Volume 43 — Letter from Father Pedro Rosell1 to the Father Superior of the Mission2
Reading edition
Caraga, April 17, 1885.
My dearly beloved Father Superior in Christ:
We made our first excursion in December of last year, after the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the most holy Virgin to the visita of Santa Fe, which is distant two hours’ journey from this capital, and which is located at the end of the small bay which is the terminal of Points Alisud de Caraga, and Sancol de Manurigao. About five hundred and sixty-nine Christians who have been reduced from the beliefs of the Mandayas in the space of the eight years since it was founded by our fathers, form its population. This village is one of the three which have been for a considerable time the aim of the repeated attacks of the Baganís or assassins of the mountains of Bungádon and Manlubúan. During the same days that we stayed there, the murder of three Mandayas, sácopes of Captain Ciriaco Lanquibo, who was recently converted to Christianity, happened in the fields which are located between that village and that of Manurígao. A week after we had returned to Caraga, we were informed that another like murder had been committed on another unfortunate friendly Mandaya near the said village of San Luis. So bold do those barbarians show themselves, because there is no force with which to pursue them, and they feel so secure in the places where they reside!
At the date on which we went to Santa Fe, it had been quite a long time since the said village had experienced any aggression from the baganis. Consequently, the people were living somewhat free from their past misery, and relieved of the frequent alarms and consequent frights. However, they were suffering great famine on account of the said aggressions, and because they had lost almost all the crops of maize and sweet potatoes (the only things which they cultivate), during that time because of the great and prolonged heat and the lack of rain. They were supporting themselves on the few sweet potatoes that had been saved, thanks to the humidity of the ground, and the shade of the trees, and on the soft parts of convolvulus and palms which grow along the shores of the rivers. In spite of so many and so severe troubles, thanks be to God, there has not been hitherto, but two families of San Luis who have become fugitives. That action has not at all been because they repent of having become Christians, but for other very different reasons. Those families have, however, now established relations with the father and promised him to abandon the Dacungbanua or lands of Magdagasang, where they are living at present, as soon as they shall have harvested the palay of their fields, and settle in a village other than the one in which they lived formerly. What a fine example, then, Father Superior, of Christian fidelity and resignation have those newly-reduced people given us in general, and how evident a proof of their true conversion to Christianity! In my opinion, these are results that ought to be attributed, after divine Grace (without which no good thing can be done), especially to the plan which Father Pastells has always followed in so far as it has been allowed him, in the reduction of heathens. It is exclusively a system of attraction by means of great charity, great mildness, continual patience, and solid foundations upon which the village recently established rests; namely, the foundations of a good inspector who continues to form gradually in the village the good customs of the Christians, of good authorities who rule and govern the people without exactions and injustice, or excessive rigor, of good masters who instruct and educate the children, with the visit of the father, as often as possible in order further to exercise his spiritual ministries, and to ascertain how they all observe their important obligations.
Coming back, now, from this long digression, your Reverence, Father Superior, could not imagine with what pleasure and blessings the Christians of those three visitas above mentioned, of Santa Fe, Manurígao, and San Luis, received the palay which your Reverence gave as an alms for the relief of those places because of that great scarcity of food of which I have spoken above. The heads of the families could not restrain their joy when they found themselves with palay which could be distributed to each one, although it was, it is true, very little compared to their great necessity. “How troublesome we are to you, Fathers,” they said, “and how much patience you must have with us. But God will be able to repay you superabundantly for the good that you are doing us. Had we not received help, of a truth, our sick and stricken would have died of hunger and poor food. But now with this palay, we shall have enough to put new life into us, and we shall keep some of it for a small field, which will give us hopes of enduring the famine better later on.” So did the poor wretches express themselves. They really planted their fields with the little palay which they could set aside for it; and at the date of the writing of this letter, some fields are seen so luxuriant and with so fine a heading of grain that within one month they are promised a moderate harvest. May God in His goodness preserve those fields and cause them to bear one hundred per cent.
Miminsad, miminsad si Mansilátan
Opod si Badla nga magadayao nang dunia.
Bailan, managunsáyao,
This means in Spanish: “Mansilátan has come down, has come down. Later [will come] Badla, who will preserve the earth. Bailanas, dance; bailanas, turn ye round about.” As soon as the invocation has concluded bailanas and non-bailanas, that is to say, all the people who have gathered, dance and cry out like disorderly persons, devour the hog, and end by getting drunk. Such is the conclusion and end of the demoniacal bucolic feast to the gods Mansilátan and Badla.
And although these things are so, the Catholic apologist will not fail to comprehend the most important teachings which he could utilize as a confirmation of the most transcendental questions of our true religion. For leaving aside the action of the sacrifice and the ceremonies that accompany it, is there not some glimpse in that song, Miminsad, miminsad si Mansilátan, etc., although an imperfect one, of the dogmas of the plurality of persons in God, and of the creation and redemption of the world? Indeed, it is so, and more if one keep in mind the signification in which the Mandayas understand it, according to the ancient and constant oral tradition received from their ancestors. That tradition which gives the true meaning to those verses has been taken down by Father Pastells from the mouth of many tigúlang or old men who have been converted to Christianity. It is as follows. Mansilátan, the principal god and father of Badla, descended from the heavens where he dwells in order to create the world. Afterward his only son Badla came down also to preserve and protect the world—that is men and things—against the power and trickery of the evil spirits, Pudaúgnon and Malímbung, the latter a woman and the former a man, who are trying by continual artifices to harm and injure them. Those evil spirits did not obtain nor will they ever obtain their most evil intents to destroy the earth and mankind, for they are under the power and protection of the powerful and invisible god Badla. Consequently, and in view of so great love and mercy on the part of the latter and because of so much goodness on the part of his father Mansilátan, the bailanas who are the priestesses of the same, can never do less than be joyful, and in the transports of their joy invite one another to dance and circle about their revered images as an act of reverence to so great benefactors. Also there is not wanting among the beliefs of the Mandayas one which gives, although in a confused and corrupted manner, the idea of the Holy Spirit, thereby completing the mystery of the holy Trinity. For they say that, from Mansilátan, the father of Badla his only son, also proceeds the god Búsao, who is nothing else than the omnipotent virtue of the former. This last is communicated to some men preeminent in valor and skill for their combats, so that it makes them strong and valiant above other men. Those privileged men who are animated by the spirit of Búsao are called in the Mandaya language baganis, which means valiant.
But let us return to those three bailanas of whom I spoke above, and who have given rise to this digression. One of them, an old woman, indeed very old, since she was about seventy years old, at the exhortation of Father Pastells to become a Christian and abandon the foolishness of the Mandayas, which are no other than the deceits of the devil, became possessed or rather seemed to become possessed with that bailan spirit of which I spoke above, and began to tremble from head to foot. Did that knavish bailan divinity know beforehand what was about to happen to him, and that he had to leave the house in which he had lived for so long a time? But his apparent possession of the foolish old woman, and the trembling of her body did not last long, when he saw and heard the derisive guffaws of laughter from all the Christians who were present. Ah! this was without doubt the reason which made that invisible spirit, in shame at having been so illtreated by the fathers and by the Christians present, hasten to issue forth, and escape with all speed toward hell, or to the body of another bailana of the mountain who would treat him better. Finally the poor old woman, like her associates in the profession, surrendered to the exhortations of the father, or rather, to the grace of the Holy Spirit, and they consented to receive holy baptism. How beautiful and how consoling it was to hear from those lips which had invoked more than a thousand times perhaps, the infernal spirits hidden under the names of Mansilátan, Badla, Búsao, Tagabánua, etc., respond affirmatively and with deep conviction of spirit to the following questions of Father Pastells. “Do you believe,” he asked each one, “all that God has revealed and what the holy Catholic Church teaches us?” “Yes, I believe.” “Do you renounce the beliefs of the Mandayas, and all their lies and works of iniquity?” “Yes, I renounce.” “Do you give your heart wholly and without reserve to God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and to Jesus Christ his only son, the Redeemer of the world?” “Yes, in truth, I do give it entirely.” “Do you desire in good faith to receive holy baptism?” “I wish it right gladly.” After that so express profession of faith, the three bailanas, together with the other baptized adults, were fittingly instructed in the mysteries of our holy religion and in their duties as Christians. Then, according to the custom introduced by our fathers, they were stript of the garments of their heathenism, and they were clothed in the garments of the Christians, which were lent for the occasion, as the new clothes which were given to them as a present were not yet made; and holy baptism was conferred on them to the great joy of all.
On the thirteenth of the same month of December, when we had concluded our occupation in the holy faith, we returned to Caraga, postponing for a later time, although we regretted it keenly, the visit to the small villages near Manurígao and San Luis; for we were compelled to return as I had not yet performed the holy exercises of the year, and it was near the feast of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Consequently, wholly and precisely for the above reasons, its method of existence and of celebrating its feasts has, I know not what, which attracts and satisfies. This is born of the characteristic simplicity and open and jovial nature of these people of Caraga, from the fraternal union with which all, both great and small, those who have something and those who have nothing, unite to take part in the feasts and common joy, and finally from the expansive communication, without an admixture of any sort of fear, which they have with the father missionaries whom they regard and love as their dear fathers.
We two fathers stayed here in Caraga until Ash Wednesday. After that we undertook the second journey of which I spoke at the beginning of my letter. But, since I see that this letter is growing too long, I shall keep the relation of the events of that journey for another letter, which I shall endeavor to send by next post.
I commend myself to the holy prayers and sacrifices of your Reverence.
Your servant in Christ,
Pedro Rosell, S. J.