The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
tax had been paid, known as the _cédula personal_, which also served
for personal identification, could be required at any time or place,
and failure to produce it was cause for summary arrest. It therefore
became, in unscrupulous hands, a fruitful source of abuse, since any
"undesirable" against whom no specific charge could be brought might
be put out of the way by this means.--TR.
[125] Tanawan or Pateros?--_Author's note_. The former is a town in
Batangas Province, the latter a village on the northern shore of the
Lake of Bay, in what is now Rizal Province.--TR.
[126] The Spanish Parliament.--TR.
[127] _Lásak, talisain_, and _bulik_ are some of the numerous terms
used in the vernacular to describe fighting-cocks.--TR.
[128] Another form of the corruption of _compadre_, "friend,"
"neighbor."--TR.
[129] It is a superstition of the cockpit that the color of the victor
in the first bout decides the winners for that session: thus, the red
having won, the _lásak_, in whose plumage a red color predominates,
should be the victor in the succeeding bout.--TR.
[130] The dark swallows will return.
[131] General Carlos Maria de let Torte y Nava Carrada, the first
"liberal" governor of the Philippines, was Captain-General from 1869
to 1871. He issued an amnesty to the outlaws and created the Civil
Guard, largely from among those who surrendered themselves in response
to it.--TR.
[132] After the conquest (officially designated as the "pacification"),
the Spanish soldiers who had rendered faithful service were allotted
districts known as _encomiendas_, generally of about a thousand
natives each. The _encomendero_ was entitled to the tribute from the
people in his district and was in return supposed to protect them and
provide religious instruction. The early friars alleged extortionate
greed and brutal conduct on the part of the _encomenderos_ and made
vigorous protests in the natives' behalf.--TR.
[133] Horse and cow.
[134] Fray Gaspar de San Agustin, O.S.A., who came to the Philippines
in 1668 and died in Manila in 1724, was the author of a history
of the conquest, but his chief claim to immortality comes from a
letter written in 1720 on the character and habits of "the Indian
inhabitants of these islands," a letter which was widely circulated
and which has been extensively used by other writers. In it the
writer with senile querulousness harped up and down the whole gamut
of abuse in describing and commenting upon the vices of the natives,
very artlessly revealing the fact in many places, however, that his
observations were drawn principally from the conduct of the servants
in the conventos and homes of Spaniards. To him in this letter is
due the credit of giving its wide popularity to the specious couplet:
El bejuco crece (The rattan thrives
Donde el indio nace, Where the Indian lives,)
which the holy men who delighted in quoting it took as an additional
evidence of the wise dispensation of the God of Nature, rather
inconsistently overlooking its incongruity with the teachings of Him
in whose name they assumed their holy office.
It seems somewhat strange that a spiritual father should have written
in such terms about his charges until the fact appears that the letter
was addressed to an influential friend in Spain for use in opposition
to a proposal to carry out the provisions of the Council of Trent by
turning the parishes in the islands over to the secular, and hence,
native, clergy. A translation of this bilious tirade, with copious
annotations showing to what a great extent it has been used by other
writers, appears in Volume XL of Blair and Robertson's _The Philippine
Islands.--_ TR.
[135] The Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion Concordia, situated
near Santa Ana in the suburbs of Manila, was founded in 1868 for
the education of native girls, by a pious Spanish-Filipino lady,
who donated a building and grounds, besides bearing the expense of
bringing out seven Sisters of Charity to take charge of it.--TR.
[136] The execution of the Filipino priests Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora,
in 1872.--TR.
[137] The fair day is foretold by the morn.
[138] _Paracmason_, i.e. freemason.
[139] Scholastic theologians.--TR.
[140] And yet it does move!
[141] I am a man and nothing that concerns humanity do I consider
foreign to me.
[142] A portion of the closing words of Virgil's third eclogue,
equivalent here to "Let the curtain drop."--TR.
[143] "Whatever is hidden will be revealed, nothing will remain
unaccounted for." From _Dies Irae_, the hymn in the mass for the dead,
best known to English readers from the paraphrase of it in Scott's
_Lay of the Last Minstrel_. The lines here quoted were thus metrically
translated by Macaulay:
"What was distant shall be near,
What was hidden shall be clear."--TR.
[144] A common nickname. See the Glossary, under _Nicknames.--TR_.
[145] The Marianas, or Ladrone Islands, were used as a place of
banishment for political prisoners.--TR.
[146] "Evil Omen," a nickname applied by the friars to General Joaquin
Jovellar, who was governor of the Islands from 1883 to 1885. It fell
to the lot of General Jovellar, a kindly old man, much more soldier
than administrator, to attempt the introduction of certain salutary
reforms tending toward progress, hence his disfavor with the holy
fathers. The mention of "General J----" in the last part of the
epilogue probably refers also to him.--TR.
[147] A celebrated Italian astronomer, member of the Jesuit Order. The
Jesuits are still in charge of the Observatory of Manila.--TR.
[148] "Our Lady of the Girdle" is the patroness of the Augustinian
Order.--TR.
[149] This image is in the six-million-peso steel church of
St. Sebastian in Manila. Something of her early history is thus given
by Fray Luis de Jesus in his _Historia_ of the Recollect Order (1681):
"A very holy image is revered there under the title of Carmen. Although
that image is small in stature, it is a great and perennial spring
of prodigies for those who invoke her. Our religious took it from
Nueva España (Mexico), and even in that very navigation she was able
to make herself known by her miracles .... That most holy image is
daily frequented with vows, presents, and novenas, thank-offerings
of the many who are daily favored by that queen of the skies."--Blair
and Robertson, _The Philippine Islands_, Vol. XXI, p. 195.
[150] The oldest and most conservative newspaper in Manila at the
time this work was written.--TR.
[151] Following closely upon the liberal administration of La Torre,
there occurred in the Cavite arsenal in 1872 a mutiny which was
construed as an incipient rebellion, and for alleged complicity in it
three native priests, Padres Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, were garroted,
while a number of prominent Manilans were deported.--TR.
[152] What do I see? ... Wherefore?
[153] What do you wish? Nothing is in the intellect which has not first
passed through the senses; nothing is willed that is not already in
the mind.
[154] Where in the world are we?
[155] The uprising of Ibarra suppressed by the alferez of the Civil
Guard? And now?
[156] Friend, Plato is dear but truth is dearer ... It's a bad business
and a horrible result from these things is to be feared.
[157] Against him who denies the fundamentals, clubs should be used
as arguments.
[158] Latin prayers. "Agnus Dei Catolis" for "Agnus Dei qui tollis"
(John I. 29).
[159] Woe unto them! Where there's smoke there's fire! Like seeks like;
and if Ibarra is hanged, therefore you will be hanged.
[160] I do not fear death in bed, but upon the mount of Bagumbayan.
[161] The first part of a Spanish proverb: "Gifts break rocks, and
enter without gimlets."
[162] What is written is evidence! What medicines do not cure, iron
cures; what iron does not cure, fire cures.
[163] In extreme cases, extreme measures.
[164] Do you wish to keep it also, traitress?
[165] Go, accursed, into the fire of the kalan.
[166] The first part of a Spanish proverb: "Cría cuervos y te sacarán
los ojos," "Rear crows and they will pick your eyes out."--TR.
[167] Believe me, cousin ... what has happened, has happened; let
us give thanks to God that you are not in the Marianas Islands,
planting camotes. (It may be observed that here, as in some of his
other speeches, Don Primitivo's Latin is rather Philippinized.)--TR.
[168] The original is in the _lingua franca_ of the Philippine Chinese,
a medium of expression _sui generis_, being, like, Ulysses, "a part
of all that he has met," and defying characteristic translation:
"No siya ostí gongon; miligen li Antipolo esi! Esi pueli más con tolo;
no siya ostí gongong!"--TR.
[169] "Si esi no hómole y no pataylo, mujé juete-juete!"
[170] The Spanish battle-cry: "St. James, and charge, Spain!"--TR.
[171] The "wide rock" that formerly jutted out into the river just
below the place where the streams from the Lake of Bay join the
Mariquina to form the Pasig proper. This spot was celebrated in the
demonology of the primitive Tagalogs and later, after the tutelar
devils had been duly exorcised by the Spanish padres, converted into
a revenue station. The name is preserved in that of the little barrio
on the river bank near Fort McKinley.--TR.
[172] A Christmas carol: "Christmas night is coming, Christmas night
is going."--TR.
[173] Public Opium-Smoking Room.
[174] January 2, 1883.--_Author's note_.