New Butuan proponents for the Easter Mass of 1521

ON Dec. 12, 2018, the Resil Mojares panel of the National Quincentennial Committee that will look at the new data being presented to recognize old Butuan ( Magallanes town) as the site of the Easter Sunday Mass of 1521 was convened in Cebu. The status quo of course recognizes Limasawa, Leyte, as the site of the mass, and if the panel deems it sufficient, the Leyte proponents will be asked to answer the new claims.

occurred on Nov. 9, 2018 at the Balanghai Hotel and Convention Center in Butuan. The usual circus that accompanied the presentations for the previous boards was absent because in that meeting, the two Butuan proponents, Gabriel B. Atega and Potenciano R. Malvar, M.D., gave more sober presentations which

In last week’s column, I gave a general overview of the “Mazzawa” issue and the importance of determining it, not just as the site of the Easter Sunday Mass, but where the Spaniards actually met the ancient Filipinos and their culture for seven days as described by Ferdinand Magellan’s chronicler Antonio Pigafetta. His account was one of the earliest descriptions of our elaborate early culture.

Limasawa proponents claim that Pigafetta’s account saying that Mazzawa was 9 degrees, 2/3 points to their island which traverses 9º 93’N. Also, in the way they presented the traditional sites, the house of King Siagu, the site of the Easter Mass and the planting of the cross on a hill were in one place only, just meters away from each other.

Atega’s main point is that if you take the measurements of the French manuscript of Pigafetta being kept at the Yale-Beinecke Collection, which was translated by Raleigh Ashlin Skelton, most of his locations can be measured accurately based on modern geography. Pigafetta’s 9º2/3 should be 9 º 40’ N, and would fall in Malimono, Surigao in Mindanao and not anywhere in Leyte, he said. This led Atega to claim that Mazzawa is actually Pigafetta’s name for the island of Mindanao in general where all the three events described were located.

But Malvar thinks this may be inaccurate because it is clear that in Pigafetta’s description, Siagu’s Mazzawa is definitely a smaller community than Rajah Colambu’s Butuan-Calaghan, so Mazzawa could not have been Mindanao. He then posits his theory that maybe Pigafetta was accurate, but he didn’t mean to be exact because Magellan had an agreement with King Charles and the

Magellan or Pigafetta wouldn’t want other people to know exact locations if Magellan and his men and those who came after them would have a share in the profits that they could get from their discoveries. And if Mazzawa was Masao, Butuan area, then they would have had a real reason to hide the information since the area was a rich trading post. Both Atega and Malvar also showed that Pigafetta’s maps were deliberately altered because when you look at them upside down they would match contemporary Butuan maps.

Also, as described by Pigafetta, it is clear that there were separate places for the three events in the narrative. Butuan can present three separate places: Masao, Magallanes and Mount Mina- asog. How come that the place of the King Mazzawa was described as a land of plenty when in the site of the Easter Mass, Pigafetta described it as a place where there was nothing to eat. Surely, this cannot be in one place as the sites in Limasawa suggests.

An 1872 marker for the 1521 mass still exists in Baug Island, Magallanes, Agusan del Norte which was part of Butuan in 1521. It means there was a tradition there. Somewhere there is Mount Mina- asog, where Malvar presents various artifacts found there, including a cross carving in stone similar to other Portuguese crosses and other artifacts that may suggest that this could be a good candidate for the mountain where the cross was erected to remind people to pray.

What is remarkable about Malvar’s assumed site of the planting of the cross is that the primary account of Francisco Albo said that where they erected the cross, they saw three islands in the direction west southwest. From the area of Magallanes and Mina- asog, indeed one doesn’t see the three islands but only one island, that of Camiguin. But from that vantage point, the three peaks of Camiguin are visible. Albo could have mistaken these mountains for islands. According to Malvar, an ocular inspection of the Limasawa hill would make us realize that we don’t see three islands from there.

Atega and Malvar both insist that Mazzawa by Pigafetta’s desciption was a trade center, land of gold, with a lot of balanghais. There is no archaeological proof that Limasawa was any of these, while the different artifacts and balanghais found in Butuan shouldn’t be dismissed when considering the location.

I am aware that many of these points are interpretations but I believe they could cast a serious doubt on Limasawa’s claim.