The God Culture Philippines Biblical History Library

🪶 THE SMOKING QUILL | May 26, 2025

Mistranslated and Misplaced: How Jesuit Edits and Catz’s Translation Obscured Pinto’s True Lequios

📜 Background

The English translation of Peregrinação by Rebecca Catz is widely referenced but deserves reexamination. The following highlighted footnotes and commentary, which are her only mentions of the Philippines, demonstrate strong evidence of substitution, omission, and geographical assumption rooted in colonial bias. Below is a forensic assessment of these four points —each one builds on how modern scholars like Catz may have intentionally misattributed Pinto’s references to "Lequios" as Ryukyu, even when internal evidence contradicts that leap. In fact, when the Philippines is clearly defined in these four margin notes as Lequios in multiple ways, Catz simply ignores it. She had no trouble transposing Lequios as Ryukyu yet here, she even identified the very famous Philippine Junk ship as being named multiple times yet she does not then render that word as Philippine Junk Ship, which would be consistent. Catz was not.

🧭 Catz Footnotes Reexamined: A Case of Editorial Bias Toward Ryukyu Over the Philippines

Rebecca Catz’s English translation of Peregrinação by Fernão Mendes Pinto contains numerous editorial choices that subtly or overtly redirect Pinto’s original geographic references away from the Philippines toward Ryukyu. Among the most glaring examples is her bracketed substitution of [Ryukyus] in Pinto’s December 5, 1554 letter, where Pinto clearly gives specific distances that contradict such an interpretation.

🔎 1. "Outer Edge of the World" – Page 525 (Chapter I Note)

Footnote Summary: Catz defines the “outer edge of the world” as the Malay Archipelago, listing Sumatra, Java, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Borneo, Celebes, and the Philippines.

✅ Assessment:
No mention of Ryukyu. Catz herself includes the Philippines in the definition of Pinto’s edge-of-the-world geography, aligning with how Pinto describes the Lequios as beyond the reach of earlier geographers but within range of Portuguese cosmographers. This undermines any assumption that “Lequios” must default to Ryukyu.

🔎 2. "Nao" as Manila Galleon or Carrack – Page 527 and 648

Footnote Summary: Catz defines nao as a large war-capable merchant vessel, and says they were rivaled only by “the great Manila galleons which sailed yearly between Mexico and the Philippines.” She repeats this on page 648.

✅ Assessment:
This is a critical admission. While Catz doesn’t connect this back to Pinto's use of terms like platárias, it confirms that massive Philippine-built vessels like the karakao were recognized as equals or even predecessors to the European naos. By admitting the prominence of Manila galleons, or confusing them with Philippine Junks, Catz is acknowledging the Philippines' maritime capability—precisely the kind Pinto attributes to the Lequios. Ryukyu has no such history.

🔎 3. Letter of December 5, 1554 – Page 596 (Chapter 134)

Footnote Summary: Catz inserts “[Ryukyus]” into a passage allegedly paraphrased from Pinto’s letter, where he says he was “250 leagues from China and 100 leagues before arriving in Japan.” She claims this describes Ryukyu also replacing it in her Introduction coverage of this letter.

🚨 Issue:
This is where Catz’s editorializing becomes problematic. Pinto likely wrote “Lequios”, which Catz quietly replaces with Ryukyu in brackets. Yet her own quoted distances contradict a Ryukyu location:

• 250 leagues (~1,500 km) from China places Pinto deep in Southeast Asia, not Ryukyu.

• 100 leagues (~600 km) before Japan still favors the northern Philippines or possibly Taiwan, at most—not Okinawa.

💥 Hidden in Plain Sight:
Catz also quotes a theological remark by Pinto:

“the kindness of these people who have no knowledge of their Creator.”
This comment, marked for deletion by Jesuit editors, suggests religious neutrality, perhaps pre-colonial Edenic view of the people—very different from describing a Buddhist or Shinto region like Ryukyu.

🧭 Pinto’s Geography in the 1554 Letter

“250 leagues from China and 100 leagues before arriving in Japan.”

Let’s break this down:

• Portuguese league ≈ 5.26 km

• 250 leagues = ~1,315 km

• 100 leagues = ~526 km

📍 What Point in China?

The most consistent anchor point with Pinto’s wording and known maritime routes is Fuzhou, a major Fujian port used by Portuguese smugglers and early traders.

• Fuzhou to northern Luzon (Vigan/Ilocos) = ~1,300–1,350 km ✅

• Fuzhou to Ryukyu (Okinawa) = ~750 km ❌

So Pinto was likely on or near Ilocos or Lingayen Gulf, not anywhere near Ryukyu.

📍 What Point in Japan?

Pinto then says he is still 100 leagues from Japan (~526 km). If we consider the southernmost Ryukyu island, Yonaguni, as part of "Japan" (which Pinto likely did), then:

• Batanes to Yonaguni ≈ 550–600 km → ~105–115 leagues ✅

• Okinawa to Kyushu ≈ 650–700 km → doesn't fit Pinto’s first criteria either ❌

This means:

• Pinto was not yet in Japanese territory

• He was in or near Batanes, still 100 leagues south of Yonaguni

This fits perfectly with his stated distances and implies a Philippine location, not Ryukyu, and proves Pinto must have viewed Ryukyu as part of Japanese waters in this letter to the Jesuits. One cannot force a fit as Ryukyu already fails the first criteria and the second is solely based on that position.

🔥 Final Geographic Conclusion

Pinto’s reference to being 250 leagues from China places him firmly in northern Luzon (Lequios), likely near Vigan.
His statement that he was 100 leagues before arriving in Japan places him approximately 100 leagues south of Yonaguni, likely in Batanes (Northern tip of Lequios). Lequios is in the Philippines.
Ryukyu is too close to China and Japan to match either measure.
Catz’s substitution of “[Ryukyus]” into the text is not just speculative—it directly contradicts the math.

This layered test—using Pinto’s own numbers—proves definitively that he was located in the Philippine archipelago at the time of writing, and not in Ryukyu. This match further confirms that Pinto was considering Ryukyu, even at its southernmost point, as part of Japanese waters in identity, explaining why he could say he was still 100 leagues from 'Japan' while positioned in Batanes. Pinto’s Lequios, therefore, must refer to Luzon or the greater Philippines, and not Okinawa or the Japanese island chains.

Any scholarly attempt to maintain a Ryukyu identification must now contend with Pinto’s explicit geospatial markers, which were measurable even in the 16th century.

🔎 4. Villalobos Expedition & Philippines Mention – Page 596–597

Footnote Summary: Catz notes that Pinto “may have been aware” of the Villalobos expedition to the Philippines and even mentions that Pinto wrote of it. She cites Garcia de Escalante Alvarado as a survivor of the mission.

✅ Assessment:
This is a damning contradiction. If Pinto references the Philippines in his own account and describes distances that match its location, why does Catz default to Ryukyu? The answer may lie in editorial bias—not evidence. Catz appears to have dismissed Pinto’s possible proximity to the Philippines, substituting Ryukyu instead.

🚨 Major Finding:
The footnote reveals that Jesuit editors removed key portions of Pinto’s original letter—including his theological reflections and likely geographic markers. This is strong evidence of colonial and ecclesiastical censorship.

🔚 Conclusion: The Geography Catz Couldn’t Erase

Fernão Mendes Pinto left us a detailed geospatial breadcrumb trail—250 leagues from China and 100 leagues before Japan. These are not vague impressions or poetic estimates; they are measurable coordinates grounded in 16th-century navigation. When tested against real geography, they point not to Ryukyu, but unmistakably to Luzon and Batanes—the northern reaches of the Philippines.

Rebecca Catz’s editorial insertion of “[Ryukyus]” ignores this evidence and replaces it with assumption. Worse still, her own footnotes repeatedly acknowledge the Philippines’ prominence—admitting Pinto’s awareness of the Villalobos expedition, the scale of Manila galleons (which she pretends not to realize the local Karakao ship of the Philippines fits such descriptions), and the edge-of-the-world framing that included the archipelago—but she never applies that same lens to the identity of the Lequios.

Whether by omission, substitution, or silent editorial sleight of hand, this translation veils the truth: Pinto’s Lequios were not Ryukyu. They were Philippine—specifically Luzon, with diplomatic and maritime infrastructure far exceeding that of Ryukyu in his day.

This is not just a cartographic correction. It is the restoration of historical voice, long buried under colonial mapping, Jesuit censorship, and scholarly negligence. The Lequios were the northern Filipinos—recognized, respected, and recorded by Pinto himself.

And now, at last, they are named rightly again.