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. 48]

1751-1765] LATER AUGUSTINIAN MISSIONS

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superstitions which those infidel communities maintain, but also the frivolous beliefs in which the peoples of Philipinas were living before they could
receive our holy faith, I have thought it well to reserve this information for this place-observing,
moreover, that among the Christian communities
hardly a trace of these things is now encountered.
This is the result of the labors, past and present, of
the religious in extirpating them, and even in so
short a time they have been able to banish them;
while in our Europa, and even in our Espafia, after
so many centuries remnants of the ancient paganism
are still frequently encountered.... Those of
whom we are speaking believe that every forest,
every mountain, every river, and every grove has a
powerful spirit who rules in those places; they call
him Nono, which signifies "grandfather"-by which
name I understand they call him, partly because they
think that the said spirit is that of some one of the
powerful ones who once lived there, and also partly
on account of the extreme veneration which those
people have for their old men. It is also very credible that this foolish belief among them comes from
their neighbors the Chinese, who likewise attribute
to every river, forest, field, and grove these Penates
and fauns, giving them a name which signifies the
ruler and master of those places. They believe,
then, that this spirit which they say rules there has
his dwelling in some one of those trees which are
most distinguished for size and for abundance of
leaves, as likewise in some great heaps of earth,
shaped like a sugar-loaf, which are made by a kind
of ants, very destructive, which they call anay," of
44"Termes monocerus (Koen), the common name for which
is anay. The anay, or white ant, is a very remarkable insect,