"Mira tù, look ... giant green turtles, starboard!" a sailor shouted.

"What?"

"Giant, giant green turtles!"

"Where, where?" another sailor asked.

"There, over there ... can’t you see them?"

"Ah, si-si!"

Everyone at starboard was now looking, including the flagship’s captain and the Dominican friar, and there chinga su nana indeed were the giant green turtles. Perhaps over a dozen of the primordial creatures, while the sea behind them broke and swelled. So big were they that the smallest among them could carry two men on its back, and still have more than a spare for a fourth of a man, if that were possible; was about six-seven feet in length from its armored head to its abbreviated tail. That was how big they were.

And then, slowly, the giant green turtles swam lumpily away from the ship, and in seconds were gone. The waters became smooth again, calm as water in an undisturbed pond.

"I’ve never seen such huge turtles," said the captain. "Big ... big, yes, somewhere in the Spice islands. But not the giant green turtle that I only heard about until today."

The Dominican friar agreed, "Nor I, myself." Never missing a cue to boast about his travels in the Old World, he added: "Si-si, not once had I seen such huge creatures in all my travels in the world."

Sometime later, another surprise in the bay: this time not of sight but deafening, whirring sound.

Seemingly, it came from nowhere, this great sound, reverberating round the flagship. For some while nobody could tell where it came from exactly. The sailors running from stern to bow looked here and they looked there, and at first couldn’t see where the roaring, whirring sound really came from; it was all around the ship, pounding in their ears, but unknown and nowhere in sight. Meantime, while they couldn’t see what made or caused it yet, the reverberating deafening sound suddenly rose and became a great frightful roar; and even when everyone leaned and looked down the ship, heads wheeling here and there, nobody could see what made the roaring dreadful sound still. How strange! was in everyone’s thought.

And then, suddenly, the cause of the mysterious frightful roaring sound made themselves known at the stern. Really strange, the sailors thought. Had we not been looking there all the time. Why had we missed it before?

Since just then a sailor casually taking a second look had seen the strange creatures there, and would later explain to his companions: They were there all the time, I guess. Maybe the sea creatures would submerge every time we looked down, as if we had frightened them. Although what could frighten those huge sea denizens once they rumble and reverberate their bodies I couldn’t imagine. And, now, he cried: Here, over here at the stern ... You can see them! And again, as in the giant green turtles earlier, everyone rushed to the stern. As many men crowded there as could stand on it, among those were the captain and the Dominican friar, to whom the sailors cleared the best view.

Perhaps, a hundred or so chinga monstrous swordfishes, that one had never seen nor would ever have the chance to see again in Modern Time — as man continues to destroy every endangered species, on land or sea — were soaring and whirring over the surface of the waters of the bay. The school of monstrous swordfishes swirled in the air several feet above the water surface, just before plunging back into the sea, and mere seconds later reappeared swirling up on top of the waves. And like the ship’s sailors and marines, either Spanish or Indio (because of geographical miscalculations by the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the inhabitants of Spanish colonies were called Indios), the captain and the Dominican friar were awed and struck by the sight, never had they seen such monstrous swordfishes before. The Dominican friar said under his breath: Jesùs, Marìa, y Josè! And St. Dominic! Then, the monstrous swordfishes turned around from the stern and dove deep into the waters of the bay, straight down it looked they had no intention of resurfacing again. Ripples and broiling of water expanded in a sort of an incredible large pool where they’d dove and vanished, disappearing just like that; it was the only mark that the primeval monstrous creatures had been in the bay, before completely disappearing from view. How hard they all looked toward starboard, stern, and bow! Indeed, they looked here and there, but could no longer see the school of monstrous swordfishes.

A quarter of an hour later, when everyone thought they had gone, perhaps beyond the rim of the bay, the sea denizens coño su nana abruptly sprung up from the water surface some twenty, thirty meters off starboard. The disturbed surface of the bay broke like sheets of paper, although the sea creatures did not make so loud a whirring roaring sound, unlike the first time at the stern, as to deafen the sailors watching from there. From time to time the monstrous swordfishes oscillated above the waters, swirling, their shiny round bodies spangling, earsplitting, and the sailors watched them in astonishment and disbelief. Then, again, the sea monsters plunged back into the water: splash, splash, splash they went, and gyrated like wee submarines toward them, toward the pair of ships (beside the captain’s was a supply/cargo ship, which our historical sources, and us following behind naively, had forgot to mention earlier in this episode), and alongside each ship the swordfish rose whirring and the oscillating sound bored roaring into their ears.

What seemed but inches away from the pair of ships, the school of swordfishes turned abruptly obliquely away and missed by wee inches crashing and lancing into the ships’ shells. This time though they turned completely around swooshing toward the southern horizon, and in the rising sun their backs glinted; and the sunrays ran like light ripples of silver streaks on their gyrating backs. From the distance the sea denizens looked more like a herd of galloping horses, rather than a school of sea monsters; as in great leaps and bounds they soared farther away, fast, away from the ships ... until they were gone from the bay completely.

It was early morning in the year 1593 A.D. when earlier, in the bay of the village, called Samboangan (Samboangan, meaning docking point, from the word sabuan, a wooden pole Samals and Badjaos tie their vintas to before going ashore), in the southern island of Las Islas de Felipenas, two Spanish ships, five times bigger than a Moslem two-tiered garay canoe, had dropped anchor. On board one of the ships were a young Spanish marqués, 24 years old, and the other was a Dominican brother, a few years his senior.

Don Sebastían Torres was the Spanish marqués, a captain in his Majesty King Philip III’s Royal Navy. The Dominican friar was called Brother Laurentino Salvador y Praedelles. The two wouldn’t be the first white men on Samboangan soil, since other travelers had come before them: Dutch and British, they said. However, the Spaniards could claim a first: the one young officer as the first marqués, and the other the first Dominican friar to come to this southern island.

An hour passed quietly, though all were restless to disembark from the captain’s or the supply ship. So, watching the shore for any sight of the fearful Moros, Captain Torres, you know, wanted first to be sure his men wouldn’t be ambushed by the treacherous Moros lying in wait when he sent a landing boat. He saw none even when bars of sunlight began falling on the beach, as the mass of clouds hovering low on the horizon rose up the sky dome; then the clouds began to melt, merging with the vastness, and a shadow of light lit the entire dome of the sky.

The sailors went back to what they were doing before: scrubbing the deck, brushing the balustrade of the captain’s cabin, and wiping the portholes.

"Your pardon, Capitàn," said Friar Salvador. "I must retreat to my quarters, in order to pray to our Lord Jesus to look over us ... and protect us from the infidels of this island."

"Si, si; of course. After seeing those sea monsters, six ... maybe eight times larger than in our home country in Spain, or anywhere in the World, will it surprise us if we find the island inhabited with savages with three eyes, two mouths, three pairs of ears, and two heads?"

Friar Salvador, petulant, said:

"We the humble servants of the Almighty fear nothing! If my death will convert a single savage, a Moro, in this island ... I’ll welcome Death with open arms."

"I know, I know," said Captain Torres; not without a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "I haven’t yet seen a Dominican friar frightened by a couple of small fishes."

"Small fishes, Señor Capitàn!" cried Friar Salvador, unable to control himself. "Those were sea monsters."

"... Nor by sea monsters, I meant to add, Friar Salvador. But you gave me no time to say this," the marqués quickly replied. "Indeed, nothing frightens a Dominican brother, as you’ve just said so yourself. But I will be careful just the same once we disembark on the island. Here in the South region are found cannibals, savages, and the terrible infidel Moros."

Without another word, although suspecting Captain Torres was trying to frighten him from disembarking on the island, Friar Salvador retreated to his quarters. But not to pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for protection, nor to the founder of his religious order, St. Dominic; he said no such prayers, instead he prayed that before the end of the day he would have baptized his first savage, infidel, so he could claim the better part of the island by the King’s Patronato Royal decree — ah, si, than the head of the expedition himself, the marquès Don Sebastìan Torres.

About ten o’clock that morning, Captain Torres and Friar Salvador rowed to the beach. There were six rowboats loaded with scores of Spanish and Indio sailors and soldiers. The heavy dawn clouds had melted away in the sunlight; some had been driven away in the wind; indeed, only a few heavy clouds still hang above the sky dome. Once uncovered, the sun shone bright and was a radiant burning orb in the sky.

They were not out a while when, without anybody expecting to see a giant green turtle again, or that soon, one such sea denizen, larger than those seen earlier, and nearly the size of their rowboat, suddenly rose looming in front of them. Quickly, the Spaniards and Indios jumped up on the rowboats, prepared to take any precaution to save themselves from being crushed by the giant green turtle. But this sudden movement rocked the rowboats, sloping precariously to either flank, and it was clear that at any moment they might be thrown into the bay. Instinctively, firm legs braced and steadied the rowboats; and some sailors even sat back and leaning forward locked their hands on the rowboats’ sides ... to balance them.

"I’ve never seen this big of a turtle," one sailor said; "from afar or as so close as now." And a rower, steadying the rowboat, said, "Neither have I ... I never imagined there’s such ugly giant monster. Look out it doesn’t get near us!"

However, on another rowboat there were very curious sailors. They wanted to see the giant green turtle much, much closer, and if possible to touch even just the extremities of the sea monster. Maybe its abbreviated tail? And so, they rowed closer, closer, with no idea of the great risk they were taking. Getting too close to such primordial sea denizen was inviting disaster, sabes tu what I mean. As easy as turning a clam on a beach, the monster could overturn and crush their rowboat, and mash them to a pulp.

The rowers had indeed paddled too close to the giant green turtle. Abruptly, not knowing how, they found themselves on top of it with the other rowboats below them: their eyes popping out of their sockets and mouths wide open with shouts and cries. Because having been surprised by the rowboat, irritated by the strange thing on its back, the great green turtle became very nervous, that it leapt and turned and flapped its huge flippers; trying to shake off the irritant on its back.

But although the rowboat swayed and tilted, here and there, the giant green turtle couldn’t get rid of it, the rowboat that was now on top of its mossy shell.

Standing on the swaying rowboat, the Spanish and Indio sailors and soldiers jerked and flapped their arms like the green turtle’s flippers too, themselves trying to balance and not fall off it. Continuously, from the other rowboats, shouts of warning and admonishment rung out while the rowboat of curious sailors continued to jerk and sway this and that way. Obviously, the sailors couldn’t stay in their rowboat forever. Any second one would expect to see all of them in the water — splash! But they didn’t even get that chance: to fall off in a splash. For the giant green turtle sure that an ancient enemy was on its back, scraping and chewing its unprotected shell-house to get at its meat, did what turtles, whether small or monstrous like this one, do when terrified: it rose massively from the water, displacing hundreds of gallons of it and shaking off the rowboat on its back. As the sea monster came down, it crashed upon the rowboat and before one could bat an eye, smashed it into splinters and pieces of timber; no less like a mere matchbox crushed under a heavy foot.

What could one do chinga vos nana but pick up the very wet, shivering sailors damped unceremoniously by the monstrous beast! By some miracle and Beelzebub asleep, no one was hurt seriously. Friar Salvador cried, Dumb! Arsehole! and Captain Torres sneered saying to leave them there to drown, since they’d brains of carneros. Amidst the waterlogged sailors, now shivering from the cold, were floating pieces of the rowboat and its broken paddles.

Two rowboats were sent to rescue the soggy sailors. The rescuers swore at them, calling them worse names than had either the friar or the captain. When everybody was on the two rescue rowboats, they continued rowing toward the beach.

Captain Torres and Friar Salvador stood at the bow of their rowboat looking toward the beach; the rowers were rowing hard, the wooden paddles slicing the water of the bay that was still calm and smooth as oil.

As they neared the shore, less than fifty meters away, and thinking they were out of harm’s way from the sea denizens of the bay, there came rushing in front of them a school of the monstrous swordfishes, hó, o! maybe those same ones earlier, since they were as huge and whirring feverishly. Sailors shouted warnings, Get out, get out of the swordfish path! Or you’ll all be pierced with their saw-like snouts. Seconds later, the monstrous swordfish were flying spinning past the rowboats. They had sprung from the surface of the bay, hundreds of them, their bodies oscillating in the air, saw-like serrated snouts thrust.

And then, before one could catch his breath, chinga the swordfishes reappeared, several crashing against the rowboats, punching their long saw-like serrated snouts against their hulls. If they continue to butt their saw-like snouts like that, thought Captain Torres, we’ll sink surely. We won’t make it to shore. Coño de su puta madre! — Cunt of your mother whore! A rowboat alongside Captain Torres’s was bombarded with serrated, saw-like snouts; soon seawater started to spring from several holes in the hull. They heard one Spanish sailor cry, Aayyyiieee, Dios mio, amparad ‘nos! and another shut him up, Cobarde, calla la boca. Or I’ll thrust my knife into your belly and spill your guts out.

Suddenly, the whirring sounds and bombardment of serrated snouts all stopped. A silence settled over them. Past the bows, sides, and sterns of the rowboats the sailors looked: and saw not a single fish of the school of saw-like, snouted swordfishes. Quickly gripping their paddles, and after evacuating the sailors from the sinking rowboat to the other rowboats, the sailors rowed fast and feverishly toward the beach. Finally, the rowboats pulled up onto the beach, Captain Torres and Friar Salvador were the first to disembark.

Of mollusks and clamshells and turtle shells crashed millennium of years before, the sand was so fine and white. The whole length of the shoreline glistened silver under the tropical sun, then nearing the apex of its rise. Both men bent down and scooped a handful of the white sand, then let it ooze down through their fingers. The captain thought of the beach in his hometown in Estremadura, Spain, glinting just as white, while the friar’s mind was occupied with the savages and pagans he would convert. Like grain of sand they’ll fall and be converted, reborn as Christians, thought he.

Beyond the beach over the marshes, north-west, a flock of tropical birds hovered, flapping their wings, and settled on the top boughs of the swamp giant trees. Under their combined weight the branches bent downward, and the tropical birds to keep their balance flapped their wings vigorously — creating currents of air which scattered the leaves. A sea breeze blew them down onto the wet earth below.

Captain Torres sent out two reconnaissance parties to explore the new land: on opposite ends of the island, north and south.

The north party, composed of several Spanish and Indio sailors, went up toward the marshes; for it was there that the mangrove swamps began. As they entered the marshes the flock of tropical birds took flight in frenzy, raising a great roar of flapping wings. For a minute or so, the blanco catalas, which was what the fowls are called, hid the sun from the new arrivals, and its rays darting through gaps between flapping wings lengthened the shadows on the marshes.

Below the mantle of white catalas, there flew from nowhere wild birds and pigeons: the Imperial and the white-neck Royal pigeons. Frightened by the sudden appearance of the sailors, they had flown out from above the trees; and now, the seamen heard a creaking-sound ensuing from the joints of their wings, like when a hundred doors are being shut closed on rusty hinges.

All heads turned up toward the sky, to the creaking-sound diminishing gradually, as the flock of catalas flew, wings droning, back to the mountains, where they had flown before dawn to feed on shells in the marshland. And as if by signal, unheard and unseen, the other wild birds and pigeons at once followed, and in seconds they too became mere specks in the sky. In a minute they were gone. On the beach the Spaniards and Indios of the north party halted a while, that with luck they might see the wild fowls again. But the wild birds didn’t come back then, nor later that day.

Shortly before noon of that day Captain Sebastìan Torres, upon the insistence of the Dominican friar, again sent the two reconnaissance parties to further explore the island: one party went north-east and the other farther south round the brim of the bay, as they had not done earlier that day. In an hour or so they returned and reported to the captain that neither party had seen any natives nor found any fruit trees beside the coconut trees and edible roots above the banks. However, they said there was plenty of fresh water. Here and there, everywhere one looked was fresh water. Even here down the shoreline water flowed from the marshes; the innumerable rivulets created furrows that cut into the sand like termites’ trenches; and from one end of the beach if a man was looking up the seashore he could very well see myriad of thread-like watercourses.

"Did you not really see any natives? Are you telling me this island, with a beautiful, calm bay for a port, is uninhabited!" Friar Salvador said to the returning sailors, rolling his head incredibly, before their captain could speak to anyone of them.

"We did not, truly, Friar Salvador," replied the sailors. "Verdad!"

Source of water will most concern the head of an exploration party, Captain Torres thought; and as he looked around obviously there was enough — even too much as the whole beach was scoured with watercourses. Even after the founding of the fort in New Samboangan, folk say, and decades later in the early 17th century, these watercourses flowed on these beaches still. And they said, centuries later, in the 20th century you still find them, though they watercourses have moved further, further up northwest.

Pues neither parties mentioned about any native dwellings, and he asked, "Huts ... have you seen any huts or some sort of dwellings?"

"None also, Captain."

"We must look again later," said Friar Salvador, not hiding his pique. "If there are savages here, we must baptize them and save them from the infidel Moros."

At noon Torres rowed back to the ship, but Friar Salvador chose to join with the other sailors, numbering about thirty, up the bank under the shade of the trees. Why he would do that, instead of going back to the ship with him, where it was more comfortable and lunch was hot, the captain didn’t know and would wonder the rest of the day.

Later in the afternoon Captain Torres received the head of the reconnaissance parties, the second officer, in his cabin; and the officer said further exploration hadn’t revealed any islander still. Is that all? he asked. Nothing else that you must have noticed in the island? The second officer said what the island had besides innumerable rivulets and coconuts was an abundance of giant crabs. He extended both hands before his chest and said the giant crabs were as big as a shield and there were also huge shrimps the size of a man’s thigh and big, big crayfish with very long claws. And Captain Torres to amuse himself and to let the other know he wasn’t born yesterday, said the man must be exaggerating, since there couldn’t be crabs as big as a shield, etceteras and so forth. And the head of the reconnaissance parties replied, Begging your pardon, captain-sir. Yes, there are, and he saw them himself! Captain Torres was no longer amused, and said gravely:

"And did you go farther inland, east of the island? ... beyond the marshes or hills where likely is lowland and maybe a pagan village there?"

"We regret, Captain, to inform you we didn’t go much farther," said the head of the parties. "Just after the fringes of the coconut land ... a little inside the marshes. And to tell the truth, we don’t know whether or no there’s indeed a pagan village somewhere in the lowland."

"And why not?" said Don Torres: thinking, Do I have to tell them one by one, step by step, what to do? Friar Salvador will suspect I’m doing this intentionally, so that he won’t have any pagan to convert to Christianity. He needs just one convert to lay claim a part of this island by right of conquest, thus says the King’s royal decree.

"We’ll need more men, Captain-sir, to escort both parties," said the head of the reconnaissance parties. "There might be Moros farther in the hinterlands. We don’t know for sure, but we must have more men ... it may be very risky. We may be ambushed, Captain-sir."

Captain Torres shook his head unbelievably. How could he have forgotten? The Moros were everywhere in the South. "Si-si; pues mañana ... We shall land additional marines and musketeers, who will join you in exploring the island." Then he said what was on his mind when the friar chose to stay behind:

"Did Friar Salvador have lunch with our men?"

"Si, si; Don Torres."

"Did the good friar say anything? I mean, about his comfort, food?"

"He didn’t say anything ... he ate quite a lot, particularly the wild pigeons we caught in the marshes."

"No complains at all? You know, that would be extraordinary for a Dominican friar, without the usual comfort given his position, not to complain about anything."

"He complained about not being able to do his missionary work here," said the head of the parties; "and that he has been very eager since our arrival in this island to convert the pagans ... ‘savages,’ he called them. To do God’s will: this he told us during lunch."

"Did he say why he wasn’t able to do God’s will?"

The head of the exploration parties did not reply immediately. Then,

"Not particularly, Captain. He only said that the landing parties should go farther inland, toward the hinterlands. He said he was sure that beyond there’s a native village, and he can begin his missionary work ... as God had wished him."

"I see," said Captain Torres: thinking, I suspect such. He thinks I’m holding back the exploration parties, so I’ll have all the good land while he gets inferior land until the first pagan is baptized.
Torres told the second officer to go get his aide-de-camp, and when the aide-de-camp came he told him to pick some men for escort mission and others to put up a temporary structure for quarters on the beach. Si, Don Torres, will comply right away, he replied; and then he accompanied by the second officer stepped out of the cabin.

Later, from the bow of his flag ship, Captain Torres watched the rowboat rowing back to the island with the picked Spanish musketeers to escort the reconnaissance parties.

Truly he wished they’d find a village beyond those woods, that would get the friar off his back and he could concentrate more in putting up a garrison here. Supplies need replenishing, water he was glad there was plenty but fruits and cereals ... and it was foolish for any captain to leave his supply and cargo in a ship in the bay without unloading them on the beach; a very tempting bait for roving Moro pirates of sultans Matingka and Hasim.

On the second day, Badjao (Sea Gypsy) fishermen, who were drying their fish catch on the hot white sand was spotted by Indio sailors on the north-west side of the island. As the Indio sailors approached them, the Badjaos quickly ran to their vintas ... outrigger sailboats. Though the Indio sailors gave chase right away, they were not able to catch them; and the Badjao vintas sailed fast toward the twin islands of Sta. Cruz, southwest of Samboangan.

A bountiful fish catch the Sea Gypsies had spread out upon the white sand, and the Indios took this and put it in native nawi-woven baskets and brought it to the Spanish reconnaissance-head, who in turn brought the fish catch to the flag ship.

Preparing dinner the ship cook was about to roast the fish, and a Visayan sailor, of the Visayas region, suggested that they fry the fish catch, since such dried fish are better fried ... not roasted, and the ship’s cook who thought he knew his business reluctantly fried the fish. A plateful was brought to the captain’s cabin, where Friar Salvador upon returning to the ship just before dusk had joined Torres for dinner.

After tasting the fried dried fish, Friar Salvador exclaimed:

"Why, Dios mio, these are great! Muy delicioso ... very delicious!"

Following the friar’s example, Captain Torres broke a piece of the fried dried fish and put it into his mouth. "Oohumm, indeed! A hundred times tastier than those small fish from the Spice Islands, remember Friar Salvador?"

"Do I remember! They were so salty I thought my lips and tongue would crack after eating them." He paused. "But these dried fish ... if they’re to be kept, won’t they soon spoil without much salt? How long will the fish stay fresh, not rot?"

"I believe my cabin boy can explain that to us, Friar Salvador. He’s one of the few Visayans who had traveled down south. You know how they fear the Moros and other primitive islanders." He told the Indio cabin boy to approach the dining table, and explain how the Sea Gypsies, without adding preservatives, particularly salt, kept their fish catch fresh.

The cabin boy came up to the table and explained how the Badjaos preserved their fish, and the two high personages listened to him with unpretended complacency, though how eager were both to add this to their knowledge of the island. After the Badjaos finished fishing, said the cabin boy, they’d bring their catch to an island and spread them out along the shore. Then they sprinkled seawater on them and sun-dried them under the tropical sun. The best fish for drying was called the golden fish, culisi. This way of sun-drying kept the fish from spoiling and yet didn’t become too salty, like the Visayan’s or Tagalog’s salted fish.

"Excellent!" said both men, finally convinced.

The cabin boy retreated with much apology, and Captain Torres and Friar Salvador continued to savor the fried dried culisi; then, the latter said:

"Don Torres, this reminds me of the main purpose of our mission. Although you’ve put your own personal money for this expedition, I believe we shall not be in the graces of King Philip III and His Holiness the Pope if we don’t find for ourselves a pagan or two to convert to our Christian faith; and soon."

"Of course, Friar Salvador," replied Captain Torres, lifting his face from his favorite lengua estopada dish. Of course, my money it is that raised this expedition, he thought, to look for an island down south, where we can put up a garrison and a small settlement . And the King in return promised me territorial rights to the land I discover. But here’s a Dominican friar who has put no money in it, but by the King’s royal patron decree can have as much claim to the land as I have if he converts even a single, poor, famished savage to the Christian faith. Is that fair?

"We should have a third party, to go deeper into the hinterlands and beyond the marshes," the Dominican friar continued, barely pausing. "My sixth sense tells me there are tribesmen there. Have we not seen those Sea Gypsies? Really, there’s a native village nearby."

"There’re inhabitants here, I believe that too, Friar Salvador."

Afterwards, they ate in silence, both relishing the new dish of fried dried culisi fish; and the thought of further exploring the island for its heathen inhabitants put aside for the moment.

The next day Captain Torres and Friar Salvador sailed with the rowboat taking a third exploration party to the island. On the bow of the rowboat, Friar Salvador stood, doing all he could to keep himself from falling and his dignity in tack in the moving vessel, at the same time without taking his eyes off the island. A part of the friar’s face was in shadow, for the sun had just recently risen; his lips were set firm and his eyes wide, unblinking. On the contrary, the marqués couldn’t see much of the island, you know since the Dominican friar blocked his view; so the captain once in a while pretended to look back at his flag ship in the bay.

After disembarking, Captain Torres himself sent off the third party farther east of the island, and then himself supervised the building of two simple structures for quarters and breastworks in case fearful Moros also inhabit the island. Both structures were built of native or local materials of bamboo, nipa palms, nawi vines, rattan straps, and round wood. Behind the breastwork was a lookout post; here the Spanish flag was raised, showing one and all the breadth and length of Spain’s world domain here in the peninsula — at the end of the World.

On that same day, a few hours after raising the Spanish flag, they saw several Moro pirate sailboats just outside of the fringe of the bay, though it was late afternoon of the day already and the horizon was colorless and dull. Cautiously, the pirate sailboats entered the bay, and then wooden paddles briskly splashing alongside their hulls, rushed forward, turning their bows toward the pair of Spanish ships there. The Spanish and Indio cannoneers went to their guns, poised and waiting for the command: Fuego! Fire! as the pirate sailboats came closer, now less than a hundred meters away, certainly within the perfect range of the ships’ cannon. But before the cannoneers could fire, the Moro pirates abruptly turned back their sailboats , the change of direction so sudden that the sails flopped emptily in the air with the shifting of the wind. A minute passed before the flaccid sails breathed new wind again, and sailed north-west toward Gornlic, a Moslem town and haven of pirates some leguas away below the hump of the peninsula.

Friar Salvador insisted that the lookout post should be on the alert especially for evasive paganos and savages. He recalled that His Excellency, the Manila Archbishop Paes, had told him natives proliferated the southern islands like goats, and now he looked around him and asked himself, But where are those native goats?"

He was desperate. There wouldn’t be any prime land left if he didn’t have a Christian convert soon. All the plains and savannas Marqués Torres would have in his name, he’d be a grand encomiendero ... you could be sure about that of the ingrate. Upon landing had he not right away raised the Spanish flag on the beach like a conquering hero, although there was not a single savage to challenge him? I must find my first infidel savage and soon, Friar Salvador admonished himself; or forever be helpless to stop the Captain from having all the glory and in particular, all the fertile and prime land.

Ever suspicious and distrustful, the friar harbored the thought that Don Torres had intentionally kept his men back and secretly told them not to go farther than the fringes of the banks.

So, about this matter he went to see the Captain in the yet unfinished quarters on the beach. He found him sitting on a bamboo bench, watching the progress of the construction, and told him that the mission must have already its first convert now. Captain Torres nodded, and said indeed he had already organized a third party; didn’t the friar himself accompany it as they left the ship. But the latter was only half appeased and said:

"Coño ... ! Hijo de cabra! if we don’t find our first savage infidel, before noon today, you must send your men beyond the marshes and those hills there."

"They’re doing that right now," said Captain Torres, smiling, pretending not to have heard the cuss words, nor seen the friar’s intemperance.

We don’t discount the notion that Friar Salvador wondered if the captain had noticed the swear words, you know what I’m saying, and that it was the first time he swore before the captain out of desperation. Maybe the marqués noticed this since he was smiling, a cynical smile, obviously not taking him seriously. He was just using him for his amusement; and so Friar Salvador looked sorely at him and didn’t disguise it, not at all, and stopped only when Captain Torres ceased smiling. Friar Salvador said:

"Order them to search for infidel inhabitants of the island, very hard, por favor get them moving about instead of their lazy bodies just sitting on their arses ... all the time taking siesta under the palm trees there" — and he pointed toward the cluster of trees along the banks — "just like Mexican peons. Even the Indios are already imitating our Spanish sailors. Have you not noticed, Capitàn?" He paused, and in the silence Captain Torres shifted his boots on the dirt floor of his unfinished quarters, and Friar Salvador clenched his fist and shook it, and said again:

"Coño! How quickly the Indios have learned our vices, but none of our virtues."

Captain Torres was pleased that the Dominican brother had transferred the subject of his ire from the exploration party’s ineptness and delay, intentionally pursued to his mind, to the indolent Indios. Leaning forward on the bamboo bench, he said:

"Si, si; I agree with your observation. The Indios shouldn’t be encouraged ... like Mexican peons. Indolent! Where will we get shipyard workers and rowers and builders of bridges and schools and churches? si-si, where if not from the lazy, ignorant native islanders."

Instead of diminishing irritation and distrust, Friar Salvador reacted reversibly, but not as sharply and overt. Is the captain also referring to the church in the province of Laguna which was built by the Indios through free labor? thought Friar Salvador. Is he being subtle by saying he favors harsh free labor forced from the Indios, and haven’t the friars done this too in building schools and churches? He couldn’t trust the marqués even if it was his money which was financing the expedition to the southern peninsula.

Outwardly, he looked as if he were always helpful and supportive, but on the contrary ... hard-headed worse than a mule, cabeza de carnero. For instance, this expedition was organized by him not entirely for penance, one’s sin, or to gain grace and indulgence, thought the friar, both bony cheeks arching upward, himself smiling now, as a child smiles discovering a gang’s secret hide-out.

An hour or so past dawn it was, the sun just peeping through a cluster of massive clouds over the beach of an island in Southern Mindanao, then called Nawan in ancient times, and Samboangan in the last quarter of the 16th century and the beginning of the next with the coming of the Spaniards.

Samboangan is south of the archipelago of Las Islas de Felipenas. The archipelago looks like an uneven knotted string of over 7000 islands straddled between the South China Sea, west, and northeast the Pacific Ocean, while Samboangan itself sticks out there, you know, in the Celebes sea like a thumbs down sign. An augur of death and doom, an ineluctable destiny of fire and destruction.

For about noon that day, the sun now blazing from a clear sky, the Spanish sailors caught a boy from a village in the hinterlands hunting for turtle eggs along the beach. At first he wouldn’t tell them where his village was, but they tortured him, you know, so he told them.

They saw some fifty nipa-thatched huts with nipa-palm or sawali-woven walls nestled on the lowland, held up by bamboo tubes or tree-trunks as posts. In their midst was the thimuay labi’s ... elder gatherer of the people ... rectangular-shaped house. It was five times larger than any of the huts, but had the same nipa-palm materials for its roof. Its walls were purely of nawi-woven frames, and besides being bigger it rose three-four times higher than the other huts: some twenty feet up from the ground. Bigger tree-trunks prodded the thimuay labi’s house up.

Another thing different one immediately noticed was the incongruous shape of the elder chief’s house: a very long batalan ... open porch ... extended at one end of it, the part adjacent to a river. The batalan was so long that it looked like an uncovered bridge abandoned by its workers before it could cross the river, while remains of a flexible bamboo platform of the buklog, a pagan festivity lasting at least a week, about thirty meters high, was attached to the open porch still. Not a single nail fastening slats and beams or poles were to be found in the bamboo platform; nawi strips kept them fixed or bound together: thus, its flexibility and bouncing quality when during a buklog ritual a dancer would jump up and down on it. A buklog dancer, folk said could do his jumping and swaying much and as hard as he wished, and the springy bamboo platform would swing resiliently and rebound simultaneously without collapsing in tune time with his feet. In fact, upon the springy, flexible bamboo platform, Subanons danced wildly, giddily; all the while emitting strange, thick, guttural cries to Gulay and their other gods! — until the end of the pagan ritual buklog a week or so later.

In ancient times, a human sacrifice, so they say, usually a stranger who lost his way in the Subanon village, was offered as sacrifice. At present time, a balian or medicine man offered a pig instead: no longer a human being, ha-ha. Things had changed a bit since priests and missionaries came to the Subanon villages.

In the middle of a verdant valley lay the Subanon village, folk said. Steep mountain slopes bordered its flanks. Behind it was a waterfall, framed by rock shelves on each side, disgorging tons of water into a pool several hundreds of feet below. It was the river’s source of water which ran through the valley, as well as the Subanon settlement’s. Left of the valley, the river wound close to the cliffs, which were forested by soaring trees that had very small trunks, while east of the valley and beyond the waterfall were the rolling hills. Because of slash-and-burn farming on their slopes, the rolling hills looked less green than the mountaintops beyond. From a distance, planted to corn and upland rice, the hill slopes looked like empty spaces hurriedly filled with rough, isolated tufts of hair.

Not too far from the river were vegetable patches and a fruit orchard, you know and just some distance past the entrance to the valley were several giant baluno trees: like mangos were their fruit. Unlike other trees, they were always found in Subanon villages, and no Subanon village was without them. Because it was said that during droughts in ancient times, the Subanons depended on the baluno tree to stave off starvation. Believe it or not, this incredible tree lived in the driest soil, and even without a drop of rain for even as long as a year — the baluno tree still could survive.

On the meadow on the other side occupying a third of the valley goats and horses were grazing; down south-east in a lake cluttered with water-lily hyacinths swam several wild mallard ducks; and on the shoulder of the embankment adjacent to the land on which the nipa-thatched houses stood were more goats and horses. They were small but sturdy. Water buffaloes snorting water through their nostrils wallowed in the mud holes nearby, cooling themselves, since they had no sweat glands, so old folk said. On the empty lots before the huts were chickens and more ducks; nearly all huts had pigs, some with litters, under them tethered to the round posts.

In that year of 1593, seventy-two years after the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan (?1470-1521) discovered Las Islas de Felipenas, Spanish Captain Sebastían Torres sent his Pampangueño guides into the valley. After some time, they returned with this report: in particular, they saw tethered to the posts many, many pigs. Pigs foraging with their snouts were seen on the fields, roaming on the empty lots, and under the nipa-thatched huts and houses. Behind the huts or houses on the backyard besides sows and piglets were fowls and goats.

Neither Friar Salvador nor Captain Torres had expected to find such a large pagan community in the island, as one would suspect, not too far from its beach. Both believed that the infidel Moros with their constant raids and pillage had driven the natives scattering deep into the forest. But obviously, the inhabitants were not the dreaded, infidel Moros, whose religion Islam forbid them to eat pork: they would not even come near pigs: babuys — those dirty animals.

"We’ll take the boy to his village, with his head on his shoulders still, of course, and present him to his chief. And what do you think we’ll tell him, hah, Don Torres?" The Dominican Friar Salvador didn’t wait for a reply; rather he spoke fast now, the words tumbling from his thin lips, saying, "‘We tried to save him from the Moro pirates (had we not seen Moro raiding outrigger-canoes off the bay two days ago), but we were too late ... although we successfully drove them away from the beach, those fearsome infidels, followers of the false prophet Mohammed. They’ll not bother you anymore.’ — That’s what we’ll tell his datu." So, they killed the Subano boy, hacking his chest and face with a long knife, the way Moros did their victims.

Under the sweltering tropical sun, with the Subano boy’s dead body hanging on the pole, the Spanish and Indio strangers from Luzon and the Visayas regions entered the village. Here and there, the Subanons scrambled and ran, confused, in panic, very terrified at the sight of the tall white strangers. Some ran back into their nipa-thatched huts, others into the nearby thickets and onto the fields along the fringe of the village. Still others, struck numb, legs screwed in a vise-like grip, were transfixed on the spot where they had stood when the white strangers and brown Indios carrying the turtle-egg hunter’s corpse hanging on a pole came into their village.

However, the sight that very much terrified the Subanons wasn’t the image of the Subano boy’s corpse, yet bleeding from its lacerated wounds, as it swung on the pole like a speared wild pig. Rather, it was the imposing living figures of the marqués Captain Torres and the Dominican Friar Laurentino Salvador; the former with his plumed steel helmet and mail coat shimmering in the afternoon sun, and the latter in a black sotana and with the huge Cross of the Lord Jesus hanging on his neck.

The terrified Subanons had never seen so many tall white men, too, with long sticks and not a few in armor clothes, with shod feet and steel helmets spangling in the sunrays. And such reddish faces, blue eyes, and mops of hair the colors of which were red, blonde, or silver: not one of the tall white men had black hair like the Indio Subanons themselves. Completely ignored, without so much as a glance thrown in their direction, were the Pampangueño and Visayan conscripted soldiers, who had even strutted alongside the Spanish troops. Do they not have the same black hair? brown skin? as themselves? the Subanons must have thought. Erroneously, the Spaniards called them Indios, too; as all natives of the tropical islands in the Pacific Ocean were called. The blame lay on a flax of geographical calculation by the navigator Christopher Columbus; he thought he was somewhere in India, and not in North America; pues, henceforth all the inhabitants of Spanish colonies, not just Las Islas de Felipenas, carried the generic term Indios.

Because the Subanons were in such a state of terror and shock, not unmixed with awe, at the shinning mail coats blinding them and the long muskets reaching past the troops’ shoulders — Captain Torres, Friar Salvador, and the Spanish and Indio sailors and marines were neither harassed nor stopped, as they walked straight into the village itself. Ahead of the company entering the village, leading it as though in scorn and display, was the Subano boy’s corpse carried on a pole by the Pampangueño sailors. They headed toward the rectangular-shaped house, which they rightly guessed was the house of the thimuay labi or village chief.

The chief, called gatherer of the people by Subanons, welcomed them. He could not do otherwise, you know frightened by the sight of the dead Subano turtle-egg hunter hanging on a pole, just as if he were a pig. Friar Salvador assured him that they were friends, telling the thimuay labi how they tried to save the boy from Moro pirates, but unfortunately was not able to save him from being hacked to death. This appeased the thimuay labi, and his fear of them abated, and he again made a gesture with his arms as a genuine welcome. He said:

"You’re welcome to my house, my people, and our humble food."

"Thank you, king of this island," said Friar Laurentino Salvador.

"Thimuay labi," said he, being a very humble man; "not king of the island."

"Si-si; bueno," said Friar Salvador, in his mother tongue. "Thimuay labi ... pues."

As fortune would have it, it was the month of May. It was the month the gods and the saints lent the peninsula a perfect weather of all the months of the year. Harvests had been good, and the sea steamed with fishes in a calm sea and in the corral reefs. But the afternoon sun was blazing down upon the village, a fiery white orb that even the sky paled in its shimmering light.

As the days went by, Captain Torres mulled over the idea of putting up a structure for a small garrison. A good spot was a promontory on the southwestern coast of the bay. He had seen it in one of his early morning walks on the beach. It had the vantage point of having a clear view of either the southern or the western rim of the horizon. Any Moro pirate outrigger canoe coming from the Sulu sea would be spotted many leguas away yet; the garrison would then send a warning and defend the village:

Cuidao, ay Moros en el horizonte! — Watch out, there’re Moros on the horizon.

Friar Salvador, in spite of his stern and humorless disposition, had easier access to the thimuay labi, than Captain Torres. Probably it was because a soldier’s mail coat and weapon often than not repel non-combatant villagers, you know what I’m saying and put him at a distance. Moreover, the Subanons were a peaceful tribe, unlike the warlike Moros. After long talks with him, the thimuay labi was more and more convinced Friar Salvador was no different than their own balian... priest and medicine man. The elder gatherer of people thought:

Does he not talk as much of the beginning, that is the creation, and of martyrs, and one very powerful god, whom he calls the Father Almighty ... we call ours Gulay? — just like our own balian! And the balian also has a necklace hanging on his chest, and in his hand wooden beads in a long string, which always he runs through his fingers!

So, Captain Torres asked the Friar Salvador to speak to the thimuay labi about building a structure for a garrison. Very much amused was Friar Salvador, because the capitàn-marqués would never ask him for any a favor if he could help it. A very proud man was Captain Torres: thinking, Besides a favor drawn from a friar means a three-fold return gain of the original favor; and the marqués knows it.

"Of course, Don Torres. I’ll speak to the thimuay labi ... chief gatherer of the people."

"It’s important, imperative that we ... that a garrison be left to protect the island from Moro pirates," said Captain Torres. "We need his men to get us bamboo tubes and timber, as our men are not familiar with the forest here. And corral rocks ... these we need too."

"I understand ... it’s a favor I cannot refuse the captain of this expedition."

Is he implying in a subtle way he’s trying to patronize himself to me? he thought; but instead said:

"Si, not just a favor to this expedition, Friar Salvador, but to the Church too. What will protect your Christian converts ... once you have them, if not a good strong garrison here at the bay."

"I see ... now we understand each other quite well" — came the sardonic reply from the friar. "You need land in return for the money you put in this expedition; whereas, I need converts to claim by royal degree a piece of this heathen island. And what assurance that both of us will have it? Why, what else? — but a garrison."

It was now Captain Torres who unable to hide his amusement said:

"Si-si, understandably true!"

Instead of asking the thimuay labi to see him, as was the practice of proud Spanish priests, Friar Salvador himself would go to him. One afternoon he found the thimuay labi alone at the end of his long open porch, his beardless face lifted toward the bamboo structure there of the buklog. The buklog structure rose some twenty-five meters from the ground, its bamboo tubes and strips were pale and faded from the rain and sun of months ago; and was connected to one end of the long porch.

"We’d chanting and dancing and kulintang (bronze percussion) playing for almost two weeks," said the thimuay labi, in response to Friar Salvador’s inquiry about the bamboo structure, leaning on a bamboo railing opposite him. "We butchered sixty dozens of chickens, over fifty pigs, and twenty heads of cattle. I cannot remember how many sacks of rice were cooked to feed the people that came from all the sitios near and far.

"I danced up there" — pointing to the bamboo platform on top of the tower-like structure — "as I never danced before. I swung out and then in to the center of the platform, and the tree-trunk pestle in the middle there of the platform would go up and down striking a hollow trunk, filled with broken earthen jars and plates, there on the ground below. Booommm! Booommm! Booommm! It was the grandest buklog offered to our god Gulay in these parts."

He did not understand all that was said in Subanon, but what he missed he imagined them in his mind by the thimuay labi’s gestures and feverish sound of his voice. In the same way, he would communicate to him the dire need to build and keep a garrison here. Pointing to the tower-like bamboo structure, he said:

"We need to build something like that ... a structure of native materials and a lookout tower. It will protect us, you and your people and ours, from the frightful Moro pirates."

The thimuay labi agreed heartily, but for a different reason. "Dâ, we’ll help you build your own buklog. So, you also have your buklog, like ours, and eat pork together as we do. The Moros don’t have buklogs, and their religion Islam forbids them to eat pork. I am happy, we’re the same pork-eating people."

"No-no; not for a buklog ... but something like it; a structure and much stronger to be built of corral rocks, timber, and with cannon to sink the Moro pirate outrigger sailing-canoes. Si, si; something like the tower-like buklog, but really different. Let me explain ..."

Friar Salvador gestured with one hand and the other he drew a picture of a structure for garrison on the dust-covered bamboo floor of the open porch. All the while, he never ceased speaking; the thimuay labi listened in silence, save one instance, in the latter part of the explanation, when he put his finger behind the Dominican friar’s and retouched the lines of the structure; while a twitch flicked on both sides of his face, probably sign that he at last understood him.

Give the poor savage time! the Friar Salvador thought as he left the thimuay labi. He will see what we want ... when our men start building the garrison. What we need are his young men, free labor, hah; you cannot get a Spaniard who abhors manual labor to carry a corral rock! or even a mason spatula!

Together, folk said the Subanons and the Indio soldiers started building a structure with a lookout tower.

By rolling the logs and round wood down the steep slopes, the workers brought the materials down to the foot of the hills. Onto carabao-drawn carts the materials were loaded, and then brought to the promontory.

More than a hundred Subanon workers, including dozens of women who balanced mortar in a basket on their head, worked on the garrison. In two weeks, the fortification and a watch tower were finished. Cheers roared as the last block of corral rock was wedged into the wall of the garrison.

Two-three days had gone of the first week of the start of the rainy season in June, but even up to late that morning not a single drop of rain had fallen on the island, which even the Spaniards and Indios now called Samboangan.

Down the beach, the thimuay labi and his warrior tribesmen, barefooted, plodded on the hot white expanse of beach glistening under the sweltering sun. Only the Subanons’ thick, callused soles like pads protected their feet from the hot sand. Wooden or animal-skin shields were held close to the Subano warriors’ chests, and long knives hang from their waists; in either hand a spear; while on the shoreline, Friar Salvador and Captain Torres stood, both heads turned toward the approaching Subanons.

The Spanish soldiers were armed with muskets while the Indios carried mostly antiquated arquebus. Aside from their firearms, the Indios were armed with native machete-like long knifes, which they called bolo, as though they distrusted the Spanish arquebus from protecting them in battle. In the middle of the beach, the thimuay labi and his warriors quickened their steps; sprays of hot sand flew from the callused soles, smudging a white coating round their perspiration-wet shanks.

All of a sudden, great booming cracks roared from the ship in the bay. On the surface of the water, the cannonballs skipped whooshing toward the shore and exploded not too far from either the Spanish or Subanon group. A gun salute to the Subanon thimuay labi nearly turned into nightmare — for the gunners had miscalculated and instead bombarded the beach. Besides, the thimuay labi had no knowledge of Old World tradition of saluting a monarch or lord with sprightly explosions of cannonade.

Shocked out of his wits, which the Spaniards thought he did not have (for was he not a savage?), the thimuay labi leaped several feet up from the floor of the beach. Captain Torres and Friar Salvador standing not far away were peppered with tiny bits of crushed mollusks (washed ashore centuries ago) and powder of sand.

"No-no!," cried Captain Torres, waving his hand at the thimuay labi’s face and bending down from the hip as he had seen the Subanons when greeting or paying respect. "It is to honor you ... those explosions; a gun salute to the king."

Both he and Friar Salvador leaned forward from the stems of their hips, bowing cordially to appease the bewildered Subanon elder chief. Said the thimuay labi: "Dâ-dâ; now I understand. But I’m not a king — I am a thimuay labi, the elder gatherer of the people. What you call the senior commander in-chief."

A sad day indeed if the meeting of the great Spanish chiefs and the humble Subanon head was aborted, because of a misinterpretation and miscalculation of the gun salute. Without doubt, the thimuay labi would have fled back to his village, swiftly as a deer flees from a hunter. And the village instead of becoming a Christian enclave, would fall into the hands of the Moros and ultimately Islam.

Spain herself had been a colony of the Moors, of a faraway country called Africa, from 711 to 1472 , A.D. Moorish rule came to an end when the last Moorish city of Granada fell to the Northern armies of Ferdinand V and Isabella I. Spain’s fourth explorer (after the Portuguese Fernao de Magallaes (Ferdinand Magellan as the English-speaking World knows him), who came before Moluccas Governor Fray Garcia Jofre de Loaisa, in 1525,; and Alonso de Saavedra Ceron, in1527) — Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, in 1543, would name the archipelago after Charles I’s son, Felipe, the prince of Asturias: Las Islas de Felipenas.

A nomadic, mixed Arab and Berber people of North Africa were the Moorish warriors, and the Spaniards found them physically different from the Moslems south of the colonial capital of the archipelago, Manila. In Sulu and the South region islands, the Moros they observed were short, brown, with flat noses, splayed toes, and apparently no sense of sartorial taste. The only similarity with the desert warriors of North Africa: their fanatical bigotry and religious ablutions to Allah several times a day.

And so, the two tribes, Spanish and Subanon, divergent in race and religion, met on the hot sands of the white beach of the bay, in view of the Spanish warships, the small garrison with its watch tower, and the humble promontory on the southwestern coast of the peninsula of Samboangan, in the South region.

Dominican Brother Salvador, very eager to have his first convert, had convinced the thimuay labi to be the first to be baptized, telling himself that through him he’d soon have the whole pagan tribe converted to Christianity. He told the gatherer of the people, or thimuay labi, that there was no no difference between their pagan rituals than his, Do we not also drink of His blood? And eat of His Flesh? And cleansed ourselves by the purification of water? Tickled with curiosity, like an unbearable itch swollen up by soft strokes under trhe foot’s sole, he insisted in seeing the ritual, saying Now, now; is it really like ours?

Thus, everything was made ready for the Holy Mass.

He looked everywhere expecting to see a slave to be sacrificed, but instead saw a wooden platform, with four small posts on each corner, not higher than a five-year-old child. Beside it was a long wooden pole, with another pole smaller and shorter attached to the first at right angle, one end of the long pole was thrust into the sand. On it, rather the cross, was nailed an emaciated, half-naked Man, who was white like the Spaniards, with a crown of thorns piercing the Man’s head; below his ribs a gash of wound crusted and dark with dry blood. Can that Man hanging on the Cross be the first man the white people had sacrificed? then take him everywhere they go to frighten their slaves and their enemies!

But there were no dances, and playing of the agong — brass musical instruent —, and the beating of wooden sticks against a hollow trunk loud enough to raise one’s ancestors from the dead.

The scene soon bored him. But when Brother Salvador poured the blessed water over his head, he was jolted out of it. Naturally, he objected, and who wouldn’t; but he was told unless he was baptized he wouldn’t see the important part of the ritual, Holy Mass. This was the partaking of the host as Christ’s Body and drinking of the wine as His Blood. With the mention of food and drinking, he stood upright and was baptized.

However, he found the host tasteless, unfilling; during their ritual buklog, the most humble part of a lechon — roasted pig — was much, much more crispy and delicious and filling. And the red wine, gasi, tastes a hundred times better than their wine, and one drinks it as much as he can through a bagacay tube inserted into the wine jar. Why, during buklog, he thought, the wine flows endlessly; but in this Spanish shaman’s ritual only one sip we’re allowed to drink, while he himself drinks the rest from a shiny gold container. Unfair!

So, we may ask ourseleves, How can you explain this to a Subanon? That long, long ago, Christ when pressed by his mother had turned water in six stone interpots, containing two or three firkins apiece, into wine at a wedding in ancient Cana of Galilee .... and perpetuated it as proof of God’s, through the child Jesus, miracle! And yet, sabes tu what I’m saying, the thimuay labi’s ancestors had for centuries been doing the same thing, turning water to wine by pouring it into a jar of gasi, half filled with fermented rice, without the knowledge that it took a miracle to change water into wine in ancient Israel. Jesùs, Marìa, y Josè!

About midday the consecration of the Holy Mass was over, neither pleased nor wowed by it was the thimuay labi; on the other hand, Brother Salvador was very pleased, pleased beyond belief, since he had his first convert, and was sure that soon a mass baptism of Subano warriors would follow, and yet even now he could claim the right of domain over the land through the Patronato Royal land degree of the King.

Old Samboangan at Caldera Bay and its plaza prospered.

Seven years after the discovery of La Caldera Bay and the putting up of the garrison there, Captain Sebastìan Torres was then a colonel and the governor of the island and Dominican Brother Laurentino Salvador y Praedelles its bishop.

SAMBOANGAN:Prelude/P1