They buried their dead in their own houses, and kept their bodies and bones for a long time in chests.  They venerated the skulls of the dead as if they were living and present.  Their funeral rites did not consist of pomp or assemblages, beyond those of their own house—­where, after bewailing the dead, all was changed into feasting and drunken revelry among all the relatives and friends. [161]

A few years before the Spaniards subdued the island of Luzon, certain natives of the island of Borneo began to go thither to trade, especially to the settlement of Manila and Tondo; and the inhabitants of the one island intermarried with those of the other.  These Borneans are Mahometans, and were already introducing their religion among the natives of Luzon, and were giving them instructions, ceremonies, and the form of observing their religion, by means of certain gazizes [162] whom they brought with them.  Already a considerable number, and those the chiefest men, were commencing, although by piecemeal, to become Moros, and were being circumcised [163] and taking the names of Moros.  Had the Spaniards’ coming been delayed longer, that religion would have spread throughout the island, and even through the others, and it would have been difficult to extirpate it.  The mercy of God checked it in time; for, because of being in so early stages, it was uprooted from the islands, and they were freed from it, that is, in all that the Spaniards have pacified, and that are under the government of the Filipinas.  That religion has spread and extended very widely in the other islands outside of this government, so that now almost all of their natives are Mahometan Moros, and are ruled and instructed by their gacizes and other morabitos; [164] these often come to preach to and teach them by way of the strait of Ma[la]ca and the Red Sea, through which they navigate to reach these islands.

The arrival of the Spaniards in these Filipinas Islands, since the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-four, the pacification and conversion that has been made therein, their mode of governing, and the provisions of his Majesty during these years for their welfare, have caused innovations in many things, such as are usual to kingdoms and provinces that change their religion and sovereign.  The foremost has been that, besides the name of Filipinas which all the islands took and received from the beginning of their conquest, they belong to a new kingdom and seigniory to which his Majesty, Filipo Second, our sovereign, gave the name of Nuevo Reyno de Castilla ["New Kingdom of Castilla"].  By his royal concession, he made the city of Manila capital of it, and gave to it as a special favor, among other things, a crowned coat-of-arms which was chosen and assigned by his royal person.  This is an escutcheon divided across.  In the upper part is a castle on a red field, and in the lower a lion of gold, crowned and rampant, holding a naked sword in its right paw.  One-half of the body is in the form of a dolphin upon the waters of the sea, to signify that the Spaniards crossed the sea with their arms to conquer this kingdom for the crown of Castilla. [165]