Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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especially in the provinces, allow thesis was that the pre-Hispanic indios had
themselves to be seen completely attained a high level of civilisation, and
naked. that this civilisation had been corrupted
(Blumentritt 1980:46) 5 and destroyed as a result of Spanish
conquest. As a vehicle for advancing this
Blumentritt, whose observations on the thesis, he chose to annotate one of the
primitiveness of Filipino sexual life had fullest and most objective accounts by a
influenced other German scientists like secular Spaniard, Antonio de Morga’s
Ploss and Krafft-Ebing, had ultimately Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, which had
based his pronouncements on the casual first been published in 1609. Rizal
travel notes of reactionary and racist regarded the author as ‘a learned explorer’
apologists for Spanish colonialism. who possessed ‘nothing of the
superficiality and exaggeration so peculiar
Rizal never adequately confronted the to the Spaniards’. 7 Equally important, he
degree to which this reliance on flawed had been a high-ranking colonial official,
sources in fact shattered the academic and not a friar; he regarded the religious
validity of Blumentritt’s comments on orders, indeed, as a source of lamentation
Filipino social life and customs. Indeed, and trial (Cummins 1972:4). Rizal
Rizal actually commended Blumentritt’s published his edition of the Morga in Paris
ethnographic study, esteemed him as a in 1890 (Rizal 1890a).
scholar and, as is well known, struck up a
personal friendship and correspondence When working on his annotations, Rizal
with him. Nobody else in the world, Rizal mined an array of early Spanish missionary
even went so far as to say, was better chronicles as well as the travel accounts of
qualified than Blumentritt to write the other Europeans. Throughout the work, he
history of the Philippines. highlighted and elaborated the points
Morga made about the material and
When he failed to persuade Blumentritt to cultural attainments of pre–colonial
undertake this task, Rizal decided to tackle society and reflected on their subsequent
it himself, and in 1888-89 spent a number decline, destruction and debasement
of months in London reading as many wrought by Spanish colonization. He
sources as he could find on Filipino dwelt on the prosperity of the Islands’
society at the time of the Spanish agriculture and commerce, on their
conquest. He studied mainly in the flourishing mining, shipbuilding and
Reading Room of the British Museum, metalworking industries and on the well-
where other readers during his visit
included H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling,
Eleanor Marx and Peter Kropotkin. 6 7
Josè Rizal (London) to Ferdinand
Rizal’s project was to build what cultural Blumentritt, 17 September 1888, Rizal-
historian Resil Mojares has called ‘a Blumentritt Correspondence, (Manila: Jose
nationalist counter-narrative.’ His overall Rizal Centennial Commission, 1961), p.201.
Antonio de Morga obtained his doctorate in
5
This passage is closely paraphrased by Ploss canon law from the University of Salamanca in
in Das Weib, vol.I, p.223. 1578. He was appointed to Manila as
6
British Museum Signature of Readers, 4 June lieutenant governor in 1593 and five years later
1887-11 October 1888. Unpublished volume, became a judge in the Supreme Court of the
British Museum Reading Room archive. colony, the Audiencia.
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strong libido a painful struggle. At some respect for women, but in reality,
points he would seek to challenge the contended Rizal, marriage had been a
evidence, to excise the sensuality inherent union of equals. Women were not forced
in the image of the pre-colonial native into arranged marriages but could marry
woman portrayed by Morga and replace it the husband of their own choice, showing
with an undebauched, moral, if not prudish that they enjoyed the same autonomy as
representation. His fellow propagandista men. The fact that there was no dowry
Pedro Paterno, he noted, had already system showed that bridegrooms did not
“brilliantly refuted” the assertion of Morga regard their brides as heavy burdens, or
and other chroniclers that young native yokes, but as companions and helpmates.
men and women had been sexually As Rizal noted:
“incontinent” by citing other texts and
testimonies that held the contrary. There The Tagalog wife is free and
were also numerous instances in the respected, she manages and
chroniclers’ accounts, said Rizal, of young contracts, almost always with the
women who so prized their chastity that approval of her husband, who
they preferred death rather than surrender consults her about all his acts.
themselves to Spanish conquistadores and She is the keeper of the money.
officials. She educates the children… She is
not the European woman who
To substantiate his case, Rizal marshalled marries, and loses her name,
whatever evidence he could find that rights, liberty… limited to reign
testified to the modesty, domesticity and over the salon, to entertain guests,
high repute of pre-Hispanic women. and to sit at the right of her
Quoting from the 1605 account of the husband.
Jesuit missionary Pedro Chirino, whose (Rizal 1890a: 53)
portrayal of native society was much more
sympathetic than that of most early Filipino women, Rizal asserted, brought to
chroniclers, he related that even when the domestic domain something far more
bathing women kept their bodies ‘bent valuable than a dowry. They brought
and…immersed in the water until the moral rectitude. The Filipina, he claimed,
throat, [taking] the greatest care not to be was able to restrain her passions, to
seen, though there may not be anybody channel her love and energy into domestic
who can see them’(Rizal 1890a:262). In life and to inject ‘economy’ into the
all places they were ‘circumspect and ‘irregular life of a bachelor’. She was
careful in covering their bodies with responsible for the education of her
extreme modesty and bashfulness’(Rizal children, independently conducted
1890a:288). Marriage in pre-Spanish financial business as she saw fit, and her
times, Rizal contended, was a union of husband sought her counsel and respected
equals, more egalitarian in fact than both her decisions. Highlighting customs of
the traditional European dowry system and bilateral inheritance and divorce, Rizal
more contemporary European customs. pointed to a historical legacy of gender
The Spanish chroniclers had disparaged equality and then constructed an image of
the marriage and divorce customs they enlightened, civilised femininity. The pre-
encountered, claiming they illustrated the conquest indio woman thus became a
amorality of native culture and a lack of positive signifier – she was wise, prudent,
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something from the devil, giving rise to of Europe and China, or when “excessive
that horror of the flesh that dominated the privation”, such as that imposed “in
Cenobites, hermits…in the first centuries, certain single sex convents and schools”,
a reaction of disgust perhaps at the laxity compelled nature to adulterate itself by
of ancient Rome and of all pagan society.” wandering down “mistaken paths” (Rizal
But between carnality and the gloomy and 1890a: 308).
barren “anti-naturalism” of the Christian
zealots, between “excessive naturalism” Morga had claimed that sodomy had
and “excessive privation”, Rizal argued, become more widespread after the arrival
there was a middle ground that he of the Chinese. Much inclined to this vice,
described as “obedience to natural laws they had succeeded in contaminating indio
without adulterating them or frustrating men and women. Writing not long after
the purposes that all things have” (Rizal one of the first and bloodiest massacres of
1890a: 289). For Rizal the attainment of the Chinese by the Spaniards in 1603,
this balance was the true mark of killings enthusiastically aided and abetted
civilisation. by the Tagalogs in Manila, Morga
evidently continued to harbour a common,
Yet according to historical sources, deep-seated Spanish prejudice (Kamen
Filipinos seemed far too inclined to 2002: 208), and also (Retana 1909:475). 8
disobey and adulterate ‘natural laws’. Rizal also makes plain his own antipathy
Especially troubling to Rizal was the towards the Chinese:
recurrent mention of incest and sodomy.
Morga’s claim that incest was an Despite what Morga says and
“ordinary” practice, he sensibly countered despite the fact that almost three
as simply an exaggeration. Incest may not centuries have already elapsed
have been totally absent, he conceded, but since then, the Filipinos continue
again he argued that it was not so abhorring this crime and they have
prevalent as in other places and times, as been so little contaminated that in
was testified by “the annals of the great order to commit it the Chinese and
peoples and families of Christian and other foreigners make use of their
devout Europe.” Furthermore, Morga’s compatriots, of indio women and
comments reminded him of the slanderous those who are their wives or of
scribblings of certain morally dubious some miserable vagabond
Spanish hacks of his own day. “In order children.
to assert such dirty stupidities”, Rizal (Rizal 1890a: 308-309)
provocatively suggested, “it is necessary
to have witnessed them, or believe oneself
capable of doing the same if placed in the There are two critical features to note in
same circumstances” (Rizal 1890a: 307). this diatribe against sodomy. Firstly, Rizal
vehemently refutes Morga’s claims of
In his footnote on sodomy, Rizal was even pervasive sodomitical practices amongst
more passionate. He saw sodomy as an the Filipinos, and asserts that the relative
‘abominable crime’. He believed it
occurred either when men became
8
‘disgusted by prostitution’ and here he Wenceslao Retana’s annotations to the Morga
offered as examples the southern regions also provide details of the Spanish laws
enacted to prohibit sodomy in the colonies.
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Krafft-Ebing, Richard von [1886]. 1998. Rizal, José. 1890a. Antonio de Morga,
Psychopathia Sexualis, with Especial Sucesos de las islas Filipinas.Obra
Reference to the Antipathic Sexual públicada en Mejico el ano de 1609,
Instinct. Translated by Franklin S. Klaf nuevamente sacada a luz y anotada por
New York: Arcade Publishing. José Rizal, y precedida de un prologo
del Prof. Fernando Blumentritt. Paris:
Loarca, Miguel de [1582]. 1909. Librería de Garnier Hermanos.
Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas. In The
Philippine Islands,1493-1898, eds. by Rizal, José. 1890b. Una contestación a
Emma H. Blair and James A. Don Isabelo de los Reyes. La
Robertson, Vol. V. Cleveland, Ohio: Solidaridad, Vol. II, 31 October: 504-
A. H. Clark. 7.
Mojares, Resil. 2002. Waiting for Mariang Schadenberg, Alex. 1880. Ueber die
Makiling: Essayss in Philippine Negritos den Philippinen. Zeitschrift
Cultural History. Quezon City: Ateneo fur Ethnologie, 133 ff.
de Manila University Press.
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