The Boy From Sumatra
Retelling Magellan
500 years ago, the first person known to have traveled around the world was not Magellan — it was the Malay man he had kept as a slave for 10 years, baptized as Henrique. It’s unclear whether he was originally from Malaysia (Malacca city), or Indonesia (Sumatra island). On the 28th of March, 1521, he spoke to Visayan Filipinos in Malay off the coast of Limasawa. Based on firsthand accounts and other historical data, here’s my imagination of his experience of that day…
Henrique peered over his master’s shoulder at the island ahead of them. The Captain-General stood nearly motionless, if not for the gentle swaying of the deck. Occasionally, Henrique could hear voices from the other two ships over the sound of the sea splashing against La Trinidad’s hull. Otherwise it was a quiet morning.
They had been anchored nearly since first light, with the hope that the fires that had been spotted on the land ahead belonged to friendly “Indios,” who would seek them out. That was how his master’s people referred to his own people (or the people that he had come from). Not only to his people but also to the many many people they had met along the way, on both sides of the vast Pacific Sea. Henrique’s memory of his people was a distant one. But he knew that the “Indios” he had met in the past year were not his people. Not in their appearance, not in their voices, and not even in the shapes of their boats.
But now, in the Archipelago of Saint Lazarus (as master Magalhães had named it), each island they passed looked closer and closer to Henrique’s childhood memory. Each new “Indio” boat that sailed across their path looked more and more like something that might have been docked in Malacca’s port. Or so he imagined.
Finally, a call from the lookouts in the crow’s nest — a boat was approaching. Captain-General Magalhães leaned forward slightly, as if intensifying his gaze on the sea between himself and the island. On the captain-general’s other side, the cabin boy Cristóbal Rabelo, who had been resting his chin on the rail half-awake suddenly stood up and stifled a yawn. The knight Antonio shifted his weight anxiously a few steps away. Henrique could see the man looking at Magalhães as if to speak, but they both knew it was not a time for ask for the captain’s attention.
After several moments more, Henrique heard Magalhães inhaled deeply. Henrique looked out to sea again. And he saw the boat. A small one. Antonio could be heard muttering the word, “boloto” which the previous islanders they’d met had called their small boats. It did look similar.
“Eight. Eight Indios aboard?” Magalhães said aloud, without shifting his gaze.
“Eight,” Antonio and the officers on the upper deck muttered in agreement.
Henrique stepped up alongside his master to the rail to get a closer look at those approaching. He now found his own gaze locked on the strangers. They wore plain-colored cloth. They carried spears but Henrique could see baskets and nets among them too. Fishermen, or lowly warriors? He couldn’t tell.
They began to slow down. They were well within earshot now, and Henrique could see their faces clearly enough — could return their gaze.
Henrique broke the silence by shouting the words, “Selamat Pagi!”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Master Magalhães turned his head towards him. He felt the entire crew of La Trinidad do the same. He raised his right hand at the eight men approaching, keeping his gaze on them. Henrique searched his mind for any memory of the words he had known as a teenager, a decade ago, before the man from Portugal standing beside him took him to the other side of the world and promised they’d return one day.
Henrique kept speaking to the eight strangers. Addressing them as politely as he could, inviting them to welcome his master’s presence in the hope of good trade and friendship. He hoped he was getting the words right. The Captain-General and the crew turned their attention back to the baluto riders, but they still made no response.
The baluto boat pulled up alongside at a short distance. Finally one among them spoke up,
“Selamat pagi!”
Henrique repeated the phrase again with a smile. Magalhães gave some order to a crewmember that Henrique didn’t hear and a net was lowered over the side for the strangers to climb aboard.
Henrique did his best to invite them aboard using the Malay tongue. He promised that his master would have valuable gifts and kind hospitality. The Captain-General looked back and forth between Henrique and the strangers anxiously, and Henrique explained softly that he had just offered them gifts.
Captain-General Magalhães opened a small chest at his feet and pulled out a red cap. He lifted it in his left hand for the strangers to see and waved at them with his right, saying in his language, “gifts for you!” He pulled more items from the chest, his items from Spain — a glass mirror, a comb, a steel knife.
Seeing that the baluto riders still sat motionless, Magalhães gave more orders to his crew. Henrique hardly listened, still watching the strangers and digging in his mind for any other Malay words that he could use.
Soon, a crewmember was placing the gifts Magalhães had shown in a sack and tying it neatly to a broad plank of wood. He and another crewmember carefully floated the plank on the seawater between La Trinidad and the baluto and pushed it towards the others with poles.
The baluto riders took it up and looked more closely at the items, their expressions finally turning to curiosity rather than anxiety or contempt, whichever it had been.
The one who had spoke before made eye contact with Henrique again. He spoke loudly in Malay, but too quickly for Henrique to catch every word. But somewhere in there was the word “raya.” What the knight Antonio and the Captain-General would call a “king” of “Indios.”
Before Henrique could respond or ask more, the stranger had nodded curtly and raised a hand in farewell as the others paddled the boat around to turn back the way they had come.
As he watched the baluto leave, Henrique heard the knight’s voice,
“Are they going to tell their raya?”
Before Henrique could turn to the knight, master Magalhães was already standing squarely before him, with an expectant look on his face.
“Will they tell their king?” he asked.
“Yes, Captain-General. They are going to tell their king. They will come here today to meet you…”
Magalhães let out a long breath of relief and turned away, looking out to the island again. Antonio stepped up alongside the man and began saying something about their boat and their style of dress in comparison to the ones from Suluan.
Henrique dutifully excused himself from his master’s sight and stepped to the rail at the stern of the ship. One of the voices he had just heard rang in his ears. An echo from a decade into the past. A voice from a world away. From right here. The voice of a boy who prayed the same prayers his mother and father prayed. The voice of a boy whose name was not Henrique. He breathed in the island air deeply. When he let it out, the boy from Sumatra felt tears rolling down a man’s face…
This is part 2 of Retelling Magellan’s Philippines
Next Chapter: “The Nothing-Nothing People, Waray Waray”
Previous Chapter: “The Islands of Saint Lazarus”
