Editors’ Note: Reprinting with permission excerpts from Chapters IX, The Cebu of Rajah Humabon (Christianity and the Santo Nino) and Chapter XII, Beyond the New World (The Twilight of the Visayan World). From the book, Ferdinand Magellan, The Armada de Maluco and the European Discovery of the Philippines, Danilo Madrid Gerona, Spanish Galleon Publisher, 2016,  

CHRISTIANITY AND THE SANTO NIÑO

Magellan’s surprisingly tolerant response to the peculiarities of the local culture stemmed not from his own prejudices but from within the frame of the mandate of the Armada, foremost was the imperative for native conversion to Christianity. But this hunger for saving souls was no longer a mere imperial task for the Captain-General; it had become a personal commitment. As soon as they landed, Magellan inquired about the religion being embraced by the natives. The expedition’s unofficial but perceptive chronicler, Pigafetta carried a particular detail on this:

Then he asked whether they were Moors or Gentiles, and in what they believed. They answered that they did not perform any adoration, but only joined their hands, looking up to heaven, and that they called their God, Aba. Hearing this, the captain was very joyful…

Antonio Pigafetta

Pigafetta captured the Captain’s sense of overwhelming “joy” in knowing that, while the Spaniards and the natives differed in their faith, they shared a point of spiritual convergence in their belief in the celestial abode of their supreme beings in heaven. For Pigafetta and Magellan, the natives’ belief in the supreme being was a major theological entry point for the possibility of conversion. But what seems clear is that both Magellan and Pigafetta misunderstood the native words uttered which probably was bathala, apo or the interjection Aba! and not the Hebrew Abba which means “Father.” One of the earliest Visayan-Spanish dictionaries, composed around 1626 by the Augustinian friar, Alonso de Mentrida, indicated that the word bathala, identified as the image of diuata, was already part of the Visayan lexicon in the late sixteenth century and probably so at the time of Magellan’s arrival.

According to Pigafetta, this indigenous Cebuano religion was centered on the worship of idols which, “were made of wood, they are concave, or hollowed out behind, they have the arms and legs spread out, and the feet turned upwards; they have a large face, with four very large teeth like those of a wild boar, and they are all painted.” The presence of such idols was universal among the natives as witnessed by a member of the Loaysa expedition in a small island near Cebu called Polo or Poro adore idols: these idols are made of wood, similar to where “the men our saints.” The survivors of the Cebu massacre who lived in the islands for more than six years until found by the Alvaro de Saavedra expedition recalled the religious practices of the natives whom they accused of being “idolaters who at certain times sacrifice human beings to their god whom they call Anito, and offer him to eat and drink.

The worship of anito had been part of the ancient religion of the natives which involved an assemblage of rituals and practitioners which Pigafetta had the privilege of personally witnessing in Cebu:

Then two very old women come, each of whom has a bamboo trumpet in her hand. When they have stepped upon the cloth, they make obeisance to the sun. Then they wrap the cloths about themselves. One of them puts a kerchief with two horns on her forehead, and takes another kerchief in her hands, and dancing and blowing upon her trumpet, she thereby calls out to the sun. The other takes one of the standards and dances and blows on her trumpet. They dance and call out thus for a little space, saying many things between themselves to the sun. She with the kerchief takes the other standard, and lets the kerchief drop, and both blow on their trumpets for a long time, dance about the bound hog. She with the horns always speaks covertly to the sun, and the other answers her. A cup of wine is presented to her of the horns, and she, dancing and repeating certain words, while the other answers her, and making pretense four or five times of drinking the wine, sprinkles it upon the heart of the hog. Then she immediately begins to dance sobre again. A lance is given to the same woman. She, shaking it and repeating certain words, while both continue to dance, and making motions four or five times of thrusting the lance through the heart of the hog, with a sudden and quick stroke, thrusts it through from one side to the other. The wound is quickly stopped with grass. The one who has killed the hog, taking in her mouth a lighted torch, which one has been lighted throughout the ceremony, extinguishes it. The other one dipping the end of her trumpet in the blood of the hog, goes around marking with blood with her finger first the foreheads of their husbands, and then the others; but they never came to us. Then they divest themselves and go to eat the contents of those dishes, and they invite only the women.

Antonio Pigafetta

Contrary to what many thought, the Cebuanos met by the Magellan crew were not Muslims but embracing a religion “more difficult to convert than the Gentiles,” as Pigafetta described their system of belief and worship. Magat China, a notable from Balayan held that Muslim missionaries had undertaken great efforts to convert them to Islam long before the coming of the Spaniards. In his declaration in 1578, he recalled the testimonies of his relatives and other Moros how the earliest king of Borney sent preachers to Oton, Manila, and Cebu, among others, to instruct the natives of these places as were those of Borneo. Their efforts, however, failed to win converts. If Islamic inroads in such places as Cebu failed to effect significant religious conversion on the natives it was because the earlier Islamic representatives were primarily interested in trading than in proselytizing.

A foreign religion which showed its recognizable presence in Cebu was Buddhism. An image found in this city in 1843, measuring about three inches in height, believed to be Siva was identified by the Filipino Indologist, Juan Francisco, as distinctively Buddhist, what he called a Bodhisatva, or a lokesvara, a bronze statue of the Siamese type. Francisco estimated its age to be from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D. Another Hindu religious artifact, a crude ganesha was mentioned by the Filipino anthropologist, F. Landa Jocano, as among those recovered in Mactan believed to be of Hindu-Indonesian origin.

Where other religions failed to sway the natives of Cebu from their traditional system, Magellan’s effort succeeded since Humabon quickly expressed his desire to become a Christian, including other chieftains under his influence. The date for the baptism was fixed on April 14 and a stage (tablado) covered with tapestry (tapicerias) and palm leaves referred to by some chroniclers as a pequeña iglesia, a small chapel, was hastily constructed in a spacious yard of the settlement. On Sunday, the date of baptism, Magellan ordered forty of his men and two more, “well- armed from head to foot,” wrote Pigafetta, to disembark and proceed in a formation led by the royal standards, highlighted by the firing of cannons which added festive atmosphere to the occasion.

Acting as the godfather to the new converts, Magellan was dressed in all white, as he explained to Humabon, to demonstrate his sincere love for the natives. Curiously, the sixteenth century ritual of baptism required the convert and not the sponsor to wear a white garment called alba as a symbol of innocence. After a fraternal kiss of the two leaders, Magellan and the chieftain of Cebu sat on ricos sillones, small but regal chairs of red and violet velvet, the other chiefs sat on cushions or mat.

Magellan, through his interpreter, made a brief speech explaining to the chieftain the advantages of embracing the faith, emphasis was given on its power to conquer enemies (poder vencer mas facilmente a sus enemigos). This gift whet the appetite of Humabon who faced a major challenge to his leadership from certain chieftains indisposed to accept his authority. But this was not the only benefit Humabon would get by his conversion to Christianity, as Magellan assured him of his personal protection and support, should he need to wage war with his enemies. Then Magellan turned to the chiefs and warned them through his interpreter that, unless they obeyed Humabon, he would kill them and confiscate their properties and turned them over to the Cebu chieftain. These threats assured Magellan of the chiefs’ unqualified submission to his royal authority and to his anointed paramount chief, Humabon. As an expression of his reverential gratitude, most probably in imitation of the Christian’s salutation to the heavenly King, Humabon lifted his hands to the sky and thanked the Captain-General for his formal endorsement of his authority.

Satisfied with the promise he received from the chiefs, Magellan went to the middle of the plaza where he planted the cross and announced that whoever wished to accept Christianity should destroy their idols and replaced them with the cross. Taking the chieftain by his hand, Magellan led him to a stage where the ritual of baptism was to be held with the chieftain of Limasawa, his nephew, the Moro merchant and others whose actual number was hard to fix as different accounts provided varying assessment. The Chilean historian, Jose Toribio Medina, fixed it at five hundred. Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, the eighteenth-century pioneering compiler of Magellan documents, claimed there were one thousand two hundred of them. Gomara placed it at eight hundred persons, a number consistent with Pigafetta and Diego Barros Arana’s estimates. Pigafetta’s account, according to Barros Arana, suggested there were two ceremonies of baptism. The first was that of the male chiefs followed by the baptism of the queen. The Spanish chronicler, Gomara, mentioned that aside from the eight hundred residents baptized from Cebu, another eight hundred from Limasawa led by the island chief were also baptized.

One of the most pronounced social effects of baptism was the Hispanization of their personal identity as they were conferred not only Spanish but Christian names. The members of the ruling families were given names borrowed from the prominent personalities of the reigning Spanish royal family. The Limasawa chieftain was conferred the Christian name of Juan after Juan II, the Spanish King of Castile and León who reigned from 1406-54. The son and successor of Henry III, Juan showed little interest in government. If his reign accomplished little in terms of politics, it was remembered in Spanish history as a vibrant era for literature, particularly poetry, and also celebrated for tournaments and brilliant festivals.

Humabon assumed the name Carlos in honor of the reigning king of Spain, Charles V. Although other sources claimed Humabon was named Fernando as a manifestation of his devotion to his godfather, Ferdinand Magellan, the name “Don Fernand, after the brother of the Emperor,” wrote Pigafetta was given to Tupas, “the prince.” The Moro interpreter assumed the name Christoval, whom Gomara described as the one “who comes and goes to Calicut and who attests to Humabon of the greatness of Emperor Charles, King of Castile (que yva, y venia a Calicut, y que certificio a Hamabar de la grandeza del Emperador Carlos Rey de Castilla). The name Christoval was chosen by Magellan for the Moro in recognition of his role as “the bearer of Christ,” for which the name Cristobal in Greek (Christos-Ferein) stands for, having helped facilitate the Spaniards in making the chiefly family accept the faith.

As recorded by Pigafetta: “The queen was named Juana, in honor of the mother of the Emperor: Catalina to the daughter of the prince and Isabel to the queen of Masagua. Except for the wife of the chieftain of Limasawa, who was christened Isabelle, the other women adopted the names of two of Ferdinand and Isabelle’s unfortunate daughters, sixteenth century Spain’s most tragic personalities, Juana and Catalina. Known as Juana, la Loca or “Joanna the Mad,” this daughter of the royal couple known in history as Los Reyes Catolicos, was Queen of Castile from 1504 and of Aragon from 1516. Juana married Philip the Handsome, crowned King of Castile in 1506, inaugurating the rule of the Habsburgs in Spain. Juana who was deeply saddened by the death of her husband, Philip, suffered grave mental illness and since then confined to a nunnery for the rest of her life. From 1517, her son, Charles, ruled as King, while she nominally remained co-Monarch.

Although Humabon’s wife was baptized Juana and Kulambo’s wife became Christian as Isabelle, considering the polygamous culture of the ruling elite, what could have happened to the rest of their wives since Christianity only accepts monogamous marriage and the standard policy of the Church required the converts to give up their other wives by only choosing one from among them, the original wife. In most instances, they chose a younger wife such as in the case of Humabon, married earlier on to Lapu-lapu’s sister, but presented during baptism a younger wife who impressed Pigafetta for her elegant native beauty. It was the opinion of the leading Latin American historian in the second half of the twentieth century, John Leddy Phelan, that what spared the secular priest Pedro de Valderrama from the indignity of solemnizing baptism to the chiefs and their multiple wives was the compromise arrived at by Magellan with the priest to refrain from making an issue of the polygamous habit of the Cebuanos.

According to Fernandez de Oviedo’s information, gathered from his interview with the survivors of the Magellan expedition, aside from the members of the ruling families of Cebu and Limasawa, some fifty more belonging to the local elite (principales) were baptized, most probably chieftains of the neighboring villages. Another forty more young women, attending to the wives of the chiefs, joined the baptismal line (se baptizaron hasta quarenta doncellas dessas reynas). Were these forty other ladies part of the chiefs concubines?

On the part of Magellan, the prospect of establishing a Christian settlement was a significant accomplishment in accordance with the Monarch’s imperial vision. Notwithstanding his momentary digression from the official royal directive to discover the route to the Spice Islands, the conversion and the eventual Christianization of this affluent settlement and its neighbors was an added accomplishment, if not, a sufficient compensation should he ever failed to reach his objective. But as Phelan has pointed out, Magellan’s religious enthusiasm was not born out of imperialist motives but emanated from what he described as a “state of spiritual intoxication.”

The tasks of complying with the sacramental needs of the fleet’s crew and the conversion of the heathens they would encounter in the Indies were assigned to three secular priests, the fleet’s chaplains or capellanes, but only Valderrama reached the islands and performed the first baptism in the Philippines. Notwithstanding his important role in the history of the expedition, official sources offered very little information about him. The expedition’s manifest described him as the son of Martin de Fernan Gil and Elvira Hernandez, both residents of the ancient town of Ecija. Bordering on the province of Córdoba, 88 kilometers from Seville. Ecija was a wealthy cereal producing town on the banks of the river Genil. He probably was in his twenties when he embarked on the expedition.

The baptismal ceremony gave birth to one of Magellan’s lasting legacies to Cebu: the devotion to the Child Jesus or the Santo Niño. Pigafetta showed the queen a small bust representing the Virgin with the child Jesus which caused her great joy and compassion (enternecio). “She asked me to place it on the place of their idols to which I consented with great desire,” wrote the chronicler. The translation from the Pigafetta’s French edition offered a sketchy yet immensely important additional details:

During that time, they showed her an image of our Lady, of wood, holding her little child, which was very well made and a cross. After that she begged us to give her the little wooden boy to put in the place of the idols.

Antonio Pigafetta

It was clear that the image of the child Jesus Juana requested was the one held by the Virgin Mother and not a separate statue. This was further established by the report of Pigafetta of Magellan’s reaction on his gift to Juana few days after the baptism: “The captain on that occasion approved of the gift which I had made to the queen of the image of the Infant Jesus,and recommended her to put it in the place of her idols,because it was a remembrance of the Son of God.” From the same source, it was implied that the owner of the statue was Pigafetta. Nothing was mentioned as to the place of its origin, but it was most likely carved in Spain where a strong devotion to the Holy Mother and Child had been flourishing centuries prior to the Magellan expedition.

Among the most favorite religious icons in the sixteenth century Catholic Spain was the “mother and child” or Mary and the child Jesus. Its most favorite iconographic identity among the Spaniards was the Nuestra Señora de la Atocha or the Our Lady of the Atocha, venerated in one of the suburbs of Madrid named Atocha. Spanish tradition traced the origin of this devotion to Antioch (where the name Atocha was said to be a variant) and St. Luke the Evangelist, believed to be its sculptor. It was said to have been brought to Spain by St. James, or some say, St. Peter. By 1162, a pretty medieval statue was already the object of devotion of the parishioners in the church of St. Leocadia in the nearby province of Toledo. Around the first decades of the sixteenth century, the devotion to the statue had grown immensely which inspired Charles V to construct a chapel in 1523 to house the statue. One distinctive feature of the statue was the detachable image of the child Jesus from the hand of the Virgin Mother, and pious devotees would borrow the image of the infant when mothers were about to give birth. It was the belief that from this practice the Santo Niño acquired its independent existence as an object of veneration separate from the Blessed Mother.

The “Virgin and Child Jesus” statue brought by Pigafetta bore strong resemblance to that of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha as the child was also detachable. Apart from this sketchy information from Pigafetta, nothing is known about the Santo Niño until after the arrival of Legazpi when such an image was found in a hut after a devastating conflagration swept the main settlement of Cebu. Was it the same Santo Niño given by Pigafetta to Juana?

Many cherished the thought that the statue was from Magellan, but the information given by the Augustinian chronicler, Fray Juan Grijalva in his Cronica, published in 1624, seemed to cast grave doubts about this belief. When the image was found by one of the crew of Legazpi in 1565, Grijalva considered it strange that, although it was only more than forty years since Magellan’s death, the story of the image was completely lost from local memory and no native could provide any information about it (no era possible que se huviese borrado la memoria en tan poco tiempo, y que no huviese algun indio que tuviesse noticia del caso).” Grijalva’s inquiry led to two possible conclusions: first, its existence probably antedated the Magellan expedition which explains why no one from among those alive at the time the great navigator landed in Cebu knew of its existence; second, assuming it was brought by the Magellan expedition, the friar was surprised that it did not show any indication it was almost half a century old. He found it incredible that its physical features showed no signs of aging, such as its dress which appeared new and its varnish, distinctively looking fresh. Unable to provide any logical explanation, Grijalva admitted to the possibility that it was indeed due to the power of miracle.

.Few days after baptism, before a mass was celebrated, Magellan asked the chieftain to come clad in his silk robe, with him were his household and close allies, whom he made to swear obedience to the chief by a ceremonial kissing of the hand. Magellan also told the chief to profess his fidelity and obedience to the Spanish Monarch which Humabon complied. Then the Captain drew out his sword before the image of the Virgin Mary and told the chief that an oath made before the Virgin, the Emperor and his habit of Santiago, must be forever binding and kept even at the expense of one’s life. After completing this ceremony, Magellan gave him as a symbol of his royal status, a red velvet chair, telling him that wherever he went it should always be carried ahead of him by his closest relatives and demonstrated the manner of its conveyance. Humabon reciprocated by handing over to Magellan, according to Fernandez de Oviedo, some golden jewelry studded with precious stones.

Conversion was more than mere ceremonial theatrics, but Magellan faced the major problem of presenting the basic tenets of Christianity in a comprehensible manner to the natives of Cebu. It was within this frame that he introduced the Faith to the natives by incorporating Christianity’s mythical appeal, its reputed access to supernatural power through an ensemble of spiritual rituals and paraphernalia but downplaying its substantive dogmatic discourse. In persuading the natives to accept Christianity, the Captain-General emphasized the healing power of the Faith. An opportunity was provided Magellan when he was informed of the lingering sickness of the brother of Tupas. Magellan assured them that only by burning the idols and by accepting baptism that the man would be healed. After complying with the Captain-General’s order, Pigafetta wrote: “Then the Captain had him asked how he felt. He spoke immediately and said that by the grace of our Lord, he felt very well. That was a most manifest miracle of our times.” In another instance, Magellan assured the chieftains and his followers that if they adored the cross, then “neither thunder, lightning, nor storms would harm them in the least.” Thus, just like one of his many cargoes, Christianity could be traded for one of the most precious local items, colonial submission.

Historians like James Alexander Robertson agreed that the initial attempt of Magellan to convert the natives of Cebu, despite his “sincere religious enthusiasm,” had little religious effect. “For the wholesale baptism performed by the secular priest who accompanied the expedition,” wrote the eminent compiler of then the largest collection of translated documents on the early Spanish regime in the Philippines, “were regarded by the people rather as a spectacular entertainment staged for their benefit than as a rite designed to mark a spiritual rebirth.”

On Wednesday, 10 April, shortly after the ceremonies of gift-giving, Magellan ordered his men to unload from the ships a quantity of merchandise which they transported to the village and stored in a hut under the chieftain’s protection. Two of the Spaniards were left to watch for the goods and two days after, commenced trading with the natives. The items traded by the Spaniards included iron and other European merchandise for which the natives paid in gold. Wrote Pigafetta: “Those people gave us x pieces of gold for xiiii pounds of iron.” Aware that everyone’s appetite was feverishly excited by the glitters of gold, Magellan promptly discouraged his men from taking so much of this precious metal, fearing everyone would exchange their personal items for the natives’ gold leaving the ships’ merchandise unsold. Some construed the Captain-General’s prohibition as his marketing strategy to increase the demand for their merchandise but at the same time “depreciate the exchange value of gold (porque despreciar el oro).” For smaller items, the natives paid them with rice, swine, goats and other food items. Whatever were the motives of Magellan for restraining the trade bonanza of his crew, it was done in furtherance of a more enduring commercial and political relations.

As the overall commander of the fleet, Magellan carried on his shoulder the responsibility of complying an important mandate from Charles V, the opening of trade and the exploitation of local mineral resources, particularly of any gold or silver mines:

In order to be nearer some trade or mines you have to go into the interior, the settlement should be near some rivers or you should ensure that the merchandise from here can be transported from the sea to the native residents, because there being no sort of beasts of burden, it would entail, a great labor for men, which neither those from here nor those from the Indies could endure.

Mandate from Charles V

One obvious concern of the expedition was the extraction of gold, and possibly, other minerals. The financial report on the expenses of the expedition listed some 12,014 spent for the purchase of quicksilver and cinnabar, rush ropes, dressed leather and copper. A common ore of mercury mined since the Neolithic Age, cinnabar, was sought for its use both as a pigment and for its mercury content. The ships transported twelve pairs of bellows with their iron pipes amounting to two hundred fifty six maravedis, indicating that there were plans of building a forge for metal smiths. In fact, a total of 9,147 including 3,000 was spent for a smithy bought with its entire equipment and 6,147 for some large bellows, an anvil, and blast pipes which were bought from Vizcaya.

An inventory of his cargo suggests some of the materials they carried were designed for laying the foundations of a subsisting urban community. It was not merely a voyage of discovery, it was also designed to establish a settlement to serve as their colonial base as revealed by the number of construction tools constituting the fleet’s more important cargo such as the 5 hammers, 50 mattocks and hoes, 2 large iron sledges, 12 borers, 6 awls, and 5 boat hooks. One cluster of valuable materials were iron in various forms and sizes, in which some 24,938 maravedis constituted as the cost of 19 hundredweight, 56 iron bars and 12 pounds of iron in small pieces.

The classification of cargo aboard the ships provided a glimpse not only into the life Magellan expected in the lands he would discover but also the unexpressed purposes of the expedition. An indicator that the expedition was considering a longer stay peeped through the amount of fishing materials they carried. A total of 30,254 maravedis was spent for the purchase of fishing tackle and nets, 2 draw nets, 6 angling rods, cork of the drawnets, flax and cord for fishing, harpoons and fishing forks from Viscaya, plus 10,500 fishing hooks.

Known throughout history for the singular mandate to discover the Spice Islands via the western route, Magellan’s conduct in Cebu seemed to indicate a man on the threshold of a major life-changing career, a man longing for a more restful, quiet and easy sedentary retirement. In fact, Gines de Mafra speculated that Magellan desired Cebu as one of the 2 islands to be granted to him in perpetuity as he had said so many times. This was probably because Cebu’s riches and strategic location greatly appealed to Magellan as the most appropriate to establish their trading post, a factoria, to serve as his base for commerce with the neighboring villages within the island and beyond. The sixteenth century Spanish historian, Antonio Herrera, shared similar sentiment: “…appearing to Magellan that things are falling into places according to his designs, ordered a Casa de Contratacion called factoria to be built as a warehouse for keeping his merchandise and having learned of the island of Burney expressed his wish to proceed there.” Magellan’s dream of spending the rest of his life in this tropical paradise could have been inspired by Francisco Serrao, his longtime friend, who had settled in the nearby island of Ternate from where he sent his seductive narrative of his blissful life there.

Magellan’s desire to settle permanently in Cebu also surfaced in his announcement to Humabon prior to the baptism ceremony. Magellan emphasized to Humabon that their temporary and brief stay was only an initial phase of their determination to settle in Cebu and confessed to this chieftain their forthcoming tornavieja or return trip for Spain, while assuring him of their prompt return to establish a Spanish settlement. Humabon, who had conceded to the new historical circumstance of his rule in the midst of Spanish presence in his island, was conscious of his political destiny and had to play his card well with Magellan. Humabon was left without any alternative but to collaborate with the Spaniards.

In an effort to please Magellan, Humabon expressed his desire for his followers to deepen their understanding of Christianity by allowing a member of his crew to remain and continue their religious instruction. Magellan gladly welcomed the enthusiasm of Humabon for the newfound faith and promptly assured the chieftain to leave behind two of his men. But Magellan was not so naive of the dynamics of warfare and the horrible tales of treachery of the Indians. The Captain-General politely informed Humabon of the need to take two of his children to learn the Castilian language who, upon their return, could disseminate their linguistic skill and impress on the rest the grandeur of Spain. To discourage Humabon from entertaining any sinister plan against the Spaniards while they were away, Magellan assured him that when they return from Spain, a more formidable force would accompany him to install the chieftain as the most powerful monarch in those islands, a reward he would confer upon Humabon for being the first to embrace Christianity.

THE TWILIGHT OF THE VISAYAN WORLD

The ebbing resources of Spain worked in favor of the fate of the native rulers in the Indies since the Spanish aims to integrate this vast maritime world under an imperial canopy had to be postponed for the next four decades later. This therefore gave the natives #reprieve from colonial burden for almost another half a century. Life in Cebu and the rest of the Visayas continued, seemingly, as it was before, as could be gleaned from what Fernandez de Oviedo had gathered from the men of Loaysa, when he published the first part of his Libro in 1535:

The Indians gather so much gold… The men of Cebu are of tractable but warlike nature and possess weapons both for defense and aggression. Chinese junks, which are large ships, come annually to Cebu and Vendanao and other islands and bring so much quantity of silk and porcelain and many metal works and little chests (arquetas) of perfumed wood, and many other things highly esteemed not pe by the natives. In exchange for what they bring, the Chinese carry from these islands gold and pearls and shells of mother of pearls (conchas de las hostias), and slaves….It has so many islands where gold is found and in other islands, pearls.

Fernandez de Oviedo

It is undeniable that the coming of Magellan left a gradual but irreversible effect in the local cultural landscape. Seemingly unchanged, the Visayan world already trapped in the geometrical grid of the Spanish imperial cartography had become a tractable and easy prey to expeditionary incursions, not only from Spaniards but also from the Portuguese vessels which dominated the eastern waters which had become a major area of territorial wrangling.

By the time Legazpi arrived, most of the historical personae involved in the saga of Magellan were dead. Lapu-lapu, already in the seventies at the time of Magellan, was certainly dead, spared the agony of seeing his insular domain crumbled before the weight of the Spanish military juggernaut led by an aging clerk, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. The glorious memories of Lapu-lapu and Mactan were simply erased and eventually forgotten. Succeeding Spanish chronicles mentioned nothing of the fate of his descendants who had to conceal their genealogical affiliation with the great native leader and also to live under constant fear of Spanish reprisal.

The chieftain of Cebu, Rajah Humabon, whom Argensola described as one who “accepted baptism, purposely out of fear for the Spanish arms and not because of zeal nor understanding of the faith he received,” unless killed in the May 1, 1521 massacre he orchestrated, as indicated in the native folk story, continued his rule for the next ten or twenty years until it gave way to old age or death. He was already dead when the colonizing Spanish force landed in 1565. In fact, these natives who, few weeks after Magellan’s landing, had accepted the seed of Christianity, suddenly made a violent act of apostasy ventilating their outrage on the person and objects held sacred to Christians such as the chapel, earlier built and used. The account of Fray Aganduru Moriz recorded that, while Juan Serrano was being dragged to the shore, the angry throng which passed by the makeshift chapel whose altar they violently destroyed, snatched the frontal and the altar mantles, threw the crosses and the image of the child Jesus, the Santo Niño. The cross which Magellan raised was also pulled down by the unruly crowd amid great noise as an expression of their mockery. Even the person who solemnized the ritual, Fr. Valderrama, seen being dragged by the one cured by his baptism, had not been heard of and was presumed murdered as he was among those included in the official list of casualties in the May 1 massacre. But it could be possible that he was not outright murdered or even spared and used by the natives for his “healing power.”

Did the ruling family of Cebu apostatize? A Cebuano folklore claimed that, although the cross Magellan planted was uprooted and vandalized during the frenzied moments of the massacre, Juana, the wife Humabon, had recurring dreams of a child begging her to restore the cross on its original site. When Juana found out that the boy in her dreams resembled the infant Jesus given during baptism, she promptly begged Humabon to restore this symbol of Christianity who obliged, and thus Cebu preserved this historic icon. It was also assumed that Juana had kept the Santo Niño which remained in the village until recovered in 1565 by Juan Camus. The early seventeenth century Augustinian lexicographer, Fray Alonso de Mentrida, noted in his entry on the word bathala which he defined as “the image of diuata,” that, “This is how the natives referred to child Jesus in our convent in Zebu left by Magellan in that town and remained in possession of the indios of Zebu, until the Spaniards returned to establish settlement fifty years after, they called it bathala.” According to the Jesuit historian, Francisco Chirino, who wrote the chronicles of his Order in 1604, even eighty years after the event transpired, the natives of Cebu still referred to the image as “Diuata de los Castillas.“

As to what happened to Humabon, the story of Fray Gaspar de San Agustin provided the answer. San Agustin claimed that a Spanish soldier who came with the Legazpi expedition named Juan de Castilla, while digging deep in the ground for a foundation of his house to support the huge wooden columns, unearthed a coffin believed to contain the remains of the chieftain whom the natives called Rajah Carli, or Carlos, the Christianized name of Humabon. San Agustin wrote:

On the same day that the Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi died in Manila, an event occurred in Cebu worthy of remembering. This was the miraculous discovery of an image of Ecce Homo found in the city on Wednesday, August 20, 1572, in the place where a famous and ancient leader of the island named Rajah Carli was said to be buried.

Fray Gaspar de San Agustin

Castilla found the chief in a casket holding a small cross in his hand and an image known in Catholic iconography as the Ecce Homo lying on his chest. The Ecce Homo was a Catholic icon which earlier on depicted Pilate and Christ, the mocking crowd and parts of the city of Jerusalem. In the fifteenth century, artists began to portray Jesus alone, in half or full figure with a purple robe, loincloth, crown of thorns and torture wounds, especially on his head. But the Ecce Homo given to Humabon was only a bust of Christ carved on a wood, supposedly brought to the Philippines together with the Santo Niño image and given to the chief as a baptismal gift. It was said to have been buried with him since the bust was one of his most cherished possessions. What amazed everyone, according to San Agustin, was that “the body was dry and in good condition.”

The other chiefs who accepted baptism most likely had also apostatized, the Friars Buzeta y Bravo believed that the chieftain of Limasawa was among them. In 1565, Legazpi met in Leyte a chief named Bangar whom these Augustinian authors believed was one of the chiefs baptized by Magellan.

One of the key personalities who lived through the times of Magellan and could have shed so much details of that historic encounter was Tupas, the heir to the throne. In his adulthood at 23 when Magellan arrived, Tupas must have assumed the place of Humabon 10 or 20 years after, when the old chief had passed away. It was undeniable that this chief had developed deep hatred towards the Spaniards and refused to accept baptism even during the arrival of Legazpi, more than 44 years after. But after long and sustained effort to convince him, Tupas, already 67 years old, relented as San Agustin pointed out: “He slowly became closer to the Spaniards, and began losing the suspicion in which he had grown up with.” Baptized with Tupas were other notables of the place including a Moro, described by Legazpi as “an indian, an interpreter of the Malay language.” Could he be Enrique? Or was he the same moro interpreter of Humabon who mediated with Magellan?

When asked by the men of Legazpi why they resisted the Spaniards, the natives of Cebu led by Tupas replied they were afraid of the Spaniards whom they thought were to demand them to account for the death of Magellan and his men. Far from the Spanish wrath he was expecting, the Spaniards gave them a general pardon. This only indicated the profound impact of the incursion of Magellan’s Armada in the life of the Cebuanos. But the lingering trauma inflicted by the death of Magellan for almost half a century was surpassed by the happy tradition of their pious devotion to the Santo Niño which continued to influence and shape the course of life not only of the Cebuanos but of the Filipinos in general, both Catholics and otherwise.

(Header photo: Magellan presenting the image of the Infant Jesus to Queen Juana; art by Derrick C. Macutay, 2021 Quincentennial Commemorations in the Philippines, National Historical Commission of the Philippines.)