The new command placed Pigafetta in a vulnerable position. He had always identified himself as a Magellan loyalist, but the Captain General’s inner circle—his slave, Enrique; his illegitimate son, Cristóvão Rebêlo; his cousin, Álvaro de Mesquita; and his brother-in-law, Duarte Barbosa—had all perished or disappeared. Only Pigafetta survived. He believed he would continue to serve as the expedition’s chief chronicler, as well as its chief interpreter, because he alone had troubled to make a methodical study of the Malay tongue. He lacked Enrique’s facility with it, but he knew how to make himself understood and obtain information. Equally important, he was familiar with Filipino customs, ranging from casicasi to palang, and could make himself useful as the expedition’s emissary to the strange and changeable islanders all around them. Carvalho and the newly elected leaders of the expedition agreed, and Pigafetta’s role in the post-Magellan era was, if anything, enhanced. As for his diary, he continued to maintain it, and to keep its contents to himself.
After the multiple tragedies the armada had suffered in the Philippines, commercial considerations ruled their actions. Never again would they erect crosses or insist on mass conversions. Everything was different now. Knowing they were lucky to be alive, the men turned their attention to reaching the Spice Islands, where they hoped to find safety, supplies, and the precious commodity they had sailed halfway around the world to find.
Carvalho faced the task of leading the fleet’s two remaining ships southward through the archipelago to the Moluccas, but the arrival of the rainy season in the Philippines and its storms often made navigation next to impossible. They had adapted to sailing over vast stretches of open water, but now they had to thread their way through a labyrinth of islands. For the short distances and intricate maneuvering involved, they needed a reliable map or, failing that, a guide familiar with these waters, but after their horrific experiences on Cebu and Mactan, the sailors were reluctant to call at strange islands and ask for help. Who could guess the real intentions of the islanders lurking in the shadows of the palm trees?
Occasionally, the fleet was approached by balanghai powered by rowers chanting in unison. Whenever possible, Pigafetta asked the rowers for directions to the Moluccas, but the others kept their relations with the islanders to a bare minimum.
Carvalho, aided by Albo, the pilot, veered from one island to another, following a meandering but generally southerly course through the labyrinth of the Philippine archipelago to the Moluccas. Albo’s methodical record, barely mentioning the ambush at Cebu, tracked the fleet’s wanderings, as if the ships were wounded beasts in search of a healing sanctuary.
They soon encountered an island populated by Negritos, aboriginal pygmies with dark skin, as their name indicates. After an unsuccessful hunt for food, the fleet approached a towering island clad in dense foliage cut by steep channels and waterfalls flowing from hidden springs. Here and there the shore suddenly cleared to offer an inviting, if narrow, stretch of beach. This was Mindanao. The idyllic setting soothed the chastened yet hard-bitten crew, who dropped their guard long enough to establish friendly relations with a local ruler named Calanoa, who appeared eager to make peace. Calanoa, Pigafetta wrote, “drew blood from his left hand marking his body face, and the tip of his tongue with it as a token of closest friendship, and we did the same.” Despite his offer of friendship, he was unable, or unwilling, to feed the crew.
After the ceremony, Calanoa invited Pigafetta ashore as a sign of respect, but Pigafetta does not explain why he alone received this honor. Perhaps his facility with the Malay language had impressed the chieftain, or perhaps the invitation gave him an opportunity to prove his usefulness to Carvalho and the other leaders of the expedition. Pigafetta boldly accepted the invitation, even after witnessing the recent massacre. One explanation for Pigafetta’s sudden courage might be that Calanoa had put him at ease; another might be that he had no intention of returning to the fleet, that he had seen enough of death and disaster at sea and preferred to live out his days as an honored guest among the islanders and, especially, their beautiful women.
“We had no sooner entered a river than many fishermen offered fish to the king”—so food was available after all. “Then the king removed the clothes which covered his privies, as did some of his chiefs; and began to row while singing past many dwellings which were upon the river. Two hours after nightfall we reached the king’s house. The distance from the beginning of the river where our ships were to the king’s house was two leagues.” Isolated from his crew mates, Pigafetta was now at the mercy of his hosts, but if he felt fear, he left no trace in his diary.
“When we entered the house, we came upon many torches of cane and palm leaves,” he continued. “The king with two of his chiefs and two of his beautiful women drank the contents of a large jar of palm wine without eating anything. I, excusing myself as I supped, would only drink but once.” It was a scene familiar to Pigafetta, the drinking, and feasting, and women; he might have been back on Limasawa, in the days before the massacre. At his ease, and inquisitive as ever, he observed food preparations: “They first put in an earthen jar . . . a large leaf lining the entire jar. Then they add the water and the rice, and after covering it allow it to boil until the rice becomes as hard as bread, when it is taken out in pieces.” (In recording this recipe, Pigafetta became the West’s first guide to Oceanic cuisine.) After the meal, the chieftain offered Pigafetta two mats for sleeping, one fashioned of reeds, the other of palm leaves. “The king and his two women went to sleep in a separate place, while I slept with one of the chiefs.”
In the morning, Pigafetta explored the island, devoting special attention to huts, whose fittings gleamed with gold. Gold seemed to be on display everywhere; there was, he said, “an abundance of gold. They showed us certain small valleys, making signs to us that there was as much gold there as they had hairs, but that they had no iron or tools to mine it, and moreover that they would not take the trouble to do so.”
Over a midday meal of rice and fish, Pigafetta courteously asked Calanoa for an audience with the queen. The chieftain agreed, and the two of them trudged up a steep hill to pay their respects to her. “When I entered the house, I made a bow to the queen, and she did the same to me, whereupon I sat down beside her. She was making a sleeping mat of palm leaves. In the house there were a number of porcelain jars and four bells . . . for ringing. Many male and female slaves who served her were there.”
If Pigafetta had ever considered seeking refuge on this island with its abundant gold, the temptation waned. After his audience with the queen, he clambered aboard a waiting balanghai, along with the chieftain and his retinue, and they glided along the serene river toward the ocean. When he least expected it, the tranquil surroundings were disturbed by an appalling spectacle: “I perceived to the right, on a small hill, three men hanging from a tree which had its branches cut off.” Once again, he was struck by the stark contrast between the splendor of the setting, the peaceful, generous, and open nature of the inhabitants, and the macabre reminders of brutality that lurked just out of sight. Who were these people, Pigafetta asked, and why did they meet such a gruesome ending?
“Malefactors and thieves,” Calanoa grimly explained.