tatue;" and in their necessities they have
recourse to these, offering to them barbarous sacrifices.

They also worshiped, like the Egyptians, animals and birds; and,
like the Assyrians, the sun and moon; they attributed moreover,
a sort of divinity to the rainbow. The Tagalos adored a blue bird,
as large as a thrush, and called it _Bathala_, which was among them a
term of divinity. [79] They also worshiped the crow (as the ancients
worshiped the god Pan and the goddess Ceres). It bore the name _Mei
lupa_, which signifies "master of the soil." They held the cayman in
the utmost veneration; and, whenever they made any statement about it,
when they descried it in the water, they called it _Nono_, which means
"grandfather." They softly and tenderly besought it not to harm them;
and to this end offered it a part of what they carried in their boats,
casting the offering into the water. There was no old tree to which
they did not attribute divinity; and it was a sacrilege to cut such
a tree for any purpose. What more did they adore? the very stones,
cliffs, and reefs, and the headlands of the shores of the sea or the
rivers; and they made some offering when they passed by these, going to
the stone or rock, and placing the offering upon it. I saw many times
in the river of Manila a rock which for many years was an idol of that
wretched people. This scandal, which occasioned great evils, lasted
until the fathers of St. Augustine (who dwell near by) with holy zeal
broke it to pieces, and erected in its place a cross. While sailing
along the island of Panai I beheld on the promontory called Nasso,
near Potol, plates and other pieces of earthenware, laid upon a rock,
the offering of voyagers. [80] In the island of Mindanao between La
Canela and the river [_i.e._, Rio Grande], a great promontory projects
from a rugged and steep coast; [81] always at these points there is a
heavy sea, making it both difficult and dangerous to double them. When
passing by this headland, the natives, as it was so steep, offered
their arrows, discharging them with such force that they penetrated
the rock itself. This they did as a sacrifice, that a safe passage
might be accorded them. I saw with my own eyes that although the
Spaniards, in hatred of so accursed a superstition, had set a great
many of these arrows on fire and burned them, those still remaining
and those recently planted in the rock numbered, in less than a year,
more than four thousand a