The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 47, 1728-1759: 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 47, 1728-1759: 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
taught the true pathway to heaven.
These Indians have their priests and priestesses, although such have
no jurisdiction over the others; for here everyone is master of his
own will, and they alone recognize superiority in one in so far as he
gives authority to the other priests and priestesses for some special
sacrifices. This last is done to the one who pays well for it. This
priest is called bayoc, and he dresses like a woman. He wears a tapis
[84] or apron, and ties up his hair like a woman, although above the
tapis he wears and girds his catan, on the left side, and on the right
side, his yua [85] as other men. Those are the weapons of all these
Indians and no one goes without them, even though it be within his
own house. The idol to whom this bayoc principally offers sacrifice
is called Malyari, which means "powerful." This idol is made with a
wooden head and its body and hands of straw. They dress it up like
an image after their manner, place it on its altar and niche, then
light for it torches of pitch for lack of wax candles. All the people
of the ranchería assemble to make the sacrifice. Having built his
altar, the bayoc takes his spear in his hand and makes three holes in
the earth with it. Those holes are filled with wine, and the spear,
having been thrust into the ground, the bayoc begins his sacrifice,
with a leaf of wild anahao or wild palm in his hand. He commences
to shiver, his whole body trembling, and making many wry faces by
means of his eyes, he generally talks, sometimes between his teeth,
without anyone understanding him. Sometimes he contents himself with
the wry faces which he makes with his eyes and the tremblings of all
his body. After a few minutes he strikes himself twice on the knee
with the hand in which he holds the palm-leaf, and says that he is
the anito to whom the sacrifice is being made. At this the sacristan
(for the devil has even in this the semblance of God and wishes to
resemble His Divine Majesty) explains the need of the person who
orders the sacrifice made. The bayoc promises to fulfil the desire
of the person who is having the sacrifice made, and immediately
the bystanders begin to sing certain songs in praise of the anito or
idol. While they are being sung, they give the bayoc and the sacristan
something to drink, and after those two, all those present drink. But
no one drinks or eats anything that has been offered in the sacrifice
until the bayoc eats or drinks, for they say they would die if they
ate or drank before the anito, and for the anito to eat or drink is
no other thing than for the bayoc to eat or drink.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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