Description
WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT
The book is a historical fiction.
It is historical in part because the structure of the narration starting with the arrival of Magellan’s expedition to the Philippines in 1521 until the departure of the survivors, is largely based on historical facts, using as primary source Antonio Pigafetta’s travel journal, and Maximilianus Transylvanus accounts as secondary source.
The book is also partly fiction, because there is no reliable and authentic historical evidence about the life of Lapu-lapu, aside from Pigafetta’s account of the Battle of Maktan. To fill the gap, the author turned to folklores in the writings of Heide Gloria, Gerry Desabelle, and Romola Savellon.
With the use of artistic license, the author wove a storyline about the early life of the Bisayan hero, interlaced with the 15th Century Bisayan culture and tradition culled from the scholarly writings of modern historians, notably Ignacio Alcina, William Scott, and Landa Jocano.
SYNOPSIS
In the story Lapu-lapu is the son of the second wife of then ruling Rajah of Sugbo, who also sired Humabon with a first wife. Upon the violent death of the Rajah, the newly born Lapu-lapu was banished to Maktan, and there raised as the son of the local Datu.
The story narrates of Lapu-lapu’s childhood training in the early Cebuano writing system, the Baybayin, and in the martial art of Arnis. A picturesque description followed of Lapu-lapu’s courtship and marriage, and his adventures as mercenary in the Sultan of Malacca’s army that fought the Portuguese invasion in 1511.
Upon the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521 until their departure, the story portrays amusing incidents about the reaction of the animist Bisayans to the First Mass, their Envangelization and eventual Christian Baptism.
The Battle of Maktan is also described in its bloody historical details, capped with a story of Magellan’s burial in Maktan’s Marigondon underwater cave.
In a controversial side story, Enrique de Malacca, Magellan’s slave who spoke Bisayan, is portrayed as the Maktan boy captured years earlier by pirates, then sold at the Malaccan slave market, and eventually captured by Magellan.
The story ends with a happy reconciliation between the half-brothers Lapu-lapu and Humabon in a sandugo ritual.
THESIS
The author believes that there is need to preserve the pre-colonial customs and traditions of the Bisayan people, and to bring to the consciousness of the present generation the glorious past of the peoples of Cebu and Mactan, and how their valiant heroes repulsed the first incursion of a European superpower of the time.
Size: 6” x 9”
No. of pages: 250
Paper: Hibrite Newsprint
Binding: Perfect Binding
Cover: Foldcote calliper 15, plastic laminated, Softbound
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