For 25 years, William Henry Scott rebuilt the 16th-century Philippine culture by careful scrutiny of contemporary documents. In an earlier work, Cracks in the Parchment Curtain, he demonstrated just how much information could be culled from little known Spanish records. Of these sources he wrote, "Original letters and reports, bickering complaints among conquistadores, appeals for support, rewards, and promotion, long-winded recommendations that were never implemented, and decrees inspired by local obstruction of government goal, all these contain direct or implied references to Filipino behavior and conditions.”

In the present collection, Scott continues his meticulous scholarship to present new insights into the life of the Filipino people at the time of Spanish advent. In the title essay, he shows how mistranslations and colonial preconceptions have distorted our understanding of indigenous cultures, and in another, he demythologizes the so-called Papal Line of Demarcation. Other pieces describe Philippine slavery, Tagalog technology, Cebuano politics, and Visayan agriculture, literature and religion. And a remarkable 1595 document criticizing the Spanish occupation, he translates as "The conquerors as seen by the conquered.