Although it will be somewhat of a digression, we cannot help saying something of the barbarous customs of those heathen Calamianes.  They recognized a first cause, which governed what was visible.  They attributed good or evil events to fortune and to the star of each one.  They adored a deity who resembled Ceres, to whom they commended their fields and offered their fruits.  They worshiped another petty deity who resembled Mars, in order to gain his protection in their battles.  They believed in the humalagar [i.e., soul of an ancestor] (as we said of the Charaghas)—­whom they summoned in their sicknesses by means of their priestesses.  The priestesses placed a leaf of a certain kind of palm upon the head of the sick man, and prayed that it [i.e., the soul] would come to sit there, and grant him health.  They also venerated the moon, asking that it would aid them at the time of death.  They celebrated the obsequies of the dead during the full moon.

Their priests were highly revered, and were called mangaloc.  The devil showed them what they asked from him, in water, with certain shadows or figures.  They practiced circumcision, and had ministers assigned for it.  They had as many concubines as they could support.  If the first wife committed adultery, the penalty was to repudiate her for a certain time.  When anyone wished to have a share in the inheritance of the dead, he laid a piece of his garment upon the corpse, and thereby acquired that right, but he was obliged to aid the deceased’s children.  They had no fidelity among themselves, whence many conflicts arose.  In order to clear themselves of calumnies or charges, they invented various tricks.  At times, divine Providence, breaking their entanglements, defended the innocent and punished the guilty.

Their arms consisted of bows and arrows.  On the point of the arrow they fitted a fish spine, with a certain poison that was so effective that it was mortal even if it only slightly touched the flesh.  They used short spears and certain shields which they called carazas.  They carried certain knives with two sharp edges, which were short, like daggers.  They used jackets or doublets of well-twisted cord, and under those others of rattan, a kind of osier.  By means of these they turn aside the sharp, keen bamboos which, of the length of two brazas, are hurled in naval battles, with which they do great harm. [55]

Wonders were not wanting in the conversions of those people.  The Christian parents of an Indian woman brought her into the presence of father Fray Juan de San Joseph, and, as she was suffering grievously from a violent fever, begged him to baptize her, for they feared lest she die without that sacrament.  The father instructed and catechised her, and told her to have confidence, and that baptism would save her, soul and body.  The heathen woman received that instruction so thoroughly that when she was baptized, she was as well from her illness as if she had never had it, God rewarding her faith, and encouraging others so that they should receive baptism.