Storia do Mogor 281.17
Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 281.17
- Language
- English
281.17.1
The second of the proximate and principal causes of the persecution was an imprudent act of one of the reverend Jesuit fathers' native (Malabar) catechists. These men always accompany the reverend fathers in all the gatherings they call together in the market-places. The catechist made so bold as to say several times in addressing the Hindu crowd, that the father whom they saw and heard speaking their language was the brother of, and of the same Society as, the Brahman priests of the Christians who dwelt at Tanjor, and consequently those referred to were this one's brothers, members of one and the same body or company. Thus they (the Tanjor fathers) must be Pariahs, for he (the Pondicherry Jesuit), of whom he spoke was reputed such in the minds of these peoples. But in order to understand fully the importance of the words that this catechist let slip on this occasion, and how imprudent they were, you must know that these Hindus have considerable contempt for Europeans, whom they call Franguis (Farangi, a Frank). This contempt is even greater than that of persons of quality in France for night-soil workers and scavengers. For the Hindus account Europeans to be Pariahs, since they eat cow's flesh, or, in other words, are of the very lowest caste or tribe, men with whom they cannot eat without losing their own [caste] — that is, their position in life.
281.17.2
Now, to lose your caste and your position among these people is something even more deadly than for a gentleman in France to be degraded and lose his nobility, he and all his [52] posterity. For there a deprived noble can still (above all, if he have any wealth) find respectable men with whom he can form an alliance, such as merchants or others. While, if deprived of his caste, the man of Malabar can no longer find a wife, nor can anyone give him his daughter without incurring the same evils and penalties. He cannot be received in anyone's house, none may eat or drink with him, cannot even serve him or help him in his necessities, even were he at the very point of death. The rule is so strict that he must either renounce marriage or take a Pariah wife. Never to marry at all is the severest punishment that can be inflicted among these people; they hold marriage to be the greatest happiness in life, and, on the contrary, never to marry the greatest of all evils. But for a man to marry a Pariah is to fall from his nobility, to lose his caste, to be rejected by his family and connections; in short, to become himself a Pariah, he and all his posterity usque in eternum. That is a most terrible thing. Still, there is a method of being rehabilitated and washing away the Pariah stain that has been contracted, and thus re-entering one's lost caste. This method is to drink for forty consecutive days a potion composed of cow's dung and urine.
281.17.3
Among this people this compound suffices to cleanse from the most terrible sins. The reverend Portuguese Jesuit fathers who first established missions in the kingdoms of Tanjor, Madura, and other adjacent countries, being aware of the aversion of these people to Farangls, exerted themselves, when starting their establishment, to persuade the inhabitants that they were not Farangls, but Roman Brahmans. The populace retain to this day a great idea of these priests, who call themselves by the elevated and honourable name of Roma-pouri, — that is, 'considerable country or territory of Rome.' By these same means they (the Portuguese Jesuits) had maintained themselves there until the persecution broke out. It is for this reason that to this day it is the practice, when they intend to provide new missionaries for their mission, to send them first to their stations on the coast, where they learn the Malabar tongue, and that of the learned, called grandaon. After that they are sent to the distant missions in the interior, where they live after the manner of Brahmans. They dress like them so exactly that they are taken to be Brahmans, and as such revered by all. Of the poor men and Hindus in the kingdom of Tanjor alone they have converted about twenty to thirty thousand [53] since they commenced.
281.17.4
Things being in this position, it was absolutely imperative for the preservation of this mission and those adjoining it, not to unmask to these people the stratagem employed to bring them to Jesus Christ ; not to inform them that the missionaries living there disguised as Brahmans were nothing of the sort, but only Farangls, consequently Pariahs. To do otherwise was to stake all upon one throw, to bring to the ground in one moment an edifice erected and upheld for so many years at the cost of many efforts. For who fails to perceive that the Brahmans born in the country having shared the communion with the disguised Brahmans, now known to be Farangī Pariahs, a tumult must be excited at once within every family? Lo and behold, consternation everywhere! I must avow, in all simplicity, that I have no expressions strong enough to express the feelings of rage and despair aroused by this discovery of the stratagem practised by the reverend Portuguese Jesuit fathers, which must be the cause to these peoples of a calamity reputed by them to be so great. Nevertheless, this is what that featherhead of a catechist did, publishing at an open meeting, either by his own impulse or instigated by the reverend French Jesuit fathers, that the father they saw and had heard preach was a brother of and belonged to the same Society as the Brahman priests of the Christians then living at Tanjor, and that consequently these latter were also his brethren.
281.17.5
The Hindus present noticed this remark, and did not allow it to drop. They began to accept as a certainty that the Brahmans of the Tanjor Christians were Farangīs, a thing that until that time they had only suspected. For the reverend Portuguese Jesuit fathers who live in this disguise have ever made it a point, in order to kill this suspicion, to make more demonstrations of repugnance than even a native of the country would do when anyone called them by this name [Farangī]. Both in this mission at Tanjor and in those planted elsewhere among these people, they always avoided being recognised for what they really are.
281.17.6
After this imprudent admission of the catechist so publicly made, they [the Hindus] communicated the fact repeatedly to their relations and acquaintances, and warned them to be on their guard, and avoid them [the missionaries] as such [i.e., Farangīs]. There was no longer any doubt of their being Farangīs, in spite of their living in all respects disguised as Brahmans, for they had admitted it publicly themselves by the voice of their catechist. Above all was this true of one [Jesuit] then at Tanjor, whom they had themselves seen as one of the Farangis at Pondicherry. As this news spread it raised excessive perplexity in the minds both of the reverend Portuguese Jesuit fathers and of the Hindus : in those of the reverend fathers, because they foresaw the consequences. For this reason they set in motion all their rhetoric, and invented all they could, both of argument and of effort, to bring back minds from this disastrous apprehension. As for the dismay of the Hindus, its reasons have been already so fully touched upon that I hold it useless to repeat them here.
281.17.7
Take the case of waters which flow from a mountain by various channels, some larger, some smaller, into a valley. There they meet with an embankment in such a manner that they are held back and rise in level. Not being either abundant or impetuous enough, they are unable to overcome the strength of the embankment. But when a storm supervenes and heavy rain falls, the strength of these streams is increased, and uniting, they force a way at some point or another. They overturn the embankment, root out its very foundations, and pile up one upon the other everything that opposes itself to the rage and impetuosity of their course. They spread themselves over the adjacent plains already sown or about to become so, and in one moment the labourer loses the hope of reaping from the one and of sowing the other. In short, the floods ruin him ; he loses the fruits of his exertions in the past, the present, and the season to come.
281.17.8
Thus I can say in respect of the subject with which I deal, that all which had been done up to this time, as I have reported it, was probably insufficient to bring on a persecution of the Christians — neither the infractions of Hindu customs made unnecessarily, for mere reasons of convenience or profit, upon the credit or with the authority of the reverend French Jesuit fathers, nor the defects of conduct, the indiscreet and ill-regulated zeal of one particular father, nor the gross imprudence of their catechist. They [the Hindus] would not have proceeded to the extremities since reached, although those things irritated them, made them murmur, grumble, complain, menace even. Their phlegmatic temperament, which is not easily stirred, and loves not bloodshed nor extremes, stood as a strong embankment against the resentments aroused by the past. Besides, they could not display their anger without injuring those of their neighbours who had become Christians. So much did this influence them that they did not overpass due bounds, but bore with what had been done to them up to that time. Maybe they might have observed this peaceful attitude permanently.