An intermediary congregation is celebrated in this province; notice
of the mission of Vangag and of an Indian woman of especial merit.
[An intermediary chapter is held at Manila in May, 1680, at which
notice is given of the entrance of the Dominicans into Zambales. The
following houses of that province are accepted: Santiago of Bolinao;
San Andres of Masinloc; Nuestra Senora de el Rosario, of Marivelez;
Nuestra Senora de el Sagrario, of Nuevo Toledo; Nuestra Senora de la
Soledad, of Paynaven; Nuestro Padre Santo Domingo, of Alalang; Santa
Rosa, of Baubuen. Ten religious are assigned to them. The house of San
Thelmo, of Apparri, located at the port of the province of Cagayan,
is also accepted. "The vicar of the house of Binmaley was given a
vote in the provincial chapters, and the vicar of the island of the
Babuyanes was given a vote in the intermediary assemblies."]
One of the missions which flourished with great fruit in this
province during that time was the mission of Palavig, which is the
mission now called Vangac. This is a mission on the coast of Cagayan
near the mountains of Paranan which end at the cape called Engano
[i.e., deceit]. The land of this island becomes more lofty as it
approaches nearer the north. That mission is composed of Visayan
Indians of the opposite coast of that province, who fleeing from the
village of Paranan and from other villages, inhabit those inaccessible
mountains, where they are safe because of the inaccessibility of those
ridges. Among them are some Christian apostates and many heathens who
were born in the mountains. On the brow of those mountains that mission
was founded in the year 1653 by the earnest and laborious efforts of
the venerable father, Fray Juan Uguet, under the advocacy of St. Thomas
of Aquinas. And when the mission was in a good condition, and there
were many recently-baptized people in it, and others reconciled from
their apostasy, they were frightened by the Indians of the village of
Buguey, and they consequently returned immediately to the mountain, and
the mission was abandoned and destroyed, and all the toil of the father
came to nought through the persuasions of those bad citizens. It was
God's will to have them reunite at the same site of Palavig, through
the inducements of some zealous missionaries, but they afterward left
it again because of the annoyances which they suffered annually from
a commandant who goes to that district to watch for the ship from
Acapulco. Under that pretext he usually causes considerable vexation
to the Indians of the village of Buguey, and much more to those of
the mission as they are naturally a very pusillanimous race. Hence,
that mission has suffered its ups and its downs, for however much the
fathers labored in it, the inhabitants of Buguey by their persuasions,
and that commandant by his bad treatment, destroyed their labors. It
is now about twenty-five years since they returned to settle on a creek
called Bavag under the advocacy of St. Michael, who among other saints
fell to their lot. Thence they moved to Vangag, in order to draw those
people from the mountain whence they had gone. For the same reason,
they were moved on another occasion to a site called Dao, which is the
site where they still live, although still under the title of Vangag.
[Salazar relates the steadfastness of a native girl at the above
mission, who was of considerable use to the missionaries. Two fathers
while on an expedition concerned with the mission, are carried across
a river by Negritos, of which race Salazar says:]
Those blacks of those mountains are very barbarous and ferocious,
above all the other inhabitants of Cagayan.... Those black men of
the mountain flee from the water even more than from fire; for every
night in order to go to sleep, they make a fire in the open, and sleep
on the cinders or hot ashes, but they will never bathe or wash, in
order not to get wet, although they stand so greatly in need of it,
and bathing is a common and daily thing among the other natives of
this country. [10]
[The Negritos' hatred of bathing makes our author imagine that those
who carried the fathers across the river are spirits sent by God to
aid His chosen ones in their trouble. The chapter ends with an account
of a pious Indian woman who dies in Abucay. Following this chapter,
the missions of the Asiatic mainland and the Pardo troubles and
controversy are discussed in chapters xxxv-xlviii; and the lives and
deaths of various Dominicans in chapters xlix-lxii, of which chapters
l-lv treat of Fray Domingo Perez (see VOL. XXXIX, pp. 149-275).]