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W A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of
Language in Noli me tangere and El Filibusterismo
 Contents

1 2 3
Spanish-Colonial Political Questions about
'Racial' Strata and Vocabulary and Tagalog
Ethnicity Concepts
Spanish-Colonial 'Racial' Strata
and Ethnicity
 Peninsulares

Criollos/creoles

Mestizos

Indios
 Criollos/
Peninsulares Mestizos Indios
Creoles
Spanish by Not only
descent, but locally born
Spaniards
unfortunate and bred, but
born and
enough to were Homogenous
raised in the
have been products of mass
imperial
born and 'interracial'
center
raised in the sexual
Philipines relationships
 Immigrant, non-Catholic Chinese
For centuries, were clled sangleyes, a term replaced by
the more conventional chino only as the later 19th
century wore on.

Social Largely unsubdued Muslims in the Far

South
groups
Pagan tribes in the Luzon Cordillera
and other parts of the islands
Mostly left to their own devices
Peninsular
(noun or adjective)

Crops up only 4 times int he whole

novel:
twice in the mouth of the
elderly Teniente
twice in the commentary of the
narrator
Criollos Mestizo(s)
The male form is used once by an Occurs only four times, typically
unnamed friar. qualified by the adjective espanoles.
Three of the mentions come
The female criolla is spoken once by from the narrator.
the narrator. Fourth comes from an
anonymous, panic-stricken
voice in the crowd as the
rumors of Ibarra's conspiracy
spread through San Diego.
Mestiza(s)
Female form is mentioned twice in
the narrator's paraphrasing of the
thoughts of Tiburcio P.
Padre Damaso uses the
contemptuous miniaturizing
mesticillos twice.
Indio
Widely used by all strata of colonial society
Padre Damaso: 13
Narrator: 7
Unnamed friar: 5
La Victorina: 4
Elias and the Diario in Manila: 3 each
Teniente, Tasio, Ibarra, Alferez,
Dominical Provincial, an unnamed
youth, anonymous peasant, an
unspecified voice in the crowd: 1 each
India
(adjective)
Chino
(noun)
Used once only by La Consoclacion. Shows up 35 times:
Narrator: 18
Tasio: 5

Naturales
Anonymous voices: 4
Gravedigger, unnamed pious women,
Diario: 2 each
Polite synonym for Indio, occurs 5 Capitan Basilio and Iday: 1 each
times.
Narrator: 3 (adjective)
Don Filipo: 1 Tasio: 3
Diario: 1 Narrator: 1
Moros Pagans
Three times only by the Narrator. Mentioned twice:
The word does not refer to Once when Elias speaks of finding
Muslims of the Southern shelter from persecution among the
Philippines, but merely to the tribus infieles e independientes
'Moors' represented in the Moro- Once when the Narrator describes the
Moro play put on for the fiesta in image of San Diego, paraded through
San Diego. the town during the fiesta, as having an
abundant cerquillo rizado como el de los
negritos.
Tagalos
Five cases, all of them in the
Narrator's commentary.
Three of these the reader is told
what the "Tagalogs" call
something.
Other two is a reference to an
unnamed, lowly member of the
Guardia Civil hunting for Elias,
set off against one of his
comrades described as un
visaya.
(adjective)
Occurs 6 times.
School teacher and the Narrator: 2 each
Primitivo and an unnamed newspaper
correspondent: 1 each
The nouns they are attached to are
catechism, books, an elegy, the comedia, lies,
and a family.
Visaya
Appears four times as anoun and
once as an adjective in the mouth of
the Narrator, referring to the
companion of the Tagalog Guardia
Civil member.
Rizal was perfectly aware of this. In a letter
to Blumentritt from Berlin, dated March 21,
1887, just a month after he finished Noli, he
commented with characteristic Tagalog
and ilustrado hauteur:

A very strange, interesting absence is that

of the Ilocanos, who at that time, formed a
large part of Manila's class of domestic
servants.
This is why not a single name-
identified servant appears in the novel.
(19th century European novels usually
mentions some household servants by
name).

The Noli generally ignores

the huge ethnolinguistic
diversity of even the Catholic
Philippines.
Why are the upper strata so
rarely mentioned ?
14 instances over 354 pages

Why are the 'alien' Chinese

made so prominent?
One kind of answer would emphasize the rapid decay of traditional colonial 'racial'
categories, originally created in the 16th century, in the face of massive penetration of
Anglo-Saxon agro-industrial capitalism and heavy steamship-carried Chinese migration.

Another would focus on Rizal's intellectual environment, cultural outlook, and political
stance.
Political Vocabulary and Concepts
Espana
In 35 out of 39 instances, the When the Capitan-General talks of
referent is plainly the Iberian the Rey de las Espanas, he's almost
country we know today. certainly speaking of the Empire.
Ibarra: 13
Narrator: 7
Elias: 4
The four appearances of La
Capitan-General: 3
Peninsula also point to an
Old husband: 2
ambiguity in Espana.
Tiburcio, Don Basilio, Tiago, an
La Victorina: 2
old wife, the newspaper
Teniente and Capitan-General:
correspondent, and
1 each
anonymous voice: 1 each
Espanol
The national noun espanol also had
an obvious and unambiguous
connotation. But of the 52
mentions in the novel:
24 refer to people born in
Spain
3 refer to such people plus
locally-born creoles and
mestizos
25 cannont be determined
Of the 24 in the first group:
Narrator: 14
Teniente: 4
Capitan-General, Padre
Damaso, Tiago, La Victorina
The four appearances of La
Peninsula also point to an
ambiguity in Espana.
La Victorina: 2
Teniente and Capitan-General:
1 each
Filipino Of the 12 occurrences:
Narrator: 7
The noun Filipino is much rarer.
Diario: 4
it occurs a total of 21 times,
Teniente: 1
distributed between the:
Narrator: 18
Capitan-General, Ibarra and The novel's first hero uses the
unnamed journalist: 1 each word just once, the 2nd hero, Elias,
never,
and the wise Tasio not at all.
We can consider synoptically the
data provided above by
representing them in the same
tabular form used for the
hierarchy
of ‘racial’ strata and ethnicities.
Patria
Pueblo
Filibustero
Sociedad
Intermezzo
Questions About Tagalog
 1 2 3
Shift of Rizal's Rizal's use of his Sympathetic but
intended native language not very informed
readership "international"
readers