Magellan never went to Butuan
Credit to Author: YEN MAKABENTA| Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2019 18:18:05 +0000
IN the book, The Great Island, Fr. Miguel Bernad, S.J., also included a long scholarly essay on the centuries-old controversy regarding the site of the first mass celebrated in the Philippine islands, which has exercised many Filipinos and scholars, including those of our present generation.
According to Antonio Pigafetta, the Italian chronicler of the Magellan expedition, the mass was held on Easter Sunday, 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 its summit.”
The subject of controversy is the identity of Mazaua. There are two conflicting claims as to its identity. One school of thought points to the small island south of Leyte, which on the map is called Limasawa. The other school rejects that claim and points instead to the beach called ‘ao,’ at the mouth of the Agusan River in northern Mindanao, near the village (now the city) of Butuan.
In his article, Fr. Bernad reexamines and assesses the evidence for these two claims. He gives each claim its due and a hearing of whatever evidence are in its favor.
I should disclose here that I am not the first to take up this subject in the Manila Times. Just recently, a colleague, Michael ‘Xiao’ Chua, in his column of Jan. 20, 2019 reported that a panel has been created to review the Butuan claim to have been the site of the first mass.
The Butuan claim
Fr. Bernad’s presentation of the historical records and his assessment of the arguments speak eloquently for itself. He backs up each finding with generous citations in his notes and a bibliography.
I was frankly surprised by Fr. Bernad‘s report that the Butuan claim has been the more ascendant and persistent, reigning over public opinion for some three centuries, the 17th, the 18th and the 19th century.
On the strength of this tradition, a monument was erected in 1872 at the mouth of the Agusan River. The monument was erected apparently at the instigation of the parish priest of Butuan, who at the time was a Spanish friar of the Order of Augustinian Recollects. The date given for the first Mass was April 8, 1521, an obvious error that may have been due to an anachronistic attempt to translate the original date in the Gregorian calendar.
The monument is a testimonial to the Butuan tradition that remained vigorous until the end of the 19th century, which held that Magellan and his expedition landed in Butuan, and celebrated there the first mass on Philippine soil.
Because the Butuan tradition had already been established by the middle of the 17h century, it was accepted without question by two Jesuit historians who got misled by their facts.
On historian was Fr. Francisco Colin, S.J. (1592-1660), whose Labor Evangelica was first published in Madrid in 1663, three years after his death. He provided in the book an account of Magellan’s arrival and the first mass.
The other Jesuit writer of the mid-17th century was Francisco Combes S.J. (1620-1665), who had lived and worked as a missionary in the Philippines. His Historia de Mindanao y Jolo was printed in Madrid in 1667, four years after Colin’s work was published.
Colin and Combes gave different accounts of the route taken by Magellan. But they asserted that Magellan landed in Butuan and there planted the cross in a solemn ceremony.
Both Colin and Combes pictured Magellan as visiting both Butuan and Limasawa.
Both Colin and Combes agree that it was from Limasawa and with the help of Limasawa’s chieftain that the Magellan expedition went to Cebu. Magellan arrived in Cebu on April 7, 1521, one week after the first mass.
In the 19th century, the Butuan tradition was taken for granted and it is mentioned by writer after writer, each copying from the previous one, and being in turn copied by those who came after.
The accumulated errors of three centuries are found in the work of Dominican friar, Valentin Morales y Marin, whose two-volume treatise on the friars was published in Santo Tomas in Manila in 1901.
As late as the 1920s, the Philippine history textbook used at the Ateneo de Manila used the Butuan tradition.
Opinion shifts to Limasawa
How did the shift in opinion from Butuan to Limasawa come about?
Blame was at first laid on the Americans Emma Blair and James Alexander Robertson, who authored the 55-volume collection of documents on the Philippines Island that was published in Cleveland from 1903 to 1909.
The cause of the shift in opinion was the publication in 1894 of Pigafetta’s account, as contained in the Ambrosian Codex.
Pigafetta was the chronicler of the Magellan expedition in 1521 that brought Europeans for the first time to the archipelago.
Pigafetta’s narrative was reproduced with English translation, notes, bibliography and index in Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands, volumes 33 and 34.
Following the publication of the Pigafetta text in 1894, two Philippine scholars called attention to the fact that the Butuan tradition had been a mistake. One of the scholars was Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera. The other was the Spanish Jesuit missionary, Pablo Pastells, S.J.
Fr. Pastells prepared a new edition of Fr Colin’s Labor Evangelica, which was published in 1902, and which contained a correction about the first mass.
Pastells‘ shift in opinion from Butuan to Limasawa was due to a rediscovery and a more attentive study of the primary sources on the subject:
Pigafetta’s account and Francisco Albo’s log of the expedition. Pigafetta and Albo were eyewitnesses.
Pastells wrote:
“Magellan did not go to Butuan. Rather, from the island of Limasawa, he proceeded directly to Cebu.”
Among the Philippine scholars of the early 20th century who rejected the Butuan tradition in favor of Limasawa was Jayme de Veyra.
Since then, the Limasawa opinion has been generally accepted, although there remains a small but vigorous group determined to push the Butuan claim.
Fr. Bernad summarized the evidence for Limasawa as follows:
1. The evidence from Albo’s logbook
2. The evidence of Pigafetta
a. Pigafetta’s testimony regarding the route
b. The evidence of Pigafetta’s maps
c. The two native kings
d. The seven days at ‘Mazaua’
3. Confirmatory evidence from the Legazpi expedition.
Consequently, the Butuan claim as the site of the first Mass has no leg to stand on.
Ferdinand Magellan never visited Butuan.
The Resil Mojares panel has a huge mountain to scale in Fr. Bernad’s scholarly reexamination and analysis.
yenmakabenta@yahoo.com
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