Up to 20,000 baptised pearl fishers, and no teacher
Saint Francis Xavier sailed south to them, though he couldn't speak their language.
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AI-generated image, in the manner of a sixteenth-century travel-album drawing in brown ink and grey wash.
GOA, Portuguese India, October 1542 AD — In October 1542 AD, Saint Francis Xavier boarded a ship at Goa. He sailed south for the Fishery Coast, at the southern tip of India. The people of that coast, the Paravas, had been baptised about eight years earlier. Almost all of them were baptised at once.
Before he left, a Church official in Goa, Michael Vaz, spoke to St. Francis Xavier about the Paravas. Michael Vaz said they had been baptised and were called Christians. But that was all they had of the faith.
St. Francis Xavier was a priest from Navarre and one of the first companions of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He had landed at Goa in May with the Portuguese Governor, five months before. He asked to go to the Paravas, and the Governor sent him.
The Paravas lived in twenty or thirty villages at the water’s edge. They lived by fishing, above all for pearls. Twice a year they went out to sea to fish for pearls. The coast was named after that fishing: la Pesquería (the Fishery). The Paravas wore their ears pierced and stretched so long that they reached their shoulders.
Michael Vaz warned St. Francis Xavier that the land was poor and short of everything. He said the heat was hard to bear. Merchants came only for the pearl season, and then they left.
It started with an ear
The Paravas became Christians because of a feud that began with a cut-off ear. In one of their villages, a Muslim quarrelled with a Parava over something small. The Muslim cut off one of the Parava’s ears. Among the Paravas, that was one of the worst insults a man could suffer. The Parava and his relatives took revenge and killed some of the Muslims. The feud grew until all the Paravas joined together and attacked the Muslims, killing many of them.
But the rich Muslim traders of the coast controlled the pearl fishing. They went to sea in their ships. They paid the kings who ruled the Paravas to stop any Parava from escaping, by land or by sea. The Paravas were trapped.
The Paravas asked for advice from Juan de la Cruz, an Indian Christian nobleman. He had been to Portugal, and the king had honoured him there. Juan de la Cruz told them that only the King of heaven and the Portuguese could help them. He said the Portuguese fleets would defend them if they became Christians.
So the Paravas’ leaders took money to the Portuguese at Cochin. They wanted a fleet to protect them, and priests to baptise their people. The priests on that fleet baptised as many as twenty thousand people along the coast.
With the Portuguese behind them, the Paravas took over the pearl fishery. From then on, the Muslims could fish the pearl beds only with the Paravas’ permission. No priest stayed behind to teach them.
A teacher who needed interpreters
The Paravas spoke Malabar, the language of that coast, and St. Francis Xavier didn’t. His own language was Basque, the language of Navarre, where he was born. So he took young clerics from that coast with him. They had been brought to Goa as boys and trained there for the Church. On September 20, St. Francis Xavier wrote to his companions in Rome: “Three students from the same country go with me, two of whom are deacons, fairly acquainted with Portuguese, as well as with their native tongue: the third has only received minor orders.”
The Governor promised him whatever he needed, because the king had ordered it. St. Francis Xavier said he needed only a place on a ship. There was no way to reach the coast by land.
The king’s officials tried to give him supplies for the voyage anyway, and he wouldn’t take them. They kept pressing him. In the end he asked only for a leather jerkin and a pair of boots, because he had been told how fiercely the sun burned on that coast. Then he sailed south toward Cape Comorin with the new Portuguese captain of that coast.
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Read more
- · Henry James Coleridge SJ, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, vol. 1 (archive.org)
- · Dominique Bouhours, The Life of St. Francis Xavier, trans. John Dryden (Project Gutenberg)
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Sources for this story
Listed by paragraph.
- Paragraph 1
- documented Francis Xavier; ed. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Madrid: A. Avrial), Sancti Francisci Xaverii epistolae aliaque scripta — the letters of St. Francis Xavier in the original, Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1 (letters section only), P. IGNATIO DE LOYOLA, ROMAM, p. 15 ¶23
- attested Dominique Bouhours SJ; trans. John Dryden; ed. Walter Scott, The Life of St. Francis Xavier, of the Society of Jesus, Apostle of the Indies, and of Japan — Bouhours trans. Dryden (Works of John Dryden, ed. Scott, vol. 16), BOOK II. ¶70
- attested Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, vol. 12 (December) — St. Francis Xavier, 3 December, ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, C., p. 46 ¶11
- attested Antonio Astrain SJ, St. Francis Xavier — The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (1909), ¶11
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 850 ¶37
- attested Alessandro Valignano SJ, Historia del principio y progresso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientales, Book I (the life of Xavier), as printed at the head of Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1, CÓMO EL P. MAESTRO FRANCISCO FUÉ Á LA PESQUERÍA Á VISITAR, p. 46 ¶10
- documented Francis Xavier; ed. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Madrid: A. Avrial), Sancti Francisci Xaverii epistolae aliaque scripta — the letters of St. Francis Xavier in the original, Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1 (letters section only), Epist. 12, ¶14, p. 258
- Paragraph 2
- Paragraph 3
- documented Francis Xavier; ed. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Madrid: A. Avrial), Sancti Francisci Xaverii epistolae aliaque scripta — the letters of St. Francis Xavier in the original, Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1 (letters section only), 6. De Maganbique á Goa pusimos más de dos messes: pasa-, p. 256 ¶48
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 840 ¶4
- attested Alessandro Valignano SJ, Historia del principio y progresso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientales, Book I (the life of Xavier), as printed at the head of Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1, I, p. 19 ¶7
- attested Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, vol. 12 (December) — St. Francis Xavier, 3 December, ST, FRANCIS XAVIER, C., p. 39 ¶40
- attested Antonio Astrain SJ, St. Francis Xavier — The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (1909), ¶11
- attested Henry James Coleridge SJ, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, volume 1 (one work in two parts), I IO, p. 112 ¶29
- attested Dominique Bouhours SJ; trans. John Dryden; ed. Walter Scott, The Life of St. Francis Xavier, of the Society of Jesus, Apostle of the Indies, and of Japan — Bouhours trans. Dryden (Works of John Dryden, ed. Scott, vol. 16), BOOK II. ¶36
- documented Ecclesiastical inquiry at Goa under the governor's letters patent; witnesses as named; ed. Monumenta Historica S.I., Processus Goanus — the canonization inquiry at Goa, 1556–57 (Portuguese original and contemporary Latin version), Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, monuments 24–25, PROCESSUS GOANUS, p. 178 ¶104
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 849
- Paragraph 4
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, p. 847
- attested Alessandro Valignano SJ, Historia del principio y progresso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientales, Book I (the life of Xavier), as printed at the head of Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1, Lib. I, cap. 9, p. 45
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 847
- Paragraph 5
- Paragraph 6
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 847
- Paragraph 7
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 847
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 848
- Paragraph 8
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 847
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 848
- Paragraph 9
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 848
- Paragraph 10
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 848
- documented Francis Xavier; ed. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Madrid: A. Avrial), Sancti Francisci Xaverii epistolae aliaque scripta — the letters of St. Francis Xavier in the original, Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1 (letters section only), P. IGNATIO DE LOYOLA, ROMAM, p. 15 ¶5
- Paragraph 11
- attested Dominique Bouhours SJ; trans. John Dryden; ed. Walter Scott, The Life of St. Francis Xavier, of the Society of Jesus, Apostle of the Indies, and of Japan — Bouhours trans. Dryden (Works of John Dryden, ed. Scott, vol. 16), BOOK II ¶70
- documented Francis Xavier; ed. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Madrid: A. Avrial), Sancti Francisci Xaverii epistolae aliaque scripta — the letters of St. Francis Xavier in the original, Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1 (letters section only), EARUMDEM LITTERARUM LATINUM EXEMPLUM, p. 297 ¶11
- documented Francis Xavier; ed. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Madrid: A. Avrial), Sancti Francisci Xaverii epistolae aliaque scripta — the letters of St. Francis Xavier in the original, Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1 (letters section only), P. IGNATIO DE LOYOLA, ROMAM, p. 15 ¶1
- documented Francis Xavier; ed. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Madrid: A. Avrial), Sancti Francisci Xaverii epistolae aliaque scripta — the letters of St. Francis Xavier in the original, Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 1 (letters section only), 6. De Maganbique á Goa pusimos más de dos messes, ¶14, p. 258
- attested Henry James Coleridge SJ, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, volume 1 (one work in two parts)
- Paragraph 12
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 849
- Paragraph 13
- attested Manuel Teixeira SJ, Vida del bienauenturado Padre Francisco Xauier religioso de la Compañía de Jesvs — Monumenta Xaveriana vol. 2, SEGUNDA PARTE, p. 850
- attested Dominique Bouhours SJ; trans. John Dryden; ed. Walter Scott, The Life of St. Francis Xavier, of the Society of Jesus, Apostle of the Indies, and of Japan — Bouhours trans. Dryden (Works of John Dryden, ed. Scott, vol. 16), BOOK II ¶70
