Appendix B:
A Seventeenth Century Franciscan Report from the Tanay Region
This material is taken from a seventeenth century account of a Franciscan’s work in the highlands near Tanay. While the text still extant is partial, the story told is one that illustrates a missionary priest’s attempt to reach and convert highlanders. The author is P. Fr. Francisco de Barajas and appears to be the single surviving copy. As I indicated, it is in very poor condition in both in the original seventeenth century manuscript as well as in the nineteenth-century copy.[1] The missionary procedures and effort described in the portions I was able to transcribe are interesting in the amount of work needed to even reach the sites where highlanders lived. I assume that they represent experiences similar to other Franciscans as they tried to reach and attract highlanders to settled in congregated settlements.
The manuscript speaks to themes of highland/lowland interaction, misrepresentation or misperceptions of the highlanders by lowlanders, and the pervasiveness of some exposure to Christianity even by those who were not in touch with the priests nor with the church regularly. There are also brief asides to indigenous slavery of Filipinos by an upper class man from Santa Ana and to the continued knowledge and use of the pre-conquest script as late as 1670.
Father Francisco says that he was the parish priest of Santa Ana[2] when he learned in 1669 that the sitios of “Dadaitan, Banatas, Limotan, and other spots had fugitives and other naturales” living there. “A desire came upon me to go into those mountains and attract them to the vineyard of God” (f. 1). In mid-1670, he left Santa Ana to evangelize in the uplands. With him went “a Principal from Santa Ana called Don Antonio Espiritu along with his slave [con un esclavo suyo].” It appears that Don Antonio Espiritu asked to come along since he was seeking a lad who had run away, offering in return to serve Father Francisco at Mass as sacristan and singer (cantor).
The expedition left in mid-April of 1670, carrying with them rice, salt, “a gift for saying Mass and a peso in money” (recado para decir misa y un peso en dinero)” (f. 1v). They proceeded to the pueblo of Tanay, where they contracted with six to eight guides and carriers to accompany them, paying them with three of the five cavanes of rice. From Tanay they went to a “sitio called San Andrés (which I judge to be eight leguas from Tanay … along a route that is rough with many ups and downs due to the mountains).” There were ten houses in San Andrés along with a picture of the saint from long ago when it used to be a pueblo (now it was a visita under Tanay).
We lose the story line since the top of folio two and subsequent folios are illegible due to stains and holes in the 1888 copy. To this point, though, we have seen a pattern of missionary effort, largely individual but endorsed by the Franciscan Province, showing initiative by going into the hills with a few companions and scant foodstuffs. What appears next of importance thematically are the reactions of those Filipinos he met as well as the carriers from Tanay when they understood what he was going to attempt. There were attempts to intimidate the priest, to short circuit the effort, by recounting horrific tales of hostile Aetas. Father Francisco questioned one and another about those who lived in the highlands. They all responded that there were not many people at all but there was danger from the Aetas in the mountains if one dared to go into their territory. At night his companions posted sentinels and built a large fire, and when Father Francisco asked why they did that they answered that it was to guard him from the Aetas who might come to rob as well as murder him in his sleep (f. 2v). We lose the story line temporarily again when we turn to the top of folio 3, but later on that page we find the attempts continued to try to intimidate and constrain him.
When Father Francisco saw that he could get no help from his companions in reaching out to the highlanders, he slipped away and went looking on his own. He climbed some mountains until he saw “smoke and heard the sound of chickens” and thus discovered some people. After about 1.5 leguas of a trail along a river he found “a band of about twenty persons fishing in the river. When they saw me one of their elders, who turned out to be their leader, approached. He knew that I was a priest because he had been several times to town and seen priests. He asked me what I was seeking in these mountains.”
While his response is lost (top of folio 4 is unusable), it appears that Father Francisco called them all together and probably spoke of baptism and endeavored to inspire them concerning the importance of becoming a Christian or resuming life as a Christian subject of the Spanish king. The audience was not hostile and from here he was led on another trail to a further twenty houses, and then to others, and so forth (f. 3v). At some point he must have been rejoined by his companions. In spite of illness, he continued his work and inquired about other settlements he might approach:
… we heard that north of San Andrés towards … a river that crosses
the sierra five or six leguas [away] there are some people living near the river
Limotan. Learning that the principales of San Andrés knew of them and had
commerce with them, I sent [one of] them as an ambassador to tell them that
… I had no bad intentions toward them. When four days had passed and he
had not returned [f. 4v, top of page again lost; apparently this lost section tells
of how he set out with a group of men to try to make contact] …continuing
my journey when halfway up the mountain we made camp. It was there that
the ambassador found me. He told me to go on alone, to leave the men I was
traveling with since the people sought would surely kill them if I arrived with
my party. He advised me to go there alone.
There was much discussion. Members of his party did not want to leave him nor allow him to proceed without them. It appears that he did not go on alone after all, but apparently they had difficulty finding the way. Eventually they encountered a passerby who showed them a hidden trail. After following this trail for a while, they discovered a large field and a house that looked new. The owner received him “with kindness.” They shared rice with him and he reciprocated by sharing venison with them. The host admitted that he had never been baptized and wanted to be. Father Francisco replied that in order to be baptized “he would have to learn first the four prayers and commandments of God’s law so that he would know how he should live as a Christian. The man [pointed out] that he knew how to read and write his language and that [therefore] he could learn [what was necessary] quickly.” The principal, Don Antonio Espiritu, who was accompanying Father Francisco, “was sufficiently competent in the Tagalog characters[3] [que era bantantemente ladino en los caracteres tagalos] and so he wrote out [what their host needed to learn prior to baptism.”
The manuscripts continues, we are now in early May, but the rest is so damaged that it is of little result to try to decipher what is legible. However, a few points stand out from what one can read. One highlander explained that they did not want to relocate to the lowlands and the pueblos there because whenever they visited there the highlanders “were treated like slaves” (f. 6v). The priest himself notes the highlander courtesy with which he was received wherever he went, the sumptuous food prepared to welcome him (f. 7), a dance held in his honor (f. 7v), and of course the homilies, teaching, and baptizing of children. He spent about a week in one place, busy every day, returning to San Andrés after about a month in this expedition into the highlands (f. 7v). He seems to have been exhausted and with a thorn wound in his foot and spent some time recuperating. He did return three other times to baptize more children, but due to illness he no longer made such exploratory trips into the hills (f. 9v).
[1] AFIO 90/8. Relación de Fr. Francisco de Barajas sobre su viaje y frutos de su predicación en los montes de Lanatin y Limotan al norte de Tanay. Acompaña una copia posterior. Todos [sic] los papeles destrozados. 1669. Ms., 9ff. I used the 1888 10ff. copy for this partial summary; folio references are to this copy, not to the original.
[2] He had been parish priest of Caboan in 1667 (his second assignment after arriving in the Islands in 1662) and was priest in Lumbang in 1669, founding the mission of San Andrés in 1670 (Gómez Platero, 284-285). Presumably he served in Santa Ana between taking his position at Lumbang; though the manuscript indicates he stayed in Santa Ana after his term in Lumbang was underway. After 1672 he served in a variety of other pueblos as well as Definidor and Ministro Provincial of the Franciscans in 1693-1694. He died in 1704.
[3] This appears to be a reference to the pre-hispanic script used by Filipinos before the Spanish conquest and the subsequent move to the Latin alphabet and script. For a good overview and introduction to the pre-hispanic characters, see William Henry Scott, Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994), 210-216.