All the time the fathers continued to soften their hardness by their kindness and mildness, which they showed them not only in the gentleness of their intercourse and conversation, but also much more in the generosity and liberality which they used toward them, providing them with all that was necessary, both for the building of their houses and for the cultivation of their fields. They gave the Indians a quantity of clothing to wear, besides the other acts of kindness and the presents which they made them. In that our province spent much money, a sum which, according to the accounts, exceeded ten thousand pesos. The thing that robbed still more their affection was on seeing that the fathers defended them when the soldiers wished to employ violence with them, for they took the part of the Indians, and softened the fury of the soldiers. By that means the Indians came to perceive two things: one that the fathers considered their good; and the other that they were higher than the soldiers, since the latter obeyed the religious and desisted from the attempted severity when the fathers ordered or petitioned them. Hence they came to infer that to stand well with the fathers and to obey them was of great profit to them, for so they were assured by the Spaniards, and among the religious they experienced no evil treatment, but everything was mild, gentle, and peaceful. Consequently, they moderated themselves and became so mild, within a year, that it caused great surprise to see those who had formerly been so wild and unmanageable become so conformable and domestic.
When our religious entered at the beginning, the children ran away from them when they saw them, and the women also hid; but the former later became so familiar with the religious that they would scarcely let them alone. When the religious entered any village, the children all descended from their houses and went behind him, and walked with him, and followed wherever he went. Scarcely would they let him walk, for some of the children seized him by the habit, and others placed their scapularies under his eyes [for him to bless?].
While the father was in the convent, it was not empty of Indians, who were going and coming, some to beg for relief in their necessities, while others begged consolation for their troubles, some medicine for their pains, and some relief in their afflictions. All found there whatever they needed, for charity serves for everything. And since the Indians beheld that of the fathers toward them, they loved them, esteemed them, and favored, and were so well inclined to their intercourse, that, on a certain occasion, when they thought that the fathers were going to leave them, and return to Manila, the sorrow manifested by all was great until the fathers undeceived them, and released them by various means of their vain fear. Those who had previously fled from the fathers, and those with whom the above-mentioned violence had to be used in order to gain admittance in the beginning, reached this condition of sociability and mildness in little more than one year....
Chapter XXXI
Fruit of the preaching of our religious in the changing of the customs of the religious
When once our religious had gained the goodwill of the Indians they immediately began to exercise the apostolic ministry of the preaching in order to eradicate their ancient vices and customs and reduce them to the perfection of a Christian life. There was much to do and accomplish in this province, for there were yet many heathens in it, and many apostates from the faith which they had received, and some, who made use of the name of Christian, living in their rancherías or visitas, far from the intercourse with, and teaching of, their ministers, were only Christians in name, but in their morals and even in their religion they were heathens, since they did not know the Christian doctrine or the mysteries of the Catholic faith, and neither prayed nor knew how to pray, nor heard mass, nor observed the feasts, nor took any account of Lent, fasting, or abstinence, and did not show any other token of a Christian. For since they lived in the mountains, in remote and distant places, where the ministers could not visit them unless by running great risks and dangers, as abovesaid, they were not sufficiently rooted in the faith which the preachers had taught them; and, living intermixed among the heathens, they easily took on their rites and customs. If, perchance, they wore the rosary at the neck it was when they were going to the villages of Christians, so that they might not be taken for heathens. But there in their rancherías among the mountains, very rarely did they wear it; for the devil had persuaded them that nothing good could happen to them if they had those beads with them. Consequently, when they went to hunt, or to commit a murder, they immediately took off the rosary, in order to obtain success in their undertaking. In short, to tell the whole thing, those Indians of Buquil were even idolaters, and although they had received baptism, they continued in their idolatries, and in their sacrifices to the demon. Only in the capitals where the fathers lived, were there a few perfect Christians; but in the rancherías and visitas, especially those of the district of Buquil, since they did not have the ministers over them, they lived in entire liberty with their ancient vices and superstitions. They killed one another without cause or reason, became intoxicated, worshiped idols, and lived together as they did before, without taking any account of their Christianity.
In order to free them from all such things our religious toiled and labored earnestly arguing, exhorting, and checking them in all patience and instruction, according to the advice of the apostle. And inasmuch as all the barbarity of their customs originated from their lack of faith, the fathers began to set before them and to explain to them the immortality of the soul, the reward or punishment of the other life, and all the other mysteries of the Catholic faith. Their instruction took so fast hold once more on the apostates and on the people of Buquil, that they looked at one another in stupefaction at what they heard the fathers say. The latter seeing the surprise that those things caused in the Indians, decided that it was necessary to start that undertaking from its very beginnings, and to teach them to pray and the instruction, which they had either never understood, or they had completely forgotten. They began that effort by the children, whom they instructed excellently in the prayers, and in the explanation of the doctrine. After them the older people went to the church, in order not to be put to the blush before the children. The latter, either by the advice of the fathers or because of their own natural loquaciousness, upbraided their elders later with the little knowledge which they had had of God before and because they had lived like heathens. By that means the elders were put to shame, and submitted to the teaching. Little by little they began to open their eyes, and to see the blindness in which they had lived. Confused and ashamed of their old way of living, they applied themselves indeed with all earnestness to learn what was necessary for salvation. The church was filled with people all day long who wished to learn the prayers and formulas, which the children prayed in a loud voice, so that the others learned them in that way. The religious preached to them quite frequently, explaining to them the mysteries of the faith, and threatening with the wrath and anger of God those who did not keep the holy commandments. They did that with so great spirit, and fervor, that it caused great terror to those who heard it, and thus daily they were becoming reduced to live according to the laws of Christians.
[The preaching of the religious is aided by divine miracles, and the religious also make use of stratagem to banish vice. An instance of the latter is as follows.]
Such was the one of which the father vicar provincial, Fray Domingo Perez, made use, to banish homicide. He frequently censured that vice in them, but for all that they were wont secretly to commit murders. The father would hear of the murder, although the aggressor was not known. Assembling all those of the village, he would declare that he would ascertain it by means of the pulse. Then he took the pulse of each one, and since confusion is natural in the criminal, especially in these Indians, who understand so little of dissimulation, when the father would take hold of the pulse of the aggressor, the latter trembled all over his body. Hence, by a happy conjecture, the father would deduce that he was the one, and then by censuring him or punishing him according to his deserts, the others were deterred from, and afraid of, committing that crime, which could never be hidden from the father, since he learned everything from the pulse. So certain were they of that, that if any of them had had anything stolen from him, he went to the father to complain, and requested him to feel the pulse of all, in order to ascertain the thief who had stolen it. And although the father usually excused himself from doing that, they could not rid themselves of the idea, which they had formed on the first occasion, that the fathers learned all things by means of the pulse. Therefore, they managed to check many of their ancient customs and superstitions.