Even after learning the truth of a matter Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture cannot bring himself to deal with it. Case in point is what he has to say about Barbosa's book noting that the Lequios Islands are 175 leagues to the east of China. That information is something Tim found in a footnote to a translation of Barbosa's book. He wrote an article about it claiming it changes everything. On closer inspection I myself found the text to which the footnote referred and noted that it is a singular variant within a multitude of editions of Barbosa's book. It is only found in an older Spanish translation and not in any original Portuguese text.
Tim has a new video about the 175 leagues and he completely ignores that fact.
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| 175 Leagues to Truth: The Real Lequios Was Never Ryukyu. Return of the Lequios Part 2 |
Description: What if the real Lequios wasn’t Ryukyu… but Luzon all along? In this eye-opening deep dive, we expose the long-buried truth behind Duarte Barbosa’s “175 leagues to the east”—a footnote that leads straight to the Philippines.
0:16 Today, we uncover a truth footnoted into silence. A mystery erased by empire.
18:58 The truth was never buried. It was footnoted.
Tim does show the footnote very briefly at 18:58.
It's easy to miss because the image is not static, Tim does not highlight it, and the version he is using is quite odd. It's not a PDF of the book. Here is a proper screenshot of this footnote from a PDF.
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| https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.189299/page/n257/mode/2up |
The rest of the video is mostly AI slop with images that have nothing do with the topic. This is not only bad research it's a steep decline in the quality of Tim's videos which used to be meticulously put together with many supporting documents and references. This video has none of that. In fact, all of his most recent videos are nothing but AI slop. It seems Tim has lost his mojo.
As I mentioned above, I wrote a lengthy article about this footnote and did the work Tim was too lazy to do. The footnote Tim cites is a reference to an existing Spanish text. Here is Lord Stanley's translation of the section on the Lequeos from the Spanish version.
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| https://archive.org/details/descriptionofcoa00barbrich/page/206/mode/2up |
LEQUEOS.
Opposite this country of China there are many islands in the sea, and beyond them at a hundred and seventy-five leagues to the east there is one very large which they say is the mainland, from whence there come each year to Malaca three or four ships like those of the Chinese, of white people whom they describe as great and wealthy merchants. They bring much gold in bars, silver, silk and many very rich silk stuffs, much very good wheat, beautiful porcelain and other merchandise. And they ship pepper and other things which they carry away. These islands are called Lequeos, the people of Malaca say that they are better men, and greater and wealthier merchants, and better dressed and adorned, and more honourable than the Chinese. There is not much information about these people up to the present time, because they have not come to India since the King of Portugal possesses it.
Oh, look. It's not a marginal annotation. "175 leagues to the east" is embedded in the text. Tim is wrong again. What a shock.
Lord Stanley has a note on this passage regarding the identity of the Lequeos.
The Liu Kiu Islands. Lequio major and minor, Y Fermosa, and Reix magas, form a group in Ortelius : in Homannus Formosa is in its proper place, and the group is called Lequeyo or Riukiu Islands.
I know Tim reads this blog which means he knows about Stanley's English translation and the Spanish translation which both contain the 175 leagues distance. So, why did Tim not use it? Why did he bring up a footnote? It's because he is attempting to prove the Lequios Islands are the Philippines and he needs the conspiratorial narrative that the true location of the Lequios Islands were covered up. But it hasn't been covered up. It hasn't been "footnoted." Stanley's translation and the Spanish translation are available to people who are able to to conduct real research. I found both of those texts with no trouble. Tim's omission of Stanley's text in favor of a footnote shows he is not interested in actual history but in pushing his conspiratorial narrative which is completely false as I have proven in many articles on this blog.
This is not the first time Tim has declined to use primary sources in his books, articles, and videos. Tim regularly uses news reports, summaries, editorials, and Wikipedia as proofs for his claims. It is safe to say Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture has a footnote fetish.
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