User talk:Vicente Calibo de Jesus

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[edit] Henry

Hi. Please provide the source about the Malayan words. I read many times that the 'Malayan ' words were not Malayan but Cebuano. They were recorded by Pigafetta. I've been working on this and will make the appropriate edits. Thanks.--Jondel 01:29, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Malayan vocabulary

I have explained in the article on Enrique de Malacca that the Butuanon-Cebuano vocabulary, consisting of 145 words, was started in the island-port of Mazaua. The incident is described by Antonio Pigafetta on page 68 in the R.A. Skelton edition of the French Nancy-Libri-Phillipps-Beinecke-Yale codex. Here is the passage: "There [at Mazaua] I wrote down several things as they call them in their language. And when the king and the others saw me writing, and I told them their way of speaking, all were astonished." The Bisayan language vocabulary appears in only two of the four extant manuscripts of Pigafetta's account, in the Yale Ms and the Italian Ms famously called today as the Ambrosiana codex.

The Malayan vocabulary you refer to, composed of 450 words, appears only in the extant Italian manuscript, the Ambrosiana. Pigafetta introduces it as follows, "Here follow some words of those heathen peoples of Molucca." Donald F. Lach, in his monumental work Asia in the Making of Europe, remarked that Pigafetta's vocabulary "is accurate and is one of the oldest extant (written) specimens of the Malay language, the earliest surviving Malay manuscripts being dated from around 1500 to 1550," and "the question as to how he was able to get this vocabulary together during his short stay in the East Indies has perplexed many students."

I have offered the hypothesis, based on circumstantial evidence, that this Malayan vocabulary must be the collaborative effort of Pigafetta and Enrique the Malacca who was a native of the Malay archipelago, either Malaccan following Magellan's testimony or Sumatran based on Pigafetta's declaration. One can imagine the two working on such an inventory of Malayan words during the two years they were on board Trinidad, the flagship. Pigafetta's relation gives ample evidence the Vicentine diarist lost no time exercising his lexicographic acumen wherever the opportunity offered itself. He produced during the two-year sojourn four vocabularies, Brazilian, Patagonian, Butuanon-Cebuano (or Bisayan), and Malayan. His mind was a lexical sponge, not to speak of his ethnographic acuity. --Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 10:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enrique, a.k.a. Henrich, did not speak Cebuano

Nor was he in any way involved in the Bisayan, not exclusively Cebuano, vocabulary produced by Antonio Pigafetta. The list of what Pigafetta called "words of the heathens" was started at the isle of Mazaua, anchorage of Magellan's fleet from March 28 to April 4, 1521. Pigafetta fully describes how he started writing words spoken by the Mazauans who were startled when Pigafetta read aloud the Butuanon words he had jotted down.

Pigafetta explicitly states Enrique was from Traprobana, the name then of Sumatra. Magellan in his Last Will states Enrique was from Malacca. The language spoken in these places is Malay.

Ginés de Mafra expressly states in his eyewitness account that Magellan's slave (Enrique) was brought in the expedition because he "spoke Malay." Maximilian Transylvanus, in his secondhand account, clearly states Enrique did not know Cebuano and Magellan had to procure the translation ability of a Siamese trader who spoke to the Cebuanos and translated their words to Enrique who then translated these to Portuguese for Magellan's understanding.

The above are all unmistakably and clearly and expressly said in the accounts of Pigafetta, de Mafra, Magellan himself, and Maximilian. To insist Enrique spoke Cebuano and was Cebuano is to assert an impossibility, i.e., be more knowledgeable than those who knew him first hand. --Vic (talk) 07:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)--Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 22:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

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Again, welcome! --Jondel 01:48, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mazaua, Magellan's Port, The Great Geographical Enigma

[edit] AfD nomination of Mazaua, Magellan's Port, The Great Geographical Enigma

I've nominated Mazaua, Magellan's Port, The Great Geographical Enigma, an article you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but in this particular case I do not feel that Mazaua, Magellan's Port, The Great Geographical Enigma satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion; I have explained why in the nomination space (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and the Wikipedia deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mazaua, Magellan's Port, The Great Geographical Enigma and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Mazaua, Magellan's Port, The Great Geographical Enigma during the discussion but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. --bjh21 12:51, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Will rewrite the article to conform with Wikipedia style

I realize the article, the way it's presented, talks of disputed points. I shall rewrite it so it only discusses facts as established, rather than assertions that need proof. --Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 05:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First mass in the Philippines

Please provide sources so that I can trace them when Im not busy. The place where the mass was held is still debatable but it was settled already by ruling entities; its Limasawa. Thank you. --Efe (talk) 07:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mazaua is the place

I have provided on Wikipedia all the firsthand accounts on the Magellan expedition. These were written by Ginés de Mafra, Martín de Ayamonte, Antonio Pigafetta, Francisco Albo, and The Genoese Pilot.

In my paper, http://www.xeniaeditrice.it/mazaua.pdf, the bibliography lists all the primary accounts. There is a Table of Correspondence where all the names of the isle where the first mass on March 31, 1521 was held is listed (go to Page 20). The place-name "Limasaua" is not found in any of the primary accounts nor even in any secondary account by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de Brito. "Limasaua" is an invention, a fabricated name which I explain in my article "Dimasaua".

The talk page of First mass in the Philippines gives the full text of what the inventor of the place-name "Limasaua" wrote. Please read it closely: It does not mention any mass anywhere in the Philippines on March 31, 1521.

The idea Limasaua is Magellan's port, Mazaua, was first asserted by Carlo Amoretti who did not read Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J. Amoretti got the name "Limasaua" from a map of Jacques N. Bellin who also did not read Combés and merely copied the name from a map of Fr. Pedro Murillo Velarde, S.J. Murillo's map, i.e., the edition copied by Bellin did not have a cartouche where Murillo said the mass of March 31, 1521 was held in Butuan. In my article of Dimasaua I explain this error tracing it to Giovanni Battista Ramusio. Combés had not read any of the primary accounts; he read the secondary account by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas who wrote the mass was held at Mazagua (perfect, total phonetical equal of Mazaua). This Combés rejected in favor of Ramusio's Butuan thinking that it's the authentic Antonio Pigafetta account. If you compare Ramusio with any of the published manuscripts of Pigafetta (there are three, The Ambrosiana in Italian, the Nancy-Beinecke in French, and f. Ms. 5650 in French which have all been translated into English) the place where the mass took place is Mazaua.

This fact of Mazaua is not an opinion, an imagination, or whatever. It is what eyewitnesses said. Now the question of Limasaua being not Mazaua need not be debated if one reads what the author of that name wrote. Not only was Combés ignorant of the real story which he dismisses in favor of Butuan, he had no access to any primary account which were not published until the 19th century. I give the dates of publications in the discussion page of First mass in the Philippines.

I also provide the full text of the "decision" of the National Historical Institute in several locations in the Net, at the discussion pages of my article Ginés de Mafra in Wikipedia and at WikiPilipinas. This "resolution" by NHI is not just flawed, it is mendacious. It dismisses the Ginés de Mafra as fake. It ignores many of my arguments, which it nowhere fully publishes, which was to prove that Mazaua was at 9° North. When NHI dismissed de Mafra, it also made it appear that I was trying to argue that the mass was held at Butuan. Obviously, I could not have argued for Butuan. I was the one who traced the Butuan mistake to Ramusio. NHI itself never knew this.

You will notice NHI's shallow pretense at navigation. It says Magellan was able to anchor in Limasaua even if it has no anchorage because his ignorance of this fact allowed him to land anywhere he pleased. I don't know if you are familiar with navigation, but knowing the character of the bottom--called soundings--is a basic skill of anyone who goes to sea. The NHI "decision" is so dishonest because it suppresses my real arguments and simply conjured any point which could be easily countered. The dismissal of de Mafra's account is simply unpardonable.

The writers of the original First mass in the Philippines article have no acquaintance with the basic sources, I don't even think they've read Combés, and they I'm sure aren't familiar with Carlo Amoretti. I don't think they've read the NHI opinion, and even if they have they would not know that in disregarding or dismissing de Mafra's account as fake, the NHI also made it appear I was pushing for Butuan as the site of the mass. The NHI opinion is the most grievous kind of casuistry. It has in fact altered the nature of the Limasaua notion from Amoretti's mistake to a grand hoax.

In rewriting the article, you will notice I stuck to the eyewitnesses testimonies. I hope you take time to read the actual texts of de Mafra, Combés, Herrera, Colín, Ramusio by Richard Eden, Ramusio by Samuel Purchas.

It's a complex historiographical state of affairs but I explain the operations or methods of the authors of Dimasaua and Limasaua in resolving the conflicting versions by Ramusio and Herrera which led them to invent or fabricate those two place-names which do not even exist in any known Philippine language and certainly are not found in a primary or secondary or even third-hand account of Magellan's expedition. --Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 05:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Settled?

Historical controversies are settled by peers, i.e., experts of a particular field. The Mazaua landfall controversy, a.k.a., the " site of the first mass" debate is strictly speaking within the sphere of Magellan scholarship and Renaissance navigation historiography. No one in the National Historical Institute (NHI) of the Philippines is an expert on these fields.

One of the things the NHI did was to dismiss the eyewitness account of Ginés de Mafra. No Magellan scholar or navigation historian has questioned the authenticity of this account. NHI itself, with full knowledge of its authenticity, admitted it.

The Ginés de Mafra negates all assumptions about Limasawa. Limasawa has no anchorage, while de Mafra's account explicitly states it had a good port. De Mafra said the port was west of the island, the Limasawa hypothesis asserts the port was east.

Limasawa is an invented word. It was coined by Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J., who had not read one single eyewitness account of the Magellan voyage--not Antonio Pigafetta, not Ginés de Mafra, not Francisco Albo, not The Genoese Pilot, not Martinho de Aiamonte. Combés read the secondhand account of Antonio de Herrera which was a faithful account of the Mazaua incident, that the port was Mazaua where an Easter Sunday mass was held on March 31, 1521. He dismissed this in favor of the version of Gian Battista Ramusio who mistakenly mislocated the port in Butuan instead of Mazaua.

Combés Limasawa was actually Antonio Pigafetta's Gatighan which was located at latitude 10° North by Francisco Albo. Today's Limasawa is just four nautical miles short of 10° N.

The idea that Limasawa is Mazaua was hypothesized by Carlo Amoretti, a conservator at the Ambrosiana library at Milan. In 1800, Amoretti published his edition of the Italian manuscript of Antonio Pigafetta's account of Magellan's voyage. Amoretti had not read Combés so he did not know that Limasawa was not Mazaua but Gatighan. Amoretti himself like Combés had not read a single eyewitness account of Magellan's circumnavigation save the Ambrosiana codex. He most especially had no knowledge of the account by Ginés de Mafra whose description of Mazaua is the most authoritative since he went to the isle a second time in 1543 with the expedition of Ruy Lopez de Villalobos. De Mafra said Mazaua was 45 nautical miles below 1521 Butuan. Limasawa is above 1521 and present-day Butuan. He also said the circumference of Mazaua was 3-5 leguas which translates to an area of some 2,200 to 3,930 hectares. Limasawa is only 890 hectares.

Most telling of course is the fact that Mazaua had a good port. Limasawa has no anchorage. Philippine historians who have studied the issue do not appreciate the niceties of anchorage. Indeed NHI in its last pronouncement said Magellan could land in Limasawa in spite of the fact of the absence of an anchorage because his ignorance of this fact allowed him to anchor anywhere he pleased. This nonsense statement is unpardonable among navigation historians; but since most Philippine historiographers are ignorant of navigation, no one seems revolted by this impertinence.--Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 21:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Universally, much like the flat earth belief

The belief Limasawa/Limasaua is Mazaua is very much like the belief the earth is flat. Just about every man, woman, child living on this planet believed earth was flat. Although thousands of years before that some geniuses had already calculated the size of a round earth, e.g., Eratosthenes. As I point out in the article Dimasaua, the word "Limasaua" came into existence only in 1667 in a 3-paragraph epitome of Magellan's sojourn in the Strait of Surigao. It was invented by Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J., who had not read a single primary account, i.e., by Antonio Pigafetta, Francisco Albo, The Genoese Pilot, Martín de Ayamonte, and most important of all Ginés de Mafra who went back to Mazaua and stayed there for four or six months and wrote his observation on the isle after his second visit. How could he have known Mazaua if he didn't read any of these? Not only that. One of his sources, Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, wrote a faithful story of the Mazaua episode, including the correct name for the isle, "Mazagua." Combés rejected Herrera. Instead he opted for the story by Giovanni Battista Ramusio where the port is named "Buthuam" or "Buthuan." Why did he chose Ramusio instead of Herrera? Combés thought Ramusio's was the real thing, the authentic account by Antonio Pigafetta, eyewitness. He of course followed the canon of evidence called the "rule of immediacy", i.e., that which is nearest to the event has a higher evidentiary value. If it were the authentic Pigafetta account Combés would have been absolutely right. But Ramusio's version of Pigafetta was corrupted, he transposed Mazaua and put "Buthuam" in its place.

This tells us also by 1667 there was no longer any oral tradition which would have guided Combés.

Also, as pointed out in the article Dimasaua, the same isle in southern Leyte called Limasaua, was named five years before Combés, "Dimasaua" by another Jesuit, Fr. Francisco Colín. Colín relied on the same sources, Ramusio and Herrera. Why did he name the island "Dimasaua", again a neologism, an invented word? Because he wanted to emphasize that this island is not the Mazagua that Herrera said an Easter Sunday mass was held on March 31, 1521 which he had already said was celebrated in Ramusio's "Buthuam."

The editors of Wikipedia are new to this controversy so their minds are not yet fixated to the belief that "Limasaua is the site of the first mass." By following a simple timeline, you'll be able to follow the thread that led to this false, falsifying, distorted notion.

The idea that because Limasaua has long been "established" therefore should stand as is is akin to saying that since the idea the earth is flat has been believed for thousands of years (despite Eratosthenes) by everyone at that therefore it is true. Time is not a test of the truth of anything. And simply because everyone believes a thing to be true doesn't make it so. Belief is not proof of the truth of a thing. The test of the truth of an isle being Magellan's port of March 28-April 4, 1521 can only be proven by authentic remains of the episode, i.e., artifacts that can be directly linked to Magellan and to Ginés de Mafra and other European visitors to the port, e.g., Bernardo de la Torre, April 1544, and Garcia Escalante de Alvarado, Oct. 1544. There were other visits by the Portuguese, recorded but hardly known.

As said elsewhere, by following the specific clues as to the identity of Mazaua given by Ginés de Mafra, I was able to hypothesize and predict an isle will be found at 9° North latitude. I said this in a gathering of the world's finest minds in the history of discoveries, exploration, geography, cartography, etc. at the 41st annual conference of The Society for the History of Discoveries (click http://www.sochistdisc.org/annual_meetings/annual_2000/annual_meeting_2000_abstracts.htm). In March 2001 such an isle was uncovered by a team of one geomorphologist, geologists, and archaeologists. The isle incredibly is right smack inside terra firma. Many artifacts have been unearthed attesting to the fact it was inhabited by pre-Hispanic peoples. A mystifying metal pestle of European provenience was dug up on May 30, 2001 in a promontory of the isle. The Magellan fleet brought one and only one set of metal pestle and mortar. In the biography of Magellan by F.H.H. Guillemard the items are listed in the manifest as "Brass pestle and mortar for the dispensary...653 maravedis." The pestle we found is copper, as determined by the Philippine Institute of Nuclear Research. So we concluded it cannot be Magellan's. Now, we have just received information from Italian nuclear scientist, Dr. Vasco Caini, that during the 16th century and earlier there was no way to ascertain any particular pestle is absolutely brass. And in any case, Dr. Caini says, brass is not likely to be the right thing because it is soft. (Click http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/Dr.+Vasco+Caini/11a22b90f7a20c6e)

A straightforward historiographical analysis will show the idea Limasawa=Mazaua was first asserted by Carlo Amoretti. Amoretti saw the place-name "Limassava" in the map of Jacques N. Bellin. Both Amoretti and Bellin had no idea what the word meant according to its inventor's intent. Both in fact could not have known that the word "Limassava" is a rejection of Herrera's reconstruction of the Mazaua episode, that it in fact has no reference to an Easter mass.

Wikipedia's policy that only what is "established" is what it can publish cannot possibly be in blatant disregard of what is factual and truthful in the name of established falsehood. I hope you find time to read the labyrinthian pathways to this conundrum so that you do not further promote what is patently false.

[edit] June 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. We welcome and appreciate your contributions, including your edits to First mass in the Philippines‎, but we regretfully cannot accept original research. Original research also encompasses novel, unpublished syntheses of previously published material. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your information. Thank you. Xiaphias (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)