquest of Joló in 1638, and of affairs there and in Mindanao, in which the Jesuits (especially Alexandro Lopez) took a prominent part; these matters have already been sufficiently recounted in VOLS. XXVIII and XXIX].

[Fol. 111:] [After the Spanish expeditions to Lake Lanao, in 1639–40, the fort built there was abandoned, and soon afterward burned by the natives. On May 7, 1642, the Moros of that region killed a Spanish officer, Captain Andres de Rueda, with three men and a Jesuit, Father Francisco de Mendoza, who accompanied him.] Much were the hopes of the gospel ministers cast down at seeing our military forces abandon that country, since they were expecting that with that protection the Christian church would increase. Notwithstanding, his faith thereby planted more firmly on God, Father Diego Patiño began to catechise the Iligan people—with so good effect that in a few months the larger (and the best) part of the residents in that village were brought under the yoke of Christ; this work was greatly aided by the kindness of the commandant of the garrison, Pedro Duran de Monforte. At this good news various persons of the Malanaos came down [from the mountains], and in the shelter of the fort they formed several small villages or hamlets, and heard the gospel with pleasure. The conversions increasing, it was necessary to station there another minister; this was Father Antonio de Abarca. They founded the village of Nagua, and others, which steadily and continually increased with the people who came down from the lake [i.e., Lanao], where the villages were being broken up.[12] This angered a brother of Molobolo, and he tried to avert his own ruin by the murder of the father; and for this purpose his treacherous mind [led him to] pretend that he would come down to the new villages, in order to become a Christian, intending to carry out then his treason at his leisure. But the father, warned by another Malanao, who was less impious, escaped death. The traitor did not desist from his purpose, and, when Father Abarca was in one of those villages toward Layavan, attacked the village; but he was discovered by the blacks of the hill-country, and they rained so many arrows upon the Moros that the latter abandoned their attempt. Another effort was a failure—the preparation of three joangas which the traitor had upon the sea, in order to capture and kill the father when he should return to Iligan; but in all was displayed the special protection with which God defends His ministers. However great the efforts made by the zeal of the gospel laborers, the result did not correspond to their desires, on account of the obstinacy of the Mahometans—although in the heathens they encountered greater docility for the acceptance of our religion. The life of the ministers was very toilsome, since to the task of preaching must be added the vigils and weariness, the heat and winds and rains, the dangers of [travel by] the sea, and the scarcity of food. In a country so poor, and at that time so uncultivated, it was considered a treat to find a few sardines or other fish, some beans, and a little rice; and many times they hardly could get boiled rice, and sometimes they must get along with sweet potatoes, gabes,[13] or [other] roots. But God made amends for these privations and toils with various inner pleasures; for they succeeded in obtaining some conversions that they had not expected, and even among the blacks, from whom they feared death, they found help and sustenance. [The author here relates a vision which appeared to an Indian chief, of the spirit of Father Marcelo Mastrilli as the director and patron of Father Abarca; and the renunciation of a mission to Europe which was vowed by Father Patiño in order to regain his health—which accomplished, he returns to his missionary labors at Iligan.]

He returned to the ministry, where he encountered much cause for suffering and tears; because the [military] officers [cabos] who then were governing that jurisdiction, actuated by arrogance and greed of gain, had committed such acts of violence that they had depopulated those little villages, many fleeing to the hills, where among the Moros they found treatment more endurable. The only ones who can oppose the injustice of such men are the gospel ministers. These fathers undertook to defend the Indians, and took it upon themselves to endure the anger of those men—who, raised from a low condition to places of authority, made their mean origin evident in their coarse natures and lawless passions; and the license of some of them went to such extremes that it was necessary for the soldiers to seize them as intolerable; and, to revenge themselves for the outrageous conduct of the officials, they accused the latter as traitors. Not even the Malanao chief Molobolo, who always had been firm on the side of the Spaniards, could endure their acts of violence, and, to avoid these, went back to the lake. This tempest lasted for some time, but afterward some peace was secured, when those officers were succeeded by others who were more compliant. The venerable Father Pedro Gutierrez went to Iligan, and with his amiable and gentle disposition induced a chief to leave the lake, who, with many people, became a resident of Dapitan; and another chief, still more powerful, was added to Iligan with his people. These results were mainly seemed by the virtue of the father, the high opinion which all had of his holy character, and the helpful and forcible effects of his oratory. The land was scorched by a drouth, which was general throughout the islands, from which ensued great losses. The father offered the Indians rain, if they would put a roof on the church; they accepted the proposal, and immediately God fulfilled what His servant had promised—sending them a copious rain on his saying the first mass of a novenary, which he offered to this end. With this the Indians were somewhat awakened from their natural sloth, and the church was finished, so that the fathers could exercise in it their ministries. The drouth was followed by a plague of locusts, which destroyed the grain-fields; the father exorcised them, and, to the wonder of all, the locusts thrust their heads into the ground, and the plague came to an end. This increased the esteem of the natives for our religion, and many heathens and Moros were brought into its bosom; and Father Combés says that when he ministered there he found more than fifty old persons of eighty to a hundred years, and baptized them all, with some three hundred boys this being now one of the largest Christian communities in the islands. The village is upon the shore, at the foot of the great Panguil,[14] between Butuan and Dapitan, to the south of Bohol, and north from Malanao, at the mouth of a river with a dangerous bar. The fort is of good stone, dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, in the shape of a star; the wall is two varas high, and half a vara thick, and it has a garrison, with artillery and weapons. The Moros have several times surrounded it, but they could not gain it by assault.

[Fol. 116 b:] In Sibuguey Father Francisco Luzon was preaching, a truly apostolic man, who spent his life coming and going in the most arduous ministries of the islands. The Sibugueys are heathens, of a gentler disposition and more docile to the reception of the gospel than are the Mahometans; therefore this mission aroused great hopes. One Ash Wednesday Father Luzon went to the fort, and he was received by a Lutao of gigantic stature who gave him his hand. The father shook hands with him, supposing that that was all for which he stopped him; but the Lutao trickily let himself be carried on, and with his weight dragged the father into the water, with the assurance that he could not be in danger, on account of his dexterity in swimming. The father went under, because he could not swim, and the captain and the soldiers hastened from the fort to his aid—but so late that there was quite enough time for him to be drowned, on account of having sunk so deep in the water; they pulled him out, half dead, and the first thing that he did was to secure pardon for the Lutao. He gained a little strength and went to the fort; he gave ashes to the Spaniards, and preached with as much fervor as if that hardship had not befallen him. The principal of Sibuguey was Datan, and, to make sure of him, the Spaniards had carried away as a hostage his daughter Paloma; and love for her caused her parents to leave Sibuguey and go to Samboangan to live, to have the company of their daughter. Father Alexandro Lopez went to minister at Sibuguey, and he saw that without the authority of Datan he could do almost nothing among the Sibugueys; this obliged him to go to Samboangan to get him, and he succeeded [in persuading them] to give him the girl. The father went up toward the source of the river, and found several hamlets of peaceable people, and a lake with five hundred people residing about it; and their chief, Sumogog, received him as a friend, and all listened readily to the things of God. He went so far that he could see the mountains of Dapitan, which are so near that place that a messenger went [to Dapitan] and returned in three days. These fair hopes were frustrated by the absence of Datan, who went with all his family to Mindanao; and on Ascension day in 1644 that new church disappeared, no one being left save a boy named Marcelo. Afterward the Moros put the fort in such danger, having killed some men, that it was necessary to dismantle it and withdraw the garrison.

[Fol. 121 (sc. 120):] The Joloans having been subjected by the bravery of Don Pedro de Almonte, they began to listen to the gospel, and they went to fix their abodes in the shelter of our fort. But, [divine] grace accommodating itself to their nature, as the sect of Mahoma have always been so obstinate, it was necessary that God should display His power, in order that their eyes might be opened to the light. The fervent father Alexandro Lopez was preaching in that island, to whose labors efficacy was given by the hand of God with many prodigies. The cures which the ministers made were frequent, now with benedictions, now with St. Paul’s earth,[15] in many cases of bites from poisonous serpents, or of persons to whom poison was administered. Among other cures, one was famous, that of a woman already given up as beyond hope; having given her some of St. Paul’s earth, she came back from the gates of death to entire health. With this they showed more readiness to accept the [Christian] doctrine, which was increased by a singular triumph which the holy cross obtained over hell in all these islands; for, having planted this royal standard of our redemption in an island greatly infested by demons, who were continually frightening the islanders with howls and cries, it imposed upon them perpetual silence, and freed all the other [neighboring] islands from an extraordinary tyranny. For the demons were crossing from island to island, in the sea, in the shape of serpents of enormous size, and did not allow vessels to pass without first compelling their crews to render adoration to the demon in iniquitous sacrifices; but this ceased, the demon taking flight at sight of the cross. [Several incidents of miraculous events are here related.] With these occurrences God opened their eyes, in order that they might see the light and embrace baptism, and in those islands a very notable Christian church was formed; and almost all was due to the miraculous resurrection of Maria Ligo [which our author relates at length]. Many believed, and thus began a flourishing Christian community; and as ministers afterward could not be kept in Joló on account of the wars, [these converts] exiled themselves from their native land, and went to live at Samboangan, in order that they might be able to live as Christians. [This prosperous beginning is spoiled by the lawless conduct of the commandant Gaspar de Morales, which brings on hostilities with the natives, and finally his own death in a fight with them.] Father Alexandro Lopez went to announce the gospel at Pangutaran, (an island distant six leguas east from Joló), and as the people were a simple folk they received the law of Christ with readiness ... The Moros of Tuptup captured a discalced religious of St. Augustine, who, to escape from the pains of captivity, took to flight with a negro. Father Juan Contreras (who was in Joló) went out with some Lutaos in boats to rescue him, calling to him in various places from the shore; but the poor religious was so overcome with fear that, although he heard the voices and was near the beach, he did not dare to go out to our vessels, despite the encouragement of the negro; and on the following day the Joloans, encountering him, carried him back to his captivity, with blows. He wrote a letter from that place, telling the misfortunes that he was suffering; all the soldiers, and even the Lutaos, called upon the governor [of Joló], to ransom that religious at the cost of their wages, but without effect. Then Father Contreras, moved by fervent charity, went to Patical, where the fair[16] was held, and offered himself to remain as a captive among the Moros, in order that they might set free the poor religious, who was feeble and sick. Some Moros agreed to this; but the Orancaya Suil, who was the head chief of the Guimbanos, said that no one should have anything to do with that plan—at which the hopes of that afflicted religious for ransom were cut off. Seeing that he must again endure his hardships, from which death would soon result, he asked Father Contreras to confess him; the latter undertook to set out by water to furnish him that spiritual consolation, but the Lutaos would not allow him to leave the boat, even using some violence, in order not to endanger his person. All admired a charity so ardent, and, having renewed his efforts, he so urgently persuaded the governor, Juan Ruiz Maroto, to ransom him that the latter gave a thousand pesos in order to rescue the religious from captivity. Twice Father Contreras went to the fair, but the Moros did not carry the captive there with them. Afterward he was ransomed for three hundred pesos by Father Alexandro Lopez, the soldiers aiding with part of their pay a work of so great charity.

[Fol. 123:] [The Society of Jesus throughout the world celebrates the centennial anniversary of its foundation; the official order for this does not reach Manila in time, so the Jesuits there observe the proper anniversary (September 27, 1640) with solemn religious functions, besides spending a week in practicing the “spiritual exercises” and various works of charity. “On one day of the octave all the members of the Society went to the prisons, and carried to the prisoners an abundant and delicious repast. The same was done in the hospitals, to which they carried many sweetmeats to regale the sick; they made the beds, swept the halls, and carried the chamber-vessels to the river to clean them; and afterward they sprinkled the halls with scented water. Throughout the octave abundance of food was furnished at the porter’s lodge to the beggars; and a free table was set for the poor Spaniards, who were served with food in abundance and neatness. It was a duty, and a very proper manner of celebrating the [virtues of the] men who have rendered the Society illustrious, to imitate them in humility, devotion, and charity.”]

[Fol. 123 b:] In the Pintados Islands and other ministries Ours labored fervently in ministering to the Christians and converting the infidels. Nor was the zeal of the Society content with laboring in its own harvest-field; it had the courage to go to the ministers of the secular priests to conduct missions. Two fathers went on a mission to Mindoro and Luban, and when they were near the village their caracoa was attacked by three joangas of Borneans and Camucones. The caracoa, in order to escape from the enemies, ran ashore; and the fathers, leaving there all that they possessed—books, missal, and the clothing that they were carrying to distribute as alms to the poor Indians—took to the woods, through which they made their way to Naujan. On the road it frequently rained, and they had no change of clothing, nor any food save some buds of the wild palm-tree; they suffered weariness, hunger, and thirst, and to slake this last they drank the water which they found in the pools there. After twenty days of this so toilsome journeying they reached the chief town [of the island], their feet covered with wounds, themselves faint and worn out with hunger, and half dead from fatigue; but they were joyful and contented, because God was giving them this opportunity to suffer for love of Him. One of the fathers went back to Marinduque, where he found other troubles, no less grievous than those which had gone before; for the Camucones had robbed the church, ravaged the grain-fields, captured some Indians, and caused the rest to flee to the hills. The father felt deep compassion for them, and at the cost of much toil he again assembled the Indians and brought them back to their villages.

[Fol. 134:] In the fifth provincial congregation, which was held in the year 1635, Father Diego de Bobadilla was chosen procurator to Roma and Madrid. He embarked in the year 1637, and while he was in España the disturbances in Portugal and Cataluña occurred. The news of these events was very afflicting to this province, considering the difficulty in its securing aid. Besides the usual fields of Tagalos and Bisayas, the province occupied the new missions of Buhayen, Iligan, Basilan, and Jolo; and there were several years when it found itself with only forty priests, who with the utmost difficulty provided as best they could for needs so great. Phelipe IV—whom we may call “the Great,” on account of his unconquerable, signal, and unusual patience, which God chose to prove by great and repeated misfortunes—was so zealous for the Catholic religion, its maintenance, and its progress that even in times so hard he did not grudge the grant of forty-seven missionaries for this province. He also gave orders that they should be supplied at Sevilla with a thousand and forty ducados, and at Mexico with thirteen thousand pesos—a contribution of the greatest value in those circumstances, and which could only be dictated by a heart so Catholic as that of this prince, who every day renewed the vow that he had taken that he would not make friends with the infidels, to the detriment of religion, even though it should cost him his crown and his life. On Holy Tuesday, March 31, in 1643, forty-seven Jesuits embarked at Acapulco; and on the second of April mass was sung, and communion was celebrated—not only by the missionaries, but by almost all the laymen who came in the almiranta, where was established a distribution [of their labors] as well planned as in an Observant college. For at daybreak[17] a bell was rung tor rising; there was a season of prayer; mass was said, once on working-days and twice on feast-days; the priests who did not say mass received communion every day, and the lay-brothers, students, and coadjutors two or three times a week; there was reading at meal-times; and at the approach of night the litanies were recited and the Salve sung. Every night a father went to the forecastle to explain the Christian doctrine, and ended with some brief address. When night began, the father procurator rang a little bell, in order that they might pray to God for the souls in purgatory and for those who are in mortal sin, imitating the example of St. Francis Xavier. Before the hour for retiring, the bell was rung for the examination of conscience. Every Sunday, feast-day, and Saturday, addresses were made to all the [people of the] ship.

Soon after they had embarked, a sort of wind blew which made nearly all those who were coming in the ship fall ill; and from this sickness died five Jesuits, and thirty-three laymen; and in the flagship six religious of St. Dominic and seventy [other] persons. These sick persons gave sufficient occasion for the charity of Ours, who assisted them by administering the sacraments and caring for their souls; and they even busied themselves in relieving the sick, so far as was possible, with delicacies and personal attentions. This occupation was an excellent preparation in order that the sermons and exhortations that the ministers uttered might produce the desired result—that a great reform in morals and much attendance on the sacraments might be secured. [After perils and hardships by sea, and in the overland passage from Lampon to Manila, they reach that city. “It was a very numerous mission band, who accomplished much work; and there were some of them who spent fifty and even more than sixty years in Philipinas, which is a very extraordinary thing.” Five of them had died on the voyage: fathers Francisco Casela, a native of Naples, aged thirty years; Francois Boursin, a native of Arras, aged thirty-four; Georg Kocart, from Neuburg, aged twenty-eight; Gonzalo Cisneros, an Aragonese (?), aged twenty-eight; and Dominic Vaybel (probably for Waibl), a native of Constance, of the same age.] In the college of Zebu the Society labored with apostolic zeal; for, although regularly there was no one in it besides the father rector and another priest, they maintained preaching and confession, and attended to the spiritual welfare of the Spaniards, Indians, mestizos, and other people who gathered there; and God gave His blessing to our pious desires and labors. Many Indians attended the sermons that were preached in that church, even when the sermons were in Spanish.

[Fol. 152 b:] Our military forces, being set free from the nearer enemies, were employed against those more distant. Accordingly, the commander of our armada, Pedro Duran de Monforte, directed his course to the great island of Borney, where he burned many villages on that coast, and carried away forty captives; and he succeeded in making this voyage known [to navigators], and in observing the shoals, monsoons, and other difficulties. With this experience he again set out, on January 11, 1649, with fourteen vessels, his people being partly Indian adventurers from Pintados, partly Lutaos; and Father Francisco Lado accompanied him. He touched at Lacaylacay; went on to Onsan, the limit of the former expedition; and went to the island of Bangui. Everywhere he found abundance of rice, swine, and goats. He plundered and destroyed several villages; burned more than three hundred vessels, among them the armed fleet which they held ready that year to infest these islands—which on account of this exploit remained for the time free from their fury and barbarity. He brought back more than two hundred captives, and ransomed some Christians. All this was done in a short time and with ease, because these affairs were undertaken with proper seriousness. As a result of this, when the governor of Samboangan, Rafael Omen, died, Pedro Duran de Monforte was appointed in his place; and the latter imitated his predecessor in his zeal for religion, in his Christian mode of life, in disinterestedness, and in an affable and mild bearing, for which he was beloved by all, while his government was peaceful and prosperous. With the opportunity afforded by these armadas, the Jesuits (who went as chaplains) began to announce the gospel in the great island of Borney, than which there is no larger island in the world. So prosperous were those beginnings that they succeeded in having seven hundred islanders baptized. Two chiefs of the neighboring islands offered vassalage to the king of Spain, and asked for gospel ministers, as Father Colin testifies; and this mission finally gave hopes that a numerous and extensive Christian church would be founded which would compensate for the losses in Japon and the Orient; but, lacking the protection of the Spanish military forces, this so beautiful hope faded away almost at its flowering. Deplorable and repeated experiences persuade us that in these latter times the Christian missions are maintained and increased only when in the shelter of Catholic arms; sad witnesses to this are Japon, India, and now China. If in these islands and America our kings did not protect religion, I believe that those regions would now be as heathen as in their former times. Experience teaches this, and the rest I regard as speculation—although the powerful arm of the Highest easily overcomes the greatest impossibilities.

[Fol. 155 b:] The testimony of the venerable Father Mastrili, and the voluntary choice of so many distinguished Jesuits and martyrs who embraced these missions with the greatest eagerness, are sufficient recommendation for them. With just reason they can be esteemed, as being among the most laborious and difficult which the Society maintains anywhere in the world. This title is deserved by the missions of Philipinas, and among them those to Mindanao and the Subanos are some of the most difficult. No one accuses this statement of being exaggerated, and still less of being arrogant, before he has examined it minutely; and then he cannot find more moderate terms [than the above] in order not to fall short of the truth. Whatever dangers, inconveniences, and privations are experienced on land are also experienced on the sea, with an [additional] sort of circumstances which renders them more grievous, and besides this there are the hardships natural and peculiar to that element; and even that which on land is chosen for convenience and relief costs on the sea inconvenience and trouble—as, for instance, sleeping, eating, and taking exercise. Every boat is a prison without chains, but more closely shut than the narrowest jail; it is a broad coffin, in which the living suffer the discomforts of death. Whoever sets foot in a boat resolutely confronts all the elements, which conspire in arms to terrify and destroy him. The water upon which he journeys, the air by which he sails, the fire by which he lives, the land which he so anxiously seeks—all are declared enemies of the traveler. The sea is, by antonomasia, the theater for [all] perils; and no one who has not been tossed upon its foaming waves can speak with justice of its dangers, just as the blind man cannot dispute about colors. A heart of steel or of diamond, say the ancients, he must have had who first boldly launched himself upon the [waters of the] gulfs, so many perils did they conceive of an element which has as many treacheries as waves. Therefore, as nearly all the missions of this province are established along the seas, on which our missionaries go about, continually on the move, these are the (or among the) most difficult, arduous and perilous that exist on the whole round globe. To this sacrifice charity gladly constrained us. Let to all this be added the nature of the country, in which earthquakes, baguios, hurricanes, storms of thunder and lightning, and tempests often occur. The winds are violent and hurtful, the season hot; the rainy season gloomy, dark and persistent; the wet soil producing many disgusting insects that are troublesome and vexatious. The care for the temporal welfare of the people—seeing that they pay their tributes to the king, and that they plant their fields in time—is an employment that is troublesome, tedious, and necessary. Nor is it a less task to take care for the provisioning of the [missionary’s] own house, without having in this respect the aid which the apostles had; because the minister must rather care for his own house and for that of others, a charge which charity lays upon us. Charitas omnia sustinet [i.e., “Charity endures all things”].

Each missionary in Bisayas (or Pintados) has the care of two to five thousand souls, and even more. These commonly are divided among two or three villages, quite far apart; and throughout the year the minister is sailing from one to another, to preach to them and aid them. Among the Subanos there are not so many people [in each mission], but their little villages are more numerous. Formerly each minister had ten or twelve villages of Subanos, [each] divided on as many rivers, in the form of hamlets. There were houses round about the church or pavilion [camarin], and the rest [of the people] lived scattered in the hills, forests, and thickets. I have seen some native huts [buhios] on the peaks of the mountains, [so far away] that they could hardly be reached in half an hour from the river. Others I saw placed among the branches of the trees, in the same manner as nests. Their houses regularly are very high, with a bamboo for a ladder, which they remove at night. All this they do in order to hide themselves and be free from the frequent invasions of the Moros; and from the stratagems and treacheries of their own countrymen, who are inclined to vengeance and perfidy. Among these people we live. The rivers are full of ferocious and blood-thirsty crocodiles, which kill many persons. When I was in Dapitan there was one of these beasts in the river of Iraya, so sanguinary and fierce that no one dared to pass that river by night, on account of the ravages that it committed—leaping into the boats, and taking people out of them. In the books of those villages, I read with horror and pity: “On such a day was buried the head of N., which was all that was found, because the crocodile had torn him to pieces.” The bars of the rivers are dangerous, and with the freshets and the waves some channels are easily closed and others opened, to the great risk of those who are sailing. The seas are rough, and so restless that the continual lashing of the waves on the shores, rocks, and reefs makes a sound which causes fear even in those who live inland. On that coast are headlands so difficult to double that sometimes the caracoas spend twenty or thirty days in voyages which in favorable weather require half an hour. As a result, the ministers live in great loneliness, without being able to communicate with one another—save that, when the monsoons blow, in order to make one’s confession a voyage is necessary; and therefore this consolation is attained by some but few times in the year. If a fatal accident occurs to one, it is not possible to assist him with the holy sacraments—which is the greatest affliction that can be endured in the hour of death; and their only recourse is to place themselves in the hands of that Lord for whom they expose themselves to these sufferings. Even greater are the fatigues endured by the soul in the frequent occasions which disturb its patience. The feeling of indifference which is native to the country tends to undermine gradually the wall of poverty, weaken the spirit of obedience, and cool the most fervent spiritual ardor and strictness of observance. Even the blood which animates us and gives us life is mutinous, and stirs up the passions against their own master; and, aided by the noxious air of the country, the extreme solitude, and the common enemy, wages a war that is cruel, obstinate, bloody, and so pertinacious that it does not yield until the last breath of life....

The soil is very poor, and the greater part of the provisions and clothing must be carried from Manila; and consequently a thousand miseries are suffered during the year without recourse. The feeling of loneliness is very great; we are in this world, which, besides being a vale of tears, for us is as it were, a limbo,[18] separated by thousands of leguas from the rest of the world; it is exceedingly seldom that the missionary meets any person through whom he can obtain any alleviation of his troubles, or any assistance or consolation. Few Spaniards traverse those regions, and those who do pass through are usually of such character that merely the knowledge that they are going about through the country causes grief, anxiety, and vigilance to the minister. During the entire week the Indians are on the sea, in the mountains, or in their grain-fields, and on Sundays they come together in the village—but usually little to the comfort of the missionary. Rather, they increase his annoyances, in [having to] settle their lawsuits, quarrels, misunderstandings, and accounts; in defending them from the alcaldes and petty officials, and from one another; and in the minister’s defending himself from all—for there are a thousand entanglements, snares, and deceits. Hardly do they set foot in the missionary’s house, except when they go to ask for something; they are like the cat, and only look the father in the face when they are expecting some scrap of meat; and when this is seized, friendship, homage, and gratitude are at an end. Would to God that these qualities were left in the Indians! But it cannot be said that all are of this sort, but that there are enough of them for exercising the patience of the minister, although others serve for his comfort and consolation. If the minister is sick, he has no physician or apothecary to resort to; and his only resource is an Indian medicaster who applies some herbs, and whose prescriptions are quickly exhausted. If the sickness be a distressing one, it is necessary to go to Zebu, to which place [Ours] make a voyage of thirty or forty leguas, with the risk of not finding [there] a blood-letter. If radical treatment is needed, there is no other remedy than to sail a hundred or two hundred leguas to Manila, where there is not an over-supply of Galens. Fortunate is he who, without failing in his obligations, can preserve his health unimpaired; for in this land certain diseases quickly take root [in one’s system] which are a slow and most grievous martyrdom through life. And there is, almost peculiar to these countries, a sort of profound melancholy, which, like a corrupt root, renders all that he can do either insipid or repulsive. Sometimes it disorders the mind,[19] and even life itself becomes abhorrent. It persistently oppresses the mind, which needs great courage, and aid from above, in order that one may not faint in the ministry. All this is the effect of solitude, and of one’s nature becoming suffocated under the continual annoyances and troubles which administration [of these missions] involves. Nor is it easy to explain, without actual eyewitness, the various modes of suffering which here present themselves, so unusual, extraordinary, and acute. In these workshops patience is wrought, purified, and assayed until it becomes heroic, with the heavy hammer of mortifications, troubles, and petty details, which chance each day arranges and disarranges.

To this must be added the continual dread of invasions by the Moros, of whose barbarous and inhuman cruelty alone the missionaries are assured, fleeing to the mountains amid thorns, woods, miry places, and precipices. On the coast from Yligan to Samboangan, I saw with great sorrow various churches and villages that had been burned. The ministers saw themselves in the greatest danger of being captured or slain, and in their flight they suffered unspeakable hardships. Nor are dangers wanting among even the Indians themselves; they were very near putting to death by treachery Father Joseph Lamberti at Hagna, and Father Gaspar de Morales at Ynabangan, in the year 1746. For others they have laid ambushes, others have been wounded, and even some have been injured by witchcraft—so that in all directions there is danger.

Finally, let him who wishes to survey the missions which the Society has in these islands, open the map of Asia; and in the western part, in the Ægean archipelago, he will see the Apostle of the Gentiles journeying from Jerusalem to Tarsus, to Ephesus, to Jerusalem, to Seleucia, to Cyprus, to Pergamos in Pamphylia, to Antioch in Pisidia, to Iconium, to Macedonia, and to other cities, islands, and provinces, in continual movement from one place to another. Let him now look at the Eastern part of the same Asia, and he will see in the Philippine archipelago the Jesuits, journeying [in like manner] in Tagalos, in Bisayas, in Mindanao, in Jolo, in Marianas, in Palaos, in Borney, in Ternate, in Siao, in Macazar, in Japon, in China, and in other islands, kingdoms, and provinces of the Orient, preaching the gospel to these nations. To these laborers it is a fitting command: Euntes in mundum universum, prædicate Evangelium omni creaturæ.[20] I do not know whether in any other region there is a concourse of so many peoples as in Philipinas, or where this mandate of Christ to His apostles is so literally carried out. There is not in the entire universe a journey more extensive or dangerous, by land or by sea. There is preaching and ministration in the Spanish tongue and in the Tagal; and in those of Samar and Bohol, and of Marianas; of the Lutaos, of Mindanao, and of the Subanos; and in that of the Sangleys or Chinese. The study of the language is difficult, dry, and insipid, but it is necessary; it is a thorn causing many scruples, a bitterness for many years, and a labor for one’s whole life.

In Tagalos there are not so many navigations or journeys, although these are not wanting; but this advantage is strictly compensated by other difficulties, for on the ministers falls the entire burden of sermons, missions, Lenten services, novenaries, and other functions, and usually the professorships [in the college] of Manila. In the villages, the solitude and the lack of various conveniences are almost the same [as in Bisayas]; and although the Indians are as simple as the rest they are not so artless, but are cunning and deceitful. They do not use lances or daggers against the ministers, but they employ gossip, misrepresentations, and calumnies. In almost all the villages there are some Indians who have been clerks to the Spaniards in Manila, and accustomed to petitions and lawsuits, they influence the Indians to innumerable quarrels; for through frequent communication with the Spaniards stamped paper has become a favorite with them. And if the father calls them to account [les va á los alcanzes], a crowd of them get together, and draw up a writing against the minister, which is quickly filled with signatures and crosses. Often that happens which is told by the lord bishop of Montenegro: how a visitor, considering as impossible a complaint that was presented to him by some Indians against their cura, began to examine one of those who had signed it; and, seeing that the Indian said “Amen” to everything, without stopping for reflection, the visitor suspected that the complaint was a calumny. He then said, very sagaciously: “Man, in this petition it is stated that one Sunday, after prayers, your cura killed King David.” “Yes, sir,” said the Indian, “I saw that done;” and thus the prudent judge recognized the falsity of the charges. When the Indians wish to accuse the minister, they resort to the clerk, who has certain bundles and old papers, carefully kept, of accusations and complaints; and according to the amount they pay him the accusation amplifies—as when one prepares a good purgative medicine, and augments the dose in order to secure its operation. A number of the Indians affix their signatures, without knowing what they are signing; for the heat of wine takes the place of all these formalities of law. They carry this document, full of sprawling signatures and cross-marks [letrones y cruzes], to those who, as they know, have least good-will to the minister—and in this [sort of knowledge] the Indians are eminent, nor is there a pilot who follows more closely the winds by which he must navigate; and just so these Indians know where their complaint will be received with approval. If he to whom the accusation is presented be credulous, innocence suffers much until the truth is made clear. Great strength of mind is required to endure these calumnies, and it is one of the kinds of martyrdom (and not the least cruel) in Indias. In the other matters of administration there are hardships, on account of the great number of people [for whom the father must care], and their scattered mode of life, since they are distant from the church sometimes three or four leguas. The roads are wretched, the heat of the sun burning, and the rainstorms very heavy, with innumerable other inclemencies and annoyances, which have disabled many, and killed others. The variety of duties which the minister has to exercise is very great, for he has to be preacher, teacher of the doctrine, and confessor; adjuster and umpire of their petty quarrels; physician and apothecary, to treat them in their sicknesses; schoolmaster, and teacher of music; architect and builder, and competent for everything [un todo para todo]; for if the minister does not take care of everything, all will soon be lost. Enough of [this] parenthetical explanation;[21] although it is long, a knowledge of it is very necessary for the completeness of history, in order that it may be known what the gospel ministers are doing and suffering, which is more than what superficial persons suppose.

[Fol. 183 b:] In the conversion of Basilan, fervent were the labors of Father Francisco Angel and Father Nicolas Deñe; and both suffered great dangers to their lives and liberty. They were succeeded by Father Francisco Lado, who by his persistence in enduring innumerable fatigues subdued the entire island; went through all of it, on foot, alone, and without escort; made his way through its thickets, forests, mountains, and hamlets; and did this in such peace that he could build a very neat church and substantial house—for he was much loved by the Lutaos; and he had, with the aid of the governors of Samboangan, cleared the island from all the panditas, and from mischievous and suspicious persons, who might disturb the people with evil doctrines or with immoral practices. Only one remained there, who by his malice was disturbing even the peaceful natives; this was Tabaco, who had incited to rebellion the Sameacas, who are the natives of the island. [This man is finally slain by a daring young Spanish officer, Alonso Tenorio; see our Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 134–136.]

With similar success the religion of Jesus Christ was published along the coast which extends toward the kingdom of Mindanao. Father Pedro Tellez zealously traveled through those shores, where he formed several villages, erected more than sixteen churches, and established Christian living; and he made his abode in Tungavan. Notable aid was given to this enterprise by Don Antonio Ampi, the lord of the river, who always promoted the Christian religion with extraordinary constancy—although he had in Jolo a brother named Libot, a renegade and a cruel pirate—and he gave to the college at Samboangan some fertile and productive lands. At the cost of toils and privations, Father Tellez reduced the barbarous Subanos to rational and Christian customs, drawing them out of their caves and huts, and from under the cruel tyrannical yoke of the demon—who made apparent the great resentment that was roused in him by the loss of those his long-time slaves; for at various times the horrible howls that he uttered were heard at Curuan. For ministration on the coast of La Caldera and Siocon, which was left deserted by the death of Father Juan del Campo, the father provincial Francisco de Roa assigned Father Francisco Combés, who gladly went to instruct the Subanos. Most earnestly he applied himself to bringing those wild and timid creatures into closer social relations, and in doing this he was able to forward their instruction in the mysteries of the faith; and gradually they became accustomed to a more rational and Christian mode of life. On the river of Sibuco there was an Indian named Ondol; this man and his brother, worse than Moors, were married to several wives; and Ondol was so cruel that he slew whomsoever he chose, without further cause than his own whim. He tried to kill Father Adolfo de Pedrosa, greatly applauded the killing of Father Juan del Campo, and threatened that he would kill Father Combés; but the latter pretended to take no notice of it, and was cautious, and concealed his intentions; and Ondol went on confidently, so that, when he least thought of such a thing, he found himself a prisoner, and was sent to Samboangan where he was received by the Spaniards and by the fathers with great pleasure at seeing removed from the midst [of the mission] so great an obstacle to the Christian faith. His brothel continued to stir up the people, and an armed fleet was sent against him, but without any result; for the noise [of their coming] warned him so that he could avoid the blow, among woods, hills, miry places, and thickets. The escort of the father [i.e., Combés] continued to make arrests, with cunning devices, until they seized fifteen of this man’s relatives; and the father sent them to Samboangan. Love for his kindred brought that wild man to the church, to ask mercy from the father. He was admitted to favor, and all the past forgotten, with one condition: that he and all his people, since they were Lutaos, must live under the artillery of the fort, and serve in the [Spanish] armada. With this arrangement that coast remained peaceable, for the insurgents of Siocon had also been seized by craft. Father Combés went to that place, and encountered very heavy seas, not only at entering but on leaving that village; and arguing [from this] that God was not allowing them to go until they interred the bones of the companions of Father Campo, they all lauded on the shore, and searched for the bodies among the thorny thickets. Having interred all of them together, and said a mass for them, the Spaniards placed a cross over the sepulcher; and immediately the weather became calm, so that the caracoas were able to set out. At that time Father Combés carried away a hermit, who, clothed as a woman, strictly observed the law of nature, and professed celibacy. He was called “the Labia of Malandi;” and he was converted to the religion of Christ, in which he lived as a faithful servant.

In La Caldera was introduced the devotion to the blessed souls in purgatory, and suffrages for the deceased, which never had been publicly performed among any Subanos. To render this service more solemn, the musicians were carried thither from Samboangan; and this, joined with the father’s exhortations, introduced in their hearts pious solicitude for their dead—so well begun that, in the midst of their native poverty and the dulness of their minds, they carried with them many candles, with rice and other offerings. From that place this holy devotion was gradually communicated through all those villages, following the example of La Caldera—which then was the principal village, in which the minister resided; and to it were annexed Bocot, Malandi, and Baldasan. Besides the above-mentioned cases, others occurred with which the Lord consoled the ministers, in recompense for the misery, hardships, and forlorn condition of those arduous and remote missions.

[Fol. 229 b:] About this time dissoluteness was reigning in these islands, with as unrestrained and despotic dominion as if there were no law superior to it, which could repress it. Fraud in trade and commerce, hatred, falsehood, and malice prevailed everywhere, and without restraint. Above all, sensuality was, so to speak, the prince and master vice; and so general that, unrestricted in time, sex, rank, or age, it kept these regions aflame with an infernal and inextinguishable fire. These crimes were aggravated by the scandalous publicity with which they were committed, almost without punishment; and they had so filled the country with iniquity and abomination that they had to a certain extent corrupted the land itself, filling it with malediction, as Scripture tells us of the time of Noe: Corrupta est autem terra coram Deo, & repleta est iniquitate.[22] This provoked the wrath of God so much that in those times were experienced such calamities, wars, misfortunes, earthquakes, deaths, factions, shipwrecks, imprisonments, and so great disturbances, that the citizens themselves, obliged to begin to reflect on these things, believed that the sword of divine indignation was unsheathed among them; and those who with prosperity seemed to be losing their senses came to themselves, as did the prodigal son with his coming to want. They had recourse to the holy Pope, the vicar of Christ on earth; and at his feet, submitting themselves with humble repentances, they explained to him the cause of their affliction. He who then presided over the Church of God was his Holiness Innocent X, who as a benign father despatched an apostolic brief to the archbishop of Manila directing him to absolve all the inhabitants and citizens of these islands from whatever crime or transgression they might have committed, or excommunication that they might have incurred. He sent them his apostolic benediction, and granted a plenary indulgence to those who should worthily prepare to receive it.

On the first day of March, 1654, the archbishop made publication of these favors conferred by the pontiff; and all the people prepared with great fervor to obtain them—so universally that the many confessors of the clergy and the religious orders were hardly sufficient for the numbers who resorted to them; and it was estimated that within the city more than forty thousand persons made their confessions. The result was very excellent, for many confessions were made anew that had been for many years faultily made—either to conceal sins, or for lack of sorrow for them—and of their own accord. Many general confessions were made, and the grace of God was made apparent in the excellent results which were experienced. Restitution was made of honors and property, inveterate hatreds were uprooted, immoral associations of many years’ standing were broken up, and occasions for continual stumbling were removed. On the twenty-second day a solemn mass was sung in the cathedral, the blessed sacrament was exposed, and the archbishop preached with the fervor that the case demanded. At twelve o’clock the bells began to ring for prayers in all the churches, the sound of the bells being a fresh awakener of consciences. In the afternoon the archbishop went to the main plaza, where a stage had been erected, of sufficient size, almost, for a court from above; on it was an altar, with a crucifix for devotion, under a canopy. On this stage sat the archbishop, with the ecclesiastical cabildo; and the royal Audiencia were there with their president, the governor and captain-general, also the regidors and the holy religious orders; while there was an innumerable assembly from every sort of nation and people, for whom there was not room in the plaza or in the streets, or on the roofs. The archbishop put on his pontifical robes, and, when the psalms were sung and the usual prayers offered, he publicly uttered the blessing on the land and all its inhabitants in the name of the supreme pontiff; and afterward the Te Deum was intoned, and the chimes were rung by all the bells.

[Our author here relates the beginning of the rebuilding of the cathedral (which had been destroyed in the earthquakes of 1645), and the solemn religious functions which accompany the laying of its cornerstone in 1654; and the formal adoption of St. Francis Xavier as the patron saint of the islands (1653), by action of the secular cabildo of Manila, who bind themselves “to attend the vespers and the feasts of that saint’s day in a body, as the municipal council, and to furnish the wax necessary for the feast.” He is also chosen as patron saint of all the voyages made to, from, or among the islands. This action is followed by that of the ecclesiastical cabildo (1654) and the archbishop. That saint is chosen because he had preached in Ternate and Mindanao, which belonged to the jurisdiction of the Philippines; in imitation of India, where also he was the patron saint, and where his favor had been experienced by navigators; and “because the glorious saint had shown himself, especially in recent years in this region, very propitious to the voyages of our ships,” of which various examples are cited.]

[Fol. 231 b:] The archbishop had seen in the publication of the jubilee the persistence with which the Jesuits labored in the confessional; and desiring to finish gathering in the harvest which the broad field of these environs promised him, if the proper cultivation were applied, in the year 1655 he asked Father Miguel Solana, the provincial of this province, that the “jubilee of the missions” might be published. This was done in the following Lenten season, with so felicitous results that more than twenty thousand certificates of confession were counted which had been issued in our college at Manila. The zeal of the archbishop aided greatly [in this result], for he took part in the procession in which the mission was published, and preached one day in our church.... Extraordinary was the fruit which he gathered that Lent; and confessions were made [for a period] of sixty or eighty years. [Here are related various cases of conversion and edification, in some of which demons appear to the faithful. Governor Diego Faxardo sends workmen to Camboja to build a galleon there, and asks for Jesuits to go with them as chaplains, and to labor for the introduction of the Christian faith into that kingdom; two are sent, one of whom is Father Francisco Mesina, who was then ministering to the Chinese at Santa Cruz. These men build a fine galleon, but it is lost in a storm on the way to Manila; moreover, the galleon “Nuestra Señora del Rosario,” in which they had sailed to Camboja, “one of the strongest which had been built in these islands,” was wrecked on the shoals of the Me-Khong (or Cambodia) River, before the Spaniards could establish themselves on its shores. These accidents cause the idea of building ships in Camboja to be abandoned.] Although the temporal government of Ternate belonged to the crown of Castilla, and to this government of Philipinas, its spiritual affairs were cared for by the bishop of Malaca; and when that city was conquered by the Dutch, Ternate remained in the care of only one Jesuit and one secular priest for many years. Don Sabiniano Manrique brought to Manila the father and the Portuguese priest, and in their place two fathers from this province were sent, whom the archbishop of Manila constituted his provisors and vicars-general. These fathers preached with great fervor and corresponding results; for many Christians improved their mode of life, and some Moors and heretics of that country, giving up their errors, embraced the true religion. Among all these the ones who excelled in fervor were two young girls, about fourteen years old, who, abandoning their parents (who professed the Moorish faith), came to Ours to be made Christians—with so dauntless resolution that, although their parents followed them in order to take them back to their own village, they could not persuade them to return; and God bestowed such efficacy upon the utterances of these girls that even their parents, illumined by the light of the Highest, determined to follow the same religious faith. Various results of the mercy of God were seen in some persons who, a short time after receiving grace in baptism, ascended to enjoy their reward in glory.

In Siao the king was Don Bentura Pinto de Morales, who, grieving that his island should lack gospel ministers, despatched an embassy to Don Sabiniano Manrique, laying before him the extreme necessity of that island and kingdom, and entreating that he would send thither religious to preach the holy gospel; the zealous governor [accordingly] asked the father provincial, Miguel de Solana, to send two fathers to relieve that need. They were immediately sent, and began their work on so good a footing that in a short time they commenced to gather the fruit that they desired; and, not content to labor with the old Christians, they added to the flock of Christ a great multitude of souls, so that in a few months nearly all the islanders were asking for baptism. The city of Macan had sent to Manila a nobleman named Don Diego Furtado de Mendoza, to regulate the commerce [between the two cities]; and Don Diego Faxardo, perhaps for [well-grounded] suspicions, ordered that he be arrested. But afterward Don Sabiniano sent this envoy back to Macan; and in November of the year 1653 he sent a vessel, and in it Father Magino Sola with the title of ambassador, to establish friendly relations between this and that city, and with other commissions; and they arrived at Macan about March, 1654.

In these times [of which we are writing] many Subanos had come down to Dapitan from some neighboring mountains, and were brought into the fold of Christ. Afterward a chief from Dicayo came down with his people, and was followed by others, from other hamlets; the ministers were greatly consoled at seeing the fruit that was gathered in that district of heathens. At the same time some Moros from the lake of Malanao settled at Yligan, in order to be instructed and to live as Christians in that village; and God deigned to work some marvels, so that they might properly appreciate the Catholic religion. [Some of these are related; then follows a long account of the schemes and perfidious acts of Corralat, and of the murder (December 13, 1655) by his nephew Balatamay of the Jesuits Alexandro Lopez and Juan de Montiel, and the Spanish officer Claudio de Ribera, who were going to Corralat as envoys from Governor Manrique de Lara. All these occurrences have received due attention in previous volumes.]

[Fol. 277:] The archbishop of Manila, Don Miguel Poblete, a pastor zealous for the good of souls, asked the father provincial of the Society to employ some of his men, now that this succor had arrived,[23] in a ministry so proper for our Institute as is that of the missions; and some of them accordingly went out to look after the ranches [estancias], where usually live many vagabonds, who, as a result of their idleness and lack of any restraint, commit innumerable sinful and evil acts, and are a people greatly in need of religious instruction. In those places are found some Spaniards, various [sorts of] mestizos, negroes, Cafres, and Indians from all the islands. At the cost of many inconveniences, the ministers gathered a large harvest in the numerous confessions that were made to them, and in many licentious unions which were broken up; and, above all, light was given to those people on what they ought to believe and do in order to secure the eternal salvation of their souls. An old man eighty years of age, whose confessions were almost sacrilegious, was reached by the mission, and, wounded by his conscience, said: “Oh, if Father San Vitores” (whom perhaps he knew by reputation) “were one of the missionaries, how I could get out of this wretched condition in which I am!” And afterward, learning that Father San Vitores was going to that place, this old man cast himself at his feet, and with more tears than words made a general confession, and [thus] was set free from that abominable condition in which he found himself. Afterward the archbishop entreated that the mission should go to the mountain of Maralaya, near the lake of Bay, where a colony of highwaymen and vagrants had been gathered by the desire for freedom and the fear of punishment, secure in their lawless mode of life in the ruggedness of the mountain. The missionaries reached that place, and on the slope of the mountain established their camp, where they remained in the inclemencies of weather until a pavilion was built in which they could say mass, and a wretched hut for their shelter. There, with affection, prayer, and exercises of penance, they were able to persuade those people to come down to hear the word of God; and so efficacious was this that many were induced to return to their own villages, in order to live as Christians. Several women whom those men kept there, who had been separated from their husbands, were restored [to their families]; and among the rest the missionaries employed instruction and teaching. One man had lived in that barbarous community worse than if he were a heathen; and the only indication of his Christian faith that remained to him in so demoralized a condition was his constant devotion to the blessed Virgin—to whom he fasted every Saturday, and whom he urgently entreated that he might not die without the sacraments. That most merciful Lady heard him, for, although he had been ten times in danger of death, she had always set him free with special favor. Now he made his confession with many tears, with the firm resolve to do whatever might be necessary for his eternal salvation.

A mission was conducted in the mountains of Santa Inez of Lanating, a visita of Antipolo. One of the missionaries was the same Father Diego Luis de San Vitores, and in seven days he gathered a very abundant harvest; for in that short time twenty-four thousand heathens, Aetas or Cimarrons, were baptized, and many others were prepared for the rite, who received baptism afterward. [The author describes several of these conversions; he also cites various entries of especial interest from “the books of the old mission of Santa Ines, which I have before me;” many of these are of baptisms made by Father San Vitores. “This mission was cared for by a devout Indian named Don Juan Estevan, who afterward was a donado, and in the absence of the minister instructed and baptized them—as did the Canacopoles, whom St. Xavier chose in India.”]

In the year 1669 there was a church and visita in Bosoboso; in 1672 there was a church in Paynaan; and in 1678 was established the church of San Isidro. These two [latter] villages lasted until recent years, when they were included in Bosoboso. Excursions were made into the mountains, and many Aetas, Christian and heathen, were brought out from their hamlets; and with charity and kindness efforts were made to settle them in the said visitas, wherein, in due time, a permanent minister was stationed. It appears from the books of the said visitas and villages that many adults were baptized—of twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty years, and even more; this was a task of the utmost difficulty for the ministers, in drawing those people out of their lairs, and even more in maintaining them in a social and Christian mode of life, on account of their natural inclination to go wandering through the woods and mountains. In the year 1699 the zealous archbishop Don Diego Camacho came to this mission, and baptized several of them—among others, four heathen adults—as appears from the books of Paynaan.

In the year 1665, on the nineteenth of July, there was a violent earthquake in Manila, in which nine persons died; and it inflicted considerable damage in the wing of our college. At this the zealous archbishop arranged that a mission should be held in Manila and Cavite; and through the preaching and example of those engaged therein great results were obtained. In October of the same year, Father Diego Luis de San Vitores and some companions went to the island of Mindoro, then in charge of secular priests. On sea and on land they suffered great fatigues and hunger, heat and storms, toils and dangers; but all this they regarded as [time and strength] well spent, when they saw how the liberal hand of God was rewarding them with the consolation of beholding with their own eyes the fruit of their labors—not only in the old Christians, who had reformed their morals; but in the infidel Manguianes, many of whom were converted to [our] religion. They experienced a thousand tokens of the providence and kindness of God. Although there were several languages in the island, they easily gained a knowledge of what was necessary for instructing the natives, preaching to them, hearing their confessions, and settling their affairs. Sometimes a contrary wind obliged them to put back, directed by the hand of God, in order to relieve the necessity which demanded their coöperation in those hamlets. Sometimes the rivers overflowed their banks, and they found it necessary to travel to places in which they found sufficient occasion for the exercise of their charity. Many conversions of special interest were obtained, of both Christians and heathens; and remarkable among all of them was that of a Manguian woman, a heathen, married to a Christian man. She was baptized, and named Maria; and afterward they called her “the Samaritan,” on account of the many persons whom she brought to the knowledge of Christ, the ministers availing themselves of her aid for the conversion of many persons, not only heathens but Christians, with most happy results. Her husband was a Christian by baptism, but worse than a heathen in his life; he would not even accept the rosary of the blessed Virgin, and it was necessary for his wife to put it about his neck by force; and it had so much efficacy that from that time he undertook to be a Christian in his acts, as he was one by name. The fathers erected three churches for the converted Manguianes: the church of our Lady, near Bongabon; that of San Ignacio, near Pola; and that of San Xavier, on the coast of Naojan. Another was built, named for the holy Christ of Burgos, for the old Christians who were roaming about through the mountains.

[The rest of Murillo Velarde’s Historia is mainly occupied with the history of the Spanish conquest of the Marianas Islands, and the missions of the Jesuit order therein; also with the Pardo controversy and various other matters which have been already treated in this series, besides the lives of Jesuits in the Philippines—which here, as throughout our series, we have presented only in very brief and condensed form; but which in these religious histories are often exceedingly detailed and prolix. We present a few more extracts from our writer, showing the distinctive occupations, methods, and achievements of the Jesuit missionaries there, and events affecting those missions.]

[Fol. 346 b:] These and other acts of violence [i.e., connected with the Pardo controversy] which in that time were suffered by this province of Philipinas are evident from the printed memorial which was presented to the king by Father Antonio Xaramillo, procurator of this province in Madrid, and a witness of most of the things which are contained in the said memorial. He concludes this document by offering, at the order of our general, the reverend Father Tyrso Gonzalez, our resignation of all the ministries which the Society possesses in these islands, in order thus to remove the cause of disturbances, jealousies, and controversies. But so far was the king from accepting this resignation that instead he issued his royal decrees that the doctrinas of Cainta and Jesus de la Peña (or Mariquina), of which the Society had been despoiled, should be restored to it. In the year 1696, not only did the very reverend Augustinian fathers surrender these posts, with politeness and courtesy, but in token of mutual affection and friendly relations an exchange was made of the ministry of San Matheo (which is near Mariquina), the fathers of St. Augustine ceding it to us for that of Binangonan (which is called “de los Perros” [i.e., “of the dogs”]), on the lake of Bay, which belonged to the Society; [this was done] by another exchange, made with the religious of St. Francis, to whom we gave the ministry of Baras on the same lake. The sentences of examination and review given by the royal and supreme Council of the Indias; the royal executory decree, which in consequence of these was issued in regard to Jesus de la Peña, on March 31, 1694; and the decrees which on the same day were despatched, as regards Cainta, to the governor and the archbishop of these islands: all these are in the archives of our college at Manila.... I have seen the original of a report made to the king about that time, by a person of great ability, in which he endeavored, with acrimonious expressions, to influence the royal mind against the Society; but the exaggerative and fierce asperity of the report was itself the most efficacious argument in favor of this province, and was entirely rejected by the king and his Council, as prejudiced (a just and deserved punishment). The king not only insisted that this province should continue in its ministries without any change, but restored to it the two of which it had been despoiled by animosity allied with violence. Thus this apostolic province went its way, following the apostle among thorns and roses, among persecutions and favors, per infamiam, & bonam famam.[24]

In order to justify the manner in which the Society administers its functions in these islands, I will give a brief account of the allotment [distribuçión; i.e., of the minister’s duties] which is followed in the villages, in order that the impartial reader, reflecting thereon prudently and carefully, may recognize the incessant and laborious toil with which this field, entrusted to the Society by the confidence of that prince, is cultivated. Every day the boys and girls (with little difference [in number]) up to the age of fourteen years hear mass; these call themselves “schools” and “companies of the rosary.” Then they sing all the prayers that belong to the mass, and go to their school. At ten o’clock the signal is given by the bell, and they go to the church to pray before the blessed sacrament, and to the Virgin they recite the Salve and the Alabado hymn; and they go out in procession, singing the prayers, as far as some cross in the village. At two o’clock in the afternoon they return to the school; and at four or five o’clock they go again to the church, where they recite the rosary, and go out in procession singing the prayers. On Saturdays, not only the children recite the prayers, but the baguntaos and dalagas[25]—who are the older youths and girls, who do not yet pay tribute—and also the acolytes, the treble singers, and the barbatecas. In the afternoon the people recite the rosary, and the singers and musicians sing the mysteries and the litany. On Sundays, the boys go out with a banner around the village, singing the prayers, to call together the people. The minister says mass, which the musicians accompany with voices and instruments; and afterward all the people together recite the prayers, and [answer] a brief questioning on the principal mysteries of the Christian doctrine, and [listen to] an instruction on the mode of baptism, which is called tocsohan. With this there are many of them who are well instructed, so that they can aid one to die well, and in case of necessity confer baptism, like the Canacapoles of St. Xavier. The minister preaches a moral sermon, and usually calls the roll [suele leer el padron], in order to see whether the Indians fail to attend mass. In the afternoon all come together—schools, companies of the rosary, acolytes, singing children, barbatecas, and dalagas and baguntaos—and they offer prayers. Afterward the father goes down to the church, and catechises, explains the Christian doctrine, and confers baptism. On Thursdays there is no school, that being a vacation day. Every Saturday there is a mass sung in honor of the Virgin; and in the afternoon the minister chants the Salve for the occasion, with the image uncovered, which is then locked up. During the nine days preceding Christmas, mass is sung very early in the morning, with great solemnity, before a large assembly of people, and accompanied by an indulgence [granted] for the preservation of the Christian religion in these islands; and these are called “masses for Christmas” [misas de Aguinaldo].[26] Always, when the host is elevated at mass the signal is given with a bell, so that all the people may adore it; and the Indiana, even the little children who cannot speak, clasp their hands and raise them toward heaven as a token of adoration, while in the church a motet is sung for the same purpose, after the custom of the primitive Church—which this body of Christians resembles in many ways; and St. John in his Apocalypse even represents it to us in those mysterious creatures who day and night were praising God, dicentia: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Omnipotens, qui erat, qui est, & qui venturus est.[27] The Indians in general have the highest respect and esteem for the priests. As soon as they see the fathers, they rise to their feet, take off their hats,[28] kiss the father’s hand, and often fall on their knees to speak to him, especially if they are going to ask forgiveness for some offense that they have committed; they patiently endure the penances that the ministers appoint for them, and promptly obey whatever the fathers command them. Even the little children who cannot speak run when they see the father in the street, fall on their knees, and kiss his hand; and then go back greatly pleased at this. At every function which pertains to the church, all the people, from the greatest to the least, work with gladness in building altars and adorning the temples. The house-servants offer their prayers in the morning; and they write, read, and perform their duties after they have heard mass. At night they read a spiritual lesson, recite the rosary, and before retiring pray before the blessed sacrament and sing the Salve to the Virgin; and during the year they frequent the sacraments.

In each of our villages there is a “Congregation of the Blessed Virgin,” which enjoys many indulgences and favors; its members display great fervor, attend regularly, and perform many exercises of devotion and charity, especially on Saturdays. The women of the congregation sweep the church very early, adorn the images, place roses and other flowers on the altars, and carry about pans of coals with perfumes. The minister recites the litany before the image, and the members of the congregation say the responses; and afterwards he makes an address to them; or a book of devotion, or the rules, or the indulgences, are read aloud; or the list of saints for the month is announced, according to their proper place on the calendar. There are some persons who frequent the sacraments during the year, confessing and receiving communion on the most solemn days of the year, especially on the feast-days of the Virgin, and before a marriage is solemnized; and it is a custom often practiced among the Indians to confess and receive communion on one’s saint’s day. In the afternoon those who have received communion go to the church for a short season of prayer. When the women approach the time of childbirth, they confess and receive communion, and remain in the village. Thus an Indian hardly ever dies without the sacraments, except by some sudden fatal accident; for at the instance of the ministers the people are instructed to summon the father as soon as any one becomes dangerously ill. Many Indians hear mass every day; recite the rosary in concert in their houses, on the streets, and while they are sailing; say the litanies, and sing with most delightful harmony the Salve, the praises of God and of His mother resounding in every direction. They offer to the Church the first-fruits of their products; and carry the images, the shrouds, and other things to bless the seed-sowing. After childbirth, they offer the infants to the Virgin on Saturday, and receive the benediction. They order masses to be said for the souls in purgatory, and present candles and other offerings to the Virgin and the saints. They furnish light at mass with lighted tapers, give food to the poor on Holy Thursday, and make other contributions according to their means. They make pilgrimages to the most notable sanctuaries, and offer their vows there; they read spiritual books, and practice other devotions. When they bring the little angels [i.e., their infants] for burial, they dress and adorn the bodies neatly with birds’ wings, palm-leaves, wreaths, flowers, and lights, even when the parents are very poor; for the rest of the people aid them, so that they may bring the dead with the decency and solemnity which the ritual requires. The burials of adults are attended by all the people, all clothed in mourning from the headman to the constable; and even though the dead person be from some other village, or some wretched unknown creature who died there, the body is escorted by the people of the village and the singers, in very charitable and edifying fashion. Those who are most eminent in all this are the members of the congregation, by whose zeal and pious customs the Christian religion is preserved and promoted in these islands. They are the select of the select, like the soldiers of Gideon; and may be called the religious among the Indians. The functions of Holy Week, the principal feast-days, and the processions are carried out with great solemnity and pomp. In their houses the people erect little altars, which they adorn with various prints and images; on their arms they depict crosses, and almost all wear rosaries about their necks; when the blessed sacrament is exposed, they escort it, and take their turn in assisting in the church with many lights. In the processions of Holy Week there are many bloody flagellations [disciplinas de sangre], and other most severe penances. In Lent there are, on three days, the Miserere and scourging; but this has fallen into disuse, and in various places is little more than a ceremony. In every village there is a musical choir, of both instruments and voices, by means of which the festival and solemn days, and divine worship, are at least decently celebrated; and in some places there are excellent instruments and voices. Moreover, all these singers understand harmony [solfa], a thing which has not its like in all Christendom. Every Saturday and Sunday, prime is sung in the choir. The Lenten stations and services, those for the dead, and others during the year, cause devotion and tender feelings through the skill and good order with which they are conducted. The Indians use holy water in their houses, and show great devotion to the holy cross, which they set up in their houses, on the roads, and in their grain-fields. The adornment of the churches—reredos, images, furnishings of silver, lamps, ornaments—the multitude of lights, and the magnificence of the edifices, are so extraordinary that no one would believe that in this remote corner of the world religion could exist with such splendor, or Christianity be so well established,[29] or divine worship conducted with such magnificence. The zeal of the ministers has secured these results, by their activity, piety, and kind treatment of the natives; but no little is accomplished by the sharp spur,[30] managed with discretion, qui parcit virgæ, odit filium. The harvest in this field is like that which the parable represents; there is the greatest and the least, just as it is throughout the universe. There is fertile ground and sterile; there are untilled and stony tracts; some land is productive, and some is full of bramble-patches. But what soil is free from darnel and tares?[31] Where are lilies found without having nettles near them? In what garden do the roses, magnificent and fragrant, surpass [the other flowers], without the thorns that surround them? He who is always declaiming, in either a gloomy or a careless spirit, against the faith and Christian spirit of the Indians, shows great ignorance of the world, if not levity or malice. If he would but reflect that not many years ago this was a land overgrown with the thorns and brambles of ignorance, unbelief, and barbarism, he would give a thousand thanks to the Lord at the sight of so much fruit obtained for heaven; and still more [thankful would he be] if he cast his glance on Japon, India, and Africa, and on Grecia, Inglaterra, Dinamarca, and other kingdoms where the Christian religion was [once] so flourishing, but which today are an abyss of follies and errors—the cause, alas! being their ignorance or their perverseness.... Whoever will read the Instructions of St. Francis Xavier for the missionaries of India and also this account of their allotted tasks [esta distribución], will plainly see that their labors are the punctual execution of those instructions. What greater praise [than this] can be given them? To this should be added the standing of the ministers. Those who are ministering in the native villages are the men who have been masters of theology, and famous preachers, and officials of the order, and even provincials; and other members who, on account of their abilities, have merited repeated applause. The same is true in the other religious orders; as a result, there is not in all the Indias a field of Christian labor that is better cultivated; and I may add that there is no Christian church in the world that has ministers with higher qualifications, or more who have received academic degrees. And some of them there are who, rejecting the comforts of Europe, remain contented in the poverty here.

[Fol. 350 b:] In the year 1696 the very religious province of St. Augustine surrendered the village of San Matheo to the Society, in virtue of a certain exchange; we gladly accepted it, in order to bring in the Aetas who are in the mountains of that region, to live as a Christian community in the village; for, Christians and heathens being mingled in those woods and little hamlets, there was little difference between them in their customs. Here I will bring together the facts pertaining to this ministry, since it is matter belonging to this history for the connection of events. In the year 1699, the convent of San Agustin in Manila made claim to a ranch in this district, on the ground that Governor Santiago de Vera had granted to the said convent two limekilns for the erection of its building. The Indians, on account of the crude notions which they form of things, began to call the limekilns “the ranch;” and this blunder was so prevalent that in some grants which the governors made afterward in that territory they say that the lands “border upon the ranch of San Agustin.” In the said year an investigation was made, and all that could be drawn from the declarations of the Indians was this confused notion of a “ranch,” which they had heard from their elders, without being able to specify boundaries, or locations, or landmarks. And as there was no other title or grant than this very uncertain information, the judge of land [claims], Don Juan de Ozaeta, auditor of the royal Audiencia, rejecting their claim for lack of authentic documents, was unable to grant to that convent the ranch which it demanded.

In the year 1713 the minister of that village was Father Juan Echazabal, whose scrupulous conscience, added to his natural disposition, made him so inexorable a guardian of the injunction to hear mass that in this point he very seldom excused [an offender] from penance. So active was his zeal that he spared neither labor nor diligence to secure the attendance of the Indians at the holy sacrifice of the mass, at the sermons, and at the other church functions; and he cheerfully endured the inconvenience of waiting for them a long time, in order that their natural slothfulness might not have this excuse. His persistence secured considerable results, notwithstanding that wild grapevines were not lacking even in the midst of so much cultivation. But what assiduity does not the obstinate perversity of men frustrate? An insolent Indian, Captain Pambila, at various times provoked the forbearance of the minister by his shameless conduct; for, purposely staying away from mass, and glorying in this wrong-doing, he boasted among his friends that the father would not dare to rebuke him. The minister endeavored by various means to bring him to reason, but all his efforts proved unsuccessful; and the audacity of this Indian kept continually increasing, continually launching him into new transgressions on top of the old ones—and scandal arising, because some persons were following in his footsteps and others were inclined to do so. In order to check the evil consequences of this, Father Echazabal gave information of the whole matter to the governor, Conde de Lizarraga, who sent thither Captain Don Lorenzo de Yturriaga with twelve soldiers. But Pambila was by this time so bold that when they went to arrest him he went out to meet them with his cutlass, and dealt a blow at the captain; the latter parried the blow, and firing a pistol, killed the bold man. At this occurrence the malcontents were greatly disquieted, and had recourse to the vice-patron, asking that he remove Father Echazabal from that ministry; and they even made the further demand that it be restored to the Augustinian fathers. In order to push their claim, they revived the old [one of the] “ranch”—this time in clearer language, for they indicated locations and boundaries. But, as all these were arbitrary, the measures [of distance] did not correspond [to the facts]; for while it was one site for a ranch that they claimed, there were three or four such sites that were included in the places that they had arbitrarily marked out. Nevertheless, this claim was promoted, so that the convent of San Agustin obtained a favorable decision from the royal Audiencia. But Father Echazabal opposed this, together with the greater part of the people of the village, as did also Father Agustin Soler, procurator of the college of San Ignacio at Manila, on account of the damage that would ensue to them respectively. The Audiencia, having examined their arguments, reversed its decision—although, through shame at so speedy a reversal, the auditors set down in the decree that possession should be given to the convent of San Pablo [of that] in which there was no dispute. This sentence on review ended the controversy, and matters remained as they were before. To pacify the Indians, the superiors removed Father Echazabal from that place, and everything was quiet for the time—although after many years the old [question of the] “ranch” was revived, with greater energy, as we shall see in due time. Let us proceed to more pleasing matters.

In the year 1705, Father Juan Echazabal began to promote, in the village of San Matheo, the devotion to our Lady of Aranzazu; and the devotion to and adoration of that Lady steadily increased, with the encouragement of the Vizcayans, and especially of Don Juan Antonio Cortes. This incited the minister to undertake the building of a stone church, in order to provide a more suitable abode for the blessed sacrament and for the sovereign Queen. Through the persistence and energy of the father and the contributions of the faithful, a beautiful, substantial, and spacious church was completed, with its transept and handsome gilded reredos. The new church was dedicated in the year 1716, the minister being Father Juan Pedro Confalonier. There was a very large concourse of people, and the devotees of the blessed Virgin of Aranzazu made extraordinary demonstrations of joy and devotion in celebrating her feast; and great was the satisfaction of those who with their contributions had aided [to provide] the costly building and adorn it with ornaments and rich furnishings of silver—especially the illustrious benefactor of that church and village, General Don Juan Antonio Cortes. And the Society, with the pleasure of dedicating to God and to His blessed mother this new temple, forgot the great sorrows that they suffered at that time from various defamatory libels, in which malignity repeated what had so many times been condemned, and was anew condemned, as calumny—their author being, most deservedly but impiously, his own executioner, at seeing that the arrows discharged by audacity against the Society were changed into crowns of triumph.

[Fol. 358 b:] [Our author relates the history of the beaterio connected with the Jesuit college at Manila. It began in 1684, with the decision of a mestiza woman of Binondoc to live the religious life; her name was Ignacia del Espiritu Santo, and she began under the direction of Father Paul Clain. Her fame for piety and devout penances grew apace, and attracted to her many Indian girls and mestiza women, until they numbered thirty-three. For some time they lived in the utmost poverty, which, with their severe penances and lack of sleep, “made almost all of the beatas fall ill.” Soon, however, charitable offerings were made to them, enough to support them when added to what they earned with their needles. Their spiritual directors are Jesuits, whose church they attend, and who form them into a religious community (“commonly known as ‘the beatas of the Society’”), with rules and employment prescribed for their living. At the time of Murillo Velarde’s writing (1749), “there are, besides the beatas, some Spanish girls who are being trained there as their wards, and are learning sewing and other accomplishments, besides a Christian manner of life and the habit of attending the sacraments. There are now fifty regular beatas, thirteen novices, thirty women (who are Indians) who are kept under restraint, twenty Spanish girls under training, and four negro women. Every year some Spanish women, and many Indian and mestiza women, go into retreat there, in order to perform the ‘spiritual exercises’ of St. Ignatius, from which result much profit to themselves and much benefit to their respective villages. What has always aroused my admiration is, that although these women are so many in number, and all Indians or mestizas, and ruled by themselves, yet in more than sixty years they have not given any occasion for gossip in the city; rather, they have given it the utmost edification by their devotion, humility, application to labor, and assiduity in the spiritual exercises.” Mother Ignacia dies on September 10, 1748; our author pays an admiring tribute to her ability, virtues, and piety—among other things, praising her because “she conquered, with most unusual perseverance, three kinds of sloth which are very arduous and difficult [to overcome]: that natural to the country, that inborn in her sex, and that which is congenital to this nation in its inmost being.”][32]

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[1] From Murillo Velarde’s account of his order in the Philippines we extract such matter as describes their missions, their general labors in Manila for both Spaniards and natives, their methods of work, and some occurrences of special importance to them as an order. The “edifying instances,” and biographies of the Jesuit fathers, and other devotional reading it is necessary to omit here, as our limited space forbids its presentation. [↑]

[2] The papal concession for this jubilee of fifteen days had come that summer, and had been announced on November 18, just before the appearance of the comets. [↑]

[3] The word Moreno is used by the earlier writers rather confusedly, and applied to more than one race, whether pure or mixed; but in later times it apparently refers chiefly to the swarthy-complexioned people from the Malabar coast and to their descendants. [↑]

[4] The Tagálog word for “bridge.” [↑]

[5] Spanish, sermones de tabla. The tabla is the list kept in the church sacristy which designates on what days certain functions are to be held; it is the tabella of the Italian sacristies, the church calendar of ours. Cathedrals and even lower grade churches (as collegiates, nunneries, hospitals, etc.) had their sermons (d’occasion, as the French say) on certain set days as marked in their local calendars, or tablas; these were always very grand, and delivered by renowned preachers and orators; many of these I have heard.

The phrase “endowed feast” (fiesta dotada) is used also in Italian and French. It was a custom, which I presume still holds, in all those countries (as I often saw in Italy), that a municipality, society, confraternity, or indeed any body of persons, had its feasts on set days in the year—for instance, feasts of their patron saints, or of thanksgiving, etc. Fairs also were endowed; that is, bequests (perhaps centuries old) provided that on set days the people were to have a fiesta, with music, fireworks, games, sermons, etc., with an alms for the poor—all paid for, as also would be the premiums for the fairs. These were occurrences always of great festivity and merriment; and in Italy, at least in the part where I lived, the smallest towns and hamlets had their fiestas dotadas.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A. [↑]

[6] The Exercitia spiritualia of Inigo de Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order; it has long been a text-book therein, and a manual of devotion for persons under direction of the Jesuits. See account of the examination of conscience prescribed in it, in Jesuit Relations (Cleveland reissue), lxviii, p. 326.

“In Europe it is customary for persons at particular seasons to retire for a time from the world, to give themselves up entirely to prayer and meditation. Some part of the season of Lent is generally selected for this purpose; and many, for the sake of more entire seclusion, take up their residence during this time in some religious house. This is called ‘going into retreat.’”—Kip’s Jesuits in America, p. 302. [↑]

[7] That is, “headland of Bondoc” (or Bondog); a mountain 1,250 feet high, at the southern end of the peninsula of Tayabas, Luzón. (U. S. Gazetteer of Philippines, p. 397.) [↑]

[8] Marinduque is an island off the coast of Tayabas province, Luzón; it is round in shape, about twenty-three miles in diameter, and has a population (Tagálog) of about 48,000. It has some good harbors; and it produces abundance of rice, cocoanuts, and abacá. (U. S. Gazetteer of Philippines, pp. 643–647.) [↑]

[9] Theriacs were held in great estimation during the middle ages. They were composed of opium flavored with nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, and mace—or merely with saffron and ambergris. [↑]

[10] Aornis (or Aornos), a lofty rock in India, taken by Alexander the Great; thus named, as being so high as to be inaccessible even to birds. [↑]

[11] That is, as alternate or substitute for Encinas, in case of the latter’s disability or death. [↑]

[12] Interesting information about Lake Lanao is given in the following letter from the Jesuit Juan Heras to his superior, dated at Tagoloan, October 6, 1890; it is printed in Cartas de los PP. de la Compañía de Jesús, cuad. ix (Manila, 1891), pp. 254, 255.

“Desiring to furnish to your Reverence as accurate information as possible regarding the lake of Malanao, we sent again for some men who lived there many years as slaves. They are an intelligent family. The father is a Tagálog, captured when he was a mere youth; he was carried to the Lake, and later married a girl, also a Tagálog who had been enslaved. They had three children, and when one of these was ten years old and another one somewhat older, they made their escape, in the year 74. The father and mother lived at the Lake more than twenty years; they settled in Jasaán, and lived there very happily after their children had been baptised. The father has traveled entirely around the lake by the highroad, and the second son had gone half-way round, from the northeastern end to Ganasi. The information, then, which they had given us—precisely the same both tunes, for they had been questioned previously, last March—is as follows:

“The length of the lake from north to south—or from the mouth of the Agus River (which empties near Iligan), to Ganasi, the point of departure for Lalabúan, which is on Illana Bay—is 24 hours of straight sailing, with steady rowing and the wind astern. The breadth from east to west is half the length. It has many promontories, which form large curves [in the coast]; and the shore is steep and rocky at Lúgud and Tugua, at which points vessels cannot find anchor. The lake contains four islets. A good highroad runs around the lake, which is interrupted only near Taraca, by the extensive mud flats which form the rice-lands (or basacanes). Taraca is the principal town, and the sultan lives there. The places which are noted as villages [i.e., on an accompanying map?] are not really such, but are the jurisdictions of the dattos. The settlement is one continuous street, with houses on both sides of the highroad almost all the way round the lake.

“The population is a large one, as several married couples live in the same house, and there are many dwellings. The people who have the reputation of being the bravest are those of Unayan, Bundayan, Ganasi, and Marántao. From Ganasi the highroad goes toward Lalabúan; it has no steep ascents or descents, nor does it cross large rivers; and by following this road Lalabúan is reached in one day. Half-way on this journey is the village of Limudigan, the sultan of Poalas, the richest of all those in the Lake region. Our informants state that the cannon are kept in Ganasi, in a large shed, to a considerable number. The places where the people have most guns are Maraui and Marántao; the number of firearms cannot be exactly stated, although these men say three are many of them. From Maraui one can go to Ganasi in three days, by taking the road to the right, and in four days by going to the left; it therefore takes seven days to make the trip around the lake—but the circuit of the lake is probably somewhat exaggerated. It is said that those people have many mosques. Maraui is on the Agus River, quite near the lake; these men say that there are many horses there. As to the exactness of these data, it is evident that we cannot be altogether certain; but it is certain that each of our informants has confirmed the other’s statements.”

In the same volume of Cartas is a valuable appendix by Father Pablo Pastells, in which he sets forth the importance of the plan formed by General Valeriano Weyler (governor of the islands during 1889–91) for completing the subjugation of Mindanao to the Spanish crown, and presents a brief historical sketch of the Spanish conquests in that island, and an account of conditions therein and of the natural resources of the country. He argues that the forcible expulsion of all its Mahometan tribes would be impossible, and that the proper way to hispanicize Mindanao must be the slow one—but sure, if the results of the labors of Jesuit missionaries among the Moros be considered—of education, the introduction of civilized modes of life (especially by the cultivation of the soil), a political organization like that already in vogue among the Tagálogs and other christianized peoples, the influence of the Christian religion in displacing their superstitious and false beliefs, governmental protection to the peaceable natives, and the promotion of migration of Filipinos from the northern islands to Mindanao, thus gradually colonizing the latter with industrious, civilized, and Christian inhabitants. Statistics are added to Father Pastells’s memorial, showing that the (Jesuit) missions of Mindanao contain (in 1892) a total Christian population of 191,493 souls; this number he compares with the list given by Murillo Velarde (1748; including all the missions of the Jesuits in Filipinas), which foots up to 209,527 souls. At the end of the Cartas is a map (dated March 19, 1892) of the “second and fifth districts”—i.e., those of Cagayán de Misamis and Cottabato—on a scale of ten kilometers to an inch; it contains the latest geographic data up to 1892, and is especially full in the Lanao region and the course of the Pulangi River or Rio Grande, the headwaters of that great river almost interlocking with those of the Cagayán and another large stream which empties into Macajalar Bay. The map also shows the native tribes that occupy the region which it depicts. [↑]

[13] Gabe or gabi is the native name (Tagal, Visayan, and Pampango) for the roots of Caladium esculentum (also known as Colocasia antiquorum), which are used considerably as food. This plant is frequently cultivated in the United States for its foliage, and is popularly called “elephant’s ears,” from the shape of the leaves. [↑]

[14] A bay or inlet at the southwest angle of Iligan Bay, extending 12 miles southwest, its inmost point lying but 13 miles from the northern extremity of Illana Bay, which is on the south side of Mindanao. The fort here mentioned must have been at the mouth of Lintogut River. [↑]

[15] Spanish, tierra de S. Pablo; but no information is available for its identification. [↑]

[16] One of the very rare allusions to this mode of conducting commerce, as used among the Moros, which—although common enough in all parts of the world from very early times, and practiced by most peoples who have risen beyond the savage condition—seems to have been even to the present time undeveloped among the Moros, partly on account of their fierce natures and the feuds among them, partly because of their habits of piracy, plunder, and bloodshed. Of especial interest in this connection is the account published in the New York Outlook, December 23, 1905, of the “Moro Exchange” established at Zamboanga, Mindanao (July, 1904), by Captain John P. Finley, governor of Zamboanga district. Intended from the outset to replace slavery and piracy by honest labor, it has gradually gained the respect and coöperation of the Moro chiefs; and by taking advantage of their talent for trade is exerting a wide and strong influence in the development of industry and peaceful relations among them. This exchange even in its first year had a volume of business amounting to $128,000; and now its daily transactions run from 500 to 800 pesos, while in the Zamboanga district it has fourteen branches. [↑]

[17] Spanish, al reir del alba, literally, “at the smile of the dawn.” [↑]

[18] Limbo (from Latin, limbus): in scholastic theology, a region bordering on hell, where souls were detained for a time; hence, applied to any place of restraint or confinement. [↑]

[19] The lists of Augustinian friars in the Philippines record the names of some thirty members of that order who became insane or demented; and probably similar lists could be given by the other orders. Perez’s Catálogo (Manila, 1901), and Gaspar Cano’s Catálogo (Manila, 1864) present biographical information regarding all the members of the order who labored in the islands from 1565 down to their respective dates of publication; Pérez enumerates 2,467 for the term of 336 years from 1565 to 1901, and of these 1,992 belong to Cano’s period, ending in 1864. Cano names thirty friars (two of them being lay brothers) who died in a demented condition; the first of these was Fray Francisco de Canga Rodriguez (1616), who was 55 years professed. Pérez mentions but twenty-seven of Cano’s list, but adds four others for the years following Cano’s record (1865–1901), a total of thirty-one names. Both these compilers record the facts of dementia among the friars in varied phrases; and Cano speaks (p. 20) of “the many things which there are in Filipinas to cause the loss of one’s mind.” Zúñiga, in his Estadismo, refers to the liability of the missionaries in the islands to suffer mental alienation from homesickness, solitude, and lack of congenial companions, especially in districts where the natives were of low intellectual calibre. When I was a student in Rome, Pope Pius IX had a college (the Pio Latino) opened for Spanish Americans (from Mexico and South America); this was about 1860. The Italians said that the young students from those countries seemed to be especially given to excessive homesickness (nostalgia).—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A. [↑]

[20] That is, “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark xvi, v. 15). [↑]

[21] Thus characterized, because this long account of the hardships and dangers of missionary life is inserted in the midst of a sketch of Father Francisco Paliola, martyred in Mindanao in 1648. [↑]

[22] “And the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity” (Genesis 6, v. 11). [↑]

[23] The Jesuit Diego Luis de San Vitores had just arrived (July, 1662) in Luzón with fourteen companions, in a patache, sent from Acapulco by Conde de Baños, viceroy of Mexico. [↑]

[24] “Through evil report and good report” (II Corinthians vi, v. 8). [↑]

[25] Tagálog words, meaning young men and girls of marriageable age. Barbateca does not appear in the standard lexicons. [↑]

[26] See note on the masses, in VOL. XXXIX, p. 246, note 148. [↑]

[27] “Saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who wast, who art, and who art to come.’” [↑]

[28] After citing numerous examples from the customs of various nations, Herbert Spencer concludes—Ceremonial Institutions (New York, 1880), pp. 128–131: “It seems that removal of the hat among European peoples, often reduced among ourselves to touching the hat, is a remnant of that process of unclothing himself by which, in early times, the captive expressed the yielding up of all that he had.” [↑]

[29] The provincial of the Society of Jesus in the Filipinas Islands, in a report to the king dated June 20, 1731, declares that the Society reckoned 173,938 souls in the 88 principal villages and some visitas which they were administering. This number, compared with the estimate for the preceding period of six years, showed an increase of 11,886 Christians; by this may be seen the increase which the population is steadily gaining—except that of the Marianas Islands, which has decreased. (Ventura del Arco MSS., iv, p. 307.) [↑]

[30] Spanish, azicate; “a long-necked Moorish spur with a rowel at the end of it” (Appleton’s Velázquez’s Dictionary). The Latin quotation means, “He who spares the rod hates his son.” [↑]

[31] Spanish, lolios y zizañas. Lolio is an old form of joyo; and both joyo and zizaña (modern, cizaña) refer, according to Appleton’s Velázquez’s Dictionary, to the common darnel, or Lolium temulentum. [↑]

[32] Spanish, la inata del Pays, la conatural al sexo, y la congenita entrañada en la Nacion. [↑]