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This post is written by Vicente Calibo de Jesus, Renaissance navigation historian, particularly on Mazaua historiography.

Fernao de Magalhaes states in his Last Will and Testament his “captured” slave, Enrique, was a native of Malacca. On the other hand, the Vicentine diarist, Antonio Pigafetta, explicitly says “Henrich” was from Sumatra. Maximilianus Transylvanus says the slave was from the Moluccas. Carlos Quirino, Laurence Bergreen, William Manchester all say he is Cebuano.

Let me just quickly dispose of Quirino’s et al’s claim Cebuano is a dialect of Malay–which was their way of asserting Enrique was Cebuano. Both Malay and Cebuano belong to the Austronesian group of languages which, prior to European entry into lands beyond the Atlantic, was “the most widely spread language in the world from the island of Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, all the way to tiny, isolated Easter Island (Rapa Nui), and extending into Taiwan, Vietnam, Northern Australia, New Zealand and most of the Melanesian and Polynesian Islands.” (See this link.) The precise lineage of Cebuano on the other hand is Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Meso Philippine, Central Philippine, Bisayan, Cebuan, Cebuano. (See this page.)

Who of the first three–Magalhaes, Pigafetta, Maximilianus–is correct?

Under the canons of evidence, specifically the rule of immediacy, Maximilianus can’t be right. His testimony is based on hearsay–his notion is based on what some of the 18 survivors told him–as against Magalhaes and Pigafetta who were eyewitnesses. Linguistic evidence corroborates this. In the 450 Malay wordlist Pigafetta made, as asserted by James Neil Sneddon, “There are no words in the list identifiable as purely Moluccan…” (The Indonesian Language, Its History and Role in Modern Society. UNSW Press, 2004, Page 61). Tantalizingly, Pigafetta calls the vocabulary “Words of the heathen peoples of Molucca.”

If Enrique/Henrich isn’t Moluccan, is he Malaccan? Or Sumatran? Who is right, Magellan? Or, Pigafetta?

I suggest the key to resolving this puzzle lies in that wordlist. Among the four vocabularies Pigafetta made–Patagonian, Brazilian, Butuanon-Cebuano, and Malay–the last has the most words while the others were each made up of at the most 160. Donald F. Lach in his monumental work, Asia in the Making of Europe, remarked this wordlist has mystified linguistics experts as to how Pigafetta could have compiled so many words in the short time he was in the Moluccas. The explanation has to be that Pigafetta and Enrique corroborated in making that list. The two were in the flagship Trinidad for over two years, and during that period of time both had all the time to work on it. Snedden shares this insight. “It is probable that the source of the list was a Sumatran slave on board, whom Magellan had acquired after his assistance at the conquest of Malacca in 1511.” (Page 61-62).

According to the Ethnologue of Summer Institute of Linguistics, the complete family tree, of the Malay spoken in Sumatra is: Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Western Malayo-Polynesian, Sundic, Malayic, Malayan, Local Malay. There are at least 27 dialects of the Malayan language spoken in various parts of Sumatra. These are Riau (Riouw-Lingga, Johor), Jakarta, Sambas, Deli, Melayu Pasar (Bazaar Malay, Pasir), Borneo (Sintang), Kota-Waringin, Sukadana, Makakau, Makassarese, Manadonese (Menadonese), Labu (Lebu, Labu Basap), Papuan Malay (Irianese), Ritok (Siantan, Pontianak), Balikpapan, Sampit, Bakumpai, West Borneo Coast Malay, Belide, Lengkayap, Aji, Daya, Mulak, Bangka, Belitung, Larantuka (Ende Malay), Peranakan, Basa Kupang. (See the notes.)

Snedden states most of the words in the Malay vocabulary are “clearly western (Sumatran-Malaccan)” which must have led Pigafetta to suspect Enrique was from Sumatra. The Vicentine, sometime during those long lazy hours in the flagship when they worked on the wordlist, must have asked Enrique directly which part of the Malay archipelago he came from. A simple enough device to put to risk his suspicion brought on by his lexicographic acuity. Enrique’s reply is the basis for Pigafetta’s explicit assertion the slave came from “Zamatra, formerly called Traprobana.”

Note: This issue is fully discussed at Wikipedia, click here.

Screenshot of the book cover provided by the author himself, Vicente de Jesus.

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Screenshots of the book covers provided by the author himself, Vicente de Jesus.

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Vicente Calibo de Jesús has specialized in Renaissance navigation history particularly on Mazaua historiography. He is the only Asian who joined the Hakluyt Society and The Society for the History of Discoveries. He is also the only Asian member of the Discovery Exploration e-list forum whose members are largely from the above two societies.

He moderates a webpage, MagellansPortMazaua@yahoogroups.com, devoted to an earnest search for solution to the Mazaua puzzle. The site has the most comprehensive resource on the issue that can be found on the Net or in print. (Anyone interested to join can just subscribe.) On October 13, 2000 he brought before the attention of the world’s leading experts on navigation, exploration, cartographic, geographic history the problem of Mazaua at an international gathering held at the U.S. Library of Congress.

He has written several articles at Wikipedia among these on Ginés de Mafra, Carlo Amoretti, Jacques N. Bellin, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, Gatighan, Ceilon/Seilani which have been published on at least 90-110 sites on the web. De Jesus was national coordinator of the media-education campaign behind the Philippine government’s food production efforts in the 70s and 80s for which he received one of the highest decorations of the Republic, the Presidential Golden Plow Award. He took up A.B. Pol. Sci. at the University of the Philippines. He is from Butuan City.

His debut post:

Humabon not Sikatuna signed first Peace Treaty

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