The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 43, 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 43, 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
possibly one member of each of the families who are in mourning, at
times fifty or more. The value of the slave sacrificed is paid among
them all, and he who pays most has the right to sacrifice first. The
victims cry out at such times as long as they can and ask pity of all;
but instead of pitying them, they drown the pitiful cries with the
most horrible and terrifying shouts that can be imagined. If they
perform the sacrifice near the Christians, then they strike without
any shouts, and even gag the mouth of the victim.
But let us leave for another letter the relation of not less horrible
barbarities. O Fathers and Brothers of my soul, pray for the conversion
of these wretched beings, and do not be forgetful of me in your holy
sacrifices and prayers.
The servant in Christ of you all,
Mateo Gisbert, S. J.
Dávao, February 8, 1886.
My dearly beloved Fathers and Brothers in Christ:
On reading the horrible sacrifices that I described in my last
letter, you will have asked: "How has the father been able to learn
so minutely the inhuman customs which the savages conceal so carefully
in the midst of their forests?" Your Reverences will understand indeed
that I have not been able to be present at those sacrifices, but they
have been explained to me by the Bagobos, who, having been baptized,
recount those and other barbarities of heathenism. I have learned it
also from the mouth of some victims who, being at the very point of
being sacrificed, managed to escape by the aid and management of the
father missionary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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