MINIATURES

  Le voyage et navigation, faict par les Espaignolz es Isles de Mollucques. Des isles qu ilz ont trouvé audict voyage, des roys dicelles, de leur gouvernement & maniere de viure, avec plusieurs aultres choses by Pigafetta, Antonio, ca. 1480-ca. 1534 The controversial page from Pigafetta's account of the Magellan's Circumnavigation of the Globe. This is the French version published in 1525 taken from the original Italian. (Said to be the first edition that was printed). This is the part of the chronicle that always gets censored due to its content for it discusses an aspect of the sexual lives of the Cebuanos. This edition is abridged. The later translation had the whole original paragraph. One English edition translates the supposed paragraph: "Those people go naked, wearing but one piece of palm-tree cloth about their privies. The males, young and old, have their penis pierced from one side to the other near the head, with a gold or tin bolt as large as a goose quill.

  I often ask why the narratives about human expeditions via sea travel were somehow dominated by Europeans in the last few hundred years -- like that of Magellan or that of Columbus? Of course, the circumnavigation of the world belongs solely to Magellan, an offshoot of the Iberian quest to get a real image of the globe and dominate it. Yet other cultures and people had also, before, dared ask and ventured further. Take for example Malay seafarers from the Sunda to Sumatra, who for many centuries had reached the coast of Africa, that even today clear traces of Malay culture, language, and DNA are still evident in some areas like Madagascar. When the Portuguese conquered Malacca in 1511 they did not only get a first-hand look at the lucrative Spice Trade they also saw the vibrant world of maritime Southeast Asia. There were sea routes, quasi invisible sea passages only the seafaring natives knew how to navigate with their own simple tool as that of experience of tides and winds, above

  Five Hundred years ago today the armada of Magellan was in the vicinity of the Philippine Sea heading towards a destination that many believe was entirely unknown to the Captain -- But there are those who also insist that Magellan perhaps had known before the existence of a group of islands located approx 600 nautical miles north of the original target, the fabled Spice Islands. Was this group of islands (later would be called the Philippines) a historical coincidence, accident whatever? Or was it just a clever ruse of a Captain to calm the fears and apprehensions of his crew in venturing further to the "unknown"? A few days of stay on another island, in what was now the Marianas, gave Magellan and his men a somewhat rude introduction to the varied cultures and people in the region. --Incidentally, at present time, there are Filipinos who debate with this question: Are Filipinos Asians or Pacific Islanders? This year's commemoration of the European discovery of the Ph