[40] Félix de Rioja y Zúñiga was born at Cadiz in 1691, of a noble family, and made his profession there at the age of seventeen, renouncing an inherited title. He came to the islands in 1712, and seven years later was sent to the Bataan mission. He was sent to Guimbal (1722) and Bugason in 1728; in the latter place he was murdered in June, 1734. [↑]
[41] Carib: the name of the Indian race who inhabited the Antilles and adjacent coasts when the New World was discovered; also applied in general to fierce (and especially to cannibal) savages. [↑]
[42] Cf. Matilda C. Stevenson’s account of a ceremony employed at childbirth by the Sia Indians of New Mexico, in which an ear of corn (which among them is the emblem of life) is passed up and down the body of the mother, accompanied with prayers to one of their divinities, to secure a safe and easy delivery. (Report of U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, 1889–90, pp. 134–141.) [↑]
[43] This plant is evidently Datura alba (or perhaps in some places D. fastuosa, which has the same properties), commonly called “jimson weed” in the United States; it is called catchúbong or tachibong by the Visayans, and in Tagálog talamponay. (See Official Handbook of the Philippines, part i, pp. 377, 401; also Merrill’s Dictionary of Plant Names, p. 142.) [↑]
[44] It is possible that this plant is Euphorbia pilufera, a soporific; it is used, as are many other plants found in the islands, for poisoning fish. [↑]
[45] Fray Bernardo Ustáriz was born in the archbishopric of Zaragoza, and entered the Dominican order at Calatayud; he came to the Philippines with the mission of 1730. In the following year he was minister at Binondo, and in 1739 at Abucay; with these exceptions he was engaged in high offices of his order—being the head, at various times, of the college of Letran and of the university of Santo Tomás; and twice (1743 and 1755) the provincial of the order. He was afterward appointed bishop of Nueva Segovia, taking possession of that see in 1761. In the following year the capture of Manila by the English occasioned a revolt in Ilocos; the efforts of Ustáriz to oppose the insurgents were unsuccessful, and drew upon him their resentment. They kept him a prisoner for six months, and were on the point of killing him; but his life was saved by the opportune arrival of a Spanish force. He then accompanied the troops through their campaign for the pacification of Pangasinan, and the hardships which he underwent therein and in his previous captivity shortened his life; he died at the hospital of San Gabriel, near Manila, August 2, 1764. (Ferrando’s Hist. PP. dominicos, v, pp. 6–9.) [↑]
[46] Father Manuel del Río thus describes the district of Paniqui and its people (Retana’s Archivo, ii, pp. 185–187): “This province of Paniqui extends from north to south; and its length, from the last Christian village of Cagayan, which is Itugug, to the last infidel village (but close to the mission of Isinay), called Bayongbong, is probably two and one-half or three days’ journey. Its breadth thus far has not been ascertained; but I think that it includes more than fifteen leguas of plains, or level ground, from the mountains of the Igorrots to those of the Ilongots. These are two ranges of lofty peaks, which intersect this province in the middle, and likewise others in the center of this island; and in these mountains dwell these two and other barbarous tribes, whom hitherto it has been impossible to conquer, on account of the inaccessible character of the mountains. The land of this province of Paniqui is quite level, and good for cultivation. The villages are numerous, although not very large; for on the shores of the Maga River alone, which flows through the length of that province from south to north, are counted eighteen villages, including both large and small ones. The people of that tribe are distinct from those adjacent to them, and have a different language from the others. The men are accustomed from childhood to file their upper teeth into points, which often causes them to decay; and the teeth, after being dyed a sort of dark blue, are adorned (when the person is a chief) with small golden pegs. For persons of rank, it is considered very unsightly to have white teeth. They also pierce their ears, as women do; and some cleave them through. These people are barbarians in their customs, without any kind of civilization or government; and they pay respect only to some chiefs, who have acquired a reputation as such by their valorous deeds. They are not idolaters, nor are they given to religion or to worship; they have only some superstitions regarding the songs of birds, and similar things, founded on oracles which are given to them by the demon, through the agency of their aniteras, or priestesses. These women, through a compact which they have with the demon, after taking a certain potion are possessed by that same demon; and through their mouths this enemy is able to declare his will to those wretched people. At other times, the demon speaks to them in his own person, in an aerial body; but never, or very seldom, does he allow himself to be seen by those who hear him. Through the counsel of this chief enemy of the human race, those heathen are wont to buy Indians from other provinces, in order to offer them in sacrifice, by killing them, to the demon. Of this class must have been a little boy four years old, apparently an Igorrot, who was seen by the said father commissary, Fray Diego de la Torre. Those infidels were buying the child, to kill him; and the father, not having with him any forces for preventing this, could only obtain from them that they should bring the child to him for baptism before the sacrifice. God chose that the bargain should not be settled, and that the father should buy the child for some trinkets and beads, which those people value; and accordingly he brought the lad to Cagayan, snatching him from the teeth and claws of the infernal wolf. The said father encountered among those infidels, another boy, about seven years old, who was white and ruddy, like a European—a very singular thing among people so swarthy as they. His mother had had other children, but dark, like herself; and she says that when she was pregnant with this boy she dreamed that they commanded her to give him the name of Adàn [i.e., Adam], and therefore did so, calling the boy Adàn. They regarded him as a little idol; and therefore, although the father urged them several times to give him the child, he was unable to obtain it.” [↑]
[47] See earlier accounts of these Dominican missions in Central Luzón, in VOL. XXXVII, pp. 98–101; and in VOL. XLIII, Salazar’s history, book i, chap. xxxiii, and book ii, chaps. ii, xi, xxii, xxxv, xlix. Cf. Ferrando’s Hist. PP. dominicos, passim, for detailed accounts from the beginnings of those missions down to 1830. [↑]
[48] In Retana’s printed text this word appears, by some error, as montes, when the context plainly indicates islas. [↑]
[49] See account of this project, the explorations made for it, and its successful accomplishment, in Ferrando’s Hist. PP. dominicos, iv, pp. 367–382. [↑]