Manuel Blanco's El Indio and the History of a Rumor

Abstract

The paper explores the social meanings that can be elicited from tracking thehistory of a rumor. It takes as its example the nineteenth-century apocryphal storyof an Augustinian friar who labored for years on a treatise on the character ofthe Philippine native (indio) only to leave behind, upon his death, a book of blankpages. Tracing the origins and passage of the rumor and unpacking the variousinterpretations of the story, the paper demonstrates what can be gained from thestudy of rumors in Philippine history.