A.

Spanish-Colonial 'Racial' Strata and Ethnicity

As in other Spanish (and also Portuguese) possessions, colo-

nial society in the Philippines was conceived theoretically as a
'racial' pyramid, with each descending stratum marked by greater
biological, ethical, and economic distance from a hypothesized
metropolitan norm. At the top were the peninsulares, Spaniards
born and raised in the imperial center. Next below them were the
criollos or creoles, Spanish by descent, but unfortunate enough to
have been born and raised in the Philippines, where, it was be-
lieved, the local climate and culture had indelibly degenerative ef-
fects. Below the creoles came the mestizos, who were not only lo-
cally born and bred, but were the products of 'interracial' sexual
relationships. The Philippines was, however, distinctive within
the Empire, in that, while it contained no descendants of African
slaves, it had from the start harbored a sizeable population of im-
migrant Chinese and their descendants. Hence it was considered
important to distinguish between Spanish mestizos and Chinese
mestizos, and not to make much of the growth of mixed popula-
tions with (eventually) Spanish, Chinese, and 'native' (indio)
'blood.' At the bottom of the pyramid came the indios themselves,
generally treated as a homogeneous mass, though the Spanish
were quite aware of the multitude of languages and local cultures
 Noli me tangere
4

hi 1 go Thus ,e thnicity' only appeared as a census cat-

in the arc pea · . seized the islands at the turn of the
c. he Americans .
egory aiter t Th strata were more than simply abstract
twentieth century. ~sle eoime tried hard, almost to the end to
The impena r o- · '
constructs. cial reality by imposing different legal sta-
k them a concrete so
ma e .rr . tax burdens. Peripheral to the layered pyra-
tuses and d1nerent1a1 . . . . C .
mid were three s1gn1 · ·ficant social groups. 1mm1grant, non- athohc
.
Chinese, wh o .cior centuries were called sangleyes, a .term replaced
by the more conventl· onal chino only as. the. later nineteenth cen-
tury wore on,• largely unsubdued Muslims 1n the Far South; and .
pagan tribes in the Luzon Cordillera and remote parts of other is-
lands who were mostly left to their own devices.
It 'is striking that the word peninsular, either as noun or adjec-
tive, crops up only four times in the whole novel-twice in the
mouth of the elderly (and peninsular) Teniente, and twice in the
commentary of the Narrator (the peculiarity of whose voice will
be discussed later on).
The occurrence of criollos is even rarer. The male form is used
once by an unnamed friar, while the female criolla is spoken of
once by the Narrator.
Mestiw(s)-male and/or general-also occurs only four times,
typically qualified by the adjective espanol(es). (It is very striking
that the form mestizo chino never crops up, even though the Chinese
mestizos were a large, increasingly rich and influential group in
the late nineteenth century, and Rizal himself belonged to it, 'ra-
cially' at least. I will try to account for this strange absence at the
end of this section). Three of the mentions come from the N arra-
tor, while the fourth comes from an anonymous, panic-stricken
voice in the crowd as the rumors of lbarra's 'conspiracy' spread
through San Diego. The female form mestiza is mentioned twice in
the Narrator's paraphrasing of the thoughts of Tiburcio. P.
Damaso uses the contemptuous miniaturizing mesticillos twice.
By contrast, the term indio is widely used by all strata of colo-
nial society from the peninsulares down to the peasantry. Of the 43
Noli me tangere 5

mentions in the novel, we find P. Damaso with 13; the Narrator,

7; an unnamed friar, 5; La Victorina, 4; Elias and the Diario in
Manila, 3 each; and the Teniente, Tasia, Ibarra, the Alferez, the
Dominican Provincial, an unnamed youth, an anonymous peas-
ant, and an unspecified voice in a crowd, 1 each. India, as an ad-
jective, is used once only-by La Consolaci6n. The noun naturales,
a polite synonym for indio, occurs 5 times, distributed between
the Narrator, 3; and Don Filipo and the Diario, l apiece.
The term chino is also very common. As a noun it shows up 35
times, and its use is widely distributed: the Narrator, 18; Tasia, 5;
anonymous voices, 4; the gravedigger, unnamed pious women,
and the Diario, 2 each, with Capitan Basilio and lday, 1 apiece. As
an adjective, chino is employed 3 times by Tasia, and once by the
Narrator. The evidently obsolescent sangleyes is used only once,
by the Narrator.
Moros are referred to three times only, in every case by the
Narrator. The word does not refer to the Muslims of the southern
Philippines, but merely to the 'Moors' represented in the moro-
moro play put on for the fiesta in San Diego. As for the pagan
populations, they are mentioned just twice: once when Elias
speaks of finding shelter from persecution among the tribus irifi,eles e
independientes, 5 and once when the Narrator describes the image of
San Diego, paraded through the town during the fiesta, as having
an abundante cerquillo rizado como el de los negritos. 6
And ethnicities? If for the moment we set aside the numerous
mentions of Tagalog-the-language, we are left with a mere five
cases where tagalos are referred to, all of them in the Narrator's
commentary. In three of these the reader is told what "th~ Taga-

5. Jose Rizal, .Noli me tangere (Manila: Instituto Nacional de Historia,

1978), 250 (chap. 45 "Los perseguidos"). ·
6. Ibid., 164 (chap. 29 "La ma:iiana"). It does not seem to have oc-
curred to Rizal that referring to the Aeta, with their frizzy curls as "little
Blacks" might be offensive. '
 Noli me tangere
6
two the reference is to an un-
h' . in the oth er
logs" call somet ing, G rdia Civil hunting for Elias, set
her of the ua rr-_
named, lowly mem d d scribed as un visaya . .1agalo as an
. O f his comra es e
off against one . . distributed between the school-
. Just 6 umes,
adjective occurs h. Primitivo and an unnamed
th Narrator 2 eac '
teacher and e ' . The nouns they are attached
. ndent 1 apiece.
newspaper correspo ' the comedia lies, and a family.
t h'sm books an e1egy, ' . . .
to are ca ec i , ' and once as an adJectlve 1n the
Visa'l}a appears four times as a noun . f h '"1: 1
._, r
mouth of the Narrator, re1ernng to . the companion o t e iaga og
7
Guardia Civil member mentioned above.
.
A very strange, interesting . absence is that of the Ilocanos,. who
at that time formed a large part of Manila's class of domestic ser-
vants. ·Rizal himself was perfectly aware of this fact. In a letter to
Blumentritt from Berlin, dated March 21, 1887, just a month after
he finished the Noli, he commented with characteristic Tagalog and
ilustrado hauteur:

Das tagalische Stiick von Riedel lasst mich glauben, dass der
Mann der es ihn dictiert hat, kein Tagala ist, sondern ein .
Ilocaner; so sprechen die Ilocaner tagalisch. Es is noch moglicher,
da die Dienstleute in Manila fast alle llocaner sind.

[Riedel's Tagalog piece makes me believe that the man who dic-
tated it to him was no Tagalog, but an llocano; such is the way
Ilocanos speak Tagalog. This is all the more probable in that in
Manila almost all the servants are llocanos]. 8

Perhaps this is why not a single name-identified servant ap-

pears in the novel! (Nineteenth-century European novels usually
mention some household servants by name). But in any case, the

7. Ibid., 287-88 (chap. 52 "La carta de los muertos y las sombras"). It

is interesting to note that the Narrator has the fellow speak Tagalog with a
Visayan accent.
8. The Riz.al-Blumentritt correspondence, vol. 1, 1886-1889 (Manila: Na-
tional Historical Institute, 1992), 59ff.
 7
Noli me tangere

Noli generally ignores the huge ethnolinguistic diversity of even

the Catholic Philippines.
We can view the above data synoptically by putting them into
tabular form, as follows:

Table 1. Mentions of 'Racial' and Ethnic Terms in .Noli me tangere

Total frequency Narrator's use No. of characters

of mention of term using term

Peninsular/ es 4 2 1
Criollos 1 1
Criolla 1 1
Mestizo/s 4 3 1
Mestiza 2 2
Mesticillos 2 1
lndio/s 43 7 13
India (adj.) 1 1
Naturales 5 3 2
Chino/s 35 18 7
Chino (adj.) 4 1 1
Sangleyes 1 1
Tagalo/s 5 5
Tagalo/a (adj.) 6 2 3
Visaya (n. and adj.) 5 5
Tribus infieles 2 1 1
Ilocanos

It is worth noting that these categories are usually unambigu-

ous. The one possible exception is chino; we have already seen
that Chinese mestizos are never mentioned in the novel. But there
are many strong contextual indications that the word typically re-
fers to recent, unassimilated immigrants from China. Observe
how Tasia affectionately refers to his mother: Por las galas de sangre
chino que mi madre me ha dado, pienso un poco como los chinos: honro al
padre por el hfjo, pero no al hi.Jo por el padre [Because of the drops of
Chinese blood that my mother has given me, I think a little like
 Noli me tangere
8

h £ ther for his son, but not the son for his
the Chinese: I honor t e a . · .
t even the filosofa himself, calls him a chino.
father].9 But no one, no . ' . I'
We may coneIu d e th.is. subsection on colonial. racia strata and
. • b king the obvious questions: why are the
ethruc categories Y as .
mentioned-14 instances over 354 pages!-
upper strata so rare IY . ? .
and why are th e ,a1·ien , Chi'nese made so prominent. . . One kind .of
answer wou Id emp h asiz · e the rapid decay of . traditional colorual .
'racial' categories, originally created in the SIXteenth c~ntury, .m
the face of massive penetration of Anglo-Saxon agro-industnal
capitalism and heavy steamship-carried C~inese migration.
Another would focus on Rizal's intellectual environment, cultural
outlook and political stance. A fuller discussion of this question
will be postponed to the end of this section on the Noli.

B. Political Vocabulary and Concepts

If the terms used in Category A are mostly clear-cut, the oppo-

site is typically the case with those we will look at in Category B.
One might think that the toponym Espana is quite s traightfor-
ward. Indeed, in 35 out of 39 instances the referent is plainly the
Iberian country we know today. The distribution is Ibarra, 13;
the Narrator, 7; Elias, 4; the Capitan-General, 3; an old husband,
2; and Tiburcio, Don Basilio, Tiago, an old wife, the newspaper
correspondent, and an anonymous voice, one each. But when the
Capitan-General talks of the Rey de las Espafias, he is almost cer-
tainly speaking of the Empire. 10 In the four remaining cases,

9. Rizal, Noli, 64 (chap. "Tasio, el loco 6 el fil6sofo") . This is not a pub-

lic statement but a humorous comment in a chat with his good friends
Don Filipo and Dona Teodora.
10. Ibid., 1~1 (chap. "La cabria"). It is true that the old name for royal
peninsular Spam was Las Espafi.as, reflecting the plurality of small states
eventually united under the aegis of Castile and Aragon. But right t
d S . , . 'al up o
the en , pam s 1mpen conquests were regarded not as colonies b t
· d . u as
overseas possessions un er direct royal sovereignty.
 9
Noli me tangere

distributed between the correspondent, a voice in the crowd, and

Lucas, it is impossible to be certain. The four appearances of la
Peninsula (La Victorina, 2; the Teniente and the Capitan-General,
1 apiece) in the text also point to an ambiguity in Espana.
One might also suppose that the 'national' noun espaiiol had an
obvious and unambiguous connotation. But of the 52 mentions in
the novel, clearly 24 refer to people born in Spain; 3 equally
clearly refer to such people plus locally-born creoles and mesti-
zos; and 25 cannot be determined. The distributions look like
this: of the 24 in the first group, 14 come from the Narrator; 4
from the Teniente; and 1 each from the Capitan-General, P.
Damaso,' Tiago, La Victorina, the Diario, and an anonymous
voice. The 3 clearly inclusive mentions come out as 2 for the
Capitan-General, and 1 for the Diario. The spread of the 'unclear
mentions' is: the Narrator, 9; the Diario, 8; the gravedigger, 5;
anonymous voices, 2; and Elias, 1.
Since the Narrator shows up in each group-and he is often
uncritically regarded as Rizal's reliable mouthpiece-it may be
helpful to offer readers an example of each usage in his commen-
tary. In the novel's opening chapter, the girls present at the party
being given in Tiago 's house are described as unas cuantas j6venes
entre filipinas y espaiiolas [a few young ladies, a mixture of creoles
and peninsulars]. 11 Later on, however, the Narrator notes that for
Maria Clara's wedding, ahora sus invitados son unicamente espaiioles y
chinos; el bello sexo esta representado por espaiiolas peninsulares y filipinas
[this time (Tiago's) guests were restricted to Spaniards and Chi-
nese, the fair sex being represented by peninsular and creole
Spaniards] .12 The second quotation refers to two kinds of
espaiioles, Spain-born peninsulares and Philippine-born criollos. This

11. Ibid., 3 (chap. 1 "Una reuni6n"). The context makes it plain that
the N arrator does not mean 'F·1· · ' and 'Spaniards' in the modern
11pmas
sense.
12. Ibid., 329 (chap. 60 "Maria Clara se casa").
 Noli me tangere
10
. . · tes the first. Here espaiiolas are peninsular girls
quotation i11umina '
while the filipinas (creoles) are not included among the Spaniards.
. all h · another scene the Narrator speaks of el Alcalde
Fin y w en, in ' ,
u· ·a Clara Ibarra varios espaiioles y senoritas, readers
Cpn. nago, 1.v1an , '
kind of eshafioles these people are-except that
can not b e su re What 'l'
13
they are male. .
Espanol/a the adjective crops up o~l~ 14 t11~1es. The Narrator
uses it 7 times, attached to sangre, vzqo, mestizo, empleados, and
orgullo. The Teniente (sangre}, the Alcalde (~ob~erno), D. Filipo
(refran), Ibarra (patria), Elias (comerciante}, the Diano (Bossuet), and
an anonymous voice (mestizo)-each employs the adjective once.
The difficulties are comparable when it comes to variations on
Filipinas, filipino, and filipina.
The place Filipinas itself might seem unambiguous. It is men-
tioned 58 times, with quite a wide distribution: the Narrator, 20;
Ibarra, 12; the Alferez, 7; Tasia, 5; Elias, 3; the Capitan-General,
2; and the Teniente, the Alcalde, P. Damaso, Albino, La
Consolaci6n, Sergeant Gomez, Primitivo, the schoolteacher, and
an anonymous young man, once apiece. But it is by no means
clear if the word is always used to include the region of the
Moros or the territory of Elias' s tribus injieles e independientes. None-
theless, it is significant, as I shall argue below, that if we exclude
the peninsular Capitan-General, the Teniente, the Alferez, the
Alcalde, and P. Damaso (12 mentions total), of the 46 remaining
mentions, fully 40 are confined to the small 'politically conscious'
group of Ibarra, Tasia, Elias, and the Narrator.
The noun filipino(s) is much rarer. It occurs a total of 21 times
'
distributed between the Narrator, 18, and the Capitan-General,
Ibarra, and an unnamed journalist, once each. The same pattern
is evinced in the use of filipino/a as an adjective, sometimes at-
tached to human beings, but just as often to objects. Of the 12 oc-
currences, 7 come from the Narrator, 4 from the satirized Diario,

13 . Ibid., 165 (chap. 29 "La maiiana").

Noli me tangere 11

and 1 from the Teniente. The obverse of this distribution is just as

striking. The novel's first hero uses the word just once, the sec-
ond hero, Elias, never, and the wise Tasio not at all. When Elias
describes himself, what he says is soy un indio, not soy un Filipino. 14
It is also necessary to note that certainly in the case of the Diario,
and at least in some instances (as cited above) of the Narrator,
filipino clearly denotes criollos. This in turn means that in the
novel's 354 pages, the use of filipino to mean something not con-
fined to the criollos occurs only about 14 times, and never emerges
from the mouths of either Tasio or Elias. If, as some have argued,
the use of the word filipino in the modern national sense was al-
ready normal in the Philippines at the time of the .Noli's publica-
tion, this whole pattern becomes completely incomprehensible.
We can consider synoptically the data provided above by re-
presenting them in the same tabular form used for the hierarchy
of 'racial' strata and ethnicities.

Table 2. Mentions of 'Spanish' and 'Filipino' terms in Noli me tangere

Total frequency Narrator's No. of characters

of mention use of term usmg term

Espaiia(s) 39 7 11
La Peninsula 4 3
Espaiioles (peninsulares) 24 14 7
Espaiioles (+creoles) 3 2
Espaiioles (vague) 25 9 4
Espanol/a (adj.) 14 7 7
Filipinas (place) 58 20 14
Filipino(s) (n.) 21 18 3
Filipino/a (adj.) 12 7 2

14. Ibid., 275 (chap. 49 "La voz de los perseguidos"). His interlocutor
in private conversation here is Ibarra, who is a mestizo-a distance of
which Elias is acutely conscious. He never says somos filipinos (we two are
Filipinos) either.
 12 Noli me tangere

vve may now turn to three terms which could

"(AT.
. . . be expected to
represent, more abstractly, the idea of the Ph1hpp1nes as a nation ,
namely naci6n, patria, and pueblo. . .
The reader will immediately be surprised by the ranty of any
word s d enve· d from the Latin root natio. Nad6n{es} crops up 7
· . (lb arra , 4·, the Narrator, Elias, and Tasio, 1 each) . .Naciona-
umes
lidades occurs twice, used once by the Narrator and once by Elias.
The noun nacionales is mentioned once by Ibarra, and the adjective
nacional just twice, by Ibarra and Elias. Most jarring is the com-
plete absence of either nacionalismo or nadonalista. Before turning to
consider what the mentioned terms appear to mean, it is neces-
sary to underline that among the innumerable actors in the drama
of Noli me tangere, only Ibarra and Elias use any variant of the
natio-based root, and then only nine times.
The meaning of nacion(es) most frequently corresponds to the
now obsolete meaning of 'nation' that we find in the King James
Bible, and was still predominant when Adam Smith wrote his
great The Wealth of Nations: in effect, a word with a broad and
vague semantic range covering 'people,' 'country,' even 'ethnic
group.' For example, in chapter 46 ("La Gallera"), the Narrator
comments transhistorically on the analogy between cockfight afi-
cionados and 'nations': Tai sucede entre las naciones; una pequena que
consig;ue alcanzar una victoria sobre otra grande, la canta y la cuenta por
siglos de los siglos [So it is with nations. A small nation that wins a
victory over a large one sings of it and recounts it throughout the
15
ages] . Tasio uses the word in the same way in chapter 32 ("La
. ") 16 S
C a bna . h
. ometimes t e sense seems closer to the modern
meaning of 'nation' as shorthand for nation-state. For example,
Ibarra contras ts Europa con sus hermosas naciones agjtandose
continuamente, buscando la filicidad . .. [Europe with her beautiful na-
tions, in constant agitation, searching for happiness ...] with the

15. Ibid., 259.

16. Ibid., 178.
 13
Noli me tangere

naciones espirituales of the Orient. 17 As for Elias, he seems to use the

word in the same sense when he speaks to Ibarra about Spain's
European neighbors. 18 The ·word is never used in the novel to re-
fer directly to the Philippines.
Next: the one use of nacional(es) as a noun comes in chapter 7
("ldilio en una Azotea") where Ibarra, talking to Maria Clara
., 19
about Europe, makes it mean a member or memb ers o f a nacwn.
Its adjectival form is used by Ibarra to speak of the org;ullo nacional
(national pride) of different European countries, and by Elias to
talk to Ibarra about the Arabs, who gave Spain cultura, ha sido
tolerante con su religi,on, y ha despertado su amor proprio nacional,
aletargado, destruido casi durante la dominacion romano y goda [culture,
were tolerant of her religion, and awakened her national pride,
dormant and almost destroyed under Roman and Gothic domi-
nation].20
Finally, in chapter 4 ("Hereje y Filibustero"), the Narrator
uses nacionalidades to describe the different ethno-racial groups
crisscrossing the streets of Manila; by contrast Elias employs the
word once, in a quite modern sense, and in direct relationship
with the Philippines, when he claims that for "us" Catholicism is
too costly (cara)-pues por el/a hemos renunciado a nuestra nacionalidad,
a nuestra independencia [because in exchange we have given up our
nationality, our independence]. 21

17. Ibid., 43 (chap. 8 "Recuerdos"). (Ibarra is talking to himself). In the

1880s, there were strong Irish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Polish, Hungar-
ian, etc. nationalist movements, but none of them yet had their own state.
Rizal was not thinking about them, but about 'beautiful' Imperial France,
lmpe~al Germany, the Imperial UK, Imperial Austro-Hungary, Imperial
Russia, and Imperial-wannabe Italy.
18. Ibid., 272 (chap. 49 "La voz de los perseguidos").
19. Ibid., 36.
20. Ibid., 16 (chap. 3 "La cena"), and 273 (chap. 49 "La voz de los
perseguidos ").
21. Ibid., 17; and 273. Elias is here talking privately with Ibarra.
 .Noli rne ta
ngere
14
. toriously difficult to translate int E
~a~eno o
Pueblo and pa place of small-scale human habit t'
n refer to a a ion
glish. Pueblo ca , t0 the human beings living there (perh '
. like 'town, . aps
so111ething b O th at once; it can also be used for m h
lk') and to uc
'townsfo ' . ch as 'countries' and 'lands' (Switzer-la d
cial units, su . . n '
larger so d the 'peoples' inhabiting them. It can also denote
Ire-land), an
. , d ,
,s· ·1 I p t . ' .
mon people. imi ar y, a na s meanings range
'nation an com
frolll home-town, to native .land, and mother-country. Further-
more, it. is
• us ed quite often in a general sense, so that a person
can speak of other people's 'motherlands,' not merely his or her
own.
In the Noli the noun patria appears with three reference points.
The first of these is general. For example, Ibarra says to Tasio
that todo hombre debe amar su patria [Every man ought to love his
mother-country]. 22 I have found 6 cases of this usage: Ibarra 3;
and the Narrator, Tasio, and Elias, 1 each. The second reference
point is Spain, of which three instances come from Ibarra and one
each from the Teniente and an unnamed friar. The Ibarra cases
include the famous sentence in chapter 3 ("La Cena"), where the
young mestizo speaks of Espana, mi seg;unda patria [Spain, my sec-
23
0nd motherland]. (Since he is addressing an assembly of elite
party guests, he may not be sincere, but no one in his audience
d
fiu s any thing odd or untoward in his words). The third refer-
ence poi~t. is Filipinas, and there are 12 cases of this usage in the
:vel,hdtvtded between Ibarra (7) and Elias (5). It is remarkable
at t e Narrator h · · p tna
Last! . th . imself never refers to Filipinas as his a. ·
Y, ere is one . . . . · d1ec-
tival fi . passage in which patna appears in quasi-a :.i
orm, in the phr h. I gen·
eral · ase zstoria patria (Ibarra) with the c ear
meaning of 'belo . '
nging to a motherland.' 24

22. Ibid 41 (ch

., ap 25 "E
23. Ibid., 16. · n casa del fil6sofo").
24. Ibid. 273 ( h
' c ap. 49 "L
a voz de los perseguidos ").
Noli me tangere 15

Pueblo appears far more often than either naci6n or patria, with
more differentiated meanings, and a wider range of voices. First
of all, there are at least 32 places where the reference is to some
usually unnamed township in the Philippines, by implication
mostly in the area around San Diego or near Manila. For ex-
ample, in depicting his early youth to Ibarra, Elias says he huy6 de
pueblo en pueblo [fled from township to township]. 25 The distribu-
tion of this meaning is wide: Elias, 14 instances; P. Damaso, 4;
the Alcalde, 3; Tasia, Ibarra, P. Sibyla, Capitan Basilio, and the
Teniente, 2 each; and the Narrator, 1.
Then there are 53 places where the word refers explicitly or
by direct implication to the physical township of San Diego, per-
haps also its townsfolk. Again a wide distribution: the Narrator,
22; Ibarra, 7; the Diario and Don Filipo, 4 each; P. Sibyla, the
schoolteacher, and an unnamed old peasant, 3 each; and Tiago,
Elias, Rufa, Sisa, the gobernadorcillo, a young local politician,
and an anonymous woman, 1 apiece. A further five instances refer
to the townsfolk rather than the place, and are distributed thus:
four to the Narrator and one to the cook of the Alferez.
We find pueblo connoting a 'people' in general, comparative
terms, in 10 instances. For example, in chapter 9 ("Casas del
Pafs"), the Capitan-General reflects that cado pueblo merece su suerte
[every people deserves its fate.] 26 The distribution is: Elias and
Ibarra, 3 each; Tasia, 2; and the Capitan-General and Laruja, 1
apiece.
Finally, there are 21 instances where pueblo pretty clearly
means the people of Filipinas. Those who use the word in this
sense are Elias, 8; Ibarra, 6; Tasia, 5; and the Narrator and the
Capitan-General, 1 apiece. For example, Elias says to Ibarra: En
nuestro pais, como no hay sociedad, pues no forman una unidad el pueblo y

25. Ibid., 278 (chap. 50 "La familia de Elias").

26. Ibid., 48.
 Noli· me tangere
16
try as there is no society, the people and
. [In our coun ' 27 ..
el gobiern° d t form a unity]. In addition, there are fou
rnent o no r
the govern d" ssi· on between Elias and Old Pablo whe
all in the 1scu . . , re
cases, . f pueblo is ambiguous-1.e., it could refer to a town-
the meaning O • • • . 2s
. the people of F1hp1nas.
ship or to .
all these findings .
in t h e 10
r 11 . table
owing
We can con 1figure .

Table 3. Mentions of Nacion and its Derivatives, Patria, and Pueblo

in the Noli

Total frequency Narrator's No. of characters

of mention use of term usmg term

Naci6n/es 7 1 3
Nacionalidad/es 2 1 1
Nacional/es (n.) 1 1
Nacional (adj.) 2 2
Patria (general) 6 1 3
Patria (Spain) 5 3
Patria (Filipinas) 12 2
Patria (adj.) 1 1
Pueblo (local townships) 32 1 8
Pueblo (S. Diego town) 53 22 13
Pueblo (S. Diego towns folk) 5 4 1
Pueblo (peoples in general) 10 5
Pueblo (people of Filipinas) 21 1 4
Pueblo (unclear)
4 2

These figures show us .

gere and of th . some important features of Noli me tan-
e society it d 'b
used rarely by escn es. Nacion and its derivatives are
.. ' very few I .
Philippines . .Nacio l' peop e, and never in reference to the
"bl
1 e. We have
na zsmo and naczonalzsta
. . . .
are spectacularly inv1s-
. seen, too th . .
d ifferent charact ' at Patna is used in several senses by
ers, so that it I .
wou d be quite misleading to clatlll

27. Ibid 26 9 (
28 .. , chap. 49 "La
. Ibid., 252-53 (chap. 45 :oz de los perseguidos").
Los perseguidos ").
 Noli me tangere 17

that it means only one, very nationalistic thing. In fact it occurs

with reference to the Philippines in only half the instances, and
the number of people who use it are only two-Ibarra and Elias;
furthermore, both of them use the same word on occasion to
mean something-not-the-Philippines. In the case of pueblo, almost
75 percent of the time the word is used either for San Diego or for
townships nearby and around Manila. In only 17 percent of the
cases does it refer to the people of the Philippines, and, if we ex-
clude the rather sympathetic peninsular Capitan-General, the us-
ers are only Ibarra, Elias, Tasio, and the Narrator.
If we combine this analysis with the fact that no one beyond
the Narrator uses the noun more than once to refer to what today
we would call the Filipino people, it seems indisputable that at the
time of the No/i's publication in 1887, there was no generally used
term-in the Philippines (Spain is another matter, as we shall see)-
covering all the people in the archipelago. It is also absolutely
clear that the only characters in the Noli, aside from a few penin-
sular Spaniards, who use a nationalist vocabulary are the three
heroes, Ibarra, Elias, and Tasio, while the single biggest user is
the observing Narrator. All this suggests that any widespread
'Filipino nationalist consciousness' in the modern sense had not
yet come into existence. Nothing shows this more clearly than the
fact that Elias, noblest of them all, calls himself an indio, not a
filipino/Filipino.
The moment has now come to consider the remaining ele-
ments of the Noli' s political vocabulary. Where possible, I have
assigned them to semantic clusters in descending order of
frequency. I
I
First: Words connected to concepts of personal or national
}
freedom/autonomy (38 in all). Libre [free] in a definitely political
sense occurs 3 times, divided between Basilio, Elias, and the Au-
thor (title of chapter); in a general, non-political sense 10 times,
divided between the Narrator, 3; Tasio and P. Salvi, twice each;
and Elias, (Se)iior Juan, and P. Damaso, once apiece. Libertad in a
 Noli me tan:gere
18
13 times, distributed between Elias
crops up d F'l' ' 5;
olitical sense . •t'vo 2 each; an 1 ipo and the Do ..
P and Pr11n1 1 , .. llUn1-
Tasio, Ibarra, . In a general, non-poht1cal sense it 0
. 1 1 apiece. ccurs
can Provincia' n the Narrator, 4; and Ibarra, the Capi't
. ·ded betwee an-
8 times, div_i. d the schoolteacher, once each. The v b
Fihpo an .. er
Genera1, . d twice by Tasia unpoht1cally, and once b
lse) is use
l,.brar1~. y
1· . lly Inde-hendencia appears once, when Elias strik-
Primiuvo po iuca . r .
barra of vuestra [not nuestra] zndependencia.29
ingly spe aks to I .
.
Second . vv, urords connected to monarchy
. .
and empire (26 in-
king] occurs 18 times 1n d1fferent contexts. Refer-
stances). Rey [ . .
ring to the Spanish king we find 12 cases, d1v1_ded betw~en P.
Damaso, 3; the Capitan-General, 2; and the Teruente, Tas10, the
Alferez, Filipo, a young politician, a sergeant, and a voice in the
crowd, 1 apiece. Tasio and the Narrator each use the term twice
in a general sense, while the Narrator and Ibarra each use it once
to refer to a chess-piece. Imperador [emperor] is used once each by
Tasio and Tiago, in both cases referring to the emperors of Antiq-
uity. Reina [queen] occurs four times, used twice by the newspa-
per correspondent in a general sense, and once each by the Nar-
rator and Ibarra to refer to a chess-piece. Principe [prince], em-
ployed once each by Tasio and the Narrator, refers to actors/char-
acters in the moro-moro play enacted for the fiesta. The same is
tru e for pnnsesa · ·
[princess], used twice by the correspondent .and
o~ce by Tasia. Finally, Tasia on one occasion describes himself
this way· no so'\} p t ·da •
• ar l no de la monarquia hereditana . [I am no sup-
porter. of hereditary monarchy]. 30
Third: Words .. . 1·tical
. . connected to poht1cal parties and party-po 1
orientations (26 ca ) 'd men·
· . ses · Under this rubric we find parti O •
tioned 5 times alwa b d0111les) 1s
. ' ys Y the Narrator. The noun conserva
use d 13 times b th N . 1 o al-
ways b th Ny e arrator, and the adjective 4 umes, as .
Y e arrato r. The adjective liberal comes up 4 tl·mes ' 111

29 . Ib'd
1 ., 273 (chap 49 "
30. Ibid., 64 (cha · " L~ voz de los perseguidos") .
1
p. 4 Tasia el loco 6 el fil6sofo").
 19
Noli me tangere

the mouth of the N airator. In effect, all the words in this category
are monopolized by the Narrator.
Fourth: Variations on the root filibuster- (21 mentions)•
Filibustero crops up 18 times, distributed as follows: anonymous
voices, 6; the Narrator, 4; the old Teniente, 3; and 1 each for
Victorina, the Author (chapter title), the schoolteacher, a friar,
and the new Teniente. The contemptuous diminutive filibusterillo
occurs three times, twice in the mouth of an unnamed person,
once in that of a civil servant.
Fifth: Words connected to progress and reform (21 instances).
Progreso is mentioned 9 times, distributed between Tasio, 4; the
Narrator, 2; Filipo, 2; and the schoolteacher, 1. The Narrator
uses the verb form just once. Reforma(s} is spoken of 10 times:
Elias, 4; Ibarra 3; and Tasio, the schoolteacher and P. Damaso,
once apiece. Damaso is the only person to use (once, sarcasti-
cally) the word reformador.
Sixth: Society. Sociedad is mentioned 7 times, but only 3 times
with a political implication. Users of the term in this sense are
Elias, Ibarra, and Filipo.
Seventh: Words connected to citizenship (6 cases). Ciudadano
comes up three times, in the mouths of Ibarra, Elias, and the
Capitan-General; conciudadanos (fellow-citizens) is used on one oc-
casion each by Ibarra, Tasio, and the Capitan-General.
Eighth: Revolution. Revoluci6n is mentioned 4 times, once each
in the mouths of the Alferez, the half-wit, Primitivo, and an un-
named woman.
What is left is a miscellany: colonias (2) - the Narrator and an
anonymous voice; the adjective colonial (2) - the Narrator and an
anonymous voice; capitalista, used either to mean a merchant or an
agribusiness landowner (3) - the Narrator, a newspaper, and a
newspaper correspondent; the diminutive capitalito once, by the
Narrator; carliston (mocking term for a Carlist) twice, both in abu-
sive reference to P. Salvi - by the Alferez and the Narrator· the
adjectives arist6crata and dem6crata are used once each the 'first
'
20 Noli me tangere

. 1 b the Narrator, and the second seriously by . Tasia·'

. . Y dY ce by lb arra,. comnatriotas
sarcast1cal 'l'
once by Ehas; and
ut6puo is use on . h s of man] once by Ibarra.
th
derechos del hombre [ e ng t . eded here. What is plain is the
h commentary is ne .
Not mu~ f olitical vocabulary, and the no less re-
h. hly restricted range o p . lb El. T: .
ig. Of eop.1e w ho u se 1·t·· primarily arra, 1as,. , as10,
.
stncted range P . .
and the Narrator. So it is no t too surprising
. that
. revolucwn is a

word left to a h alf-WI,

't a brutish peninsular policeman, a pomp-
h 'd h
ous ass' and an unname d woman . All this reinforces
.. t e 1 ea
. t. at
the Noli. is . 11Y a novel about poht1cs;
. only tangentJ.a .. rather 1t 1s
.. a
moralist's novel about the deplorable cond1t1.o~ of. the Philip-
pines as the famous Preface promises. This pomt will be made
more' elaborately later on, when we come to the Fili.

Intermezzo

Before turning to the final section of this analysis of the Noli,

we might usefully pause to take a quick look at elements of the
vocabulary which give some indications of Rizal's cultural world
in 1887. Within the Philippines roughly 23 toponyms outside the
colonial capital are mentioned, only six escaping the Narrator's
attention. Almost all are in the Tagalog-speaking areas of South-
ern Luzon. The rare exceptions are Pampanga, Albay, Cebu, and
perhaps Jolo, if we include the Narrator's sarcastic description of
San Miguel wielding a )oloano' kris. 31 The distribution is: the
Narrator, 22; the newspaper correspondent, 6; with one apiece
for P. Sibyla, Tasio, Ibarra, P. Salvi, Elias, Capitan Aristorenas,
and an unnamed peasant.
Outside the Philippines, we find roughly 47 toponyms, only
19 of which are not provided by the Narrator. The geographical
distribution is instructive: Europe, 26; the Near East, including

31. Ibid., 27 (chap. 6 "Capitan Tiago").

Noli me tangere 21

Egypt, 7; Asia, 7; Africa, 3; Oceania, 2; and the Americas, 2.

Here the distribution is: Narrator, 57; Tasio, 16; Ibarra, 15; the
Capitan-General, 6; P. Damaso and La Victorina, 5 each; the
Teniente, 4; anonymous voices, 3; Tiburcio, Albino, the young
politician, Sergeant G6mez, Elias, Filipo, the schoolteacher, the
newspaper correspondent, and Capitana Tinchang, 2 apiece; and
one each for Capitan Basilio, a peasant, Primitivo, the Alferez,
the Dominican Provincial, Tiago, and (Se)iior Juan. Asia is bit of
a surprise: the only places mentioned are China, Japan, Bengal
(where a type of lamp comes from), Persia, Canton, Hong Kong,
the Huang-ho river-and Asia itself. No India, Ceylon, Korea, or
any state in Southeast Asia; no Peking, Tokyo, Calcutta, Co-
lombo, or Singapore. Doubtless the explanation for the surprise
is that in 1887 Rizal had as yet no personal experience of Asia,
only of Western Europe.
As for 'persons', there are perhaps no real surprises. We find
22 saints (distribution: the Narrator, 40; Tasio, 12; P. Damaso, 7;
Tiago, 4; Rufa, 3; the correspondent, the Alferez, the goberna-
dorcillo, and a peasant, 2 apiece; and Capitan Basilio, 1); 20 fig-
ures from the history of Classical Antiquity, of whom Cicero is
most prominent with 5 mentions (distribution: the Narrator and
Tasio, 8 each; Capitan Basilio, 4; P. Damaso, 3; Filipo and
anonymous voices, 2 each; and Capitan Valentino and the news-
paper correspondent, 1 apiece) ; 31 figures from myth (over-
whelmingly Graeco-Roman), plus Ugolino from Dante's leferno,
Leonora from Verdi's La 'Fraviata, and Segismundo from
Calder6n's La Vida es Sueiio (distribution: the Narrator, 25; the
correspondent 6 · and Ibarra, P. Damaso, Tasio, Maria Clara,
' ' Provincial, one each); 14 figures from the
and the Dominican
Bible (distribution: the Narrator, 14; Tasio, 5; P. Damaso, 2; and
Don Basilio, Primitivo, and the newspaper correspondent, 1
each); 15 persons from Church history (distribution: Tasio, 10; P.
Damaso and La Victorina, 2 each; the Narrator, P. Sibyla, the
 Noli me tangere
22
the schoolteacher, and a peasant, 1 apiece); 11
d t
correspon. . en. , · 'b ut1on.
· · th e correspond ent
· I history (d1stn
from Ph1hpp1ne co on1a 1 d h '
. D.! and the Alferez, 2 each; an t e Narrator
3. Ehas P. amaso,
' '. T' e apiece)· 15 figures from Western Euro-
and Capitan 1nong on ' . .
. (d' t 'bution: the Narrator, 10, Tas10 and the
pean history
.
lS fl v· ·
d the Capitan-General, La 1ctonna, T1ago
·
Alferez, 2 each , an . . '
1 apiece). Of these the most interesting
an d th e correspondent ,
are three contemporaries: Isabel II (the N arrat~r, once), Amado I
(the Narrator, once), and Antonio Ca.novas (Tiago, on~e); 13 art-
ists and writers, including Shakespeare, Dante, Heine, Hans
Christian Andersen, Rafael, Rivera, and Gounod, as well as the
Filipinos Balthasar (Balagtas), and Pedro Paterno (distribution:
the Narrator, 12; Tasia, 3; Ibarra, Elias, and the schoolteacher,
one each). Three famous European scientists-Copernicus,
Galileo, and Champollion-are mentioned by Primitivo, Tasio
and the Narrator. If there is a surprise, it is in the absence of any
Germans, such as Schiller and Goethe, whom Rizal is known
greatly to have admired. The list ·shows how much Rizal was the
product of his excellent Ateneo education, based on Classical An-
tiquity and Church History. The attentive reader will also note
the astonishing amount of Latin used in the novel, making it per-
haps the last world-class novel in which this beautiful ancient lan-
guage is still conspicuous.

C. Questions about Tagalog

. Here there are two questions to be addressed • The fiust seems

simple, but turns out to be enigmatic. Which pe rsonae are sa1'd to
speak about the Tagalog . . language ' and who is sai'd to use 1t
. to
whom? For context, 1t. 1s useful to note that se vera1 other lan-
guages are referred to In the novel. Spanish (refe d
- . rre to both as el
espanol and el castellano) Is mentioned 31 times d · t 'b
' Is n uted among·
the Narrator, 14; the schoolteacher 5 • p D ' . ·
' ' . amaso, Tasio and
 23
Noli me tangere

Ibarra, 2 each; and Tiburcio, Maria Clara, Tinchang, La

Consolaci6n, the · correspondent, and an anonymous voice,. 1
apiece). Latin (noun and adjective) is mentioned 20 times, w~th
the following distribution: P. Damaso, 6; the Narrator and Tasto,
4 each; Primitivo, 3; and the Alferez, Maria Clara, and Tinchang,
I apiece. English occurs 5 times (Tasio twice, Ibarra, P. Sibyla,
and the Narrator, once each); Chinese, 2 times (both from Tasio);
Japanese, twice (both from Tasio); (ancient) Egyptian, 3 times (all
from Tasio); and Italian, once (Ibarra).
Tagalog, however, is mentioned more often even than Latin,
i.e., 29 times. Over half of these mentions come from the Narra-
tor (17), followed, a long way behind, by the schoolteacher (2);
and P. Damaso, the gravedigger, Tasio, the young politician, an
anonymous voice, Elias, La Consolaci6n, her assistant, Tinchang
and Primitivo, 1 apiece.
The Narr a tor tells us directly of the following interlocutors:
the gravedigger speaks en tagalo to his associate; the
gobernadorcillo to Tasio; Elias to Ibarra; La Consolaci6n to her
assistant, telling him in Spanish to tell Sisa in Tagalog to start
singing; La Consolaci6n to Sisa (en perficto tagalo); Consolaci6n's
assistant exclaims to himself Aha! Sabe pala tagalo; Ibarra to Elias;
P. Damaso to Tia Isabel; a bandit to Elias; and the Visayan Civil
Guard to his Tagalog comrade. In none of these cases are we told
what language the other interlocutor uses to respond. The Narra-
tor also tells us that lbarra's sinister Basque grandfather spoke
the language well and mentions three times that the second half of
P. Damaso's sermon is given in Tagalog. In four places he sarcas-
tically describes La Consolaci6n's attempts to pretend she does
not understand Tagalog because she is really an orofia, and the
way she martirizaba the language as well as Spanish. He speaks
ironically of the Alcalde's poetry as an indescribable mix of
Latin, Tagalog and Castilian, and mentions the young man who
left the church during the Tagalog half of Damaso' s sermon claim-
 Noli me tangere
24

. , . "all Greek" to him. Finally he says that in Tagalog the

1ng 1t was . · 11 d · b , 32
. , t re inflicted on Tarsi1o 1s ca e tim azn.
'water-boar d1ng tor u . ,
• · cases are these: P. Damaso tells T1ago s guests
The rema1n1ng
that he knew almost no Tagalog durin~ his e~rly ~a?'s i~ ~ilipinas.
Tasia informs Ibarra that the manuscript he 1s wnt1ng 1s in Taga-
log, as that is "our" tongue. The schoolteache: d~scribes. how at
his first meeting with Damaso, he addressed him in Spanish, and
was berated for this-only Tagalog was permissible; at the second
meeting, he therefore spoke in Tagalog-but was ignored. An un-
named person describes the young man who left Damaso's ser-
mon claiming it as pretending not to know Tagalog though, in
fact, he knew it very well. Finally in the conversation between
Primitivo and Tinchang, the woman begs him not to speak in
Latin, but rather in either Tagalog or Castilian. The man replies
in effect that Tagalog ruins the pure meaning of any serious
language.
The puzzling thing about this collection of references is that
while it is large enough to command our attention it is difficult to
' -
see an~ co_nvi~cing pattern. In_ the end, it may be that the impor-
tant thing 1s simply. presence,
. . in the Fili there is
since · no th'ing com-
parable: almost no one 1s descnbed as speaking Tagalog.
We can now turn to the actual occurrence f ,,... l d .
- . o .1aga og wor s in
the novel, and ask who uses them, and why.
If we set aside a few lines of Balagtas d . .
. . ( . . .
C nsp1n neither of which 1s translated into s an a 1ittle riddle by
•
·
panish), we can count
approximately 128 Tagalog words mostl
. ' Y nouns h· h · _
troduced into the Spanish text. I say " . ' w ic are in
r • . approximately" because I
am reiernng to words said specifically to be T1
agalog, and usually

32. Ibid., 312 (chap. 57 "Vae victis!"). Th .

. 1 . L fi . .
R1za wntes: os zlzpinos saben lo que esto q · d . e passage is .
• uzere eczr· en t Very interesting '
timbain [The Filipinos know what this . . '"l: ' agalo lo traducen por
' ] Th. . means, m 1.agalog th
timbam . 1s 1s perhaps the only pl h ey translate it by
ace w ere a clear d · · .
between Tagalog speakers and Filip· . istinction is made
mos m general.
 Noli me tangere 25

italicized. Yet there are a number of non-italicized Tagalog words,

unmarked because they had become Hispanicized in the Philip-
pine version of Spanish, while there are also some italicized
words in which the Tagalog clearly derives from Spanish, for ex-
ample, saragate from 1.aragate. Formally, the distribution of the Ta-
galog words looks like this: Effectively half (63) come from the
Narrator; followed by anonymous voices, 12; Ibarra, 7; P.
Damaso and Se(iior) Juan, 6 each; Tia Isabel, 5; Tasio, 4; La
Consolaci6n, an unnamed peasant, and some anonymous sol-
diers, 3 each; Rufa and an unnamed child, 2 each; and the
Teniente, Crispin, Sinang, La Victorina, Tarsilo, lday, Don
Basilio, Petra, a guard, a 'newcomer,' a friar, and an unnamed pi-
ous woman, 1 each. Twenty-three characters in all, aside from the
Narrator, use Tagalog words. At first sight this is an astounding
distribution across the whole social gamut from peninsulares to the
poorest, purest indio. But the distribution becomes even more fas-
cinating when we notice that the indio hero Elias never uses a single
word of Tagalog!
In the above paragraph, I was careful to include the word 'for-
mally,' since one could say that the high figures for Ibarra, Juan,
and Isabel are a bit misleading. Juan's words all come in one
paragraph, and are simply a list of the Philippine hardwoods he
uses in his work. Isabel's total also comes from one paragraph
where she lists a set of edible, freshwater fish. Likewise, Ibarra's
· relatively high total stems from a single paragraph where he re-
minds Maria Clara of the names of various children's games they
once played together. If we set these paragraphs aside, the curi-
ous fact is that the character who uses Tagalog the most-laugh-
ably badly, to be sure-is the peninsular P. Damaso !
The formal numbers conceal something else. Most of the char-
acters who use Tagalog typically do so in the form of exclama-
tions: aray!, aba!, naku!, susmariosep! and the like. The most bril-
liant and searing use of Tagalog comes, strangely enough, in the
scene where La Consolaci6n's shrivelled heart is softened by the
 Noli me tangere

26 · · S ·
. (which, however, is in panish in th
of Sisa
' kundiman
s l , la a!fiereza en per
rfiecto taga lo, levanta' d e
soun d ,,, exc amo n ose
i) ''}/o, no cantes. h _, daiio esos versos!" La loca se callo'. l
text . tes' Me acr,,. ' e
agi,tada; "no, ca~ Abdi Sabe pald tagalof,!" y qu_ed6se mirand~ la senora,
asirtente solto un.. "N0 don't sing! exclaimed the wife of th
· a6n [ , e
Ueno de admira
.
.-r. g rising to her feet in agitation. "Don't
· erfect .1 aga1O '
Alferez in P hurt me l" The mad woman fell silent. The
. I Those verses 1 l I"
sing. . "Abdi So she knows Taga og pa a. and stared at
'de blurted out. ·
aI ]33
the lady, full of wonder. " . . .
La Conso1ac1 '6n's "perfect Tagalog. is
. given in perfect Span-
. but we can hear it like the gaping aide, who responds appro-
ish
pmre.' 1y m'th the beautiful 'Tagnish' of sabe . pala tagalog. The curi-
ous thing is that earlier in the chapter Rizal has the Alfereza bark
at Sisa, "vamos, magcantar ikaw!" [Come, sing nowl] without any-
one noticing her own lapse into 'Tagnish' !34 But La Consolaci6n
is the great exception. Generally, Tagalog exclamations are in-
cluded only for comic or satirical effect, as well as 'local color.'
We are thus left to reflect on the strange fact that it is the Nar-
rator who is overwhelmingly the biggest user of Tagalog words.
In his English version of the novel, Leon Ma. Guerrero had al-
ready noticed this oddity with discomfort and incomprehension.
Since he wanted to get rid of Tagalog altogether, one of his solu-
tions_ was to translate the Narrator's Tagalog into a weird kind of
E~glish, for example rendering salakot as "a native hat," as if
Rizal had written, in Spanish, un sombrero indio. 35 (It is only in foot-
note 6, p. 27 of th . .. h
e notas appended to the centennial ed1t1on of t e
novel that salakot i l • c
s exp a1ned-for whom?) Yet the fact is that ior
most of the Tagala
g words (usually nouns) he employs the Nar-
rator adds a Spanish '
the m • . paraphrase, except where the context makes
ean1ng plain.

33 . Ib'd
I ., 219 (chap. 39 "D -
34. Ibid., 216. ona Consolaci6n") .
35. Such is h'
"Recuerdos") . is version of what Rizal wrote 1n ibid., 41 (chap. 8
Noli me tangere 27

The obvious question that arises is this: if the primary in-

tended readers of the Noli were Rizal's fellow Filipinos, why did
he feel he had to paraphrase terms like bdtis into Spanish? Most of
the Filipinos who could read Spanish at all were either Tagalogs
or people like the Luna brothers, who, even if they were ethni.-
cally Ilocano, had been raised in Manila where Tagalog was a
major lingua franca among the 'natives.' The perhaps surprising
answer is that there is plenty of evidence that Rizal' s fell ow Filipi-
nos, while obviously important, were not the only targeted read-
ers. This evidence comes not only from the text of the novel it-
self, but also from Rizal's correspondence with friends in the pe-
riod immediately following the Noli' s publication in the bitter Ber-
lin winter of 1887.
In the brilliant opening chapter, Rizal wrote: oh! tu que me lees,
amigo 6 enemigo! Si es que te atraen d ti los acordes de la orquesta, la ·luz 6
el significativo din-clan de la vajilla y de los cubiertos, y queres ver c6mo son
las reuniones alld en la Perla del Oriente [You who read me, be you
friend or foe, if you are attracted by the sounds of the orchestra,
the lights, or by the unmistakable tinkle of glass and silverware,
and wish to see what parties are like over there in the Pearl of the
Orient ...]. 36 In this first passage (in the novel) where the Narra-
tor addresses his reading audience directly, we notice that (1) they
are divided between friends and foes, not between Filipinos and
Spaniards, nor fellow nationalists and the colonialists; (2) they
may well be curious to learn how parties are organized in Manila
(something which Spanish-reading Filipinos and many Spaniards
would know well without opening the novel at all); and (3) most
important, Manila, Pearl of the Orient, is situated alld (yonder, far
away on the other side of the world), not aqui (here, in Filipinas).
The readers imagined here are, like Rizal himself, in Europe, not
(at least in this passage) in Filipinas. We can thus conclude that,
certainly as far as the 'friends' are concerned, they are sympa-

36. Ibid., 2 (chap. 1 "Una reuni6n").