Rajah Humabon
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Rajah Humabon was the main Raja of Cebu island in the Philippines at the time of Ferdinand Magellan's arrival in the archipelago in 1521.[1] There are no official written accounts of his existence prior to the Spanish arrival, but extensive narration by cartographer Antonio Pigafetta was made on Humabon and Philippine society prior to the implementation of Spanish rule. Visayan oral legend accounts Humabon as being the son of Sri Bantug Lamay.
[edit] Royal Motto Cata Raya Chita
The phrase Cata Raya Chita was documented by Pigafetta to be a warning in Old Malay from a merchant to the Rajah and was cited to have meant:
"Have good care, O king, what you do, for these men are those who have conquered Calicut, Malacca, and all India the Greater. If you give them good reception and treat them well, it will be well for you, but if you treat them ill, so much the worse it will be for you, as they have done at Calicut and at Malacca."[2]
In reality, this phrase is that of Kota Raya kita, a Malay motto of merchants under the authority of Humabon, with a meaning in English of: "We (the subjects) are the Raja's fortress": Kota (fortress), Raya (Raja), kita (we). The meeting between Humabon and Enrique, the Malaccan slave accompanying Magellan's voyage, is undoubtable proof of the existence of Old Malay being a lingua franca spoken within the Philippines at that time as cited by Antonio Pigafetta, Miguel López de Legazpi and local oral histories. There is a place in Singapore with the Malay name of Kotaraya, affirming the royal motto to be Old Malay.
Rajah Humabon was the first official Catholic of the Philippines, after he and his wife were baptised by Magellan's priest. According to Pigafetta, it was Humabon who had requested Magellan to kill his rival Lapu Lapu, the datu (chieftain) of nearby Mactan island. Humabon's conversion to Christianity however, had an adverse affect of allowing the Spanish to dictate over Humabon, and later he had put an order out to poison the remaining Spanish soldiers in Cebu after the death of Magellan at the battle of Mactan.
His official title in Philippine history is that of the Defender of Cebu, in reference to driving the Spanish from the island after the poisoning.
[edit] References
- ^ Product of the Philippines : Philippine History
- ^ Pigafetta, A., Nancy-Libri-Phillipps-Beinecke-Yale codex, Skelton, R.A. English translation. pg 71
