The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 40]

I690-1691] SAN AGUSTIN ON FILIPINOS

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David, when compelled by his superior enthusiasm
to touch what he considered inferior matter, and
a habitation. In many houses this is a matter of vanity and ostentation; and they regard valuable saints as they do bureaus and
mirrors elsewhere.
"In the church great sedateness and devotion or silence reigns.
In the villages the church is divided into three parts. In one end
the women are seated, in the other the men, while the gobernadorcillos and principales occupy the center. However, this is
not observed very strictly in some villages. In some churches
there are men in the front half and women in the back half.
When a small village is founded, in order to get the concession
for a settlement and for a cura they offer to give the latter, in addition to paying the sanctorum tribute [a tribute paid to the Church
by all Philippine natives of sixteen years and over], a monthly
quantity of rice, eggs, fowls, etc., but they are afterward very
remiss in living up to their offer. Many friars have had to have
recourse to the alcaldes and to the officials of the district; and
I have even heard of one of them who had to take a musket and
kill the fowls in the yards, and carry them to the convent.
"They are very fond of singing the passion or history of the
death of Jesus Christ, which is written in Tagalog verse. During the evenings of Lent, the young men and women assemble in
the houses for this purpose. But although this was a religious
gathering at the time when it was originated, at the present time
it has been converted into a carnival amusement, or to speak more
plainly, into a pretext for the most scandalous vices; and the result of these canticles is that many of the girls of the village become enceinte. So true is what I have just said that the curas
have prohibited everywhere the singing of the passion at night;
and some of the curas go out with a whip in order to disperse
them - or rather, send the fiscal of the church to ascertain who is
singing, and send for such person immediately to beat him.
"They say that all the saints are Spanish, since the patrons
of their churches are always of this class. They would have no
veneration for a saint with a flat nose and the physiognomy of a
Filipino.
"When any sick person refuses to confess, his relatives request
him to do so. In this case they do not tell him that he will be
condemned, etc., but, 'Consider what a shame it will be; just
think what people will say; consider that you will be buried outside of holy ground.' The idea of being buried on the beach is
what gives them most fear. This can only be explained by saying
that they have seen the cemetery and the beach and not hell, nor
the other world, which, as one would believe, costs them much to
conceive-although in reality they do believe in it, in the same