Story One

The Turtle-Egg Hunter

The hour was almost noon, the sun blazing from a clear sky down on the beach of an island in Mindanao, one of the three major islands (Visayas and Luzon are the other two) of Las Islas Felipenas, in the South China Sea.

On his fours in the sand, the turtle-egg hunter of his village was thinking: My brain in the shell of my head is cooking like an egg in mother’s pot; I must find soon a turtle-egg cache soon …. Under his bare feet, the sandy floor of the beach was hot; he wriggled his toes to relieve them. He went on digging though, thrusting his bare hands deep into a spot on the beach for turtle-eggs he knew were there. Up on the banks fresh water streamed down in rivulets to the shore, not too far from where he was digging, spreading in myriad of water arteries all over the white beach.

By instinct, the boy knew he was close to a cache of turtle eggs. Feverishly he dug deeper, and from the bottom of the hole water sprung, filling it instantly: cold water rushed up his hands and arms to his elbows, just a little before his armpits. He felt coldness tingling his wet arms, and something else: soft and round and giving in to his touch. He knew what they were: a bountiful cache of turtle eggs.

The boy was the best turtle-egg hunter from the village of the river people tribe, called Subanons, the natives of the island. His village was some distance away, in the lowland before the rolling hills, beyond the woods and marshes. He came to the beach to hunt for turtle eggs; for indeed, he was the best turtle-egg hunter of his village, and dug up turtle eggs where no one, young or old, thought, could find them. His folks were very proud of him, and thankful to their god Gulay for the boy’s rare talent. Besides augmenting their food at table, the turtle eggs provided them with a delicacy, which was the envy of their neighbors.

ÿ

But before he left their house that morning, his folks had urged him not to go turtle egg-hunting. They asked him if he who saw turtle eggs where nobody could see them were blind to the two big ships of the tall white people from the other side of the World.

"I can see the tall ships in the bay, ma-mam," he said. "So I will hunt for turtle eggs at the other end of the beach, where the tall white people will not be able to see me. Sometimes the giant green turtles lay eggs there, particularly when the moon is waxing, as it is now."

"It is much better not to have turtle eggs on our table than have something happen to you, son," said his father. "We do not know why those white strangers came here, what they want … and so we must avoid them. The white strangers are always trouble, so my father said."

"The place I will look for turtle eggs is a bit far from the big huts they are building on the beach, and the lookout tower does not have a sentry when the sun is at its highest. I will be very quick, and will always be watching for the white people."

"We do not mind if we have no turtle eggs today," the mother repeated, twitching the corners of her mouth as if to laugh; but no laughter ensued through her mascada-rouged teeth. "We eat them everyday and I feel bloated with turtle eggs already. And your father, also ... oy-oy, son, look at his stomach!" She shook a finger at his belly, which protruded from an unbuttoned slip of his sleeveless jacket-like shirt. She twitched the corners of her mouth again; there was no laughter still. "Is that not so, my man?"

"Hó, o, woman. Are we not overeating turtle eggs, maybe?" he replied. It was he who was capable of laughing; and he did, his rotund belly shaking with laughter.

The boy had listened for a while, out of respect for his parents, and then left the house to hunt for turtle eggs that morning. His legs carried him to the spot he knew where caches of turtle eggs were buried in the sand, in this part of the beach. Right away he started to dig with his bare hands, raking the sand with his fingers. And not long afterwards he had felt soft, delicate shells collapsing slightly under his touch. Turtle eggs!

ÿ

For some while a white man, a Spanish sailor, had been watching the turtle-egg hunter; the Subano boy was totally unaware of him, for his mind and body were intend on digging out the new catch of turtle eggs. So, he did not see nor hear the Spanish sailor come up stealthily on him, soundlessly, on padded feet on the sandy floor. Then, abruptly, the Spanish seaman was there: white, tall, a ridge for a nose, thickly bearded, his chin invisible; his shadow directly under him in the midday sun.

As the seaman stepped up to grab him, the sudden shuffling sound in the sand reached the turtle-egg hunter’s ears; he turned his head to find a white stranger behind him and he shrieked in fright, his hands frozen in the turtle-egg cache …. Then other white strangers and an Indio islander from the island of Luzon joined the bearded man, and they all tried to grab him at once. Around his neck, arms, chest, and trunk hairy arms grasped and tightened; he struggled to free himself, and his hands became wet with mashy paste, as his clenched fists crushed the turtle eggs in them. With all his strength, he kicked at the white strangers, grains of sand flying from his feet onto their chests and faces; and with mashy hands he pummeled their arms and chests — splattering broken turtle-eggs upon them.

They held on to him, would not let him go. The tall bearded stranger squeezed his neck, strangling him, and his lungs became dry and empty. Air … he must have air, he screamed in his head. He kicked harder, struggled harder, but the bearded stranger’s grip did not come loose. Another white stranger clutched his hands together, while the rest started battering him on all parts of his body. Some blows fell on the bearded man’s hands, forcing him to loosen his grasp. He swore at the rest.

Finally, air … thin air, yet enough. "Aarrrccchhh—aaarrrccchhh," the Subano turtle-egg hunter gagged, as soon as air filled back his lungs. He found his voice. "Let me go!" he cried; but the white strangers did not understand him. One of them said, "Cunt of your mother-whore. Cabron!"

"You arsehole," said another stranger; the brown Indio (what natives of the islands were called by the Spaniards; because of a geographical flaw by Spain’s explorer Christopher Columbus, who upon landing in North America thought he was in India: since then, all natives of Spain’s colonies were called Indios) ) from Luzon. The Indio’s strange words were not so unfamiliar, unlike those of the tall white strangers. Looking askance and between the gap in the blows, the boy saw the brown Indio and thought he looked no different from him and his folks. "Maybe he will help me," he thought; "since his skin is brown like my own." Eagerly he sought the Indio stranger’s eyes, but they were just as red and piercing as the white strangers’ from the other side of the World. In fact, they were more cruel, ugly, because he had expected him to come to his aid. For was not his skin so brown as his?

Over at the nearby trees along the bank, some white catalas and wild pigeons … tugmos … and swamp monkeys fretted: never had they heard so much cries and curses. Suddenly, the birds flapped their wings, filling the trees with swishing and rippling air; the monkeys swung themselves up on the higher branches of the trees.

By this time, the white strangers were on top of the Subano boy, crushing his chest. Two of them sat on his limbs so he would not be able to move them, and someone shoved a sharp elbow into his eyes; a knee cracked into his mouth, breaking his upper and lower lips. He screamed in pain, and the cry made the monkeys scramble away to the woods nearby, shrieking; while the wild tugmos took wing toward the rolling hills beyond the lowland.

The white strangers girded him with a rough rope, and when they ran out of rope someone went over to the edge of the bank and returned with loops of vines. They bound his hands and feet, and the extra vines were wound around his body.

The Subano boy struggled to free himself, but he was trussed so tight with the vines and rough rope he could not even wiggle his arms or legs. He heaved a long, heavy sigh, and gave himself up to the white strangers and the one stranger from the North Region, an Indio like him. They carried him away from his cache of turtle-eggs like he were a dead wild boar, with men by his head holding his arms and others his feet. Swinging that way, his head began to swirl and his captives became hazy objects above his head. He was carried down the beach toward the Spanish camp and the breastwork.

Down the beach were more strangers, tall and white, and those with brown skin like himself; and with mops of black hair like his, who started shouting at their approaching comrades. Those at the breastwork were shouting: "Hoy, hoy, look! We finally got ourselves a savage."

"Is he an island dweller, or a Sea Gypsy?"

"It does not matter if he is a Badjao or Samal fisherman … Friar Salvador will be pleased. He will not badger us any longer. He has his wild savage. Hoy, hoy!"

As they neared their camp, the Spanish sailors and conscripted Indio soldier started to run with their bound captive, jarring and shaking him so that his mind cleared a bit. Slowly, his eyelids lightened and he regained the use of his eyes: he saw white men and Indios from the breastwork running to meet them. When the two groups came together, both sides began to talk and jabber excitedly.

"Where did you find him?"

"Out there … up the beach, south from here."

"What was he doing there?"

"Digging a hole … there, a deep hole he was digging."

"The boy must be loco digging holes by himself on the beach. Only un loco does that, hah?"

"No-no, sir! He was gathering turtle eggs; not un loco," said the brown Indio who was with the Spanish sailors when they discovered the Subano turtle-egg hunter.

Those from the camp prodded him with a stick or points of their fingers, as one would an object to see if it was real or alive. Some found it a good thing to kick and box him. The turtle-egg hunter cried for mercy, and the brown Indio boxed him and swore, "Milk of your mother!" And a Visayan from the East or West Visayas Region swore and kicked him, again and again.

His head started to whirl again; his captors had not stopped punching and kicking him; and again things were blurring. Blurry faces zoomed in and out of his vision; in order not to faint he held himself and clamped his jaws, and the dark which nearly overcame him retreated. Still his captors’ jabbering grew louder, pounding in his head.

"He is a Sea Gypsy," cried a Spanish sailor.

A small crowd of soldiers and sailors had now gathered round the turtle-egg hunter. The ones in front were pushed from behind by those who wished to have a better look at the Subano boy; the former swore and threatened to knock their heads, but the crowd behind swore back at them. A second brown Indio sailor, another Visayan , said, "No, he is not!"

"Not what …."

"Not a Badjao," said the second Visayan.

"How do you know?"

"Look at his hair! — It is as black as mine," he said, and bent his head toward the other. Once more he swiveled his head toward a Spanish sailor, and continued:

"It is not sun-golden, like the Spaniard’s there" — pointing to the sailor — "or Badjao’s hair, which is golden-color because exposed to too much sun. I used to be a fisherman in my village in the Visayas, in Cebu … and there were times when the Sea Gypsies would stop at our island to fish. This is how I know."

"He is a real wild savage, is he not?" the other said, quite convinced himself.

"Hó, o, indeed he is: the Priest Salvador will be pleased!"

"Call the Friar. Quick, someone call him," somebody in front of the crowd said; "so we do not have to go back deeper into the swamps. Or farther up the hills to look for savages for him."

"Hó, o; go quickly and get the padre. Apurá ... quickly!"

Someone jumped up to have a closer look at the wild boy, and those behind could see his head rise above the shoulders and heads of the group.

"Watch out, you! You are stepping on my foot," a sailor cried.

"You are blocking my view, idiot!" said another.

To all came this reply: "Are you not happy?"

"What are you talking about, hoy?" he said.

"We do not have to go into the swamps or hills anymore to look for savages," one among them said, grinning widely. "The priest will be satisfied with this one: he can baptize him to be a Christian like us."

"Hó, o," said the sailor. "You are right … there maybe Moros (derivation from Moors, who ruled Spain for over 700 years), those heathen devils, waiting to ambush us there."

Now one, three, and then a dozen ran up and down the beach: so happy they would not be going to the swamps or beyond up the hills again. Some parted from the group and ran down the edge of the water, and there they kicked sprays of sea water with their feet. Against the sunlight rainbows of brine water sprays arched round their feet and shanks. No longer were they behaving like sailors or conscripted Indio soldiers; rather they were like boys, without a care, playing in the beach.

Under the hot sun, the Subano boy’s eyes dimmed again, and the faces and shapes above him began to blur and dull. Into his ears roared the prattle of the white men, and the half-familiar tongues of the brown Indio islanders like him.

When the Spanish priest arrived, they put the turtle-egg hunter down on the beach, still bound hand and feet, for him to see. Before his presence right away water was forced into the Subano turtle-egg hunter’s mouth, gagging him. Though he was no longer a young man, Friar Salvador jumped and stomped on him, as if to help him get rid of the water from his stomach. In fact, a stream of water jetted out of the boy’s mouth accompanied by a gurgling sound: glurg, glurg, glurg.

He had a fit of coughing. He tried to wriggle himself free from the binding rope and vines, as more water continued spouting through his mouth. Seeing that his stomach was empty of water now, a Spanish sailor filled a bucket of water over his mouth; he held it above the boy’s head to let a steady stream flow down his throat. Again, the native Subano boy gagged and vomited.

Spittle of saliva dripped from each corner of his mouth; it flowed down his chin; some dribbled into his ears. He shook his head, the only part of his body he could move now.

They still had not untied him, and now a funnel-like hollow stick was forced into his mouth. He resisted the alien thing by clamping his jaws, but a sharp object pried his mouth open, cutting his skin round them; so he opened his mouth and afterwards could not close them again because of the hollow stick. Again the water bucket … he jerked his face away from it; but a big white man clamped both his hands on each side of his head, like in a vise grip. Completely he lost all control and mobility of his body and jaw and head, and only his tongue would follow what he wanted it to do. Even this was not free of all movements, as the funnel-like, hollow wooden stick barred all. For instance, he could not even twist his tongue to push out the stream of water rushing down his gullet, to stop it from choking him.

Again and again, Friar Salvador somehow imbued with youth jumped and stomped on the turtle-egg hunter’s stomach. Greenish liquid jetted out from his mouth. "Where is your village, hah? Tell us, cabron! — cuckold!" he shouted down at the turtle-egg hunter. The boy wished he could understand what to him flowed like monkey’s babble from the priest’s mouth. How he wished he knew, for his head was throbbing again. "What does the tall white man dressed like a woman and with long sleeves covering his hands want from me. With all these pain and queasiness and vomiting, why will I not tell him?" With his eyes he pleaded to the priest: "Please, please … take this stick out of my mouth and I will tell you what you want. But stop all this pain, and speak to me in my tongue … your jabbering I cannot understand." As if rejecting his pleas and voice screeching, Friar Salvador once again stomped on his stomach, then with more vigor. Hanging on his scrubbed-reddish neck was a huge wooden Cross of the Crucified Christ; it swayed in wild rhythm with his stomping. As his mouth was clamped, and water pouring into his gullet, the Subano boy continued mutely to scream in his head, "Take out the hollow stick … I will tell you all you want to know; please, please, please." But since the Subano boy’s scream was mute, unheard, the priest stomped on his stomach again; and the native boy screamed in his head again, "Please take out the stick and I will tell you everything": but instead of words a stream of water and vomit spurted up through the funnel-like stick.

"How can such a mere boy dare defy me?" the priest asked himself. Had he not sat among nobles and knights of Spain; discussed and debated with her poets and intellectuals, as well as of the Church’s? But here was a mere savage who dared to defy him. He warned him: "If you do not show us where your village is, you will be the first Christian convert of this God-forsaken land and its first martyr, you worshipper of Islam!"

More water was poured into the boy’s gullet, gagging him; and Friar Salvador’s neck stretched and became redder than before, and again he jumped on the boy’s belly, and his necklace with the Cross of the Crucified Christ swung wildly in rhythm. Again, greenish water flowed in a stream from the corners of the Subano boy’s mouth and up the funnel-like stick. But this time a thin liquid squirted from his anus, which nobody noticed, since he was lying on his back and the excretion quickly filtered into the millennium sand.

Again, desperately, the Subano turtle-egg hunter screamed in his head, mutely shouting that they take the funnel stick away from his mouth, so he could tell them what they wanted to know. Of course, as before, they could not hear him for the spittle and retch in his mouth; particularly, the funnel-like stick limiting all activity of his tongue. Neither the Friar nor the Spanish sailor took off the wooden stick from his mouth, nor ceased pouring water from the bucket into his gullet.

Finally, the Subano boy gave himself up to the dark and passed out.

ÿ

Half an hour or so later, the turtle-egg hunter regained consciousness. He was no longer lying prostrate on the beach, nor was his stomach full of water; "I must have vomited much of it into the sand," he thought. They stood him up on his feet, though wobbly, held up by a sailor who thrust his arms under his armpits. Before him stood another man, taller, without the Cross of the Crucified Christ hanging on his chest, and in place of a black woman’s skirt (sotana or cassock) he wore a shiny mail coat, and he was not hatless: a plumed helmet shone on top of his head.

This man was no one else but Captain Sebastían Torres; and holding a pistol in his hand, he pressed the cold barrel against the boy’s temple. The native boy knew it was more dangerous than the cold water poured into his guts from the bucket. For Moro pirates who had raided his village and other coastal villages carried the same stick, which spat fire killing his tribesmen.

Torres scraped the barrel of his pistol against the boy’s temple, and he not unlike the cassock-wearing man, swore and shouted expletives at him. The Subano boy noticed the other free hand, the left, one without the pistol, swinging and jabbing toward the direction of the hinterlands before the mountains, which were actually a range of small hills. Whenever he jabbed his left hand, he would cry, "Allá!" and the combination of the word "allá" and the left hand-jabbing was repeated and repeated; inevitably the Subano boy’s attention was drawn to where the helmeted man was pointing, and he believed he was beginning to understand this taller man. Furthermore, the immediate threat of the barrel against his temple certainly more than hastened this understanding. But as the Subano boy was about to acknowledge the taller stranger’s "allá" and hand-jabbing, Captain Torres hunched his shoulders and stretched his neck so far, that his face nearly touched the Subano boy’s: sprays of saliva and garlic-breath spouted into his youthful tortured face. He shrank back from the odor of garlic, much, much stronger than his village shaman’s, and jumped back but barely moved inches away. He was still bound by the rope, although the vines were loosened a bit, in addition to his being clamped under the armpits by the sailor.

The Captain said, "If you do not tell us now, you will end up a heap of dung on the beach. Speak now and tell us where your village is, hah? If you do, you can go back to hunting turtle eggs … this I assure you, pagano." Then he added, shouting into the face of the boy, barely an inch away, and spraying it with his garlic-smelling spittle, again. "But if you do not tell us right away, I will blow your brains out, you dung-head!"

He did not wait for an answer. Bringing the gun barrel closer to the boy’s temple, but pointed away from it — he pulled the trigger. There was a loud deafening explosion, which burst in the turtle-egg hunter’s head: it sounded like a thousand agongs … percussion cymbals … imbedded inside his ear drum, ringing all at once.

The turtle-egg hunter shook his head, his eyes wide open, wider than any time when he was hunting for turtle eggs that morning. And yet the ringing could not be shaken off; and by it he knew that he was alive still.

After some time, he could not tell how long, the ringing in his ears subsided, but not completely. True, again he could hear the tall helmeted man shouting "Allá! Allá! — There! There!" — but nothing else besides, although the white strangers and the Indios were standing around and jabbering to themselves. He shook his head vigorously, up and down, sideward, to signify he understood it now. So, please, please … I will show you to my village, he pleaded mutely.

ÿ

An Indio Pampangueño soldier from the Pampanga province, North Region, untied the boy, but not his wrists, and with other sailors, who needed no encouragement, pushed the turtle-egg hunter from behind, obviously directing him to go on and lead them to his village.

"Dalì! Hurry!" said the Pampangueño conscripted soldier, slapping the back of the turtle-egg hunter’s head. They went up the bank and through the woods, to southeast, and was now on a faint path in the marshland. Here the path dipped in a decline and disappeared in a pool of water. The strangers thought they would get lost if the path disappeared completely, and warned the turtle-head hunter that they would kill him if they did not find the path again.

"Puñetero!" cried another Pampangueño soldier, imitating the cuss words of his Spanish colonial master. "Bola-bola … balls! Demonio! I will kill you right here if you lose us in the marshes." He pushed him, and the boy staggered; the Pampangueño soldier unsheathed his bolo … long knife … and swung at an imaginary head to show what he would do with him. Quickly, the Subano boy crossed over the pool of knee-deep water. A few meters ahead the water receded to his shanks, and farther away it was just a film over the ground. And in that instant, the path reappeared under their feet and between mounds of earth on a slow rise of the wet land.

"No thanks to your god Allah, you infidel," said the Pampangueño sailor.

Earlier, the first time the name of the Moro’s god was mentioned his mind was in a blur, but now it was clearing and at the word "Allah" the Subano boy’s face turned pallid, his eyeballs popped open under thin eyebrows. He said: "But I am not a Moro, not a worshipper of Allah!" But no one understood his tongue, and thought he was again just blabbing.

"Hó, o," said a second. "If not for the priest who wants you to live until we find your village, you are a corpse many times over. But the priest needs you to save your brothers’ heathen souls from burning in Hell."

An Indio sweet-talked to him, saying they would let him live forever ... but torture him every day. From the Pampangueño a chuckle was heard, ringing eerie and unbridled in the vast marshes. But Don Torres and the Spanish soldiers who understood not a word exchanged among the Indios were silent, and a bit suspicious; only Friar Salvador grunted, and even this sounded as if he were trying to get something out which had stuck in his throat.

In the marshes, the Subano boy several times would stop before giant balete trees. There were times, however, when he avoided some giant trees completely, walking around them or steering clear of them. The white men and Indios thought he was trying to lose them, so he could escape. They shouted warnings at him, and one of the Pampangueño soldiers struck him with the butt of his musket; and a Visayan soldier boxed him in the ear, and said in his native tongue: "Bilat ‘sang ina mo! — Cunt of your mother"

"Arr-aaayyy, arr-aaayyy!" cried the Subano turtle-egg hunter. In sign language, supplication, and much bowing at a balete tree, he explained to his torturers why he stopped at a giant balete tree, or avoided some trees completely. He was only, he said, asking the spirits of the balete trees to excuse them and for permission to let them pass peacefully. Furthermore, he told his abductors that when there was a black spirit hanging about the giant balete trees, he went around it to avoid bumping them or displeasing the black spirit. Though it looked like he was doing evasive action to lose them, this was not so: he had no intention to escape. He babbled in his native tongue this explanation; to his listeners the words sounded more like the "oink-ooiinnkk" of a wild pig speared with a lance.

"I promised to take you to my village," he said, turning around to the Indio sailors, hoping that maybe in the meanwhile one among them would understand him. However, neither a Pampangueño nor a Visayan sailor gave any sign he understood him; but he went on: "And that is where I am taking you now."

Here and there were mounds of soft wet earth jutting through the surface of the marshland; these mounds were created by giant crabs digging deep tunnel-like holes into the slush and black soil, kicking dirt up and shoveling them with their pincers. Sometimes the mounds were taller than a man and topped with clusters of nipa-palms which looked like pointed tufts. Quite often there was no clear path, and they had to climb up these wet mounds of piled swamp earth and cling on the stems of nipa-palms to avoid falling into a bog or quick sand. When the side of the mounds were slippery, as it always was because of the wet swamp soil, the Spaniards and Indios had to grab stems of nipa-palms firmly and pull themselves up and over the mounds.

"Jesus, Maria, y San Jose!" complained the Friar, his sotana smudged with swamp slush or caught between nipa-palm stems.

Past the marshes was coconut land, and quickly the Subano boy led them to a trail on the east side. Through carabao grass and scrubby thickets the trail wound, zigzagging like a snake, and then abruptly the hilly ground rose before them with slopes and woods here and there. They went on for maybe half an hour, and would have covered the same distance a shorter time had they not held back the Subano turtle-egg hunter, who, in spite of his hands being fastened behind him, was going up the trail swift as a mountain goat. His abductors had to shout at him to slow down his pace, since they feared losing him.

"It is because he is familiar with the trail," said one Visayan soldier. "He uses it every day … you would go up and down the trail as quickly also."

"Ha-ha: go then and show us. Chase after the savage and run beside him, and let us see how long or far you can follow him. Hoy-hoy, go on, we dare you, lalake … man!"

"I have not walked a single day on this trail," the Visayan replied, "and you expect me to go up there like that little savage … like a mountain goat!"

"Hoy-hoy," they teased him.

The mud and slush had dried up around their shanks and pants. As they swung their legs, the bog smudges were whipped off by stray shoots and scrubby stems brushing against them. And then, all of a sudden, on an open lowland, with the rolling hills in the background … there it was: the Subanon village.

They saw some fifty nipa-thatched huts with nipa-palm or sawali-woven walls nestled on the lowland; these were held up by bamboo tubes or tree-trunks as posts. In their midst was the thimuay labi’s … elder chief’s … rectangular-shaped house. It was five times larger than any of the other 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 houses: some twenty feet up from the ground. Huge tree-trunks propped 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 Subanon pagan festivity lasting at least a week, about thirty meters high, was attached to the open porch still. Not a single nail was to be found in the bamboo platform; nawi strips kept the poles bound together: thus, its flexibility and bouncing quality when during a ritual a dancer would jump up and down on it. A buklog dancer could do his jumping and swaying as much as he liked, and the springy bamboo platform would swing resiliently and rebound simultaneously in 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.

In ancient times, a human sacrifice, usually a stranger who lost his way in the Subanon village, was offered as sacrifice, so they said. In modern days, a gulilegan or medicine man offers a pig instead: no longer a human being, ha-ha. Things has changed a bit since priests and missionaries in the old days came to the Subanon villages.

ÿ

the middle of a verdant valley lay the native Subanon settlement. Steep mountain slopes north and southeast bordered its flanks. Behind the valley was a waterfall, framed by rock shelves on each side, disgorging tons of water into a pool several hundreds of feet below it. It was the river’s source of water 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 slashandburn farming by Subanon farmers on their slopes, the rolling hills looked less green than the mountain range beyond. From a distance, when 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. And just after the entrance to the valley were several giant baluno trees: like mangoes were their fruit. Unlike other trees, they were always found in Subanon settlement or village, and no Subanon village was without them. 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 survived.

In the meadow occupying a third of the valley, goats and horses were grazing; down 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. On the empty lots before the huts were chickens and more ducks; nearly all huts had pigs tethered to their round posts, some with litters.

ÿ

In that year, over a hundred years ago, after Ferdinand Magellan discovered Las Islas Felipenas in 1521 A.D., to this valley the Spanish Captain Sebastían Torres sent his Pampangueño guides, conscripted sailors and marines from the island Luzon, or the North Region, for reconnaissance. They returned after some time with this report: in particular, they saw tethered to the posts many pigs. Pigs were seen on the fields, on the empty lots, and foraging with their snouts under the nipa-thatched houses. Behind the huts or houses on the backyard roamed sows, piglets, and goats.

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

What would they do now with the captive Subano turtle-egg hunter? Earlier, they intended to kill him after he showed them his village. But he was not, after all, an infidel Moro. Take him with them to the settlement? How could they hide the marks of torture inflicted on him, as it was everywhere: stamps of footprints on his stomach, and bruises round his neck, arms, and chest! Certainly, he would tell his chief why he had bruises all over and footprint-stamps on his stomach, where obviously there should be none. Why he had to drink so much water against his will, seawater yet; why he was deaf in one ear and his belly aching still.

"Let us kill him," said a Visayan, an Indio from the scattered Visayan islands. "Now."

"Hó, o; kill him now," said a. Pampangueño. "There in those bushes."

"Leave his corpse as fodder for the wild boars and iguanas," said another Pampangueño . "After the wild boars, no one will find his body."

"What are we waiting for?" said the first Visayan sailor. He clamped his hand around the Subano turtle-egg hunter’s arm and started to drag him to a bush alongside the trail. The turtle-egg hunter did not resist, not understanding a word exchanged by them; and not suspecting he was to be killed.

"Wait; wait!" cried Friar Salvador. "Un rato no mas; do not kill him yet." He raised one hand as though giving the Subano boy his last absolution and told them he had a better idea. Why not take the savage with them to his village? If he surprised them by showing mercy and reprieve to a doomed native boy, no one grunted his objection. For a soldier’s duty was only to obey! Especially priests and Friars.

Captain Torres was not so sure Friar Salvador’s plan was wise. His own personal wealth was at stake in the Mindanao expedition … in exchange for the King’s favor and encomienda or royal land grant. But Friar Salvador had nothing at stake, nothing to lose; he was not taking any risk.

"I beg your indulgence," he said to the Friar. "I strongly object that we take this boy, this infidel, to his village … in this shape? You are not serious, Friar Salvador!"

A sneer cracked Friar Salvador’s lips. It was attuned to his dark face, glowing there if one could say a smirk glows in a dismal, solemn atmosphere. Such sarcasm was familiar to a gloomy, acerbic face, than one accustomed by the graces of real smile or laughter.

He said, "I have a plan, and listen to this" — he leaned toward Captain Torres, whispering, "We shall of course kill … rather execute him. But we will not leave his body for the wild boars and the iguanas. His chest will be crisscrossed with the Visayan long knives, just like the Moros do with their victims." He paused and straightened up a bit; no longer were his lips close to the Captain’s ear. His voice above a whisper now, he continued: "We will take the boy to his village, with his head on his shoulders still, of course, and present him to his datu or king. And what do you think we will tell him, hah, your Excellency?" He did not wait for a reply; rather he spoke fast now, saying: "That we tried to save him from the Moros (did we not see Moslem 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, worshippers of Allah."

Seeing that the Captain was silent, he took this to mean he agreed with him. With that same austere smile that darkened his face, he continued: "Those ignorant savages will only be too happy to welcome us once we tell them we had tried to save the boy. We are their allies against their mortal enemy, the Moros, who have since old times raided their villages and sold their young men and women in the slave markets of the Celebes islands. Look at the boy whom we tried to save from the Moros! we will say to their king. Pues, Don Torres, they will even say, ‘You are our brothers because you have made our enemies your enemies.’"

Very clever indeed, thought Torres. "Si-si; very well. Not only will we have our hands washed off blood, but put the blame of the boy’s death on the Moslems. And at the same time gain an ally who will help us fight against the heathens of the islands of Mindanao." Himself quite satisfied with the conclusion, he gave the order to the Pampangueños to get rid of the Subano boy, but not before giving them the punctilious details how his order should be executed — exactamente.

Into the bush off the trail the Pampangueño conscripted soldiers dragged the Subano turtle-egg hunter. He did not resist them, nor elicit any complaint. Perhps he was tired of it all and had given up hope even before they took him into the bush. Why resist when nothing would change what was to happen to him, he might have thought.

Once deep in the bush, a Pampangueño holding him by the arm gazed past his shoulders at his two companions. His cold eyes fell upon one of them, and the Subano boy caught a glimpse of their implacable coldness. If he guessed what it meant, he did nothing to ward it off; he had been drained of all endurance. "If I struggle, my strength is not enough to free me," he must have thought. "My screams cannot be heard by my tribesmen in my village, which is a distance away, out of hearing still …. "

At this point, a well-placed dagger was plunged just under the turtle-egg hunter’s armpit and entered his heart; and then its point was twisted there inside like a corkscrew. Death came instantly to the Subano turtle-egg hunter: he who had fiercely struggled to live at midday, now died without resistance a few hours into the afternoon of that same day.

The two Pampangueños held up the limp body, which threatened to collapse like an empty two-breasted sack, while the third Pampangueño cut the boy’s chest and arms with his bolo … long knife; crisscrossing them with deep thin slashes as they were instructed. The Pampangueño cut him exactly as they had seen slashes on Christian victims, who were lacerated by Moros with their favorite long knife, the barung.

The first Pampangueño cut down a pole from a nearby woody slope and cleaned it of its twigs and branches. He also cut some vines and brought them and the pole with him back to the bush. With the vines they bound the Subano boy’s hands again and then his feet. On the pole they strung him up, just like a pig or a bunch of chickens for the market. With the first Pampangueño leading them out of the bush, his two companions carrying the dead Subano turtle-egg hunter on a pole between them, they struggled through the thickets back to the trail. There on the trail they did not have to struggle with the corpse, as there were no stems and branches lashing at their faces or hindering them.

Both Captain Torres and Friar Salvador looked at the crisscrossed cuts and wounds on the dead boy’s chest and arms, and were satisfied. "Bueno," they both said. "No one can say that it was not the Moros who did it." It was time for them to move on to the Subanon village with the dead turtle-egg hunter hanging on the pole— the Captain to conquer and the Friar to fulfill his mission of converting the infidels to Christianity.

     Story Two

Gatherer of the People

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 the islanders called Nawan.

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 knives, which they called bolo, as though they distrusted the Spanish muskets. 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 around their perspiration-wet shanks.

All of a sudden, great booming cracks roared from the Spanish flagship. On the surface of the water, the cannonballs skipped whooshing toward the shore and exploded not too far from Spanish or Subanon group. A gun salute to the Subanon thimuay labi nearly turned into a nightmare — for the gunners had miscalculated and instead bombarded the beach. Besides, the thimuay labi had no knowledge of Western 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 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 powdered sand.

"No-no!," cried Captain Torres, waving his hand at the elder chief’s face and bending down from the hip as he had seen the Subanons do 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 Subano chief. Said the thimuay labi: "Dâ-dâ, now I understand. But I am 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 Subano 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 Islam.

ÿ

Spain herself had been a colony of the Moors, from a faraway country called Africa, from 711 to 1492 A. D. when the last Moorish city of Granada fell to the Northern armies of Ferdinand V and Isabela I. Spain’s fourth explorer — after the Portuguese Fernao de Magalhaes (Ferdinand Magellan as history knows him), Moluccas Captain Fray Garcia Jofre de Loaisa, in 1525, and Alonso de Saavedra Ceron, in 1527 — Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, in 1543, would name the Philippines after Charles 1’s son, Felipe, the prince of Asturias: Las Islas de Felipenas.

A nomadic, mixed Arab and Berber people of North Africa were the Moslem warriors, and the Spaniards found them physically different from the Moros south of the colonial capital of the archipelago, Manila. In Sulu and 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 was 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.

ÿ

With gestures of the hands, jerks of the head, movements of the muscles of the mouth and face, and the silent, deepwater, bluebrightness of the eyes — Friar Salvador told the thimuay labi that their Subanon rituals were no different from the Christians’. He pictured to him the sameness, the similarity, and the equal quality of the content, form, and symbolism of his and the Subano elder chief’s religion. In truth and in fact, there was no difference, mira vos! His religion was as pagan and cannibalistic as the Subano thimuay labi’s.

"Do we not also drink of His blood?" Friar Salvador asked. "And eat of His flesh? And cleansed ourselves by the purification of water?"

The thimuay labi was tickled with curiosity, like an unbearable itch swollen up by soft strokes under the foot’s sole. He wanted to see the ritual performed; there and then.

"Now, now," he urged. "Can I see this drinking of the blood and purification with water? Is it really like ours?"

"No problem," Friar Salvador told him. "But to be able to see the miracle, the magic and mysticism of the Christian ritual in the sacrifice of the Holy Mass, the king, I mean, the thimuay labi must be baptized first with special water."

"No problem also. That should be very easy," said the thimuay labi. "There are all kinds of water in my land: water from the sea, swamp, river, falls, and water from the sky. There is even transparent, crystal water, like the pearls found in clams, dew on the leaves and flowers of the meadows in the valley."

Shaking his head vigorously, Friar Salvador regretted he must disagree with the Subano gatherer of the people. It was not the kind of water he meant. But the blessed water was no problem, for such an occasion Friar Salvador had brought with him in a gold container the special water; and not by chance or accident but by the spoken word of his God.

He said, "Because a night ago I dreamed, si-si; I dreamed, and in the dream the Lord Jesus told me to prepare the blessed water. I would need this, He said, for the conversion of the Subano thimuay labi, who would become a great Christian chief of his people."

"Good, very good," said the Subano gatherer of people. "Let me see it now; this very moment!"

Thus, everything was made ready for the Holy Mass.

The Subano elder chief acquiesced to be baptized first, as this honor belonged to him being the highest official of his tribe. Also, he wished to see closely the Christian human sacrifice. He looked here and there, but saw no slave to be sacrificed; instead, a wooden platform, with four small posts on each corner, not higher than a five-yearold child, was set before Friar Salvador. He was puzzled, but did not say anything. He did not wish the balian…priest…to think he was ignorant about rituals.

The wooden platform was covered with fine cloth, not unlike the cloth that now and then Chinese traders brought for barter to the Subanon island. Beside it, a long wooden pole, with another pole smaller and shorter attached to the first at right angles, was thrust into the sand. On it (Cross) was nailed an emaciated, halfnaked Man, who was white as the Spaniards. On His head was set a crown of thorns that pierced the head, and below His ribs a gash of wound bled.

With much awe, even astonishment, the Subano thimuay labi looked fixedly upon the poor, emaciated, dead Man. He thought: Can that man hanging on the Cross be the first man the white people had sacrificed? Then take him every-where they go to frighten their slaves and their enemies?

His thoughts were interrupted by chanting and strange words (Dominus vobiscum, et cum Espiritu tuo …), stranger than those of his enemies, the Moro pirates. But there were no dances, and agong — brass musical instrument — playing, and the beating of wooden sticks against a hollow trunk. Indeed, no agong or a hollow trunk was seen around to make boomboom-boom, loud enough to raise one’s ancestors from the dead.

With none of these amenities, the saying of the Holy Mass soon obviously bored the Subano chief. However, on the part where the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ was offered, his attention returned quickly. And on Friar Salvador’s explanation of Christ’s sacrifice and the Christian’s participation of it through symbols, the partaking of the host as Christ’s Body and drinking of wine as His Blood — the thimuay labi stood upright. He listened gravely; for indeed, symbols he understood quite well.

Friar Salvador gave the first communion to the thimuay labi, who, with his warriors, knelt on the sand as they were requested by the friar earlier.

But the host was tasteless, unfilling, and the most humble part of a lechon — roasted pig — was much, much more crispy and delicious. "And the red wine," he thought, kneeling there, was too sweet like the tira-tira (spiral-shaped hard candy made of molasses). "Our gasi — rice wine — tastes a hundred times better than this Spanish wine, and one drinks it as much as he can through a bagacay tube inserted into the wine jar. Why, during buklog the wine flows endlessly; but in this Spanish priest’s ritual only one sip we are allowed to drink, while the balian drank the rest from a shiny gold container. Unfair!"

He noticed that when the Spanish wine bottle became empty, it was thrown away; whereas, the empty gasi jars were filled back with water which, before one can say the longest word he knew, soon became wine again.

Very well pleased and proud was Friar Salvador. How easily he had converted the Subano leader to a Christian convert. He should have left it at that, as any good thing should be left alone. But Friar Salvador could not help but get the nolongerinfidel’s (but still savage?) understanding of the offering of the Holy Mass.

"What do you think of the sacrifice of the Holy Mass?" he asked the Subano thimuay labi; "the partaking of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?"

At this point, the thimuay labi recalled his ancestor Palaganding, the great Morofighter. To frighten his Moslem enemies and make them tremble before him, he would cut open a Moro captive’s chest with his kampilan (sword), and rip out the heart; then he would eat it raw before the other Moro captives. Thus, recalling, the thimuay labi, so as not to be untruthful to his guest, replied, "No doubt it is better than eating real human flesh and drinking off my enemy’s blood." He contorted his face and made skewed movements of his thick, mascada-rouged lips. He added, calling the friar balian, or priest and medicine man, the equivalent in his native tongue: "Anyway, balian, I am tired of eating slimy flesh of human sacrifice, which, besides a captive’s, say a stranger’s, who had lost his way into their village, we offer every time we have a buklog. Luckily, we do not often celebrate it, for we have to store up so much food, rice, and pigs before we can celebrate a buklog." He paused, and was there mockery in his face? "But now seldom do strangers come to our village …."

Even a rich thimuay labi could offer a buklog not more than once a year, he confirmed. The offering must be done right, with a very strong balian, who was so powerful the evil gods could not overpower him. Extravagant and not wanting, everything must be: there should be more food than all the visitors could finish, and continuous singing of traditional songs … and always dancing. The god Gulay must not be displeased of the festivities.

The thimuay labi remembered that not too long ago the god Gulay turned one of his distant relatives, his people and village across the great mountain ranges, which his own ancestors had crossed thousands of years go — into stone. He was the thimay mangura, young gatherer of the people. The gods must have been angered by the inadequate offerings, and the balian was not powerful enough to overcome the evil spirits.

Then, a dark silence not experienced before settled in his relative’s village, and even to this day, less than 200 meters away from a winding dirt road halfway to Lapuyan pueblo, stood the stone formations still. Under huge green acacia trees across a scrubby open field the stone formations lay, enigmatic and silent, shaped exactly like the houses they were before turning into stone and could not be mistaken for anything else.

It was nearly midday when the consecration of the Holy Mass was over, and the Subano chief went back to his village. He was neither wowed nor overwhelmed by the Holy Mass, because of its familiarity to the pagan ritual. On the other hand, Friar Salvador was pleased beyond belief. He had his first converts (mass baptism of the warriors), and could now claim the right of domain over the land through the royal land degree of his King.

Then, Captain Torres and Friar Salvador rowed back to the ship, with all the Spanish troops. Although a handful of Pampangueño and Visayan sailors and foot soldiers, particularly those that had mutilated and stabbed the poor Subano turtleegg hunter, remained on the island: they would stand the first watch in the watch tower on the humble promontory, and man the garrison behind the wooden palisades facing the Sulu Sea, in which lay Sulu island: a haven and home of the dreaded Moros and savage Lutao pirates.

So it was that the first Christians to sleep on the shores of Nawan, the ancient name of Zamboanga, were not of Spanish, Portuguese, British, Dutch, German, or any alien, descent and lineage, but Indios of the South Region and North Region of the archipelago.

End

     Story Three

Iba the Christian

It was about dawn in the coastal village of Sangali, east of the town of Zamboanga, Mindanao island, across the mountain range. Iba the Samal fisherman and others were about to sail toward their tacud, fishing ground. On the cold day of December, 1635 A.D., though the month was not known to them who were paganos and knew no Gregorian calendar then, they pushed their fishing sailing-canoes to the edge of the shore and halted to look at the sea before boarding them. That was when they saw Moro Jainal the Pirate’s flotilla.

It was not going fast though the sails were fully unfurled, since there is no strong wind early dawn, save during monsoon. To gain speed the Moslem pirate captain had lashed at the backs of the rowers, who, mostly Christian slaves, then rowed with all their might thinking it would lessen the fall of the lashes. But the raiding canoes did not go so fast as sailing-canoes will with the wind full in their sails.

Iba and the other fishermen dashed up the bank to their village like little mountain goats, abandoning their fishing canoes and the fishing that day in their tacud. They all ran about the village shouting, "Look out! Moro pirates, pirates! Everyone hide yourself and the children."

Quickly, everyone was running about and picking up their children; then the villagers ran to the hills behind the village to hide from the Moro pirates. Iba the Christian took his family to one of those hills; here he used to hunt for wild pigeons when the strong west wind and big monsoon waves came and he could not fish and feed his family. Pues, he went hunting with his bow and arrow, sometimes with a spear when the puerco monte, wild boar, came down from the mountains to feed on the fallen coconuts in the village passing through this same hill they were now hiding. That was before he became a Christian.

Iba went back to the village to look for a horse.

"No-no, I cannot lend you my horse," said his neighbor. "I’m taking it to the hills to hide it from the Moro pirates."

"I need a horse right now."

"What! Your family is now safe in the hills, and why would you need a horse,

ah?"

"I must warn the Fort of San Jose about the Moro pirates," said Iba.

"Is it your business?" asked the neighbor. "You must not forget you’re a fisherman and belong to the Samal tribe and don’t get mix up with others and their troubles."

Not a week ago he had been baptized a Christian, one among over a dozen paganos when the priest from up north from the Dapitan Jesuit Residencia came with Spanish soldiers. The neighbor he was talking to was not among the dozen who were baptized, and though the whole village was there during the baptism it had forgotten so quickly. Or that was what Iba the Christian thought.

Useless to remind him of it, he told quietly to himself; and if he has decided to lend me his horse might even change his mind because of my insistence. Instead, he said, "I’ll give you all my catch, if you lend me your horse"

"So you really are set to go to the Fort? To warn the white people with high noses and hair of gold …"

"Hó, o; ba."

"Go back to your family, Iba," the neighbor said. "The white people at the new Fort will only think you’re a fool and will not believe you. And who told you that they would listen to a poor Samal fishermen? The water that was poured by the white people’s priest over your head must have put crazy ideas in your head."

The neighbor pulled the reins of his horse and proceeded down the footpath toward the hills, and Iba the Christian watched him a while, perhaps wishing he would change his mind. But at the bend of the footpath the neighbor and his horse disappeared without looking back; so Iba went down the village to continue looking for a horse.

He stopped at a hut where the owner was taking down some bundles and in the bundles where some clothes and belongings. The wife was in the kitchen wrapping up some kitchen utensils in a bundle. Iba had guessed by the noise there, and gazed into the owner’s face who stopped before his steps and returned Iba’s gaze.

"Ay, it is you, Iba. What are you doing here still? I thought you were in the hills already. Were you and the other fishermen not the ones who first saw the pirates?"

"That is true."

"Did you forget something?"

"No-no. I am looking for a horse." He knew that the hut-owner’s brother, a farmer, owned a working horse. But just the same he said, as if he did not know: "Does your younger brother not own a horse?"

"Hó, o. If you will hurry you may just catch him before he leaves for the hills."

Iba the Christian nodded, and the hut-owner’s wife came to the door and looked around for her children, peeping under the hut, without seeing Iba. The hut-owner, anticipating her wish, called the children to wait for their mother and they stopped by the footpath and waited, and the mother went up the path toward them, the bundle in her hand.

"I will leave you," said Iba. "I must continue looking for a horse."

"Hó, o." The hut-owner too went up the footpath, after his wife and children. Halfway down the footpath he spun around, like one who has forgotten something or seen something which reminds him of what he has forgotten. "Hoy, Iba! What would you do with a horse? Do you know how to keep yourself on one, without falling off!"

Iba sensed a sneer or laughter in his neighbor’s query. He did not answer and continued down to the village. The sun had quite risen and was on his face, striking him obliquely, and shining on the top of the water. He walked on farther. The younger brother’s house was not too far; more brightness came from the sun, and soon there was the house.

All the windows had been drawn closed and the bamboo-striped door was barred from inside. Iba the Christian wondered how long the brother had left his house. He strode past it, and then saw smoke coming from the kitchen. "He has not been gone long. Maybe he is at the savanna to get his horse," he thought aloud to himself.

He tromped through the bush beyond the house, knowing it was the shorter route to the savanna. The sun was high on his back, and he smelled the crashed leaves and pies de gallo grass. In the thick parts of the bush and thickets he swayed his trunk and shoulders here and there to make a way through, and after walking a while the bush and thickets became thinner and it was not so hard cutting his way through and he made his way faster then; and suddenly he was almost thrown forward at edge of the thickets, his body abruptly released from the clutches of twigs and branches.

There was the savanna in front of him and the hut-owner’s younger brother coming down toward him with the horse turning its head and twitching its ears and he pulling harder at the reins and the pair, man and horse, not struggling through the savanna, a place you do not have to work hard to cut across, since savannas are like plains, without big trees or streams to hamper you in your way.

"Hoy-hoy," cried Iba to the hut-owner’s brother.

"Have you not gone to the hills yet?" the other cried back. "Everyone is there hiding from the Moro pirates .…," adding, "everyone but you and myself."

Iba the Christian did not move from where he was, and the other approached him pulling at his stubborn horse and said, "Come, let us go together to the hills. The Moro pirates may turn around and decide to sack our village first. You never can tell, can you? … What those blood-thirsty Moro pirates would do."

"I need a horse … to go to the Fort."

"Fort?"

"Hó, o, to warn them of the Moro pirates and tell the Spanish commander that we

had seen them in our coast."

"You do not need to warn the Fort," said the hut-owner’s brother. "It has many, many guns, bigger than any of us have ever seen .. all over the walls and in those two leaf-shaped embrasures looking toward the sea. You do not need to warn them, Iba."

"The priest that came here with the soldiers … do you remember? He asked us new converts to tell them of the presence of Jainal the Pirate if we ever see him in our coast. He said they will punish them for plundering and looting our villages, especially for desecrating the church and stealing its silver and gold."

"Well … I’m not a convert, you know. Even if I were I cannot give you this horse." He jerked the horse’s reins as if to check he still had the horse. The horse jerked its mane and a flare of it swept off some horse flies, but seconds later they landed back on its head.

"Before I saw you I was on my way to hide the horse in those hills" looking back over his shoulders at the hills where the villagers had evacuated and hidden their families and stocks.

"I have to do my duty … as a Christian. You understand."

"And I my duties too—the safety and welfare of my family."

The hut-owner’s brother pulled the reins and guided the horse up the savanna toward the woods; Iba the Christian watched him and the horse until the pair disappeared in the woods and were gone, and he went back toward the shore and did not continue down the village; instead, he turned around stepping heavily on the sand. He went back to where he started earlier. The sun was now full on his back; after a while walking alone he came to the house of his neighbor whose horse he had first tried to borrow and was refused.

On the beach there was only one fishing sailing-vinta left, and it was his. His fisherman-companions must have pulled their vintas up the shore and hidden them somewhere up on the bank. They should at least have taken my vinta with them and hide it in the bushes. Ay, not very helpful! With so many of them, my vinta will weigh almost nothing, he thought. Alone I cannot carry it that far into the bushes. He also wondered where the other village Christian converts were; he guessed they must have been the first to flee to the hills, for they knew how the Moros hated them.

He reached the other end of the village, the southern part. Here the thickets and woods gave way to the coconut trees and small patches of corn fields. On a coconut stump he set his rump down, facing the south. After walking under the sun looking for a horse, the shade of the coconut trees was welcome, and he stretched his legs on the short, sharp blades of grass which covered half the beach like a wild turf.

From up the patches of cornfield came a sound, which he recognized tas the unmistakable sound of an animal—he could tell this for sure although he was a fisherman, not a farmer. There were not many working animals in his village—actually, there were only two kinds: carabaos and horses, no cattle. Goats are not working animals and feed only on grass.

He strained his ears, waiting for the animal to repeat the sound, but no sound reached him again. He strained his ears further, but still did not hear anything, and now he fixed his eyes toward the sound as though he could see the sound.

Something broke at the fringe of the cornfield and the crashing sound through the tall talahib grass became the sound he suspected came from no other animal, but a horse. Through the coconut lot under the shade of the trees the horse trotted, and miracle of miracles was coming to him like a lost pet. Or did it mistake him for its owner?

But a horse! Yes, he could now ride to the Fort.

ÿ

When he returned to his coastal village from the Fort of San Jose that same day, it was about nightfall and he had been gone for almost a day . He told his neighbors and fellow-fishermen about his trip to the Fort, on a horse he was sorry he took without permission, and apologized to anyone who would listen and said he would pay the owner of the horse for the worry and inconvenience out of his next fish catch. His wife and children listened to Iba the Christian’s story and heard nothing about him taking the horse without telling its owner. Or they simply refused, pretending not to hear that part of his story.

Also there were some farmers standing around in a group who had come down from hiding in the hills late in the afternoon after Iba and some fishermen at dawn had spotted the pirates going past their fishing village. Less than an hour later Jainal the Pirate was raiding the village of Bolong, up north, stealing its goats and horses, and abducting the young women and the young men for the slave markets.

"Did you really see the Fort’s commandant?"

"Hó, o."

"Incredible. Why would a Spanish commandant see a lowly Samal native?"

"At first the guards at the gate tried to stop me after I jumped off my … the horse and ran toward the great Fort even with their warning to stop or they would shoot me."

"And why did they not shoot you?"

"Hó, o. Is it because you look neither like a soldier or a Moro pirate?" He meant it with all seriousness, and some laughed thinking he was making fun of Iba the Christian and Iba was one of those who did not laugh or think it was a joke.

"Maybe that is so … but it was my shouting that stopped the guards from shooting at me," said Iba.

"And what did you shout?" Iba’s wife, not one of those standing around, asked.

Maybe she is the only one who will believe me without question, he thought, and said, "I shouted: ‘Moro pirates, pirates; I saw Datu Jainal’s pirate flotilla.’"

"Is that the truth?"

"Hó, o; that’s the truth, real truth ..., so help me Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

A man pushed his way through the crowd, and those in front wheeled their heads over their shoulders and saw the man elbowing his way toward Iba; Iba the Christian did not move away and stayed close to his wife and children. Said the man, "Where is my horse?" He was angry, and his eyes blazed but he halted at the edge of the crowd, which had started milling around just then; and he did not go farther.

"I put your horse to pasture in the savanna," said Iba the Christian. He and his family stood before their house, and its nipa-thatched walls were webbed with fishing lines and pinned with fish hooks and matted with a dark net which had seen time and was punctured by corral reefs. "I thought it would please you, as you will not be bothered by it."

"You took my horse without my permission. A farmer cannot live without his horse, do you not know this?"

"The horse was astray and lost … it was all alone. Everyone was already in the hills hiding from the Moro pirates."

"It’s still my horse," said the angry man.

"I admit I am at fault, neighbor." He said this although the man was not a neighbor.

A man in the crowd, which had stopped milling about, said, "O … why did you take the horse without telling its owner?"

"It is my duty as a Christian to warn the Fort." His wife sat on the bamboo steps of their house, and the children for the last time that day went under the house to blow out the bichu-bichu (elephant ants) from their funnel-shaped homes in the dust. He blocked the horse-owner’s view of his wife, and told him he would give all his next fish catch; and the man turned away and walked off, his shoulders hitched up. They saw without looking into his red face how angry he was.

Afterwards, the last light darkness came abruptly. Then the men began to disperse, and Iba the Christian and his wife and their children, who had some time ago stopped blowing at the tunnel-shaped hole in the dust for bichu-bichu, went into their house. Then minutes or so later coconut-oil lamps shone in the windows of every house in the coastal village.

Later, while eating their supper, Iba suddenly jumped off his wooden stool, spilling the bowl of fish soup and boiled rice on the table, surprising his wife and the children and cried, "The horse, I forgot to tether it .…!" He bolted out of the house and into the dark toward the savanna; everywhere he heard the night things screaming and the calm sea roared and thundered in his ears.

Jainal the Pirate

The Pirate Jainal was gloating. He had just had the best piracy days, no, months, all seven months, in his whole life. He had raided the towns of Cuyo, Calamianes Group, and Mindoro, and took away the women and men, and the silver and gold of the churches. His two-tiered garay and salisipans and canoes were weighed down with horses, goats, fowls, and Christian captives.

He did not exactly know the strength of the new Spanish Fort of San Jose, and decided to by-pass it. "But I will embarrass the new commandant," he thought; "and attack his eastern towns and take everything my hands can lay on. Surprise! Surprise!" For who would expect Datu Jainal, with his canoes already full to the gills with booty, and yet raid those towns under the very nose of the new commandant and the new Fort!

And so, he told his tribesmen to sail northeast instead of southeast to Cotabato and home, and take the longer route behind Basilan island, to avoid being spotted by the Fort’s lookout tower.

The pirates shook their heads, or rather their spears and shields, manifesting their wish not to delay their return home, so they could enjoy the booty they had taken from the Christian towns. But Jainal drew his kris and said the first excrement whom he would hear grumbling would have his head separated from his shoulders and fed to the great sharks. No one said anything. As there was no argument, he told them to raise their sails full to the wind and break the backs of the Christian rowers. "Think how much richer you will be with more treasure and booty," he said, and the pirates shook their heads in frustration.

The pirate flotilla followed the route Datu Jainal had mapped out, which was longer but out of sight of the new Fort. Thus, the sentinel at the watch tower did not see him pass round Basilan island and off the Basilan Straight. Several leguas past the Fort, Jainal the Pirate thought it was now safe to sail closer to the eastern coast and make their voyage go faster. He also skirted Masinloc Anchorage and sailed behind Sacol island so he would not be spotted. "Now I need the wind and its speed," he thought. "Surprise the Christian pigs, and a slap to the new commandant’s face. No Fort can stop Datu Jainal from raiding the lower sitios and pueblos of the eastern peninsula. Allah Akbar!"

ÿ

True the watch tower had not spotted Datu Jainal’s pirate fleet, but a Samal fisherman called Iba the Christian off the eastern coast saw the Moro vessels. On a neighbor’s horse he rode for hours to the Fort of San Jose, and reported what he saw to the Spanish commandant, Governor Sebastían Torres. Right away Governor Torres prepared several gunboats, a pair of salisipans, and some fifty war sailing-canoes to go after the Pirate Jainal. Three of the gunboats were fitted with extra guns to blast the pirates’ flotilla to kingdom come!

Governor Torres was a full-blooded Spaniard from Bilbao (known for its sausages) and veteran in the battle fields of Flanders. Several Jesuit priests joined him in the expedition, as it was the custom of the Spaniards, so that prayers could always be said to God on board the flagship, and confessions heard and Holy Mass offered afterwards.

The Spanish fleet was a virtual monastery.

ÿ

A day went by after Governor Torres sailed from a fishing village, which was still burning from the Moro pirates’ torches, on the eastern coast of the Samboangan peninsula; and still there was no sign of the Pirate Jainal. Farther Torres sailed northeast, and saw more burnt villages, smoke still billowing, and empty market places. Then, with a strong wind, they went much farther up the eastern coastline, up the peninsula, and, suddenly, instead of burnt houses and grieving faces, there were people, waving, scrambling down the beach to meet them. Behind the natives and up on the beach were houses and busy market places; and not a single structure was burning or smoking in their ashes. He could not make anything of it, neither could he be happy nor sad: for the absence of a burning village meant the Pirate Jainal had eluded him, but that the village was saved from plunder and wretchedness.

The sun had risen for some time, and the day was clear and sunny.

Governor Torres had reason to be worried; he strode back and forth in his cabin, his stomping boots resounding on the hardwood floor. "The Pirate Jainal could already have slipped through our fingers," he thought. "Where is he, the cuckold!" And the wind buffeted starboard and the waves rocked the gunboat.

No more burning pueblos … no more screaming victims of fire and debauchery; thus, no trace where the devil of an infidel was, the governor thought. He strode up and down the hardwood floor. "The cuckold infidel pirate has turned back and is now sailing home to his infidel den in Cotabato. He has slipped away once more!"

He rushed out of his cabin into the morning sun, his shadow fleeing before him, and called for his first officer. He told him they were changing course, and to cut across the bay of Sibuguey and sail toward Olutanga Island farther northeast. "I will lie in wait for the infidel there," he thought. "Like a cat I will spring at him and grip him in my paws! Surely, he is heading home for Cotabato."

With all their strength the rowers rowed, and the sails were raised high on their masts to catch the least wisp of wind. The Spanish fleet cut through the bay, and somewhere in the middle of the bay the foam crests curled thicker and higher, the wind breathing full upon the sails.

ÿ

"Are you suggesting, Datu Tabunaway, that we sail now southeast bypassing Olutanga island toward Punta Pana?" asked Governor Torres incredibly. "What would Pirate Jainal do there, in that God-forsaken place which has no port, not even fresh water — but, in particular, because there is no town or village there? … I believe not even a single savage, much more a Christian for Pirate Jainal’s slave market. Nothing but the high and steep stone cliff."

"With much apology and excuse me, your honorable-sir," said Epfel Tabunaway the Elder, a former chief of the animist Subanon tribe of Pulong Bato, in the hinterlands of the peninsula; "there at Punta Pana will be Datu Jainal. I am sure of this, as I am sure the sun rises over the eastern horizon everyday. Because the tribes of the Samal, Lutao, Badjao, Tausug, even my own tribe Subanon, offer gifts to thank the goddess of the Point for any success, such as in our fishing, good venture, and in battle.

"And when one wishes to know his fortune, spears are thrown and arrows are aimed at the stone cliff. When the spear or arrow does not fall off the stone cliff, that means good fortune; if it falls, there will be bad luck for him.

"Also, we know that houses and churches from the eastern coastline … to the northeast were burnt and looted by Datu Jainal. But in one blow only he mysteriously disappears, since suddenly burning villages are no longer seen. Why is that? Because he did not continue to sail northeast, honorable governor; that is why we do not see him anymore or more burnt pueblos."

"Continue, Datu Epfel the Elder ," said Governor Torres, his disbelief now replaced by genuine interest.

"…Instead, he changed direction and sailed straight southeast," continued Datu Tabunaway, "for even before he decided to continue with his looting and pillage, that was already in his head: he would just burn the pueblos here along the eastern coast, and then sail straight to Punta Pana to give offering to the sea goddess there."

Still a little doubtful, Governor Torres asked, "And you are thinking, believe strongly, that if we sail to Punta Pana right away, we will yet catch up with the infamous, notorious, blood-thirsty pirate there? … Instead of waylaying him at Olutanga?"

"Hó, o; Governor, honorable-sir. Without doubt we can catch up with him if straight away we sail for the Point. His canoes are heavy and slow, since they are weighed down with booty—silver and gold, and Christian slaves—from these many months of piratical raids."

"But we maybe too late," said Governor Torres, disbelief again clouding his mind. "He may already have left Punta Pana, and is now sailing back to Cotabato."

"With much apology to disagree, honorable governor-sir," said Epfel the Elder. "Since very successful was his pirate raid in the islands of the Visayas, Mindoro, Cuyo and Calamianes Group, he has to make many, many offerings to the sea goddess. Therefore, he will stay longer there, Governor-sir."

ÿ

Indeed, there was Pirate Jainal and his flotilla in the waters of Punta Pana: one two-tiered garay, with 25-30 rowers on each tier, and four pancos, and half a dozen fast salisipans, and about 30 raiding outrigger canoes. He had not lost a single canoe during his piratical raids in all seven months. Only a few pirates were killed and several wounded of his more than 1,200 tribesmen.

The Moro pirates were hurling spears and shooting arrows at the stone face of the cliff of Punta Pana; not all stuck, there were arrows and spears quivering on the stone walls before they fell off the cliff and into the waters. Those who failed to stick their arrows or spears on the stone cliff prayed to Allah for forgiveness; and, reinforced by their fanatical faith in Allah tried again: and quite often met with little success.
Then, it was time to give offerings to the goddess of the Point.

Wearing an elaborately embroidered vest, Jainal the Pirate stood on the bow of his two-tiered garay, cheering his men. Alongside his right flank hang a kris … serrated sword; its handle was embedded with precious jewelry of rubies and diamonds. To drive away evil spirits, he wore ornaments of trinkets and necklaces given by a gulilegan, or shaman. He expanded his chest. The sun was low in the sky, obliquely behind the horizon and mountain range, and shone not yet so brightly on him. No distinct shadows lay on the island. Moments later it would shine into his eyes, glaringly, blinding him.

Theatrically standing at the bow of his two-tier garay, he extended both open hands before him. Precious stones, trinkets, necklaces, brooches, earrings, medallions and things of the temple, golden chalice and scepter — filled both hands. His garay swayed gently in the water. Now the sun went up quickly in the sky and over the mountain range, striking his face. He squinted in the sun glow, raising his hands before his eyes, some precious stones fell from his hands, although it was not yet time to offer the gifts to the goddess of Punta Pana.

Then a great cry burst from his lips, exploding pellet-like: "Aayyiieewww, aayyiieewww!" Simultaneously he flung the precious jewelry and things of the Christian church into the waters. His two-tiered garay swayed a bit, as if glad to be rid of the stolen loot. The infidel pirates shouted, too: "Aayyiieee, aayyiieee, Allah is great!"

At this point, a young girl was brought to the bow. Captured in Calamianes Group, she was a beautiful nymphet and a virgin among the girl-victims.

The two-tiered garay still swayed a little in the sea, though the sails were down. The nymphet, her hands bound behind her back, was pushed toward the Pirate Jainal; he stuck out his snake-like tongue and gloated at her, sneering, curling his lower bulbous lip. Upon her small shoulders flowed her long, disheveled black hair: his eyes ravaged them. Indeed, she was a beautiful nymphet, but trembling with fright. As he drew his dagger, she bent her head down on her breasts, for she could not look at him. He said: "Oy-oy, a beautiful virgin for the goddess of the Point."

Clutching her hair, Datu Jainal abruptly pulled her against him, and then instantly plunged the dagger deep into her pounding chest. She was unable to scream, so sudden it was: swiftly the dagger was twisted inward, and from the hole in her chest, he snatched something out and raised his clenched fist in the air. On his palm was the nymphet’s heart, quivering like jelly. To all his pirates he proudly showed the nymphet’s heart, shouting at the top of his lungs: "Oy-oy, goddess of the Point — accept this humble sacrifice!"

"Aayyiieee, aayyiieee, goddess of these waters," cried the Moro pirates, in unison.

With the other hand, Pirate Jainal pushed the nymphet over the side of his two-tiered garay into the water. A splash rose by the vessel’s side, subsided fast, and the limp body started to sink. As he raised the nymphet’s heart higher before him, his lips curled like a dog snarling, exposing his mascada-stained uneven teeth, and his eyes wide popping out of their sockets; droplets of blood trickled through his fingers. He licked them off. He further stretched his hand above his head, which swiveled from one to the other side of his shoulders, then abruptly drew his hand down to his mouth. The blood-dripping heart wriggled, indeed like jelly, as though endowed with life of its own. And while everyone was watching, Pirate Jainal crunched at the virgin’s heart with his roughed uneven teeth, stained with rouged mascada juice, and slowly ate it!

The savage Moro pirates watched their datu masticating the virgin’s jelly-like heart, as his nose’s caverns dilated and eyes stared wildly from their sockets. Though Pirate Jainal’s teeth and lips had been rouged by decades of chewing mascada, yet they turned deep brick-red with blood. Droplets of blood dripped from the corners of his mouth, down to his chin and to either side of his neck down to his shoulders. So much blood for a nymphet’s little heart. All eyes on the pirate vessels just as wild gloated at him.

Something disturbed the waters, and the two-tiered garay swayed a bit more than before. A pirate screamed, "Look … look in the waters," and they all turned their heads and looked: and there was the nymphet—she unexpectedly had not sunk into the depth of the water; instead, she was rising by some unexplained force to the surface of the sea.

She floated a while, swaying here and there on the surface of the sea. Before their eyes, the blood-thirsty pirates swore, they saw her rise from the depths of the waters. She was alive! The superstitious Moro pirates shuddered with fear and terror, thinking the goddess of the Point was not satisfied with their offering. "It is a bad omen," thought Jainal the Pirate, for, like any savage, he was superstitious and believed in signs, omens, and the ether world. "It does not mean well for us? And my tribesmen … they are numbed with fright. We must leave here before …." He pulled up the sail himself, gazing toward Cotabato: his pirate den and sanctuary. But the sun’s glow blinded him, and he cursed at the sun. On the garay’s deck lay long shadows cast by the rising sun, like iron bars.

ÿ

Meanwhile, Epfel Tabunaway the Elder had walked straight into the captain’s cabin, and as Governor Torres lifted his chin said to him, "Governor Torres, honorable-governor ... Datu Jainal is about a legua away only, southeast. If we row even faster, not only can we catch up with him at Punta Pana but we can trap him there … destroy completely his pirate flotilla before he leaves its waters. It will be the end of his wretched, piratical days!"

It came to Torres to ask, as if to assure himself, "Will Pirate Jainal not see us first, and flee before we can fire our first volley?"

"No-no; honorable governor," replied Epfel the Elder. "The rising sun is in their faces … and, also, we will not be seen while sailing behind the Point. And even after we come out of it, Jainal will not see us right away. When he and his pirates see us, a blur in the sun still … we will already be upon them, bombarding them with our cannon and firing our muskets. But we must make speed now."

"Pues, Datu Epfel, what are you waiting still …. Immediately open full our sails, and order our rowers pull their paddles with all their strength. Their lives may depend on it … which could just come true, indeed."

"Si, si; Don Gobernador Torres: right away."

ÿ

With the sun oblique in the east, and still barely out of the mountain range, the Spanish fleet turned eastward around the coast; the sun now behind her, she sped straight toward Punta Pana. Once she reached its waters, the Spanish fleet rushed at the pirate flotilla like a school of barracuda. The glinting sun was in the pirates’ eyes, blinding them, so they failed to see the Spanish fleet coming up at them. Then the Spanish gunboats were all blasting with their cannons, and the musketeers were shooting at the Moro pirates and not in particular aiming at any pirate or vessel — just shooting at anything they saw moving on the pirate raiding canoes or on the water.

Indeed, the gunboats attacked straight at the two-tiered garay of Jainal the Pirate, while his escorts of fast salisipans were too far behind to protect the pirate flagship. Even at this point, not one of the pirates there on their raiding canoes, even Datu Jainal himself, had yet seen the Christian fleet, because the rising sun was in their faces, but behind Governor Torres’s attacking fleet. That was the Christians big advantage against the Moro pirates: they could see them very well, but the pirates could not because they were blinded by the glare of the rising sun.

Minutes had gone but the Moro pirates had yet to reply with musket or lantaka cannon fire. Three-four raiding outrigger canoes hit in the first salvo were sinking; even the flagship garay and her escort salisipans had also been struck by missiles and cannonballs.

It looked as if Jainal the Pirate was awake but could not wake up, like one in a nightmare. "What is happening?" he asked himself,as blinding sunrays and oscillating glittering disks flooded his vision. He squinted against the red orb; spidery webs radiated from the corner of his eyes. The crack of cannons and whizzes of musket fire finally woke him, and his nightmare became real.

"Allah have mercy!" cried Jainal the Pirate on the bow of his flagship garay. Then at his lieutenants, he screamed, "Cunt of a mother whore! Forward! … Forward! There in front of you are the Christian pigs. Kill all the feces-faced unbelievers of Mohammed the Prophet!"

Though his position was uncertain and perilous, yet Datu Jainal had not lost all hope; he was still confident that he would yet turn this initial disadvantage to victory! For was it not just recently that he had made very successful raids against the Christian pueblos and villages? He drew his kris, and screamed at his lieutenants: "At them, straight at the pork-eating infidels!" The lieutenants beat at their shields to make noises and inject high spirits to their men. Prodded, the Moro pirates started flinging their spears and firing their muskets.

In the confusion, many of the spears fell short of the Christian fleet; moreover, the Christian vessels were out of their spear range. Still the new sun was in their faces, a reddish orb in the sky, flashing glaring light, and all they could see in front of them were blurring objects, crowned by sunrays and blinding flashes of light.

At this moment, Governor Torres ordered his lieutenants: "Turn to port side … now!" All the Christian gunboats and sailing-canoes turned as they were ordered; and in an instant, the port side of the Christian fleet faced the pirate raiding canoes, bringing all the cannons pointing directly at the pirate flotilla.

So, the six Spanish gunboats— four renovated and two new — with their additional cannons, fired at once. The bombardment went so well, that before the cannon smoke cleared there were scuttled several more Moro raiding outrigger canoes: two pancos and one of the six fast salisipans, while two fast salisipans were burning and their sails disintegrating in their blaze. Again, several projectiles had struck the command ship garay itself. Like a fish that had been wounded by a harpoon, the two-tiered garay sailed leaning to one side, without any direction, its tail slowly moving, left and right. Some pirates pushed and straightened her rudder, and the ship straightened out again and started to ride the waves again.

While musket-firing and cannonade were going on, a weird scene presented itself.

Listen: On the bows of the Spanish gunboats the Jesuit priests were standing, straight-back like flatiron and in their hands held darkwood beaded strings (maybe from the forest of their province, where gray and reddish-black was their soil). In the wind and in the lint smoke their cossacks fluttered wildly. If they prayed the Blessed Mysteries or the rosary, God would hear them, they said. And give victory to the Christian naval fleet. And they also believed that their presence in the midst of the naval battle, which showed they had no fear of the Moro pirate guns and missiles, gave much courage and inspiration to the Spanish and Indio native sailors. This they believed.

Priest Cochea, the fort’s chaplain, stood on the bow of the flagship; his right hand held one grand wooden Cross of the Crucified Christ. He was mockingly pointing the Cross at infidel Jainal the Pirate on his two-tiered garay, the two of them glaring at each other like old enemies. Scorn and hatred heatedly flowed between them, scorching, and the heat of their hatred steamed the air and carpeted it with fume.

At the top of his lungs, Jainal the Pirate screamed at his lieutenants: "Oy-oy, make, make straight the garay: you bastards of a cow of a dozen nipples!" And his lieutenants were also shouting above the roar of the musket fire and cannon at their Christian slave rowers and the rudder man: "Onward, onward! you excrement of your cuckold-father and mother-bitch!"

While the two-tiered garay was advancing toward the Spanish flagship, Jainal the Pirate did not anticipate Governor Torres’s orders to put the Spanish fleet broadside against his flotilla, so its port side faced the pirate raiding canoes … rather than bow to bow.

Thus, when the Spanish fleet came to this position, and after slowing down and keeping itself steady, the flagship and gunboats started firing more concentrated volleys and more accurately than before.

And then, the half dozen sailing-canoes detached themselves from the gunboats, and, with all speed, using the flagship as their point of axis, started to engulf the pirate flotilla. If one can imagine one big pair of scissors, so was the position of the Spanish fleet as it closed in upon the Moro pirate vessels. In their renovated gunboats, Tongab Tabunaway the Handsomest, younger brother of Epfel the Elder, led one flank, and Epfel himself the other.

One had to be a blind man not to see what was happening. But Jainal the Pirate was blind with hatred and rage: like a wild tamaraw giving off from the pits of his flat nostrils a pair of steamy breaths.

At the first concentrated bombardment, musket and cannon fire struck a hundred or so pirates; scores immediately fell fatally, and forty-fifty were bleeding with chest- and limb-wounds. Arms and legs were mutilated; bodies truncated; and heads smashed by cannonballs. On the decks blood flowed red as only blood could, and turned pink as sea water washed it off. Through the clearing smoke the Christians saw that one more salisipan had sank, three more raiding outrigger canoes and another panco scuttled or abandoned. Some raiding canoes were burning, with their sails ablaze, and on their decks were broken masts. As the Moro pirate vessels swayed and struggled to keep afloat, sea water stained with blood continued swishing on their decks.

Silver, gold, precious stones looted by the Moros from Christian towns and churches sank with the pirate-raiding canoes into the sea. Bound feet and hands to their wooden stocks in the vessels’ hulls, Christian captives pleaded to the Moros to free them from the wooden stocks; but no one came to loosen their chains, and they mercilessly sank together with the pirate vessels, and all were drowned.

Jainal the Pirate likely never thought of turning his flotilla around to save himself. Instead, he sailed directly toward the Spanish flagship, then the axis of the Christian attack, and this unexpected maneuver surprised Governor Torres. He knew that none of his gunboats or sailing-canoes could outrun the pirate flotilla if Datu Jainal decided to turn around now, ditch his loot and Christian captive-slaves, and sail to his sanctuary in Cotabato. Why did Jainal the Pirate, instead of fleeing, attacked the Christian vessels?

What Governor Torres and his Spanish lieutenants were not considering then was that Jainal the Pirate as a veteran of a hundred pirate raids had not tasted a single defeat nor was ever chased away by Spanish armadillos (patrol boats): his anting-anting (talisman) protected him —no bullets or arrows could kill him; indeed, he was invincible with his talisman. And, undefeated in sea battles, he could not smell the odor of the vanquished, the defeated, although now smoke was already curling all over him.

Though his two-tiered garay was limping again, forward, forward went Jainal the Pirate, advancing rapidly toward the Spanish flagship. Sailing-canoes of the Volunteers from the New Zamboangan Settlement rushed to block the garay, which was more than fifteen times bigger, and were crashed aside as if they were boxes of palo de china; not sturdy sailing-canoes.

Incessant cannonade sent wooden splinters off the shell of the pirate two-tiered garay, but yet the vessel continued charging toward the Spanish flagship: like a big whale which had gone loco by the wounds of many arrows and barbed projectiles, not a few sticking out from its bleeding body.

On the Spanish flagship were more than fifty Zamboanga Volunteer sharpshooters firing at will at Jainal the Pirate. In fact, much of the hail of fire was concentrated at the infidel chief, but no bullet seemed to hit him; for he neither fell dead nor was wounded nor crippled.

"Very strong is Datu Jainal’s anting-anting," said one sharpshooter.

"Hoy-hoy; a baptized Christian you are already," said another by his side. "That is against our new Christian faith … to believe in superstition, in infidel’s anting-anting."

"Superstition? I believe what I see!"

So, there entered in their heads the thought that indeed no bullet could penetrate Datu Jainal. The story of his very strong anting-anting was true then! After this there came to their minds apprehension and fear, and not a few of them lost the desire and guts to fight. They just fired their muskets with the pretension of shooting; some had altogether even ceased.

ÿ

It looked like nothing could be done to thwart Jainal the Pirate from crashing into the Spanish flagship. With his kris pointed at Father Cochea, the Pirate Jainal made the sign of cutting off the chaplain’s head, and feeding it to his dogs. On the other hand, in the direction of Datu Jainal, Priest Cochea continued waving the Cross of the Crucified Christ. "Is it possible that his anting-anting is really protecting the infidel Jainal from our bullets and cannon balls?" he thought. With feverish ardor, he swung and waved the Holy Cross in his hands, hoping that like a talisman it would counter the power of the infidel’s anting-anting.

Governor Torres was reflecting more desperate thoughts: "If Jainal the Pirate crashes and breaks through the middle of our fleet, its axis," he thought, "our attack will collapse. Instead of the two flanks of the Zamboanga Volunteers sailing-canoes cutting piece by piece the Moro pirates —we will cut ourselves in half…."

He saw that this was what would happen: after crashing through the axis of the Spanish naval fleet, the two-tiered pirate garay and the remaining salisipans and raiding canoes would escape the trap. For the two Christian sailing-canoe flanks would have nothing to close upon between them; and instead, if the closing flanks were not halted, the pair of flanks would crash against each other.

"It’s a nightmare," thought Governor Torres. "And we will not wake up unless the infidel Jainal is stopped!"

ÿ