History of the Philippine IslandsMorga, Antonio de
History
History of the Philippine Islands
Morga, Antonio de
Philippines -- History
They buried their dead in their own houses, and kept their bodies
and bones for a long time in chests. They venerated the skulls of the
dead as if they were living and present. Their funeral rites did not
consist of pomp or assemblages, beyond those of their own house--where,
after bewailing the dead, all was changed into feasting and drunken
revelry among all the relatives and friends. [332]
A few years before the Spaniards subdued the island of Luzon,
certain natives of the island of Borneo began to go thither to trade,
especially to the settlement of Manila and Tondo; and the inhabitants
of the one island intermarried with those of the other. These Borneans
are Mahometans, and were already introducing their religion among
the natives of Luzon, and were giving them instructions, ceremonies,
and the form of observing their religion, by means of certain gazizes
[333] whom they brought with them. Already a considerable number,
and those the chiefest men, were commencing, although by piecemeal,
to become Moros, and were being circumcised [334] and taking the names
of Moros. Had the Spaniards' coming been delayed longer, that religion
would have spread throughout the island, and even through the others,
and it would have been difficult to extirpate it. The mercy of God
checked it in time; for, because of being in so early stages, it was
uprooted from the islands, and they were freed from it, that is, in all
that the Spaniards have pacified, and that are under the government of
the Filipinas. That religion has spread and extended very widely in
the other islands outside of this government, so that now almost all
of their natives are Mahometan Moros, and are ruled and instructed by
their gaçizes and other morabitos; [335] these often come to preach
to and teach them by way of the strait of Ma[la]ca and the Red Sea,
through which they navigate to reach these islands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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