Note 249 — Chapter VII

Father Pedro Murillo says, in his approbation of the Cronicas,249 that “there is no fixed rule by which to construe the Indians; for each one needs a new syntax, all being anomalous. With the Indians the argument does not conclude by induction, since no one is like to himself; for, in the short circuit of a day, he changes into more colors than a chameleon, takes more shapes than a Proteus, and has more movements than a Euripus.250 He who has most to do with them, knows them least. In short, they are an aggregate of contrarieties, and the best logician cannot reconcile them. They are an obscure and confused chaos, in which no species can be perceived and no points of exactness distinguished.” All these terms considered one by one, compose a very exaggerated hyperbole, in which this author showed his great erudition and little experience, for he only ministered in a few missions, and for a short time. For during most of the time while he lived in these islands he did not leave the professor’s chair, except for a short time; and all that he tells of his journey to and travels among the Visayas was learned in passing and hastily, in company with the provincial who visited those missions. There he obtained very little light on the character and temperament of the Indians, as he had no dealings with them as one settled among them. And, just as in this expression he opposes himself without much reason to the reverend father Fray Gaspar, who after forty years of ministry, affirms that the Indians are well designated by the Greek word monopantas—a term which was given to a certain people by a critic, as they were all similar and homogeneous—so also when he affirms that all are anomalous and heterogeneous because they cannot all be constructed in one and the same syntax, does he go beyond the credence that can be given to his ingenious hyperboles. The experience that the said Father Murillo could have is of the Indians who go about in Manila and its environs, who are interpreters, servants in accounting-rooms and secretarial offices, who are accustomed to deal with Spaniards of all kinds, with creoles, mestizos, Sangleys, and other kinds of people who assemble there for trade. They have learned fraud and deceit, as well as the bad morals and propensities of all and every one of them. As is seen, one cannot judge of a whole nation—and much less of all the nations of the islands, who are diverse and distinct in genius and customs by the cases of these Indians who speak Spanish. And taking into account so great diversity, I affirm that it is impossible to find a definition that admits and includes all of them. For these persons whom I have mentioned, reared among so many classes, and among people so heterogeneous, and who are imbued with customs so diverse, cannot form rules by which to explain their own nation, much less by which to define the other nations.