Doc. 1600B The second Dutchmen in Micronesia: The Olivier van Noort expedition

The Guam visit, as reported by Purchas

The voyage of Oliver Noort round about the Globe, beeing the fourth circumnavigation of the same, extracted out of the Latine Diarie.

...
On the fifteenth of September [1600], they had sight of the Ladrones. On the sixteenth, the Indians came out in their canoas, with fish, coquos, bonnanas, rootes, sugarcane, to barter for old pieces of yron: sometimes they might number two hundred of these canoas, with two, three, or five men in each, all crying, "Hiero, Hiero", that is "Yron, Yron" (1), with greedinesse overturning their canoas against the shippes side, which they regarded not, being expert swimmers, and could easily recover their boats, goods, and selves.

They were subtile deceivers, covering a basket of coquo shels, with a little rice on the toppe, as if they had been full of rice; and upon fit opportunitie snatching a sword out of the scabbard, and leaping into the sea, where with deepe and long diving, they secured themselves from shot. The women are herein equall to the men. They will fetch a piece of yron from the bottom of the sea. Their boats are nearly compact, of fifteen or twenty feet long, and 1-1/2 broad, wherewith they saile against the wind, and if they must turne, they never alter their sayle [sic],but with the poope cut the waves.

Their women cover their Eve. They are libidinous, and have thereof many pockie testimonies. This iland was called Guana, neither saw they any other. It was twentie miles large. These fruits were very comfortable to their sicke men of the scorbute.

On the seventeenth, they set sayle for the Philippinas...

1 Ed. note: We have here the confirmation that the natives of Guam were using the Spanish word "hierro", rather than their native word "ruro" (nowadays "lulo" or "lulok"). Hence there is a very good possibility that the latter was derived from the former, because iron was unknown before the advent of the Europeans.

Original narrative of Oliver North

Sources: From the 1602 French edition published by Cornelius Claessz at Amsterdam, just after the original logbook was published in Dutch at Rotterdam in 1601. Note: Charles de Brosses (1756) has copied the same French text verbatim.

The 15th of said month [September 1600] in the morning, heading W by S, during the previous night the latitude 13 deg. 30 min. & at noon the sun also at an altitude of 13 deg. 30 min. Afternoon, about 3 o'clock, saw the island WSW of us. It was low-lying land having some hills that appeared to be islands. (1) The evening, we came within three leagues from the island, lowered our large sails, kept off by tacking as close to the wind as possible during the night so as not to miss the island the next day.

The 16th in the morning, we came near the island on the east side & so, when we were still half a league away, on canoe came alongside, then many others, bringing some fruits and fish, namely, coconuts, bananas, sugarcane, which we bartered against old iron, because they covet it very much, knowing how to say it in Spanish hierro, because the Spanish stop here every year. We were also coasting the island which runs south & north about 7 or 8 leagues according to our estimate. We doubled the south cape, from which we saw a low point (2) coming out where we thought we could anchor & the canoes were coming out from all sides to barter. there must have been over 200 canoes & aboard each 2,3,4 & 5 men, pressing together noisily, shouting hiero, hiero, which means iron, iron, & because of the pressing we must have crushed 2 or 3 underneath our keel; but, they did not care, because they are very good swimmers, know how to upturn their canoes & put back everything that was in it.

These islands bear their true name of Ladrones, because everybody there is inclined to steal, & is very subtle at it, even remarkable, because they cheated us in various ways in trading with them; by placing a handful of rice on top of a basket of coconut leaves; it looks as if there was much inside, but upon opening it, one finds only leaves and other things, because when bartering they place their canoes behind or on the side of the ships without coming aboard, & one must tie a piece of iron to a cord, & take in exchange what they give. Some of them came aboard the ship, where they were given some food and drink, & one of them seeing one of our people who had a sword in hand, who was doing his turn at guard duty, grabbed it from him and leapt overboard with it, diving under the water. We aimed a few shots at others who had also stolen some things: but they all jumped overboard to avoid the shots, & the others who were not guilty did not care at all. These people live in the water as well as on land, according to our opinion, because they know how to dive so skilfully, the women as well as the men, which we noticed when we threw five pieces of iron into the water which one single man went in to get all from below, something that amazed us very much. Their canoes are very beautiful & well made, such as any that we have seen in the Indies, being about 15 or 20 feet in length, & one feet & a half wide: They knew how to handle them well, sailing before the wind rather skilfully, without turning around to tack; rather, they sail against the wind with the other end forward, leaving the sail as is, which is made of reeds like dressed sheepskin.

Some women came aboard us as well completely naked as the men, except that they had a green leaf before their middle. They wear their hair long & the men short [sic] just like we see at home Adam & Eve in paintings. These thieves are of a tanned color & seem to be very libidinous & without law, keeping their women in common; because there were quite a few of them with their tools [sic] out of order; some had their face & nose eaten by the pox, so much so that they had only a small opening for the mouth, & were showing us with a finger that this came to them from the pox. (3)

1 Ed. note: I have already made a comment in Volume 1, to the effect that such a phenomenon, i.e. Guam appearing as more than one island as seen from afar, from the east, may have fooled Pigafetta into sketching three islands for the Guam-Rota group.
2 Ed. note: Cocos Island.
3 Ed. note: This was probably leprosy, although the natives pointed out the sexual origin of the disease. De Brosses has noted that the first Dutch version (the Extract from the logbook, Rotterdam, 1601) of the narrative has a note, in French, that says, incorrectly, that the face of the natives was disfigured by smallpox ("petite verole") but the Latin version agrees with the French version: "Facies exesa lue venerea." The Dutch thought it to be the result of syphilis.
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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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