El Filibusterismo

Endnotes

The Spanish designation for the Christianized Malay of the Philippines was indio (Indian), a term used rather contemptuously, the name “filipino” being generally applied in a restricted sense to the children of Spaniards born in the Islands. —⁠Translator ↩
Now generally known as the Mariquina. —⁠Translator ↩
This bridge, constructed in Lukban under the supervision of a Franciscan friar, was jocularly referred to as the Puente de Capricho, being apparently an ignorant blunder in the right direction, since it was declared in an official report made by Spanish engineers in 1852 to conform to no known principle of scientific construction, and yet proved to be strong and durable. —⁠Translator ↩
Don Custodio’s gesture indicates money. —⁠Translator ↩
Duck eggs, that are allowed to advance well into the duckling stage, then boiled and eaten. The señora is sneering at a custom among some of her own people. —⁠Translator ↩
The Jesuit College in Manila, established in 1859. —⁠Translator ↩
Natives of Spain; to distinguish them from the Filipinos, i.e., descendants of Spaniards born in the Philippines. See Glossary: “Indian.” —⁠Translator ↩
It was a common saying among the old Filipinos that the Spaniards (white men) were fire (activity), while they themselves were water (passivity). —⁠Translator ↩
The “liberal” demonstrations in Manila, and the mutiny in the Cavite Arsenal, resulting in the garroting of the three native priests to whom this work was dedicated: the first of a series of fatal mistakes, culminating in the execution of the author, that cost Spain the loyalty of the Filipinos. —⁠Translator ↩
Archbishop of Manila from 1767 to 1787. —⁠Translator ↩
“Between this island (Talim) and Halahala point extends a strait a mile wide and a league long, which the Indians call ‘Kinabutasan,’ a name that in their language means ‘place that was cleft open’; from which it is inferred that in other times the island was joined to the mainland and was separated from it by some severe earthquake, thus leaving this strait: of this there is an old tradition among the Indians.” —⁠Fray Martinez de Zuñiga’s Estadismo (1803) ↩
The reference is to the novel Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer), the author’s first work, of which the present is in a way a continuation. —⁠Translator ↩
This legend is still current among the Tagalogs. It circulates in various forms, the commonest being that the king was so confined for defying the lightning; and it takes no great stretch of the imagination to fancy in this idea a reference to the firearms used by the Spanish conquerors. Quite recently (January 1909), when the nearly extinct volcano of Banahao shook itself and scattered a few tons of mud over the surrounding landscape, the people thereabout recalled this old legend, saying that it was their King Bernardo making another effort to get that right foot loose. —⁠Translator ↩
The reference is to Noli Me Tangere, in which Sinang appears. ↩
The Dominican school of secondary instruction in Manila. —⁠Translator ↩
“The studies of secondary instruction given in Santo Tomás, in the college of San Juan de Letran, and of San José, and in the private schools, had the defects inherent in the plan of instruction which the friars developed in the Philippines. It suited their plans that scientific and literary knowledge should not become general nor very extensive, for which reason they took but little interest in the study of those subjects or in the quality of the instruction. Their educational establishments were places of luxury for the children of wealthy and well-to-do families rather than establishments in which to perfect and develop the minds of the Filipino youth. It is true they were careful to give them a religious education, tending to make them respect the omnipotent power (sic) of the monastic corporations.

“The intellectual powers were made dormant by devoting a greater part of the time to the study of Latin, to which they attached an extraordinary importance, for the purpose of discouraging pupils from studying the exact and experimental sciences and from gaining a knowledge of true literary studies.

“The philosophic system explained was naturally the scholastic one, with an exceedingly refined and subtle logic, and with deficient ideas upon physics. By the study of Latin, and their philosophic systems, they converted their pupils into automatic machines rather than into practical men prepared to battle with life.”⁠—Census of the Philippine Islands (Washington, 1905), Volume III, pp. 601, 602. ↩
The nature of this booklet, in Tagalog, is made clear in several passages. It was issued by the Franciscans, but proved too outspoken for even Latin refinement, and was suppressed by the Order itself. —⁠Translator ↩
The rectory or parish house. ↩
Friends of the author, who suffered in Weyler’s expedition, mentioned below. —⁠Translator ↩
The Dominican corporation, at whose instigation Captain-General Valeriano Weyler sent a battery of artillery to Kalamba to destroy the property of tenants who were contesting in the courts the friars’ titles to land there. The author’s family were the largest sufferers. —⁠Translator ↩
A relative of the author, whose body was dragged from the tomb and thrown to the dogs, on the pretext that he had died without receiving final absolution. —⁠Translator ↩
Under the Spanish regime the government paid no attention to education, the schools (!) being under the control of the religious orders and the friar-curates of the towns. —⁠Translator ↩
The cockpits are farmed out annually by the local governments, the terms “contract,” and “contractor,” having now been softened into “license” and “licensee.” —⁠Translator ↩
The “Municipal School for Girls” was founded by the municipality of Manila in 1864.⁠ ⁠… The institution was in charge of the Sisters of Charity.⁠—Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. III, p. 615. ↩
Now known as Plaza España. —⁠Translator ↩
Patroness of the Dominican Order. She was formally and sumptuously recrowned a queen of the skies in 1907. —⁠Translator ↩
A burlesque on an association of students known as the Milicia Angelica, organized by the Dominicans to strengthen their hold on the people. The name used is significant, “carbineers” being the local revenue officers, notorious in their later days for graft and abuse. —⁠Translator ↩
“Tinamáan ñg lintik!”⁠—a Tagalog exclamation of anger, disappointment, or dismay, regarded as a very strong expression, equivalent to profanity. Literally, “May the lightning strike you!” —⁠Translator ↩
“To lie about the stars is a safe kind of lying.” —⁠Translator ↩
Throughout this chapter the professor uses the familiar tu in addressing the students, thus giving his remarks a contemptuous tone. —⁠Translator ↩
The professor speaks these words in vulgar dialect. ↩
To confuse the letters p and f in speaking Spanish was a common error among uneducated Filipinos. —⁠Translator ↩
No cristianos, not Christians, i.e., savages. —⁠Translator ↩
The patron saint of Spain, St. James. —⁠Translator ↩
Houses of bamboo and nipa, such as form the homes of the masses of the natives. —⁠Translator ↩
“In this paragraph Rizal alludes to an incident that had very serious results. There was annually celebrated in Binondo a certain religious festival, principally at the expense of the Chinese mestizos. The latter finally petitioned that their gobernadorcillo be given the presidency of it, and this was granted, thanks to the fact that the parish priest (the Dominican, Fray José Hevia Campomanes) held to the opinion that the presidency belonged to those who paid the most. The Tagalogs protested, alleging their better right to it, as the genuine sons of the country, not to mention the historical precedent, but the friar, who was looking after his own interests, did not yield. General Terrero (Governor, 1885⁠–⁠1888), at the advice of his liberal councilors, finally had the parish priest removed and for the time being decided the affair in favor of the Tagalogs. The matter reached the Colonial Office (Ministerio de Ultramar) and the Minister was not even content merely to settle it in the way the friars desired, but made amends to Padre Hevia by appointing him a bishop.”⁠—W. E. Retana, who was a journalist in Manila at the time, in a note to this chapter.

Childish and ridiculous as this may appear now, it was far from being so at the time, especially in view of the supreme contempt with which the pugnacious Tagalog looks down upon the meek and complaisant Chinese and the mortal antipathy that exists between the two races. —⁠Translator ↩
It is regrettable that Quiroga’s picturesque butchery of Spanish and Tagalog⁠—the dialect of the Manila Chinese⁠—cannot be reproduced here. Only the thought can be given. There is the same difficulty with r’s, d’s, and l’s that the Chinese show in English. —⁠Translator ↩
Up to the outbreak of the insurrection in 1896, the only genuinely Spanish troops in the islands were a few hundred artillerymen, the rest being natives, with Spanish officers. —⁠Translator ↩
Abaka is the fiber obtained from the leaves of the Musa textilis and is known commercially as Manila hemp. As it is exclusively a product of the Philippines, it may be taken here to symbolize the country. —⁠Translator ↩
Yet Ben-Zayb was not very much mistaken. The three legs of the table have grooves in them in which slide the mirrors hidden below the platform and covered by the squares of the carpet. By placing the box upon the table a spring is pressed and the mirrors rise gently. The cloth is then removed, with care to raise it instead of letting it slide off, and then there is the ordinary table of the talking heads. The table is connected with the bottom of the box. The exhibition ended, the prestidigitator again covers the table, presses another spring, and the mirrors descend. —⁠Author’s note ↩
The Malay method of kissing is quite different from the Occidental. The mouth is placed close to the object and a deep breath taken, often without actually touching the object, being more of a sniff than a kiss. —⁠Translator ↩
Now Calle Tetuan, Santa Cruz. The other names are still in use. —⁠Translator ↩
The Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País for the encouragement of agricultural and industrial development, was established by Basco de Vargas in 1780. —⁠Translator ↩
Funds managed by the government for making loans and supporting charitable enterprises. —⁠Translator ↩
The names are fictitious burlesques. —⁠Translator ↩
“Boiled Shrimp.” —⁠Translator ↩
“Uncle Frank.” —⁠Translator ↩
Messageries Maritimes, a French line of steamers in the Oriental trade. —⁠Translator ↩
Referring to the expeditions⁠—Misión Española Católica⁠—to the Caroline and Pelew Islands from 1886 to 1895, headed by the Capuchin Fathers, which brought misery and disaster upon the natives of those islands, unprofitable losses and sufferings to the Filipino soldiers engaged in them, discredit to Spain, and decorations of merit to a number of Spanish officers. —⁠Translator ↩
Over the possession of the Caroline and Pelew Islands. The expeditions referred to in the previous note were largely inspired by German activity with regard to those islands, which had always been claimed by Spain, who sold her claim to them to Germany after the loss of the Philippines. —⁠Translator ↩
“Where the wind wrinkles the silent waves, that rapidly break, of their own movement, with a gentle murmur on the shore.” —⁠Translator ↩
“Where rapid and winged engines will rush in flight.” —⁠Translator ↩
There is something almost uncanny about the general accuracy of the prophecy in these lines, the economic part of which is now so well on the way to realization, although the writer of them would doubtless have been a very much surprised individual had he also foreseen how it would come about. But one of his own expressions was “fire and steel to the cancer,” and it surely got them.

On the very day that this passage was translated and this note written, the first commercial liner was tied up at the new docks, which have destroyed the Malecon but raised Manila to the front rank of Oriental seaports, and the final revision is made at Baguio, Mountain Province, amid the “cooler temperatures on the slopes of the mountains.” As for the political portion, it is difficult even now to contemplate calmly the blundering fatuity of that bigoted medieval brand of “patriotism” which led the decrepit Philippine government to play the Ancient Mariner and shoot the Albatross that brought this message. —⁠Translator ↩
These establishments are still a notable feature of native life in Manila. Whether the author adopted a title already common or popularized one of his own invention, the fact is that they are now invariably known by the name used here. The use of macanista was due to the presence in Manila of a large number of Chinese from Macao. —⁠Translator ↩
Originally, Plaza San Gabriel, from the Dominican mission for the Chinese established there; later, as it became a commercial center, Plaza Vivac; and now known as Plaza Cervantes, being the financial center of Manila. —⁠Translator ↩
“The manager of this restaurant warns the public to leave absolutely nothing on any table or chair.” —⁠Translator ↩
“We do not believe in the verisimilitude of this dialogue, fabricated by the author in order to refute the arguments of the friars, whose pride was so great that it would not permit any Isagani to tell them these truths face to face. The invention of Padre Fernandez as a Dominican professor is a stroke of generosity on Rizal’s part, in conceding that there could have existed any friar capable of talking frankly with an Indian.”⁠—W. E. Retana, in note to this chapter in the edition published by him at Barcelona in 1908. Retana ought to know of what he is writing, for he was in the employ of the friars for several years and later in Spain wrote extensively for the journal supported by them to defend their position in the Philippines. He has also been charged with having strongly urged Rizal’s execution in 1896. Since 1898, however, he has doubled about, or, perhaps more aptly, performed a journalistic somersault⁠—having written a diffuse biography and other works dealing with Rizal. He is strong in unassorted facts, but his comments, when not inane and wearisome, approach a maudlin wail over “spilt milk,” so the above is given at its face value only. —⁠Translator ↩
Quite suggestive of, and perhaps inspired by, the author’s own experience. —⁠Translator ↩
The Walled City, the original Manila, is still known to the Spaniards and older natives exclusively as such, the other districts being referred to by their distinctive names. —⁠Translator ↩
Nearly all the dialogue in this chapter is in the mongrel Spanish-Tagalog “market language,” which cannot be reproduced in English. —⁠Translator ↩
Doubtless a reference to the author’s first work, Noli Me Tangere, which was tabooed by the authorities. —⁠Translator ↩
Such inanities as these are still a feature of Manila journalism. —⁠Translator ↩
“Whether there would be a talisain cock, armed with a sharp gaff, whether the blessed Peter’s fighting-cock would be a bulik⁠—”

Talisain and bulik are distinguishing terms in the vernacular for fighting-cocks, tari and sasabung̃in the Tagalog terms for “gaff” and “gamecock,” respectively.

The Tagalog terminology of the cockpit and monkish Latin certainly make a fearful and wonderful mixture⁠—nor did the author have to resort to his imagination to get samples of it. —⁠Translator ↩
This is Quiroga’s pronunciation of Christo. —⁠Translator ↩
The native priests Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, charged with complicity in the uprising of 1872, and executed. —⁠Translator ↩
This versicle, found in the booklets of prayer, is common on the scapularies, which, during the late insurrection, were easily converted into the anting-anting, or amulets, worn by the fanatics. —⁠Translator ↩
This practise⁠—secretly compelling suspects to sign a request to be transferred to some other island⁠—was by no means a figment of the author’s imagination, but was extensively practised to anticipate any legal difficulties that might arise. —⁠Translator ↩
“Hawk-Eye.” —⁠Translator ↩
Ultima Razón de Reyes: the last argument of kings⁠—force. (Expression attributed to Calderon de la Barca, the great Spanish dramatist.) —⁠Translator ↩
Curiously enough, and by what must have been more than a mere coincidence, this route through Santa Mesa from San Juan del Monte was the one taken by an armed party in their attempt to enter the city at the outbreak of the Katipunan rebellion on the morning of August 30, 1896. (Foreman’s The Philippine Islands, Chap. XXVI.)

It was also on the bridge connecting these two places that the first shot in the insurrection against American sovereignty was fired on the night of February 4, 1899. —⁠Translator ↩
Spanish etiquette requires a host to welcome his guest with the conventional phrase: “The house belongs to you.” —⁠Translator ↩
The handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, foretelling the destruction of Babylon. Daniel 5:25⁠–⁠28. —⁠Translator ↩
A town in Ciudad Real province, Spain. —⁠Translator ↩
The italicized words are in English in the original. —⁠Translator ↩
A Spanish hero, whose chief exploit was the capture of Gibraltar from the Moors in 1308. —⁠Translator ↩
Emilio Castelar (1832⁠–⁠1899), generally regarded as the greatest of Spanish orators. —⁠Translator ↩
In the original the message reads: “Español escondido casa Padre Florentino cojera remitirá vivo muerto.” Don Tiburcio understands cojera as referring to himself; there is a play upon the Spanish words cojera, lameness, and cogerá, a form of the verb coger, to seize or capture⁠—j and g in these two words having the same sound, that of the English h. —⁠Translator ↩