Australasia -- Description and travel; Australasia -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers -- Australasia
The king decided to adopt Christianity as his religion, but he
complained that some of his chiefs did not wish to follow his
example. However, they yielded apparently to Magellan's arguments
and agreed to the setting up of a cross. On 14 April, at a
ceremonial arranged with great splendour by the Spaniards, the King
of Sebu was baptized and given the name of Don Carlos, after the
Emperor Charles V. The heir apparent was called Don Fernando, the
friendly King of Masawa was named Juan, and all the leading chiefs
and notabilities, to the number of 500, were similarly baptized and
given Christian names. In the evening the chaplain of the fleet went
ashore and baptized the queen[32] and forty of her women. In all,
the Spaniards baptized 800 Filipinos. One village on an islet, which
refused baptism for its people, was burnt to the ground.
[32] The queen was young and beautiful, and entirely covered with a
white and black cloth. Her mouth and nails were stained very red,
while on her head she wore a large hat of palm leaves, like a tiara.
On the following day the queen came with great pomp to hear Mass.
Three girls preceded her, carrying other specimens of her tiara hats
in their hands. The women who accompanied her were nearly naked, the
queen herself being again dressed in black and white, with a large
silk scarf crossed with gold stripes. Having made due reverence to
the altar she seated herself on a silk embroidered cushion. Magellan
then arose, and before the commencement of the Mass sprayed her and
her women with rose-water.
In spite of the natives telling Magellan at first that they
worshipped nothing but a god in the sky, they seem to have had a
number of fetishes to which they paid reverence, especially when
pleading for recovery from sickness. These idols were mostly made
of wood, were hollow, and were probably representations of wild
boars. Magellan incited the people to the destruction of their
idols in order that their conversion to Christianity might be better
affirmed. This they did, crying out: "Castilla, Castilla!" as they
threw the idols and the meat consecrated to them into the flames.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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