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Lesson 2

Rizal annotated excerpts from Morga's "Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas" that portrayed Filipinos and their culture. In the first excerpt, Rizal notes that descriptions of food are subjective, as different cultures find different foods appealing or unappealing. In the second excerpt, Morga described Filipinos' fear of crocodiles, and Rizal suggested this fear was influenced by crocodiles' mysterious nature and size. Overall, Rizal aimed to provide context and counter prejudice in Morga's work, in line with other 19th century propagandists seeking reforms regarding Spanish rule in the Philippines.

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Hernel Sean Corda
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21 views2 pages

Lesson 2

Rizal annotated excerpts from Morga's "Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas" that portrayed Filipinos and their culture. In the first excerpt, Rizal notes that descriptions of food are subjective, as different cultures find different foods appealing or unappealing. In the second excerpt, Morga described Filipinos' fear of crocodiles, and Rizal suggested this fear was influenced by crocodiles' mysterious nature and size. Overall, Rizal aimed to provide context and counter prejudice in Morga's work, in line with other 19th century propagandists seeking reforms regarding Spanish rule in the Philippines.

Uploaded by

Hernel Sean Corda
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lesson 2_Annotation of Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.

docx

Evaluate Activity 1. Read the following excerpt from Rizal’s annotations of Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas
Filipinas. Answer the questions that follow.

Excerpt 1Morga:

Their regular daily food is rice...together with boiled fish of which there is an abundance, and pork or
venison, likewise meat of wild buffalo or carabao. They prefer meat and fish, saltfish which begin to
decompose and smell.

Rizal’s annotation:

This is another preoccupation of the Spaniards who, like any other nation, in the matter of food, loathe
that to which they are not accustomed or is unknown to them. The English, for example, is horrified on
seeing a Spaniard eating snails; to the Spaniard beefsteak is repugnant and he can’t understand how raw
beefsteak can be eaten; the Chinese who eat tahuri and shark cannot stand Roquefort cheese,
etc., etc. The fish that Morga mentions does not taste better when it is beginning to rot; all on the
contrary: it is bagoong and all those who have eaten it and tasted it know that it is not or ought not to
be rotten.

Excerpt 2Morga:

In the rivers and streams there are very large and small scorpions and a great number of very
fierce and cruel crocodiles which frequently get the natives from their bancas on which they ride...
However much the people may trap, catch and kill them, these reptiles hardly seem to diminish in
number. For this reason, the natives build in the border of their rivers and streams in their settlements
where they bathe, traps and fences with thick enclosures and bars of bamboo and timber within which
they do their bathing and washing, secure from these monsters which they fear and respect to the
degree of veneration, as if they were somehow superior to them.

Rizal’s annotation:

Perhaps for the same reason, other nations have great esteem for the lion and bear, putting them in
their shields and giving them honorable epithets. The mysterious life of the crocodile, the enormous
size that it is sometimes reaches, its fatidical aspect, without counting anymore its voraciousness,
must have influenced greatly the imagination of the Malayan Filipinos.

Questions

1. In Excerpt 1, what impression of the Filipinos do you get from reading Morga’s description of
the type of food the natives eat? Which particular phrase gives you this impression?

2. What is Rizal’s purpose in writing an annotation about the food preferences of the English,
Spaniards, and Chinese?

3. In Excerpt 2, how did Morga portray the Filipinos?

4. In Rizal’s subsequent annotation, what does he mean when he says, “Perhaps for the same reason,
other nations have great esteem for the lion and bear, putting them on their shields and giving them
honorable epithets”?
5. In general, what is Rizal’s motive in writing his annotations of Morga’s work? How does this fit into
the aims of other propagandists working for reforms during this time?

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