Note 61 — INSURRECTIONS BY FILIPINOS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (continued 2)

Delgado relates this incident (Hist. de Filipinas, p. 280) as a specimen of the credulity of the natives, and adds this other instance: “While I was in the village of Lipa, the discovery was made in the village of Tanauan of a mine which was said to be of silver. Officials and workmen were sent to examine it, and test the ore, by the governor Don Fausto Cruzat y Góngora; they did so diligently, but the mine said only, Argentum et aurum non est mihi [i.e., “Silver and gold have I none”]. At that time the devil caused some arrant knave to spread the lying tale that the miners declared that the mine would not yield silver until this were done: all the Visayans of Comintan must be seized and their eyes gouged out, and these must be mixed with other ingredients, and the ore-vein of the mine rubbed with that compound. This was so thoroughly believed that every one was anxious and tearful, and the old women hid themselves in the grain-fields; and it took a long time to quiet them, with much labor of the [religious] ministers (whom they did not believe, because these were Castilians), until in the course of time they were undeceived.” ↑