The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55

He caused to be proclaimed in church those who were most guilty of this vice, commanding all others to avoid them, as has been said, regarding them as enemies of God and despisers of His doctrine, and of the teaching of the fathers; and this way of depriving them of intercourse with the rest was sufficient to make them ashamed of themselves. The result was that they renounced their custom and evil habit, and strove so to make themselves fit for the sacrament that, in order to avoid drunkenness, they gave up wine as an ordinary beverage. If they drank it occasionally, either because of need or desire, they drank by rule and measure. So far did they depart from their old excess that they not only blotted out their former evil reputation, but obtained for themselves a good one – which up to today they maintain, to the great joy of their ministers. The same thing is true of the other vices that they had, not only when they were heathen, but even after they were baptized, on account of the bad system of which we have given an account. For lack of teaching they had remained in their idolatries as before, without giving up usury, oppression, false swearing, and the feuds in which they had been brought up to have perpetual enmities. But soon after these religious learned their language, and began to give them instruction, the change which was to be seen in them was extraordinary; for the root of all these vices was plucked up, and that so completely that they themselves aided in their own reformation – for they gave the ministers information in regard to sins and idolatries by showing them who they were that committed them, and where they were committed. Thus it was easy to find some little idols that they kept hidden, which were handed over to the Christian boys to drag about through the whole village, and at last were burned. By this means and by the punishment of a few old women who acted as priestesses, and who were called catalonans, the idolatry of the whole region was brought to an end. In the matters of restitution of usury, and maltreatment of slaves, and other oppressions, there was some difficulty; for, as the evil had been converted into the flesh and blood of the wrongful holders of the property, it was the same as to strip off their flesh and drain their blood to talk about their returning that which they unjustly held. Still so great was the power that the teaching of the religious had over them, and so deep root had it taken in their hearts, that they broke through everything, and by the aid of the Lord brought themselves to the point. Thus at the beginning of their Christian life they did something which would hardly have been done by those grown old in Christianity, who had sucked it in with their mother’s milk. They gave liberty to many slaves deprived thereof unjustly, they restored the usury they had taken, and everything that they unjustly held. And this they did with so good a grace that it was enough for the father to propose it, after having verified the case. There was one man who gave up everything that he had, because he found that it was all unjustly held; and who did this without anything more having been done to influence him than the mere speaking of the word. Such a marvel as this God alone can work, who knows how to give so great an efficacy to such gentle means as have been described. Though in some cases no owners were known, to whom restitution could be made, they did not fail to make restitution on that account; but, collecting all the debts of this kind, they made a common deposit of them for common needs, and for the poor. There were many who could not be found to receive the satisfaction made in this way, and the application of the amount was made to the common necessity, as has been said. The great force that brought about this result was the obvious disinterestedness of the religious, who did not desire to apply anything to the benefit of the churches, on the ground that they were of common importance, but regarded these as being their special charge, so that in this way they might assure the Indians that in all this there was no other purpose than their own good, and might avoid every occasion for their imagining the contrary. That district reached this happy point in less than one year from the time when these ministers took charge of it, though it had been in the wretched state which we have described for the lack of some one systematically and regularly to care for the souls of the inhabitants. These people, who were always bringing suits and forming factions, have from that time lived so peaceably that they undertake few or no lawsuits. They prefer coming to an agreement before their minister (who takes no fees or bribes from them), to appearing before the courts, where they consume their property, and usually spend more than the case is worth. This is so true that when the alcalde-mayor came there to make his visit, he and his company were fain to hasten away from that district, for where there are no fees there are no profits; and they arranged to go on to a place where their profits would be certain, because the population were not so peaceable as in this region.

Chapter XX

The same continued, and some miracles that afterwards followed

[The mighty work described, being beyond human power, must have been of God; and, to make this clear, God showed His power in this region. At one time the father vicar was going to hear confessions in one of those villages, and was met by a leading Indian already converted, by name Don Pablo Taclanmanoc, who asked where he was going. When he said: “To hear the confessions of the people in this village,” the Indian replied, “Well then, Father, you have inquired about their debts, so that they may be able to confess?” “I cannot know them,” answered the father, “if they do not tell me them; and for that reason I have taken care to instruct them in my sermons that those who owe debts must pay them.” “More than that is necessary,” said Don Pablo; “give me the charge of investigating the debts in this village, so that they may make a good confession.” The religious thanked him and put off the confessions that he might see what would come of this undertaking. Don Pablo made his investigation with much care. He made inquiry throughout the village, and he ascertained that there were much usury and many other unjust and wrongful acts which had been committed in it. He took this all, written down in a memorandum-book, to the minister, who governed himself by it and made his inquiries in the confessions as it suggested. The confessions were very accurate, and in this way many wrongs were undone without any further pressure or force than this. When he saw how useful and necessary this undertaking had been, he had it done in all the villages, making use of the idea of the Indian Don Pablo – whom the Lord had given to these missionaries in this region as a teacher; and by whose instruction they might dig out many evil roots, which had grown strong with age, and were certain to be a great hindrance to the growth of the good seed of the gospel. This result these ministers at that time could not attain, because they were then new; nor would they have been able to attain them later, if the Indians had been silent with regard to them, and had followed the bad habit of confessing the rest while being silent on this point, which to them is the hardest thing in our law. But as they were at that time at the very beginning, and as this course was followed with all, and as it agreed with the truth and with all the evidence obtained by Don Pablo, they all accepted it very well. The results were most beneficial to this district. The Indians of it came to have such a reputation for devotion, for frequenting the holy sacraments, for obedience to their ministers, and for peace and brotherly love among themselves – being free from the vanities and excesses to which these Indians are naturally inclined – that when the ecclesiastical judges desired to bring to order any persons in other regions, they used to send them to Bataan, because of the good example set there. The Lord cared for these Indians with a very loving providence, as He showed by the special works that He wrought to rescue them from their course of perdition. Though we must be silent in regard to the greater number, we cannot pass over some. An old Indian woman who was preparing for baptism was one day absent from the class, and the father under whose care she was, sent a boy to call her. He came back saying she was dying; and the father, running with all his might to her side, found her still breathing. He was just in time to baptize her. The preservation of her life just up to that moment astonished all, and especially the bishop Don Fray Domingo de Salaçar. Several instances are recorded, in which persons were barely kept alive up to the time of their baptism. Several cases are also preserved in which insane persons were allowed a lucid interval in which to receive the holy sacrament of baptism. On the other hand, the devil played some tricks upon the fathers. One of the most important was to deceive them as to the character of some Indian women accused of witchcraft. They were so ingenious in concealing their wickedness that the fathers refused to listen to charges against them. Their daring reached so high a point that, at the command of one of them, the devil appeared before one of the chiefs of the village, by voice but not by sight, bidding him go thence. This was told the father. The devil answered, and said to the father: “Thou shalt believe only what thou seest.” At last the Lord was pleased to reveal the deceit, by the means of a sick woman in a hospital, who declares that one of these witches had punished her with this illness because of her refusing to give the witch the small fruit that she had asked for. An investigation followed, and it was discovered that they were most subtle witches; that they had wrought great evils, and had two accomplices in their work. They were punished with banishment, and therewith this country was freed of this evil remnant of its heathen condition; and, though there have been more of this sort since then, their punishment has required some less severe penalty. There have been a number of notable miracles by which the Lord gave authority to His gospel and His ministers among these Indians – though, on account of the care which the former have taken to conceal them, the particulars are not known. Still there is one miracle that is almost universal in all these regions; this is, that when the devil torments some Indian, under the influence of witches with whom he has made an agreement to torment those whom they desire to harm, he loses his power before the command of the religious. The Indians fear the witchcraft so that they do not dare deny the witches anything they ask; and thus they become masters of the property, the food, and the persons of all the Indians. The devil is driven out by the very presence of the religious, while in their absence he is kept away by merely having the sick hold a scapular. All this is accomplished without exorcisms, except the command in the name of the Lord that they shall cease their tormenting. In many cases miracles of healing have been wrought by baptism, or by confession.]

Chapter XXI

The entry of the religious into Pangasinan

When the order of our father St. Dominic reached these islands the Indians of Pangasinan were given over to idolatry, and so detested the gospel that, though the ministry of some religious was brought to the Indians on both sides of them (who are those of the provinces of Panpanga and of Ylocos), these Indians always refused to admit them; and they treated those fathers so badly that, though there were some clergy and some Franciscan religious who desired and endeavored to convert them, these had no success with them on account of their determined resistance. On the contrary, the Indians were wretchedly victorious, obliging the ministers, by their perversity, to go away and leave them in the darkness which they so loved and delighted in. There was only one place – the principal village, called Lingayen, where the alcalde-mayor resided – in which some of the religious of our father St. Augustine had been able to persevere. They were protected and defended by the law, and by the Spaniards who lived there, who by their presence were able to compel the Indians to treat the fathers properly – not as they had been in the other villages, where they were not only treated discourteously, but came near to being killed. This treatment resulted in bringing the fathers to the conclusion that it was best to leave them, which was what the Indians desired, and even what the devil whom they served had commanded them, on occasions when he had spoken with them. One of these occasions occurred while some Indians were on their way from the villages below to the mountains of the Ygolotes, on their ordinary business. As they were going through a thicket [arcabuco] full of bushes and briars, they heard a very loud and dreadful voice lamenting and complaining pitifully. The Indians retreated with great alarm at hearing this voice in so rough and so lonely a place; but, as they were many, they ventured to follow it to see who had uttered it, and in this way they came near to the place where it had sounded. Though they kept on going up the mountain, they saw nobody, and came no nearer to the voice they heard. Their alarm greatly increased, and one of them, exerting his breath and voice as much as he could, asked: “Who art thou that thus lamentest and utterest such groans?” and they heard this answer: “I am Apolaqui” – who among them takes the place of Mars among the heathen Romans – who might be called their god of war, and to whom they also pray when they go on a voyage, or on any journey for business. And when they heard it was their revered and highly beloved Apolaqui that was complaining, their alarm increased so greatly that they were almost out of their senses, until one of the most courageous of them said: “Apolaqui, our anito,” for thus they are accustomed to call those whom they reverence as God, “for whom we celebrate feasts, what cause have we given thee now that thou shouldest complain thus? Wherefore hast thou thundered upon these mountains, putting us in such fear, though we have done nothing to offend thee?” Apolaqui answered: “I am weeping to see fulfilled that which for years I have dreaded: that ye should receive among you strangers with white teeth, wearing cowls, and that they should place in your houses some sticks of wood laid across each other to torment me,” for thus he spoke of the crosses. “And now I am going from among you, seeking to find some one to follow me, since ye have abandoned me for strangers, though I am your ancient lord.” To this day the Indians give to the place where the demon spoke, this name (which in their language means “at the cross”), Pinabuenlagan. Is it strange that he who would do such things when he merely knew that the preachers of truth were near him, and who would thus alarm the Indians who followed him, should cause them to treat the ministers of the gospel as badly as they always did? It was to these Indians then, so ill disposed to receiving the faith, that father Fray Bernardo de Sancta Catalina was sent with five associates, all priests, who arrived there in the month of September, 1587. A Spanish encomendero of that country, called Ximenez del Pino, gave them a little bit of a house, for it was not to be hoped of the Indians that they would offer any hospitality to the friars; on the contrary, they hated them above all things. There was one man that offered them, if they would go away, a chinanta of gold, which is the weight of half an arroba – so far were they from offering hospitality to our fathers and doing them any kindness. The religious knew all this, and went on with patience, which was very necessary; for so determined were the Indians to receive them badly that the friars were, so to speak, in a desert, so far as anything that human society could do for them was concerned. They suffered greatly from hunger and from hardships. The Indians refused to provide them with the necessities of life, for payment or for anything else. Many times the religious had to carry on their backs their wood and water, and even their poor little beds, when they went from one village to another; for in this way the Indians strove to force them to go away, as the religious had been in the habit of doing. But the virtues of these fathers overcame everything. The hardships that they had to suffer, however severe, did not attain the height of the sufferings which they desired to bear for the Lord; nor did the difficulties which they met, which were not few, discourage them; nor could the little hope that the Indians gave of being converted take away the hope that the Lord gave; for He was certain to pity these tribes, for whom He had shed His blood. That which happened was very strange, and it should not therefore be reported without evidence worthy of it, which is that of the first bishop of these tribes, Don Fray Miguel de Venavides – a religious of very superior virtue, as we shall tell in due time, who made a report from his bishopric to Clement VIII, at that time head of the church. This report, because of the person who wrote it, because it was written to the sovereign pontiff, and because it was written in fulfilment of the oath which he had taken, as bishop of this holy see, to obey and to report the condition of his church and bishopric to his Holiness, must be free from all suspicion. I know not in what way, but somehow it was printed; and there are many copies in our convent in Valencia. The report is as follows. “It is about eleven years since the Dominican fathers entered the province of Pangasinan. That which has happened in the conversion of the province, which at the present time is composed of Christians – there being, of course, a heathen here and there – is such that we must give thanks to God for it. The miracles by which these tribes have been converted have been the lives of the ministers, though there have not been lacking other miracles, for the Lord has now and then shown the power of His hand. There were at first six religious of this order; and when the Indians saw them, they immediately asked the fathers when they were going away. The natives saw no opportunity to drive them away from their country; and so much did they detest them that there was no means by which they could be induced to give the fathers anything to eat, even for money. Thus for the space of three years they suffered many hardships; but their rebelliousness could not outstrip the patience of the fathers. Besides all this, five of the fathers fell sick at once, and were in that condition for five months; but at the end of that time, God was pleased to give them their health without physician, or medicine, or comforts. Such was the treatment accorded them by the Indians, to say nothing of the fact that no one was converted to our holy faith. The bishop of these islands, Don Fray Domingo de Salazar, noticing this fact, begged the religious to leave the Indians and depart from their country. This he did at the request of many Spanish captains. It was true that these Indians were of all the tribes in the country the worst, the fiercest, and the most cruel – an unconquered tribe who celebrated their feasts by cutting off one another’s heads. But the superior who was then at the head of the province was unwilling to take this step; on the contrary, he said, ‘These bad Indians are the ones whom I wish my friars to convert.’ After three years, during which they only baptized a few boys (for the natives were unwilling to give the girls), the Indians began to believe in the religious; and the beginning that the Lord chose for this was the following. When the Indians perceived the way in which the friars lived, the fasts and penances which they performed, their patience amid hardships, and the fact that the fathers not only did them no harm, but came to their aid in their necessities, they began to be mollified, and to believe what the friars said. The story is told that an Indian chief went one night to a religious and said to him: ‘Father, you must know that I have been watching you for two years, and have carefully noted everything that you do; and I see that you all have one way of living. If one of you does not eat, no more do the others; if one of you rises at midnight to pray, so do the rest; if one of you avoids women, all the rest of you do so too. You all of you follow one rule and one road; you strive to obtain neither gold nor silver; you are ill-treated and yet patient; you do all things for our good. Hence I have resolved to believe you, since I am persuaded people who act like you will not deceive.’ So high did the good opinion of these Dominican religious rise among those people (God having ordained it thus in His goodness and providence), that the Indians actually regarded those of this habit as sinless; so much so that if the devil sometimes suggested to an Indian woman an improper dream with reference to a friar, when the woman afterwards came to confess she did not say: ‘I accuse myself of having dreamed this about a friar,’ but, ‘about a devil in the shape of a friar.’ When the leading men of the tribe began to consider becoming Christians – their headmen being already so, as well as some others – they came to the religious, and persuaded them that, in order that all of them might be converted together, they should first of all give up in a single day everything which they held in commission for the devil; these things were the instruments which they used for their sacrifices. The fathers accordingly did as they wished, and, with the assistance of these same governors of the country there were given up an infinite number of pieces of earthen ware and a great deal of very old wine – for this is regarded as the thing consecrated to the devil; and no one dares touch or go near it except at the time of the sacrifice, and then only the minister who performs it. They are accustomed to keep this wine at the head of the bed in a little earthen jar, like holy water. When they had given all this up (which they did with very good will), they all proposed immediately to become Christians, and to know and learn the things of our holy Catholic religion. After they had learned them and been instructed in them, they were directed to fast for forty days, or one month; and general baptisms took place on the eve of the feasts of the Resurrection and Pentecost. [Long before this a marvel had happened in which an Indian had been cured of a frightful rupture after his baptism. This made the Indians regard the baptism as something medicinal, and they wished to be baptized whenever they were sick, in order to be cured; but the fathers undeceived them. They made the same mistake about the sign of the cross, and in regard to the cross itself. Visions were seen. At one time, when some of the brethren were desirous of leaving this region and of going to China to preach the gospel, one of them laid the matter before the Lord in prayer. He dreamed that night that he saw the good man of a household, clad in a long robe, and sending men out to reap his harvest. When they came to one sterile place where there was only a spike of grain here and there, they did not wish to reap it, but to go to another field where the harvest was rich; but the good man said to them: ‘Will you not reap here? then you shall reap neither here nor there.’ Finally, God was pleased that by the patience and sufferings of these ministers this tribe should be converted and baptized. They are now very good Christians, insomuch that some of them can conduct prayer like religious who most closely follow the rules of their order. They are people of very good intelligence, and often put very clever questions and propose intelligent doubts. At one time when a religious was preaching of the mercy of God in dying for men, an Indian woman rose in the midst of his sermon, and said: ‘Wait, Father. How can you say that Christ died? You have said that Christ was God; but God cannot die.’ At another time, a sick Indian put the question whether God did not concur in all things that happened in the earth and was not thus responsible for the evil of it. They even go beyond things required, in order to do works of supererogation, many of them rising at midnight to pray when the matin bell rings; they follow the fasts of the Dominican order; when they rise, the first thing they do at dawn is to make an offering of themselves and all that they have to our Lord; whenever they begin an undertaking, they first offer it to God, with their minds, their hearts, and their hands in the work. Though poor, they give alms frequently. Some of them, whenever they eat, put aside a portion as ‘Christ’s food,’ and send it to some sick person. Some of them fast during the whole Advent, in preparation for the feast of the Nativity. It is said of one Indian woman that St. Mary and St. Joseph visited and ate with her one Advent. All the Spaniards and religious of other orders are amazed at this conversion, and especially at seeing them give up vices so enticing as drunkenness, which used to be very common among them – up to the point of making them unable to keep their feet – but which they have now given up so completely that some do not even taste wine. They greatly delight in the devotion of the rosary. The very friars who are their ministers are amazed to see such a conversion in a tribe so barbarous, so cruel, and so completely given over to vice. Their minds are set upon preparing themselves for death, so that they regard all besides – houses, property, and children, and all temporal things – as merely accessory. Those who can afford it have masses said for their souls while they are still alive, as if they were already dead; and give much alms to this end. Those who have not the means for this, fast and mortify themselves. In this province the ministers have begun to give the most holy sacrament of the communion to the natives, as being adult in the faith. They prepare themselves for the communion with great devotion. As there are no masses except on the great feasts, some prepare themselves as if they were to communicate every month, being contented with spiritual communion. The hand of the Lord hath wrought this; for the ministers had this success, with a race speaking a foreign language, one which the missionaries did not know as thoroughly as their own, while when these same men preached to those of our own nation and language, their words have had no such effect. The fault is in the hearers, who are unwilling to profit by the good which God has sent them.” Here the report of Venavides ends. Other reports have been sent to España of the perfect devotion of these people. One of these tells how the Indians crowd the churches at the time of confession, fast, and communicate regularly; how many of the married ones live a great part of the time not as man and wife but as brother and sister – in particular, during Lent, and for some days before communicating; how there would be no end to the good that might be said about these people; and how some of them are of very good intelligence, and ingenious in asking questions which make the ministers reflect. This report is by father Fray Juan de Sancto Domingo, afterward a holy martyr in Japon.37 It is dated at Magaldan, a village of Pangasinan, November 8, 1618. Father Fray Bernardo de Santa Catalina or Navarro, the apostle to this tribe, one of whose reports bears date of Manila, the twenty-fourth of [sic] one thousand six hundred and twelve, says that the great care manifested by our religious in following the rules of the order has given them power to overcome these unconquerable tribes. He reports that the number of persons baptized in the province of Pangasinan has grown from a few new-born boys to ten thousand, and that the number of those in this region who are prepared for heaven is constantly increasing.]