Boxer Codex

The Boxer Codex (Spanish: Códice Boxer), sometimes known as the Manila Manuscript, is a Spanish manuscript written circa 1590,[1] which contains illustrations of ethnic groups in the Philippines, ethnic groups across Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Micronesia at the time of the early Spanish contact. It also contains Taoist mythological deities and demons, and both real and mythological birds and animals copied from popular Chinese texts and books in circulation at the time. Aside from a description of, and historical allusions to what is now the Philippines and various other Far Eastern countries, the codex also contains 97 hand-drawn color paintings and illustrations depicting peoples, birds and animals (both real and mythological) of the Philippines, the Indonesian Archipelago, Japan, China and mainland Southeast Asia. It has been pointed out more than once that the depictions of peoples from the Far East are the first ever created for European eyes. The first illustration is an oblong fold-out, 74 are full-page colored illustrations and the remaining are arranged four to a page on 22 pages (with some of the quarters remaining blank). Most of the drawings appear to have been copied or adapted from materials brought to the Philippines from China by Martin de Rada: the Shānhǎi Jīng (山海经, The Classic of Mountains and Seas), and books from the shenmo (神魔) genre, which depict deities and demons. The remaining drawings represent individuals, often a male and female pair, as inhabitants from tributaries of China with their distinctive costume; some of these have been refashioned as warriors. The depictions of inhabitants from Chinese tributaries may have been copied from a pre-existing source, drawn from memory or perhaps even drawn according to instruction given by Rada or one of the other Europeans who visited China.[2] At least fifteen illustrations deal with the inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago.[3]

Reception of the Manila Galleon by the Chamorro in the Ladrones Islands, ca. 1590