Note 21 — Chapter XVII

All these new causes of joy were necessary to temper the sorrow caused among the religious of this province by the rising of a large number of Indians, which happened on the sixth of November in this year in the most distant parts of the province of Nueva Segovia, in the region known as Yrraya. On the Friday before, a very large and beautiful cross had been set up in the court or cemetery of the church in the largest village there, which was called Abuatan. At this time the Indians gave every evidence of joy and pleasure and even of devotion to the Lord who redeemed us on the cross; but on the following Sunday, instigated by the devil, they burnt their churches and villages, and avowed themselves enemies of the Spaniards, and even of God, whom they left that they might return to their ancient sites to serve the devil in exchange for the enjoyments of the liberties and vices of their heathen state. Practically all those in this village, and many of those in another near it called Pilitan, belonged to a tribe called Gadanes.21 This tribe was always regarded as one on a lower plane of civilization than the others, and more devoted to freedom, and enemies to subjection; for they were a race bred in the most distant mountains and the wildernesses of that province, and they had less communication and commerce than did the other tribes—not only with the Spaniards, but even with the rest of the Indians. It was these Gadanes, then, who became restless, and disquieted the other inhabitants of that region, though these others had always been very faithful to God and the Spaniards. They had even sustained many bloody wars with the neighbors by whom they were surrounded that they might not be lacking in the friendship which they had with the Spaniards, or in the subjection which they had promised them. But now these revolted and joined the insurgents, partly as the result of force applied by the Gadanes—for the latter greatly excelled them in numbers, and caught them unprepared for defense—and partly also carried away by their own natural desire for liberty, to which they were invited by the safety of the mountains to which they proposed to go. The mountains, being very rough, offered opportunities for easy defense; and, being very fertile, promised them an abundant living. The Gadanes had planned this revolt far ahead, and had appointed a day for it to occur some time later. Their purpose was to try to get back first certain chiefs who were held as hostages in the city of the Spaniards; and they had already sent there one of their chiefs, named Saquin, who had the influence of a father over the rest, that he might bring away these chiefs, with great dissimulation and pretended arguments of necessity. It happened that the father vicar of Abuatan had grown weary of his work, and wished to resign his office. He had gone down at that time to the city to ask the father provincial, who happened to be there then, to give this office to someone else and to permit him to take some rest by being under his directions. The Gadanes, accused by their own bad consciences, supposed that he had detected their purpose of rising, and had gone down to ask for soldiers to prevent it. In fear of interference, they hastened on their treacherous act; and, without waiting for the appointed period, or for the return of him who had gone down for the hostages (their relatives), they decided to rise at once. Without further deliberation or delay, they began active operations. Father Fray Alonso Hernandez, who was at Abuatan, heard the tumult; and being above measure sad at what was happening, he tried his best to quiet them. He told them how foolish their proceedings were, and how they were deceived by the devil, not only as to the good of their souls, but also as to the many temporal advantages, which they possessed in their trade, with the Spaniards as well as with the rest of the Indians—in which they gained so much that they were the richest and most prosperous Indians in all that region. All this, he said, and their own quiet, peace, and comfort would be destroyed by their rising; while if they would keep quiet they would preserve it all, for he assured them that no harm would happen to them for what they intended to do. But the chiefs who led the insurgents said to him that he should not waste his time by talking about this; and that it was now too late, since they were determined to carry on what they had begun. “What is it that moves you,” said the religious, “to so imprudent an act? If the religious have done you any wrong, you have me here in your power; revenge it upon me, take my life in pay for it, and do not cast away your souls.” “It is not because of any wrong from the religious, or resentment toward them,” said the Indians, “but because we are weary of the oppressive acts of the Spaniards. Depart hence in peace; for though it is true that our rising is not against the religious, we cannot promise that some drunken Indian may not try to take off your head.” The religious perceived the obstinacy of the Gadanes, and the fact that arguments would be useless in this matter, and went away to watch over the village of Pilitan, which was under his care. He found it quiet, but that peace continued for a very short time; for presently—this was early Sunday morning—he heard a very great noise and a loud Indian war-cry. They came in a crowd, after their ancient custom, naked, and thickly anointed with oil, and with weapons in their hands. It was the insurgents from Abuatan, coming to force the Indians of Pilitan to join the uprising, in order that they might have more strength to resist the Spaniards when the latter should make war upon them to bring them to subjection. One of the chiefs who were leading the insurgents, named Don Phelippe Cutapay, a young man of about twenty-three, came forward. He had been brought up from infancy in the church with the religious, and when he was a mere child had aided in mass as sacristan, and afterward as cantor; and at this time he was governor of Abuatan. He went direct to the church to speak to the religious, intending to inform him as to what they were about to do, and to advise him to go down the river, for fear that someone might get beyond control and harm him. While he was talking with the religious in the cloister, his elder brother, named Don Gabriel Dayag, who was acting as guide to the others, came in. Being somewhat nervous and excited, he approached the religious with little courtesy; Cutapay rebuked him for the way in which he was acting, saying to him that he should remember that he was before the father, to whom he owed more respect. The elder brother answered: “Cutapay, if our minds are divided we shall do nothing;” however, he grew calm and behaved respectfully in the presence of the religious. The shouting increased, and there were now in the courtyard of the church about eight hundred Indians armed and prepared for battle. The religious roused his courage, and, laying aside all fear, went out to them; and standing in the midst of this multitude, as a sheep among wolves, he caused them to sit down, and addressed them for more than an hour. He urged upon them what would be for their good, and strove to persuade them to see the great error into which they were falling. Among other things in the utterances which the Lord is accustomed to impart under such circumstances, he said: “My sons, among whom I have so long been, and to whom I have so many years preached the true doctrine, which you ought to follow, and have taught you that which you ought to observe for the good of your souls, I am greatly grieved to see the mistaken path which you take, casting yourselves over precipices where destruction is certain, and from which your rescue is difficult. If your wish to run away is on account of the bad treatment which you have received from us religious—and from me in particular, as being less prudent than others—here you have me alone and defenseless. Slay me then, slay me, and do not cast away your souls. Let me pay with my life the evil which you are about to do; and do not lose your faith and your hope of salvation, nor pay in hell for the sin of this uprising, and for the many sins which you will add to it in your revolt.” Some of them made the same answer as before; that they had not done this because of ill-will toward the religious; but on the contrary, they felt for them affection and love, and therefore did not intend to do them any harm. This they said was plain because, although they had him alone in the midst of them, no one was rude to him, but even in the midst of the tumult showed him respect. “The reason of our uprising,” they said, “is that we are weary of the oppressions of the Spaniards; and if you or any other religious desire to come to our villages, any one of you may come whenever he pleases, providing he does not bring a Spaniard.” The religious responded by offering that the Spaniards would do them no harm, especially for what they had already done, promising himself to remain among them as security, so that they might take away his life if the least harm should come to them from that cause. But they were very far indeed from accepting this good advice; and some of them went away and set fire to some houses, upon which a great outcry arose in the village. Cutapay stood up and greatly blamed what had been done, saying that it was very ill considered and a daring outrage to set fire. “I call your attention,” he said, “to the fact that the father is in the village; and so long as he is here nothing should be done to grieve him;” and he commanded people to go and put out the fire and to calm the village. The religious began to preach to them again; but, though there were so many people before him, he was preaching in the desert, and hence could accomplish nothing with them. They asked the father to depart, and to take with him the silver and ornaments of the sacristy of this church and of that of Abuatan. This was no small generosity from an excited body of insurgents. They provided him with boats, and men to row them, and the friars went down the river to the friendly villages. The insurgents immediately began to commit a thousand extravagances. They set fire to the houses, they drank, and they annoyed the people in the village. If any were unwilling to join them, they threatened them with death by holding lances to their breasts. The result was that many joined them, being forced by the fear of instant death, and waiting for a better time when they could again have religious. A few of them succeeded in hiding, and going down the river after the fathers, some leaving their sons and others their fathers. There was one chief who, despising his wealth and his gold, left it all and came with the religious, taking with him only his wife. His name was Don Bernabe Lumaban. Doña Agustina Pamma, who was a member of one of the most noble families of the region and the wife of one of the chiefs, hid herself in a marsh—standing in it up to her neck that she might be left behind, and might go to a Christian village. However, she was discovered, and was taken along by the insurgents. But the Lord did not fail to reward her pious desires, for within a few years she accomplished them, and lived for a long time, as she desired, in the church. The insurgents did not cease until they had roused all the villages in their vicinity. As men abandoned of God and directed by the devil, they were guilty of horrible sacrileges. In the village of Abuatan they sacked the church and the sacristy, and made a jest and derision of the things which they found there. They treated irreverently that which they had a little before reverenced: the women put on the frontals as petticoats [sayas], and of the corporals and the palls of the chalices they made head-kerchiefs. They dressed themselves in the habits of the religious, and even went so far as to lose their respect for the image of the Virgin. The feet and hands of this image were of ivory, and it was one of the most beautiful in all that province and in all the islands. There was one man who dared to give it a slash across the nose, saying, “Let us see if she will bleed.” They also committed other sacrileges, and even greater ones, as a barbarous tribe of apostates. Afterward an Indian, finding an opportunity to flee from them to a Catholic region, did so; and he went not alone, for he carried with him the holy image of the Virgin of the Rosary which had been slashed across the face. Although it was received with great rejoicings by the Christians, they could but shed many tears to see it so outraged. All this grieved the hearts of the religious who had trained and taught them, and who now saw them lost irremediably and without reason; for although they said that they could not endure the oppressions of the Spaniards, these were not so great but that the profit which the Indians gained by their commerce with them was very much greater. The man who at that time used to collect the tributes was so kind a man and so good a Christian that, confident of his own innocence and of the fact that he had never wronged them, he went up when he heard this news, to try to bring them back by argument; but they no sooner saw him than they killed him.