RELATION OF THE ZAMBALS
RELATION OF THE ZAMBAL[1] INDIANS OF PLAYA HONDA, THEIR SITUATION AND CUSTOMS. BY FATHER FRAY DOMINGO PEREZ, OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS AND VICAR-PROVINCIAL OF THE RELIGIOUS WHO ASSIST IN THE SAID MISSION. YEAR OF 1680[2]
The very reverend father, Fray Baltazar de Santa Cruz, prior-provincial of this province of Santo Rossario of the Order of Preachers in these Philipinas Islands, having visited the villages (which we have today united and their inhabitants reduced to the said villages) and us two ministers who for the space of nine months have been busied in the reduction of said Indians, said reverend father provincial ordered me to write a treatise on the site whence we have drawn the Indians whom we have reduced, their customs, and mode of living.
In order that the evangelical ministers who have to work in this mission may be able more clearly to direct those souls redeemed by the blood of our Lord Christ along the true pathway of heaven from which they have strayed so far for so many years blinded with the darkness of infidelity and idolatry; also in order that this paper may be used so that the ministers of justice of the king, our sovereign, may subject said Indians and establish them under the obedience of his Catholic Majesty: although it is true that for more than sixty years they had ministers of the gospel, neither said ministers nor his Majesty have been able to succeed in getting them to live in a settlement so that they may be administered or have justice as today it is hoped that they will be. The most that it has been possible to obtain with them was that distinct bands of them should unite on various occasions in the mountain on the plateau where the ministers had a house and church. But they immediately broke up again, said division occasioning the wars which those Indians generally wage among their different bands, and the alcaldes-mayor were unable to punish the guilty and ungovernable because of the greater distance from the chief cities where the alcaldes-mayor live to these places, and because the coast of the sea is so rough during all the time of the vendavals and south winds, that it is impossible to navigate along it, while the road overland is so rough and blocked by mountains full of black enemies (those mountains being very rough in parts), and in the ravines there are very great rivers with very strong currents, so that in the rainy season one can have no communication from this place, with Pangasinan, or with Mariueles, or with Pampanga; and during the dry season these Indians are generally with the blacks in the mountains trading wax: consequently, they have never been obedient to the alcaldes-mayor, and hence, neither to his Majesty nor to the gospel ministers whom they have hitherto had. Although they have had ministers of great virtue and most ardent zeal for souls, as can be seen in the annals of their sacred order and even today, there are ex-provincials who have been their ministers whose signal virtues are apparent to all the community.
Of the site and district of Playa Honda
Playa Honda begins at the doors of Mariueles and extends along the mountains which border Pampanga to the point of Sunga and near Pangasinan, which is distant more than forty leguas from Mariueles to the visita of the Christian Baga Indians who are administered by the minister of Mariueles. They perform their duties toward the Church every year, notwithstanding that they show very many imperfections, a fact which is not surprising, since the minister cannot be with them all the time that he would like, as the coast is inaccessible all the time of the vendavals. During that time they must necessarily live without a minister to instruct them. That visita has thirty tributes. Although they have a village laid out with its church and house for the minister, they do not live in the said village except when the minister goes to visit them. They live in their rancherías whence they get molave wood in abundance. They have sufficient fields in said village for all, and for twice as many more if they cared to cultivate them, but they apply themselves more earnestly in cutting said timber than in farming their fields. They get considerable help for [cutting] said wood from the blacks of the mountain, for those blacks are excellent woodsmen. All those blacks are tributary and pay twelve reals annually for their tribute. The tribute is managed by the Indians, and the encomendero does not meddle with them in the collection of the tribute from the blacks, but the Indians pay the said tribute for the blacks. Hence the black serves the Indian all the year, without the black having other profit at the end of the year than his tribute paid. This is the reason why the village is continually without people, because the Indians, on account of the profit from the work of the blacks, go to live with the blacks, or near the pass of the mountain, where said blacks live, in order to assist them in the work, for the blacks unless assisted physically do not work. Four leguas from this visita toward the north is another visita called Mariyumo, administered also by the said father minister of Mariueles. Its people are Christians, although very bad ones, and seriously lacking in the faith, and have very many imperfections. They have very many superstitions and are much given to omens. Not all of them are very fit to receive the annual communion. They also have a village laid out and a church and house for the minister. However, they do not live in the said village, but in their rancherías, much divided among themselves as are those of Baga; although they are not such absolute masters of the blacks as are those of Vaga, they also have blacks under trust on which account they receive many vexations from the encomendero, for it is the regular thing for them to pay the tribute for the blacks. The latter are more free than the blacks of Vaga, for they have more land where they can spread out, which those of Vaga do not have. Those Indians also possess considerable molave timber, but they are lazier than the Indians of Vaga. Consequently, there is no one to cut the wood unless the corregidor of the island who administers justice to them, forces them to cut said wood. It would be doing a great service to God to unite the latter Indians with those of Baga, so that our holy Catholic faith might be well administered to them. They number about forty tributes, and, if they are united with those of Vaga, they can have a minister in residence where they will be well administered, and where they have lands sufficient for their farming, and timber in abundance. In such case there would not be so great a scarcity of that product in the city of Manila.
One legua from Mariyumo begins the bay which lies back of the mountains of Abucay and Samal, where we commenced to get the Indians whom we have collected in this Nuevo Toledo. The said bay has plenty of fish. Its mouth is about one legua wide, and is closed by a small island surrounded by many reefs on the southern side, but on the north it is very deep—so that any sized ship can enter even when laden. But the said bay has no port and lies in the course of all the vendaval and the south winds. It is five leguas long stretching toward the east, and as many wide. Along all that bay, which it will take two days to coast, were scattered twenty-two families, who are today living in this village of Nuevo Toledo where they have their houses and fields. Having passed the said bay and entered the mountain, one legua inland in the mountain, one enters a very level and long plain. One-half legua inland in the plain, is situated the first village called Nuevo Toledo. That plain is six leguas wide and eight long. It is bounded on the east by some very rough mountains which lie between the province of Pampanga and that plain; at the foot of those mountains were the rancherías of Balacbac, which has fourteen families; Lacnipan which had seven; Sigle which had fourteen more; Aglao which had thirty-three. All those families were scattered, so that in no ranchería did five families live together. The sea properly called Playa Honda bathes its western coast. On the sea-coast were thirty-six families of very pernicious Indians, all of whom we collected into the village of Santa Rossa de Banguen, where they possess their houses and fields. Those Indians were scattered along the creeks and carrizals[3] near the sea, along six leguas of coast and level land beyond the plain running toward the north two leguas. At the foot of some very rough mountains between the sea and Buquil, there were fourteen other families whom we have also collected in said village of Santa Rossa de Banguen, which today consists of fifty families. That said village of Santa Rossa is six leguas from that of Nuevo Toledo over a stretch of level land in which there is a very great abundance of game. Many were supported by that and had no fields and wherever they caught the deer or carabao they stayed there until they finished eating it. But at present they possess their gardens in the village, and since care is taken in this, they will not be lazy, and will live in the village where, having their gardens and the food from them, they will not have so great need of the hunt. Six leguas farther on in another site called Nalso, a plain where are stationed the presidio and fort of Pinauen in a corner of said plain at the foot of the mountains of Buquil, was a little village of about forty families, which the very reverend father, Fray Joseph de la Santísima Trinidad, ex-provincial of his order, had collected in said district. There were there, moreover, twelve families who had recently descended the mountains of Buquil, whom, since they were far from the fields, and the flight to the mountains was very near and five families had returned to the mountains, and there was no assurance of the others if left in said site, we transferred to the visita of Alalam, which is now composed of eighty families. The latter place is seven leguas from the village of Santa Rossa de Banguen. Those who have had most difficulty have been the thirty-three families whom we moved from the site and district of Aglao, as they were very wild Indians, and little or not at all softened until the present, and said site is distant six leguas from the village of Nuevo Toledo where we stationed it. Three leguas of the road are very bad, and there is not a drop of water to be found for four leguas, during all the dry season. The road is over sandy ground which is very large and full of rocks left by the river which flows from the mountain of Pinatuba; and in those places where there are no rocks, but only the sand, the road is also very wearisome because that sand has no cohesion, and the least wind that blows lifts the dust which blinds the travelers and has thus cost the greatest hardship to those of this district who take that road in going and coming between the village and the mountain. In the month of January of this year of eighty, we had them all ready in the village, and I, taking them to the mountain so that they might bring down their possessions and rice to the village, and each family having brought down five baskets of rice, one-half the distance along the road, more than half of the people fell sick, because of the great labor which it cost them to pass the said sandy ground. On that account I ordered them to abandon their rice and possessions and to bring it down little by little, and in order that they might make their gardens before the season should expire, and so that they might finish their houses. They have already finished them, and their gardens are at a musket-shot’s distance from the village, according to the edict which Governor Don Juan de Vargas Hurtado, knight of the habit of Santiago, changed for them for that purpose. Even in these slight things, his Lordship has been active on account of his so great desire that the Indians be reduced and be reasonable, if we may so say, for as will be seen in their customs in which they have been reared until the present, they were wandering very far from nationality and civilization.
The village of Nuevo Toledo was composed of more than one hundred families, and that of Santa Rossa de Banguen, of fifty, in the month of January of this year 1680. All declared themselves before Adjutant Alonso Martinez Franco, superior commandant of the fort of Paynauen. The latter, at the evident risk of his life, and with the continual watchfulness and zeal of a fervent religious, without heeding his own interest which he would have had if he wished to pay no heed to the order of his superior, and to receive the offerings of gold which the Indians made to him so that he should not oblige them to leave their recesses, has aided us to his own great credit in collecting the Indians whom we have today in the two said villages. He made lists of the people who were in the two villages above mentioned, who amounted to seven hundred and seventy persons. Those people persevere even yet in the said two villages, and will persevere so long as the efforts which are being made to reduce those who are yet intractable in the mountains, do not cease. The said adjutant and superior commandant of the said presidio also formed the new village of Alalam by withdrawing its ancient inhabitants from the places where they lived before, and brought them within a musket-shot of their fields. They were before that one legua distant from their fields. That site has a small bay, which the sea forms there, where there is very good fishing, and where boats can safely enter. The said village did not have such a bay before, in the former site. He also made lists of the Indians whom he brought to the said village, who are the ones of Nalso who were located at the foot of the mountains of Buquil, and those who descended said mountains. I was not present when the said lists were made and hence do not know the number of the persons there, but it is evident to me that those gathered in the said village number more than fifty families. I have seen their houses which are already finished, and are excellent buildings, made of strong and hard materials. Those Indians also will retain in the said village, which is large, the horror which they have for the Spanish arms, and more, if the raids of the Spaniards on the Indians who still keep to the mountains are repeated.