* * * Thus the men as well as the women, altho religious, are credulous and superstitious as the Indios themselves.
Such is the idea that can be given about the Filipinos (p. 290).
The Chinese half-breed is described in the same manner.
Literature for the Filipinos
The only literature accessible to the Filipinos of little culture and also to those of the better class consisted of Corridos which constitute the profane literature, and the Pasión and the Novenas which formed the religious reading. Corridos, Pasiones, and Novenas were printed in abundance, in cheap editions, in Spanish as well as in the dialects of the country.
The Corridos are stories in verse about historic events, falsified and fanciful, and love tragedies full of wonderful events mixed with divine prodigies and diabolical magics—all lengthy, exaggerated, puerile, and absurd in the extreme. None of the characters is native. All are Turks, Arabs, knights, errants, ambassadors, dukes, warriors in armor provided with magic arms and with balsams like the famous one of Fierabras, good Castilians and bad strangers. All the characters are antipodal to Philippine realities and with the semblance of the real and true being from unknown lands and prodigious races. The same is true with the scene of activities; wonderful lands, Palestine, the kingdom of Navarra, the Empire of Great Kahn, the Palace of Macedonia, and not only are they ignorant of, and do they falsify, the face of the earth, but the planetary system itself suffers a radical change. Palms and tamarind grow in the vicinities of Moscow; Palestine and Macedonia are covered with prairies like Norway and Switzerland, and whales appear in the Mediterranean. Events which begin in the morning in Macedonia and in the most natural manner in the afternoon of the same day in a palace of Babylonia, and a princess of Aragon captured early in the morning in Sicily discusses at midnight and without an interpreter with a Moro of Samarcanda.
The Pasión, a work in verse in the different Filipino dialects, is not only the passion of Christ, but it consists of a sort of abridged edition of sacred history.
The Novenas are religious booklets dedicated to a saint whose favor is invoked in order to obtain from God such and such favors. They consist of a system of prayers in relation to certain miracles with reflections about the saint, which are said every day for a period of nine consecutive days. To Virgin Mary is attributed the origin of the Novenas because she venerated the number 9 in memory of the fact that nine days it was when she was apprised of the incarnation of the divine Messiah, and also because of the nine months in which she carried Him in her virgin womb. (Novena to Jesús, María, and José, Manila, 1903, in the Exordium.)
The Novenas offer a very simple way of obtaining from heaven what is asked in them from a protector saint. If the sympathy and aid of a patron or a patroness whose mediation is implored is won, one can obtain everything, be it appertaining to earthly life or future life. It is a very easy means. It is like a magic ceremony with its ritual composed of praises and acts of humiliation, devotion, submission, admiration, and other propitiatory manifestations looking toward gaining the sympathy and the protection of the saint. This follows an enumeration of favors which may be requested and which are always attended to by God as demonstrated by the numerous examples which are mentioned with scrupulous care in the Novena. All the Novenas are published with ecclesiastical permit after the censorship of the prelate who examines scrupulously the writings to see if there is anything that is contrary to morals, good customs, and absolute orthodoxy. In a word, all are printed with the necessary licenses.
The prodigies mentioned in these Novenas compare very well with the enchantments, magics, and sorceries of the primitive Filipinos who invoked the propitiation of their divine spirits by means of ceremonies, sacrifices, charms, and incantations performed by their mangkukulam (witch), babailanas, and other prestidigitators, priests, medicine men, charmers, and fortune-tellers, which are referred to and are enumerated in the old chronicles written by the missionaries in the Philippines.