One of the missions which flourished with great fruit in this province during that time was the mission of Palavig, which is the mission now called Vangac. This is a mission on the coast of Cagayan near the mountains of Paranàn which end at the cape called Engaño [i.e., deceit]. The land of this island becomes more lofty as it approaches nearer the north. That mission is composed of Visayan Indians of the opposite coast of that province, who fleeing from the village of Paranàn and from other villages, inhabit those inaccessible mountains, where they are safe because of the inaccessibility of those ridges. Among them are some Christian apostates and many heathens who were born in the mountains. On the brow of those mountains that mission was founded in the year 1653 by the earnest and laborious efforts of the venerable father, Fray Juan Uguet, under the advocacy of St. Thomas of Aquinas. And when the mission was in a good condition, and there were many recently-baptized people in it, and others reconciled from their apostasy, they were frightened by the Indians of the village of Buguey, and they consequently returned immediately to the mountain, and the mission was abandoned and destroyed, and all the toil of the father came to nought through the persuasions of those bad citizens. It was God’s will to have them reunite at the same site of Palavig, through the inducements of some zealous missionaries, but they afterward left it again because of the annoyances which they suffered annually from a commandant who goes to that district to watch for the ship from Acapulco. Under that pretext he usually causes considerable vexation to the Indians of the village of Buguey, and much more to those of the mission as they are naturally a very pusillanimous race. Hence, that mission has suffered its ups and its downs, for however much the fathers labored in it, the inhabitants of Buguey by their persuasions, and that commandant by his bad treatment, destroyed their labors. It is now about twenty-five years since they returned to settle on a creek called Bavag under the advocacy of St. Michael, who among other saints fell to their lot. Thence they moved to Vangag, in order to draw those people from the mountain whence they had gone. For the same reason, they were moved on another occasion to a site called Dao, which is the site where they still live, although still under the title of Vang̃ag.
[Salazar relates the steadfastness of a native girl at the above mission, who was of considerable use to the missionaries. Two fathers while on an expedition concerned with the mission, are carried across a river by Negritos, of which race Salazar says:]
Those blacks of those mountains are very barbarous and ferocious, above all the other inhabitants of Cagayan.... Those black men of the mountain flee from the water even more than from fire; for every night in order to go to sleep, they make a fire in the open, and sleep on the cinders or hot ashes, but they will never bathe or wash, in order not to get wet, although they stand so greatly in need of it, and bathing is a common and daily thing among the other natives of this country.[10]
[The Negritos’ hatred of bathing makes our author imagine that those who carried the fathers across the river are spirits sent by God to aid His chosen ones in their trouble. The chapter ends with an account of a pious Indian woman who dies in Abucay. Following this chapter, the missions of the Asiatic mainland and the Pardo troubles and controversy are discussed in chapters xxxv–xlviii; and the lives and deaths of various Dominicans in chapters xlix–lxii, of which chapters l–lv treat of Fray Domingo Perez (see VOL. XXXIX, pp. 149–275).]
Chapter LXIII
A new band of religious arrives in the province, one of whom dies at sea
[More than two hundred religious went to the Philippines in 1684, as recruits for the orders of St. Francis, St. Augustine (both calced and discalced), and St. Dominic. Those for the last-named order number forty-nine, “which is the most abundant succor which has reached this province since its foundation.”[11] Those missionaries are as follows:]
The said father, Fray Jacinto Jorva, son of the convent of Santa Catharina Martyr, of Barcelona.
Father Fray Francisco Miranda, of the convent of San Pablo, of Valladolid, and collegiate of San Gregorio of the same city.