to the people—telling them what offerings
of birds and other things they must make, according
to the request and wish of the Devil. They sacrifice
usually a hog and offer it to him, holding many other
like superstitions in these invocations, in order
that the Devil may come and talk to them in the reed:
When any chief dies, they kill some of his slaves,
a greater or less number according to his quality
and his wealth. They are all buried in coffins
made out of two boards, and they bury with them their
finest clothes, porcelain ware, and gold jewels.
Some are buried in the ground, and others of the chief
men are placed in certain lofty houses.” [72]
Legazpi ordered that in future no slaves be killed
at the death of their chiefs, an order which they
promised to obey. The natives desired to procure
iron in their trading, but Legazpi ordered that none
be given them by anyone. However, the trade was
continued secretly, the iron being concealed in clothing,
even after some of the men had been punished.
By various dealings with the natives Legazpi discovered
that they were deceiving him in regard to other natives
of Cebu and the island of Matan; they had said that
these men would make peace and friendship, but they
never appeared. The inhabitants of Matan had
always been hostile to the Spaniards, “saying
that they would kill us, or at least would drive us
away by hunger.” One day Tupas told the
governor that “his wife and daughters would like
to come to see him, because they had a great desire
to know him. He replied that he would be very
glad and that Tupas should bring them whenever he
wished; accordingly, Tupas did so after a few days.
Their manner of coming was such that the women came
by themselves in procession, two and two, the chief
one last of all. After this manner came the wife
of Tupas with her arms on the shoulders of two principal
women, with a procession of more than sixty women,
all singing in a high voice. Most of them wore
palm-leaf hats on their heads, and some of them garlands
of various kinds of flowers; some were adorned with
gold, and some with clasps on their legs, and wearing
earrings and armlets, and gold rings on their hands
and fingers. They were all clad in colored petticoats
or skirts and shawls, some of them made of taffety.”
The usual good cheer followed, and presents were made
to all the women. The same good treatment was
accorded to the wives of other chiefs who visited
the settlement in the same manner. Legazpi “after
his arrival in these islands, tried always to put the
minds of the natives at rest, not allowing them to
receive any wrong or hurt, or permitting that anything
belonging to them should be taken from them without
being paid for ... principally in this island of Zubu,
where he thought to live and dwell permanently among
the natives.” A few days after the coming
of Tupas’s wife and the other women, he sent
his niece to Legazpi. She was the first native
to receive baptism, “although the father prior