Doc. 1596I Fr. Antonio de los Angeles, first missionary of the Ladrones (XIX)

[Customs of the Ladrones]

He says, then, that among those people, the elders are those in command, and they are obeyed by all. And, as a sign of love, they bite one another on the arms, and they sometimes even cause sores that are left uncared for, because, since they were done out of love, they let time take care of them. Their natural disposition is a loving one; when they welcome someone they kiss him on the face and they make a great display of affection. They value iron very much, to work their fields with, to sow their rice and a few local vegetable, which they use to sustain themselves. Their weapons are fire-hardened spears and slings with which they shoot round stones; they are so skilled that they hit their mark even from afar. They polish the stones they use as missiles with such effort that they look like jasper. There are some places with as many as 1,000 houses. Although they eat fish raw, without opening it, they are very healthy; they are well-shaped people and many of them look like giants. They use coconut oil to anoint their bodies to make them smell good and to get protection from the cold and the water when it rains, in order to become warm and to drain the water that falls upon them [respectively]. They are accustomed to bring presents when they go visiting; he who brings bigger gifts gets more honor. The guests are made welcome with warm water to wash themselves, and they are given something when they leave. If the object of the visit is to do some business, upon their departure they are called apart to talk business. They are happy people who love jokes. They rarely get angry; rather, if they are given an occasion to get angry, they laugh it off. Once, one of the Spaniards gave a slap in the face to one of them, because he was making some indecent gestures, but he turned the other cheek as if to invite another blow, being much vexed to see the Spaniard angry. They do the same thing among themselves, showing regret when they see others get angry. Their occupation is fishing and bartering the fish with the island [sic] where they do not have any, bringing back as a reward what they need as is lacking in their island [sic]. In their feasts, they make banquets out of rice, cooked with only in water and out of some very healthy tubers that they have. They first offer what they are about to eat to their idols, whom the call Maganitos. (1) They say that they are the souls of their dead fathers, children and relatives, whom they bury in front or under their house, out of love and respect.

When a sick person is about to die, they take him upon a board to the house of a friend and they give him a little raw fish to eat, and those present eat some of it also. Later, upon his death, they warn the people of the town and they place the outstretched body in the upper floor of the house. As the people begin to arrive, they begin to chant. To those who have chanted they give some drink and cooked rice, from the belongings of the deceased, or from some leading man, if the deceased be poor. They do not take down the body to bury it until it begins to smell bad. When they bury it, they specially hate the spitting, and nothing else is more loathsome. (2) They placed on top of the burial site a paddle or a [model] canoe, a bow and arrow, or all the fishing nets, fishhooks and knives, all of it made into bundles. They say, in their chant to the deceased, that he ought to rest among the stars, the sun and the moon, and to travel through space to come home and eat rice. They praise him for his skill at fishing and the great strength which he used to throw spears and shoot the sling, that he would go to the Spanish ships passing by there and bring back iron, that he built canoes, gave feasts to which he invited the town people, and that he owned many tortoise shell, which they placed on the grave and which they value a great deal. Those who love the deceased well cut one of his hands off; thus, some carry with them inside little boxes the hand of the dead, already dry, anointed with coconut oil, as a sign of their love. (3)

They hold their feasts with great arrangement, specially the games they are accustomed to hold to recreate themselves and to honor their idols. To the latter, they offer their seeds, the fishing nets and fishhooks, and small rice cakes which they keep later on as relics to feed the sick. And, as they are people of coarse understanding and blinded by idolatry, they understand that they were born from a [sacred] stone; every year they all go there to have a festival. Whenever the religious would tell them something about Heaven, after he had learned the language, they understood it all in the physical sense. They say that a woman gave birth to the land and the sea and everything that can be seen. When they are asked how the stone, having no eyes and unable to eat, gave birth to men, they answered that it gave birth to two men, and that one of them changed himself into a woman, and other such nonsensical things. They worship their maganitos, in the shape of stones or in whatever thing they might fancy. Even though they are thieves, they consider theft to be bad. In these islands there are no hares nor any other similar animals, and so, they do not eat meat.

Their marriage custom is as follows: The man sends a gift tot the father or owner of the woman, and they [in turn] invite him or send another [gift], and they all go to the man's house. This done, they are considered married and they live together until they get annoyed at each other, or quarrel, or find someone else they prefer. If the first husband should leave the woman pregnant and she marries someone else, the child belongs to the second husband, or to the third, if she leaves the second one. The first time the woman gets pregnant, she goes to her father's house, or that of the leading man. Everyone brings her presents of something they have. When she feels that her time has come to give birth, she goes to the house of some relative where they indulge her the most. During childbirth, she is not to complain, no matter how much pain she may get.

The women make much use of wreaths of jasmine and [other] flowers. They go about covered with some mats from the waist down and the rest without clothing. When the couple quarrel, they do not [usually] come to blows; rather, they separate. If they fight, the women come out and pull them by the hair until some village elders come up and reconcile them. The reason is that they have no king, other than them. To the aggrieved party they send a present, and they then become good friends. Because they do not take offense, they forgive easily.

May the Lord make them see the light and send them some preachers. One can be sure that they would welcome them very well, given the good treatment they gave the religious and the [two] Spaniards. According to what the three of them say, they wish very much to play hosts to the Spanish who pass by there. As they understand that they might take port there every year, they are ready with gifts of vegetables and they hope very much to barter with them, because they have a great affection for them, although they have [almost] no contacts with them. (4)

1 Ed. note: A custom similar to that of the Philippines, where spirits were also called "maganito" (singular, anito).
2 Ed. note: This must have been difficult for most of the participants who regularly chewed betel nut.
3 Ed. note: This custom of cutting off one of the corpse's hands was probably exceptional.
4 Ed. note: Father de los Angeles was sent to Spain by his provincial, Fr. Juan de Gorrovillas, as soon as he arrived at Manila, for the purpose of furthering the cause of the holy martyrs of Japan. This information is contained in a letter from F. Garrovillas to the King, dated Manila 29 June 1597 (ref. AGI 68-1-12; reproduced on pp. 463-465 of the Archivo Ibero-Americano of 1918). In this letter, the following remarks are made about the Ladrones: "One of the Fathers whom your Majesty sent last year to these islands stayed for one year at the islands of the Ladrones. He reports that he was treated well by them and says that they are peaceful and have excellent dispositions."
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From Rodrigue Lévesque, History of Micronesia Vol. 3, pages 36-38. Reproduced with permission of Lévesque Publications, 189 Dufresne, Gatineau, Québec, Canada, J8R 3E1.

Copyright © 1993 by Rodrigue Lévesque

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