[34] “Termes monocerus (Koen), the common name for which is anay. The anay, or white ant, is a very remarkable insect, with a large head, on the upper part of which it has three small eyes; and it is armed with two hard teeth, shaped like a forceps, with which this creature destroys in a very short time the woodwork of a house, the best depository of papers, the largest library, or the finest wardrobe of clothing. The only wood that it does not attack is the molave, on account of its bitter taste and excessive hardness. The anay lives in families; it is found in all wet localities, and erects dwellings of clay which are two or three meters in height, and so solid that the passage of buffaloes over them is not sufficient to destroy them. The interior of these ant-hills contains a multitude of little cells, divided by thin partitions; and in these they deposit thousands of eggs (some 80,000 to each female) that are infinitely small. One [in each hill?] of these terrible insects is distinguished by its enormous proportions, and this one the Indian calls ‘queen of the ants.’ In the rainy season, wings grow on them, and they fly in fabulous numbers at sunset. The damage which these insects cause is incalculable.” (Montero y Vidal, Archipiélago Filipino, p. 114.)
The same writer mentions, in the preface to the same work, as an instance of the prevalent ignorance in Spain of the nature and needs of that country’s colonies in the East, that some member of the royal Council undertook to despatch a decree that the army in Filipinas should go in pursuit of the anay, believing it to be some terrible criminal.
Salazar makes an interesting reference (Hist. Sant. Rosario, p. 567) to some unnamed species of ant: “In that country [of the Mandayas] are certain ants which are called ‘Dutchmen,’ whose sting is so sharp that it becomes unendurable;” and he relates that this creature was used by a Dominican missionary as a new penance. [↑]
[35] Cf. account of these superstitions as still believed in Batangas, in Census of Philippines, i, pp. 520, 521. [↑]
[36] Agde (Latin, “Agatha”) a city in southeastern France, was anciently the seat of a bishopric suffragan to Narbonne; it was suppressed in 1790. The council here referred to was held in the year 506, “in the time and with the authorization of Alaric, king of the Visigoths in Spain, although he was an Arian.” (Chevin’s Dictionnaire de noms de lieux, p. 5.) [↑]
[37] Antonio Léon was born in 1702, in the province of Alicante, and made profession in the Augustinian convent at Salamanca at the age of sixteen. He came in the mission of 1724, and spent the rest of his life mainly in the missions of Pampanga, in which he died (1766). His younger brother Pablo came (being then a novice) to the islands at the same time; he was missionary in Puncán (1731) and Santor (1732) and died in 1733.
Manuel Calvo was born in Almagro in 1704, and when sixteen years old entered the Augustinian order at Toledo. He came to Manila with the foregoing brothers, and labored in Pampanga missions; he died at Ayárat in 1758.
Francisco Alvárez was a native of Oviedo province in Spain, and made profession at Madrid in 1727, at the age of twenty-two; he came to the islands in the mission of 1732. He also labored in the Pampanga missions, and died at Manila in 1769. (Pérez’s Catálogo.) [↑]
[38] “In the mountains [of Iloilo] there are many Indians whom they call Mundos; they should be called vagamundos [English, “vagabonds”], but the Indians bite off half from Castilian words when they are somewhat long. These Mundos are descendants of the Christians who, not being able to remain in the villages on account of their delinquencies, have fled to the mountains. They are not unwilling to become Christians, provided the fathers will go to their hamlets to live; but as this is impossible, on account of those places being inaccessible to civilized people, they continue in their infidelity. Some come down to the villages, and in their places others escape [to them] who commit new crimes; and [thus] this caste of people is continually maintained, notwithstanding the efforts that have been made to reduce them. The Indians trade with them, and give them rice and cloth in exchange for the wax and pitch which they bring down from the hills; and, in order not to lose this advantage, the Indians have been opposed to the reduction of the Mundos to a civilized and Christian mode of life.” (Zuñiga, Estadismo, ii, pp. 93–94.) [↑]
[39] Loberos (from lobo, “wolf”): Dominguez calls it a synonym of espantanublados (“scare clouds”), an epithet of “the vagabond who, wearing long garments, goes through the hamlets begging from door to door; and the country folk believe that he has power over the clouds” (Diccionario of the Academy). [↑]