The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 42, 1670-1700: 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 42, 1670-1700: 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
Then follow comments on these regulations, and in vindication of
them--exceedingly prolix on account of being full of citations,
some timely and others the opposite. He states therein that for
the service of the parish churches he ordered that the following
should render assistance: Four servants for the parochial house; one
doorkeeper for each convent; and people enough to carry the hammocks
and litters [talabones] when the minister shall go forth to administer
the sacraments. Two sacristans; and the acolytes and the singers for
the services in the churches. Twenty young men [baguntaos], to sweep
the churches and their courts every week or every day. Two laundresses,
for keeping clean the cloths and vestments in the sacristies. All the
young girls [dalagas], but outside of the convents, to embroider and
sew all the articles of cloth that are necessary for divine worship. A
guardian who shall notify the religious of matters pertaining to
their obligations. A syndic, who shall attend to collecting what
belongs to them.
[He says] that the oppressions which are caused by the service which
was compulsory in furnishing the dalagas consisted in the following:
Under the pretext of needlework and embroidery, the religious
compelled the dalagas to be in continual attendance in the houses of
the syndics and mistresses, where they not only sewed and embroidered
the articles for the sacristy, but also the inner garments of the
religious and the outer garments of their servants. Besides, they
must do whatever was commanded them by the mistresses themselves,
and their fiscals and syndics, and the fields of all these were
sown with grain, without pay, by the wretched dalagas. At the same
time, assessments were levied annually in each village for [church]
ornaments; and this sum, in the village of Caramuan alone, amounted to
800 pesos the year before. It must be considered that, besides these
things, the villages were burdened by the maintenance (at their own
cost) of two or three pavilions [camarines; for temporary churches],
for extra supplies of timber of all sizes, and also limestone, for
the repairs and adornment of the churches.
After presenting various considerations, he proceeds to refute the
false charges which the Franciscan religious published against him,
who said that he had treated them as if they were criminals; that he
had falsified the edicts, varying them from the original process;
and that all the declarations of the witnesses were false, as also
the remonstrances of the villages.
[127] In the text, misprinted 1684. Occasional typographical errors
are found in the printed edition of Diaz, which we correct in our text.
[128] Spanish, pájaros bobos; evidently referring to the bird commonly
known as "booby" (VOL. XVII, p. 130).
[129] Governor Cruzat y Gongora died at sea, on the voyage from
Manila to Acapulco, on November 5, 1702; and his youngest daughter
on December 12 of the same year. (Ventura del Arco MSS., iv, p. 245.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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