Descriptions of Patani and Siam, also by Gaio, have a similar aim in the case of Siam, Gaio optimistically states that a thousand soldiers will be sufficient to pacify it. In fact, Gaio provides a very detailed masterplan on how to deploy 4,000 Portuguese soldiers in a surprise attack on the palace compound. And once Aceh is pacified, everything will pass through His Majesty’s customs and produce much revenue’ (p. However, the aim of the entire account is to prepare for an Iberian conquest, the economic gains of which are presented in no uncertain terms: ‘the smallest part of what they produce goes to India and Portugal, and the biggest portion goes to Mecca and other regions of infidels. As a source of geographical knowledge, the piece is highly interesting since it gives the toponyms along the Acehnese coast as they are known nowadays, and provides a circumstantial description of the long-vanished sultan’s palace of Banda Aceh. This is the case with the extensive rutter of Aceh, written by the Portuguese bishop João Ribeiro Gaio. Other parts of the codex have a pronounced utilitarian purpose. For example, before rendering a particularly fascinating and initiated myth about the origins of the world, the author writes: ‘The beliefs held by the Visayans regarding the origin and beginning of the world are ridiculous, riddled with a thousand absurdities’ (p. However, the fundamentally negative view that the writer takes of these peoples is revealed quickly enough. In fact, the illustrations do not merely represent the European view of the Other, since they were apparently made by a Chinese artist in Manila. These customs are underlined by the beautiful depictions which take care to render the specific dressing details and hairstyles of men and women of the ethnic groups. As a scholar of primarily eastern Indonesia, I can draw many parallels to customs in these waters, such as the belief in ancestral spirits and the relatively high standing of women. The long accounts of customs and mytho-history sometimes have a surprising affinity to modern ethnographic texts, as the writer seems to have listened attentively to local informers. Some of the most interesting parts concern the various ethnic groups of the Philippine Islands: Cagayans, Visayans, Tagalogs, and Moros. It was auctioned in London in 1947 and bought by Boxer, a keen collector of rare books and manuscripts. Like these codices, The Boxer Codex found its way to Spain, from whence it came into the possession of a noble English family under unknown circumstances. As such, the collection of ethnographic, historical, and geographical data is reminiscent of the famous codices of Spanish America which were sent to Europe as sources of information. The main author remains unknown, though some guesses are advanced by the editors. The pieces were written at different times in the late 16th century, and the present codex was conceived in Spanish Manila in the 1590s. As they point out, it is a composite collection of narratives and descriptions on which several Iberian writers have been at work. In a long introduction, the editors discuss the origins and character of the codex. These illustrations are reproduced in a satisfying way, as are the less well-known ones of Chinese mythical beings and animals. The codex has earned justified fame for its numerous artistic illustrations of various ethnic groups of East and Southeast Asia, often the only ones that we possess for the period in question. The editing seems to be meticulously and expertly done, although the publisher should preferably have checked it to eliminate a number of typographical errors. It has evidently been a demanding task: the codex runs to 305 double folio pages, with names of locations and persons which are not always easy to decipher. The new translation of the entire codex by Jeffrey Scott Turley, with extensive commentaries by Turley and George Bryan Souza, is therefore more than welcome.
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