The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 44, 1700-1736: 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 44, 1700-1736: 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
[Fol. 63 b:] In the islands of Pintados those first laborers made such
haste that by this time [1633] there remained no heathens to convert,
and they labored perseveringly in ministering to the Christians,
with abundant results and consolation.... In the island of Negros and
that of Mindanao, which but a short time before had been given up to
the Society, the fathers were occupied in catechising and baptizing
the heathens and especially in the island of Mindoro, where besides
the Christian convents, were the heathen Manguianes, who lived in the
mountains, and, according to estimate, numbered more than six thousand
souls. These people wandered through the mountains and woods there like
wild deer, and went about entirely naked, wearing only a breech-clout
[bahaque] for the sake of decency; they had no house, hearth, or fixed
habitation; and they slept where night overtook them, in a cave or
in the trunk of some tree. They gathered their food on the trees or
in the fields, since it was reduced to wild fruits and roots; and as
their greatest treat they ate rice boiled in water. Their furnishings
were some bows and arrows, or javelins for hunting, and a jar for
cooking rice; and he who secured a knife, or any iron instrument,
thought that he had a Potosi. They acknowledged no deity, and when
they had any good fortune the entire barangay (or family connection)
killed and ate a carabao, or buffalo; and what was left they sacrificed
to the souls of their ancestors. In order to convert these heathens,
a beginning was made by the reformation and instruction of the
Christians; and by frequent preaching they gradually established
the usage of confession with some frequency, and many received the
Eucharist--a matter in which there was more difficulty then than
now. Many came down from the mountains, and brought their children
to be instructed; various persons were baptized, and even some, who,
although they had the name of Christians, had never received the rite
of baptism. After the fathers preached to the Christians regarding
honesty in their confessions, the result was quickly seen in many
general confessions, which were made with such eagerness that the
crowds resorting to the church lasted more than two months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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