The fervor of our religious did not rest with what was accomplished in the provinces above mentioned. Having obtained some associates, they determined to preach in Calamianes, islands which remained in their blindness and idolatry. Their inhabitants were wild, and great sorcerers and magicians, who knew many herbs. They used the latter to kill by means of the breath or expiration infected with a poisonous herb, as we have said above. They are poor, not because of the sterility of the country, but because the Borneans, Camuzones, and others of their neighbors plunder them.
Those islands lie west of the island of Panai, which is one of the largest of the Filipinas, being eighty leguas long, but narrow in its breadth, and extends north and south from ten to twelve and one-half degrees. They are small, for they are only four to six leguas in circuit, and that which is largest is twenty. The chief islands, those most frequented by Ours, number nine. In that of Butuagàn [sic], the climate is not suited to deer; for they are not raised there; and if they are taken there they die very soon, without the reason being known, for all the Filipinas contain many of them.
That of Coròn is also notable, as it is a ledge or rock, very high and rugged, which is fortified naturally by the crags that girdle it. Its ascent is steep and intricate. The Indians retire there as to a sacred place. It cannot be taken except by hunger or thirst, and the crag or island is dry and barren, so that not a drop of water can be found on it. Numerous birds resort thither, and there are also a great number of beehives[12] amid the hollows of the rocks, and a quantity of honey is produced, as well as wax, without its costing any care or labor. The Indians gather that harvest, and, carrying it to other places, obtain the things needful for life.
All those islands are defended by reefs, which makes the navigation of those seas very dangerous, even in the time of fair weather. Within their boundaries there are a number of different kinds of animals, of rare form. There was one the size of a cat, with the head and feet of a tiger, and the eyes, nostrils, and hands of a man, and entirely covered with soft down. There is another little animal seen, which, as it has no teeth, because these never grow, lives on maggots. To get them it sticks out its tongue, which is very long, where those little animals congregate; and, when the tongue is full of them, it draws it back and swallows them.[13] The forests abound with many incorruptible woods, such as ebony, cypress, cedar, and small pomegranate trees.
Those islanders had never had a gospel minister to draw them from their ignorance. Our discalced, pitying their wretchedness, resolved to send five religious for that undertaking. Their superior was father Fray Juan de Santo Tomas. He, not fearing any dangers, and armed with the divine strength, planted the tree of the cross in the island of Cuyo. That island is called “the garden of nature,” because of the singular pleasantness and beauty that it enjoys, in which it is more fortunate than the other islands of that famous sea. It is six leguas in circuit, as are two others its near neighbors, which rival it in beauty. It abounds in rice, and very savory fruits. The mountains are full of fragrant flowers, and shelter a great number of wild boars. There are many species of birds, and fowls are reared in considerable abundance.
Although those islands were densely populated, the people were so barbarous that they seemed not to possess reason. For that cause our religious wished to cultivate that forest in order to sow the seed of the gospel. Notwithstanding [their savagery], father Fray Francisco de San Nicolás, accompanied by another priest, named Fray Diego de Santa Ana, and a lay brother, went to the chief island of the Calamianes. Treating the inhabitants with gentleness, they instructed and persuaded them to live gathered into villages—a thing that they utterly abominated, both because of their natural fierceness, and because they were greatly harassed by the enemies who generally infested those islands. Much was suffered in the attainment of that, but it was accomplished, with the most severe toil on the part of Ours; and they baptized many of those Indians, whose number we shall declare below, when we treat of the convents which were built in those islands in spite of the devil and all hell, who opposed them with all their forces.
Although it will be somewhat of a digression, we cannot help saying something of the barbarous customs of those heathen Calamianes. They recognized a first cause, which governed what was visible. They attributed good or evil events to fortune and to the star of each one. They adored a deity who resembled Ceres, to whom they commended their fields and offered their fruits. They worshiped another petty deity who resembled Mars, in order to gain his protection in their battles. They believed in the humalagar [i.e., soul of an ancestor] (as we said of the Charaghas)—whom they summoned in their sicknesses by means of their priestesses. The priestesses placed a leaf of a certain kind of palm upon the head of the sick man, and prayed that it [i.e., the soul] would come to sit there, and grant him health. They also venerated the moon, asking that it would aid them at the time of death. They celebrated the obsequies of the dead during the full moon.
Their priests were highly revered, and were called mangaloc. The devil showed them what they asked from him, in water, with certain shadows or figures. They practiced circumcision, and had ministers assigned for it. They had as many concubines as they could support. If the first wife committed adultery, the penalty was to repudiate her for a certain time. When anyone wished to have a share in the inheritance of the dead, he laid a piece of his garment upon the corpse, and thereby acquired that right, but he was obliged to aid the deceased’s children. They had no fidelity among themselves, whence many conflicts arose. In order to clear themselves of calumnies or charges, they invented various tricks. At times, divine Providence, breaking their entanglements, defended the innocent and punished the guilty.
Their arms consisted of bows and arrows. On the point of the arrow they fitted a fish spine, with a certain poison that was so effective that it was mortal even if it only slightly touched the flesh. They used short spears and certain shields which they called carazas. They carried certain knives with two sharp edges, which were short, like daggers. They used jackets or doublets of well-twisted cord, and under those others of rattan, a kind of osier. By means of these they turn aside the sharp, keen bamboos which, of the length of two brazas, are hurled in naval battles, with which they do great harm.[14]
Wonders were not wanting in the conversions of those people. The Christian parents of an Indian woman brought her into the presence of father Fray Juan de San Joseph, and, as she was suffering grievously from a violent fever, begged him to baptize her, for they feared lest she die without that sacrament. The father instructed and catechised her, and told her to have confidence, and that baptism would save her, soul and body. The heathen woman received that instruction so thoroughly that when she was baptized, she was as well from her illness as if she had never had it, God rewarding her faith, and encouraging others so that they should receive baptism.