Module 3

Topic: “Butuan or Limasawa? The Site of the First Mass in

the Philippines: A Reexamination of the Evidence”
Source: Kinaadman: A Journal of Southern Philippines, Vol. III (1981), pp. 1-35.

Readings in Philippine History (Readphi)

• The site of the first Mass ever celebrated on Philippine soil

- Easter Sunday

- 31st of March 1521

• The planting of a wooden cross upon a hill’s summit

 Subject of controversy:

THE IDENTITY OF THE PLACE WHICH

PIGAFETTA CALLS
“Mazaua”

• the little island south of Leyte, called Limasawa?

• the beach called Masao at the mouth of the Agusan River in northern Mindanao,
near Butuan?
 I. THE BUTUAN TRADITION

A. 17th Century
1. Father Francisco Colin S.J. – Labor evangelica, 1663
- “the first island they touched at was Humunu”;
- they gave the name San Lazaro to the entire Archipelago
2. Father Francisco Combes S.J. - Historia de Mindanao y Jolo, 1667
3. Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri
- Giro del Mondo (A Voyage Around the World)
4. Fray Joaquin Martinez de Zuniga - Estadismo
B. 18th Century
1. fray Juan de la Concepcion – History of the Philippines
C. 19th Century
2. fray Joaquin Martinez de Zuniga - Historia de Filipinas, 1803
3. John Foreman – mentioned the first Mass in Butuan
4. a Dominican friar, Valentin Morales y Martin
5. Jose Montero y Vidal
– El Archipelago filipino, 1886; Historia general de Filipinas
5. Wenceslao Retana, 1893
- accepted the Butuan tradition
 II. The Shift in Opinion
• Emma Blair and James Alexander Robertson
- two Americans
- 55-volume collection of documents on the Philippine Islands, published from
1903 to 1909
• Father Pablo Pastells S.J.
- Spanish Jesuit scholar; the man initially responsible for the shift in opinion
- Due to a rediscovery and a more attentive study of two primary sources on the
subject: 1) Pigafetta’s account and 2) Albo’s log
• The experience of Rizal - he came across Pigafetta’s work in the British Museum
 III. THE EVIDENCE FOR LIMASAWA
1. The Evidence of Albo’s Log-Book
• Francisco Albo

• - joined the Magellan expedition as a pilot (“contramaestre”) in Magellan’s

flagship “Trinidad”; one of the eighteen survivors who returned with Sebastian
Elcano on the “Victoria” after having circumnavigated the world
2. The Evidence from Pigafetta
• * The most complete account of the Magellan expedition is that by Antonio
• Pigafetta entitled Primo viaggio intomo al mondo (First Voyage Around the World).
The Evidence from Pigafetta
(a) Pigafetta’s testimony regarding the route
(b) The evidence of Pigafetta’s maps
(c) The two native kings
(d) The seven days at “Mazaua”
(e) The argument from omission
3. The Legazpi Expedition
- Mazaua was an island near Leyte and Panaon; Butuan was on the island of
Mindanao. The two were entirely different places and in no way identical.
4. The geography of “Mazaua”
- The island is still referred to by the fisherfolk as “Masaoa”, not Limasawa.

IV. The Importance of Butuan

• To reject the Butuan claim is in no way to downgrade the cultural or historical
importance of Butuan.