Opening the text

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55, 1690-1691: 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 40 of 55, 1690-1691: 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

The other lavia whom I saw was in one of the Joloan islands,
called Pangutara. [73] Him I found to be already a Christian,
whom Father Alexandro Lopez, a great apostle of the Joloans, had
reduced and baptized in Samboangan, and called Santiago. This man
is naturally very well dispositioned and has no moral defects, and
he is a man of a celestial peace and serenity. He is always bubbling
with laughter, which is the effect of the security of his soul; for,
when the conscience has nothing to fear, the heart has gladness to
scatter abroad.

I must not neglect to tell one thing that I noticed in regard to the
nature of the people of this profession, from what I could gather
from the exterior of those two, which seems to me to be the reason
that takes them along the pathway so unusual and difficult in a
climate so hot, and lands so dangerous (as he who has had experience
in these islands, and who knows the wretchedness of their natives
in this region, will know). For the physiognomy of those men is that
of eunuchs, and their natural disposition and condition are so cold,
that it made me think that they must be so naturally, and that nature
kept her virtue under control in this region. But since they behave
in all other things with so blameless a life, I shall always consider
them as prodigies of the divine Providence in favor of virtue. For
no one despises virtue as a thing unknown, since even to barbarians
virtue is painted in so natural colors that they respect it naturally,
without more external credit than their native security.

This sole spark of good morals have I found among the so great darkness
in which the Subanos live. However, they have another custom belonging
to the same aspect of their lives, so vile that it is sufficient
to obscure greater lights than those of that small spark; for among
them is more acceptable the exchange that they make of their women
with one another--the husbands mutually agreeing upon this exchange,
and celebrating the hideous loan and the vile restitution with dances
and drunken revels, according to their custom. Their feasts are like
their customs, and one is the manifestation of the other.




CHAPTER XVII

    Burials and marriages of those natives

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55, 1690-1691: 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

The other lavia whom I saw was in one of the Joloan islands,
called Pangutara. [73] Him I found to be already a Christian,
whom Father Alexandro Lopez, a great apostle of the Joloans, had
reduced and baptized in Samboangan, and called Santiago. This man
is naturally very well dispositioned and has no moral defects, and
he is a man of a celestial peace and serenity. He is always bubbling
with laughter, which is the effect of the security of his soul; for,
when the conscience has nothing to fear, the heart has gladness to
scatter abroad.

I must not neglect to tell one thing that I noticed in regard to the
nature of the people of this profession, from what I could gather
from the exterior of those two, which seems to me to be the reason
that takes them along the pathway so unusual and difficult in a
climate so hot, and lands so dangerous (as he who has had experience
in these islands, and who knows the wretchedness of their natives
in this region, will know). For the physiognomy of those men is that
of eunuchs, and their natural disposition and condition are so cold,
that it made me think that they must be so naturally, and that nature
kept her virtue under control in this region. But since they behave
in all other things with so blameless a life, I shall always consider
them as prodigies of the divine Providence in favor of virtue. For
no one despises virtue as a thing unknown, since even to barbarians
virtue is painted in so natural colors that they respect it naturally,
without more external credit than their native security.

This sole spark of good morals have I found among the so great darkness
in which the Subanos live. However, they have another custom belonging
to the same aspect of their lives, so vile that it is sufficient
to obscure greater lights than those of that small spark; for among
them is more acceptable the exchange that they make of their women
with one another--the husbands mutually agreeing upon this exchange,
and celebrating the hideous loan and the vile restitution with dances
and drunken revels, according to their custom. Their feasts are like
their customs, and one is the manifestation of the other.




CHAPTER XVII

    Burials and marriages of those natives

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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