Lesson 1: Excerpt from

Antonio Pigafetta’s First

Voyage Around the World
(Chronicle)
Antonio Pigafetta
An Italian scholar and explorer from
the Republic of Venice
During the expedition, he served as
Magellan's assistant and kept an
accurate journal which later assisted
him in translating the Cebuano
language. It is the first recorded
document concerning the language
 Excerpt: This portion is
referring to the events that
transpired before, during,
and after the Battle of Mactan
Characters:
On Friday, April twenty-six, Zula, a chief of the
island of Matan, sent one of his sons to present
two goats to the captain-general, and to say that he
would send him all that he had promised, but that
he had not been able to send it to him because of
the other chief Cilapulapu, who refused to obey
the king of Spagnia.
At midnight, sixty men of us set out armed
with corselets and helmets, together with the
Christian king, the prince, some of the chief
men, and twenty or thirty balanguais. We
reached Matan three hours before dawn.
They replied that if we had lances they
had lances of bamboo and stakes
hardened with fire. [They asked us] not to
proceed to attack them at once, but to
wait until morning, so that they might
have more men.
The boats could not approach nearer because
of certain rocks in the water.
When we reached land, those men had formed
in three divisions to the number of more than
one thousand five hundred persons. When
they saw us, they charged down upon us with
exceeding loud cries, two divisions on our
flanks and the other on our front.
The musketeers and crossbowmen shot
from a distance for about a half-hour, but
uselessly; for the shots only passed through
the shields which were made of thin wood
and the arms [of the bearers]. The captain
cried to them, “Cease firing! cease firing!”
but his order was not at all heeded.
They shot so many arrows at us and hurled
so many bamboo spears (some of them
tipped with iron) at the captain-general,
besides pointed stakes hardened with fire,
stones, and mud, that we could scarcely
defend ourselves.
So many of them charged down upon
us that they shot the captain through
the right leg with a poisoned arrow.
The natives continued to pursue us, and
picking up the same spear four or six times,
hurled it at us again and again. Recognizing
the captain, so many turned upon him that
they knocked his helmet off his head twice,
but he always stood firmly like a good
knight, together with some others.
When they wounded him, he turned back
many times to see whether we were all in
the boats. Thereupon, beholding him
dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we
could, to the boats, which were already
pulling off
That battle was fought on Saturday, April
twenty-seven, 1521.The captain desired to fight on
Saturday, because it was the day especially holy to
him. Eight of our men were killed with him in that
battle,and four Indians, who had become
Christians and who had come afterward to aid us
were killed by the mortars of the boats. Of the
enemy, only fifteen were killed, while many of us
were wounded.
Lesson 2: Excerpt from Juan de
Plasencia's Customs of the
Tagalogs, [Social-Cultural
Observation]
 Juan de Plasencia
A Spanish friar of the Franciscan
Order.
He spent most of his missionary life in
the Philippines, where he founded
numerous towns in Luzon and
authored several religious and
linguistic books, most notably the
Doctrina Cristiana (Christian
Doctrine), the first book ever printed
in the Philippines.
 Excerpt: This portion is
refers to the social
observations made bythe
author among the Tagalog
natives.
Customs of the Tagalogs
 Chiefs
called by them datos, who governed them and
were captains in their wars, and whom they
obeyed and reverenced
These chiefs ruled over but few people;
sometimes as many as a hundred houses,
sometimes even less than thirty.
Chiefs
Three Castes
 Nobles
The nobles were the free-born
whom they call maharlica
Does not pay taxes
accompanies the Datu to war
and assemblies
 Commoners
Called aliping namamahay
They are married, and serve their master,
whether he be a dato or not, with half of their
cultivated lands, as was agreed upon in the
beginning.
 Aliping sa guiguilir
They serve their master in
his house and on his
cultivated lands, and
may be sold.
In these three classes, those who are
maharlicas on both the father's and mother's
side continue to be so forever;and if it
happens that they should become slaves, it is
through marriage,
If two persons married, of whom one was a
maharlica and the other a slave, whether
namamahay or sa guiguilir, the children were
divided: the first, whether male or female,
belonged to the father, as did the third and
fifth; the second, the fourth, and the sixth fell
to the mother, and so on.
The maharlicas could not, after marriage,
move from one village to another, or from
one barangay to another, without paying a
certain fine in gold, as arranged among
them.
 Relation of the Worship of the
Tagalogs,their Gods,and Their
Burials And Superstitions
In all the villages, or in other parts of the Filipinas
Islands, there are no temples consecrated to the
performing of sacrifices, the adoration of their idols, or
the general practice of idolatry. It is true that they have
the name simbahan, which means a temple or place of
adoration; but this is because, formerly,when they
wished to celebrate a festival, which they called pandot,
or “worship,” they celebrated it in the large house of a
chief.
 Badhala
Especially worshipped
The title seems to signify
“all powerful,” or
“maker of all things.”
 Dian Masalanta
who was the patron of
lovers and of generation.
They were, moreover, very liable to find auguries in
things they witnessed. For example, if they left their
house and met on the way a serpent or rat, or a bird
called Tigmamanuguin which was singing in the tree, or
if they chanced upon anyone who sneezed, they
returned at once to their house, considering the incident
as an augury that some evil might befall them if they
should continue their journey—especially when the
above-mentioned bird sang.
They also practiced divination, to see whether weapons,
such as a dagger or knife, were to be useful and lucky for
their possessor whenever occasion should offer.
These natives had no established division of years,
months, and days; these are determined by the
cultivation of the soil, counted by moons, and the
different effect produced upon the trees when yielding
flowers, fruits, and leaves: all this helps them in making
up the year. The winter and summer are distinguished as
sun-time and water-time—the latter term designating
winter in those regions, where there is no cold, snow, or
ice.
 Cotolonan
Officiating priest
Their manner of offering sacrifice was to
proclaim a feast, and offer to the devil what
they had to eat.
They performed another ceremony by cooking a jar of
rice until the water was evaporated, after which they
broke the jar, and the rice was left as an intact mass
which was set before the idol; and all about it, at
intervals, were placed a few buyos—which is a small
fruit3wrapped in a leaf with some lime, a food generally
eaten in these regions—as well as fried food and fruits.
In the case of young girls who first had their monthly
courses, their eyes were blindfolded four days and four
nights; and, in the meantime, the friends and relatives
were all invited to partake of food and drink.
 The distinctions made
among the priests of the
devil were as follows:
 Cotolonan
Officiating priest
 Mangagauay
witches, who deceived by pretending to heal
the sick. These priests even induced maladies
by their charms, which in proportion to the
strength and efficacy of the witchcraft, are
capable of causing death.
 Manyisalat
same as magagauay.
These priests had the power of applying such
remedies to lovers that they would abandon
and despise their own wives, and in factcould
prevent them from having intercourse with
the latter.
 Mancocolam
whose duty was to emit fire from himself at night,
once or oftener each month.
This fire could not be extinguished; nor could it be
thus emitted except as the priest wallowed in the
ordure and filth which falls from the houses; and
he who lived in the house where the priest was
wallowing in order to emit this fire from himself,
fell ill and died.
 Hocloban
Without the use of medicine, and by simply
saluting or raising the hand, they killed whom they
chose. But if they desired to heal those whom they
had made ill by their charms, they did so by using
other charms.
 Silagan
if they saw anyone clothed in white, to tear out his
liver and eat it, thus causing his death.
 Magtatangal
his purpose was to show himself at night to many
persons, without his head or entrails
 Osuang
equivalent to “sorcerer;”
they say that they have seen him fly, and that
he murdered men and ate their flesh.
 Manggagayoma
They made charms for lovers out of herbs,
stones, and wood, which would infuse the
heart with love.
 Sonat
which is equivalent to “preacher.”
It was his office to help one to die, at which
time he predicted the salvation or
condemnation of the soul.
 Pangatahojan
as a soothsayer, and predicted the future
 Pangatahojan
as a soothsayer, and predicted the future
Burying the Dead
the deceased was buried beside his house;
and, if he were a chief, he was placed beneath
a little house or porch which they constructed
for this purpose
The Aetas,or Negrillos [Negritos] inhabitants of this island,
had also a form of burial, but different. They dug a deep,
perpendicular hole, and placed the deceased within it,
leaving him upright with head or crown unburied, on top
of which they put half a cocoa-nut which was to serve him
as a shield. Then they went in pursuit of some Indian,
whom they killed in retribution for the Negrillo who had
died. To this end they conspired together, hanging a
certain token on their necks until some one of them
procured the death of the innocent one.
 Maca
another life of rest
They say that those who go to this place are the just, and
the valiant, and those who lived without doing harm, or
who possessed other moral virtues. They said also that in
the other life and mortality, there was a place of
punishment, grief, and affliction, called casanaan, which
was “a place of anguish;” they also maintained that no
one would go to heaven, where there dwelt only Bathala,
“the maker of all things,” who governed from above.
END
• PREPARE FOR A QUIZ NEXT WEEK (LESSON 1
TO 3)
• ANSWER ACTIVITY #1 AND SUBMIT IT ON OR
BEFORE FRIDAY, MARCH 4TH
• READ AND STUDY FOR THE NEXT LESSON