Note 92 — San Agustin’s Letter on the Filipinos
Reading edition
42. They are so ignorant that they do not have the slightest knowledge concerning the origin of the ancestors from whom they descend, and whence they came to settle these islands. They do not give any information concerning their paganism, which is not the worst; and they only preserve in certain parts some ridiculous abuses, which they observe at births and sicknesses, and the cursed belief that persuades them that the souls of their ancestors or the grandfathers of the families are present in the trees and at the bottom of bamboos, and that they have the power of giving and taking away health and of giving success or failure to the crops. Therefore, they make their ancestors offerings of food, according to their custom; and what has been preached to them and printed in books avails but little, for the word of any old man regarded as a sage has more weight with them than the word of the whole world.92