Information on little San Pablo is drawn from Samuel Eliot Morison’s unpublished Life article (February 24, 1972).
CHAPTER IX: A VANISHED EMPIRE
Much of the information in this chapter is drawn directly from Pigafetta’s account, which eloquently describes the armada’s Pacific passage.
For an extended and valuable discussion of Magellan’s first landfall in the Pacific, see Robert F. Rogers and Dirk Anthony Ballendorf, “Magellan’s Landfall in the Mariana Islands,” in the Journal of Pacific History (vol. 24, October 1989). The authors re-created the landfall to be precise about the fleet’s movements; however, alterations wrought by erosion can compromise the value of such exercises. Also worth consulting is Rogers’s book Destiny’s Landfall for details of Chamorran culture. Guillemard (p. 226) and Joyner (p. 269) discuss Master Andrew.
For a fascinating account of island navigation systems in theory and practice, see Ben Finney, Voyage of Rediscovery, especially pp. 56–64.
Louise Levathes’s When China Ruled the Seas (1996) is the one reliable guide to the subject written in English. Also eminently worthwhile is Ma Huan’s diary of one expedition, The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores (1433). Gavin Menzies’s recent book 1421 suggests that the Treasure Fleet reached the Caribbean and perhaps completed a circumnavigation one hundred years before Magellan. However, hard evidence to prove these tantalizing assertions is still lacking.
As his candidate for the first person to complete a circumnavigation, Morison (p. 435) nominates Magellan’s slave Enrique. Morison argues that Magellan’s voyage brought Enrique back to his point of origin. Even if this assumption is correct, Enrique traveled around the world only because Magellan took him along.
For a discussion of the armada’s weaponry, see Charles Boutell, Arms and Armour (p. 243) and Parr (p. 383). Roger Craig Smith’s 1989 thesis, Vanguard of Empire: 15th- and 16th-Century Iberian Ship Technology in the Age of Discovery: offers more specialized information on the subject. Also recommended are Courtlandt Canby’s A History of Weaponry (vol. 4) and John Hewitt’s Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe (vol. 3), as well as The Penguin Encyclopedia of Weapons and Military Technology.
Guillemard (p. 235) mentions the bats seen by the sailors. Albo’s description of Cebu comes from Navarrete (vol. 4, pp. 219–221).
CHAPTER X: THE FINAL BATTLE
Two very different facets of Pigafetta’s wide-ranging interests are on display in his account of Magellan’s visit to Cebu. As a former papal diplomat, he was duty-bound, but also genuinely moved, by the Captain General’s efforts to convert the Filipinos. In addition, Pigafetta is virtually the only source on the subject. See Robertson’s translation of Pigafetta (pp. 133–169) for more details of Magellan’s religious convictions.
Pigafetta also dwells at length on palang, which fascinated him. The subject frequently appears in accounts of Pacific and Eastern cultures during the Age of Discovery, and even the Chinese sailors with the Treasure Fleet came across a variant of palang, and, like Magellan’s men, were both fascinated and appalled by the practice. In this instance, palang took the form of small sand-filled beads inserted into the scrotum, and when men who were thus adorned moved or walked, they made a faint noise, reminiscent of bells ringing. It was, said Ma Huan, “a most curious thing.”
In his assessment of palang, Pigafetta was unusually tolerant, at least by European standards. Other European visitors wrote about palang in censorious tones. Andrés Urdaneta, the capable Spanish navigator, visited the region several times, beginning in 1525, four years after the Armada de Molucca, and he left an account of palang in which the Indians of Borneo fasten a “few small round stones” to the penis with a leather sleeve, while others are pierced with “a tube of silver or tin . . . and on those tubes, they put thin sticks of silver or gold at the time they want to engage with women in coitus.” In practice, the bearer of palang often inserted a range of objects into the tube; pig’s bristles were employed, as were bamboo shavings, beads, and even shards of glass. Urdaneta was appalled, and missionaries in the Philippines preached against it.
Antonio de Morga, a Spanish historian who wrote one of the first accounts of the Philippines, was also revolted by the practice, which he considered highly immoral, but he provided a detailed description of palang as practiced elsewhere in the Philippine archipelago. By the time Morga got around to describing palang, in 1609, it was clearly a practice on the way out, thanks to the strenuous efforts of the Catholic clergy to discourage it: “The natives . . . especially the women, are very vicious and sensual, and their wickedness has devised lewd ways of intercourse between men and women, one of which they practice from their youth onwards. The men skillfully make a hole near the head of the penis into which they insert a small serpent’s head of metal or ivory. Then they secure this by passing a small peg of the same material through the hole, so that it may not work loose. With this device they have intercourse with their wives and for long after the copulation they are unable to withdraw. They are so addicted to this, and find such pleasure in it, that although they shed a great deal of blood, and receive other injuries, it is a common practice among them. These devices are known as sagras, and there are very few of them left, because after they become Christians, care is taken to do away with such things and not permit their use.”
For more on the subject, see Morison (p. 435). The two articles by Tom Harrison listed in the bibliography contain the quoted descriptions.
Juan Gil, in his recent Mitos y Utopiás del Descubrimiento (1989), is one of the few commentators to consider the possibility that Magellan’s disaffected officers let the Mactanese slaughter him.
Simon Winchester describes the reenactment of the battle between Magellan and Lapu Lapu in “After Dire Straits, an Agonizing Haul Across the Pacific,” Smithsonian (pp. 84–95).
CHAPTER XI: SHIP OF MUTINEERS
In addition to Pigafetta and other accounts mentioned in the text, details concerning Enrique’s treachery are drawn from Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdez’s Historia General y Natural de las Indias (pp. 13ff). Denucé (pp. 323–326) adds to the picture of the massacre’s aftermath. See also Morison (pp. 438–441) and Navarrete (vol. 4).
Concerning San Antonio’s return to Spain, Guillemard (p. 215) remarks that Argensola, an early and occasionally inaccurate historian, states that Cartagena and the priest were rescued by San Antonio, but no records support this claim. Although Guillemard (p. 216) believes San Antonio ran low on food during the return journey, that was likely not the case, for she carried the entire fleet’s provisions. It is possible that those aboard San Antonio invented this story to gain sympathy. Skelton provides the date of the ship’s arrival (p.156).