The God Culture: The Silence of Ginés de Mafra

Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture has a blog post titled "The Silence of Mafra- Magellan's Inner Circle and the Missing Lequios." The article purports to be about the testimony of Ginés de Mafra regarding Magellan's voyage around the world. Tim makes some very interesting comments about this document which require a closer look. 

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/the-silence-of-mafra--magellan-s-inner-circle-and-the-missing-lequios/

Yes, you're seeing it correctly—this is the entire Ginés de Mafra document: just two pages. Yet, a certain blogger attempted to equate this brief manuscript to Antonio Pigafetta’s detailed and official account, which spans 149 pages or more and was written for the King of Spain himself. That’s like comparing Elon Musk’s minimalist tiny house to the Empire State Building. One could attempt such a comparison, but it would only highlight a severe lack of discernment—or worse, a willful intent to mislead. When someone stoops to these levels, it reflects not scholarship, but desperation. Defamation thrives in the absence of logic. This short document, while valuable, is clearly not a navigational or ethnographic account in the league of Pigafetta’s. Let’s call it what it is: a footnote, not a chronicle.

First to note is that Tim claims Mafra's testimony is ONLY TWO PAGES and merely a footnote. But then he says Mafra's testimony is "rich in navigational detail and survival experience."

📅 Timing and Positioning Matter

By the time strategic decisions regarding Lequios, Ophir, or Cattigara were being executed or obscured, Mafra was either uninformed or not present for those inner-circle discussions. His testimony, rich in navigational detail and survival experience, does not reflect the planning stage of the voyage, where terms like Lequios and Ophir were actively used.

How can these two pages, which Tim dismisses as a footnote, be "rich in navigational detail and survival experience?" Two pages is so brief as to be nothing. Could anybody write a detailed testimony about the first voyage around the world in two pages? 

Next, Tim says Mafra has been misused by people weaponing his omissions.

🔹 The Colonial Misuse of Mafra

Modern critics, like those behind the "100 Lies" blog, weaponize Mafra’s omissions as if silence equals denial. This is bad historical method. Silence in a non-strategic witness confirms lack of access, not absence of truth.

It is I who am behind the "100 Lies The God Culture Teaches About the Philippines" video and blog series and I have never used the testimony of Ginés de Mafra. ChatGPT brought him up when I asked for a list of primary sources of Magellan's voyage but there were no citations. I have also never compared Mafra to Pigafetta. Tim is inventing a claim I never made and then “refuting” it to create the illusion of intellectual triumph. That is a called a straw man argument. This tactic, which Tim regularly employs, is deceptive and unworthy of serious scholarship.

Finally, Tim concludes thusly.

🔬 Conclusion

Ginés de Mafra’s silence on Lequios, Cipangu, or Ophir does not refute their role in Magellan’s plan. It strengthens the argument that Magellan's true objective was only known to a trusted few. The Smoking Quill here is not what Mafra says—but what he was never told.

This is how you hide a land of gold.

Tim talks a lot about Mafra's silence which must mean he is familiar with the contents of the book. After all, he has said to even suggest he is not familiar with his sources is to not be truthful. Yet, while Tim claims Mafra's testimony is a scant two pages it is actually 29 pages long!

https://archive.org/details/AX072/page/n5/mode/2up

The translation of the title is:

"Description of the kingdoms, coasts, ports, and islands from the Cape of Good Hope to the Lequios 

BY

FERNANDO DE MAGALLANES 

Portuguese pilot who saw and navigated all of it,

A book that deals with the discovery and beginning of the strait called Magellan's Strait 

BY

GINÉS DE MAFRA

who was present at all of it and saw it with his own eyes  

Description of part of Japan. (Anonymous.) 

Published by agreement of the Board of Directors of the Royal Geographical Society, by its perpetual librarian ANTONIO BLAZQUEZ Y DELGADO AGUILERA."

Mafra's testimony begins on page 183 and ends on page 212. 

This contradiction fatally undermines Tim's arguments about the text. Tim says Mafra's testimony is only 2 pages, presumes to tell his audience what is not in the book, and then it turns out the book is actually 29 pages long. He obviously doesn't know what he is talking about and has never read Ginés de Mafra's testimony. Nothing he says about this document, from the page count to the content, is credible in the slightest. 

It's not clear why Tim is focusing on Ginés de Mafra. There is a wealth of eyewitness testimony to Magellan's voyage which he continues to ignore. That includes volume 4 of the Colección de los viages y descubrimientos. One historian has this to say about that collection.

The Magellan historiographer must commence his research with Navarrete in whose Colección, especially the fourth volume, primary source material is contained in abundance. Hundreds of documents concerning discoveries by Spaniards in both the Atlantic and Pacific make this work absolutely indispensable, the very basis of modern historical writing on the discovery period.

https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/51/2/313/152610/Magellan-Historiography

Attacking and dismissing the testimony of Ginés de Mafra is not only a red herring, it's more evidence of poor scholarship on Tim's part. Ironically, the only thing being hidden here is the truth behind a veil of misinformation and rhetorical sleight of hand.