Talk:Dimasaua

Tracing back to source a grave historiographical error

The Dimasaua article touches on a controversy in the Philippines that has been raging on for over half a century. It pertains to an episode in Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe that occurred in Philippine waters. On March 28-April 4, 1521 the Armada de Molucca anchored at an isle named Mazaua. Because of a series of errors in translation of the account by Antonio Pigafetta of the voyage, and misappreciation of sources and evidence, Mazaua--the name and the island itself--was transformed into another name, Limasawa, which points to another island.

Mazaua was an isle with a good port while Limasawa, according to the Coast Pilot, affords no good anchorage for today's motorized vessels. The sailing ships of the 16th century would have found no anchorage at all because of the "abyssal depth" of Limasawa's shoreline and the limited equipment for anchoring at the time.

This article is a historiographical study--the only one ever attempted--that traces the entire process of how a good port, Mazaua, became today's Limasawa that essentially has no anchorage for sailing ships. It locates this process at the moment Fr. Francisco Colín resolves the conflicting stories of his two sources, Giovanni Battista Ramusio who wrote the port was Butuan, and Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas who wrote a correct version of the episode that the port was "Mazagua", a Hispanicized spelling of a word, "masawa", in the local language of the area, Butuanonon.

The error was based on a correct principle of evidence, the rule of immediacy, which says that which is nearest to the event has a higher value, i.e., between the secondhand account of Herrera and the firsthand account of Pigafetta the latter has greater evidentiary worth. The problem was that Ramusio's rendition of Pigafetta was hopelessly garbled; so corrupted it is not Pigafetta's at all! Ramusio changed Mazaua, an island, with Butuan which is not an island. How this mistake was made is hard if not impossible to explain. It was Herrera's story that was faithful to the event.

Colín faced a dilemma--choosing between Ramusio's Butuan and Herrera's Mazagua. His solution led to the invention of the word "Dimasaua", consisting of the Bisaya prefix "di" meaning not and Herrera's "Mazagua." "Dimasaua" thus signifies his interpretation of the episode and signifies "this is not Herrera's Mazagua where a mass was supposed to have been held on March 31, 1521 which I already described as occurring in Butuan."

My article further traces the evolution of Dimasaua to Limasaua, another invented word. This neologism is the handiwork of another priest, Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J., who wrote of the episode of Magellan's port five years later. Combés, whose operation is opaque--he does not explicitly cite his sources unlike Colín--adopted the latter's solution to the dilemma which is to pair Herrera's "Mazagua" with a prefix. But he rejected the Bisayan "di" for a very compelling reason: his story does not contain reference to an Easter Sunday mass since his source, a different version of Ramusio, does not mention it.

Combés conjures a syllable, "li", whose provenience is untraceable to any relevant language of the Magellan story.

Ironically, his invention, Limasaua, is the name of today's isle that is popularly believed to be the site of the "First mass in the Philippines." How this came about is explained partly in my article here and in another article of mine at Wikipedia on Carlo Amoretti who may be said to be the "father" of the Limasaua hypothesis.

By going back to the time of "creation" we are able to see that the name "Limasawa" and the island's fame are mutually contradictory. --Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 23:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sources of Colín

There are two main sources cited by Fr. Francisco Colín, S.J., Giovanni Battista Ramusio whose work was mistaken for Antonio Pigafetta's account of the Magellan navigation and Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas whose story on the Mazaua landfall was based on the papers of Andrés de San Martín, chief pilot-astrologer of Magellan's Armada de Molucca.

The Ramusio story has at least two versions, one represented by the 1555 English translation by Richard Eden and another version represented by the 1625 English translation by Samuel Purchas. Colín used the first version which must have been derived from the 1563 edition of Ramusio's Vol. I where for the first time Ramusio's name appears as translator. The following are the accounts of Ramusio by Eden and by Herrera:

Giovanni Battista Ramusio account as translated by Richard Eden

In 1536 a book came out anonymously, probably published by Zoppini? in Venice? There is no certainty as to who the publisher was and where it was printed. This was a retranslation back to Italian of a French translation supposedly by Jacopo Fabri from an original Italian text of Antonio Pigafetta's account of the Magellan voyage.

This same Italian translation came out again anonymously in Vol. I of a compilation of travel accounts titled Delle navigationi e viaggi...Venice: Pp. 380-98. In the 1554 edition of Vol. I, the account again appears anonymously. Only in the 1563 edition does the name of Giovanni Battista Ramusio appear as author.

This edition was translated into English by Richard Eden, a graduate of Cambridge University, who published his compedium of travel stories in 1555 under the title The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India...Wrytten by Peter Martyr...and translated into Englysshe by Rycharde Eden. London, G. Power. Ramusio's work came under the title "A briefe declaration of the vyage or nauigation made abowte the worlde. Gathered owt of a large booke written hereof by Master Antoine Pygafetta..."

The spelling is quaint English of the Elizabethan era.

"The XXVII daye of Marche, they came to the Ilande of Buthuan where they were honorably interteyned of the Kynge and the Prince his soonne who gave them muche golde and Spice. The capitayne gave the kynge a vesture of red clothe and another of yelowe made after the Turkysshe fashyon, and also a red cappe....

"The laste day of Marche neare unto Easter, the capitaine caused his preeste to say masse, and sente to the kynge by the interpretoure, that his commynge a lande at that tyme was not to dyne with hyme, but only to heare masse. The Capitayne came alande with fyftie of his men in theyr best apparel with owte weapons or harnesse, and all the resydue well warmed. Before the boates came to lande, he caused fire pieces of ordinaunce to be shotte of in token of peace, and so came aland, where the two kinges embraced hym, and accompanyd hym to the place appoynted for masse to be sayde not farre frome the seasyde. Sumwhat before the beginnynge of masse, the Capitayne sprinkeled the kynges with damaske water. When the preeste was at mid masse at the offertorie, the kings profered them sclues to go to kysse the crosse with the capytayne, but offered nothynge. At the tyme of sacringe when the preeste lifted uppe the bodie of Christ, and the Christians kneeled downe and helde uppe their handes joyned together, the kinges dyd the like also with greate reverence. In the same tyme, whyle certeyne of the Christians were at the communion, a handegunne was shotte of to signifie unto theym that were in the shyppes, to discharge all thyre ordinaunce. When masse was fynysshed, the Capitaine caused certeyne of his men to put on theyr harness and to make a combat with theyr naked boddies, wherat the kynges tooke great pleasure. This doone, the Capitaine caused a crosse to be brought forth, with nayles and a crowne of thornes, gyvynge commandement to all his men to gyve reverence therunto, and signifyinge to the kynges by the interpretour that that banner was..."

Antonio de Herrera's Mazaua

One of the sources of Fr. Colín was Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas who wrote Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierrafirme del mar oceano, t. VI. Madrid: 1601. De Herrera identified Andrés de San Martín as one of his authorities for his story of Magellan's circumnavigation.

Andrés de San Martín was chief pilot-astrologer of the Armada de Molucca. He one of the finest mariners of the Renaissance period, who twice during the Magellan voyage was able to determine the longitudes of two places, a feat unequaled for two hundred years. His Treatise and other papers were entrusted to Ginés de Mafra at Cebu sometime before May 1, 1521 the day a number of the fleet crewmembers including San Martín was massacred by Rajah Humabon and his subjects.

These papers were confiscated from de Mafra, a prisoner of the Portuguese, upon his arrival in Lisbon in July 1526. These were combed by Portuguese historians of that time and these were transferred to Madrid sometime during the unification of Spain and Portugal from 1580-1640.

Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas was official chronicler of the Spanish royal court in 1596. Herrera extensively used the papers of San Martin and his story of the Mazaua incident was the only faithful chronicle up until 1800. De Herrera is the source of the word "masawa" for Fr. Francisco Colín's "Dimasaua" and five years later for Fr. Francisco Combés "Limasaua." De Herrera chirography of the place name is "Mazagua" which is phonetically identical to "masawa" a word coming from the native language, Butuanon, of that place. "Gu" is the Hispanicized equivalent of w, a letter absent in the alphabet of Romance languages. Herrera's "Mazaua" is the only source of that word from published materials in the entire period beginning from the 16th century until 1890 when the biography of Magellan by F.H.H. Guillemard saw print; the word "Mazzava" appears on page 229 where the value of "v" is w.

All the other printed documents either had "Messana" or "Massana" as the name of the island-port. Even as late as 1894, Andrea da Mosto's faithful transcription into modern Italian of the Ambrosiana codex, which established the text of Pigafetta and on which James Alexander Robertson based his classic English translation, the name of the Armada's anchorage was still "Mazana," which is a throwback to the name given by Maximilianus Transylvanus.

Here is de Herrera's reconstruction of the Mazaua incident:

"We discovered many other islands, from which we got many supplies, and an Indian Magellan brought aboard who knew the language [Malay]; navigating through these islands, there appeared a small isle called Mazagua near a small village.

"Their King [Raia Siaiu in Antonio Pigafetta's account] sent a boat with 10 men, to find out what we sailed in there for and what we were looking for and because he knew the language, Magellan [through the Malay slave, Enrique] answered:

" We are subjects of the King of Spain who desires peace with you. And to buy merchandise to bring and if you have food, tell us which and we will pay for those.'

"Their King replied: 'We don't have very much for our own people, but we will share what we have with you.'

"The boats brought 4 pigs, 3 goats and some rice; and because that day was the celebration of the Feast of Resurrection, Magellan ordered all to attend and hear mass, and a large cross was placed atop a high hill, and because other boats brought it there, it was evident there were Christians in that isle.

"Magellan asked the King if there was some place where they could dock. He said: "About 20 leagues away lies a big island where the King, who is my kin, would give you what you need." And because the guides were with him, here offered to go himself. The King went aboard with some Indians. Arriving at the island of Cebu (as it was called), from a village came more than 2000 men armed with lances and arrows, and from the beach looked with awe at the ships they had never seen before. The King of Mazagua landed." [Translation of pages 22-23 of Herrera's "Third Decade" by Roger C. Birosel] --Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 07:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)