[59] A similar death was the fate of that most pious father Fray Isidro Badrena—on April 9 in the year 1874, in the hills near the town of Tubungan—when he was exhorting some apostate Indians to desist from offering an idolatrous sacrifice.—Rev. Tirso López, O.S.A.
Tubungan is seventeen miles west-northwest of Iloilo. [↑]
[60] The modern form of this name is Jalaur; this fine river, with its numerous affluents, waters the northeastern part of the province of Iloilo, Panay. The “river of Laglag” is evidently the Ulián, which flows into the Jalaur near Laglag (the modern Dueñas). Apparently the culprits, both living and dead, were fastened to stakes in the river, to be eaten by crocodiles. [↑]
[61] Delgado relates this incident (Hist. de Filipinas, p. 280) as a specimen of the credulity of the natives, and adds this other instance: “While I was in the village of Lipa, the discovery was made in the village of Tanauan of a mine which was said to be of silver. Officials and workmen were sent to examine it, and test the ore, by the governor Don Fausto Cruzat y Góngora; they did so diligently, but the mine said only, Argentum et aurum non est mihi [i.e., “Silver and gold have I none”]. At that time the devil caused some arrant knave to spread the lying tale that the miners declared that the mine would not yield silver until this were done: all the Visayans of Comintan must be seized and their eyes gouged out, and these must be mixed with other ingredients, and the ore-vein of the mine rubbed with that compound. This was so thoroughly believed that every one was anxious and tearful, and the old women hid themselves in the grain-fields; and it took a long time to quiet them, with much labor of the [religious] ministers (whom they did not believe, because these were Castilians), until in the course of time they were undeceived.” [↑]
[62] Apparently a misprint, as Diaz usually makes it Pignauen, but both forms seem improbable, as compared with Paynauén—cf. that name in next section of this document, and in Concepción (viii, p. 14)—and suggest carelessness in transcription from the MS. of Diaz. It is written Paynaven in various documents cited in Reseña biográfica, i, p. 490, et seq. Neither name appears in modern gazetteers. [↑]
[63] He was killed in the expedition against the Igorrotes, about 1666; Diaz says (p. 654) that Ugalde went with four thousand pesos to pay the troops, without sufficient escort, and was waylaid and slain by Zambals. Paynauén was founded at that time. [↑]
[64] Domingo Pérez was born in 1636 near Santillana, and professed in the Dominican convent at Trianos, at the age of twenty-three. He came to the islands in 1666, and in the following year was sent to the Bataan missions, and soon afterward to those among the Zambal tribes; the rest of his life, save during 1677–79, was spent among the Zambals. He wrote an “account of the customs and superstitions of the Zambals.” (Reseña biográfica, ii, pp. 34–43.) [↑]
[65] “N” in Spanish stands for some proper name unknown, or not intended to be expressed, like the English “Mr. Blank,” or “So-and-So.” [↑]
[66] The missions to the Zambals were previously in the hands the Augustinian Recollects. A royal decree dated June 18, 1677 commanded the archbishop of Manila to place the missions of Mindoro in charge of one of the religious orders. Concepción states (Hist. de Philipinas, viii, pp. 4–16) that Pardo thereupon compelled the Recollects to give up the Zambal missions to the Dominicans, receiving in exchange therefor those of Mindoro that the natives in the latter desired to have Jesuits sent to them, and that the Zambals preferred the Dominicans, but that the opposition of both was overcome by the persuasions of government officials; and that the Dominicans, in their zeal for condensing the scattered Zambal population, made several blunders by removing certain villages to very unsuitable and disadvantageous locations.
The compiler of Reseña biográfica asserts that Concepción’s statements are incorrect. He claims that the Zambal in 1676 asked for religious instruction, stipulating that Dominican missionaries be sent them, which was done; that soon the Recollects began to complain of this, as an intrusion on their field of labor, and the Dominicans therefore withdrew their laborers; that this field was afterward given to the Dominicans by Archbishop Pardo (1679), on account of its being neglected by the Recollects; that the attempt to carry on the Zambal missions cost the Dominicans great loss of money and men, without producing satisfactory results, and therefore they offered several times to give up this charge; and that finally (1712) they did actually renounce and surrender the Zambal missions. In proof of these statements he cites not only Salazar’s Historia, but various documents and records from the Dominican archives at Manila. (See Reseña biográfica, i, pp. 486–504; this resumé is accompanied by an interesting report of the work accomplished by the Dominicans in those missions during the years 1680–90, made by Fray Gregorio Jiraldez, June 2, 1690.) [↑]