Note 51 — Chapter LXVI

In the month of August, 1607, at the octave of the Assumption of our Lady, a church was erected in the village of Nalfotan, the chief village among those which are called the villages of Malagueg [i.e., Malaúeg] in Nueva Segovia. This church had the name and was under the patronage of St. Raymond. The Indians of these villages were and are courageous and warlike. Hence before the coming of the faith they were constantly at war among themselves and with their neighbors, being men of fierce mind and lofty courage, and highly prizing their valor, strength and spirit, an inheritance left to them by their ancestors. Thus they and their neighbors of Gatarang and Talapa, with whom they were very closely related, gave the Spaniards a great deal of trouble, and were feared and still are feared by the other Indians of that large province. In the village called Nalfotan the chief and lord at this time was a young man named Pagulayan, to whom our Lord, in addition to high rank, great wealth, and courage, had given a quiet and peaceful disposition. He was a friend of peace and of the public weal—[seeking not only] his own advantage, but that of his people, and striving to secure what he recognized as good; and in him ran side by side the love of peace, and military spirit and courage—in which he was distinguished and eminent, and for which he was therefore feared by his enemies. God our Lord, so far as we can judge, had predestinated him for Himself; and this he showed by the great affection with which he listened to matters dealing with the service of God, even when he was a heathen and was living among barbarians, idolaters and demons, such as were all his vassals. When he heard that the Ytabes Indians, his neighbors, had religious of St. Dominic who taught them a sure and certain road to salvation, and to the gaining of perpetual happiness for the soul in heaven by serving God in peace and quietude, he strove with all his heart to enjoy so great a good. He discussed the matter with his Indians, and with their approval went down many times to the city of the Spaniards to carry out his religious purpose, endeavoring to have the father provincial, Fray Miguel de San Jacintho, give him a religious for his village. The provincial would have rejoiced to give him one; but those whom he had were so busy, and he had already withdrawn so many in response to such requests, that he was unable to satisfy this good desire, except with the hope that a missionary would be provided there as soon as the religious had come whom he was expecting from España. The good Pagulayan, although he was somewhat consoled, did not cease to complain, with feeling, that he had been unable to bring to his village the good which he desired for it. As he was unable to obtain a religious, he took with him a Christian child from among those who were being taught the Christian doctrine in the church, that the boy might instruct him until a father should come who could complete and perfect his teaching. Nay, more: he and his people, having confidence in the promise which had been given them, erected a church in their village that they might influence the religious [to go there], and have that stronger reason for supplying a minister to them rather than to other villages which had no church. All this greatly affected the religious; and finally, in August of this year [1607], father Fray Pedro de Sancto Thomas51 went there and found the church already built, and the whole village—men, women, and children—gathered on purpose to receive him, as they did with great joy and the exhibition of much content. This caused like content in the soul of father Fray Pedro, who giving many thanks to the Lord, whose work this was, firmly resolved to labor with all his strength in this vineyard which seemed to bear fruit before it was cultivated. Father Fray Pedro was very well suited to begin a conversion like this; for he was so simple and affable that the most remote barbarians, if they talked with him, were compelled to love him. He was of a very gentle nature, and extremely open-hearted, being entirely free from any duplicity or deceit, and acting in all things with the bowels of charity. This is the greatest snare to catch love which may be set for men. Hence they received him as if he came from heaven, and at the beginning they listened to him and obeyed him with great zeal. The devil at these things suffered from rage and the worst pains of hell, as he saw himself losing, all at once, villages which had been his for so many ages. Hence by the means of a sorceress, a priestess of his, named Caquenga, he began to disturb the Indians, to whom this wicked woman said such things that many determined to follow the rites of their ancestors and not to receive the teaching of the divine law. So devilish was this cursed anitera that she kept stirring up some of them against the religious, while at the same time with those who wished to keep him she pretended to be on their side; thus she deceived them all, especially those who were influenced by their zeal for ancient superstitions. Hence they themselves killed their fowls and the swine which they had bred, tore down their houses, and cut down their palm-groves, in which their principal wealth consisted; and, crying out, “Liberty!” they fled to the mountains. Here they joined those who had hitherto been their enemies, that they might be more in number and might bring a greater multitude of weapons against a solitary friar who went unarmed, and whom they had invited to their village with such urgency, and received with such joy; and against whom they had no complaint except simply that he preached to them the law of God and the gospel of peace, at their own invitation, and that a most earnest invitation. Pagulayan, with some of his vassals, was constantly at the side of Fray Pedro—who, being secure in his own conscience, was not intimidated, but strove to bring back those who had revolted. Seeking for means of speaking to them, he determined to send an Indian who should arrange in his behalf for a conference; and who should promise the chief of the revolted ones, whose name was Furaganan, that the Spaniards who were ¡n the city of Nueva Segovia would not punish him for what he had done. That the Indian might feel safe and might believe him, he gave the man a relic of St. Thomas to carry; for among them there was no one who knew how to read or write, because they had no letters of their own, so that he was unable to give him a letter, or any other token better known as coming from the father. This, however, sufficed to cause Furaganan to listen to the messenger without ill-treating him; and he agreed to meet the religious at a certain place and on an appointed day. As a token of fidelity and peace, Furaganan sent his bararao—a dagger with which they stab close at hand, and can easily cut off a head—that it might be put in the hands of the religious. They met on the assigned day; and the Indian, annoyed with Caquenga, who had caused the disturbance among them, immediately joined the party of the religious against whom she had caused them to rebel. Furaganan asked them to give him this Indian anitera as a slave, alleging that she had been a slave of his mother, and that in this way and no other could quiet be restored, because he could not suffer that this intriguing slave-woman should, merely through her crafty acts, be more esteemed by the Spaniards than were the chiefs. She was, he said, full of duplicity, having remained with Pagulayan that she might be able to say afterward to the Spaniards that she was not at fault for the uprising—although, in point of fact, she had been the cause of it. Fray Pedro promised to look after this business with great diligence, and to do what should be best. The Indian departed, apparently in peace; but the others did not continue in that frame of mind. At midnight, while the religious was reciting the matins, on the first Sunday of Advent, and when he had come to the first response, the insurgents set fire to the church, thus alarming those who had remained in the village, and causing them to take flight. Pagulayan came to father Fray Pedro, and, acting as his guide, put him on a safe road, carrying him at times on his shoulders across creeks and rivers on the road which they followed. At dawn they halted in a thicket, whence the father went to a little village farther down, because the place where they were was not safe. Here Pagulayan carried the robes from the sacristy, and father Fray Pedro put them as well as he could into a chest, being obliged to leave out a canvas of our Lady, which on account of its size the chest would not hold. Leaving it there, he went on to the village of Pia, where there was a religious with many Christians, and where the people were peaceful. The insurgents went straight down to the village where the chest and the picture were; and, opening the chest, they took out the ornaments, the chalice, and all the rest, and profaned everything. They cut the ornaments of the mass into pieces, to make head-cloths and ribbons. They tore the leaves out of the missal, and drank out of the chalice, like a godless race governed by the devil. Taking the image painted on the canvas, they set it up as a target for their lances. One of them blasphemously said: “This, the fathers tell us, is the mother of God; if this were truth, our lances would draw blood, and since she sheds none, it is all trickery and deceit.” The savage said this when he was throwing his lance at the image, and his audacity did not remain without its punishment, for he was soon after condemned to the galleys; and here, in addition to the ordinary hardships suffered in them, he was maltreated by all the other galley slaves when they learned that his crime had been committed against our Lady. They struck him, buffeted him, kicked him, and abused him with words as an enemy of the Virgin; and in this state he died, passing from the wretched life of the galleys to eternal death in hell.