The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 316 pages of information about The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 316 pages of information about The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55.
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
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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.