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History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2

A >> Antonio de Morga >> History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2




In the same way, it may happen in divisions between heirs that a slave
will fall to several, and serves each one for the time that is due
him. When the slave is not wholly slave, but half or fourth, he has
the right, because of that part that is free, to compel his master to
emancipate him for a just price. This price is appraised and regulated
for persons according to the quality of their slavery, whether it be
saguiguilir or namamahay, half slave or quarter slave. But, if he is
wholly slave, the master cannot be compelled to ransom or emancipate
him for any price.

The usual price of a sanguiguilir slave among the natives is, at most,
generally ten taes of good gold, or eighty pesos; if he is namamahay,
half of that sum. The others are in the same proportion, taking into
consideration the person and his age.

No fixed beginning can be assigned as the origin of these kinds of
slavery among these natives, because all the slaves are natives of
the islands, and not strangers. It is thought that they were made in
their wars and quarrels. The most certain knowledge is that the most
powerful made the others slaves, and seized them for slight cause or
occasion, and many times for loans and usurious contracts which were
current among them. The interest, capital, and debt, increased so much
with delay that the borrowers became slaves. Consequently all these
slaveries have violent and unjust beginnings; and most of the suits
among the natives are over these, and they occupy the judges in the
exterior court with them, and their confessors in that of conscience.
[317]

These slaves comprise the greatest wealth and capital of the natives
of these islands, for they are very useful to them and necessary
for the cultivation of their property. They are sold, traded, and
exchanged among them, just as any other mercantile article, from one
village to another, from one province to another, and likewise from
one island to another. Therefore, and to avoid so many suits as would
occur if these slaveries were examined, and their origin and source
ascertained, they are preserved and held as they were formerly.

The marriages of these natives, commonly and generally were, and
are: Chiefs with women chiefs; timaguas with those of that rank; and
slaves with those of their own class. But sometimes these classes
intermarry with one another. They considered one woman, whom they
married, as the legitimate wife and the mistress of the house;
and she was styled ynasaba. [318] Those whom they kept besides her
they considered as friends. The children of the first were regarded
as legitimate and whole heirs of their parents; the children of the
others were not so regarded, and were left something by assignment,
but they did not inherit.

The dowry was furnished by the man, being given by his parents. The
wife furnished nothing for the marriage, until she had inherited
it from her parents. The solemnity of the marriage consisted in
nothing more than the agreement between the parents and relatives of
the contracting parties, the payment of the dowry agreed upon to the
father of the bride, [319] and the assembling at the wife's parents'
house of all the relatives to eat and drink until they would fall
down. At night the man took the woman to his house and into his
power, and there she remained. These marriages were annulled and
dissolved for slight cause, with the examination and judgment of the
relatives of both parties, and of the old men, who acted as mediators
in the affairs. At such a time the man took the dowry (which they call
vigadicaya), [320] unless it happened that they separated through the
husband's fault; for then it was not returned to him, and the wife's
parents kept it. The property that they had acquired together was
divided into halves, and each one disposed of his own. If one made
any profits in which the other did not have a share or participate,
he acquired it for himself alone.

The Indians were adopted one by another, in presence of the
relatives. The adopted person gave and delivered all his actual
possessions to the one who adopted him. Thereupon he remained
in his house and care, and had a right to inherit with the other
children. [321]

Adulteries were not punishable corporally. If the adulterer paid the
aggrieved party the amount adjudged by the old men and agreed upon
by them, then the injury was pardoned, and the husband was appeased
and retained his honor. He would still live with his wife and there
would be no further talk about the matter.

In inheritances all the legitimate children inherited equally from
their parents whatever property they had acquired. If there were any
movable or landed property which they had received from their parents,
such went to the nearest relatives and the collateral side of that
stock, if there were no legitimate children by an ynasaba. This was
the case either with or without a will. In the act of drawing a will,
there was no further ceremony than to have written it or to have
stated it orally before acquaintances.

If any chief was lord of a barangai, then in that case, the eldest son
of an ynasaba succeeded him. If he died, the second son succeeded. If
there were no sons, then the daughters succeeded in the same order. If
there were no legitimate successors, the succession went to the
nearest relative belonging to the lineage and relationship of the
chief who had been the last possessor of it.

If any native who had slave women made concubines of any of them,
and such slave woman had children, those children were free, as was
the slave. But if she had no children, she remained a slave. [322]

These children by a slave woman, and those borne by a married woman,
were regarded as illegitimate, and did not succeed to the inheritance
with the other children, neither were the parents obliged to leave
them anything. Even if they were the sons of chiefs, they did not
succeed to the nobility or chieftainship of the parents, nor to their
privileges, but they remained and were reckoned as plebeians and in
the number and rank of the other timaguas.

The contracts and negotiations of these natives were generally illegal,
each one paying attention to how he might better his own business
and interest.

Loans with interest were very common and much practiced, and the
interest incurred was excessive. The debt doubled and increased all
the time while payment was delayed, until it stripped the debtor of
all his possessions, and he and his children, when all their property
was gone, became slaves. [323]

Their customary method of trading was by bartering one thing for
another, such as food, cloth, cattle, fowls, lands, houses, fields,
slaves, fishing-grounds, and palm-trees (both nipa and wild). Sometimes
a price intervened, which was paid in gold, as agreed upon, or in metal
bells brought from China. These bells they regard as precious jewels;
they resemble large pans and are very sonorous. [324] They play upon
these at their feasts, and carry them to the war in their boats instead
of drums and other instruments. There are often delays and terms for
certain payments, and bondsmen who intervene and bind themselves,
but always with very usurious and excessive profits and interests.

Crimes were punished by request of the aggrieved parties. Especially
were thefts punished with greater severity, the robbers being enslaved
or sometimes put to death. [325] The same was true of insulting words,
especially when spoken to chiefs. They had among themselves many
expressions and words which they regarded as the highest insult,
when said to men and women. These were pardoned less willingly and
with greater difficulty than was personal violence, such as wounding
and assaulting. [326]

Concubinage, rape, and incest, were not regarded at all, unless
committed by a timagua on the person of a woman chief. It was
a quite ordinary practice for a married man to have lived a long
time in concubinage with the sister of his wife. Even before having
communication with his wife he could have had access for a long
time to his mother-in-law, especially if the bride were very young,
and until she were of sufficient age. This was done in sight of all
the relatives.

Single men are called bagontaos, [327] and girls of marriageable age,
dalagas. Both classes are people of little restraint, and from early
childhood they have communication with one another, and mingle with
facility and little secrecy, and without this being regarded among
the natives as a cause for anger. Neither do the parents, brothers,
or relatives, show any anger, especially if there is any material
interest in it, and but little is sufficient with each and all.

As long as these natives lived in their paganism, it was not known
that they had fallen into the abominable sin against nature. But after
the Spaniards had entered their country, through communication with
them--and still more, through that with the Sangleys, who have come
from China, and are much given to that vice--it has been communicated
to them somewhat, both to men and to women. In this matter it has
been necessary to take action.

The natives of the islands of Pintados, especially the women, are very
vicious and sensual. Their perverseness has discovered lascivious
methods of communication between men and women; and there is one to
which they are accustomed from their youth. The men skilfully make
a hole in their virile member near its head, and insert therein a
serpent's head, either of metal or ivory, and fasten it with a peg of
the same material passed through the hole, so that it cannot become
unfastened. With this device, they have communication with their wives,
and are unable to withdraw until a long time after copulation. They are
very fond of this and receive much pleasure from it, so that, although
they shed a quantity of blood, and receive other harm, it is current
among them. These devices are called sagras, and there are very few
of them, because since they have become Christians, strenuous efforts
are being made to do away with these, and not consent to their use;
and consequently the practice has been checked in great part. [328]

Herbalists and witches are common among these natives, but are not
punished or prohibited among them, so long as they do not cause any
special harm. But seldom could that be ascertained or known.

There were also men whose business was to ravish and take away
virginity from young girls. These girls were taken to such men, and
the latter were paid for ravishing them, for the natives considered it
a hindrance and impediment if the girls were virgins when they married.

In matters of religion, the natives proceeded more barbarously and
with greater blindness than in all the rest. For besides being pagans,
without any knowledge of the true God, they neither strove to discover
Him by way of reason, nor had any fixed belief. The devil usually
deceived them with a thousand errors and blindnesses. He appeared to
them in various horrible and frightful forms, and as fierce animals,
so that they feared him and trembled before him. They generally
worshiped him, and made images of him in the said forms. These they
kept in caves and private houses, where they offered them perfumes
and odors, and food and fruit, calling them anitos. [329]

Others worshiped the sun and the moon, and made feasts and
drunken revels at the conjunction of those bodies. Some worshiped a
yellow-colored bird that dwells in their woods, called batala. They
generally worship and adore the crocodiles when they see them, by
kneeling down and clasping their hands, because of the harm that
they receive from those reptiles; they believe that by so doing
the crocodiles will become appeased and leave them. Their oaths,
execrations, and promises are all as above mentioned, namely, "May
buhayan eat thee, if thou dost not speak truth, or fulfil what thou
hast promised," and similar things.

There were no temples throughout those islands, nor houses generally
used for the worship of idols; but each person possessed and
made in his house his own anitos, [330] without any fixed rite or
ceremony. They had no priests or religious to attend to religious
affairs, except certain old men and women called catalonas. These
were experienced witches and sorcerers, who kept the other people
deceived. The latter communicated to these sorcerers their desires
and needs, and the catalonas told them innumerable extravagancies and
lies. The catalonas uttered prayers and performed other ceremonies to
the idols for the sick; and they believed in omens and superstitions,
with which the devil inspired them, whereby they declared whether the
patient would recover or die. Such were their cures and methods, and
they used various kinds of divinations for all things. All this was
with so little aid, apparatus, or foundation--which God permitted, so
that the preaching of the holy gospel should find those of that region
better prepared for it, and so that those natives would confess the
truth more easily, and it would be less difficult to withdraw them
from their darkness, and the errors in which the devil kept them for
so many years. They never sacrificed human beings as is done in other
kingdoms. They believed that there was a future life where those
who had been brave and performed valiant feats would be rewarded;
while those who had done evil would be punished. But they did not
know how or where this would be. [331]

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. [332]

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
[333] 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 [334] 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 gaçizes and other morabitos; [335] 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. [336]

The city of Manila was founded by the adelantado Miguel Lopez de
Legazpi, first governor of the Filipinas, in the island of Luzon. It
occupies the same site where Rajamora had his settlement and fort--as
has been related more at length--at the mouth of the river which
empties into the bay, on a point between the river and the sea. The
whole site was occupied by this new settlement, and Legazpi apportioned
it to the Spaniards in equal building-lots. It was laid out with
well-arranged streets and squares, straight and level. A sufficiently
large main square [Plaza mayor] was left, fronting which were erected
the cathedral church and municipal buildings. He left another square,
that of arms [Plaza de armas], fronting which was built the fort, as
well as the royal buildings. He gave sites for the monasteries, [337]
hospital, and chapels which were to be built, as being a city which
was to grow and increase continually--as already it has done; for,
in the course of the time that has passed, that city has flourished
as much as the best of all the cities in those regions.

The city is completely surrounded with a stone wall, which is more
than two and one-half varas wide, and in places more than three. It
has small towers and traverses at intervals. [338] It has a fortress
of hewn stone at the point that guards the bar and the river, with a
ravelin close to the water, upon which are mounted some large pieces
of artillery. This artillery commands the sea and river, while other
pieces are mounted farther up to defend the bar, besides some other
moderate-sized field-pieces and swivel-guns. These fortifications
have their vaults for storing supplies and munitions, and a magazine
for the powder, which is well guarded and situated in the inner
part; and a copious well of fresh water. There are also quarters
for the soldiers and artillerymen, and the house of the commandant
[alcayde]. The city has been lately fortified on the land side at the
Plaza de armas, where it is entered by a strong wall and two salient
towers, defended with artillery, which command the wall and gate. This
fortress is called Santiago, and has a company of thirty soldiers
with their officers, and eight artillerymen who guard the gate and
entrance by watches--all in charge of a commandant who lives inside,
and has the guard and custody of the fort.

There is another fortress, also of stone, in the same wall, within
culverin range, located at the end [339] of the curtain, which extends
along the shore of the bay. It is called Nuestra Señora de Guia, and
is a very large round tower. It has its own court, well, and quarters
inside, as well as the magazine, and other rooms for work. It has a
traverse extending to the beach, on which are mounted a dozen large and
moderate-sized pieces, which command the bay and sweep the wall, which
extends along the shore to the gate and to the fort of Santiago. On
the other side the fortress has a large salient tower, mounted with
four large pieces, which command the shore ahead in the direction of
the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Guia. The gate and entrance is within
the city and is guarded by a company of twenty soldiers and their
officers, six artillerymen, and one commandant and his lieutenant,
who live inside.

On the land side, where the wall extends, there is a rampart called
Sant Andres, which mounts six pieces of artillery that command in
all directions, and some swivel-guns. Farther on is another traverse
called San Gabriel, opposite the parián of the Sangleys, with a like
amount of artillery. Both have some soldiers and an ordinary guard.

The wall has a sufficient height, and is furnished with battlements and
turrets, built in the modern style, for its defense. It has a circuit
of about one legua, which can be made entirely on top. It has many
broad steps of the same hewn stone, at intervals inside. There are
three principal city gates on the land side, and many other posterns
opening at convenient places on the river and beach, for the service
of the city. Each and all of them are locked before nightfall by
the ordinary patrols. These carry the keys to the guard-room of the
royal buildings. In the morning when day comes, the patrols return
with the keys and open the city. [340]

The royal arsenals front on the Plaza de armas. In them are kept and
guarded all the supplies of ammunition, food, rigging, iron, copper,
lead, artillery, arquebuses, and other things belonging to the royal
estate. They have their own officers and workmen, and are placed in
charge of the royal officials.

Near these arsenals is located the powder-house, with its master,
workmen, and convicts, where powder is generally ground in thirty
mortars, and that which is spoiled is refined. [341]

The building for the founding of artillery is located on a suitable
site in another part of the city. It has its molds, ovens, and tools,
founders, and workmen who work it. [342]

The royal buildings are very beautiful and sightly, and contain many
rooms. They have many windows opening toward the sea and the Plaza
de armas. They are all built of stone and have two courts, with
upper and lower galleries raised on stout pillars. The governor and
president lives inside with his family. There is a hall for the royal
Audiencia, which is very large and stately; also a separate chapel,
a room for the royal seal, [343] and offices for the scriveners of the
Audiencia, and the government. There are also other apartments for the
royal treasury and the administration of the royal officials, while a
large porch opens on the street with two principal doors, where the
guardroom is located. There is one company of regular arquebusiers,
who come in daily with their banners to stand guard. Opposite, on the
other side of the street, is another edifice for the royal treasury
and those in charge of it. [344]

The houses of the cabildo, located on the square, are built of
stone. They are very sightly and have handsome halls. On the ground
floor is the prison, and the court of the alcaldes-in-ordinary. [345]

On the same square is situated the cathedral church. It is built
of hewn stone, and has three naves, and its main chapel, and choir,
with high and low seats. The choir is shut in by railings, and has
its organ, missal-stands, and other necessary things. The cathedral
has also its sacristan [346] and his apartments and offices.

Within the city is the monastery of St. Augustine. It is very large
and has many dormitories, a refectory and kitchens. They are now
completing a church, which is one of the most sumptuous in those
districts. This convent has generally fifty religious. [347]

The monastery of St. Dominic is inside the walls. It contains
about forty religious. It was built of stone, and was very well
constructed. It has a church, house, and all offices. It has lately
been rebuilt, and much better; for it was completely destroyed in
the burning of the city in the year six hundred and three.

The monastery of St. Francis is farther on. It is well constructed
of stone, and its church is being rebuilt. It contains about forty
discalced religious.

The residence [colegio] of the Society of Jesus is established near
the fortress of Nuestra Señora de Guia. It contains twenty religious
of their order, and is an excellent stone house and church. There
they study Latin, the arts, and cases of conscience. Connected with
them is a seminary and convictorio [348] for Spanish scholars, with
their rector. These students wear gowns of tawny-colored frieze with
red facings. [349]

In another part of the city stands a handsome house, walled in, with
its stone church, called San Andres and Santa Potenciana. It is a royal
foundation, and a rectoress lives there. It has a revolving entrance
and a parlor, and the rectoress has other confidential assistants;
and there shelter is given to needy women and girls of the city,
in the form of religious retirement. Some of the girls leave the
house to be married, while others remain there permanently. It has
its own house for work, and its choir. His Majesty assists them with
a portion of their maintenance; the rest is provided by their own
industry and property. They have their own steward and their priest,
who administers the sacraments to them. [350]

In another part is the royal hospital for Spaniards, with its
physician, apothecary, surgeons, managers, and servants. It and its
church are built of stone; and it has its sick rooms and the bed
service. In it all the Spaniards are treated. It is usually quite
full; it is under the royal patronage. His Majesty provides the most
necessary things for it. Three discalced religious of St. Francis
act there as superintendents, and they prove very advantageous for
the corporal and spiritual relief of the sick. It was burned in the
conflagration of the former year six hundred and three, and is now
being rebuilt.

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