St. Francis sleeps at Goa

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: St. Francis sleeps at Goa
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVIII (No. 11) November 1938
Year: 1938
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Fulltext: November, 1938 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 13 St. Francis Sleeps at Goa Goa, old Goa and new Goa, the remnant of Portuguese domain on the western coast of India, whose archiepiscopal authority once extended from Mazambique and all western Africa to Japan, still boasts the pre cious beautj7 of the Bom Jesus church with the shrine and tomb of St. Francis Xavier, “the apostle to the East.” This church is of course a Jesuit church. Xavier was a Basque, like Loyola himself, and was Loyola’s first disciple, one of seven, including Loyola, who signed the original agreement founding the Society of Jesus soon regularized by Paul Ill’s approval, at the Vatican. Though Xavier never visited the Philippines, yet Jesuits came here in 1581 and Goa then enjoying her golden age was their spiritual inspiration. Goa’s mark is strong in the older architecture of the Islands, an every day example being the shell window, shells, capiz, in lieu of glass. This is still the Islands’ preferred window, glass in windows being little used; and the example came from Goa. In 1542, as Papal Nuncio to the Far East, Xavier reached Goa, the Jesuits having been founded in 1534. He went to Goa at Loyola’s request also John Ill’s of Portugal, who on knowing him grew so fond of hir' that he obtained for him four papal favors, highest of which was the of fice of nuncio. Xavier responded in kind, and during the remainder of his life was John’s ecclesiastical counselor, sending back his epistles to Lisbon by every possible ship. Xavier’s missions were carried on at Goa, at Timor, in the Celebes, at Amboyna, at Malacca and Ceylon, and Singapore, and more prominently in Japan where he was accompanied from Malacca by the Japanese exile and convert, Yajiro. The Japanese mission flourished until Nagasaki be came wholly Christian, tradition says, but profane history tells us that intercession, in politics led the Shogunate, once it was firmly estab lished, to suppress the new sect and close Japan to contact with the west ern world save through the agency of two Dutch factories. However, by that time, the Jesuits had been followed into Japan by missionaries of other orders, and doctrinal quar rels had alarmed the Japanese au thorities. In all, Xavier’s missionary life in the Far East lasted eleven years, and it was when trying to enter the Em pire of China in the cloak of a mem ber of a diplomatic mission that he sickened and died near Macao, on the island of Sansian (Changchuenshan), or St. John, a spot where folk of Macao nowadays often go on pic nics or for religious reflections. Xa vier’s body was first buried outside the little hut where he had died, of a fever, no doubt malaria. Then en sued the miraculous, for the body is said to have been buried in lime, yet years later, when disinterred to be taken to Malacca, it had not decom posed, and it bled as from fresh wounds when an arm was removed to be taken to Rome as a holy relic. It is the dismembered body, other wise as whole as it was on the day Xavier’s spirit abandoned it for the saint's celestial rewards, that sleeps in auras of eternal peace in the hand some tomb of the Chapel of Bom Je sus at Goa, for though buried for some time at Malacca, it suffered no disintegration. Xavier is designated the greatest apostle of modern times. Jesuits credit him with 700,000 conversions during his ministry in the East, and while the Britannica refrains from accepting so much, it readily con cedes him the palm. But looking into Xavier’s own letters, the Britannica denies him the gift of tongues; he re cords that he always worked through interpreters, and if they were absent his recourse was to signs. Albuquerque, discovering and con quering for Portugal, captured Goa in 1510, and the Cathedral there, to the memory of this victory, dates from 1511 (whereas Legaspi and Urdaneta came to the Philippines only in 1565, and Legaspi founded Manila only in 1571). By the close of the 16th century, Goa was the metropolis of Christianity in the East, and when Manila was rising slowly in the 18th century, Goa’s star was setting. But think of it! at one time in the 18th century no fewer than 30,000 eccle siastics lived at Goa. There are such holy servants there still, and in turn their servants, and.... hardly any one else. In her heyday, Goa was a rich entreport for India, second only to Calcutta. Her chief import was fine Arabian horses from Hormuz (where Xavier had the Nestorian schism root ed out of the Church). Goa now ex ports coconuts and betel, some iron, and much manganese. The Britannica draws a lively pic ture of Goa as it flourished in Xa vier’s day: “Goa Dourada or Golden Goa was then (Xavier’s time and up to 1625) the wonder of all travelers, and there was a Portuguese proverb, ‘He whd has seen Goa need not see Lisbon/ Merchandise from all parts of the East was displayed in its bazaar, and separate streets were set aside for the sale of different classes of goods. —Bayhrein pearls and coral, Chinese! FRIEND No. 1 ^°BertSON'5 i^bAybis^ Robertson PLEASE CALL UP 2-39-36 Write to: P. O. Box 301, Manila, P. I. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 4 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL November, 1938 porcelain and silk, Portuguese velvet and piecegoods, drugs and spices from the Malay archipelago. “In the main street, slaves were sold by auction. The houses of the rich were surrounded by gardens and palm groves; they were built of stone and painted red or white. Instead of glass, their balconied windows had thin polished oyster shells set in lat tice work (the typical Manila win dow today, borrowed from Goa)... The appearance of the Dutch in In dian waters was followed by the gra dual ruin of Goa... Its trade was gra dually monopolized by the Jesuits.” A rapid fall of population is recorded between 1695 and 1775, until in 1835 it had been reduced to a few priests, monks, and nuns, and of course, their native dependents. Macao and Ma nila, though by no means first among the cities of the Far East, are first among the Christian cities here, far and away ahead of Goa, the proto type. But Goa has St. Francis, and St. John is such a holy isle because he died there that pilgrims coming to ^anila for the Eucharistic Congress two years ago tried to make a pil grims’ landing there, only the Cana dian Pacific liner that carried them fbund the waters too shallow, the errand vain. New National Designs. . . (Continued from page 8) whose specialty is the patadiong or sarong, the wrap-around that no peasant woman will be without. Patadiongs imported from Japan sell 50% cheaper than Iloilo patadiongs, Dr. Roxas says, but the Iloilo weavers have given themselves some pro tection from this invasion by adding some decoration in rayon that factories have not yet found ways of imitating. So the weavers still sell patadiongs at higher prices than imported ones, but have of course lost a portion of the market. Man chester herself was the first invader of this Iloilo industry, 80 years ago, through the agency of Loney & Kerr, the first Bri tish merchants established there after Ilo ilo was made an ocean port in 1859. The people were not then importing piecegoods, but wove all they required out of fiber they themselves prepared from hemp, pine apple, maguey and other plants, some times adding some silk from China. Nicholas Loney, influential in the im portation of improved sugar machinery, found it feasible to introduce Manchester goods and undersell the handloom fabrics because machinery always outstrips hand tools. Yet for dressing up, pihas and jusis (pronounced hoosics) continued in moderJuan T. Villanueva ate vogue and weavers passed on their art to their daughters, now battling the Japan ese with the power of the shuttle for supremacy in the patadiong trade. Per haps all these weavers have a bit of land, mitigating the asperities of their discom fiture in their avocation. The Roxas group feels that it can now help them, with yarns, and to cotton yarns it will try to add rayons. The group counts 56,000 handlooms in Ilokos. Bohol, Rizal, Iloilo, Mountain Province, Bulakan and other provinces have 13.000. A total of 70,000 handlooms is estimated, that during 150 days in a year might weave 30,000 square meters of cloth, a fourth of the 1937 imports includ ing piecegoods. But the looms don’t do so much. They engage part of the time of 100,000 weavers, but all their work in a year will not be a fourth of the work ing days. The peasant women who weave also share the men’s work in the fields, weaving is done at odd times when nothing better turns up to do. The Roxas group estimates that Ilokos looms turn out only 3,218,000 square meters of cloth a year, worth Pl,897,960, and says the weavers fight a losing contest with cheap textiles from Japan. The group says that its new spinning plant will make yarns best suited to the weavers’ requirements, and slash these yarns on beams ready to be placed on the looms at a saving of 32% of the labor of home weaving. The group also believes it can improve the loom, ef fect some practical mechanization, and in time establish in farm communities, as in Japan, small weaving factories utilizing 5 to 10 looms each, with others of 300 to 500 looms each in larger centers. The group describes this as the Euro pan and the Japanese systems, with weav ing always distinct from spinning, and re marks that even today at least 40% of Japan’s weaving is done in small factories dotting the farm communities. Larger factories doing weaving and spinning con centrate effort on products for export. The group contends that it has a fair chance to get weaving well refounded here with out aid of more than existing tariff duties, ad valorem of about 25r/r ■ Since raw material is 70% of the cost of finished goods, and Japan imports th;s material, the Roxas group feels the Phil ippines has an initial advantage in being able to grow cotton. Plant breeding en ters here, but Dr. Roxas says: “We can improve yield and quality (of Philippine cotton) and establish a wider marginal ad vantage in that direction. Already we have new varieties doubling the yield, raising the ginning percentage and improving the grade of the fiber.” Labor in Japan making a kilo of yarn PHILIPPINE TRUST COMPANY sells drafts and cable or radio transfers for the payment of money any where in the United States, the principal cities of Europe, China and Japan. It receives checking accounts in Pesos, Savings Accounts in Pesos or United States Dollars, Fixed Deposits and Trust Accounts. FIDELITY AND SURETY COMPANY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS executes and covers BONDS INSURANCE Court, Customs, Firearm, etc. Fire, Life, Marine, etc. Plaza Goiti and Escolta Tel. 2-12-55 P- O. Box 150 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL