Bohol is one of the smaller islands of the Filipinas, but is actually large and populous, inhabited by a people of lighter complexion, and generally more comely, than are the other Bissayans. They are a race of such spirit and valor that they have spread through many neighboring islands, where their descendants still preserve the name of Boholans of which they are very proud--just as we, when in foreign kingdoms, are proud of the name of Spaniards. The island is rich in mines and placers of gold, and abundantly provided with game, fish, rice, sugar-cane, palms, and other kinds of food. In the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-four, the adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived there with his fleet--entering through the channel which they call El Frayle ["The Friar"]--when, as we have stated, he set out from Nueva Espana in quest of those islands. A chief of that island, named Catunao--whom our fathers have now baptized, as we shall soon relate--gave information to Miguel Lopez of Sebu (which is six leguas distant from Bohol), and, accompanying him thither as a guide, was of great assistance to him in the reduction of the island. It was the good fortune of Father Juan de Torres and Father Gabriel Sanchez to instruct this people, for they were the first preachers of Jesus Christ in Bohol. They entered the island with much confidence and consolation, on learning that its people, like those in the neighboring island of Sebu, did not practice polygamy--an affliction which to the fathers in Ibabao and Leite was a source of great sorrow, since they found in this evil custom a serious impediment to the conversion of many who were not otherwise hindered from receiving holy baptism. Not only were the Boholans free from this, but none of their immoral practices (for they had others) could hinder their conversion; for all at once they abandoned all of these, together with their idolatry. Those fathers wrote to us concerning two in particular, of which--although they are not peculiar to the people of that island, but are general among all the others--I desire to give an account for the better understanding and greater clearness of this narrative; one relates to their dead, and their mode of shrouding and burying them; the other, to their feasts, festivals, and drunken revels. I shall speak of the general practices in both, beginning with the first. The manner which the Filipinas had of shrouding and burying their dead. Chapter XXXIII.