HISTORICAL REFERENCES TO THE MANÓBOS OF EASTERN MINDANÁO
EARLY HISTORY UP TO 1875
From 1521 until 1877 Manóbo history is for the most part veiled in the obscurity of traditional accounts of the past. Now and then it is brightened by the transient light of a missionary's pen only to relapse into the unfathomable darkness of the past. The few traditions that come down to us in Manóbo legendary song and oral tradition furnish but little light in the darkness, arid that little is probably not the pure and simple light of truth, but the multicolored rays of the popular imagination that have transformed warriors into giants and enemies into hideous monsters. Thus Dábao, of whom mention will be made presently, was a giant according to the general tradition. The Moros that invaded the Agúsan are spoken of as "tailed men." There is, however, one tradition--persistent and universal--to the effect that up to 1877, and even later, though in a lesser degree, there was war--ruthless, relentless, never-ending war. This tradition is borne out by the events that succeeded the advent of the missionaries and their efforts to thrust Christianity upon a people who neither understood its doctrines nor relished its rigorous precepts.
1521
Mention of the Agúsan River and of Butuán is found in the writings of various historians, notably of Father Francisco Combes1 who states that Magellan landed in Butuán in 1521. It is believed by various historians that the first mass in the Philippine Islands was celebrated here, and that the planting of a cross on a small promontory at the mouth of the Agúsan River was intended by Magellan as a formal occupation of the Philippine Islands in the name of Spain.2 A later governor, to commemorate this event, erected a monument which stands to this day near the mouth of the Agúsan River.
1Historia de Mindanáo y Jolo (Madrid, 1897), 76.
2It is strange that Pigafetta who records the doings of Magellan with such marvelous minuteness, does not mention this first mass.
1565-1574
A letter from Andrés Mirandola to Philip II3 some time after the arrival of Legaspi in 1565 states that Mirandola was ordered to explore the islands of Magindanáo and to seek a port called Butuán. Upon arrival in that town he made friends with the chief. He found Moros trading at the port. He describes the people as being of a warlike character. In another letter of Mirandola,4 dated 1574, we find Butuán spoken of as a district with much gold.
3E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 34: 202, 1906.