The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 32, 1640

They derived some relief from their sufferings from one happy circumstance provided them by God, who seemed to have designed all these wanderings. This was that in the midst of these wildernesses they found a tiny village of Christian Indians; for this jurisdiction was under the charge of other ministers, but was very little visited by them, since it was at so great a distance and over so rough a road. They baptized two children, and heard the confessions of some adults – among them that of a woman who had not confessed for some years, having no one to confess to. Though she seemed well and healthy, she died that same day. This was a marked token of her predestination. They finally reached the principal village of the province, which is called Ytui, and takes its name from the village. The Indians received them with great demonstrations of joy, after their manner; and they remained there for eight days resting, and receiving visits from all the villages in the province, who sent ambassadors to bid them welcome with some presents of the fruits of the country. They set out afterwards to visit all the villages in it. Great and small, they visited eleven, that they might become acquainted with the temper of the Indians. In all they were received with the same tokens of pleasure. From what they saw and learned from the Indians, they had much to say in their report of the excellence of the country. They said that it was cool, so that by day the sun’s heat was pleasant at times, and a covering was agreeable at night. This is something new in these islands, which have the fault of being very hot. They reported that the country was so fertile that when Indians desired to plant their rice they only burn over a part of the mountain51 and, without any further plowing or digging, they make holes with a stick in the soil, and drop some grains of rice in them. This was their manner of sowing; and, after covering the rice with the same earth, they obtained very heavy crops. They said that some good fruits grew there, and that in their opinion that country would yield all the fruits of Spain, if the seeds of the latter were planted. There were, they affirmed, pleasant valleys with quiet rivers and streams in them from which the natives obtain some gold, and that the Indians are wont to wear golden earrings. They are not acquainted with silver, and do not care for it. They have no sort of money, so that all their sales and purchases are carried on by barter. They keep their villages very clean and in good condition – a new thing among the Indians. They also remarked that there was great fraternity between different villages. This is something even more unusual, for generally these nations live after the law of “Might makes right” [viva quien vence], at the expense of their heads. Hence these Indians walk alone over their roads without fear of being injured or robbed, for they are very safe in this respect – so much so that they leave the rice which they gather, each one in his own field, heaped up in the spike and covered with straw. They go there and carry what they want to their houses, to grind and eat, without fearing that anyone will take what is not his. They readily offered all their infants to the fathers to be baptized, so that within about three months, during which the religious went about visiting the villages, they baptized some four hundred. It would have been the same with the adults, if it had not been necessary to prepare them with the catechism. The fathers have been slow in this, because they have been obliged to translate the prayers into the native language, of which they have not a good command. They are spending their time in learning it, and on this account and no other are delayed in beginning baptism. In order that so few ministers may be able to teach the Indians, it is necessary to bring them together into a smaller number of villages, conveniently arranged so that the people may be visited and helped in their necessities. Since the country is very mountainous, the fathers have determined to bring and gather them in large settlements, at sites convenient for their fields, near a river which rises in this country, and which, increased by others, grows to be a very large stream, crossing the whole of Nueva Segovia to the ocean.52 This river, on account of its fish (upon which most of the Indians live), is also of great value to them. This is the only point as to which they are somewhat obstinate, because they are greatly grieved to leave their ancient abode. However, most of them have accepted it, and it is hoped that the rest will come, and in this way in a short time much will be gained by the aid of the Lord. Through the mountains next to this province, which are many and very rough, there wander a tribe of Indians known as Alegueses, a vagabond people having no settled places of abode. Father Fray Thomas sent word to them by an Indian chief of Ytuy that if they wished to come and settle one of the new sites which he indicated, he would receive them there as sons, and do them all the good he could. They answered in the affirmative, and he waited for them for some time; but before they came the holy man finished his days, full of years and of heroic works, as will soon be seen. This is the work which these apostolic men of God accomplished in only three months, as appears from the aforesaid report. They conclude their report with another case similar to that referred to above, of the woman who died so soon after she had confessed. In the goings-out and comings-in of the fathers among the Indians that they might become acquainted with them, they found in one village, called Palar, a very aged Indian woman who was dying. She had eaten nothing for five days. Father Fray Thomas went to see her, and began to talk with her of becoming a Christian for the salvation of her soul. He expounded to her briefly what she had to believe, and called upon her to repent of her sins. She answered as well as might be desired, and he accordingly baptized her on that day, which was the last day of her earthly life and the first day of her Christian one. It was a happy day, so far as can be judged; for, being newly baptized, she had merely to be recorded in purgatory. Not only in these new provinces where the dawn of the gospel’s light now begins to shine do extraordinary cases happen like those which have been mentioned, to the great glory of God and the joy of his ministers; but they also occur in many others where the dawn has risen high but has not yet bathed all the horizon, though it is covering it, little by little. From the province of Nueva Segovia father Fray Geronimo de Zamora,53 a native of the city of Zaragoça, wrote me a letter dated February 25, 1633. In it are these words: “Before Lent I went up the river of Mandayas” (this is the name of a part of that province), “to try to teach many Indians who were without Christian instruction in heathen darkness, but who paid tribute to the king our lord as his vassals, without even being sons of the Church. I asked them if I might visit them, and they received my request kindly and asked that I or some other father should remain among them. In token of the heartiness of their wish, they gave me, as a sort of hostages, ten sons of their chiefs to be baptized; and after having sufficiently instructed them, I baptized them, to the great joy and delight of my soul. I hope in God that in this way thousands of them may be redeemed from the power of the devil, for there is no one who will declare that they are not his.” He afterward asked aid from his neighbors to draw the net which was laden with so many fish as are promised by the casts already made there. Many are needed, but we may say here, “Where are those good men?”

It is not to be understood that only these new events are the good ones, or that among Christians who have been so for some time there are but few occurrences to rouse joy. This is not the case, for there are so many which have occurred among these latter that a very large book might be made of the account of them, if it were necessary to report what has happened hitherto, and what happens every day anew, to the holy old ministers of the gospel who have been and are among them, whose beards have grown, and whose hair has become white among the Indians. They are good witnesses to this truth, and to the growth that the Spirit is wont to cause in these clods of earth. As for those who grow weary quickly and leave the ministry, there is no necessity to say anything. It is certain that among those who have been Christians steadily for years there are fewer dangers; yet the care of them is of no less merit, and consequently the reward will be no less, since, as King David has well said (I Kings, xxx), Aequa pars erit descendentis ad praelium et remanentis ad sarcinas, et similiter divident.54

Here in Manila the order has under its care a hospital for the Chinese, in which the sick of that nation are cared for. The province may place this at the head of its possessions, since there is scarcely a day in which some soul or souls of newly baptized do not pass to heaven. Very few are they who die without baptism, and very many are they who give their souls to God before the baptismal waters are dry on their heads. This is accomplished with so little effort on the part of the minister that it calls upon him only to make a little effort, and to go from his cell to the infirmary. I do not know whether there is any other hospital in Christendom of the character of this hospital, its principal end being the cure of souls, while for the cure of bodies it has its physician, its medicines, and everything needed within its gates, besides the food and the dainties called for by the palates of the sick. The effects of the divine predestination which are beheld in it are so many that they are almost ordinary, and are therefore not mentioned.

[In Japon the persecution was increasing in fierceness, and very few letters were received. One of these, from father Fray Domingo de Erquicia, gives an account of the death of the emperor and the succession of his son, who was even more cruel than the father.55 He tells of the deaths over a slow fire of a father of the order of the calced Augustinians, and of two discalced; of a Japanese Franciscan priest of the tertiary order, and of a Franciscan brother; and of a Japanese father of the Society of Jesus – the remains of all being burned, and the ashes cast into the sea. On another occasion two Augustinian Recollects were burned. Two Franciscan fathers were captured, while two Dominicans were hidden in caves or cisterns, and did not see the sun or the moon for many days. From a Dominican at Macao, Fray Antonio del Rosario, testimony was received as to the great achievements of father Fray Domingo Erquicia.]

Chapter XLIV

The life and death of father Fray Thomas Gutierrez, vicar provincial of the province of Ytuy

[Father Fray Thomas Gutierrez was a native of the city of Origuela in the kingdom of Valencia; and he assumed the habit in the convent and college of the order there. When the opportunity offered he went to the province of Sant Hipolito de Oaxaca in Nueva España. Here he learned the language of the Mistecs, whose minister he was for some years. Coming to the Philippinas, he was assigned to the province of Pangasinan, where in a few months he learned the language so well that he surpassed many of the very natives. He rebuked the vices of the Indians with such efficacy that they called him “Thunder,” because he frightened them like the thunder, which they greatly fear. He was a rigid observer of the rules of the province and was notable for his modesty. He went courageously among the savage Indians, who often attack those who are traveling along the paths – not for their purses, but for their heads, he who cuts off the greatest number being the most highly esteemed among them.] On one occasion he came to a village of these Indians called Managuag. While he was there, more than four hundred of these Zambales, as they are called, appeared in the village, with their bows, arrows, lances, and daggers such as they use – which are so keen that in a single instant they strike a head to the earth. They came into the unsuspecting village with such a noise and shout that the poor inhabitants, being unarmed, almost died of fear. Some fled to the mountains, and some sixty Christian Indians took refuge in the house of a chief. When they saw that they were lost, having no weapons nor any means to defend themselves, they put themselves in the hands of God, and decided to make use of prayers in place of weapons; so they fell on their knees, and began in a loud voice to pray in their language. The Zambales, hearing them, surrounded the house and undertook to go up to it. Without knowing what held them back, they were several times obliged to retreat when they were half-way there. They finally set fire to it, though against their will, for they thought much of being able to take with them the heads of its inmates. It was burned to the ground in a few moments, with those who were within. Although God did not deliver them from the fire, He showed by a miracle that He had delivered them from the fires of hell, and perhaps from the fires of purgatory, exchanging those for this fire; for they were all found dead in a circle, untouched by the fire, and on their knees, with their elbows on the ground and their heads on their hands. Most of them took refuge in the church under the protection of the father and of God. These availed them; and the father, without attempting to close doors or windows, took in his hands a Christ that was on the altar, from whom he and the people (who were about him) all begged for mercy, which the Father of Mercies granted them. It was a marvelous thing that though the cemetery in front of the church had a wall the height of which was only from a few palmos up to two varas, the enemy were unable to cross it; and one of them, who leaped over it, was struck dead by a stray arrow. The roof of the church and the convent was of nipa, which is like so much dry straw to the fire. Upon it fell many brands and more than fifty burning arrows, none of which kindled it, though it was so inflammable. God, choosing to show who it was that defended this place, by the prayers of His servant Fray Thomas, permitted an Indian who was with him in the church, and who thought he was not safe there, to go out, thinking that he might escape by running. The enemy caught him and cut off his head in an instant. Not an arrow touched even the clothes of one of those who remained with the father, though these fell as thick as grass, and though many arrows passed among them, for they came in at the doors and windows of the church like showers of rain. Finally the enemy, frightened – although, being barbarians, they could not understand – when they saw that the fire would not catch, though there was nothing to prevent it, and that their arms would not injure these people, though disarmed, retreated with some heads (the spoils which they most desire) and with some captives. The father, when the disturbance was over, immediately set about burying the dead and putting the village in a situation to defend itself from any other similar attack.

On a mountain chain near two villages, one of which is one of the most important in the province of Pangasinan, which are called Binalatongan and Balanguey, there were some unpacified Indians so savage and barbarous that they knew no occupation but cutting off heads. They were even more cruel than the ones just referred to, and came down into the valleys, to the fields of the peaceful Indians and to the roads, to hunt the latter like so many deer. Father Fray Thomas was much grieved by this, and did not know what to do to prevent it. To keep them back by arms he had not the strength; and, as for arguments, these were not people who would accept them. He therefore made use of a means which the event showed to have been revealed to him from above, because according to carnal reason it seemed to be very contrary to the rules of prudence. He directed two Christian Indians to go up the mountains to the settlements of their enemies, totally unarmed, and to carry to them a certain message from him. They went, for the Indians did not know how to refuse to do what the father directed them; but they went as if they were going to the slaughter. When they came to the place, they made signs of peace; but the barbarians, who knew no more about peace than about theology, were on the point of killing them without listening to them. But one of the savages themselves diverted them from this purpose by saying that they would better listen to them first; that there would be time to kill them afterwards, because they could not escape. They called our Indians, and asked them what they wished; and they answered that they were bringing a message from father Fray Thomas their father; this was, that he begged them earnestly to do no more harm to these Indians their neighbors, who were to him as sons. He desired them to come down and settle in the plains wherever they pleased, promising that he would regard them likewise as his sons, and would show them great kindness. They were not acquainted with the father, and did not know his name; and some of them were of the opinion that they had better slay the simple ambassadors. Others, contrary to their usual practice, defended the latter, treated them well, and showed them hospitality. Among those who were thus kind to them were two chiefs, of whom one – who was, as it were, the leader of all – was named Duayen; the other was named Buaya. Their hearts, which were harder than the hearts of tigers, God softened without any other application than that which has been described. They sent back his ambassadors to the father with an escort to defend them in dangerous places, and to take them safe to his presence; and by them they sent the answer that they were very ready to do with a good will what he commanded them, and that they would come down to the plain and settle in three places, so situated that the father might visit and teach them. They did not delay in carrying out their promise. They built their villages, and in them churches and dwellings for the father. In one of the churches were baptized immediately a son and two daughters of Duayen, together with many other children, twenty of them boys. Thus was sown the seed of the gospel, which has grown luxuriantly, at no further cost than has been recounted. Father Fray Thomas was indefatigable in striving for the good of souls. For the benefit of souls he made journeys of twelve leguas on foot, over very bad roads and in the heat of the sun. He sometimes went among warlike Indians who cut off the heads of others, while he and those who went with him saved theirs. It seemed to his companion, when he took one, that even though the companion was weak, a contagion of strength went out from the father, so that his associate was able to follow him, and they both went on long journeys without being much exhausted. Father Fray Thomas was not grieved that the direction of his superior occupied him in different posts, and called him from one place which was already cultivated well to another which was not so, but very ill – an effect which might have resulted from various causes. In the province of Ylocos – which is next to that of Pangasinan, and between it and that of Nueva Segovia, all of them being in this island of Luçon – there is a large village called Nalbacan, the instruction of which was entrusted to secular clergy. As they were quickly changed, one after the other, and as some of them did not know the language of the natives, the village was in great lack of religious instruction. The bishop of these provinces, Don Diego de Soria, determined to give this village to the order, that it might minister to it. The father provincial who held that office at the time, charged father Fray Thomas with this duty. He set out there immediately, and began on the way to learn something of the language of the country, of which he had already a vocabulary and a grammar. Though it is different from that of Pangasinan, he preached in it at the end of twenty days after he arrived there, and before the bishop and other priests who were there, and before the natives, to the wonder of all. He began to fill his office so acceptably to the Indians that some came from the most remote parts of the province to confess to him and to receive his counsels. He was given the name of “the holy father,” and, whenever they spoke of him, they used this name. As this is the appellation of the supreme pontiff of the church, whom the Indians had never seen, and still less had any dealings with him, those who were not acquainted with the secret were surprised to hear them speak until they came to understand it. Father Fray Thomas remained here a year, and his teaching and example were easily perceived in the improvement of the Indians and of those who were under his direction. All this province of the Indians is under the care of Augustinian fathers, who have in it many places where they give Christian instruction. They accordingly claimed this of Nalbacan, which was the only place outside of their jurisdiction. The order was very willing to yield it, and in exchange for it the Augustinians gave to our order another, which they had among our ministries in Pangasinan; and thus each order remained with its province complete, with its own tribe and language. When the Augustinian fathers came to take possession of the house of father Fray Thomas, as they did somewhat in advance of the time, he departed with nothing but his cloak, his hat, his breviary, and his staff, setting out for the province of Nueva Segovia, which was very near, to wait for the order of his superior, and to be disposed of as he pleased. Desiring not to be idle in the interim, for he did not wish to be idle a single hour – and if he did not know the language he would have to be idle many hours – he learned the language of that country with the facility which God had given him. He was aided by the fact that the languages of these three provinces of Indians are somewhat alike, and resemble each other in their idioms and in their syntax – which does not seem to have been invented by a barbarous people, but by a race of intelligence and keenness of mind. He remained but a short time in this province, being sent by the order of his superior to his former province of Pangasinan, whose language he understood as if it were his mother-tongue. In this language he wrote many books of devotion, sermons, and treatises, which he distributed while he was alive among the fathers who were ministers to that people; and he left others behind him at his death, as his estate, for he had no other estate except instruments of penance. From these long journeys on foot, through these rough and hot regions, a sickness resulted in Pangasinan which threatened to be the last of his life, and obliged him to give up the ministry to the Indians, much against his will. He suffered from this very much more than from the pain of the illness; but what he could not gain in this life he laid up for the other by his admirable patience and fortitude. Finally God restored his health, without medicines or comforts, for which there is little provision here; and there was less then, because things were nearer the beginning, when everything was barrenness and extreme poverty. With all these merits, he still lacked one thing to fill up the measure of his deserts. The common enemy of souls guessed this, and once appeared to him, while he was reading a book of devotion, in a hideous and shocking form; and although the father made the sign of the cross, the enemy did not flee so quickly but that he had time to say that, if it were not for the stones on the father’s neck, he would be revenged upon him. This was the rosary, which the father took off neither by night nor by day, that he might be at all hours armed against him who may attack at any hour, and will do so whenever he is permitted. His zeal for souls increased with age, contrary to what often happens; for with the old age of the body, the weakening of the strength, and the increase of infirmity, old age often attacks the spirit – as St. Paul says (Hebrews, viii), Quod antiquatur et senescit prope interitum est56– which is as true of the spirit as of the body. When the father had reached the age of seventy years, he implored father Fray Francisco de Herrera, who was provincial at the time, to send him to Japon on the occasion when the large mission thither was planned which, afterward, God did not see fit to permit to be carried out. I think that this was not the first time that he proffered this request to his superiors. In proportion to the dangers and hardships promised by this mission, of which father Fray Thomas was not ignorant, was his earnestness in the desire to be a member of it. This is a proof of his vigorous spirit in venerable old age. His urgent request was not admitted, on the ground of his age; but he did not lose the merit of it, since he made it without any hypocrisy. God preserved him for another mission (that described in the previous chapter), which he undertook in the province of Ytui. He had made a beginning there in former years, but had not carried it on because of the obstacle there mentioned. He had now come to three years beyond seventy, and undertook the difficult expedition already described with as much spirit and energy as if he had only half his years. Yet he was much bowed with infirmities, as well as with age; and between them he seemed, as he walked, to be dragging along his body and his bowels. The words which the church sings of the holy old Simeon are not inappropriate, Senex puerum portabat; puer autem senem regebat.57 This same God whose name he, as His vassal, desired to carry to all regions, directed him and strengthened him, so that he undertook enterprises so far beyond the strength of one bowed with years and infirmities. In this period of his life he began to learn the language of this province, accomplishing his purpose in three months, and beginning to preach to the natives in it. He went to attend them in their spiritual needs whenever they summoned him, however far away he was, without heeding rain, or sun, or difficult roads. Though very compassionate to all, he was rigorous to himself alone, and that throughout his life. Every night he took a rigorous discipline; and never after he entered the order did he eat meat, except in case of grave necessity. He did not complain of his food when it was scanty or ill prepared, in sickness or in health. To the fasts of the order he added others. After the festival of the Resurrection he added another Lent up to Whitsunday, and another afterwards to the day of our father St. Dominic, so that the whole year was to him fasting and Lent. On Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays throughout the year, and on the eves of the festivals of Christ our Lord, of the Virgin his most holy Mother, and of our father St. Dominic, and of the saints of the order, he fasted on bread and water. As a result he possessed that which follows such fasting – a heroic degree of chastity. Finally the last illness of his life came upon him, being occasioned by a fall from a precipice, while he was in the work of his ministry. During the whole time of his illness, his companion could not persuade him to accept a sheet of very coarse cotton, or to permit his bed to be changed. On the bed which he had in health, which was a frame of cane-work covered with a patched blanket, he desired to await the hour of his death. Before his death he made a general confession, covering his whole life from the time before he reached years of discretion. Though his confession covered so many years, it lasted about a quarter of an hour. After he had most devoutly received the other sacraments, he died in the Lord, March 30, 1633. The following provincial chapter, in giving notice to the province of his happy death, said: “In the province of Ytui father Fray Thomas Gutierrez ended his days, an aged priest and father, most observant of the rules of the order, severe to himself and most gentle to others. He labored in this province for the good of souls for the space of five and thirty years, with such devotion that the very Indians, by whom he was most beloved, held and regarded him as pious and a saint. This aroused the ill-will of the devil, who appeared to him while he was at prayer; and the wicked enemy was able to arouse in him great fear and terror, but not to harm him, because he found him protected with the impregnable rosary of the Virgin. Of him we have the pious faith that, full of years and of virtue, he has flown to heaven.”