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    The Site of The First Mass in The Philippines

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    KIM IVAN SUMAGAYSAY
    The document discusses the controversy over the site of the first mass celebrated in the Philippines. There are two theories - one that it was on the island of Limasawa south of Leyte, and the other that it was on a beach called Masao near Butuan in northern Mindanao. The document analyzes primary sources like Pigafetta's account and Albo's logbook, and argues that the evidence from these eyewitnesses supports Limasawa as the site, not Butuan, based on details of the route taken, islands mentioned, and lack of any reference to a river as would be expected at Butuan. It summarizes that the survivors of Magellan's voyage did not go to Butuan or the

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    The Site of The First Mass in The Philippines

    Uploaded by

    KIM IVAN SUMAGAYSAY
    176 views22 pages
    The document discusses the controversy over the site of the first mass celebrated in the Philippines. There are two theories - one that it was on the island of Limasawa south of Leyte, and the other that it was on a beach called Masao near Butuan in northern Mindanao. The document analyzes primary sources like Pigafetta's account and Albo's logbook, and argues that the evidence from these eyewitnesses supports Limasawa as the site, not Butuan, based on details of the route taken, islands mentioned, and lack of any reference to a river as would be expected at Butuan. It summarizes that the survivors of Magellan's voyage did not go to Butuan or the

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    The-Site-of-the-First-Mass-in-the-Philippines

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    The document discusses the controversy over the site of the first mass celebrated in the Philippines. There are two theories - one that it was on the island of Limasawa south of Leyte, and the other that it was on a beach called Masao near Butuan in northern Mindanao. The document analyzes primary sources like Pigafetta's account and Albo's logbook, and argues that the evidence from these eyewitnesses supports Limasawa as the site, not Butuan, based on details of the route taken, islands mentioned, and lack of any reference to a river as would be expected at Butuan. It summarizes that the survivors of Magellan's voyage did not go to Butuan or the

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    176 views22 pages

    The Site of The First Mass in The Philippines

    Uploaded by

    KIM IVAN SUMAGAYSAY
    The document discusses the controversy over the site of the first mass celebrated in the Philippines. There are two theories - one that it was on the island of Limasawa south of Leyte, and the other that it was on a beach called Masao near Butuan in northern Mindanao. The document analyzes primary sources like Pigafetta's account and Albo's logbook, and argues that the evidence from these eyewitnesses supports Limasawa as the site, not Butuan, based on details of the route taken, islands mentioned, and lack of any reference to a river as would be expected at Butuan. It summarizes that the survivors of Magellan's voyage did not go to Butuan or the

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 22

    The Site of the First Mass in the Philippines

    Introduction
    There is a controversy regarding the site of the first Mass ever celebrated
    on Philippine soil. Pigafetta tells us that it was held on Easter Sunday, the
    31st of March 1521, on an island called “Mazaua.” Two native chieftains
    were in attendance: the rajah of Mazaua and the rajah of Butuan. After the
    Mass the party went up a little hill and planted a wooden cross upon it’s
    summit. The subject of controversy is the identity of this place which
    Pigafetta calls “Mazaua.” There are two conflicting claims as to its identity:
    one school of thought points to the little island south of Leyte which in the
    maps is called Limasawa; the other school rejects that claim and points
    instead to the beach called Masao at the Agusan River in northern
    Mindanao, near what was then the village (now the city) of Butuan.
    Position
    Limasawa Tradition
    Reference

    Primary Sources (translated in English)

    • An excerpt of Antonio Pigafetta’s Account


    • An account of Francisco Albo’s logbook
    Secondary Sources

    Butuan or Limasawa? The Site of the First Mass in the Philippines: A


    Reexamination of the Evidence
    Methodology
    Source Criticism
    Form Criticism
    Canonical Criticism
    Butuan Tradition:
    17th Century

    - Colin had obviously read some authentic accounts of Magellan’s voyage,


    for his narration is accurate up to the landing in Homonhon. After that,
    Colin’s account becomes vague. He abruptly brings Magellan to Butuan
    without explaining how he got there.
    - Combe’s gives a somewhat different version of the route taken by the
    Discoverer in his account of Magellan’s voyage. For our present purpose,
    the main point in that account is that Magellan landed at Butuan and
    there planted the cross in a solemn ceremony. Combe’s does not mention
    the first Mass.
    18th Century

    - One passage in Colin which seems to have been misunderstood, and


    which may have misled some later writers, occurs in an early section
    of his book in which he describes the island of Mindanao.
    19th Century

    - Towards the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th,
    one of the important writers who accepted the Butuan Tradition was
    the Augustanian, fray Joaquin Martinez de Zuniga. By the 19th century,
    the Butuan Tradition was taken for granted, and we find it mentioned
    in writer after writer, each copying from the previous, and being in
    turn copied by those who came after.
    The Shift in Opinion
    - Butuan Tradition which was so well entrenched for three centuries
    finally dislodged.
    - Some recent defenders of the Butuan Tradition have blamed the shift
    of opinion on two Americans, namely Emma Blair and James
    Alexander Robertson indeed contributed enormously to the shift in
    opinion but the man initially responsible for the shift seems to have
    been a Spanish Jesuit scholar Father Pablo Pastells.
    - The shift in opinion from Butuan to Limasawa was due to a
    rediscovery and a more attentive study of two primary sources on the
    subject: namely, Pigafetta’s account and Albo’s log.
    The Evidence for Limasawa:
    1. The evidence of Albo’s Log-Book
    2. The evidence of Pigafetta
    (a) Pigafetta’s testimony regarding the route;
    (b) The evidence of Pigafetta’s map;
    (c) The two native kings;
    (d) The seven days at “Mazaua”;
    (e) An argument from omission.
    3. Summary of the evidence of Albo and Pigafetta.
    4. Confirmatory evidence from the Legazpi expedition.
    The Evidence of Albo’s Log-Book

    - Francisco Albo joined the Magellan expedition as a pilot (contra-


    maestre) in Magellan’s flagship “Trinidad.” He was one of the
    eighteen survivors who returned with Sebastian Elcano on the
    “Victoria” after having circumnavigated the world. Albo began
    keeping his own diary merely only a log-book on the voyage out,
    while they were sailing southward in the Atlantic along the coast of
    South America, off Brazil.
    The Evidence from Pigafetta

    - The most complete account of the Magellan expedition is that by


    Antonio Pigafetta entitled Primo viaaggio intomi al mondo (First
    Voyage Around the World). Like Albo, he was a member of the
    expedition and was therefore an eyewitnesses of the principal events
    which he describes, including the first Mass in what is now known as
    the Philippine Archipelago, but which Magellan called the Islands of
    Saint Lazarus.
    (a) Pigafetta’s Testimony Regarding the Route

    Saturday, 16 March 1521 – Magellan’s expedition sighted a “high land”


    named “Zamal.”
    Sunday, 17 March – After sighting Zamal Island, they landed on another
    island named “Humunu” (Homonhon).
    Monday, 18 March – Their second day on that island, they saw a boat
    coming towards them with nine men in it.
    Friday, 22 March – At noon the natives returned. This time they were in
    two boats, and they brought food supplies.
    Monday, 25 March – In the afternoon, the expedition weighed anchor and
    left the island of Homonhon.
    Thursday, 28 March - Previous night they had seen a light or a
    bonfire.
    Thursday, 4 April – They left Mazaua, bound for Cebu.
    Sunday, 7 April – At noon on Sunday, the 7th of April, they entered
    the harbor “Zubu” (Cebu).
    (b) The evidence of Pigafetta’s Maps

    - Pigafetta was no cartographer and his maps had probably no value as


    navigational charts. But they are extremely useful in helping to identify
    the islands which he mentions in the narrative, and they help to
    establish the relative positions (and even the relative sizes) of those
    islands.
    (c) The Two Kings

    - There is confirmatory evidence in the presence of two native “kings”


    or rajahs at Mazaua during the Magellan visit. One was the “king” of
    Mazaua who later guided the Magellan expedition to Cebu. The other
    was a relative (“one of his brothers” as Pigafetta says), namely the
    king or rajah of Butuan.
    (d) Seven Days at Mazaua

    Thursday, 28 March - In the morning they anchored near an island


    where they had seen a light the night before.
    Friday, 29 March – “Next day. Holy Friday,” Magellan sent his slave
    interpreter ashore in a small boat to ask the king if he could provide the
    expedition with food supplies, and to say that they had come as friends
    and not as enemies.
    Saturday, 30 March - Pigafetta and his companion had spent the
    previous evening feasting and drinking with the native king and his son.
    Sunday, 31 March - “Early in the morning of Sunday, the last of March
    and Easter day,” Magellan sent the priest ashore with some men to
    prepare for the Mass.
    Monday, 1 April – Magellan sent men ashore to help with the harvest,
    but no work was done that day because the two kings were sleeping
    off their drinking bout of the night before.
    Tuesday, 2 April, and Wednesday, 3 April – Work on the harvest
    during the “next two days”, i.e. Tuesday and Wednesday, the 2nd and
    3rd of April.
    Thursday, 4 April - They leave Mazaua, bound for Cebu.
    (e) An Argument from Omission

    - The fact that there is no mention of the river is a significant fact in


    Pigafetta’s account of their seven-day stay at “Mazaua.” We must
    therefore take him literally: Mazaua was an island surrounded by sea,
    not a river delta.
    Summary of the Evidence of Albo and Pigafetta

    - 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 Legazpi Expedition

    - The point seem 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.

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