The Dominican friars, whose order was founded by Dominic de Guzman. —Translator ↩
In the story mentioned, the three monks were the old Roman god Bacchus and two of his satellites, in the disguise of Franciscan friars. —Translator ↩
According to a note to the Barcelona edition of this novel, Mendieta was a character well known in Manila, doorkeeper at the Alcaldía, impresario of children’s theaters, director of a merry-go-round, etc. —Translator ↩
The “tobacco monopoly” was established during the administration of Basco de Vargas (1778–1787), one of the ablest governors Spain sent to the Philippines, in order to provide revenue for the local government and to encourage agricultural development. The operation of the monopoly, however, soon degenerated into a system of “graft” and petty abuse which bore heartily upon the natives (see Zuñiga’s Estadismo), and the abolition of it in 1881 was one of the heroic efforts made by the Spanish civil administrators to adjust the archaic colonial system to the changing conditions in the Archipelago. —Translator ↩
As a result of his severity in enforcing the payment of sums due the royal treasury on account of the galleon trade, in which the religious orders were heavily interested, Governor Fernando de Bustillos Bustamente y Rueda met a violent death at the hands of a mob headed by friars, October 11, 1719. See Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. XLIV; Montero y Vidal, Historia General de Filipinas, Vol. I, Chap. XXXV. —Translator ↩
A reference to the fact that the clerical party in Spain refused to accept the decree of Ferdinand VII setting aside the Salic law and naming his daughter Isabella as his successor, and, upon the death of Ferdinand, supported the claim of the nearest male heir, Don Carlos de Bourbon, thus giving rise to the Carlist movement. Some writers state that severe measures had to be adopted to compel many of the friars in the Philippines to use the feminine pronoun in their prayers for the sovereign, just whom the reverend gentlemen expected to deceive not being explained. —Translator ↩
An apothegm equivalent to the English, “He’ll never set any rivers on fire.” —Translator ↩
The name of a Carlist leader in Spain. —Translator ↩
A German Franciscan monk who is said to have invented gunpowder about 1330. ↩
“He says that he doesn’t want it when it is exactly what he does want.” An expression used in the mongrel Spanish-Tagalog “market language” of Manila and Cavite, especially among the children—somewhat akin to the English “sour grapes.” —Translator ↩
Arms should yield to the toga (military to civil power). Arms should yield to the surplice (military to religious power). —Translator ↩
For “Peninsula,” i.e., Spain. The change of n to ñ was common among ignorant Filipinos. —Translator ↩
The syllables which constitute the first reading lesson in Spanish primers. —Translator ↩
A Spanish colloquial term (“cracked”), applied to a native of Spain who was considered to be mentally unbalanced from too long residence in the islands. —Translator ↩
This celebrated Lady was first brought from Acapulco, Mexico, by Juan Niño de Tabora, when he came to govern the Philippines in 1626. By reason of her miraculous powers of allaying the storms she was carried back and forth in the state galleons on a number of voyages, until in 1672 she was formally installed in a church in the hills northeast of Manila, under the care of the Augustinian Fathers. While her shrine was building she is said to have appeared to the faithful in the top of a large breadfruit tree, which is known to the Tagalogs as “antipolo”; hence her name. Hers is the best known and most frequented shrine in the country, while she disputes with the Holy Child of Cebu the glory of being the wealthiest individual in the whole archipelago.
There has always existed a pious rivalry between her and the Dominicans’ Lady of the Rosary as to which is the patron saint of the Philippines, the contest being at times complicated by counterclaims on the part of St. Francis, although the entire question would seem to have been definitely settled by a royal decree, published about 1650, officially conferring that honorable post upon St. Michael the Archangel (San Miguel). A rather irreverent sketch of this celebrated queen of the skies appears in Chapter XI of Foreman’s The Philippine Islands. —Translator ↩
Santa Cruz, Paco, and Ermita are districts of Manila, outside the Walled City. —Translator ↩
John 18:10. ↩
A town in Laguna Province, noted for the manufacture of furniture. —Translator ↩
God grant that this prophecy may soon be fulfilled for the author of the booklet and all of us who believe it. Amen. —Author’s note ↩
“Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “blessed are the possessors.” —Translator ↩
The annual celebration of the Dominican Order held in October in honor of its patroness, the Virgin of the Rosary, to whose intervention was ascribed the victory over a Dutch fleet in 1646, whence the name.
