The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 20 of 55: 1621-1624; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 20 of 55: 1621-1624; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
go with an interpreter to talk to them, as I have sometimes attempted
to do, they anticipate them on seeing them and no one remains in his
house, but they flee from the Spaniards. Then, if perchance they hear
some arguments that are shouted out to them, they laugh, and answer
that we are deceiving them, and that they will not trust us; that
they know us for people of bad faith; and that we must lay aside our
firearms if we wish them to approach. And if we did that, they would
employ their usual treachery and evil methods, as they generally do.
In the rainy season, that wretched race, most of whom are miners,
unite with their wives and children to wash the sand of the streamlets
that flow from the mountains, where with less work than in their mines,
by avoiding the digging and crushing of the metal, they get some gold,
although very little. [59] With what all of them get in one way or
another, they go down peacefully to the villages nearest to them,
to trade for certain animals or cattle. They do not trade the gold
by weight, but by sight. Those cattle are the ones that they eat,
with the solemnity above described, in a general assembly; for they
do not breed any kind of cattle or any other living thing for their
feast or sustenance, except certain small and very wretched dogs
which we have often had a chance to see.
It is not easy for us or even for them to ascertain the strata,
veins, or ores whence that product is yielded, since it is well
known that it does not originate or form in the sand, which does not
contain nurseries for it, since so many streamlets descend from so
many ravines and slopes. For it is not yet known that, moving about
ordinarily and having signs of that product, without ascertaining
or knowing any other in all the country, the natives have discovered
more than five elevations or hills within a distance of five or six
leguas, which they have worked during the dry season, in order to
support themselves so wretchedly as is known. Besides, those Ygolotes
are indebted to the natives of the villages who are our friends,
and are unable to pay those who give them credit; the wealth and wit
of both peoples being so small and restricted that, although those
people have no other kind of expenses, or other thing to attend to,
than the product of their mines, they are very generally in debt--a
sure proof of the mistake made in believing that the gain is much,
or the said mines of much importance, as has been and is demonstrated
by experience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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