Note 4 — Chapter VI

Father Fray Alonso de Mentrida spent many years in the provinces of Ogtón and Panay,4 where he gathered much fruit in the conversion of those souls, especially in the district of Ogtón—which in those times was, in the greater part of its mountain region, shrouded in the darkness of error. There the devil was well entrenched in those rugged mountains, having solidly established his kingdom and worship among those simple natives—who, influenced more by fear than by any other consideration, prostrated themselves before that demon, and gave him their worship and adoration. His crafty designs were successful among them through the agency of many priests and priestesses (in the Bisayan idiom called babaylanes), who, being especially assisted by that infernal spirit, concoct certain frauds and delusions, with which they deceive the simple Bisayans. These priests, moreover, secure much advantage from this mode of life, since by it they make their living, and are feared and looked up to; for most of them have a compact with the devil, by means of which they wreak such evil as they can on those persons on whom they try to be revenged, or whom they wish to injure because some one else has done them harm. Against this infernal horde father Fray Alonso de Mentrida waged continual battle, roaming through those mountains on foot, and accompanied only by one servant, a very good Christian, who aided him much in his work. This man died at a great age (more than one hundred and ten years); he lived in the village of Guimbal, of which he was a native, and his name was Vilango. They journeyed so destitute of human aid that they carried in their pouches only some roots, cooked, which in that country are very common, called camotes, with a little rice, eaten cold and half-cooked. This sort of abstinence was so continual in Father Mentrida that he ate nothing else than the vegetables and pottages of the country, with a little fish when he wished to appease his more pressing hunger; and it is not known that he ate meat until, in his old age and in several attacks of illness that he suffered, the duty of obedience compelled him to moderate so austere a diet. In such a mode of life this apostolic man wandered through those mountains, preaching to the infidels the word of God, and persuading them to leave their straggling hamlets [rancherías] and settle in some small villages, that he might more advantageously call them together and instruct them, separating them from their errors and blindness. With great benefit to their souls the simple mountaineers of Ogtón received the gospel preaching, as they all are gentle and well-inclined people; the father’s only opponents were those ministers of Satan and children of perdition, the babaylanes, who with their lies sowed their diabolical tares upon the grain of heaven, and easily smothered the seed that took root in piously-inclined hearts. Those priests artfully suggested to the natives the anger which their divatas (thus they name the spirits to whom they give adoration) felt against them, and on their own part uttered threats against them, menacing either their lives or their poor property—which is a scanty grain-field of rice; and by these shameless acts they terrorized the people, and caused some of them to lose their solicitude for attending church. Father Fray Alonso de Mentrida spared neither hardship nor effort to bring back to the fold of the Church those whom these malicious ministers had, through their crafty methods, caused to backslide; and he held with those priests extraordinary discussions, from which, in place of gaining good results, he obtained only their plots. With these they tried, on several occasions, to deprive him of life by their arts and witchcraft; but the Lord, who watched over His servant, did not permit them to succeed in their damnable attempts, and, for the greater humiliation of the common enemy [i.e., the devil], held back the father from the greatest dangers.