The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 48, 1751-1765: 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 48, 1751-1765: 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
[So great was the zeal of Arzaga and Isisigana that they devoted
themselves to seeking out the heathen among those wild mountains,
enduring privations, exposure, and sufferings, until the health of
both was broken down. Arzaga was again attacked by a sickness which
prostrated him, and died in 1707; his uncle held out three years
longer, and was then called in from the field, in order to recruit
his strength, but he was never able to return to his labors, and died
in 1716, in the convent of Vava. [20] In their place was sent to this
mission field Fray Alexandro Cacho, [21] in zeal and courage a worthy
successor to them. He succeeded in converting a chief named Dinalavang,
dreaded as well as renowned for his fierce and warlike disposition and
for his skill in all military exercises; also a sister of this man,
as valiant and dextrous as he, baptized as Doña Maria. Mozo gives an
interesting account of the fierce and cruel practices of these savage
tribes (whom he compares to the Huns), "which more than once I have
rebuked, when I have been among those people." "If they succeed in
killing a person they try to drink his blood; and, cutting off pieces
of his lungs, together with the testicles [22] and other parts, they
also draw out the entrails, and then divide these among themselves and
eat them raw--not only to make themselves terrible, but also because
they say it is a powerful medicine for exciting courage, fierceness,
and fortitude in their battles. They also cut off the head, and carry
it away in order to celebrate their festivals, with great gluttony and
carousing, [filling the skull] with a sort of wine which they make from
sugarcane and call ilang. Afterward, they take the grinders and teeth
and set these in the hilts of their cutlasses; and, as a consequence,
there is hardly any one in this tribe or in the Ibilaos whose cutlass
is not adorned with many teeth of those whom he has killed, or who
has not in his hut a collection of the skulls from human heads--this
very thing inspiring them with greater courage when they fight, in the
same way as it happened, as Virgil sings, to Æneas when he saw on his
antagonist Turnus the scarf of his beloved Pallas. So these people,
when they see the teeth of their own tribesmen on the sword-hilts
of their opponents, fling themselves upon the latter like mad dogs;
and from this may be readily inferred what degree of ferocity and
barbarism theirs must be, and what sort of hardships and labors it
will cost to free them from the power of the demon.... They greatly
dislike arrogance in their neighbors; and they likewise abhor every
sorcerer and wizard, a motive which makes them treat without mercy
any one of these whom they seize, cutting him to pieces with their
knives; and even at their feasts, and in the superstitious rites
which they practice, they utter a thousand execrations against such
persons, hurling at them a thousand curses, and swearing that they
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