Rizal’s ‘Noli Me Tangere’ was considered so dangerous that mere possession of it would lead to arrest. It cost our national hero, in fact, his life.
Thus the Noli was secreted in this ‘Tampipi’ (or a container woven of palm leaves), which was in turn hidden in a larger rattan and cane baul or chest. (Both are included in this lot.)
According to Rizal family lore, a maid sat on it, calmly sewing, while the Guardia Civil, searched the premises to no avail, during an unexpected raid.
This sacred Rizal ‘Tampipi’ — a symbol of our hero’s defiant spirit and our people’s thirst for freedom no matter the cost — has been handed down through the generations of the family of José Rizal.
It has been safeguarded by the family of Narcisa Rizal (1852 - 1939). Sisa was the third child of Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonzo. She was also Rizal’s most devoted sister, “pawning her jewels and peddling even her sayas” to send money to Rizal in Europe. She was brave enough to visit Rizal at Fort Santiago before his death. After Rizal’s execution, she tracked down his unmarked grave in the Paco Cemetery, bribing the groundsman to put a cryptic “RPJ” (his initials in reverse) on it.
It survived the Philippine Revolution as well as the Second World War, when it was rescued and kept in the safekeeping of Antonio Bantug, husband of Asuncion Lopez-Rizal, grand daughter of Narcisa.
- Lisa Guerrero Nakpil
Provenance: From the Family of Narcisa Rizal; from thence to her son Leoncio Lopez Rizal and then to his daughter, Asuncion Lopez-Rizal, married to Antonio Bantug