Summary of the Evidence of Albo and Pigafetta

Taking the evidence of Albo’s log-book together with that form Pigafetta’s account, we may take
the following points as established:
A. Magellan’s expedition entered Philippine waters south of the island of Samar and
dropped anchor at Homonhon where they stayed a week. Then they sailed westward
towards Leyte and then southwards parallel to the eastern coast of that island and that of
the adjoining island of Panaon. Rounding the southern tip of the latter, they anchored off
the eastern shore of a small island called Mazaua. There they stayed a week, during
which on Easter Sunday they celebrated Mass and planted the cross on the summit of the
highest hill.
B. The island of Mazaua lies at a latitude of nine and two-thirds degrees North. position
(south of Leyte) and its latitude correspond to the position and latitude of the island of
Limasawa, whose southern tip lies at 9 degrees and 54 minute North.
C. From Mazaua the expedition sailed northwestwards through the Caniga channel between
Bohol and Leyte, then northerwards parallel to the easten coast of this latter island, then
they sailed westward to the Camotes Group and from there southwestwards to Cebu.
D. At no point in that itinerary did the Magellan expedition go to Butuan or any other point
on the Mindanao coast. The survivors of the expedition did go to Mindanao later, but
after Magellan's death.
The Legaspi Expedition
There is confirmatory evidence from the documents of the Legazpi expedition, which
sailed into Philippine waters in 1565, forty-four years after Magellan. One of the places that
Legazpi and his pilots quired about "Mazaua" from Camotuan and his companions, natives of the
village of Cabalian at the southeastern end of the island of Leyte. Guided by these natives, the
Legazpi ships rounded the island of "Panae" (Panaon), which was separated from Leyte by a
narrow strait, and anchored off "Mazaua" --- but they found the inhabitants to be hostile,
apparently as a result of Portuguese depredations that had occurred in the four-decade interval
between the Legazpi and the Magellan expeditions.
From Mazaua they went to Camiguing (which was "visible" from Mazaua), and from
there they intended to go to Buruan on the island of "Vindanao" but were driven instead by
contrary winds to Bohol. It was only later that a small contigent of Spaniards, in a small vessel,
managed to go to Butuan.
The point seems clear: As pilots of the Legazpi expedition understood it, Mazaua was an
island near Leyte and Panaon; Butuan was on the island of Mindanao. The two were entirely
different places and in no wise identical.
The Geography of "Mazaua"
The question may be asked: If "Mazaua" is the little island of Limasawa, why did
Magellan go there? Why go to an insignificant little island; why not instead to the larger islands?
The answer must be sought in geography. He was coasting southward down the eastern coast of
Leyte (Albo's, "Seilan"; Pigafetta's "Ceylon") with Hibuson Island on his left. This took him
down to the southern tip of what looks like a part of Leyte but is really a separate island, the
island of Panaon. When his ships rounded the tip of Panaon, the wind was blowing westward
from the Pacific. It was late March: in March and April in this part of the Philippines, the cast
wind is strong. It is what the people of Limasawa call the "Dumagsa", the east wind. Sailing with
the wind, Magellan's vessels would find themselves going west or southwest, toward the island
of Limasawa. Having seen a light on the island one night, they decided the following day to
anchor off it.
A visit to Limasawa will convince the traveller that here Indeed is the place
circumstantially described by Pigafetta. The island is shaped ‘like a tadpole, running north to
south. The northern portion is almost all hills, with the slopes dropping steeply to the sea, leaving
only narrow coastal strip. But the southern portion of the island is almost all level land with a
few hills. It has a good harbor, protected on the west by Panaon Island and on the east by
Limasawa. The fields in this portion of the island are fertile. It is easy to understand why an
expedition should wish to stay a week anchored off this fertile island where the natives were
friendly and there was enough food, water and wood. Here the Mass could be said with
solemnity. Here, on one of the hills, the cross could be planted which everyone could see from
the plain. And from the top of that hill could be seen the islands to the south, to the west and to
the east.
It is unfortunate that in the controversy that has arisen between the supporters of Butuan
and those of Limasawa, this question of geography has been given little notice.
If the island of Limasawa is the “Mazaua” of Pigafetta and the “Masava” of Albo, why
then is it now called Limasawa? Were Pigafetta and Albo wrong? Or were the historians and
map-makers wrong from the 17th century onward?
We do not have the answer to that question. Except to state that in the southern part of
Leyte, the island is still referred to by the fisherfolk as “Masaoa”, not Limasawa.

Why then the Butuan Tradition?

How then did the strong three-century tradition in favor of Butuan arise? Here we are in
the realm of conjecture, but a number of reasons could be adduced to account for the tradition.
First, it must be remembered that the tradition is based on secondhand information. One
author repeats (and often distorts) what previous authors have written, and is in turn copied (and
distorted) by subsequent authors. In such a chain, one author making a mistake could easily start
a tradition that could last three centuries.
A second reason is suggested by Pastells. Magellan and his men got to know the rajah of
Butuan at Masaua. According to Pigafetta, that rajah was at Masaua only on a visit. But it is easy
to see how the fact that Magellan had known the rajah of Butuan could be misunderstood by later
historians as meaning that he had known him at Butuan.
There is a third reason. It must be remembered that the Butuan tradition, while erroneous
as to the site of the first Mass, is not entirely without validity. Magellan’s expedition, after
Magellan’s death, visited several places in Mindanao, very probably including Butuan. (The
riverine community described by Pigafetta in a later section of his account could have been
Butuan.) Certainly, forty years later, members of Legazpi’s expedition visited Butuan. The
people of the district would remember these visits by the bearded white-skinhead men from
Europe in their big ships, and a tradition could have grown among the people that” the first
Spaniards came here.” The Spanish missionaries coming to Butuan would pick up this tradition
and come to the conclusion that Magellan’s expedition had visited Butuan. They would not have
been entirely wrong in that conclusion, as survivors of Magellan’s expedition may actually have
visited Butuan but after Magellan’s death at Mactan. From the tradition that “Magellan visited
Butuan, “it is easy for incautious historians to conclude that “therefore the first Mass must have
been celebrated at Butuan.”
Son the other hand, the Butuan tradition may not have started in Butuan but in Europe. In
that supposition, two questions might be asked: who started it, and how wat Estarted? The
answer to the first question (who?) is not clear, the answer to the second (how?) is clear enough.
To illustrate how easily a second hand source could be mistaken in a matter like the site of the
first Mass, all we have to do is to examine the evidence of the earliest and most important of the
second-hand sources, namely Maximilian of Transylvania, commonly known as Transylvanus.
His letter, De Moluccis Insulis was the first published account of Magellan expedition. It was
first printed at Cologne in January 1523, only two years after Magellan’s discovery of the
Philippine Islands Maximilian got his data from the survivors who had returned on the
“Victoria.” His account is therefore important, but it is a second-hand account. Here is what he
says:
Our men having taken in water in Acaca, sailed towards Selani; here a storm took them,
so that they could not bring the ships to that island, but were driven to another island called
Massaua, where lives a king of three islands, after that they arrived at Subuth. This is an
excellent and large island, and having made a treaty with its chieftain, they landed immediately
to perform divine service, according to the manner of the Christians, for it was the feast of the
resurrection of Him who was our salvation.
Maximilian locates the first Mass on Easter Sunday, 1521, at Cebu, which he spells
Subuth. He is clearly wrong: but if he could make a mistake who had eyewitnesses of the event
for his source, how much easier was it for later writers to err, who had to depend on second- or
third- or fourth-hand testimony for their data?
One thing is clear: whoever started the tradition that the first Mass was celebrated at
Butuan, it was certainly neither Pigafetta nor Albo, nor Maximilian of Transylvania.