In an innovative mix of history, anthropology, and post-colonial theory, Vicente L. Rafael examines the role of language in the religious conversion of the Tagalogs to Catholicism and their subsequent colonization during the early period (1580–1705) of Spanish rule in the Philippines. By tracing this history of communication between Spaniards and Tagalogs, Rafael maps the conditions that made possible both the emergence of a colonial regime and resistance to it. Originally published in 1988, this new paperback edition contains an updated preface that places the book in theoretical relation to other recent works in cultural studies and comparative colonialism.

Vicente L. Rafael is Professor of History at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines and White Love and Other Events in Filipino History, both also published by Duke University Press.

  

  

  

  

Table of Contents


Preface to the Paperback Edition

Preface (1988)

Introduction: Fishing Out the Past

1. The Politics of Translation
Language and Empire
Dominating the Vernacular
The “Failure” of Native Writing

2.Tomas Pinpin and the Shock of Castilian
Syncopating Language
Counting and the Evasion of Grammar
Gambling on Castilian

3. Conversion and the Demands of Confession
The “Inadequacies” of Tagalog Conversion
Reducing Native Bodies
Confession and the Logic of Conversion

4. Untranslatability and the Terms of Reciprocity
Rereading Christianity
The Imperative of Indebtedness: Utang na Loob and Hiya

5. Translating Submission
Person and Status in Precolonial Society
The Reach of Imperial Patronage
Conversion and the Ideology of Submission

6. Paradise and the Reinvention of Death
Generalizing the Servitude
Visualizing the “Outside”
Spirits and the Appeal of Christianity
Desiring a Beautiful Death


Afterword: Translation and the Colonial Legacy

Bibliography

Index