The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 05 of 55 / 1582-1583 / 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 Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

by Unknown

[2] A sort of garment worn by peasants, opening behind or at the shoulder. The meaning of the name, “jump aboard,” suggests the similar name applied in some localities in the United States to a sort of over-all blouse, there called “jumper.”

[3] Cf. the descriptions of this custom in Morga’s Philippine Islands (Hakluyt Society, London, 1868), p. 304; and in account of Thomas Candish’s voyage, in Hakluyt’s Voyages (Goldsmid ed.) xvi, p. 42.

[4] “A god of the Higuecinas (a subdivision of the ancient Bisayas). The Igueines (another subdivision of that people) believed that the god Maguayan carried the souls of his disciples, in his boat, to another life.”—Ferdinand Blumentritt: “Diccionario mitológico,” in Retana’s Archivo, ii, p. 411.

[5] These seem to be memoranda, which the writer forgot to fill in later.

[6] The tabon, also called “the mound-builder” (Megapodius cumingi). Its eggs are highly prized by the natives as an article of food; they rob the deposit made by the birds. After each egg is deposited, the parent birds (several pairs of whom often frequent the same spot) scratch earth over it, thus gradually raising a mound of considerable size. See description of this bird in Report of U.S. Philippine Commission for 1900, iii, pp. 314, 315.

[7] Of the banana (Musa), over fifty varieties have been enumerated as found in the Philippine Islands. Many of these are minutely described in Blanco’s Flora, pp. 167–175. The nangca (or langca) is Arctocarpus integrifolia; the macupa (also known as tampoi), Eugenia malaccensis; the santol (santor), Sandóricum indicum. See descriptions of all these in Blanco’s Flora, and in U.S. Philippine Gazetteer, pp. 93–95.

[8] The bejucos, as before explained, are various species of Calamus, commonly known as rattan. Blanco describes two of these (C. maximus and C. gracilis) as furnishing a supply of water. Some of the species attain a height of more than six hundred feet.

Letter from Domingo de Salazar to Felipe II

Royal Catholic Majesty: