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
I frankly confess that, in the midst of the sorrow that was occasioned
in me by the extreme barbarism and mental stupidity of this people
when I knew by experience their mode of life, at the same time not
only were presented before me those golden ages, so celebrated,
of which Ovid treats at length in his Metamorphoses, Cicero in his
Aratus, Lactantius Firmianus in his Institutiones, and Seneca in his
Epistolæ, but I also saw how true is that Epicurean maxim, which,
distinguishing human necessities, says, Naturales necessitates satiari
pene nihilo. To which Pythocles adds, Si vis hominem divitem facere,
non pecuniæ adjice, sed cupiditatibus detrahe. [45] It is worth while
to see the said people going about naked, without house or shelter,
without land, and even without desire for it, yet living contented,
happy, plump, and satisfied; without having any anxieties beyond
that of searching for enough to get through the day with--which, as
it is but little, they soon provide from what is yielded by nature
in those mountains.... Again I say that their mode of life arouses
my admiration, and that if they were enlightened by our holy faith,
and were enduring for God's sake the sufferings that they experience, I
believe that not even the most austere monk of the Thebaid could equal
them. It is, however, true that they avail themselves of the "bill
of divorce," although before marriage a false step is hardly heard
of among them; and that in some districts they are cruel and murderous.
[Mozo here makes observations on various medicinal plants,
which he found by actual experience or observation to be highly
efficacious. Among these are two roots which these natives used
in cases of parturition--one to facilitate the birth, the other to
cleanse and strengthen the mother's system; the woman was able to
go out from her hut, carrying her infant, within one day, or even a
few hours. Seeing the great virtue of this treatment, Mozo obtained
a quantity of these remedies and prescribed them successfully in many
similar cases, after he left the Negritos. They poisoned their arrows
with a decoction of the bark of the camandag, [46] and of some other
plants, in order to kill large game--so powerful a poison that even a
buffalo would die within two minutes if one of these arrows hit even
its hoof.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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