The God Culture: Typhoon Mental Gymnastics

In a previous article I posted a section from Fernando Pinto's journal which showed beyond all doubt that when he landed in the Lequios Islands he was in the Ryukyu Islands. Pinto said he could see Japan from where he was standing in the Lequios Islands. 

"Japan, which was the name of that big land mass outlined ahead of us"

It's a pretty open and shut case. Japan cannot be seen from the Philippines. I also wrote that I eagerly awaited what would no doubt be a gymnastic answer from Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture. He did not disappoint. 

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/pinto-the-typhoon-and-the-blogger-who-can-t-read-a-storm/

Here is the start.

Pinto, the Typhoon, and the Blogger Who Can’t Read Current Events [Literally... Pun intended]

The latest blogger critique is a prime example of selective outrage masquerading as scholarship. Faced with an overwhelming body of evidence from Fernão Mendes Pinto that clearly identifies the Philippines—not Ryukyu—as the Lequios Isles, this blogger has now narrowed the battlefield to one desperate hill:

The Typhoon Drift. [Except He Forgot the Typhoon Part!]

Let’s break it down

Now for the floor routine.

🌊 Pinto’s 23-Day Drift: What He Actually Says

Pinto states that after a battle near China, his ship was caught in a massive typhoon and drifted for 23 days through an archipelago before arriving at the land he calls Lequios Grande.

“...for twenty-three days until finally, at the end of that time, our Lord brought us within sight of land...” – Pinto (Catz translation)

The blogger wants to dismiss this as proof that Pinto landed in Ryukyu, citing a translation that refers to Lequios as such. But there's a major problem:

📉 The Coordinates, Dates & Distances Are Not Reliable

Even Pinto’s translator, Rebecca Catz, openly warned that:

• Pinto’s coordinates are often wrong.

• His distances and dates were edited before publication.

• His narrative was altered in its first printing.

Yet the blogger clings to these questionable elements while ignoring everything else Pinto describes. Remember, the blogger actually attempt to pawn off the manipulated text as the original Portuguese when it was not. 

🧭 The Typhoon Argument Fails Geographically

We modeled Pinto’s 23-day drift during a typhoon season, using:

• Historical typhoon tracks 

• Prevailing currents (Kuroshio, Luzon Strait flow) [And we did not forget there was a Typhoon, as the blogger did.]

• Residual drift patterns after Typhoons observed in satellite-era case studies

Let's also not overlook the witchcraft being employed by an agitator who claims Pinto's account should be thrown out, yet, then, still attempts to use it to support his argument that already failed. That is a losing strategy and indefensible. We have never said so, and in fact, have reasserted the account as valid in need of testing and reconciliation citing the very details Catz demonstrating are problematic in Pinto's account. We have also pointed out many times this is not the only detail of the account and all others support the Philippine position, none support Ryukyu. The blogger forgot there was a Typhoon and asserts normal currents at that time of year which would be changed for as much as 3 weeks following a major typhoon. Oops! Again, that is witchcraft, not academic reason. This methodology will be provided to academics who meet with us, not to a fake blogger who admits his end attempt is to commit criminal defamation of our leader and our group.

Result?

A disabled ship near the China coast would be naturally pushed southwest—toward Batanes and Northern Luzon, not Ryukyu.

In fact, the drift duration matches real typhoon-driven cases, including Typhoon Wayne (1986) and historic 1927 events where vessels were displaced for 15–21 days across this same region. {ADD: In that direction?????]

And now for the final landing.

📉 The One-Criterion Trap

This critic has reduced Pinto's richly detailed account to a single metric—his mistaken belief that Japan was "ahead" of him. Even that is questionable, as translation ambiguity remains.

🔥 Bottom Line:

The blogger’s desperate defense of a single flawed reading—while discarding Pinto’s full context and the warnings of his own translator—is not academic integrity. It’s narrative control.

Oh no! Tim has fallen flat on his face by totally dismissing the sighting of Japan as being unreliable. Yet somehow all the rest of the passage is reliable. Pinto didn't actually see Japan from the Lequios Islands. So what did he see? Tim doesn't offer an alternative explanation. He also misinterprets the fact that Pinto deliberately sailed through an archipelago for 23 days before he reached the Lequios Islands and then Japan. He did not drift as if his ships were disabled and being passively carried away by the current due to a typhoon. There is no archipelago between China and the Philippines. Pinto is clearly referring to the Ryukyu Islands chain when he says they made "with full sail for the island of the Ryukyus."

I will award Tim two points for effort. He did put in the time to chart out drift currents from China to the Philippines over a 23 day period. That's a lot of hard work. Unfortunately all that work is meaningless,  irrelevant, and contradicts the text. He should have worked smarter by reading the context of the entire passage including what comes next after sighting Japan, which is that Pinto and his crew immediately arrive in Japan. There are even Japanese titles of nobility in the text. 

We proceeded on our voyage in the battered condition we were in, and three days later we were struck by a storm that blew over the land with such fierce gusts of wind that that same night we were driven out of sight of the shore. And since by then we were unable to approach it again, we were forced to make with full sail for the island of the Ryukyus where this pirate was well known to both the king and the other people there. With this in view we sailed ahead through the islands of this archipelago, but since at this time we were without a pilot, ours having been killed in the recent battle, and the northeast winds were blowing head on, and the currents were running strong against us, we went tacking with great effort from one board to the other for twenty-three days until finally, at the end of that time, our Lord brought us within sight of land. Coming in closer to see if it showed any sign of an inlet or harbor with good anchorage, we noticed a huge fire burning over to the south, almost at a level with the horizon. This led us to believe that it was probably inhabited and that there might be people there who would sell us water, which we were running short of.

As we were anchoring opposite the island in seventy fathoms of water, two small canoes with six men on board came rowing out from shore. They came alongside, and after an exchange of greetings and courtesies in their fashion, they asked us whence the junk had come. Our answer was that we had come from China, bringing merchandise to trade with them, if they would give us leave to do so. One of them replied that as long as we paid the duties that were customarily charged in Japan, which was the name of that big land mass outlined ahead of us, the nautoquim, lord of that island of would readily grant us permission. He followed this up by Tanegashima, telling us everything else that we needed to know and showed us the port where we were supposed to anchor. 

Filled with excitement we immediately hauled in our moorings and, with the ship’s longboat at the bow, moved in to drop anchor in a little bay to the south where a large town called Miaygimá was located, from which many prows came rowing alongside with supplies of fresh food and water which we bought from them.

133

The Inquisitive Prince of Tanegashima

Hardly two hours had elapsed since we anchored in this bay of Miaygimá when the nautoquim, prince of the island of Tanegashima, accompanied by many merchants and noblemen, came out to our junk, laden with a large number of chests full of silver which they brought with them to trade. After the usual courtesies on both sides had been exchanged and he had been given assurance that it was safe to approach, he immediately drew up alongside. The moment he saw us three Portuguese on board he wanted to know what kind of people we were, for he could tell from looking at our faces and beards that we were not Chinese.

Pinto, pgs 274-275

Miaygima and Tanegashima are islands in JAPAN!

12. Tanegashima: Largest of the Osumi Islands, a group just south of Kyushu Island, Japan, part of Kagoshima Prefecture, separated from the southern tip of Kyushu by the Osumi or Van Diemen Strait. It was here, in the year 1542 or 1543, that a group of three Portuguese arrived in Japan on board a Chinese junk. They were the first Europeans to set foot on Japanese soil. That much is known for certain. What is not known for certain is that Pinto was one of that historical group of three, as he claims to be. Unlike his account of China, what he has to say about Japan is fairly accurate, yet some historians refuse to accept his version of the discovery of Japan or to accord him the honor of being among the first group of Europeans to set foot in Japan. The question still hangs fire.

13. Miaygimá: Possibly intended for Miyajima, which Pinto mentions in his letter of 5 December 1554. However, in that letter he correctly situates the island of Miyajima (or Itsukushima) off the southwest coast of Honshu, which is far from Tanegashima. (See Catz, Cartas, 45.) Lagoa (Glossário) identifies it as the island of Make-Jima or Make-Shima, off the coast of Tanegashima, which Father Schurhammer says is impossible. See Schurhammer, “Descobrimento do Japão” 21:565 n. 157.

The text says Pinto got caught in a storm off the coast of China. There is no indication this was "a massive typhoon." Pinto mentions typhoons twice in his journal. 

After a few days of navigating in the Gulf of Cochinchina under the most difficult conditions, we put into a port called Madel; and while we were there, on the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, the eighth of September, feeling quite apprehensive about the new moon—which in that latitude often brings with it a terrible storm the Chinese call “typhoon,” accompanied by rain and high winds too furious for any ship to withstand—when for the past three or four days the skies had been lowering and showing signs of what we had been dreading, and the junks had been hurrying into the nearest haven, it was the will of the Lord that, among the many ships entering this harbor, one of them should belong to a well-known pirate by the name of Hinimilau, a Chinese heathen who had converted to Islam a short time before. 

pg. 92

And just as we came within sight of the mines of Conxinacau, at latitude forty-one and two-thirds, we were struck by a storm coming out of the south—which the Chinese call a typhoon—that closed in on us darkly with winds and rain so fierce, that it seemed like something beyond the bounds of nature. And since our ships were oar propelled, not very large, low-built, weak, and shorthanded, our situation was so precarious that we saw very little hope of being able to save ourselves, so we let ourselves roll coastwards on the waves, taking it for the lesser of two evils to be dashed against the rocks than to drown at sea.

pg. 152

Pinto describes none of the conditions typical of a typhoon regarding this storm nor does he act the way he did when he was previously caught in a typhoon which was to "let ourselves roll coastwards on the waves." On the contrary, he is able to actively and purposefully "make with full sail for the island of the Ryukyus." He was not passively drifting on the current caused by a typhoon. His ships were not disabled as Tim claims. Pinto says they were navigating AGAINST THE CURRENT.

"the currents were running strong against us, we went tacking with great effort" 

He then intentionally sets course for the Lequios Islands and actively sails through that archipelago for 23 days. While anchoring off the coast of the Lequios Islands two canoes approach and ask about the stranger's business to which Pinto says they came to trade. They said that as long as they pay the duties customary to Japan which is the name of the big land mass outlined ahead of them the nautoquim, or lord, of that island would allow it. Then Pinto and his crew immediately arrive in Japan. 

Fernando Pinto seeing Japan from the Lequios Islands isn't ONE METRIC. Neither is it a "single flawed reading" or an ambiguous, questionable translation. Seeing Japan and then IMMEDIATELY arriving in Japan is the context of the passage. The title of the chapter is "THE DISCOVERY OF JAPAN."

The five subsequent chapters are all about Pinto's adventures in Japan. He obviously sailed to the Ryukyu Islands, saw Japan outlined just ahead, and then entered Japan. The Philippines does not factor into this story in the slightest. 

It is ridiculous for Tim to take a portion of Pinto's journal seriously going so far as to chart out drift currents and yet question the reliability of Pinto's clear and unambiguous language about Japan which appears in the very next paragraph. This is olympic-level mental gymnastics worthy of Mary Lou Retton. But instead of displaying his picture on a box of Wheaties, his visage deserves to be on a box of Cocoa Puffs because Timothy Jay Schwab is cuckoo for ignoring the plain words of Fernando Pinto.