A Fire on the Island

A Fire on the Island

A FRESH LOOK AT THE
FIRST MASS CONTROVERSY

Greg Hontiveros

BUTUAN CITY HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL FOUNDATION, INC.

 © 2008 by Butuan City Historical & Cultural Foundation, Inc. “On Thursday the twenty-eighth of March, because
© 2008 by Greg Hontiveros during the night we had seen a fire on the island
ahead, we came to anchor near the said island…”
Published by Butuan City Historical & Cultural Foundation, Inc.

Butuan City, Philippines Antonio Pigafetta

Telephones/Fax: (6385) 342-7934
Email: grehont@yahoo.com

Printed by Ateneo de Manila University Press

Cover painting by C. Sucgang, 1937.

Courtesy of the Lopez Memorial Museum

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the Publisher.
Table of Contents

Preface ix

1
Context
The Third Presentation 3 • Significance of the First Mass 5
Principal Textual Basis 7 • Multi-Disciplinary Approach 10
New Evidences, Newer Perspectives 12
Outline of this Presentation 14

2
Voyage
The Pacific Crossing 19
The Butuan Bay Trajectory 22 • Search for Gatighan 28
Problem of Anchorage 36
Chippit, Mazzaua, and the Early Maps 50

3
Landfall
Arrival 45 • Butuan and Mazzaua 46
Mazzaua’s Ecosystem 48 • Gold as the Definitive Marker 52
Traces of a Trading Polity 53 • Gines de Mafra’s Tale 57
vii
 4
Island
Preface
Search for the Lost Isle 61
Archaeological Confirmation 67

5 I n the third millennium, can we find any compelling

significance of the First Mass, or is it just a date to be conveniently
Tribes forgotten? Unnoticed by many, there is a rapid growth of
Blood Brothers 89 Christianity (all sects) in Africa and Asia. Here, in this most
populous of continents, one sees an unprecedented growth of
Legazpi’s Mazzaua 89
Christianity, especially in South Korea, China and eastern
Indonesia. And with that, there is expected to be an increase in the
popular consciousness and scholarly interest of the early evangelical
6
beginnings. With the Philippines being the herald of Christianity
Tradition in Asia, the commemoration of our First Mass should find greater
significance. Thus the quest for historical accuracy becomes more
A Break with Tradition 103
acute. This book is a contribution to that quest.
This book comes more than ten years after the Gancayco Panel
released their report favoring the Limasawa Theory. So we thought
7 the time is ripe for a new study that incorporates new evidences
Epilogue and insights. Indeed, we were not idle in the post-Gancayco years.
We did light the candle of research to dispel the darkness in the
obscure and contentious parts of the controversy. I was not part of
References the Butuan panel in previous presentations, and I felt that I’ve got
that built-in advantage of detachment.
Still I have these mixed feelings - of trepidation, but also of
invigorating challenge. Being a historical controversy between two
places with equally passionate advocates, I expect a bruising
experience. I would have much preferred a quieter, more genteel
setting as I write about historical events. Yet the pull of this
intellectual search for truth, plus the justifiable prodding of
colleagues to finally write a new updated paper, proved irresistible.

viii ix
 Preface
What then were the demands on the author of this work? The
evidences propounded here must be demonstrable and verifiable.
We have endeavored, therefore, to secure proof from
unimpeachable sources, either from those who were direct
witnesses to the event, or from European chroniclers who amassed
information and direct experience during the early years of
colonization in the Far East, or from expert testimony. Beyond this,
the presentation of the data must be clear and convincing. The
substance of this book should attest whether these standards have
been adhered to.
I wish to thank all those who have provided me interesting
insights on the subject, and all my friends and readers who provided
encouragement and support to continue with this book project. It
is a gratitude that is all-inclusive; they are just too many to be
mentioned, and some may prefer to take a low profile in public.
But I am proud to say that the project was a fully home-grown
effort.
Let me mention in a non-exclusive way those who have directly
provided support to this book project. The City Government of
Butuan, thru Mayor Democrito D. Plaza II, has given very valuable
support to part of the effort in the research and writing of this book.
And by extension, my thanks also to the city administrator and
budget officer Webb Racaza who has very kindly facilitated the city’s
contribution. Primary thanks also go to the City Tourism Council
chaired by Mrs. Daisy Plaza for sponsoring the first print edition
of the book, and to the support staff of the City Tourism Office in
facilitating matters related to fund disbursement.
My colleagues at the Butuan Historical & Cultural Foundation
have always been forthright in pushing for the completion of the
book project, and to Engr. Edgardo Sanchez, Mr. Pablito Tiu, Dr.
Juanito Lao, Fr. Joesilo Amalla and Mr. Romeo Malicay, I owe them
my thanks for encouraging me to fulfill this difficult task. Fr. Amalla
was my closest interlocutor with whom I have discussed the new
insights and factual findings that went into the text. The same
x xi
Preface
thanks should go to Mr. Vicente de Jesus whose collection of books
dealing with the worldwide explorations during the Age of
Discovery has added immensely to the content of this book. I must
not fail to mention the exemplary generosity of Dr. Claudio Estacio,
Dr. Casimiro Garcia, and Ms. Marge Lombard-de Dios whose
donations of equipment and books in the care of the Butuan
Heritage Center has greatly eased my burden in research and
writing.
At the technical side of this enterprise, my thanks go to my book
designers, the brother-sister team of Jed and Nina de la Peña, worthy
successors to my late book designer JB de la Peña, for the excellent
rendition of the physical aesthetics of the book. The same thanks
should go, too, to my ever-helpful volunteer computer-graphics
assistant, Winston Salvador. Also, to the Ateneo de Manila
University Press personnel headed by its director, Ms. Maricor
Baytion, whose attentiveness went far beyond the demands of
commerce. I must specially mention my account officer, Mrs.
Caridad Decena, and the book’s quality control overseer, Ms.
Evangeline Villuga, for seeing to the creation of the physical book
like it were their own child.
Finally, I should reserve my deepest gratitude to my little family
circle that has always given me inspiration and not a small amount
of understanding and care, given a writer’s familiar travails. It’s an
expanding circle now: to Edna, John and Connie, Tatum and Vic,
and Jiggy. As I wrapped up the final draft in September 2007, came
news of the birth of our first grandchild, the little Georgie girl. Given
the controversial dust-up that this book might generate, maybe it’s
a propitious sign from the heavens. Don’t laugh.
 1
Context
 The Third Presentation

T he First Mass controversy has a lengthy history, but it is

basically a late 20th century phenomenon when the re-discovery
of local history and of native roots has started to ferment. It was
also propelled by our self-consciousness that we are the only
Christian nation in Asia, and therefore it has a symbolism that far
outweighed its actual impact on a small native community.
The controversy has special resonance for Butuan at a time
when archaeological discoveries and ancient annals made people
realize that it was an ancient trading harbor, and also with a new
knowledge that the Christian church first took root here before it
spread to other areas in Mindanao.
Attempts were made to resolve the controversy of the site of
the First Mass, and there were two major occasions when the
National Historical Institute (NHI) provided the venue for both
protagonists to submit their findings. The first colloquium was
made in 1977, or 30 years ago. It will always be remembered as a
time when the then First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, a
powerful figure at the height of martial law, came before the
attendees and told them there were better things to do to unite the
country than debate on a thing of the past. She ended the whole
exercise, a portent for the nation that never loved its past, wasted its
present, and dimmed its future. Since then, the issue created more
fires of confusion than it doused, intellectually speaking.
For the second presentation in 1996, the National Historical
Institute created the Gancayco Panel, made up of a retired justice, a

3
 Context Context

lawyer and a history professor. It favored the Limasawa Theory.

This paper raises particular points of disagreement with the Panel
Significance of the First Mass
Report. As will be made clear here, the paper also proposes the
adoption of newer methodologies in the resolution of historical
controversies. The Gancayco Panel Report, however, has pointed
T he First Mass controversy holds a lot of fascination to some
people who find in it an unending mystery that hint of two places
to two gray areas that the Butuan panel has not satisfactorily
holding a piece of the puzzle. For most protagonists on both sides
explained: the idea of Mazzaua as an “island,” and the Legazpi
of the divide, the controversy has become a matter of pride of place,
comprehension of Limasawa as Mazzaua. This paper endeavors to
but a nobler motive is possible for others – that of resolving this
present new data on these two questions, and to bring clarity,
historical puzzle in a fair manner, and, for historians, in advancing
coherence and comprehensiveness to the whole issue.
the art and practice of historiography.
This third presentation, coming after a decade of deeper
The First Mass, when all is said and done, has more symbolic
investigation, provides a fresh look at the issue. Admittedly, in the
than substantive importance to the evangelization of the Catholic
past, there were gaps that needed to be addressed, and it is our hope
Church and the advance of Christianity in general. It is perfectly
that this presentation has finally found answers to these. But it would
understandable that the formal establishment of the country’s first
not be proper if we do not recognize the various efforts by local
Church, in Cebu, has been regularly and officially commemorated
historians, past and present, in Butuan who continued to investigate
by the Catholic Church, and practically nothing was ever done to
this controversy all through the years, and whose insights and
commemorate the First Mass until very recent times. Yet, as we shall
research data contributed to a much deeper appreciation of the issue
see in the concluding paragraph of this section, it has an importance
at hand. The same gratitude should also go to the Magellan scholars
all its own, and the resolution of the controversy concerning the
who continue to be the fount of understanding and insight on this
site must be encouraged.
epic circumnavigation of the earth. In intellectual life, we do indeed
It must also be emphasized that the celebration of the First Mass
stand on the shoulder of giants.
occurred in other Asian countries ahead of the Philippines. The
For the final resolution of this controversy, the wider
earliest such act (of a different tradition) must have been celebrated
community of historians is the rightful judge of the controversy.
by Saint Thomas the Apostle who had reportedly reached the
But we are also mindful of the other publics, like the National
western coast of India to spread the Christian faith within the first
Historical Institute. We hereby submit ourselves to the strictures of
century after Christ’s crucifixion. History also shows that the
historical scholarship with humility and hope.
Franciscan missionaries, followed later by the Jesuits, have arrived
at the court of the ruling Mongol dynasty in China in the 13th
century as the Church extended its evangelizing activity far beyond
the confines of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Our
neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia, have seen the arrival of
Christianity, brought by the Portuguese, within ten years before its
arrival in the Philippines, but there is something special and singular

4 5
 Context Context

about our First Mass: we’re the only majority Christian nation in China and eastern Indonesia, and this should spark a scholarly
Asia until the independence of East Timor. interest and a popular consciousness on the early evangelical
And there’s a scarcely known angle of our history that elevates beginnings of the faith.
the strategic importance of Mindanao in Philippine affairs by the All protagonists from both sides of the divide are one in looking
symbolism of two religious starting points: Mazzaua and Simunul. at the primordial significance of the First Mass in the only Christian
This great island is the terminus of the early proselytizing efforts nation in Asia, and this is best expressed by Martin J. Noone (The
of the two great Middle Eastern religions: Christianity and Islam. Islands Saw It: The Discovery and Conquest of the Philippines 1521-
The westward spread of Christianity to the New World brought 1581): “… an event as momentous in the history of the Filipino
about by Spanish conquest has its greatest impact in the Americas, people as Augustine’s landing in Kent to the British, or Patrick’s
and this extended across the vast Pacific to this lonely outpost in lighting of the Easter fire at Slane to the Irish, or Boniface’s meeting
Asia. Islam has its farthest reach in southern Lanao of a majority with the pagan Frisian priests to the Germanic peoples.”1
Muslim community east of Mecca.
The First Mass was never given due importance by the Church,
and no commemorative activities were ever done over the centuries,
until the later years of the 20th century. This partly explains the
difficulty in upholding the tradition of the First Mass. But the
Principal Textual Basis
Butuan Tradition – the understanding drawn from the practical
knowledge that the chieftain of Mazzaua was the brother of the
ruler of Butuan, and the Masao estuary as an ancient trading harbor
In drafting this paper, a principal narrative basis was chosen
to anchor the discussion. The three chapters – Chapters 18 to 20 –
already in its final decline during the Spanish entry – stood its
of the Pigafetta account of the First Circumnavigation of the Earth
ground for more than 300 years during the Spanish colonial era.
is central to the First Mass issue.
There is, moreover, one important and largely unintended
Antonio Pigafetta, chronicler of the Magellan expedition,
consequence in investigating this controversy: the quest for truth
prepared four manuscripts of his narrative account. In the interest
about the First Mass is one of the best means of promoting a better
of brevity, these are individually called as a codex based on what
methodology for historical inquiry because of the substantial data
R.A. Skelton terms as its “chain of transmission,” i.e., the succeeding
available. Indeed, the First Mass issue is a historiographical matter
owners of the manuscript and its final keeper as of this moment.
par excellence as it can enlist various disciplines to bring to bear on
The earlier and better known manuscript, and the usual source for
the controversy.
Filipino scholars, is the sole Italian edition called the Ambrosian
Finally, the First Mass in the Philippines finds its significance
Codex, now in the possession of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in
in two ways: as the herald in the expansion of Christianity in the
Milan, Italy. It has at least two popular translations in English,
Far East in our time, and in the symbolism that parallels the
notably by Alexander Robertson and Theodore Cachey.
beginnings of Christianity in key areas in Europe. Nowadays, there
The other three manuscripts were written in French. The Yale
is an explosive growth of Christianity (all sects) in Asia and Africa.
Codex, as explained by Skelton, was originally in the possession of
In the Far East, the conversion process is fastest in South Korea,
the Abbey of St. Leopold, and was sequestered by the French
6 7
 Context
revolutionary government in 1791 and given to the University of
Nancy. In the 1840s, this manuscript was sold in the market, until it
got into the hands of Guglielmo Libri in 1862, and later was sold to
Sir Thomas Phillipps where it became known as the Cheltenham
manuscript. Eventually, part of the Phillipps collections, including
this manuscript, was sold to the William H. Robinson Ltd., and
from there it was acquired by Edwin J. Beinecke, who endowed it
to the Yale University Library in 1964. The other two French
manuscripts are in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris: Ms. fr. 5650
and Ms. fr. 24224.
In the choice for the principal narrative text to use in this paper,
Pigafetta’s Yale Codex represented the best option, a departure from
the traditional reliance on the Ambrosian Codex. We shall often be
quoting the English translation of the Yale Codex, and we shall touch
on the Ambrosian Codex only for corroboration. As Dr. R.A.
Skelton, formerly superintendent of the Map Room of the British
Museum and among the foremost experts on Renaissance
navigation, said, the Yale Codex is “certainly the most magnificent
of the four manuscripts in respect to its writing, its illumination,
and its maps.”2 It was so well prepared, compared to the three others,
that Pigafetta must have given it to a person of great importance.
In Skelton’s citation, “this superb manuscript has claim to be the
actual dedication manuscript to the Grand Master of Rhodes.”3
Lord Phillippe de Villiers l’Isle Adam, was Pigafetta’s benefactor who
inducted him to the Knights of the Order of Jerusalem or the
Knights of Rhodes, and this gift manuscript, no doubt, was
Pigafetta’s finest edition. Skelton’s judgment on Ms. fr. 5650 and Ms.
fr. 24224 is echoed by most Magellan scholars: “Ms. fr. 5650,
although it shares with the Beinecke-Yale manuscript the honor of
providing the fullest and best text of the three, is roughly executed,
with many erasures and indifferently drawn maps. Ms. fr. 24224,
by contrast is (as Harisse observed) a ‘beautiful manuscript, which
was one of the gems of the La Valliere collection,’ finely written and
illuminated. Textually however it is the least satisfactory of all the
8 9
Context
manuscripts, providing very few good independent readings and
being heavily abridged in the interest of a reader who might be
shocked by ‘details of an unchaste character’ or bored by nautical
information and indigenous vocabularies.” 4 Under these
circumstances, the Yale Codex is the best choice as a primary
reference for this historical investigation.
About Pigafetta, this extraordinary chronicler was described
by Skelton as having brought into his task “a capacity for keen
observation, sympathetic interpretation, and expressive
communication of experience which enabled him to produce one
of the most remarkable documents in the history of geographical
and ethnological discovery.”5 But he was not fully appreciative of
the capabilities of Pigafetta when it came to the navigational aspects
of the voyage: “In tracing the course taken by the ships Pigafetta,
with his slender knowledge of navigation, furnishes less continuous
and reliable evidence than the pilots’ logs. Nevertheless, his
steadfastness and tenacity produced a record which enables us to
see the voyage as a whole.”6
Thus, the pilots’ logs are a rich complementary source of data
on the voyage; Francisco Albo’s documentation stands out in this
regard, and this is complemented by the Genoese Pilot’s, and the
report of the Portuguese captain, Antonio de Brito, who confiscated
the navigation log found in the flagship Trinidad in the Moluccas.
These documents in de Brito’s possession have finally been traced
to be part of the Andres de San Martin navigational papers, a highly
significant development in the search for Mazzaua.
A primary source that has been unearthed by Vicente de Jesus,
a Magellan navigation scholar, is the account of Gines de Mafra,
survivor of the Magellan expedition who came back to Mazzaua
during the Villalobos expedition. Later, a photocopy of the original,
Libro que trata del descubrimiento y principio del Estracho que se
llama de Magallanes, was also extracted by Fr. Joesilo Amalla from
the Museo Naval, Madrid. De Jesus was able to secure from
 Context
Professor Raymond Howgego, a Magellan expert, his unpublished
English translation of Mafra’s relation.
How does the authenticity of Mafra’s relation stand up to
scrutiny? His work was quoted by reputable Magellan scholars in
their books. Possibly the best endorsement is by Tim Joyner, author
and one of the best experts on the Magellan expedition: “Mafra
was an accomplished, literate mariner who subsequently served as
a royal pilot in Spanish exploratory fleets. His account has proved
a useful adjunct to those of Albo and the Genoese Pilot for
reconstructing the track of the Magellan voyage.”7 In what proved
to be a deeply flawed assessment of historical data by the Gancayco
Panel Report, the validated Mafra account was cavalierly dismissed
as an ‘alleged primary source.’8
Multi-disciplinary Approach
M odern approaches to resolving historical controversies
employ various scientific disciplines. The problem about resolving
the First Mass controversy is that it is stuck in the endless debate on
textual interpretation. This focus on pure textual interpretation of
a single source, the Pigafetta narrative, has its extreme manifestation
in the Gancayco Panel Report: “An accepted method of
historiography involves the use of primary sources which are
regarded as the best authority for a historical fact. Secondary
sources are of a lesser category…The primary sources made
available to the Panel consisted of Pigafetta’s chronicle and Albo’s
logbook…The pro-Limasawans utilized and relied heavily on the
primary sources just mentioned…the pro-Masaoans also made use
of Pigafetta’s account and Albo’s logbook together with other alleged
primary sources, particularly regarding the question of latitude,
such as the Report of Antonio de Brito and the Roteiro of an
10
Context
anonymous pilot as well as the account of Gines de Mafra.”9
Offhand, one will note the panel’s selective predilection for Pigafetta,
and a biased and unfair disregard for other patently genuine
accounts of direct witnesses in the Magellan expedition.
One thing has to be clearly stressed here: there evidently is no
problem with relying on primary sources, but what if there are just
too many contradictory textual interpretations from just one
primary narrative? Shouldn’t there be other avenues for arriving at
the truth? To move beyond this increasingly sterile preoccupation
with pure textual analysis, now is the time to harness the various
applicable disciplines to arrive at the truth. This paper is a clear
departure from the Gancayco Panel’s sole reliance on the textual
analysis of the Pigafetta narrative.
In an interesting book, The Truth About History: How new
evidence is transforming the story of the past, published by The
Reader’s Digest, fascinating new researches are overturning long
accepted ‘facts’, and this was brought about by scientific disciplines
as diverse as genetics, nuclear physics (carbon-dating),
epidemiology, remote-sensing technology, and ecology:
“Deskbound historians have left the library and turned to the
laboratory to get a clearer view of the past. Many of the most
sensational new truths about history are the result of scientific
enquiry. So for example the science of genetics, originally the
exclusive sphere of medics and biotechnologists, has been
enthusiastically applied to the problem of classifying ancient
human remains. Historians of early people once had nothing to go
on but the age and location of unearthed skulls and bones; now
DNA analysis of modern populations can reveal which are our
oldest genes and so trace the movements of ancient humans, adding
to the understanding of how our species spread across the world.”10
The new scientific disciplines have lent themselves in devising
a method to arriving at historical truth: “History has become a
broader subject as a result of these changes. Whole new fields of
study have opened up, generating yet more evidence that affects
11
 Context
our understanding of the past… These new ways of thinking have
allowed us to spot historical undercurrents that were simply
invisible to former generations.”11
This multi-disciplinary approach to history has found a
growing acceptance in clarifying or resolving difficult historical
issues. Among the finest practitioners of this approach is Prof. Jared
Diamond whose works - Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs and
Steel; and Book of the Year Awards by Washington Post, Boston
Globe, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The
Economiser, and Discover Magazine for Collapse: How Societies
Choose to Fail or Succeed – have become models.
This paper endeavors to present some of the products of new
researches on the geographic, archaeological, ethno-historical, and
navigational aspects of the First Mass issue.
New Evidences, Newer Perspectives
T here are three approaches that distinguish this new
presentation to the previous ones:
First, it utilizes the multi-disciplinary approach to history, as
compared to the usual debates on textual interpretations of primary
narrative sources. It illuminates our understanding of the context
and the inner logic of the primary narrative sources that are in the
hands of the historian. Geology, archaeology and ethnohistory
create a holistic proof of events that occurred in the dim past. In
this regard, the geomorphological study of the Agusan River Delta
is presented in this paper as the most important proof to the
existence of an island in this area, and to compare it in relation to
Limasawa.
A necessary corrective to resolving the First Mass controversy
is the application of ethnohistory, because of the strong tendency
12
Context
to view the issue in isolation. Donald Lach (Asia in the Making of
Europe) validates this approach to enriching our understanding of
the past: “In part, because of the difficult source problems, a new
approach to the history of the Philippines has been tried in recent
years which stresses working carefully back from the present into
the past. Called ethnohistory for want of a better name, it seeks to
bring the disciplines of anthropology and history into closer
collaboration in an effort to integrate and evaluate the growing
corpus of primary material with the aid of contemporary
archaeological, linguistic, and native testimony.”12
Indeed, ethnohistory, a branch of anthropology, provides
valuable analysis and insight on native life, as the archaeologist
Laura Lee Junker (Raiding, Trading and Feasting: The Political
History of Philippine Chiefdoms) asserts: “Beginning in the sixteenth
century, Spanish and other European chroniclers provided detailed
description and interpretation of the political history and political
economy of various contact period Philippine societies, producing
at least a dozen book-length relaciones in the sixteenth century
alone.”13
Arising from the first approach, the second consideration views
the First Mass issue within the whole continuum of historical events
prior to and after its occurrence, a clear departure from the usual
practice of viewing the First Mass controversy in isolation. Thus,
this presentation strives for coherence, and posits that the issue is
best understood if the Iberian chronicles subsequent to the First
Mass event, and the pre-colonial studies at the dawn of the Age of
Discovery are brought into play. Two Portuguese chronicles – by
João de Barros and Gabriel Rebelo - are referred to here, but the
bulk of our references are of Spanish provenance. An in-depth
review of the Legazpi expedition reports is called for as the pro-
Limasawa proponents drew much of their strength on these
documents as a most important source to buttress their argument.
The works of the three great Jesuit chroniclers of the 17th century
– Francisco Colin, Francisco Combes, and Francisco Ignacio Alcina
13
 Context
– provide an interesting backdrop and extremely valuable reference
to our understanding on life in the mission areas where this
controversy matters most: Leyte and Butuan.
Third, a spatial analysis is brought into the picture; specifically,
this means that the geographic areas and sea conditions of
southeastern Visayas and northeastern Mindanao are closely
investigated in order to decipher the distance and latitude details
of the Magellan expedition on this particular leg of their travel, and
to examine the bio-geographic characteristics of Mazzaua and
Gatighan, the two unknown points. [Fig. 1]
We also bring into the discussions additional sources that would
help shed light on the obscure aspects of the issue, and bring clarity
to seemingly contradictory data. The sources of our citations can
be summarized in three categories: primary documents from
eyewitnesses of the event, Iberian chronicles proximate in time to
the event, and expert testimonies.
References to the contrary view – the Limasawa Theory – will
focus on the Gancayco Panel Report, and the papers of Fr. Peter
Schreurs, MSC, Fr. John Schumacher, SJ, and Fr. Miguel Bernad, SJ.
Collectively, their positions have articulated well the Limasawa
school of thought.
Outline of this Presentation
I n this exposition, the specific points at issue were divided
into Themamatt ic C
Cllusters , the better to put order and coherence to
the presentation. This is the flow of evidence and argumentation
that the author of this presentation has arranged:
14
Context
1. Context
Reviews the previous efforts at resolving the issue, the symbolic
significance of the First Mass in light of our national history and
culture, the principal textual basis as the narrative thread for our
historical investigation, and the multi-disciplinary approach being
adopted to arrive at the truth.
2. Voyage
Takes us from the west-by-south trajectory of the Pacific
crossing towards Homonhon, the four latitude readings on Mazaua
within Butuan Bay as a moving trajectory, the crucial latitude
reading from the expedition’s chief navigator Andres de San Martin,
the search for Gatighan, the problem of anchorage, the location of
Chippit in relation to Butuan and Mazaua, and what the early
European maps can tell us.
3. La ndf a l l
Details the eye-witness descriptions upon arrival in Mazzaua,
what the subsequent Spanish and Portuguese chronicles would tell
us, the crucial account of Gines de Mafra, the distinctive flora and
fauna of the island, of gold as the definitive marker, and the island’s
historic link to the ancient trading harbor of Butuan.
4. Island
Resolves the central argument about Mazzaua being an island
by the presentation of key findings from the Geomorphological
Study of the Agusan River Delta by a reputable geological team led
by Dr. Ricarte Javelosa (a specialist in geomorphology), an
archaeological analysis by Mr. Wilfredo Ronquillo (chief of the
archaeology division of the National Museum), and an independent
validation of the geological study by Mr. Roberto S.P. de Ocampo
(chief geologist of the National Museum).
15
 Context

5. Tr ib es
Clarifies for the first time the conundrum whether the Mazzaua
visited by the Legazpi expedition in 1565 was the same island visited
by the Magellan expedition in 1521, the destruction by the
Ternatans and the Portuguese of the tribal alliance led by the
Dapitans who ruled Bohol and the neighboring islands, and the
visit by officers of the Legazpi fleet to Butuan during the same
period.

6. Tr adit ion
Explores the deep split in the appreciation of Mazzaua by
2
historians three centuries removed, and how this has defined the
ongoing controversy, and, finally, how oral and written accounts
closest in time to the First Mass event could help historiographers
Voyage
unravel this historical mystery.

7. Epi log ue
Summarizes the evidences offered by this paper.

16
 The Pacific Crossing

O ur comprehension of the controversy should start at the

point when the Magellan expedition finally succeeded in traversing
the maritime opening to the Orient from the Atlantic, because it
was from this point that one can discern the logic of their sailing
directions, and where the fate of their arrival at Mazzaua should be
seen.
This unprecedented success in finding the maritime opening,
a first in the history of world exploration that links the Earth’s two
greatest oceans was followed by the expedition’s greatest losses in
human lives by a terrible miscalculation. This longest leg of their
journey – the Pacific crossing – lasted for three months and twenty
days without, as Pigafetta says, “taking on board any provisions or
other refreshments.”14 But, in one notable respect, it was blessed by
good weather throughout, leading Magellan to name this greatest
of the world’s oceans, the Pacific.
The terrible miscalculation was that they underestimated the
girth of the Pacific, which turned out to be three times greater than
the Atlantic. The result was, from the standpoint of the Magellan
expedition, mass hunger and sickness. The short explanation to
this tragedy was the state of the navigation art of the time. During
the Renaissance Era, just when the Age of Discovery was underway,
the great European sailors, mainly under the pioneering impetus
of Prince Henry the Navigator, have vastly improved their
calculation of the Latitude, the distance from the equator to the
opposing poles. But the Longitude, that measures the east-west girth

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of the globe, had to await more than a century after the
circumnavigation of the Earth before they could perfect its usage.
As they began their Pacific crossing, Magellan decided to move
further up north to catch the prevailing trade winds, and then to
the northwest to reach two rumored to be well-endowed islands,
Cipanghu and Sumbdit Pradit, after being reminded of Francisco
Serrão’s letter from the Moluccas archipelago that there was not
much food in the latter. One of the best illustrations on the Pacific
crossing was done by Thomas Keller of Harvard University, an
excellent analysis with graphic coordinates and datings on a
modern map, whose primary data was derived from Albo’s
navigation log. [Fig. 2] But on February 25, 1521, after crossing
the 13th latitude just north of the Marshall Islands, the expedition
radically shifted direction to west by south, until they reached
Guam, and further on the same direction until they sighted Samar.
This trajectory was dictated by the immediate search for a landfall
in the Spice Islands, and an abandonment of the idea of stopping
by at Cipanghu and Sumbdit Pradit for revictualization.15
After the short stop-over, the Magellan expedition generally
followed the same trajectory until the sighting of Samar and
dropping anchor in Homonhon on March 16. This trajectory is
very logical as they were now nearing the general vicinity of the
Moluccas.
Magellan, a veteran from the Portuguese navy’s explorations
in maritime Southeast Asia, knew that he was just north from the
equatorial line when he arrived in Homonhon, but he didn’t have
any idea at the time how farther west he has yet to go. Unknown to
him, the Spiceries were just 600 nautical miles due south from where
they were.
To Magellan, the Malay features and the linguistic affinity of
the people in Homonhon and Suluan told him that they were now
quite near the fabled Spice Islands. Enrique’s affinity to the natives
of Suluan and Homonhon, by physique and the Malayo-Polynesian
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Voyage
tongue, affords this veteran of the Portuguese conquests in Asia
the realization that he was now nearing ground zero.
But there was something else that would provide a convincing
confirmation to Magellan from the natives - the tropical ambience
and the products of nature found therein: “The captain, seeing that
they were well-disposed, to do them more honor led them to his
ship and showed them all his merchandise, namely cloves,
cinnamon, pepper, walnut, nutmeg, ginger, mace, gold, and all that
was in the ship… And they made signs that the things which the
captain had shown them grew in the places whither we were
going.”16
On a Monday afternoon of the Holy Week, March 25, 1521, the
fleet left Homonhon. They set course to west and southwest towards
the ‘islands’ of Cenalo, Hinnangar, Ibusson, and Abarien. All these
places circumscribe the southern end of Leyte Gulf. Except for
Ibuson, these pre-colonial native settlements – Cenalo (Silago),
Hinnangar (Hinunangan), Abarien (Cabalian) - along the
southeastern coastline of Leyte were not islands. They were
discernible across the gulf by the headlands near them: in the
modern nautical charts and topographic maps, these are
Hingatungan Point near Silago, Pandan Point in Hinunangan, and
Amagusan Point in Cabalian. Together with Ibuson island across
them, these are the visual landmarks that would funnel them
through the northern entrance of Surigao Strait. This strait and
the San Bernardino Passage between Samar and Sorsogon are the
strategic access from the Pacific to the inner waters of the
archipelago. Threading through the strait, the course-line is on a
south-by-west track whose logical terminus would be at Butuan
Bay.
The Gancayco Panel Report, taking off from the argument of
the Limasawa advocates, gives a different twist to this leg of
Magellan’s sojourn, to justify the almost 4 days that the fleet had to
reach Mazzaua: “Evidently, the fleet was island-hopping or had to
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criss-cross these four islands while passing thru (‘between’) them
in order to ascertain their identities (names).”17 The panel has just
described a bunch of tourists on an island-hopping jaunt, instead
of a decimated, emaciated crew intent on reaching the Spice Islands.
The reality was much simpler. The ancient Filipinos were a maritime
people who knew how to instruct their fellow seafarers on the visual
cues across the water. Indeed, Pigafetta would write that their
friendship with the people of Suluan and Homonhon afforded
them “the names of some islands which we saw before us.”18
The Butuan Bay Trajectory
T he Magellan expedition threaded through the numerous
islands that they called the Archipelago of St. Lazarus. Having
debouched from the Surigao Strait, the south-by-west sea-lane lay
open, and up ahead loomed the Mindanao landmass, when “on
Thursday the twenty-eighth of March...we had seen a fire on an
island ahead.”19 In fact, at 9º 40’ latitude N, they were already abreast
of the Surigao mountains at their portside, and definitely at the
entrance to Butuan Bay.
Previous arguments on the Mazzaua isle’s location by
protagonists on both sides of the divide revolve around the 9º 40’
latitude N recorded by Pigafetta. But there is no island at that
latitude. To untangle the knot, the Gancayco Panel had to resort to
an over-simplistic expedient: “while it may be true, as alleged by
pro-Masaoans, that there is no island at latitiude 9 degrees and 40
minutes N, which is the equivalent of Mazzaua’s latitude as
translated by Robertson, such latitude is closer to and approximates
Limasawa which is 9 degrees and 55 minutes N than to Masao,
Butuan which is 9 degrees and 00 minutes N (according to a
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Philippine Gazetteer).”20 Recent scholarship would, however, reveal
that there were four latitude readings on Mazzaua island [Fig. 3]:
Pigafetta – 9º 40’N: “That island is in the latitude of nine and
two-thirds degrees toward the Arctic Pole, and in the longitude
of one hundred and sixty-two from the line of demarcation. And
from the other island, where we found the springs of fresh water,
it is twenty-five leagues distant. And that island is called
Mazzaua.”21
Albo – 9º 20’N: “From here we departed and sailed W., and fell
in with a large island called Seilani, which is inhabited, and
contains gold; we coasted it, went to W.S.W., to a small inhabited
island called Mazaba. The people are very good, and there we
placed a cross upon a mountain; and from thence they showed
us three islands in the W.S.W. direction, and they say there is much
gold there, and they showed us how they gather it, and they found
small pieces like beans and like lentils; and this island is in 9 1/3º
N [9º 20’] latitude.”22
Genoese Pilot – 9º 00’N: “…and then they set sail, and navigated
further on amongst many islands, to which they gave the name
of the Valley Without Peril, and also St. Lazarus, and they ran on
to another island twenty leagues from that from which they sailed,
which is in ten degrees, and came to anchor at another island,
which is named Maçangor, which is in nine degrees; and in this
island they were well received, and they placed a cross in it.”23
De Brito Report – 9º 00’N: “After that, passing amid many islands,
they reached one called Mazaba, which lies in 9 degrees. The king
of Mazaba conducted them to another large island called Zubo.”24
These sources of the four readings as they traversed Butuan
Bay were from various nationalities assigned in the three remaining
vessels that survived the Pacific crossing: on board the flagship
Trinidad were Francisco Albo from Rhodes [Greece], Giovanni
Battista de Polcevera from Genoa [Italy], and the chronicler
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Antonio Pigafetta from Vicenza [Italy]; on the Victoria was Andres
de San Martin from Castile [Spain]. There are variable factors that
occasion these varying readings. For one, the three remaining ships,
as one can discern in the chronicles of the voyage, were fairly spread
in a distance from each other during the day and in good weather,
well within the third quadrant of the compass-rose on this track to
Mazzaua, and close to each other during night or inclement weather.
The second variable was the officers’ shipboard routines that specify
daily assignments according to rank. The third variable would be
the possibility that the fleet astrologer-pilot, Andres de San Martin,
made his celestial reading in Mazzaua right on shore during their
extended stay, free from the unstable bobbing platform of a ship at
sea; there is a good precedent for this from San Martin’s amazingly
accurate readings of the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates
in Puerto San Julian in South America and in Homonhon. These
variables should prompt us to view the varying navigational
readings as a moving trajectory to Mazzaua, rather than the over-
simplistic way of concluding that Pigafetta’s latitude is the be-all
and end-all solution to the Mazzaua conundrum. Not being a
trained, experienced or designated navigator, Pigafetta’s latitude and
distance notes were at best only derivative.
Indeed, all the four varying readings indicate latitudes within
Butuan Bay, and definitely south of the Bohol Sea [note: this is its
nomenclature in the nautical charts, but it is Mindanao Sea in the
topographic maps] that divides northern Mindanao from the
islands of central and eastern Visayas. Two of Mazzaua’s 9 degrees
latitude N readings (the Genoese Pilot and Andres de San Martin)
are right at the head of the Agusan River Delta, while the
northernmost reading of 9º 40’ (Pigafetta’s) is at present-day
Malimono, Surigao del Norte. Albo’s reading at 9º 20’ is at present-
day Jabonga, Agusan del Norte, exactly at the same line where the
outlet of Lake Mainit is located at the other side of the mountain.
All were within visual range from each other.
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Voyage
Tim Joyner (Magellan), among the foremost experts on the
Magellan expedition, explains that “the crew was divided into port
and starboard watches that alternated duty shifts (guardias) of four
hours, beginning at midnight. The afternoon watch was split
(dogged) into two two-hour watches so an individual would not
repeat a particular guardia on consecutive days. The first night
watch (after sundown until midnight) was under the command of
the captain. The second (when the navigational stars were
brightest), from midnight to just before dawn, was the pilot’s watch.
The master’s mate took the dawn watch. The morning and
afternoon watches were the responsibility of the master and master’s
mate, respectively.”25 Masters and mates were responsible for the
operation of the ships and the supervision and training of the crews.
The pilots were a special category, whose professionalism would
usually net them a royal commission, and it is their navigational
skills and cartographic records that have a decisive and long-term
impact on the fortunes of the western empires during the Age of
Discovery. The actual sources of the latitude readings on the
Mazzaua location had their official designations in the ships’ rosters:
Andres de San Martin – astrologer-pilot; Giovanni Battista di
Polcevera – master; Francisco Albo – master’s mate; chronicler
Antonio Pigafetta – supernumerary, or an extra hand who has no
specific designation but may be assigned tasks by the captain-
general. While the ships had pilots, either mutinous desertion,
disloyalty, or death during the voyage had sealed their fate, and little
in the way of recorded navigation data was attributed to them:
Estevão Gomes (flagship Trinidad); Juan Rodriguez de Mafra (San
Antonio); João de Lopes Carvalho (Concepcion); Vasco Gomes
Galego (Victoria); Juan Rodriguez Serrano (Santiago). The likes of
San Martin, Albo and Polcevera (Genoese Pilot) have subsequently
shown themselves to be brilliant and reliable, and whose nautical
calculations have come to be inscribed in the annals of exploration.
Joyner’s following notations are instructive in clarifying the
authenticity of the navigation papers found in the flagship Trinidad
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that was confiscated by the Portuguese captain Antonio de Brito
in the Moluccas.
Andres de San Martin – fleet astrologer-pilot - is a mysterious
figure among the Magellan officers. But he was in any short list
among those considered to be appointed as Pilot-Major of the
Spanish Empire, a prestigious post once occupied by great explorers,
some of them not even Spaniards, like Amerigo Vespucci and
Sebastian Cabot. His appointment as chief navigator in the roster
of the Magellan expedition came directly from King Charles, and
he was the replacement of Ruy Faleiro, Magellan’s original partner
and chief pilot whose failing mental sanity doomed him from
making the trip. In the words of Joyner: “Of the pilots who sailed
with Magellan’s fleet, San Martin was the most accomplished in the
art of celestial navigation,”26 a view shared by most Magellan
scholars. Originally assigned to the San Antonio, San Martin was
later transferred to the Victoria after the San Antonio was
prematurely returned to Spain from South America by the
mutineers. He was among those who died during the treacherous
banquet in Cebu after the debacle in Mactan. His valuable
documents were then transferred to the flagship. This notation from
Joyner is instructive: “Those of San Martin’s navigational notes
seized by the Portuguese when the Trinidad surrendered in the
Moluccas seem to have been the basis for sixteenth-century
Portuguese accounts of Magellan’s voyage. Other papers that had
belonged to San Martin were taken in Lisbon from Gines de Mafra,
but later transferred to Spain, probably during the period of union
with Portugal (1580-1640). These were consulted in Spanish
archives in the seventeenth-century by Antonio de Herrera, for his
chronicle of Spanish discoveries.”27
Samuel Eliot Morison (The Great Explorers), a Renaissance
navigation author on Columbus, Magellan and other explorers of
the age, is in complete accord with Joyner on the San Martin papers:
“The Portuguese who seized Trinidad in the Spice Islands
impounded San Martin’s books, two planisphere maps by Pedro
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Reinel, and all other charts and instruments.”28 Since then, the
original San Martin papers have been lost in Lisbon, probably
during the earthquake of 1755.
Now if one must demand a primary proof: these original San
Martin papers even got personally into the hands of João de Barros,
the foremost Portuguese chronicler during the Age of Discovery
and author of the Decadas da Asia (1563), the groundbreaking
history of Portugal’s explorations and conquests in Asia: “Similarly,
I also had other papers and books which Duarte de Rezende, the
‘feitor’ [the king’s agent in the collection of taxes] in the Moluccas
had received from the astrologer de San Martin.”29 Suddenly, Andres
de San Martin’s navigation log that indicated Mazzaua at 9 degrees
north latitude acquires critical importance in this historical inquiry.
One must insert a note of caution here on the accuracy of
latitude readings for the Magellan expedition, or for even much of
the Renaissance navigation period. While these readings are
remarkably close to precise latitudes based on the exactitude of
modern measurements, one must provide a reasonable allowance
for a margin of error due to the technical limitations of the
astrolabe, cross-staff and other such measuring devices. But the
Gancayco Panel went overboard by virtually negating the practical
indications of distances indicated by Pigafetta, Albo, et al: “In any
event, another word of caveat. There is reason to assume that
precisely because Magellan was a first-time visitor of the Philippine
islands at that time, it is expected that he would not be instantly
familiar with the actual navigational situation of Philippine waters.
Hence, the distances traveled by his fleet and even the relative
positions of the islands along the route could very well have been
just estimations or calculations and, therefore, imprecise. Owing
to these perceived navigational inaccuracies, there can be no
absolute certainty as to Pigafetta’s measurement of distances.”30
How should we proceed then? Totally negating the sound
evidences taken from several eyewitnesses to the event does not
promote scholarship. Contrary to the stance taken by the Gancayco
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Panel, historical truth is best served by making ourselves open to
new evidences and technical assessments. We must appreciate the
fact that, as tested in many instances, the latitude readings done by
pilots of the Magellan expedition were amazingly close (i.e., to less
than half a degree in a number of cases) to modern measurements.
We must, therefore, take the closest and most logical
approximations, and relate these with the descriptions of the places
and sights afforded by the chronicles.
Search for Gatighan
The search for Mazzaua will be aided greatly by locating
precisely where Gatighan is. The known points at this leg of the
expedition were Homonhon and Cebu, with their ancient and
modern-day names and locations unchanged and unquestioned,
and their respective latitudes and distances recorded by the
expedition. The relation of these two known points to both
Gatighan and Mazzaua could be determined by the latitude and
distance as recorded by Pigafetta and Albo. Once Gatighan’s
location is determined, it would be far easier now to situate Mazzaua
relative to the distances and latitudes of the known points.
In retrospect, there were vital clues that point to the location of
Gatighan but were disregarded by past historical investigations on
both sides of the divide. The principal reason for disregarding
Gatighan was because it was a place-name that was lost to history,
but then one can argue that this was also the fate that befell on
Mazzaua. Thus, the search should not be abandoned. The Pigafetta
and Albo accounts have set tantalizing signposts that point to where
Gatighan was:
1. Pigafetta wrote: “The captain desiring to leave on the morrow,
asked the king for the pilots to guide him to the aforesaid
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ports…And they replied that whenever he would they were at his
command. But in the night the first king changed his mind, for on
the morning of the next day, when we were ready to depart, the
said king sent to tell the captain that for love of him he wished to
go himself to guide him to those ports and be his pilot, and that he
would wait for two days until he had his rice gathered, and other
things which he had to do, and praying him that to be done sooner
the captain should lend him some of his men. And the captain
agreed to this, and sent some men…”31
For the very first time in their long voyage, they had an
experienced native guide – Raia Siaiu - who knew the shortest,
fastest and safest route to Cebu from Mazzaua. At this stage of their
journey, it was not as if they traveled blind, nor didn’t anybody
have any idea of what lies ahead. The presence of Raia Siaiu, thus,
affords economy of movement in this particular leg of their travel.
2. A major finding of this study is the notion that Gatighan is a
cape rather than an island. It’s in the Yale codex where Pigafetta
used Cap de Gatighan in the caption to his illustration, just before
Chapter XXI (the Jean Denucé edition of the Yale Codex contains
the same), stated thus:
“Figure of the cape of Gatighan, of the islands of Mazzaua, Bohol,
Ceilani, Baibai, Canighan, Tigobou, and Pozzon.”32
Pigafetta, in his relation, made free use of the term ‘island’ to
describe places whose specific geographic characteristics could not
be determined due to the exigencies of their travel. Thus, Cenalo
[Silago], Hinnangar [Hinunangan], Abarien [Cabalian] and Baibai
[Baybay], which were native settlements within the Leyte mainland,
were described as ‘islands.’ There is something revealing, however,
in the use of the word ‘cape’ to describe Gatighan in contrast to
other places where Pigafetta preferred to use the generic term
‘island.’ For a long time, historical researchers were waylaid by the
pre-conceived notion that Gatighan was an island. With the recent
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realization that it is a cape, suddenly the prospects for finally
locating Gatighan has become tenable.
Cape Gatighan [Fi g . 4] is the bulge to westward along the
western coast of Leyte, between the modern-day towns of Maasin
and Matalom, roughly within the latitudes of 10° 05’ and 10° 15’N.
Its westernmost extent, as seen in modern maps, is circumscribed
by the Taguus Point at its north side and Green Point at the south
side. This prominent cape juts out near the southern end of the
western Leyte coastline, and constricts the Canigao Channel before
it joins the Camotes Sea. A cape is a geographic description of a
broad headland of a large island or a continental landmass. It shares
some characteristics of other headlands like the peninsula, point
and promontory, where the protruding land is bounded on three
sides by water. The opposite of headlands are the bay, gulf, cove,
inlet, bight, and fjord, where lands on three sides circumscribe the
water. Navigators usually indicate the capes or headlands as crucial
visual landmarks in their travels.
Traversing the Bohol Sea northward, this cape is a good
landmark because, to the starboard, the land falls away deep to the
southeast lending it a singular visual prominence. Together with
the Lapinin island of Bohol at the opposite side, much like
outriggers on both sides of the boat, Cape Gatighan defines the
Canigao Channel, which is the access to the Camotes Sea in central
Visayas.
Capes, headlands, and shoals are not only significant to
mariners, given their potential danger to navigation; these were also
wrapped in the folklore of pre-Hispanic Filipinos. In 1604, the Jesuit
Fr. Pedro Chirino (Relacion de las Islas Filipinas) wrote about the
superstition attending the attributes of these places: “While sailing
along the islands of Panay I beheld on the promontory called Nasso,
near Potol, plates and other pieces of earthen-ware, laid upon a rock,
the offering of voyagers. In the island of Mindanao between La
Canela and the river [i.e., Rio Grande], a great promontory projects
from a rugged and steep coast; always at these points there is a heavy
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sea, making it both difficult and dangerous to double them. When
passing by this headland, the natives, as it was so steep, offered their
arrows, discharging them with such force that they penetrated the
rock itself. This they did as a sacrifice, that a safe passage might be
accorded them. I saw with my own eyes that although the Spaniards,
in hatred of so accursed a superstition, had set a great many of these
arrows on fire and burned them, those still remaining and those
recently planted in the rock numbered, in less than a year, more
than four thousand arrows; they certainly seemed as many as that,
to all who passed that point.” 33 Raia Siaiu of Mazzaua, an
experienced native sailor who guided them to Cebu, must not have
missed telling the Magellan navigators of Cape Gatighan as a crucial
landmark that defines this important sea passage.
3. Again, Pigafetta brings us closer to finding its location: “From
the said island of Mazzaua to that of Gatighan it is twenty leagues.
And leaving Gatighan we went westward. But the king of Mazzaua
could not follow us, wherefore we awaited him near three islands,
namely Polo, Ticobon, and Pozzon…And so we went to Zzubu,
which is fifteen leagues distant from Gatighan.”34
Gatighan was mentioned together with its neighboring places
like Ceilani, Bohol, and Canighan, and to the north the Camotes
islands of Polo, Pozzon and Ticobon. The enumeration of these
places sets the unquestionable proof that the course of travel of the
Magellan expedition towards Cebu from the south could only be
through the narrow and treacherous Canigao Channel.
Cape Gatighan’s location could be discerned from Albo’s
logbook where he noted that “we departed Mazaba and went N.,
making for the island of Seilani, and afterwards coasted the said
island to the N.W. as far as 10º, and there we saw three islets; and
we went to the W. ...”35 There is no other cape along that sea-route,
and its southern curve is barely 5 n.m. from the 10th degree latitude,
easily within the margin of error. The three Camotes islands are
within sight past the cape. Like Pigafetta, Albo also indicated that
that was where the fleet turned westward to Cebu.
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The most remarkable indicators that Pigafetta and Albo have
provided us are these two facts: at the vicinity of Cape Gatighan,
quite near the 10th degree latitude, the expedition turned westward
to Cebu. All bets would now be cast to the only logical site where
Gatighan could be: the cape that borders Maasin and Matalom,
indicated in the official NAMRIA nautical chart 4719 as Green
Point. For, indeed, past the north end of this cape, between Canigao
island and the Danajon Reef-bank, vessels take a westward course
to Cebu.
In coming up with the modern equivalent to the Spanish legua,
we turn to Pigafetta’s later Treatise on Navigation – actually a take-
off from Ruy Faleiro’s original studies on astronomy and navigation
- as the principal basis: “It is supposed that all the circumference of
the earth is divided into 360 degrees; and each degree is of 17 leagues
and a half, consequently the circumference of the earth is 6,300
leagues. Land leagues are of three miles and sea leagues of four
miles.”36 Thus, given the equivalent of the Spanish legua as 4 nautical
miles in modern terms, Pigafetta gave the distance of Gatighan from
Mazzaua as 80 nautical miles, and 60 nautical miles to Cebu. The
cape has a distance of approximately 60 nautical miles to the port
of Cebu. And its actual distance to Masao port is 82 nautical miles.
We subjected this assertion to an objective and impartial review
by comparing the present pre-plotted course and actual nautical
miles distance by a registered shipping line, Sulpicio Lines’ M/V
Princess of the Earth, that regularly traverses the Nasipit-Cebu route,
and thus passing through the critical Canigao Channel. With a
slight deviation by taking the nearby Masao port as basis, the result
showed that this headland between Maasin and Matalom, as Cape
Gatighan [Green Point in the NAMRIA nautical chart 4719], fits
closest to the Pigafetta account at 82 nautical miles. From Green
Point to Cebu, it measures 60 nautical miles. For a second opinion,
this data was reviewed by the maritime science department of the
Agusan Institute of Technology, and it showed the same result.37
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A simple rule of proportionality - relative to the distances cited
by Pigafetta between Homonhon-Mazzaua at 100 n.m, Mazzaua-
Gatighan at 80 n.m., Gatighan-Cebu at 60 n.m. – would favor
Mazzaua at the Masao estuary. The Pigafetta account cited the
distance of 20 leguas (80 nautical miles) from Mazzaua to Gatighan.
This immediately reveals the proposition of Mazzaua as Limasawa
as extremely untenable. The north end of Limasawa, at 9º 57’, is
barely 3 nautical miles from the 10 degree latitude N, and
approximately 23 n.m. to Green Point. On the contrary, Mazzaua
at the Masao estuary, at 9 degrees latitude N, is 82 nautical miles to
Cape Gatighan.
How did the Gancayco Panel resolve the problem of Gatighan?
To satisfy the 15 leguas distance to Cebu, it had to adopt the position
of the Limasawa protagonists: “The Panel finds Caburian’s counter-
observation to be to be more credible, thus: ‘Pigafetta also wrote
that when they left Mazaua, they reached Gatighan (north of
Baybay, Leyte) 20 leagues away and from there they sailed to Zubu
(Cebu) 15 leagues away.”38 Which begs the question – why indeed
would they take this purposeless track? A vessel from Limasawa, as
it emerges from the Canigao Channel, has the Camotes Sea that
beckons it to pivot westward to Cebu, rather than move further
north by some 60 nautical miles, past Baybay and the southern
line of the Camotes islands, to virtually touch the 11 degree latitude
near Ormoc, and then backtrack south again before turning west
to Cebu. It contradicts all the indicators cited by Pigafetta. It simply
boggles the imagination.
It must be noted at this juncture, too, that from Homonhon
island (Hinablan Pt. as reference point) to Masao port, the distance
measured was 118 n.m. On the other hand, the distance from that
same point in Homonhon to Limasawa was measured at 78.7 n.m.
What do these calculations signify? That taking together the latitude
and distance record of Homonhon, Mazzaua, Gatighan and Cebu,
both the proportionality and comparative accuracy of distances
33
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indicated in this investigation favors Mazzaua at the Masao estuary,
and not Limasawa island. [Fig. 5]
4. Pigafetta has indicated that Gatighan was rich in wildlife, a
haven of tropical biodiversity: “In this island of Gatighan are a kind
of birds called Barbastigly, who are as large as eagles. Of which we
killed a single one, because it was late, which we ate, and it had the
taste of a fowl. There are also in that island pigeons, doves,
turtledoves, parrots, and certain blackbirds as large as a fowl, with
a long tail. They lay eggs as large as those of a goose, which they
bury a good cubit deep under the sand in the sun, and so they are
hatched by the great heat made by the warm sand. And when those
birds are hatched they emerge. And those eggs are good to eat.”39
The barbastigly was identified by most Magellan scholars as
the flying fox or, more accurately, the flying lemur. Skelton’s
annotation traces this to Robertson: ‘Barbastili is a Venetian word
for pipistrelli. These were ‘flying foxes’ or large fruit-eating bats
(genus Pteropus).’ 40 The General History of the Augustinian
Recollects in the Philippines (1681) by Fray Luis de Jesus noted that
in the province of Caragha, there was what the Visayans call
kagwang, whose “shape resembles that of a bat, although it is much
larger. It has no wings but only a membrane resembling a cloak,
which falls from its shoulders and covers it even to its feet. That
enables it to pass from one tree to another.”41
What this rare species could contribute to our search for
Gatighan is the strong likelihood that the place was part of the
mainland of Leyte, rather than one of the tiny islands around it.
The Philippine flying lemur (Cynocephalus volans) is endemic to
the country, and is included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species. It inhabits multi-layered rainforests in hilly areas, and feeds
entirely on a diet of leaves, buds, fruits and flowers, and is arboreal
and nocturnal. Its major wilderness habitats were determined to
be in the islands of Mindanao, Basilan, Bohol, Samar and Leyte.42
A century after the Magellan expedition, a major chronicle
resonated with the description of wildlife in the mainland of Leyte
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that Pigafetta wrote about. The description of a bird that buries its
eggs in the sand to hatch is echoed in Alcina’s monumental 1668
opus, The History of the Bisayan People, a wonderful product of
observation in Alcina’s 28 years of missionary work in Leyte-Samar:
“Some of these birds is called tabun and since in the Bisayan
language tabon is to ‘conceal’ or ‘to cover or to hide,’ and as this bird
conceals and hides its eggs in the sand, it is given this name. Here,
its size is less than the ordinary hens…To lay their eggs, they look
for sandy places [tabunahan], sometimes near the sea, which is the
most usual; sometimes in the mountains where they can find plots
of sandy ground and sometimes in the sand flats of the rivers which
can be found everywhere in these parts. There they make a hole
more than four palmos in depth. They lay their eggs and cover them
with sand. Heated by the rays of the sun, these come to life and
hatch.”43
Modern science identifies this ground-dwelling bird as the
Philippine scrubfowl (Megapodius cumingii), one of the 22 species
of megapodes which are endemic to Australasia.“These range from
the Nicobar Islands in the west, through Indonesia, the Philippines
and Australia, to Polynesia in the east,”44 where the loss of forested
habitats is among the greatest threats to its continued existence,
according to the Megapode Specialist Group of the World Pheasant
Association. The Philippine megapode or tabun is, at best, a
threatened species or probably already extinct.
Pigafetta’s description of these species in Gatighan, buttressed
by subsequent ethnohistorical accounts by Spanish chroniclers and
modern zoological studies, suggests strongly that Gatighan was part
of the mainland of Leyte, and therefore more likely to be a cape
than a tiny rocky island.
5. In one of the most accurate descriptions of the sea-lanes that
the expedition has traversed, Albo described the route between
Gatighan to Cebu as circumscribed at its north end by the three
Camotes islands and to the south by the extensive shoals and reef
banks that line the northern coastline of the island of Bohol: “From
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Mazaba and Seilani and Subo, by the course which we came,
towards the south part, take care; for there are many shoals, and
they are very bad; for this a canoe would not stop which met us in
this course.”45
Up until now, this route between the Camotes Islands and the
Danajon Reef-bank is still the regular shipping lane where boats
from the south traversing along the narrow and reef-studded
Canigao Channel would veer west toward Cebu, and vice-versa.
Problem of Anchorage
Identifying the real Mazzaua calls for assessing its capability
to allow the safe anchorage of sailing ships, a necessary pre-
condition for the 3 vessels of the Magellan expedition that stayed
in Mazzaua for 7 days. This is all the more important as one credible
eye-witness to the event, Gines de Mafra, was categorical about his
description of Mazzaua as having “a good harbor.”
The Gancayco Panel Report averred that in the uncharted
waters that the Magellan ships traversed,“there is logic in assuming
that he anchored his fleet in whatever island he touched at,”46 a
comment that makes one wonder whether to laugh or cry. If there
is anything that the Magellan expedition shows, it is that they
exercised extraordinary care in their navigation as they traveled in
uncharted waters, with the accompanying perils of varying climatic
and weather systems, wind characteristics, unknown reefs and
shoals, and treacherous tidal currents, attendant to such an
extremely risky venture.
The first two chapters of the Pigafetta account is replete with
proofs on Magellan’s extreme care at seamanship: “All preparations
having been made, and the ships put in order, the captain-general,
a wise and virtuous man and mindful of his honor, would not begin
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Voyage
his voyage without first issuing some good and honorable
regulations, as it is the good custom to make for those who go to
sea.” Likewise, “that in the hazards of the sea (which often occur by
night and day) the ships should not go astray and separate from
each other. Which regulations he published and issued in writing
to each ship’s master, and ordered that they be observed and kept
inviolably, unless with great and legitimate excuse and evidence of
being unable to do otherwise.”47
At nighttime and during storms, the crew’s night watch were
doubled and the ships had to align themselves closer to the lead
ship so they can precisely see the light-signals from their vantage
point. Dangerous shoals and reefs were carefully avoided to prevent
serious damage and destruction to the ships: “further, when he
discovered land or reef (that is, a rock in the sea) he showed several
lights, or fired a mortar once.”48
Again, a closer look at the Pigafetta account would show that
while in South America and the Pacific, there were specific occasions
where anchorage was impossible because of the depth of the
proposed area, and the following citations would show beyond
doubt the vacuity of the panel’s assertions:
Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins (Atlantic gateway to the
Straits of Magellan): “In this place it was not possible to anchor,
because no bottom was found. Wherefore it was necessary to put
cables ashore of twenty-five or thirty cubits in length.”49
Isles of Misfortune (in present-day Tuamotu archipelago) so
called because of lack of anchorage: “And there is no place for
anchoring because no bottom can be found.”50
How then do the two places – Limasawa and Masao - measure
up to the problem of anchorage?
The 1956 Sailing Directions for the Philippine Islands published
by the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency’s Hydrographic Center
describes Limasawa Island as “3 miles southeastward of Tancaan
37
 Voyage Voyage

Point from which it is separated by a clear deep channel, is well

wooded and 719 feet [219 m] high in the northern part. The island
Chippit, Mazzaua, and the Early Maps
is fringed by a narrow, steep-to reef, but depths outside the reef are
too great to afford good anchorage for large vessels. The only detached
If one goes back to the map sketches prepared by Pigafetta, one
danger in the vicinity of the island is a 4¾ fathom patch of reef
is confronted by islands whose placement were basically sound, but
about 250 yards off the eastern side and about 1 mile northward
there was no reference to their distances, the gaps between islands,
from its southern extremity.”51
and even their sizes. [Fig. 6] These were rudimentary sketches in
An official account by Jaime de Veyra, who was among the
recalling the sequences of their voyage that would identify for the
earliest proponents of the Limasawa Theory in the 20th century,
first time to the world the islands and continental landmasses along
reinforces this scientific observation in stark relief: “To end: as
the way. A needed corrective would later come in the drafting and
Governor of Leyte I [Jaime de Veyra] visited the barrio of Triana
re-drafting of Age of Discovery maps until the recent data could
in 1907. The coast was acantilado (i.e., deepened abruptly). Those
bring precision and accuracy to the original map. The raw data
from Limasawa supposed that the base of the island was smaller
provided by the likes of Pigafetta and a host of daring explorers
than its surface, because during the strong gusts of the southwest
were extremely valuable pioneer materials, the building blocks, that
[monsoons] or some typhoon (baguio), the earth trembled or
made possible the progress of map-making. The liberation of the
moved. A topographic-geologic study may have to be made to
human mind during the Renaissance period enabled giant strides
determine the degree of security that the island could offer to its
in converting into a science the practice of cartography, and one
inhabitants.”52
would be astounded by the growing accuracy of the maps just a
In extreme contrast, the Gines de Mafra account described
few decades after the epic Magellan expedition.
Mazzaua’s anchorage, thus: “And after another day he left this island
In the Pigafetta account, there is reference to Chippit where the
[Homonhon], and sailing on his way arrived at another island three
remnants of the expedition dropped anchor at after the Mactan
or four leagues in circumference. This island has a good harbor on
debacle. Scholars of the Magellan expedition are almost unanimous
its western side, and is inhabited.”53 Thus, Limasawa fails on two
in locating Chippit as the town of Quipit, Zamboanga del Norte.
counts. It does not have good anchorage for sailing ships of that
This particular aspect about Chippit - “that part of the island is
time, and the land area described - approx. 2,213 hectares using
one and the same land with Butuan and Calaghan, and lies toward
the Pigafetta land mile - is three times larger than Limasawa’s 697
Bohol, and borders on Mazzaua”54 – definitely points to a Mazzaua
hectares.
as an outlying island at the periphery of the Mindanao landmass.
The Mazzaua within the confines of Butuan Bay has excellent
What should reinforce this curious statement of Pigafetta about
anchorage and is situated away from the path of typhoons, and
the geographic unity of Butuan and Mazzaua with Mindanao were
this continues to be such until present times.
the early maps done by the great pioneers of cartography. With the
explorations during Age of Discovery on the uptrend, and with
navigation science and cartography becoming more sophisticated,
various maps were made. The best ones were by Ortelius and
Mercator, the foremost cartographers of the Age of Discovery, and
38 39
 Voyage
the pioneers in the publication of the earliest world atlas. They
produced atlases of various places in the world that bold
explorations have covered, definitely the reliable inputs provided
by top explorers. While original sketches showing the location of
Mazzaua remain contentious, the proponents of the Butuan
Tradition could look to three prominent map sources – the real
world standard in map-making in the 16th century - where
Mazzaua was definitely an outlier encompassed by the Mindanao
landmass: Abraham Ortelius’ 1570 Atlas (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum)
[F
[Fii g. 7]
7], Gerardus Mercator’s 1595 map [F [Fii g. 8]
8], and Jodocus
Hondius’ 1640 map. [Fig. 9]
There was an argument whether the early world atlases have
greater credence than the sketches done by the likes of Pigafetta,
and always the sneaking suspicion that those three northern
Europeans have somehow added their own data from dubious
sources. As will be shown in the following paragraphs, Mercator
and Ortelius, and by extension, Hondius, have drawn their map
data from authoritative empirical sources.
How these extremely valuable treasure trove of cartographic
data, prepared by the pioneering explorers employed by Spain and
Portugal, landed in the hands of the greatest mapmakers of the age
is best explained by the careers of the Portuguese Diego Ribero
and the Flemish Abraham Ortelius who, at varying intervals, were
appointed official geographers of the king of Spain, and thereby
had full access to the treasured maps of the Spanish Empire.
In all, Ortelius was able to amass maps from as many as 87
cartographers until his time. The pilots’ logs and the Pigafetta
account of the Magellan expedition were surely among the major
references in the production of these pioneering atlases. The
mapping and surveying subject of the 1991 Encyclopaedia
Britannica points to one of the major official sources of
cartographic data within the Spanish Empire: “In 1529 Diego
Ribero, cosmographer to the king of Spain, made a new chart of
the world on which the vast extent of the Pacific was first shown.
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Voyage
Survivors of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world had arrived
in Seville in 1522, giving Ribero much new information.”55
G.R. Crone (Maps and their Makers), former librarian and map
curator of the Royal Geographical Society, explains further that
“Mercator states specifically that in the compilation of his world
map of 1569, he had used Spanish and Portuguese charts, and for
some decades afterwards these remained the sole cartographic
source for much of the New World and of the East Indies.”56 As a
major source, Crone would affirm the pivotal role of the Portuguese
Diego Ribero, cosmographer of the Spanish king: “Ribero reached
a position of considerable eminence in the Spanish service, in which
he remained until his death in 1533. By a royal decree of 1526, he
was to be provided with all materials for a chart and world map
portraying all the discoveries, evidently a revision of the ‘Padron
Real’, and the following year he was appointed the examiner of
pilots during the absence of Sebastian Cabot on an
expedition…Some comments of the 1529 chart, now in Rome, may
fittingly conclude this account of the fundamental Lusitano-
Hispanic contribution to the mapping of the world.”57 Like
Magellan, Ribero was a prize catch for the Spanish Empire as he
was a veteran pilot in the Vasco da Gama (1502), Lopo Soares
(1504), and Afonso d’Albuquerque (1509) explorations of the
Indies.
Ortelius himself had drawn much from the Spanish
cartographic archives for his opus, as Donald F. Lach (Asia in the
Making of Europe) reveals his incomparable connections: “In 1575,
Ortelius, despite some doubts about his Catholic orthodoxy, was
designated geographer to the king of Spain.”58 While outstanding
mapmakers of the age haven’t gone to foreign places to generate
first-hand knowledge, the science of cartography has undergone
revolutionary changes since the time of Ptolemy. Maps were now
based on empirical data and regularly underwent cumulative
changes, as exemplified by the practical portulan (more popularly
spelled as portolan) charts. “Made by seamen for the everyday use
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 Voyage

of seamen,” Lach explains,“the portulans are among the best records

available for charting the progress of discovery. The printed maps,
which appeared in books and atlases, were usually based on the
available portulans and the world maps of the past.”59 How the early
maps drawn by the pioneering Portuguese and Spanish explorers
came into the hands of cartographers in the Low Countries is
further explained by Lach. The Portuguese expanded the maritime
explorations all the way to Asia, and among their pioneering
cartographers were Armando Cortesão and A. Teixeira da Mota.
Portugal managed to store their great cartographic trove in the
Armazens da Guiné e India. “Like other data on Africa and Asia,
3
the routiers, charts, and maps were classified as state secrets in an
effort to prevent others from taking advantage of the Portuguese
experience. But, as with other classified information, copies of the
Landfall
portulans and the general maps were smuggled out of Portugal and
were increasingly used by cartographers in Italy, Germany, and the
Low Countries as sources for their own routiers and for the
engraved and woodcut maps prepared for their atlases.”60 In
contrast to Portugal, Spain proved to be far less secretive of its
exploration data.
The great milestones in skilled cartography, just a few decades
after the circumnavigation by the Magellan expedition, made
possible the pioneering atlases of Mercator, Ortelius and Hondius.
Boies Penrose (Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance 1420-1620)
would enumerate the major contributions of these mapmakers: of
Ortelius who provided “a bibliographical check list of no less than
eighty-seven geographers and cartographers” that were the sources
of map data; and of Mercator whose revolutionary type of
projection that bears his name today “was designed with the
practical objective of enabling mariners to sail to their destinations
by following a fixed rule.”61

42
 Arrival

P igafetta’s chapter on Mazzaua opens with his description

of a fire on an island they saw the night before, and where they
would land the next day.“On Thursday the twenty-eighth of March,
because during the night we had seen a fire on an island ahead, we
came to anchor near the said island.”62
Almost unique among the Philippine languages, masawa is a
Butuan word for bright or radiant quality of light. The central and
eastern Visayan words for it are hayag, samaw, masanag, mabislaw,
or sulaw. From the distance, it would likely have been a bonfire lit
by tribesmen, or it was even suggested to be a vast swarm of fireflies
on a mangrove variety locally known as pagatpat (Sonneratia alba)
which are found in luxuriant formations in tropical estuaries and
inter-tidal zones. This second possibility was first broached by Dr.
Erlinda M. Burton, an experienced archaeologist/anthropologist,
and later corroborated by Dr. Jurgenne Honculada-Primavera, one
of the country’s foremost experts on mangroves. Primavera et al
(Handbook of Mangroves in the Philippines - Panay) would describe
this species: “The short-lived white flowers open at dusk and drop
at dawn – standing in a Sonneratia alba grove as numerous white
filaments fall from the canopy with the early morning breeze is a
magical experience. This species hosts colonies of fireflies – a
northern Agusan settlement was called Masawa (now Masao),
meaning bright, from the insects’ sparkling lights that greeted
seafarers on moonless nights. Likewise, the Spanish name of

45
 Landfall
Siquijor Island was Isla del Fuego, referring to the pagatpat-lined
shore seemingly on fire.”63
This chapter will provide us with certain markers that precisely
define the environs of Mazzaua: its relationship to Butuan, the traces
of an ancient trading harbor, the categorical presence of a gold
industry, and the tale of a sailor who came back. Altogether, these
accounts evoke the singularity of a place called Mazzaua.
Butuan and Mazzaua
M azzaua’s location is best understood in relation to
Butuan, as the rulers Raia Siaiu and Raia Calambu were explicitly
identified by Pigafetta as brothers, and the presence of gold in these
two neighboring places. Interestingly, one of the earliest references
to the southern islands of the Philippine archipelago that refer to
Butuan and Mazzaua is found in the chronicle of the Portuguese
Gabriel Rebelo (Historia das ilhas de Maluco) in 1561, or barely 40
years after the Magellan expedition, and 4 years before the Legazpi
expedition that permanently annexed the Philippines as a Spanish
colony.
Gabriel Rebelo provides an amazing vital clue to the geographic
proximity of Butuan and Mazzaua (spelled Maçagua in Spanish
and Portuguese): “The archipelago of Celebes lies to the east (sic)
of Molucca: and it seems it has a larger number of islands; starting
with the large island known as the Celebes, where there are many
kingdoms, and cattle, buffalo, goats and other resources and ending
with Çebu and Matão, next to Mindanao and even beyond this there
is a multitude of unknown islands. In many parts of this archipelago
there is reputed to be much gold, both mined and panned from
the rivers, particularly on the island of Maçagua: and in the creek
leading to Butuan and Mindanao, where there is more of good
46
Landfall
quality and also cinnamon; and on the island of Soluquo large
pearls, though they do not know how to collect them or profit from
them.”64
It is, thus, obvious from this passage that there was a Mazzaua
in Mindanao, quite known for the gold mined from nearby rivers.
Here, indeed, was Butuan beside the present-day eastern channel
of the Agusan River, and Mazzaua as a distinct isle located just
outside the truncated western channel. In the next chapter, the
geological and archaeological investigations will confirm Mazzaua’s
most likely location.
An account during the 1565 Legazpi expedition by the
navigator Rodrigo de Espinosa who, together with the top officers
of the fleet (treasurer Guido de Lavezares, chaplain Fr. Martin de
Rada, king’s agent Andres de Mirandaola, and skipper Juan de la
Ysla), were sent by Legazpi to Butuan in March 1565, could give us
a sense of clarity in identifying these two entities: “That chief of
Butuan had about 80 or 100 houses in his village, because there
was no space for more. In addition there were still some houses in
the bushes and upstream. Judging from what I could see, there were
about 400 or 500 people living there. They also told me that in the
mountains at a distance of about 4 or 5 days traveling there were
some 1,000 people living, and that from there they obtained gold.
We bought a civet cat for some five strings of glass-beads… The
distance from the mouth of the river up to the village was about
one-sixth of a legua. With canoes one can reach the houses which
are built on stilts. There the water was about one fathom deep, at
some spots more and at others a little less. This depth enables one
to reach up to the houses with canoes… And I stress that you must
take the river at the left and then continue till you reach the houses.
The water in the mouth of the river is two or three fathoms deep.
That river at the left is the one that leads to the village… I also took
the sun at the river-mouth on Friday March 30th; by the declination
of the meridian at Sevilla it is at eight and one-third degrees and by
that of Mexico at eight and one-half degree.” 65 Espinosa’s
47
 Landfall
observation affirms what Rebelo wrote about Butuan, and
described it in finer detail. Butuan’s location at the confluence of
the Banza and Agusan rivers remained at the same site until 1865
when the Spanish provincial governor Manuel Boscasa decreed its
transfer to Baug (now Magallanes) at the mouth of the eastern
channel.
Mazzaua’s Ecosystem
To go back again to Mazzaua, Pigafetta described it and its
people: “Those people are heathens, and go naked, and are painted,
and wear a piece of cloth made from a tree like a linen round their
private parts, and they are great drinkers. The women are clad in
tree cloth from the waist down. And they have black hair hanging
down to the ground, and they wear certain gold rings in their ears.
Those people chew most of the time a fruit they call Areca, which
is something like a pear, and they cut it into four quarters, then
wrap it in leaves of its tree, called Betre, and they are like mulberry
leaves. And mixing it with a little lime, after they have chewed it for
a long time, they spit and throw it out. And from this they afterward
have a very red mouth. And many people use the said fruit because
it greatly refreshes them, for the country is so hot that they could
not live without it. In that island there is great quantity of dogs,
cats, pigs, poultry, and goats, of rice, ginger, coconuts, figs, oranges,
lemons, millet, wax, and gold mines. That island is in the latitude
of nine and two thirds degrees toward the Arctic Pole, and in the
longitude of one hundred and sixty-two from the line of
demarcation. And from the other island, where we found the springs
of fresh water, it is twenty-five leagues distant. And that island is
called Mazzaua.”66
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Landfall
In his description, the items on wax and gold mines would easily
stand out. As borne out by numerous archaeological studies and
the accounts of early Spanish chroniclers, gold, beeswax and civet
were major exports from Butuan to the Asian kingdoms as early as
the 10th century. The sources must be nearby, like beeswax and
civet cats that were plentiful in vast forested areas, and gold in places
known for their bountiful presence. Butuan and Mazzaua were two
distinct places, but here a puzzle must be solved: was Mazzaua
within the ambit of the ancient trading harbor of Butuan? The
succeeding sections should unravel that.
Suffice it to say at this point that nearby Mazzaua shared many
of the attributes of Butuan. Of course, the latter has primacy over
Mazzaua or, for that matter, in northeastern Mindanao, from the
pre-colonial past to the early part of the colonial era. The Iberian
chronicles were replete with reports on Butuan and its environs
within fifty years after the Magellan landfall. The Villalobos
expedition report of 1543 notes that: “They described the island of
Mindanao as having three provinces: the first is Mindanao
[Maguindanao], and it has gold mines and cinnamon; the second
is Butuan, which has the richest mines of the whole island; and the
third Bisaya [Davao territory], likewise possessing goldmines and
cinnamon. Throughout this island are found gold mines, ginger,
wax and honey.”67
The Legazpi expedition reports of 1565 provide two accounts.
Guido de Lavezares, treasurer of the fleet and future successor to
Legazpi as governor-general, cited that “the specimens of gold,
cinnamon and wax were found in a port called Butuan.”68 Lavezares
himself was the first to be awarded the encomienda of Butuan. On
the other hand, Andres de Mirandaola, the king’s factor or tax agent,
wrote King Philip II: “Much gold is found in the island of Vindanao,
in the districts of Butuan, Çurigao and Parasao. It is said that much
gold is mined there and that it is the loftiest of all these islands.”69
Butuan and Surigao are toponyms that are in use until now; Parasao
referred to the area in present-day Cantilan, Surigao del Sur.
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 Landfall
In contrast, Limasawa never figured in any early account, or
since, as a land of gold. The most authoritative source of data on
the Samar-Leyte geography in the first century of Spanish rule is
Alcina’s 1668 History of the Bisayan People, and in his account he
cited the places with ‘plentiful’ gold sources as Paracale [now
Camarines Norte] and Caraga [now Agusan and Surigao], and
areas where there were ‘washing places’, sources of limited yield
coming mainly from streams, and these were localities in Masbate,
Bohol, and Panamao [now Biliran].70
But the most crucial testimony would be that of Miguel de
Loarca’s 1582 Relacion de las Islas Filipinas, a survey of the islands
published just 60 years after Magellan. It was unequivocal about
the non-existence of gold mines at the time, even in its oral
traditions, in the mainland of Leyte and its environs: “This island
possesses neither mines nor gold-placers.”71
The presence of rice fields and the two days of harvesting by
the natives and Magellan’s crewmen are more telling in identifying
the island: “The captain, desiring to leave on the morrow, asked the
king for the pilots to guide him to the aforesaid ports. For he had
promised and given assurance that he would treat them like himself,
and that he would leave one of his men as hostage. And they replied
that whenever he would they were at his command. But in the night
the first king changed his mind, for on the morning of the next
day, when we were ready to depart, the said king sent to tell the
captain that for love of him he wished to go himself to guide him
to those ports and be his pilot, and that he would wait for two days
until he had his rice gathered, and other things which he had to do,
and praying him that to be done sooner the captain should lend
him some of his men. And the captain agreed to this, and sent some
men. But the kings ate and drank so much that they slept all day.
And some, to excuse them, said that they were sick. Wherefore we
did nothing that day. But the two days following we labored.”72
Limasawa, with barely 697 hectares (roughly 1 kilometer wide
by 7 kilometers long), mainly hilly, rocky and windswept, and 3
50
Landfall
nautical miles distant from the tip of mainland Leyte, has to be
examined whether some of the crops mentioned by Pigafetta - rice,
millet, ginger - could thrive within its ecosystem. These crops
definitely demand a generous amount of water, as these thrive only
in well-watered and fertile ground. It took two days, for instance,
for the native inhabitants and the expedition crewmen to harvest
rice before Raja Siaiu and the expedition could proceed to Cebu.
Yet it must be emphasized, too, that the raw deltaic environment
has severe limitations in terms of expanded production because,
ironically, too much water, especially of the brackish or saline
quality, may impact negatively on the natives’ productivity.
Limasawa, on the other hand, has never risen from the difficulty
of farming its rocky and steep land, or its geographical location
which is regularly subjected to typhoons. Indeed, if one reads the
accounts of the Spanish chroniclers, one could infer that one cannot
fault its residents for the difficult life; rather, this is the result of the
land ecosystem where they live in. Miguel de Loarca, in his survey
of life in the archipelago in 1582, in Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas,
would describe Limasawa as ‘having only sixty inhabitants’, and
that ‘the people are poor and wretched, possessing nothing but salt
and fish’.73 Limasawa’s potential riches are in its surrounding seas,
not in its land.
On another note, Schreurs questions the translation made by
Robertson when he stated: “when the two kings wish to visit each
other, they go hunting in the island where we were.” As Schreurs
says: “Robertson confused the Italian ‘caza, or casa (house) with
‘caccia’ (hunt).”74 To be safe and sure, we have to refer to the other
English translations. Lord Stanley’s and Theodore Cachey’s
translations of the Ambrosiana Codex were similar to Robertson’s,
as was R.A. Skelton’s Yale Codex. Schreurs is uncomfortably alone
in his translation. Beyond this, of course, is a hint of fudging an
inconvenient truth: Pigafetta wouldn’t write this significant
observation if Mazzaua island was not near a wetland ecosystem
that is a hunters’ paradise.
51
 Landfall
Gold as the Definitive Marker
O ne of the most intriguing aspects of Magellan’s behavior
in dealing with the natives of Mazzaua was his careful refusal to
reveal his hand when it came to gifts and exchanges of gold.
Pigafetta related that when Magellan received the first delegation
of natives in his ship on Thursday, “the captain (Magellan) made
good cheer to those who came to the ship and gave them many
things. Wherefore the king wished to give the captain a bar of massy
gold, of a good size, and a basket full of ginger. But the captain,
thanking him greatly, refused to accept the present.”75
On the last day when friendships have started to take root
between the strangers and the natives, there was again this
interesting parley when a native sold the crewmen a plate of rice
and ten bananas, and desired to be paid with a knife. Magellan
offered some copper coins, but the native wanted nothing but the
knife, which Magellan finally granted after some haggling.
Somewhat later, Magellan put his foot down on another transaction
that involved an exchange in gold, and one begins to see the motive
behind the behavior: “Not long after, one of our men went ashore
to fetch water, and one of the people aforesaid wished to give him a
pointed crown of massy gold for six large pieces of glass. But the
captain would not allow such an exchange to be made, in order
that those people should know that we prized and held in more
regard our merchandise than their gold.”76
It is obvious by now that Magellan was marking the place for a
far larger scheme that even his crew were at pains to fathom. And
this strange motive is best explained by the memoirs of Gines de
Mafra, the sole survivor of the Magellan expedition who came back
to Mazzaua in 1543 with the Villalobos expedition: “He anchored
the fleet in that port, then the natives came out to welcome the fleet.
On seeing the natives, Magellan saw that in such a small land there
was gold, because the people were wearing it. He told his men that
52
Landfall
they were now in the land he had desired…”77 Was this a hint of the
legendary Ophir that Magellan - and other western explorers - had
fantasized?
One can discern the grand strategic mind of Magellan at work
here. He was already staking his claim to a gold-rich area without
showing his hand - this would be among his grand prizes of newly
discovered lands that were indicated in the capitulacion (terms of
contract) with his king, through the Casa de Contratacion:
“twentieth of the profits obtained in the new lands, as well as rents
and rights, less expenses; the title of admiral and the governorship
of the new territories would be conferred on the partners and their
legitimate heirs.”78 But at that moment, his most immediate need
was to secure food supplies in the thriving port suggested by Raia
Siaiu – Cebu. Reaching the Moluccas, the fabled Spice Islands, was
still the principal aim of the Armada de Molucca, but the prize in
Butuan may be claimed for later, a dream that would be dashed
with his untimely death in Mactan.
Traces of a Trading Polity
T hat the Masao estuary was once the specific locale of the
ancient trading harbor of Butuan means that some remnants of its
close interaction with various commercial and cultural influences
from other Asian realms would remain. One could discern that from
the easy and smooth civility and worldliness in the behavior of the
brother-rulers Calambu and Siaiu towards their European visitors.
But there were other indications that the Mazzaua that the Magellan
expedition made a landfall on would exhibit that same consistent
manner.
Pigafetta provides a vital clue on the manners of these rulers
that suggests of the culture of a trading harbor: “And, when they
53
 Landfall
came near the captain’s ship, the said slave spoke to that king, who
understood him well. For, in that country, the kings know more
languages than the common people do.”79 Enrique, Magellan’s slave
from Traprobana (Sumatra), who was sold in the bazaars of
Malacca during the latter’s stint with the Portuguese navy in 1512,
presumably spoke Malay, the trading lingua franca of Southeast
Asia in those times, and he was understood. The rulers of Mazzaua
and Butuan, as heirs of a long trading tradition, knew the common
tongue of sea-borne merchants.
Probably the earliest description of a Filipino native that was
given full play by a western chronicler was that of the ruler of
Butuan, of whom Pigafetta devoted this unforgettable paragraph:
“In the island of that king who came to the ship are mines of gold,
which is found by digging from the earth pieces as large as walnuts
and eggs. And all the vessels he uses are likewise of gold, as are also
some parts of his house, which was well fitted in the fashion of the
country. And he was the most handsome person whom we saw
among those peoples. He had very black hair to his shoulders, with
a silk cloth on his head, and two large gold rings hanging from his
ears. He wore a cotton cloth, embroidered with silk, which covered
him from his waist to his knees. At his side he had a dagger, with a
long handle and all of gold, the sheath of which was of carved wood.
Withal he wore on his person perfumes of storax and benzoin. He
was tawny and painted all over. His island is called Butuan and
Calagan. And when the two kings wish to visit each other, they go
hunting on the island where we were. Of these kings, the aforesaid
painted one is named Raia Calambu, and the other Raia Siaiu.”80
Let us take the case of the mysterious word Aba that was
mentioned by Pigafetta: “Then he caused them to be asked whether
they were Moors or heathen, and in what they believed. And they
replied that they worshipped no other thing but they clasped their
hands, looking up to heaven, and called upon their god Aba.”81 Fr.
Peter Schreurs, a Limasawa proponent to the bone, introduced what
would likely be the best explanation of this rather interesting
54
Landfall
spiritual concept, and which might likely shed light on the cultural
influences imbibed by these native rulers, and contribute to the
resolution to one of the mysteries of the Mazzaua episode. A
modern Portuguese scholar has finally traced the proper
explanation of the word “Aba” that the ruler of Mazzaua explained
when asked about their belief. Leandro Tormo Sanz in his paper to
the Acto do II Coloquio Luso-Español de historia Ultramarina,
Lisbon 1975, elucidated that “the word ‘Abba’ is of Aramean origin
and it means grandfather, forefather, […] I am inclined to believe
that the word might have been brought here by Muslims. That Islam
had spread it through its beginning commercial settlements of
Mindanao. […] ‘Abba’ and the above indicated meaning of
grandfather, forefather […] is not found in the Visayan dialect, but
it does exist among the Moros of Maguindanao.”82
But, then again, one can suggest the very likelihood of the
transference of such term to areas where overseas trading was an
age-old preoccupation. Butuan and Mazzaua were, beyond the
shadow of a doubt, as archaeological discoveries and ancient
Chinese documents would prove, one of the country’s premier
trading ports more than 500 years before the Magellan landfall, and
was the predecessor of Sulu, a major trading port in the 15th century.
The eastern rim of Pinamanculan-Bancasi ‘island’ (the likely
Mazzaua), across the inlet from its neighboring deltaic islands, is
barely 400 meters distant from the National Museum’s Balanghai
Shrine in Ambangan and two kilometers west of Suatan where later
Ming period artifacts were found.
This likelihood is further affirmed by the Legazpi expedition
report that stated that Butuan was a port where Moro traders would
regularly visit. The Jews and the Arabs have the same cognate for
Aba. As with this later episode of Butuan’s contact and selective
adaptation of an incipient Middle Eastern monotheism, its earlier
experience as a trading harbor would also show an adaptation of
Hindu terms and outlook like the usage of diwata as a name for a
number of local places.
55
 Landfall Landfall

One of the most intriguing items recovered in 2001 by the covered with leaves and full of raw rice, and two Orades, which are
National Museum team led by archaeologist Louise Bolunia at fairly large fish of the kind described above, and he gave him also
Pinamanculan’s Bud promontory (a Butuan and Tausug term for some other things.”84 Porcelain referred to the Oriental ceramics,
hill) was a bronze pestle. Upon closer examination, it was established mainly of Chinese provenance, which were found in voluminous
to be an accompaniment of a bronze mortar of European quantities in the territory of Butuan, and in greater proportions
provenance. It was an item normally carried in 16th century vessels along the Masao estuary.
to be used to pound herbs for medical purposes. This find proves
that the Mazzaua at the Masao estuary lies at the general vicinity of
the ancient trading harbor, which was, in the final years of its utility,
still visited by Spanish ships during the early years of Spanish
colonization. [Fig. 10
10]]
Gines de Mafra’s Tale
The report of Wilfredo Ronquillo, chief of the archaeology
division of the National Museum, described the bronze pestle and
other finds of an earlier period: “Surface materials recovered
Among the most crucial evidences submitted by the Butuan
presentors in 1996 was the account of Gines de Mafra. This is very
included porcelain sherds (circa Ming and Ching Dynasties),
significant because he was the only survivor of the Magellan
earthernware sherds with punctation and other linear designs that
expedition to have returned to Mazzaua, and to provide additional
have been identified as Age of Contact (de la Torre 2001) and
descriptions that would shed a lot of illumination on the properties
brackish and marine shells (Faunus ater, Telescopium telescopium,
of the island. Instead, the Gancayco Panel cavalierly dismissed it as
Nerita, Geloina coaxans, Anadara granosa) as well as land snails
an ‘alleged primary source’ and has simply forgotten that,
(Achatina fulica) and a bovid bone (Bautista 2001). Test excavation
beforehand, the National Historical Institute historians have
was conducted on this site yielding a bronze pestle that was
accepted its authenticity.
identified as European…The pestle was also compared to other
This contribution by Vicente de Jesus provides a rounded view
pestles available at the National Museum and it was found to be
of the Magellan expedition in this part of the world. It tells us that
similar in form to the pestle found from the San Diego wreck.”83
Butuan had a pivotal role in the gold business with the neighboring
Indeed, an often overlooked item that the natives of Mazzaua
native settlements, and one can surmise that the Butuan ruler was
used in the care and feeding of their visitors was porcelain, definitely
peripatetic, being everywhere when business demands his presence.
an item not manufactured in the Philippine islands, but was
And this also provides us a window on the trading web and tribal
exported heavily to our shores from Chinese sources: “On Good
alliances at the time: “From the chief of Maçagua, Magellan learned
Friday, the captain sent ashore the said slave, our interpreter, to the
that a province called Butuan, on the island of Mindanao, which is
king, requesting him to cause, in return for his money, some
somewhere fifteen leagues to the north of Maçagua, possessed a
provisions to be given for his ships, telling him that he had come
large quantity of gold and that people came there from other
into his country, not as an enemy, but as a friend. The king, hearing
regions solely to buy gold and other merchandise.”85 De Jesus linked
that, came with seven or eight men in a boat, and boarded the ship,
this information with the roteiro of Pierres Plin, the French pilot in
and embraced the captain, and gave him three porcelain jars
the Legazpi expedition, who recorded: “Our fleet passed Panae
56 57
 Landfall

[Panaon island] and the cabeza of Butuan, four leguas from one
island to another.”86 The cabeza de Butuan is the headland of the
Surigao peninsula whose tip is the Bilaa Point. Being the principal
center of the gold trade and always referred to as a province or
district, it should not surprise us if this headland which is also the
eastern tip of Butuan Bay is named after Butuan, being the most
recognizable destination at the time. And geographically, the
distance between the tip of Panaon island (Binit Point) and this
extended eastern tip of Butuan Bay (Bilaa Point) is four leguas or
approx. sixteen nautical miles.
Schreurs, in his disputation, has questioned Howgego’s
4
translation of one particular passage - the location of Mazzaua
relative to Butuan - and provided his own: “From the chief of
Maçagua Magellan had heard that in a region called Butuan, located
Island
in the northern part of the island of Mindanao which is some 15
leagues distance from Macagua, there was much gold.”87 He has
used this to question de Jesus’ premise, but did not question
Howgego’s translation of the rest of de Mafra’s account whose
indications – a good harbor and the size of the island - favored the
Mazzaua at the Masao estuary in Butuan.
The foregoing accounts therefore provide us the basic fact of
Mazzaua and Butuan at the beginning of the colonial era:

That riverine Butuan and insular Mazzaua (Maçagua) were gold-

producing/processing sites in relatively close proximity to each
other. As analyzed in today’s maps, Butuan (Banza site during
the Spanish entry) along the eastern channel of Agusan River,
and Mazzaua island (Pinamanculan-Bancasi) along the
truncated western channel, were roughly within10 kilometers
distant from each other. Mazzaua island, along with the deltaic
islands of Ambangan and Suatan at the Masao estuary (the
ancient trading harbor), have fused with the mainland through
the process of long-term sedimentation, and have faded from
history.

58
 Search for the Lost Isle

T he single most important question that the Gancayco Panel

raised in this controversy was about Mazzaua as an island. Indeed,
the whole First Mass conundrum revolves around it. For quite a
long time, this was the question that stumped even the proponents
of the Butuan Tradition.
The existence of Mazzaua as an island is the central argument
proffered by Schreurs, Schumacher, Bernad, and the Gancayco
Panel. They collectively asked: ‘where is the island?’
The Gancayco Panel Report anchored its resolution of the issue
on Mazzaua as an island: “The pro-Limasawans make much capital
of this identification by Pigafetta of Mazaua as an island. As Fr.
Peter Schreurs, MSC, put it, ‘Pigafetta knew an island when he saw
one.’ Even the pro-Masaoans concede that Pigafetta’s Mazaua was
referred to as an island. All the other sources, primary and
secondary, uniformly and consistently refer to Mazaua as an island.
(Albo’s reference is a ‘small island called Mazaua’. Also, de Brito and
‘Roteiro’ call Mazaua an island). The Panel takes official cognizance
of the geographical fact that Limasawa is an island south of Leyte
and north of Butuan, while Masao is not an island but is, at best, a
riverine delta near Butuan.”88
And Schreurs echoes this in his book: “Whatever we may for
the rest think about Mazaua/Limasawa, one thing is certain: it is
an island, whereas the Masao region of Butuan is not. It is at best a
riverine delta. There is nothing wrong being such a delta, but
Pigafetta could not even have qualified it as an island without first

61
 Island
having gone up the river(s) and creeks to reconnoiter it, something
which he did not. All Magellan did was: sailing elsewhere all around
a small island in one afternoon. How could he possibly have done
so in the Masao delta? Colin etc. did not know better, and did not
really care in a controversial way as we may do now (there was no
controversy in their days), but the contributors to Butuan Papers I
and II should know it.”89
The search for answers was finally satisfied by a comprehensive
geological study of the Butuan Delta in year 2002. The Butuan
proponents, since the late eighties, had an intuitive idea of the
presence of ancient islands in the vast Agusan River Delta, as the
Notes of Dr. Sonia Zaide’s Butuan, The First Kingdom (1990) would
indicate: “According to Butuan sources, Vicente Calo Jr. favors the
Mt. Panaytayon site whilst Capt. [Epafrodito] Flores, the
Pinamangculan hill.”90 By 1994, the city government purchased a
commemoration site in Pinamanculan which is now popularly
called the Bud promontory. But it was in the realm of speculation
until a scientific study could be made. Thus, the comprehensive
geological study is tremendously significant because the debate will
now progress towards the employment of the scientific disciplines,
and not simply a preoccupation that centered on the textual
interpretation of the Pigafetta manuscript. By this time, the demand
of the National Historical Institute that new evidence rather than
the unending debates on differing interpretations is being
adhered to.
In 2002, after more than a year’s work, a major scientific study
was completed on the geology of Butuan’s extensive river-delta,
formally titled, “The Geomorphology and Geo-archaeological
Reconstruction of Masao-Butuan Plain as Part of the Agusan River
Delta.” The study has three parts written by three experts in their
specialized fields:
- Geomorphological Study of Masao-Butuan Plain
by Ricarte S. Javelosa, Ph.D.
62
Island
- Geo-Resistivity Survey
by Abraham Gatdula
- Archaeological Survey and Test Excavation of Selected Sites
by Wilfredo P. Ronquillo
This geo-archeological study was further strengthened by the
validation done by Roberto S.P. de Ocampo, chief geologist of the
National Museum, for the Bonbon Shell Midden Archaeological
Study in 2004. In a section entitled Geological Perspective of
Bonbon Area, Butuan City, de Ocampo conducted a geological
fieldwork on the environs around the shell midden, and made
references and validation of the geomorphological study done by
Javelosa et al.
What the two studies showed was the process of land formation
of the Agusan River Delta (also popularly called the Butuan Delta),
the presence of outliers and deltaic islands, and the shifting of
population centers.
The land formation that evolved through geologic time revealed
the presence of islands in the broad delta, and among the most
important discoveries made by the study was the presence of two
outlying islands – Pinamanculan and Panaytayon - that seemed to
vanish with the consolidation of the sediments that was issued forth
by this great river and accelerated by episodes of big earthquakes
as the delta is traversed by the Philippine Fault Zone.
A part of the geomorphological study’s Executive Summary
reveals for the first time the scientific basis of a former island where
the Magellan expedition must have made its landfall: “Relating to
the Quaternary environments of Luzon and the Visayas regions,
the geomorphology of the Masao-Butuan Plain strongly suggests
that the present Pinamanculan Hill was once an ‘isle.’ It is interpreted
to have evolved with the phenomenal submergence and emergence
of the Agusan River Delta between 20,000 years BP and 18th century
AD. This is substantiated by: (a) the existence of infilled moat and
tide-dominated abandoned channels surrounding the present-day
63
 Island
landscape of Pinamanculan Hill; (b) an island-like enclosure of
Pinamanculan Hill by non-consolidated sediments with high
electrical conductance and salinity values in the area; and (c) an
island-like enclosure of Pinamanculan Hill by non-consolidated
materials with anomalous, low resistivity values which characterize
the dominance of brackish and coastal environments.”91 Gatdula’s
geo-resistivity survey identifies “the Pinamanculan area as rock
with different age of formation” compared to the profile of the rest
of the surveyed area.92
Now linked with the mainland by the surrounding wetlands,
the present-day villages of Pinamanculan and Bancasi (where the
airport is situated) encompass the fabled island of Mazzaua.
Through this geological study, Pigafetta’s account becomes coherent,
and the various ‘markers’ that provide clues to the island of Mazzaua
appear understandable and logical.
To simplify his presentation, Javelosa divided the 45,000-year
span of the study into 7 Episodes when catastrophic earthquakes
punctuated the formation of the delta; these geologic drivers
uplifted or submerged certain areas, diverted the course of the river
and its associated waterways, and accelerated and directed the
sediment loads from the upstream sections of the Agusan River-
Basin. Episodes 4 and 5 are particularly valuable to our study as
these geologic events correspond to the periods when major historic
events occurred in Butuan.
De Ocampo’s interpretation seems more attuned to the general
reader than the total techno-speak of the study. So taking off from
Javelosa’s first three Episodes prior to the Age of Contact, de
Ocampo explains that “the area gradually began to rise; this is in
response to the tectonic events in the region intricately associated
to the Philippine Fault Zone. Sedimentation, on the other hand,
continued. Inter-bedded sandstone and siltstone with thin
conglomeratic sandstone lenses were deposited, indicating a
transition in deposition from marine to terrestrial environment.
By the Late Pleistocene time, the area continued to rise. Alluvial
fans were deposited along the foot slope of Mt. Mayapay to the
64
Island
west and in the slopes of Mt. Hilong-hilong to the east. This is in
response to the change in slope due to the general uplift of the area,
which can be associated to the neo-tectonic event influenced by
the Philippine Rift Zone. At this time, the Agusan River Delta began
to form and Butuan Bay retreated towards the north. Javelosa (2002,
in his Episode One) described this regression of Butuan Bay
towards the north as ‘first retreat’ of the bay. At this time, the Masao-
Butuan Delta prograded in a north-northwest direction.
Pinamanculan-Dalingdingan at the same time emerged and was
isolated as an island by two tidal inlets. These tidal inlets
consequently became Manapa and Masao Rivers.”
“At the close of the Pleistocene, neo-tectonism were prevalent,
resulting in the occurrence of displacement that runs through the
east side of Pinamanculan, the west side of Libertad, Bonbon and
Kinamlutan area. This displacement is called Pinamanculan
Lineament. Consequently, the delta submerged leaving
Pinamanculan area as an emerged island. The consequences of this
submergence resulted in the formation of several distributary
channels. Javelosa (2002) identifies these channels as Bonbon, San
Vicente, Libertad and Ambangan that join the Masao and Manapa
channels. Agusan channel, on the other hand, follows the direction
of the present course of Agusan River.”93
“On the onset of the Holocene Epoch (10,000 BP), vertical
movement and uplift of the area occurred. This time, the southern
portion of Masao-Butuan Plain was affected. This triggered the
tilting of the plain towards the north-northwest direction. This
decreased the base level of the river and eventually shifted its course.
Bonbon channel, which was previously traversing the southern
extension of the Pinamanculan Lineament, has abandoned its
channel due to the extreme increase in rates of sedimentation and
reduction in depth.”94
Episode 4 occurred 1,000 to 500 years BP. In historic times, this
coincided with the rise of the ancient trading port whose five tribute
missions to the Chinese Empire between 1003 to 1011 A.D. was
recorded in the Sung Annals. During this time, an uplift of the
65
 Island
northern side of the Butuan lineament whose axis from the
northeast to the southwest split the delta, has, as Javelosa explained
it,“deepened both the Manapa and Masao channels. This deepening
process has further isolated the Pinamanculan Island and at the
same time translated an enormous supply of sediments towards
low-lying areas. In turn, the massive sedimentation has greatly
enhanced the seaward advancement of the Masao-Butuan Plain
through widespread accumulation of the swamp-mangrove
deposits and association of floodplain and channel
environments.”95 [F [Fiig. 11]
Episode 5, between 500 years ago to the 18th century (the first
half of the Spanish colonial era), showed the widening and
embayment of both the Manapa and Masao channels. Javelosa has
added greater emphasis in his findings about Pinamanculan as
reflected in the study’s conclusion: “The information and inferences
provided by the ‘Seven Episodes’ afforded for the revelation of
several unknown geological events in the area. The earth
movements caused by the neotectonism of the Banza Lineament
are inferred to have triggered the rise of base levels in the Masao-
Butuan Plain. The rise resulted in the isolation of ‘Pinamanculan
Island’ by the widening and embayment of both the Manapa and
Masao channels. This geomorphological notion would strongly
justify the possible existence of Pinamanculan area as an ‘island’
during the periods between the 15th and 18th century.”96 [F [Fiig. 12]
There were significant geologic events in subsequent centuries
that accelerated the siltation of this subject area, especially in the
second half of the colonial era when ‘periods of seismic
devastation’97 altered the delta. An interesting explanation is made
by Javelosa on the ‘attachment’ of the southern boundary of
‘Pinamanculan island’ to the mainland: “The vertical movements
associated with the southern flank of the subsidence zone are
inferred to have triggered enormous mass movements and debris
avalanche along the slopes of Mt. Mayapay. Many of these slope
materials became sources of massive sedimentation into the Masao-
Butuan Plain…The debris fan presently engulfed the southern
66
Island
margins of Pinamanculan Hill. This suggests that because of the
Bancasi subsidence, the former Pinamanculan island had been
attached only to the mainland of Mt. Mayapay by the debris
avalanche presumably during the periods of 17th to 19th
centuries.”98 Nowadays, one can still see the visual traces of this
‘Manapa channel’, like a wide infilled moat with the Bancasi creek
in the middle, between the southern margins of Pinamanculan-
Bancasi and the foothills of Mt. Mayapay of the mainland.
Javelosa paints the present-day picture of the outliers that are
now just hills conjoined to the mainland by massive siltation;
“Towards the vicinities of Dalingdingan, Pinamanculan, Baobaoan,
Panaytayon and Humilog, there is an upstanding prominence of
residual hills/outliers. These hills/outliers appear to have been
tectonically detached and separated from the structural hillfronts
of Mt. Hilonghilong from the southeast and Mt. Mayapay from
the southwest. Their detachments and separation were triggered
by the passage of two major faults: one runs parallel with the present
flow direction of Agusan River; and the other emanates from the
highlands of Ampayon, through Agusan River and terminates
towards the highlands that border the southern vicinities of Bonbon
and Libertad.”99 To anybody who sees those hills, one must remind
himself that these were islands once, and probably the most historic
of them is Pinamanculan.
Archaeological Confirmation
T he geological study was further buttressed by the
archaeological investigations conducted by a team led by Wilfredo
P. Ronquillo, currently the chief of the archaeology division of the
National Museum. Its thesis was that as the delta formation
proceeded, there was a complementary movement of the human
67
 Island
community in the area: “Archaeological test excavations further
supported the Seven Episodes with the recovery of artifacts
corresponding to the periodization earlier drawn up. Stone tools
were found in the sites falling under Episodes 2 & 3 (20,000-7,000
BP and 7,000-1,000 BP), while metal objects, earthenwares,
stonewares, and tradeware ceramics were found in the sites
corresponding to Episodes 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 (7,000-500 BP and the
present). These artifacts can further be subdivided to concur with
the episodes. The tradeware ceramics found in San Vicente have
been dated to the 10th century while those found in Pinamanculan
would fall under the later period, around the 15th century.”
In the same paragraph, Ronquillo also reported on a European
item from a later century: “The bronze pestle recovered from
Pinamanculan Hill has been identified to be of probable European
origin with its similarity in form with other pestles of known
provenance which is also corroborated by the dating for the
tradeware ceramics.”100 The bronze pestle was found by the team
headed by archaeologist Louise Bolunia in 2001 at the Bud
Promontory, a high ground at the eastern side of Pinamanculan.
The bronze pestle-and-mortar was a regular item in 16th century
ships from Spain and Portugal which were used in the preparation
of herbs as medicine. The bronze pestle proves that the Masao
estuary was still visited by Spanish vessels during the era of
explorations and during the first century of colonization.
Ronquillo provided a glimpse of how the movements of people
were influenced by the advance of the delta northward: “It was
further observed that the movement of people was from the interior
towards the coast and that settlements were always placed on areas
where the river and its tributaries were nearby. The importance of
Agusan and Masao Rivers and their tributaries cannot be
underestimated since most of the archaeological sites were found
near those areas. Based on the amount of cultural materials
recovered during the fieldwork and the earlier findings, San Vicente
and Pinamanculan were centers of economic and social activities
68
Island
at different periods of time.”101 Imagine then the two forks of the
Agusan River as it enters the broad delta starting at Bit-os. The
western channel which flows into the Masao estuary has a far older
evidence of extensive human habitation, and this would be so until
it was truncated by catastrophic earthquakes and the resulting heavy
sedimentation around the 13th century. Within a two-kilometer
radius from the first balanghai boat (15 meters in length) to be
excavated in Ambangan, eight other such relics lay buried in deep
silt, testifying to a thriving harbor before the 13th century. The
second balanghai boat is permanently displayed at the National
Museum. [F [Fiig. 13]
All the archaeological studies conducted in the territory of
Butuan lend credence to the preeminence of the Ambangan and
Suatan sections within the Masao estuary as the center of the ancient
trading port of Butuan that had dealings with the Chinese empire
during the Sung Dynasty period, the Sri-Vijayan empire in
Sumatra, the kingdom of Champa along the central Vietnam
coastline, and other trading hubs in pre-colonial Southeast Asia.
The nearby Mazzaua island – now the villages of Pinamanculan
and Bancasi – was a mute witness to Butuan’s past, and centuries
later, as the logical refuge, being the nearest high ground, of the
inhabitants who have to escape the geological catastrophe that
finally destroyed the Masao estuary. [F[Fiig. 14]
What these findings signify to our quest for the site of the First
Mass could thus be summarized:
- The island of Mazzaua has finally been located, and that
is the Pinamanculan-Bancasi area; the geological studies
confirmed this by using scientific methodologies. Years
ago, the older generation of local historians in Butuan
had an intuitive sense that the area might be the lost isle,
but it was not until the completion of the
geomorphological study that we can finally say with
certainty that the Pinamanculan-Bancasi area was the site
of the First Mass.
69
 Island

- Ronquillo’s archaeological analysis emphasizes the

prominent role played by the Masao channel, the western
branch of the Agusan River in the delta, during the pre-
colonial period, as the focal point of the ancient trading
harbor that reached its peak some five hundred years
before the Magellan expedition.

- Our historical investigations revealed that around the

13th century, there seemed to be a strange confluence of
events that brought about the decline of the ancient
trading port of Butuan at the estuary of the western
5
branch: a major geological cataclysm that shifted the
active channel of the Agusan River to the east; the
transference and rise of the Tausug, a derivative of the
Tribes
Butuan language, in the Sulu archipelago, and the
accession of what would later be the Sultanate of Sulu in
the thriving China market; the sheer quantity of the
earlier Sung ceramics found here compared to a lesser
volume of the later Ming ceramics; and the demographic
transfer of Butuan to the Banza confluence at the eastern
channel at the dawn of the Spanish arrival.

- Cut off from the vast valley interior, from the sources of
gold, beeswax and civet, there came about a sizeable
population movement to the eastern channel. The next
three centuries during the colonial era showed that
Butuan would persist along this newer channel: in Banza
until 1865, then to Baug (now Magallanes), until the
permanent shift to Agao (the nucleus of modern Butuan)
in 1879.

Mazzaua island was a remnant community of the declining

fortunes of the ancient trading harbor at the Masao estuary, and
this pretty much explains its quiet passage into history.

70
 Blood Brothers

C rucial to this historical investigation is the identity of the

two rulers of Mazzaua and Butuan – Raia Siaiu and Raia Calambu,
respectively – as brothers. This basic fact will have a decisive bearing
on the tribal alignments at the time. In Chapter XVIII of Pigafetta’s
relation was this statement: “Next morning the king came and took
me by the hand, we went thus to the place where we had supped in
order to breakfast, but the boat came to fetch us. And before parting
the king very happily kissed our hands, and we kissed his. And a
brother of his, king of another island, came with us, accompanied
by three men. And the captain-general kept him to dine with him,
and we gave him several things.”102 Parenthetically, the paramount
stature of the ruler of Butuan could be discerned in the courtesy
that Magellan extended to him – the gifts and the invitation to dine
at the flagship.
In the Chapter XIX summary of contents, we also come across
another passage: “Of the king, Raia Calambu, brother of the first
king called Raia Siaiu. Of his accoutrements, and of his country.
The mass of Easter Day and other ceremonies. Of the two aforesaid
kings…”103

Legazpi’s Mazzaua

T o the Limasawa proponents, next to the question about

the existence, or non-existence, of an island in the territory of
89
 Tribes
Butuan to further their claim, is the identification of Limasawa as
Mazzaua in the chronicles of the Legazpi expedition. Bernad calls
this ‘the confirmatory evidence.’104
It was this episode in the Legazpi expedition that the Limasawa
proponents posited as the single most important evidence that
Mazzaua and Limasawa were one and the same entities. This was
the very issue that previous adherents of the Butuan Tradition have
failed to address convincingly in their studies for a long time.
Was Legazpi’s Mazzaua the Mazzaua of Pigafetta? Or was this
confusion of two almost identical place-names the heart of the
controversy among historians?
This paper takes a second look at this issue by retracing the
Legazpi expedition from the moment it entered the Philippine
waters until the eve of its conquest of Cebu. Miguel Lopez de
Legazpi’s 1565 Relation of the Voyage to the Philippine Islands and
the chronicles of his officers provide a rich source of documentation
to reveal important insights on this complex issue.
The 1565 Legazpi expedition followed the coastline of Samar
and dropped by some settlements to barter for food as they were
famished after the long Pacific crossing from Mexico. There was
very little food in the area, and finally they visited Cabalian, a fairly
sizable native settlement, at the southeastern coast of Leyte. It was
in Cabalian that Legazpi began to notice a different behavior among
the natives: “One thing special to be noted – namely, that wherever
we went, the people entertained us with fine words, and even
promised to furnish us provisions; but afterward they would desert
their houses. Up to the present, this fear has not been in any way
lessened.”105
Although, as Legazpi reported, the Spaniards (obviously
members of the Villalobos expedition in 1543) were well treated in
the past, “now they did not wish to see us, and on the night of our
arrival, we were made thoroughly aware of this; for they embarked
with their wives, children, and property, and went away.” 106
Somehow, Legazpi was able to parley with the chieftain Malete, and
90
Tribes
the latter even allowed his son, Canatuan (Camotuan), and three
other companions, to guide the fleet to Mazzaua. Hearing this,
Malete and Canatuan surmised that Legazpi meant it to be the
island of Limasawa.
Upon reaching Limasawa, Legazpi and his crew were aghast to
see just one native islander up on a high rock who shouted in fear
and anger. Legazpi compared this behavior to Magellan’s encounter
with the people of Mazzaua just forty years earlier, and noted in
his report: “This Maçagua, although small, was once a thickly
populated island. The Castilians who anchored there were wont to
be kindly received. Now the island is greatly changed from former
days, being quite depopulated – for it contains less than twenty
Indians; and these few who are left, are so hostile to Castilians, that
they did not even wish to see or hear us. From this island we went
to another, called Camiguinen. Here we met with the same
treatment. As the natives saw our ships along the coast, they
hastened to betake themselves to the mountains. Their fear of the
Castilians was so great, that they would not wait for us to give any
explanation.”107
From the extremely limited engagement that Legazpi had with
the natives of Camiguin, he was able to get answers to the two
questions he asked: where is the place that sells cinnamon as he
wanted to do business on this valuable spice, and where can he find
somebody who can converse in Malay. The natives pointed to
Butuan, a trading port southeast of Camiguin island. Legazpi’s
official report on March 14, 1565 noted that “the fleet directed its
course towards Butuan, a province of the island of Mindanao, but
the tides and contrary winds drove us upon the coast of an island
called Bohol.”108 Here, the fleet decided to anchor.
Legazpi did meet the two chieftains of Bohol: Sikatuna and
Sigala. He was aided greatly in his parley by an experienced Bornean
trader, Tuasan, whom the Spaniards captured in a mistaken
encounter, but had finally befriended. From the chieftains, Legazpi
heard the same thing about the “great robberies that the Portuguese
91
 Tribes
committed hereabout.”109 Sikatuna and Sigala’s attitude towards the
Spaniards was no different from those people that the fleet had
visited.
Legazpi was finally able to verify their attitude toward the white
men: “the cause for this was that about two years ago, somewhat
more or less, some Portuguese from Maluco visited these islands
with eight large praus and many natives of Maluco. Wherever they
went they asked for peace and friendship, saying that they were
Castilians, and vassals of the king of Castilla; then when the natives
felt quite secure in their friendship, they assaulted and robbed them,
killing and capturing all that they could. For this reason the island
of Maçagua was depopulated, and scarcely any inhabitants
remained there. And in this island of Bohol, among the killed and
captured were more than a thousand persons.”110
After a few days in Bohol, Legazpi sent his top officers to Butuan.
Here the reaction of the natives was radically different. The pilot of
the San Juan, Rodrigo de Espinosa, reported about their experience
there: “We went to the town called Butuan to speak to the king. As
soon as we got there we went to the house of the king, and the first
they did to us in the house of the king was to make us sit down,
after which there came out to us seven or eight women, pretty ones.
I mention this because they were certainly pretty, and some of them
were dressed in Indian silk. They told us that it was a custom of the
country for the women to make their appearance first. I asked the
Moor [a trader who acted as their interpreter] for the names of the
king and queen, and he said that the king was called Lumanpaon
and the queen Bucaynin, and the king’s son Lian and the king’s
brother Sigoan. Then the king appeared and sat down. I told the
interpreter to tell the king that I was the pilot of the ship out there
and that I had come at the captain’s orders to bring him a present
[a velvet cap and cloak]. He took it and put it on immediately. I
then told him that the captain had come at the behest of the King
of Castile in order that his treasury officials might bring
merchandise to sell to the natives; and I asked him if it was his
92
Tribes
pleasure that the cloth (we brought) be sold to his subjects. He said
yes, adding that some of the natives had much gold and others little,
and so each will buy what he can…”111
This extreme contrast in attitudes revealed, on the one hand, a
recent traumatic event that visited Cabalian, Limasawa, Camiguin
and Bohol, and an untroubled reception in Butuan, on the other.
But why were those former places so devastated, and why were the
other neighboring areas, like Butuan and Cebu, spared of the
tragedy? If, as William Henry Scott once theorized, Limasawa was
the sentinel that guarded the entrance to Butuan, why was its fate at
the hands of the Portuguese and the Moluccans so different from
that of Butuan?
At this juncture, one must also ask: Is it not exceedingly strange
that this Mazzaua (Limasawa), once ruled by the brother of the king
of Butuan during the Magellan expedition, and therefore an integral
part of the tribal alliance marked no less by kinship, should be so
utterly devastated, and Butuan would still welcome those strange
white visitors with a business-as-usual attitude?
Has it ever occurred in the minds of the Limasawa proponents
that Butuan and Limasawa belonged to two different tribal
constellations? That the Mazzaua that the Magellan expedition
visited was at the head of Butuan Bay, and was not Limasawa by
any stretch of the imagination?
The tragedy that befell Cabalian, Limasawa, Camiguin and
Bohol can be understood through an obscure narrative by Fr.
Francisco Combes, the Jesuit missionary based in Dapitan,
ambassador of the governor-general to the Sultan of Sulu, and
author of the first history of Mindanao-Sulu. This important,
though long forgotten, 1667 account by Fr. Combes provides the
key to the puzzle: that those aforementioned places were allied
under the leadership of the rulers of Bohol, between the periods of
the Magellan and the Legazpi explorations.
“The Dapitans,” Combes wrote, “anciently occupied the strait
made by that island and the island of Panglao, which remains dry
93
 Tribes Tribes

at low tide, but at high tide allows a galliot to pass. Therefore, many which they had before other nations, because of their trade with
brazas in the sea stand, even today, certain columns of upright the Portuguese. The frightful effects of these, as terrible by their
wood, as honorable witnesses of the location so gloriously occupied ruin as by their novelty, worked on the minds of the Dapitans.”114
by this nation…There they conquered the famous people of Bohol; The fate of the Dapitans would also shed light on the southward
for as their nation was less numerous in that island, they were movement of a few survivors from Limasawa. The pilot Espinosa’s
obliged to sustain their name by their deeds. The Boholans, report of meeting a Limasawan in mourning clothes in Butuan in
conquered and put to flight, abandoned the site which they 1565 and his fear at seeing white men, a throwback to the
occupied from the shore to the strait to the coast of Baclayon and depredations by the Portuguese, would mean that Butuan served
took refuge in Loboc, where their name is still preserved in a few as a safe refuge for him and his relatives. The man’s tragic
families descended from that stock which conquered that island, countenance was in sharp contrast to the general mood in Butuan.
and only the valor of the Dapitans subdued.”112 Its tolerance and its friendly nod to strangers, a sure sign of an
Their fame spread far and wide, embassies were sent to parley ancient trading port even in a period of full decline, would have
with the Dapitans, not the least of which was from the powerful been a beacon to refugees who wished to rebuild their lives.
Sultan of Ternate in the archipelago of the Moluccas, the fabled Spice In conclusion, the terrible tragedy at this southeastern corner
Islands, due south of Mindanao. Combes continues: “It happened of the Visayan islands should provide us a very valuable insight on
then that in an embassy sent by the king of Terrenate, the most the tribal alliances of the time, and that should shed more light on
warlike and powerful king known, his ambassador lost (due) the mystery of Mazzaua.
respect for the house of the Dapitan princes – then represented by
Dailisan and Pagbuaya, who were brothers – by making advances
to a concubine. They punished the crime more by the laws of
offended and irritated fury than by those of reason, with hideous
and indeed cruel demonstrations of contempt, by cutting off the
noses and ears of the ambassador and his men. When they returned
to Ternate, the horrid aspect of his subjects aroused the wrath of
the king. He armed all his power in twenty joangas to oppose the
Dapitans.”113
Great was the renowned valor of the Dapitans that the Ternatans
approached the former through subterfuge, through trading, and
waited for the right moment to spring a surprise. And when it came,
the Ternatans brought with them the new European technology
unknown to the natives of the islands: “Although the latter placed
themselves in a position of defense, they retreated before the
multitude, and the terror of arms to which they were unaccustomed,
for the Ternatans already had muskets and arquebuses, the use of

94 95
 6
Tradition
 We have reserved to the end the roots of the controversy
of the First Mass: the yawning gap between chroniclers throughout
much of the Spanish colonial era who adhered to the Butuan
Tradition, and the spirited effort of history scholars at the tail-end
of the colonial era and the rest of the 20th century who debunked
this former belief and preferred Limasawa as the site of the First
Mass. Indeed, the succeeding generations of prominent professional
historians in the 20th century adopted Limasawa as the site of the
First Mass, and the international historians who dealt on the
Magellan exploration unquestioningly took the cue from our
historians in identifying Limasawa as the site. There was one
interesting exception: Dr. Gregorio Zaide, the most popular author
of Philippine history textbooks in his time, had a belated change
of mind on this controversy in his final days, but his death precluded
the formal revision of his textbooks. In the preface to his 12-volume
Documentary Sources of Philippine History, Zaide declared his
change of mind: “It is high time for contemporary historians and
the Philippine government to correct their mistakes and accept that
the first Christian mass was celebrated in Masao, Butuan, Agusan
del Norte, and not in Limasawa, Leyte, on Easter Sunday, March
31, 1521.”115 It was left to his own daughter, Dr. Sonia Zaide, an
author of history books in her own right (e.g., The Philippines, A
Unique Nation; Butuan, the First Kingdom), to articulate his
deathbed wish. She would soon champion the Mazzaua-in-Butuan
theory.
The local historians of Butuan, among them Gerardo Domingo,
Epafrodito Flores, Adolfo Sanchez, Edgardo Gumban, Proceso

99
 Tradition
Gonzalez, Wenceslao Rosales,Vicente Calo, Rogelio Rosales, Narzal
Mallonga, and Edgardo Sanchez, took the initiative in bringing to
the attention of the National Historical Commission the case for
the Butuan Tradition. Adolfo B. Sanchez’s 1977 book, 1521:
(Li)masawa?, was the first full-blown effort at advancing Butuan’s
claim. Their efforts were quite pronounced in the mid-seventies
when archaeological discoveries focused the people’s minds on what
was perceived as the singular historicity of Butuan. Their efforts
culminated in the 1977 conference when the First Lady Imelda R.
Marcos, a native of Leyte, came and doused cold water on what
would have been a promising start to correcting a historical error.
Twenty years later, in 1996, the National Historical Institute made
another effort at a resolution of the issue, and the Butuan panel,
represented among others by Emmanuel Balanon, Leovigildo
Banaag, Vicente de Jesus, and Fr. Joesilo Amalla, together with two
prominent historians from Manila, Dr. Sonia Zaide and Professor
Celedonio Resurreccion, presented anew another paper. The
scholarly couple, John and Erlinda Burton, also did much to
contribute to the position of the Butuan panel. The NHI created
the Gancayco Panel to help resolve the problem, and this panel
favored the Limasawa Theory. After the 1996 roundtable, Vicente
de Jesus pursued deeper studies on the First Mass issue, particularly
on Gines de Mafra and the intellectual roots of the controversy,
and kept the fires burning in an international conference and in
Internet discussions.
In 1981, as a result of the Live-in Workshop on the Site of the
First Mass in the Philippines, various papers favoring the Limasawa
Theory were published in Kasaysayan, a publication of the National
Historical Institute (NHI). Two of the papers that focused on the
analysis of the historiographical tradition of the First Mass were
included, both by Jesuit authors – John N. Schumacher and Miguel
Bernad. Tracing the changes from the Butuan Tradition that
persisted throughout the Spanish colonial era to the Limasawa
Theory that has earned the acceptance of Philippine historians of
100
Tradition
the 20th century, the name of another Jesuit emerges as pivotal to
this radical shift. He was Fr. Pablo Pastells. It was from him and
James Alexander Robertson that subsequent Philippine historians
would draw their preference for Limasawa.
The Butuan Tradition persisted for three centuries, and it had
the support of Spanish chroniclers of the age. Both Dr. Sonia Zaide’s
and this author’s, and the papers of Schumacher and Bernad,
coincide on the following list of Spanish-era chroniclers that favored
the Butuan Tradition:
1. Labor Evangelica, Francisco Colin, SJ, 1663
2. Historia de Mindanao y Sulu y sus adyacentes, Francisco
Combes, SJ, 1667
3. Anales Ecclesiasticos de Filipinas 1574-1682, the
ecclesiastical annals of the Catholic Church in the
Philippines, 1682
4. Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas, Gaspar de San Agustin, 1696
5. Cronicas, Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio, OSF,
1738-44
6. Historia General de Filipinas, Fray Juan de la Concepcion,
OAR, 1788
7. Historia general sacro-profana, political y natural de las islas
del poniente, llamados Filipinas, Juan J. Delgado, SJ, 1892
8. Historia de las Islas Filipinas, Joaquin Martinez de Zuñiga,
OSA, 1803
9. The Philippines, Jean Mallat, 1846
There were others who also made references to the Butuan
Tradition in their writings: Giovanni Gemelli Careri (1699), Tomas
Comyn (1820), Buzeta y Bravo (1850), Agustin Santayana (1862),
J. Montero y Vidal (1886), W.E. Retana (1893), Jose Nieto Aguilar
(1894), Jose de Alcazar (1897), John Foreman (1899), Jose Algue,
SJ (1900), Valentin Morales y Marin (1901), Jose Burniol, SJ
(1920).116
101
 Tradition Tradition

Their testimonials ranged from the matter-of-fact tone to the

lyrical paean to Butuan:
A Break with Tradition
Anales E
Eccclesia
iassticos:
“On Easter Sunday, the First Mass was celebrated by his
B oth Schumacher and Bernad point to Pablo Pastells as
the one who made the first significant break with the Butuan
[Magellan] chaplain in Butuan.”117
Tradition, at the time when he was editing the works of his 17th
century confrere Fr. Francisco Colin, who wrote the Labor
Croni ca s:
Evangelica (1663), a comprehensive review of the Jesuit mission in
“The Butuans, worthy of eternal memory and thanks, as they
the Philippines, from their entry in 1581 until the middle of the
were the first among whom the Catholic arms found shelter, come
17th century. In the early years in the 20th century, Pastells retired
down from the village and river of Butuan, the coast which looks
from the mission in the Philippines to return to Spain to do full-
to the north from Mindanao. It was the first soil where the famous
time research and to write on the Jesuit mission in the Philippines
Magallanes planted the domination of Jesus Christ and that of our
from 1860 until the end of the Spanish colonial era. Pastells had
Catholic king.”118
familiarity with Butuan, both during the 12 years when he was
assigned to the mission areas of Caraga, Baganga and Cateel in what
The First Mass in the Butuan territory had both these adherents
is now the province of Davao Oriental, along Mindanao’s southern
among chroniclers during much of the Spanish colonial era and a
Pacific coastline, and when he was the superior of the Philippine
common oral tradition. This culminated in the erection of a brick-
mission from 1888 to 1893.119 His radical break with tradition was
and-marble marker in 1872 by the Governor of the Third District
his annotation to Colin’s statement of the Magellan landing in
of Mindanao (also known as Surigao province after the capital
Butuan, as translated by Bernad:
town), Jose Maria Carvallo, in Baug (the present-day municipality
of Magallanes). The explanation for why it was erected in “Magellan did not go to Butuan. Rather, from the island of
Magallanes was because in 1865 the pueblo of Butuan was Limasawa he went directly to Cebu. In that island [Limasawa] he
transferred to Baug (the old native name of Magallanes) from had dealings with Raja Siagu, chieftain of Butuan; and this would
Banza, and this persisted until 1879 when the pueblo, due to explain the Author’s (i.e., Colin’s) error. See the ‘Voyage’ of
incessant petitions from the people for a transfer of the town site, Pigafetta, and the diary of Albo, both of whom were
was permanently transferred to Agao, the nucleus of modern eyewitnesses.”120
Butuan.
It was a bald statement unadorned by any other proof except
that the Butuan that he knew did not in any way come close to any
description written by Pigafetta and Albo. In retrospect, it is easy
to understand why he cast doubt on Butuan as the site of the First
Mass.

102 103
 Tradition
The Butuan of 1879 is eight kilometers from the mouth of the
Agusan River. It is understandable that Pastells would raise such
doubts, because, in a superficial sense, it does not possess any of
the attributes described by Pigafetta. But have Pastells and the
Limasawa proponents evinced any knowledge or understanding
of the vast geological changes that occurred in the Agusan River
Delta over three centuries, and what it meant to the quest for
Mazzaua? Were the proponents of the Butuan Tradition merely
mouthing a baseless declaration? The previous chapters showed
all too well that Butuan and Mazzaua were related by kinship and
were in close geographical proximity, that Mazzaua was a remnant
community of the ancient trading harbor in the Masao estuary,
and that geology, time and circumstance conspired to shift Butuan
to the eastern channel, and left Mazzaua to be lost to history. The
benefit of hindsight has once again served to correct a historical
misapprehension.
Indeed, nothing could be more symbolic than Pastells rejecting
Colin, the first to popularize Butuan as the site of the First Mass.
Pastells and Colin, both great missionaries and great
historiographers, three centuries removed, personified this
historical controversy.
But Bernad’s 1981 essay contains a revealing statement that
should give pause to the revisionists: “Such strong traditions are
generally not without some validity, and therefore it is to be
regretted that the National Historical Committee had brushed it
aside so quickly. Instead of doing so, they should have inquired
into the possible explanations why there was such unanimity in
the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries in favor of the Butuan
tradition…it must have contained some basis in fact.”121 Sadly,
nothing of this sort has ever been done. The Philippine historical
establishment in the 20th century debunked meaningful attempts
at what Bernad hinted, and thus it was left to local historians to
find some answers.
104
Tradition
Can oral tradition then demonstrate a level of accuracy that
would open up a whole new vista in our historical investigations?
Can we find a specific instance in the Magellan episode that the
memory of ordinary folks in olden times, without recourse to
Pigafetta, could be relied on? Amazingly, yes.
Fr. Francisco Ignacio Alcina, another Jesuit who finished his
masterwork on the History of the Bisayan People in 1668 (together
with his contemporaries Colin and Combes, they formed the
intellectual triumvirate among the early Jesuits in this country), and
who served in Samar and Leyte for 28 years beginning in 1634,
wrote about what people said of the vicinity of Suluan and
Homonhon. It is a passing reference in itself, but it opens up a whole
new vista of understanding on how oral tradition can illuminate a
dim corner of history. Now, pay heed to what he wrote, and let’s
underscore it: “There is such an island near Guiuan, called Suluan,
which was the first land, according to some, touched by Magellan,
when he discovered these islands and after whom the Strait is
named…”122 Such historical accuracy amazes!
One can certainly see a parallel in Butuan and Mazzaua. The
chronicles and the oral tradition point to the territory of Butuan,
which included Mazzaua, as the site of the First Mass. Pastells’ doubt,
notwithstanding, our research showed with clarity the accuracy of
these accounts.
Pastells would leave the mission in the Philippines at the turn
of the century, with the country firmly in the hands of the
Americans. He would soon devote his time to writing the Jesuit
experience in the last forty years of Spanish rule, and publish his 3-
volume Mision de la Compania de Jesus en el Filipinas en el siglo
XIX (The Jesuit Mission in the Philippines in the 19th Century); at
the same time he would annotate Colin’s Labor Evangelica. What
happened next would seal the fate of Mazzaua. As a result of an
increasing interest on its only colony, two American historians were
also in Spain to research on the Philippines’ past – James Alexander
Robertson and Emma Blair. They extracted the key documents on
105
 Tradition

the Spanish colonization in the Philippines at the General Archives

of the Indies in Seville, and translated these into English in their
monumental 55-volume The Philippine Islands. Drawing from
Pastells’ viewpoint, a curious thing then happened as they translated
Pigafetta’s Ambrosian Codex - they placed in the footnote: “It
[Mazzaua] is now called the island of Limasawa.”123 Filipino
historians in the 20th century drew deeply from Blair & Robertson’s
magnum opus as a primary source of Spanish colonial documents
(one must also add Robertson’s influence as the pioneering director
of the National Library), and this would have a decisive impact on
the 20th century belief in Limasawa.
7
But Colin would have a revenge of sorts. The new findings
contained in this study would reveal that the old Jesuits who came
to the country in 1581, or a mere 60 years after the arrival of
Epilogue
Magellan, have known some truths that their confreres some 300
years later were at pains to contradict.
The first three centuries of Spanish colonial rule had the Butuan
Tradition accepted as historical truth, but the 20th century saw the
adoption of the Limasawa Theory as the revision of that truth. Will
the 21th century witness the Butuan Tradition come full circle?
The island of Mazzaua, the nearest high ground from the
ancient trading harbor, has two villages: Pinamanculan and Bancasi.
People in Butuan have often asked what those two place-names
meant, until in 2004 when the author of this study learned from a
group of visiting Higaonon tribesmen from Bukidnon, whom he
guided at the regional museum and the balanghai shrine, the
proximate native words where they drew their meaning:
pinamangkuan or where a ritual was held, and bangkasu or a table
upon which an offering to the Supreme Being is placed.124
The Higaonons are the highland Manobos who dwell in a vast
area from northwestern Agusan to Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental.
The visitors touched on an obscure meaning without any
prompting. Like their unexpected insight, truth would sometimes
come from the unlikeliest of places, but it surely would arrive at its
appointed time.
106
 Summaries never do justice to the richness and complexity
of historical controversies, but they are a handy means of staking
the most important findings. As we wind up this study, we are
confident that the First Mass issue could now be seen in a whole
new light.

1. The Magellan expedition generally followed the west-by-south

trajectory from the mid-Pacific to Homonhon, and entered
Surigao Strait until they hit the island of Mazzaua, which, from
the four different readings by its navigators, point to an area
within the confines of Butuan Bay. The navigation logs of the
fleet astrologer-pilot Andres de San Martin and the Genoese
Pilot (Giovanni Battista di Polcevera) give greater credence to
Mazzaua being in the Masao estuary at 9 degrees latitude north.

2. As an alternative method of locating Mazzaua, the search for

Gatighan has finally found an answer in the identification of a
cape indicated by Pigafetta in the caption to the map-sketch in
the Yale Codex. This cape is within the present boundaries of
Maasin and Matalom in the Leyte mainland, and its location
corresponds with Pigafetta’s description that it was 20 leguas
(80 nautical miles) from Mazzaua and 15 leguas (60 n.m.) from
Cebu, just 5 nautical miles from 10 degrees north latitude, and
the landmark for vessels to turn west to Cebu.

3. Mazzaua was described by Gines de Mafra to have “a good

harbor on its western side”, and this description jibed well with
the situation of the Mazzaua isle within Butuan Bay, and is
109
 Epilogue
directly contrary to Limasawa’s description by the Sailing
Directions of the U.S. Hydrographic Center, and corroborated
by the official report of Gov. Jaime de Veyra in 1907, that it “is
fringed by a narrow, steep-to reef, but depths outside the reef
are too great to afford good anchorage for large vessels.”
4. Mazzaua was an outlier of the Mindanao landmass and was
geographically related to Chippit, a native settlement in
Zamboanga del Norte that the survivors of the expedition
visited on the way to the Moluccas.
5. The early European maps, especially the sophisticated atlases
produced by the greatest cartographers of the late Renaissance
era – Ortelius, Mercator and Hondius – all indicated Mazzaua
to be within the Mindanao landmass.
6. Mazzaua was the name of the island that the Magellan
expedition landed the next day, “because during the night we
had seen a fire on an island ahead.” Mazzaua (pronounced
masawa) meant bright or radiant light in the Butuan language,
a word uniquely its own as differentiated with the terms used
in other Visayan languages.
7. Two Iberian chronicles, written well within 50 years after the
Magellan expedition, point to Butuan and Mazzaua as two
separate but neighboring entities within the vast Agusan River
delta. The Portuguese Rebelo described the island Mazzaua and
riverine Butuan as producing much gold from nearby rivers.
On the other hand, the Spaniard Espinosa gave a substantive
description of Butuan’s location as about two kilometers from
the river-mouth and was a thriving market for gold, and where
the top officers of the Legazpi fleet met the Luzon traders who
bartered for gold and beeswax.
110
Epilogue
8. Mazzaua was described by Pigafetta as a hunting ground, and
abounded with domesticated plants that demand well-watered
and fertile soil like rice, millet and ginger. It took the natives
and the Magellan crew to harvest rice for two days before their
departure for Cebu. While Limasawa is surrounded by rich
fishing grounds, its land ecosystem is composed of rocky soil
and dry conditions. The deltaic environs of Mazzaua island
within Butuan Bay lent well to the cultivation of rice, millet
and ginger.
9. The word Aba that the natives described for their god has found
its closest connection to the Middle Eastern (Jewish and Arabic)
term for “father.” While these people were not Muslims by any
stretch of the imagination, they were within the environs of an
ancient trading harbor that had seen its better years and was
now in full decline. It is very well possible that traders from
areas south of the Philippines who have already converted to
Islam must have brought with them the seed of an incipient
monotheistic belief from the Middle East, using this foreign
term for the fatherhood of God.
10. The search for the lost isle of Mazzaua at the Masao estuary
within Butuan Bay has been the most important issue in the
whole controversy, the central argument against the Mazzaua
that was part of the territory of Butuan. The comprehensive
geological study confirmed the presence of 2 prominent outliers
that have since become hills as they were conjoined to the
mainland by massive siltation. As the study stated: “This
geomorphological notion would strongly justify the possible
existence of Pinamanculan area as an ‘island’ during the periods
between the 15th and 18th century.” In another archaeological
study for the Bonbon Shell Midden, the geological component
of that study confirmed these findings. The accompanying
111
 Epilogue

archaeological analysis finally reinforced the veracity of the

geological study. References
11. The Mazzaua that the Legazpi expedition visited in 1565 was
not the same Mazzaua that the Magellan expedition indicated.
This study makes clear that the tribal alliances would show that
Limasawa was within the constellation of tribes whose
leadership was with the former rulers of Bohol, the Dapitans,
who were attacked by the combined forces of the Sultanate of 1. Martin J. Noone, The Islands Saw It: The Discovery and Conquest
of the Philippines 1521-1581, Helicon Press, p. 66
Ternate (Moluccas archipelago) and the Portuguese. 2. Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan’s Voyage: A Narrative Account of the
First Circumnavigation, translated & edited by R.A. Skelton, Dover
12. The shift from Masao to Limasawa was brought about by later Publications, Inc., New York, 1969, p. 17
historians like Fr. Pablo Pastells who departed from the Butuan 3. Ibid., p. 20
Tradition, and whose revisionist ideas were adopted 4. Ibid., p. 21
unquestioningly by 20th century historians. James Alexander 5. Ibid., p. 5
6. Ibid., p. 8
Robertson and Emma Blair, with their 55-volume The
7. Tim Joyner, Magellan, International Marine, Camden, Maine, 1992,
Philippine Islands as the major source of translated primary p. 347
Spanish documents, have completely popularized Limasawa as 8. Emilio A. Gancayco et al, Gancayco Panel Report, National
the site of the First Mass in the 20th century. But newer data Historical Institute, March 20, 1998, p. 6
would turn around this assertion in favor of Mazzaua in the 9. Ibid., p.6
Masao estuary of Butuan. The oral traditions of three centuries 10. The Reader’s Digest Ltd., The Truth About History: How new
during the Spanish colonial era would now be seen as evidence is transforming the story of the past, 2003, Introduction,
pp. 6-7
containing a kernel of truth, and this truth has gained credence 11. Ibid., p. 7
with new scientific findings. 12. Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, Book 2, University of
Chicago Press, 1965, p. 626
13. Laura Lee Junker, Raiding, Trading, Feasting: The Political History
of Philippine Chiefdoms, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000,
p. 29
14. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 57
15. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Great Explorers, University Press, 1978,
pp. 619-624
16. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 64
17. Gancayco Panel Report, p. 16
18. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 64
19. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 67
20. Gancayco Panel Report, p. 14
112 113
 References References

21. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 72 38. Gancayco Panel Report, p. 18

22. Lord Stanley of Alderley, The First Voyage Round the World, Hakluyt 39. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 73
Society, 1874, pp. 224-225 40. Ibid., p. 160
23. Ibid., p. 11 41. Fray Luis de Jesus, General History of the Discalced Augustinians in
24. Emma Blair and Alexander Robertson, The Philippine Islands, the Philippines, BR, vol. 21, pp. 198-199
1903, vol. 33, p. 331 42.. Drawn from the Internet websites. The Animal Files: http://
25. Tim Joyner, Magellan, p. 250 www.theanimalfiles.com , Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http:/
26. Ibid., p. 291 /www.britannica.com, The Website of Everything: http://
27. Ibid., p. 291 www.thewebsiteofeverything.com, BBC Science & Nature
28. Morison, The Great Explorers, p. 569 Wildfacts: http://bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts
29. Cited from Fernando Oliveira, The Voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, 43. Fr. Ignacio Francisco Alcina, SJ, The History of the Bisayan People
transliteration and English translation by P.G.H. Schreurs, MSC, in the Philippine Islands, 1668, translated, edited and annotated by
National Historical Institute, Manila, 2002, p. 13 Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, and Lucio Gutierrez, OP, UST Publishing
30. Gancayco Panel Report, p. 19 House, 2004, vol. II, ch. 24, p. 481
31. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 71 44. Drawn from the Internet websites. BirdLife International: http://
32. Ibid., p. 73 www.birdlife.org, HighBeam Encyclopedia: http://
33. Pedro Chirino, SJ, Relacion de las islas Filipinas i de lo que en ellas www.encyclopedia.org , International Union for the Conservation
an trabaiado los padres de la Compania de Jesus, Blair & Robertson, of Nature & Natural Resources (IUCN): http://www.iucnredlist.org
The Philippine Islands, vol. 12, pp. 266-267 45. Francisco Albo, A Derrotero or Logbook of the Voyage of Fernando
34. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 73 de Magallanes in Search of the Strait, from the Cape of St. Augustin,
35. Lord Stanley of Alderley, The First Voyage Round the World, Hakluyt translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley, Hakluyt Society, London,
Society, London, 1874, p. 225 p. 225
36. Ibid., p. 164 46. Gancayco Panel Report, p. 20
37. Through the kind assistance of the Coast Guard station 47. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 38
commander, SCPO Felipe Rodene Legaspi, we were able to request 48. Ibid., p. 39
Master Servidio Torillo of the commercial vessel, MV Princess of 49. Ibid., p. 51
the Earth, Sulpicio Lines Inc., to provide the actual nautical chart 50. Ibid., p. 57
with the pre-plotted course and distance, and this was compared 51. Sailing Directions for the Philippine Islands, Pub. 91, US Defense
with the Magellan route. Third Mate Maximino Diana drafted the Mapping Agency, Hydrographic Center, first edition 1956, revised
actual course. We made a slight adjustment from Nasipit port to edition 1975, p. 123
the nearby Masao (Lumbocan) port as our baseline in order to 52. Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, The Colonial Odyssey of Leyte (a
make an accurate comparison with Mazzaua island. The dean of translation of Reseña de la Provincia de Leyte), translated by
Maritime Sciences of the Agusan Institute of Technology, Mr. Rolando O. Borrinaga & Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, New Day
Wilfredo Dumanon, has volunteered to be the navigation adviser Publishers, 2006, p. 186
of the Butuan panel. His calculations confirmed those of the 53. Gines de Mafra, Libro que trata discubrimiento y principio del
Princess of the Earth officer. On the other hand, Fr. Joesilo Amalla estrecho que se llama de magallanes. In Antonio Blasquez y Delgado
inquired about the distance from Cebu to Maasin port from MV Aguilera, Tres Relaciones, Madrid, 1920, translated by Prof.
Ormoc Star captain Jose Lao who gave the distance of 66 nautical Raymond Howgego. Vicente de Jesus Papers
miles. Green Point is between 5 to 6 nautical miles from the port of 54. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 95
Maasin.
114 115
 References References

55. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, 1991, volume 23, 82. Peter Schreurs, MSC, The Location of Pigafetta’s Mazaua, footnote
p 520 p. 23
56. G.R. Crone, Maps and their Makers, Hutchinson University Library, 83. Ricarte Javelosa, Wilfredo Ronquillo, Abraham Gatdula. The
London, 1964, p. 122 Geomorphology and Geo-archaeological Reconstruction of Masao-
57. Ibid., p. 93 Butuan Plain as Part of the Agusan River Delta, 2002, pp. 88-89
58. Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. 1, Book One, 84. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 67
University of Chicago Press, 1965, p. 225 85. Gines de Mafra, Vicente de Jesus Papers
59. Ibid., p. 218 86. Ibid.
60. Ibid., p. 219 87. Peter Schreurs, MSC, The Location of Pigafetta’s Mazaua, p. 116
61. Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance 1420-1620, 88. Gancayco Panel Report, p. 10
Atheneum (reprinted with permission from Harvard University 89. Schreurs, The Location of Pigafetta’s Mazaua, p. 56
Press), 1955, p. 325 90. Dr. Sonia Zaide, Butuan, The First Kingdom, Butuan City Historical
62. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 67 & Cultural Foundation, Butuan City, 1990, p. 40
63. Jurgenne H. Primavera, Resureccion B. Sadaba, Ma. Junemie H.L. 91. Geomorphology Study, p. iii
Lebata and Jon P. Altamirano, Handbook of Mangroves in the 92. Ibid., p. 72
Philippines - Panay, SEAFDEC/UNESCO, 2004, p. 72 93. A Geo-Archaeological Study of the Bequibel Shell Midden, Sitio
64. Jose Manuel Garcia, Philippines in Portuguese 16th Century Tuway, Bgy. Bonbon, Butuan City, National Museum, 2004, p. 18
Historiography, Centro Portugues de Estudos do Sudeste Asiatico 94. Ibid., p. 18
(CEPESA), 2003, p. 136 95. Geomorphology Study, p. 27
65. Peter Schreurs, MSC, Caraga Antigua: The Hispanization and 96. Ibid., p. iii
Christianization of Agusan, Surigao and Davao, 2nd edition, National 97. Ibid., pp. 31-33
Historical Institute, Manila, 2000, p. 95 98. Ibid., pp. 33-34
66. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 72 99. Ibid., p. 4
67. Cited in Greg Hontiveros, Butuan of a Thousand Years, p. 78 100. Ibid., pp. iii-iv
68. Ibid., p. 78 101. Ibid., p. 91
69. BR, vol. 3, p. 223 102. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 69
70. History of the Bisayan Peoples, Alcina, Bk. 2, Ch. 12, pp. 231-233 103. Ibid., p. 69
71. Miguel de Loarca, Relacion de las Islas Filipinas, BR, vol.5, p. 51 104. Miguel A. Bernad,SJ, The Great Island: Studies in the Exploration
72.. Magellan’s Voyage, pp. 71-72 and Evangelization of Mindanao, Ateneo de Manila University Press,
73. BR, vol. 5, p. 51-53 Quezon City, 2004, p. 31
74. Peter Schreurs, MSC, The Location of Pigafetta’s Mazaua, Butuan 105. BR, vol. 2, p. 204
and Calagan 1521-1571: A Bibliographic and Cartographic 106. Ibid., p. 204
Evidence, National Historical Institute, 2000, footnote, p. 22 107. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 205-206
75. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 67 108. Ibid., p. 206
76. Ibid., p. 72 109. Ibid., p. 208
77. Gines de Mafra, Vicente de Jesus Papers 110. Ibid., p. 208
78. Joyner, p. 296 111. Horacio de la Costa, SJ, Readings in Philippine History, Bookmark
79. Magellan’s Voyage, p. 67 Inc., Makati City, 1965, 1992, p. 10-11. Translated from “Derrotero
80. Ibid., p. 69 - 70 del piloto Rodrigo de Espinosa del descubrimiento de las yslas del
81. Ibid., p. 70
116 117
 References

poniente,” Navidad, 17 November 1564 to Bohol, 4 April 1565, CPM

Fil. XII, 31 v-32.
112. Francisco Combes, Historia de Mindanao y Jolo y sus adyacentes,
Blair & Robertson, vol. 40, p. 112
113. Ibid., p. 113
114. Ibid., p. 114
115. Gregorio F. Zaide, Documentary Sources of Philippine History,
National Book Store, Manila, 1990, vol. 1, pp. xi-xii
116. From two sources at the opposing divide, there is unanimity in the
list of chroniclers and authors during the Spanish colonial era who
favored the Butuan Tradition. Dr. Sonia Zaide listed them in her
Butuan, the First Kingdom, and Fr. Miguel Bernad, SJ, in his article
in Kasaysayan, NHI journal (Vol. VI, No. 1-4, 1981, p. 26-27).
117. Anales Ecclesiasticos de Philipinas, 1574-1682, Archdiocesan
Archives of Manila, 1994, p. 27.
118. Juan Francisco de San Antonio, OSF, Cronicas, Blair & Robertson,
vol. 40, p. 312
119. Jose S. Arcilla, SJ, Jesuit Missionary Letters from Mindanao, vol. 3,
p. 11
120. Kasaysayan, p. 28
121. Ibid., p. 30
122. Ignacio Francisco Alcina, SJ, History of the Bisayan People in the
Philippine Islands, transl. by Cantius J. Kobak, OFM and Lucio
Gutierrez, OP, UST Publishing House, 2002, vol. 1, p. 347
123. BR, vol. 33, p. 330
124. The villages Pinamanculan and Bancasi now occupy the ‘island’ of
Mazzaua. The author’s Higaonon (highland Manobos) visitors
from Bukidnon pointed out the related words in their language
without the former’s prompting. The Bukidnon Myths and Rituals
by Carmen Ching Unabia defines bangkasu as “a four-posted altar
where ritual offerings are placed.” The Manobo Dictionary – as
spoken in the Agusan River Valley and the Diwata mountain range -
prepared by Datu Manggusawon Teofilo Gelacio, Jason Lee Kwok
Loong and Ronald Schumacher, and published by Urios College,
Butuan City, 2000, defines bangkasu: “hanging altar, a replica of the
spirit in the sky.”

118