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- Title:
- Pig and Peacock
- Description:
- The special meal for visitors in Cebu as in much of Insular Southeast Asia was an all-meat menu. Pigafetta and comrades ate 35 different meats including peacock during a welcome meal sent to them by the Bornean Sultan. For their audience with him, they were fetched by elephants. One wonders what was served at the farewell meal hosted by Humabon in Cebu after Magellan’s death. He invited the crew and said he would give them the gold jewelry they knew he had had crafted for the Spanish King. The new Armada leader wanted to secure from Humabon guides who knew the route to the Moluccas. The meal turned out to be a trap and almost everyone who went was massacred. Pigafetta had been wounded in the face by an arrow and was swollen, so could not go. The three ships left immediately. One wonders if the Armada would have gotten to the Spiceries quicker than they had if Magellan and his Malay slave Enrique were with them. Magellan had likely reached Mindanao from Portuguese territories when he was still a soldier-sailor for the country of his birth. No one knows with certainty what was Enrique’s fate. Wanting freedom, did he plan the massacre with Humabon? Others suggest he was killed because he wore Spanish garments and would have been mistaken for one. Was Lapulapu in with the plot? No one knows for sure. Food could be used for friendship, peace and trade negotiations, but also as a weapon of stealth.
- Subjects:
- Cebu Antonio Pigafetta Bornean Sultan
- Exhibition:
- Magellan Menu
- Source:
- Lapulapu on the RP P500 bill
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Pig and Peacock", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll008.html