Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture is very certain Fernando Pinto shipwrecked in the Philippines, specifically the Batanes in Luzon. While this claim is incorrect, it is true that the Philippines is mentioned in Pinto’s travel account. Let’s examine every instance where the Philippines appears, to understand what Pinto is actually saying and what he is not.
The Portuguese designation for the the inhabitants of Luzon was Luçones. This word shows up several times in Pinto's journal. Here is every single instance as translated by Rebecca Catz. In every circumstance the Luzons are described as hired mercenaries. Some of them are described as Moors which means they are Muslims. Before the Spanish colonization and subsequent Christianization of the Philippines Luzon had a significant Muslim population.
Early the following day the king departed for Achin, which was located eighteen leagues from the town of Turbão, from where he started out with an army of fifteen thousand men, only eight thousand of whom were Battak nationals; the rest consisted of troops from Menangkabow, Luzon, Indragiri, Jambi, and Borneo that the princes of those nations had sent to his aid.
pg. 26
However, that same night, their spies captured five fishermen who confessed under torture that this was the same armada that the Achinese king had sent two months before to Tenasserim in his war with the Sornau, king of Siam, in which five thousand Luzons and Borneans, all hand-picked men, were said to be returning, under the command of a Turk by the name of Hamed Khan, nephew of the pasha of Cairo.
pg. 28
Convinced that this was the best course of action to follow, the king immediately gave his approval and set about preparing a fleet of 160 sails, comprised mainly of oar-propelled lancharas and galliots, as well as some Javanese calaluzes and fifteen multiple-decked vessels loaded with provisions and munitions; and he put seventeen thousand men aboard these ships, counting twelve thousand soldiers and the rest sappers and sailors; and among those twelve thousand fighting men he had a regiment of four thousand foreign mercenaries—Turks, Abyssinians, Malabaris, Gujeratis, and Luzons from Borneo.
pg. 46
Leaving eight hundred of the best soldiers in the fleet behind, under the command of a Moor from Luzon by the name of Sapetu de Rajah, he departed with the remainder of his force for Achin, where it was said the tyrant king overwhelmed him with very high honors for the successful outcome of the campaign, conferring on him the title of king of Barros whereas previously he had only been governor and bendara of Barros (as mentioned earlier); and from that time on he was called sultan of Barros, which is the word for king among the Moors.
pg. 49
Seeing them that way he asked them how they happened to meet with their misfortune, and they began by telling him, their voices choked with emotion, that seventeen days before, they had left Ning-po, bound for Malacca, intending to go on to India from there if the monsoon prevailed; but when they had sailed as far as the island of Sumbor, they were attacked by a Gujerati thief named Khoja Hassim, in a fleet of three junks and four lanteias, with an armed force on these seven ships of five hundred men, including 150 Moors from Luzon, Borneo, Java, and Champa, all of them from parts east of Malaya; and that he finally overcame them after a battle that lasted from one to four o’clock in the afternoon and left eighty-two people dead, including eighteen Portuguese, to say nothing of an equal number taken captive and the cargo on the junk that they made off with, which belonged to them as well as some other investors and was worth well over 100,000 taels; and in addition, they related some other particulars that were so distressing, you could see pain and anguish welling up in the eyes of some of the men who were listening there.
pg. 107
Seeing all this, the enemies who were still on board the junks—and there must have been as many as 150 of them, all Moors from Luzon and Borneo, with a few Javanese to boot—began to show signs of weakening, as many of them were already jumping over the sides.
pg. 112
He had the junk anchored close to the island while he and all his men made ready to go ashore in three rowing vessels with a falcon, five culverins, and sixty wellarmed men, Javanese and Luzons, thirty of whom were carrying muskets and the rest lances and arrows, and a large quantity of fire pots and other firearms suitable for our purpose.pg. 305
There were thirty-six thousand foreign mercenaries in this formation who came from forty-two different nations, including Portuguese, Greeks, Venetians, Turks, Janissaries, Jews, Armenians, Tartars, Moghuls, Abyssinians, Rajputs, Nobins, Khorasanis, Persians, Tuparás, Gizares, Tanocos of Arabia Felix, Malabaris, Javanese, Achinese, Mons, Siamese, Luzons from the isle of Borneo, Chacomás, Arakanese, Predins, Papuans, Celebes, Mindanaons, Peguans, Burmese, Chalões, Jaquesalões, Savadis, Tangus, Calaminhãs, Chaleus, Andamans, Bengalese, Gujeratis, Indragiris, Menangkabowans, and many, many more whose nationalities I never did learn.
pg. 317
On being informed of the arrival of the king of Sunda, who was both his vassal and his brother-in-law, he sent a reception party out to his ship, headed by the king of Panarukan, the admiral of the fleet, who departed with 160 oared calaluzes and lancharas carrying Luzons from the island of Borneo.
pg. 384
As soon as he got word of this, the Oyá P’itsanulok, captain-general of the city, came running to the scene in great haste, accompanied by his fifteen thousand men, most of them Luzons, Borneans, and Chams, with some Menangkabowans among them, and issued an order to throw open the gates through which the Burmese was trying to break in.
pg. 415
In the first English translation of Pinto's journal Luzon is Lufons.
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| https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nc01.ark:/13960/t0ns8c57t&view=1up&seq=37&skin=2021&size=150&q1=lufons |
The original Portuguese also reflects this nomenclature using the word Lusoes.
I know Tim will say the original Portuguese is not Pinto's original text and is thus unreliable.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The blogger misleadingly cites the 1614 printed edition of Fernão Mendes Pinto’s Peregrinação in Portuguese as if it were the author's unaltered original manuscript. This is categorically false. Pinto’s actual manuscript was never published during his lifetime and did not survive in its entirety. The 1614 edition, edited posthumously—most likely by Francisco de Andrade—has long been known among scholars to contain substantial editorial interventions, including altered chronology, confused geography, and potential narrative blending. Even respected translator and scholar Rebecca Catz warned that the printed text suffers from “glaring and daring” chronological inaccuracies, with Pinto’s latitudes, distances, and sequencing often shaped by retrospective memory or publisher alterations. Citing this flawed edition as if it represents Pinto’s precise and intended meaning, without accounting for its compromised editorial history, is not only academically irresponsible—it’s deceptive. The claim that this constitutes Pinto’s “original Portuguese” is disingenuous and collapses under even basic scholarly scrutiny.
Curiously, while Schwab scoffs at the reliability of Pinto’s journal by labelling the 1614 Portuguese edition as unreliable due to editorial interference, he nevertheless leans on that same edition to argue for a shipwreck in Batanes. This edition serves as the basis for all English translations and modern Portuguese versions of the text. If the text is fundamentally compromised, then its authority for making geographical claims collapses. One cannot selectively discredit and embrace the same source depending on what suits one’s agenda. Yet that is exactly what Tim does by embracing Pinto's geographical observations while rejecting his precise coordinate of 29°N for the Lequios Islands.
But on the other hand, when I consider that God always watched over me and brought me safely through all those hazards and hardships, then I find that there is not as much reason to complain about my past misfortune as there is reason to give thanks to the Lord for my present blessings, for he saw fit to preserve my life, so that I could write this awkward, unpolished tale, which I leave as a legacy for my children—because it is intended only for them. I want them to know all about the twenty-one years of difficulty and danger I lived through, in the course of which I was captured thirteen times and sold into slavery seventeen times, in various parts of India, Ethiopia, Arabia Felix, China, Tartary, Macassar, Sumatra, and many other provinces of the archipelago located in the easternmost corner of Asia, which is referred to as “the outer edge of the world” in the geographical works of the Chinese, Siamese, Gueos, and Ryukyu, about which I expect to have a lot more to say later on, and in much greater detail.
That same day they immediately set about the business of selecting a new pangueyrão who is, as I have said several times before, the imperial dignitary above all the pates and kings in that great archipelago which the Chinese, Tartar, Japanese, and Ryukyu writers refer to as Rate na quem dau, meaning “the outer edge of the world,” as one can see from looking at a map, provided the degrees of latitude are drawn accurately.
pg. 393
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| https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nc01.ark:/13960/t0ns8c57t&view=1up&seq=275&skin=2021&size=125 |
“outer edge of the world”: The author is here referring to the Malay Archipelago, the largest of island groups in the world, comprising the islands of the East Indies, including Sumatra, Java, Lesser Sunda Islands, Moluccas, Timor, New Guinea, Borneo, Celebes, and the Philippines.
pg. 525
Tim can dismiss Catz's explanation as much as he likes, but that does not resolve the underlying problem. If “Lequios” refers to the Philippines, specifically Batanes or Luzon, then what is the archipelago located “in the easternmost corner of Asia,” described by the Lequios as "the outer edge of the world?" How can it be both the Lequois and the Luzons if the Lequios reference it as a different place? If the Lequios are the same as the Luções (Lusoes), then why does Pinto clearly distinguish between them in his journal? Why are some Luzons described as Moors (Muslims) while no Lequios are described as Moors? The only reasonable conclusion is that the Lequios and Luzons, who inhabited the island of Luzon in what is now the Philippines, are not the same people group. The burden of proof is on Tim to demonstrate otherwise, and so far, he has failed to do so.
Tim has accused me of ignoring the context of Pinto's entire journal.
This blogger cannot simultaneously reject Pinto’s entire journal while using it to support an alternative claim. He wants it both ways, a typical double standard from a serial hypocrite.
That is simply not the case as from the beginning I have examined the entire narrative of Pinto's shipwreck. I have not "hyper focused" on the lone coordinate of 29°N as the only evidence of where Pinto landed. The narrative does not lead one to believe that he landed in the Philippines. This article, showing how Pinto differentiates between the Lequios, the Luzons, and the "archipelago located in the easternmost corner of Asia," is a continuation of what I have been doing from the beginning. Though I do admit that Pinto's lone coordinate of 29°N is strong enough on its own to dismiss Tim's revisionist history.
It is Tim who does not take Pinto seriously except when it suits him. That means Tim says Pinto is unreliable when it comes to locating the Lequios Islands at 29°N yet reliable about other geographic claims. Tim is doing what he has accused me of doing.
Instead of examining the context of Pinto's entire journal, Tim seems to be content with focusing on the shipwreck narrative by mining it for whatever "evidence" he can find to fit the Philippines while rejecting evidence such as Japanese titles, nautoquim and broquem, which contradict him. So, when Pinto says there are five islands to the west of Lequios with various resources, Tim responds by writing nonsense like the following.
🧾 Pinto’s Resource Checklist vs the Real Map
Resource
Silver Mines
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Cordillera range, Benguet Province, San Marcelino, Zambales, and Batangas Province, Luzon; Cebu and Marinduque Island, Visayas; Zamboanga del Sur, Mindanao.
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ None
Pearls
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Sulu, Mindoro Strait, Palawan. [LARGEST ON EARTH!!! Mapped as Thilis, the Ancient Isle of Pearl.]
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ⚠️ Minor; not a known pearl-producing hub
Amber / Resins
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Copal, Almaciga NATIVE to Zambales, Mindoro, Palawan, Zamboanga and Davao.
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ No known trade resins or amber
Incense woods
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – "Poor Man's Frankincense", Manila Elemi from Pili Tree in Cordillera Region, Batangas, Masbate, Visayas and a booming industry in Bicol boasts the world's largest elemi industry reported by some.
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ No eaglewood or aromatic wood production
Silk / Fiber
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Piña in Aklan, Visayas; abaca in Mindoro, Luzon; Negros Oriental, Iloilo and Aklan, Visayas; all the provinces of Mindanao; and Akleng Parang (silk tree) all over Mindanao, Laguna, and Mindoro all endemic since ancient times.
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ No native silk production
Rosewood
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Narra [National Tree], Kamagong in Mindoro, Luzon; Palawan, Visayas; and multiple places on Mindanao.
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ None
Brazilwood (Dye trees)
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Sibucao and other dye woods especially in Negros, Visayas.
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ None
Eaglewood
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Eaglewood [agarwood] in Palawan, Zamboanga and other parts of Mindanao.
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ Not native
Pitch / Asphalt
Philippines (West of Batanes): ✅ Yes – Leyte Rock Asphalt native and ancient, pitch sources in Samar & Palawan (all West of Batanes).
Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa): ❌ None
https://thegodculturephilippines.com/pinto-s-resource-test-the-five-great-islands-were-never-ryukyu/
None of the Islands Tim lists are West of Batanes. They are all SOUTH. The entire Philippine archipelago is SOUTH of Batanes.
Apparently that is NEWS to Tim! Confusing South with West is a shameful embarrassment. It's high past time for Tim to stop conducting silly resource tests or 15 point tests or any other kind of so-called tests to prove the Lequios Islands are the Philippines and deal with the words of Pinto's journal which unambiguously differentiates between the Lequios and the Luzons.
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