Once the mass began, the islanders gradually fell under its incantatory spell, barely comprehending the rite’s significance, but, to judge from Pigafetta’s description, feeling its spiritual power nonetheless. “When the hour for mass arrived, we landed with about fifty men, without our body armor, but carrying our other arms, and dressed in our best clothes. Before we reached the shore with our boats, six weapons were discharged as a sign of peace. We landed; the two kings embraced the Captain General and placed him between them. We went in marching order to the place consecrated, which was not far from the shore. Before the commencement of mass, the Captain General sprinkled the entire bodies of the two kings with musk water. The mass was celebrated. The kings went forward to kiss the cross as we did, but they did not participate in the Eucharist. When the body of our Lord was elevated, they remained on their knees and worshiped Him with clasped hands. The ships fired all their artillery at once when the body of Christ was elevated, the signal having been given from the shore with muskets. After the conclusion of the mass, some of our men took communion.”
After the solemn observance, it was time to celebrate. To amuse and impress his hosts, Magellan organized a fencing tournament, “at which the kings were greatly pleased.” Next, Magellan ordered his men to display the cross, complete with “nails and the crown,” and explained to the kings that his own sovereign, King Charles, had given these objects to him, “so that wherever he might go he might set up those tokens.” Now he wished to set up the cross on their island, “for whenever any of our ships came from Spain, they would know we had been there by that cross, and would do nothing to displease them or harm their property.” Magellan wanted to place the cross “on the summit of the highest mountain,” and he explained the many benefits of displaying it as he proposed. For one thing, “Neither thunder, nor lightning, nor storms would harm them in the least,” and for another, “If any of their men were captured, they would be set free immediately on that sign being shown.” The kings gratefully accepted the cross as a totem, without having any idea of what it actually meant.
Magellan inquired about the islanders’ religious beliefs. “They replied that they worshiped nothing, but that they raised their clasped hands and their faces to the sky; and that they called their god ‘Abba.’” Magellan indicated that their god sounded reassuringly familiar, “And, seeing that, the first king raised his hands to the sky, and said that he wished it were possible for him to make the Captain General see his love for him.”
The discussion turned to politics. Magellan asked if the king had any enemies; if so, Magellan would “go with his ships to destroy them and render them obedient.” By doing so, he hoped to strengthen their bond, and establish a permanent Spanish presence in the newly discovered archipelago. As it happened, the king said there were “two islands hostile to him, but . . . it was not the season to go there.” Hearing this, Magellan turned warlike: “The Captain General told him that if God would again allow him to return to those districts, he would bring so many men that he would make the king’s enemies subject to him by force.” This was a curious offer because nothing in Magellan’s charter from King Charles mentioned fighting tribal wars or mass conversions to Christianity; he was supposed to “go in search of the Strait,” demonstrate that the Spice Islands belonged to Spain, and return in ships laden with spices. Now he put aside his commercial goals in favor of conversions and conquest. Magellan ordered his men back into formation; they fired their guns into the silent sky as a farewell gesture, “and the captain having embraced the two kings, we took our leave.”
Magellan and the crew members returned briefly to their ships to retrieve the cross, and then made an exhausting ascent to the summit of the highest mountain in the area. “After the cross was erected in position, each of us repeated a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria, and adored the cross; and the kings did the same. Then we descended through their cultivated fields, and went to the place where the balanghai was. The kings had some coconuts brought in so that we might refresh ourselves.”
Considering his work done, Magellan announced his intention to depart in the morning. Despite all the pigs and rice and wine the kings had bestowed on them, the Captain General declared he needed even more food, and the kings recommended the island of Cebu as a convenient place to forage. Magellan’s decision to sail on to Cebu troubled Pigafetta, who described it as “ill-fated.” But Cebu itself did not pose any danger to Magellan; rather, it was his determination to form an alliance with friendly local rulers by making war on their enemies. Looking for trouble, he was sure to find it eventually.
Magellan asked the king for local pilots to escort the fleet to Cebu, and the king happily complied, but in the morning, he asked “for love of him to wait two days until he should have his rice harvested and other trifles attended to. He asked the Captain General to send him some men to help him, so that it might be done sooner; and said that he intended to act as our pilot himself.” Magellan agreed, “But the kings ate and drank so much that they slept all day. Some said to excuse them that they were slightly sick.”
Their departure delayed for forty-eight hours, Magellan fell to trading with the islanders, but he immediately ran into obstacles. “One of those people brought us . . . rice and also eight or ten bananas fastened together to barter them for a knife which at the most was worth three catrini”—a Venetian coin of little value. “The Captain General, seeing that the native cared for nothing but a knife, called him to look at other things. He put his hand in his purse and wished to give him one real.” The native refused the valuable coin. “The Captain General showed him a ducado, but he would not accept that, either.” Magellan kept offering coins of increasing value, but met with the same reaction; the native “would take nothing but a knife.” Finally, Magellan relented and gave it to him. Later, when a crew member went ashore to fetch water, he was offered a large crown made of gold in exchange for “six strings of glass beads,” but Magellan blocked the trade, “so that the natives should learn that at the very beginning that we prized our merchandise more than their gold.” The gold was far more valuable than the glass beads, but Magellan did not want the islanders to know how precious the Europeans considered gold. He instructed his men to treat it as just another metal. The ruse worked, and the armada, trading iron for gold, pound for pound, acquired vast riches. The gold they had acquired so easily would be worth a fortune in Spain, but the spices Magellan expected to find were even more valuable than the gold.
The armada resumed its wanderings through the Philippine archipelago, dodging reefs so treacherous that even their native pilots hesitated. Along the way—it is impossible to know precisely where—they called at an island Pigafetta named Gatigan. Ashore, the crew members were fascinated by the profusion of bats; “flying foxes,” they called the creatures as they swooped low over the ships and darted into the dense jungle in search of their main nourishment, fruit. The flying foxes reached astonishing proportions; Pigafetta claimed that they were as large as eagles. The fearless sailors even captured one of the creatures and ate it. The bat flesh, he claimed, tasted like that of a fowl.