The God Culture: St. Francis Xavier's Invented Discovery of the Lequios Islands

Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture is not an ignorant person. He knows what he is doing. He is lying. Every single article in his The Smoking Quill series is filled with outright lies. They are not very complex lies. They are actaully pretty simple and obvious if one reads the texts Tim cites.  Here is another one.

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/jesuit-geography-when-xavier-discovered-what-spain-had-already-mapped/

Tim has titled this picture "xavier-the-jesuit-fraud-changes-maps-and-stupid-bloggers-cover-it-upin-ignorance" which is a dig at me. He is still fuming over the article I wrote concerning the fake map detail he created using ChatGPT. Ever since I published that article Tim has been hiding messages like this one embedded in the names of images on his website. They can be revealed using the web inspector. 

However, it is Tim's article which is full of ignorance. He cites an old and obscure book and claims it says Xavier discovered the Lequios islands. 

Jesuit Geography: When Xavier ‘Discovered’ What the Crown Already Charted

🔥 The Rewriting of Lequios from Luzon to Ryukyu Exposed!

With Lequios already recorded in 1502–1544 maps and Official Spanish Government Documents, Xavier’s 1548 ‘discovery’ becomes a revisionist landmark. Ignoring such data was never academic nor scholarly.

📜 The Source and Its Smoking Statement:

From Historia general de los religiosos descalzos del orden de los hermitaños del gran padre San Augustín... by Fray Luis de Jesús (Tomo 2): 

“Descubriòla el valor de los Invictos Portugueses, poco después de aver hallado las Islas que llaman de los Lequios; abriéndole puerta al fervoroso Espíritu de San Francisco Xavier… el año de 1548.” 

Translation: 

“The said Islands are on one side of Great China, about two hundred leagues apart, to the north, at a height of thirty-four degrees, a little more or less, as Father Fray Marcelo de Ribadeneyra, a Discalced Religious of the Order of Saint Francis, wishes, which is why this land has its Winters and Summers, as our Europe experiences. It was discovered by the courage of the Invincible Portuguese, shortly after they had found the islands called Lequios; opening the door for the fervent spirit of St. Francis Xavier… in the year 1548.”

How exactly does one find what had already been discovered, charted, and catalogued for several decades in Portuguese and Spanish records? It is called fraud, and this is the Smoking Quill of when Xavier, the Jesuit, changed history and maps. Gotcha!!! Why would Jesuits need to move Lequios into undiscovered territory? To justify financial backing for future missions into Ryukyu which had no such significance. The ignored the resouces that were missing, the misplaced geography in which they even added a coordinate to Pinto likely causing a massive conflict in his text which is why he was even called a liar initially.  

The citation Tim provides is clearly about the discovery of Japan and how that discovery opened doors for St. Francis Xavier to engage in missionary activity. The author says Japan was discovered by the Portuguese "shortly AFTER they had found the islands called Lequios." It does not say Xavier discovered the Lequios Islands. Can Tim read? 

He goes on: 

✝️ Missionaries or Myth-Makers? 

1. St. Francis Xavier Did Not “Discover” Them: Xavier was a missionary, not an explorer. His travels to Japan (1549) and nearby areas were part of a broader Jesuit agenda. By 1548, the Portuguese already had extensive trade knowledge of the East Asian islands. The narrative that “Lequios were discovered to enable Xavier’s entry” is a religious retcon, reframing established trade routes into spiritual “discoveries.”  

1. Geographic Manipulation: The passage cites Lequios as being “34 degrees north” and “200 leagues from China,” which contradicts Ryukyu (26°–28°) both in coordinates which are far off, and in distance which is almost double wrong. The original Lequios latitude was Luzon/Babuyan (which match closer to 17-21°, mapped as such). The author appears to merge or shift geographic terms to align with evolving Jesuit-era revisions, pushing Lequios farther north to align it with Japan and Ryukyu. Let Jesuits do whatever, but let us not treat that as credible.

Obviously St. Francis Xavier did not discover the Lequios Islands. Tim has invented that premise whole cloth. The text does not even hint at or imply that. It's about the discovery of Japan which is placed at 34° N. The very title of the chapter Tim is citing, which he shows in the article, is "A Description of the Kingdoms of Japan. "

Tim also claims Fernando Pinto's locating the Lequios Islands at 29° is a single metric, "a lone outlier," from a manipulated manuscript. 

❌ Pinto and the Problem of 29°N

Many researchers have clung to the coordinate “29 degrees north” found in Jesuit Fernão Mendes Pinto’s Peregrinação to geographically place Lequios near the Ryukyu Islands. This work is even identified by Rebecca Catz and other Jesuit apologists as suspect. But this fixation ignores overwhelming contradictions and broader historical context we have well proven:

🚫 1. 29°N Is a Lone Outlier

• Not a single map in the extensive Portuguese or Spanish corpus from 1502 (Cantino Planisphere) through 1544 places Lequios at 29°N or anywhere near it. Not a single one!

• Even Royal Spanish maps (1512, 1519, 1526, 1529, 1537, 1544) consistently position Lequios in the vicinity of Luzon, long before Pinto was ever published in its manipulated form from the first public text. 

• Pinto’s writings cannot be separated from the Jesuit agenda — a movement that, in later decades, began to reframe geography around missionary milestones. If Pinto actually wrote 29°N, which has never been produced in an original, then, he manipulated his own writing conflicting with all other factors that fail for Ryukyu. 

• As such, manipulating one coordinate (29°N) to fit Ryukyu helped redirect religious interest there while maintaining plausible deniability. The problem is it causes the rest of the narrative to fail highlighting the fraud.

This is totally wrong. Francis Gaullé, writing three decades before Pinto's book was published, also places the Lequios Islands at 29°.

Being past the fair Islands, we held our course East and East and by South, for two hundred and forty miles, until we were past the length of the Islands Lequios, sailing about fifty miles from them, as the said Chinar told me, that those islands called Lequios are very many, and that they have many and very good Harbours, and that the people and inhabitants thereof have their faces and bodies painted like the Bysayas of the Islands of Luzon of  Philippines, and are appareled like the Bysayas, and that there are also mines of gold; he said likewise that they did often come with small ships and barkes laden with Bucks and Harts hides; and with gold in grains of very small pieces, to trade with them on the coast of China, which be assured me to be most true, saying that he had been nine times in the small Island, bringing of the same wares with him to China; which I believe to be true, for that afterwards I inquired thereof at Macau, and upon the coast of China, and found that he said true. The furthest or uttermost of these Islands both Northward and Eastward lie under 29 degrees.

Being past these Islands, then you come to the Islands of Japon whereof the first lying West and South is the Island of Hirado, where the Portuguese use to trade. They [the Japanese islands] are in length altogether one hundred and thirty miles, and the furthest Eastward, lies under thirty-two degrees [latitude]. We ran still East, and East by North, until we were past the said one hundred and thirty miles.

Iohn Huighen van Linschoten his Discours of voyages into ye Easte & West Indies : deuided into foure bookes, pg. 414

That is a second, independent witness corroborating the location of the Lequios Islands as being 29°N. Tim's claim that maps predating 1544 place the Lequios near the Philippines is historically unsound because the Lequios Islands had not yet been visited by the Portuguese. Of course the maps are not going to be accurate. It took years of exploration before accurate maps of Japan, the Lequios Islands, and the Philippines were charted. 

There is not much else to say about Tim's article. It is full of ignorance which is easily corrected by a proper comprehension of the text he cites. This is seen time and time again when analyzing Tim's articles, books, and videos. Tim fails to read the texts he cites in their correct context and he selectively manipulates them to fit his agenda. These lies are so bizarre because of their obviousness and transparency that I fail to understand what Tim thinks he is accomplishing by publishing them. Maybe he really is an ignorant person and has no intent to deceive. Whether deliberately dishonest or profoundly ignorant this is another unreliable article by Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture.