APPENDIX 



HISTORICAL REFERENCES TO THE MANOBOS OF EASTERN 



MINDANAO 



EARLY HISTORY UP TO 1875 



From 1521 until 1877 Manobo history is for the most part veiled in the obscurity of tradi- 

 tional accounts of the past. Now and then it is brightened by the transient light of a missionary's 

 pen only to relapse into the unfathomable darkness of the past. The few traditions that come 

 down to us in Manobo legendary song and oral tradition furnish but little light in the darkness, 

 and that little is probably not the pure and simple light of truth, but the multicolored rays of the 

 popular imagination that have transformed warriors into giants and enemies into hideous 

 monsters. Thus Dabao, of whom mention will be made presently, was a giant according to the 

 general tradition. The Moros that invaded the Agusan are spoken of as "tailed men." There 

 is, however, one tradition — persistent and universal — to the effect that up to 1877, and even 

 later, though in a lesser degree, there was war — ruthless, relentless, never-ending war. This 

 tradition is borne out by the events that succeeded the advent of the missionaries and their 

 efforts to thrust Christianity upon a people who neither understood its doctrines nor relished its 

 rigorous precepts. 



1521 



Mention of the Agusan River and of Butuan is found in the writings of various historians, 

 notably of Father Francisco Combes ' who states that Magellan landed in Butuan in 1521. It 

 is believed by various historians that the first mass in the Philippine Islands was celebrated here, 

 and that the planting of a cross on a small promontory at the mouth of the Agusan River was 

 intended by Magellan as a formal occupation of the Philippine Islands in the name of Spain. 2 A 

 later governor, to commemorate this event, erected a monument which stands to this day near 

 the mouth of the Agusan River. 



1565-1574 



A letter from Andres Mirandola to Philip II 3 some time after the arrival of Legaspi in 1565 

 states that Mirandola was ordered to explore the islands of Magindanao and to seek a port called 

 Butuan. Upon arrival in that town he made friends with the chief. He found Moros trading 

 at the port. He describes the people as being of a warlike character. In another letter of 

 Mirandola, 4 dated 1574, we find Butuan spoken of as a district with much gold. 



1591 



In various letters and other documents translated by Blair and Robertson from original 

 sources we learn that the district of Butuan was an encomienda 6 and that tributes were collected 

 as earlv as 1591. 



1596 



In Chirino's 6 relation it is set forth that in 1596 the Jesuits, Valero de Ledesma and Manuel 

 Martinez, began their missionary labors in the Agusan Valley where they found the inhabitants 

 "by no means tractable on account of their fierce and violent nature." Christianity, however, 

 made surprising advances, so great that the principal chief of the district, Silongan, divorced 



> Historia de Mindanao y Jolo (Madrid, 1897), 76. 



1 It is strange that Pigafetta who records the doings of Magellan with such marvelous minuteness, does not mention this first mass. 



» E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 34: 202, 1906. 



' Ibid., 3: 233. 



• An encomienda was a royal allotment or grant of land, including the natives that lived thereon, to a Spaniard for the purpose of government. 



> Ibid., 12: 315. 



241 



