Noli Me Tangere: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

In late October, Don Santiago de los Santos, who is known as Captain Tiago, throws a large dinner party in Manila. He is very wealthy and, as such, the party takes place in his impressive home, to which people eagerly flock so as not to miss an important social event. As the guests mill about, groups of soldiers, European travelers, and priests speak to one another. An old lieutenant in the Civil Guard engages in conversation with a quiet but argumentatively cunning Dominican friar named Fray Sibyla, a loudmouthed Franciscan friar named Fray Dámaso, and two civilians, one of whom has just arrived in the Philippines for the first time. Authoritatively speaking over the others, Fray Dámaso lectures this newcomer about the nature of “indios,” or native Filipinos.

Father Dámaso explains to his listeners that his first post in the Philippines was in a small town, where he worked for three years. He boasts that he made strong connections with the townspeople, who he claims loved and respected him. When he was transferred three years later to the town of San Diego, he explains, the town was sad to see him go. He then spent the next twenty years in San Diego, and though he still doesn’t understand very much Tagalog—the country’s native language—he believes himself a good preacher who intimately knows the townspeople. Because of this, he is upset that when he recently ceased to be San Diego’s friar, only “a few old women and a few tertiary brothers saw [him] off.”

Continuing his rant, Father Dámaso says that “indios are very lazy.” The foreigner who is new to the Philippines challenges this notion, asking, “Are these natives truly indolent by nature, or is it, as a foreign traveler has said, that we make excuses for our own indolence, our backwardness, and our colonial system by calling them indolent?” As Dámaso refutes this idea, Father Sibyla steps in and puts him back on track, underhandedly prodding what he intuits is a sensitive issue by asking the boisterous priest why he left San Diego after twenty years.

For the first time all evening, Fray Dámaso falls silent before slamming his fist into his chair and cryptically shouting, “Either there is religion or there isn’t, and that’s that, either priests are free or they aren’t! The country is being lost…it is lost!” When Sibyla asks what he means, Dámaso says, “The governors support the heretics against God’s own ministers!” This seems to unnerve the lieutenant, who begins to stand and asks Dámaso to clarify. “I mean that when a priest tosses the body of a heretic out of his cemetery, no one, not even the king himself, has the right to interfere, and has even less right to impose punishment,” Dámaso says without explanation. He then references a “little general,” before trailing off, which angers the lieutenant. The lieutenant, a member of the government’s Civil Guard, yells his support of the Spanish king’s representative in the Philippines, whom Dámaso has insulted.

As Father Dámaso and the lieutenant approach the possibility of a fistfight, Father Sibyla intervenes with philosophical and diplomatic reasoning. The lieutenant dismisses this, saying that Dámaso is out of line. He explains that the man whose body was removed from the Catholic cemetery was a friend of his—“a very distinguished person.” “So what if he never went to confessions,” the lieutenant says. “So what? I don’t go to confession either. But to claim that he committed suicide is a lie, a slur. A man like him, with a son in whom he has placed all his hopes and affections, a man with faith in God, who understands his responsibilities to society, an honorable and just man, does not commit suicide.”

Continuing with his story, the lieutenant says that Father Dámaso exhumed this distinguished man’s body from the cemetery. The Captain General knew about this, and thus transferred Dámaso from San Diego as a punishment. Having finished the story, the lieutenant storms off, leaving Father Sibyla to say, “I am sorry that without knowing it I touched upon such a delicate matter.” Changing the subject, one of the civilians asks about Captain Tiago, the host of the party. Dámaso says that there is “no need for introductions” because Tiago is “a good sort.” And in any case, there are rumors that he has stepped out of the house for some reason, leaving his guests to mingle. Just then, two people enter the room.