INTRODUCTION
In February
1528, four
Spanish ships carrying 400 men, ten women, 80 horses and provisions set
out
from the port of Cienfuegos on the island of Cuba.
They were under the command of Pánfilo Narváez to
whom
Carlos Primero, king of Spain, had granted exploration rights to La
Florida. On maps of the day this
meant that part of the American continent north of New Spain (as Mexico
was
then known) and beyond the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico. To the
16th
century Spanish, Florida meant all of what is now the United States and
Canada
-- from the Florida peninsula up to Nova Scotia, across to the
unexplored
Pacific Coast and on to Alaska. Narváez
had been given the right to conquer a region that would
overwhelm Cortez's nascent colonial empire of Mexico.
Yet the
name Narváez does
not ring out in American history, as does that of Cortez or Coronado. To say that he was the leader of a
failed expedition is but to scratch the surface of a tale of
incompetence and
disaster. After making landfall on
the coast, Narváez led the bulk of his forces inland,
thinking of gold and
slaves. The 300 explorers who went ashore never rejoined the ships they
left
behind with instructions to meet them at uncharted harbors further
north. Months later three surviving ships
with
their crews of sailors, and 10 officers' wives, returned to Cuba after
a
fruitless search for their captain. The entire overland Narváez expedition had
disappeared.
The boldness
which had
served Cortez in 1519, when he burned his ships at Veracruz to show
there was
no turning back, and marched inland with just 500 soldiers to conquer
the Aztec
Empire and take control of Mexico, this same boldness, or foolishness,
was the
undoing of Narváez.
Years later, in
July of
1538, Spanish slave hunters in Sinaloa (the Mexican state just south of
Sonora)
were astonished to come upon three naked Europeans and an
Arabic-speaking
African walking at the head of a throng of Native Americans who
evidently
revered them as shamans. These
four apparitions were the sole survivors of the 300 who had followed
Narváez
into Florida more than eight years earlier. They
had crossed what is now the United States from Florida,
across the Mississippi river delta, to Texas, up the Rio Grande into
New
Mexico, and down through Arizona to Sonora and Sinaloa.
Over these eight years the survivors lived
among Native Americans, learning their languages and customs. They were mistreated and enslaved by
some, sheltered and aided by others, and in the end had traveled over
3,000
miles on foot and by raft to be reunited with their countrymen in
northern New
Spain.
The story is known to history only because
one of the
survivors, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, wrote it down following
his return to
Spain in 1540. This document, La
Relación, was written as a report to the Spanish Crown on the
expedition and
cross-continental journey. It was
also intended to provide useful information for future Spanish
exploration of
the land that the survivors had crossed, including geographic details
and
descriptions of the native inhabitants and their customs.
La
Relaciòn –
alternately translated as "The Narrative" or "The Account" of
this journey
– was published in Zamora, Spain in 1542. It
is an extraordinary document: an historical account made
by a participant in the events reported.
It is a story of human strength and weakness, of bureaucratic
incompetence, of shipwreck, captivity and survival against the highest
of
odds. It also contains the first
descriptions of the landscape, the flora and fauna of a large
cross-section of
what is know the southern United States.
Yet what I find most interesting, it is the first ethnographic
study of
the Native peoples of North America, recording the first contact
between
Europeans and Amerindians.
On top of which
it reads
like a novel, a survival epic with a deliberate structure that makes it
of
interest as a work of literature.
Coincidentally, yesterday marked the 400th anniversary of the
first
publication, in 1605 in Madrid, of Cervantes' Don Quijote de la Mancha. At that time, Cabeza de Vaca's Relaci—n
had been in print for 63 years.
This evening I
will seek to
communicate something of Cabeza de Vaca's story through passages from
the
Adorno & Pautz translation, taken in turn from the 1542 Zamora
edition. The translators worked
directly from a surviving original manuscript which is in the
collection of the
New York Public Library on 42nd Street in Manhattan
(now there's a library which knows its purpose -- to
preserve the written record of human kind).
Thomas
Jefferson, who spoke
and read Spanish among other languages, wrote to a friend in 1787 (260
years
after Cabeza de Vaca's journey)
that "the ancient history of America is written chiefly in
Spanish." He could have
been thinking of the story we are about to consider.
LA
RELACIÒN
The account that
Alvar Nuñez
Cabeza de Vaca gave of what occurred in the Indies on the expedition of
which
Pánfilo Narváez served as governor, from the year [15]27
to [15]36, when he
returned to Sevilla with three members of his company.
The narrative is
preceded by
a preface or Proem directed to Charles I, the Habsburg king of Spain
(also
known as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor):
Holy, Imperial, Catholic
Majesty:
Among as many princes as we
know there have been in the world, I think none could be found whom men
have
tried to serve with truer will or greater diligence and desire than we
see men
honoring Your Majesty today. It is
quite evident that this is not without great cause and reason.
Surely this
flattery was
necessary, and at this point in his life, Cabeza de Vaca was a career
military
man from a failed expedition and out of a job. Writing
La Relación to the king was akin to submitting his
resumé in consideration for future work. The Proem continues to
prepare the
reader for the mission's ultimate failure:
... since no expedition of
as many as have gone over to those lands ever saw itself in such grave
dangers
or had such a wretched or disastrous end as that which God permitted us
to
suffer on account of our sins, I had no opportunity to perform greater
service
than this, which is to bring to Your Majesty an account of all that I
was able
to observe and learn in the nine years that I walked lost and naked
through
many and very strange lands... so
that in some manner Your Majesty may be served. ...
although some very novel things may be read in it, very
difficult for some to believe, they can absolutely give credence to
them...
for which I
ask that it be received in the name of service,
because this alone is what a man who came away naked could carry out
with him.
Cabeza de Vaca
had neither
gold nor slaves nor chocolate to render to his sovereign -- all he had
was his
story, some of which he realized would seem incredible (in the original
sense
of that word).
On the 17th day
of the month
of June 1527, Governor Pánfilo Narváez with the authority
and mandate of Your
Majesty, departed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda to conquer and
govern the
provinces that are found from the River of Palms to the cape of
Florida, which
are on the mainland. And the fleet he led was composed of five ships in
which
there went about 600 men, more or less, and because it is necessary to
make
mention of them, the officers he commanded were...
The first twelve
chapters
describe in a conventional linear fashion the progress of the journey:
from the
Mediterranean Coast to the Canary Islands, followed by a trans-Atlantic
journey
of 3 months, with a month's
stop over on the island of
Hispa–iola, today the territory of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Here Narváez lost 140 of his men to
desertion. Next came Cuba: it was
now November, 1527. While
provisioning at Trinidad off the southern coast of Cuba, Cabeza de Vaca
states:
...because what happened to
us there was such a notable thing, it seemed to me that to tell it here
would
not be unrelated to the purpose... for which I chose to write this
account...
(that) morning the weather showed signs of becoming ominous. It began to rain, and the sea became
turbulent.
This is more
than a military
officer's simple recounting of events: this is writing which creates
for the
reader a sense of what it was like to experience a hurricane in the
Caribbean
-- and the first written account of one, for tropical storms were
unknown in
Europe. Two ships were lost, with
all hands. Narváez procured
another vessel, this one a smaller brigantine, as well as a navigator
who
claimed to know his way around the North Sea, as the Spanish called the
Gulf of
Mexico (the Pacific was then, logically, called the South Sea). The flotilla next rounded the western
tip of Cuba, intending to put in at Havana before crossing the North
Sea to the
northernmost Spanish settlement on Mexico's coast, to begin their
exploration.
This was called P‡nuco on the River of Palms. They
never made it to Havana, much less to Pánuco, as Cabeza
de Vaca dryly relates:
The pilot whom we had
recently enlisted guided the ships through the shoals in such a manner
that we
ran aground. And we were in this
predicament for fifteen days... after which a storm caused by the south
wind...
took us and drove us away from land.
And we passed over to the coast of Florida, and came to land on
Tuesday,
the twelfth of April (1528). And
on Maundy Thursday we anchored on the same coast at the mouth of a bay,
at the
back of which we saw certain houses and habitations of Indians.
They were 10
months into
their journey, and had landed on the opposite side of the Gulf of
Mexico than
intended -- near Tampa Bay. This
was the beginning of the end.
The next day the governor
(Narváez) raised the standard on Your Majesty's behalf and took
possession
of the land in your royal name,
and presented his orders and was obeyed as governor just as Your
Majesty
commanded... Then he commanded the
rest of the men to disembark and unload the horses which survived,
which were
no more than 42, because the rest had perished due to the great storms
and long
time at sea... The next day the
Indians from that village came to us.
And although they spoke to us we did not understand them... But
they
made many signs and threatening gestures to us and it seemed... that
they were
telling us to leave the land.
Imagine that!
And (the governor) told us
that it was his will to enter the land, and that the ships should go
along the
coast until the arrived at the port... because the pilot said that
going in the
direction of Pánuco it would not be but ten or fifteen leagues
from there, and
it was not possible, always going along the coast, for us to miss it. But he had already miscalculated, and
did not know where we were nor where the port was.
A Spanish league
was about 3
miles, meaning they thought they were about 45 miles off course. Instead they were over 1,500 miles away
from their intended destination.
Cabeza de Vaca argued against leaving the ships without a secure
port,
recognizing that dividing the overland party from the ships was a bad
plan.
... I was certain and knew
that he would not see the ships again, nor the ships him, and... I
understood
this on seeing how unprepared they were to go inland.
Saturday the first of May (the governor) commanded
that each one of those who was to go with him be given two pounds of
hardtack
and a half pound of salt pork. And
thus we set out to enter inland.
We took with us a total of three hundred men.
You can see
what's coming:
weeks of tramping through forests and swamps, crossing rivers and
skirting
inlets and coves. Provisions
quickly ran out. The men found only a few and very poor Indian
villages, with
scant crops of maize. They scouted
the coast for signs of the ships to no avail. Men drowned crossing
rivers,
pulled under by the weight of their armor. Dealings
with Native Americans quickly turned violent, with
hostages being taken by both sides and skirmishes resulting in deaths. The Indians arrived in canoes wearing
feathers, and rained arrows on the Spanish -- who responded with
crossbows and
muskets.
Yet the language
barrier
began to break down, as Cabeza de Vaca interrogated captives, learning
of a
large settlement to the north called Apalachen, where they expected to
find
plentiful food and even gold. Led
by captive Indian guides they traveled north through:
...a land difficult to maneuver
but glorious to see, because in it are great forests with trees
wonderfully
tall... many split from top to bottom by lightning bolts that strike in
that
land of great storms and tempests.
With difficulties we walked until the day of St. John (June 24,
1528 --
a year into their journey) when we arrived within sight of Apalachen...
We gave
many thanks to God upon seeing ourselves so near it, believing what
they had
told us about the land was true, that the great hardships we had
suffered would
end.
Instead, upon
entering the
town to seize it, they found forty grass huts, a field of corn ready to
harvest, a few skins of deer and smaller animals, and stones for
grinding
corn. The town was abandoned --
but they were soon attacked. Here
Cabeza de Vaca hints at the kinds of observation he would later make
more of:
Many Indians, who were
hidden behind trees so that we could not see them, attacked us. And they began to shoot arrows at us in
such a way that they wounded many of our men and horses, and they
captured the
guide that we carried with us...
All of the Indians we had seen from Florida are archers, and as
they are
of large build and go about naked, from a distance they appear to be
giants. They are a people wonderfully well
built, very lean and of great strength and agility.
The bows they use are as thick as an arm, and eleven or
twelve spans long (about six to seven feet in length) so that they can
shoot
arrows at 200 paces and never miss their target.
After another
nine day
journey to a village called Aute, they found the people of the village
gone and
the houses burned. With many of the men sick with fever and weak from
hunger
they turned back towards the sea -- finding themselves beside an
extensive
series of inlets and coves, such that they were still very far inland
from the
coast where one of the ships might find them. They
were, it seemed, at the end of the road. The
land they had come through was poor
and the natives hostile. They were
stranded, still far from the coast, exhausted and starving. Narváez himself ill with fever, called
upon his officers to offer a solution.
Their only option was to build rafts on which to float out to
the open
sea, where they might be found. As
Cabeza de Vaca put it,
To everyone this seemed
impossible, because we did not know how to make them, nor were there
tools, nor
iron, nor a forge, nor pitch, nor ropes, nor any single thing of all
those that
are necessary... and above all there was nothing to eat while they were
being
constructed.
And yet from
desperation
came resolve. A carpenter was
found among the men, and axes, saws and nails were made from stirrups,
spurs
and crossbows. Crews returned to the forest to fell pine trees. Raiding parties were sent to steal
maize and palm hearts from the Indians. The remaining horses were
slaughtered,
and their hides used to make a bellows for a forge and water-bags for
the
journey. When the four rafts were
ready, they were divided in command among Governor Narváez and
three of his
officers: Cabeza de Vaca, Andres Dorantes, and Alonso del Castillo. These three officers were to be the
only Spanish survivors of the expedition.
And before we
embarked more
than another 40 men, excluding the ones that the Indians had killed,
died of
sickness and starvation. On the 22nd
day of September (1528) all but the last horse had been eaten. And this day we embarked...
Cabeza de Vaca
entitled his
ninth chapter "How we departed from the Bay of Horses" (it would
better have been
named "How we departed from the bay where we ate the horses").
The number of
explorers was
now below 200, as each raft held just 48 or 49 men.
A third of their number had perished on the Florida
peninsula. The survivors floated
away on makeshift rafts that were so weighted down they were just above
water level. It took seven days of rafting
through
shallow inlets and coves before reaching an opening to the Gulf of
Mexico.
There was no sign of the ships, which had returned to Cuba.
They rowed along
the coast,
past the tip of Alabama and across the Mississippi River delta. Cabeza de Vaca made note of a great
outlet of fresh water, and named the river Santo Espíritu --
Holy Spirit. They hoped always that the
River of Palms
and Pánuco
lay just ahead,
around the
next bend in the coast.
The rafts
predictably became
floating islands of misery, as there was soon neither food nor water. Men died in delirium, as they floated
across the Mississippi delta and approached the coast of Texas. All discipline had broken down: it was
every man for himself, which Narv‡ez himself proclaimed as his raft
drifted
past Cabeza de Vaca's and out to open sea where it was lost with all on
board.
The shipwrecked survivors washed up on the sand bars and smaller
islands near
Galveston Island, which Cabeza de Vaca was to call Malhado -- the Isle
of
Misfortune.
Once stranded on
the islands
the men died by the dozens of hunger and exposure, as their clothing
had
disintegrated and they had nothing to cover themselves with. One group of who became trapped on a
small island resorted to cannibalism:
...they ate one another
until only one remained, who, because he was alone, had no-one to eat
him. The Indians became very upset because
at this...
Just when things
have gone
from bad to worse and it looks like the bitter end, the structure of
the
Narrative shifts. La Relación
becomes less a tale of misadventure, and more an ethnographic study. In this second distinct segment of the
book, the author weaves details about the various fates of his fellow
Christians (as the Spanish referred to one another to set themselves
apart from
Indians) with observations of the Native peoples and their ways of life.
The surviving
Christians,
who numbered in the dozens, were to spend six years among various
Indian tribes
on the Texas coast, gradually dwindling away through starvation,
exposure,
disease and murder. They were held
as slaves by some tribes, forced to gather firewood, food and water,
and to
carry burdens for their masters.
Here the tables were turned: the Spanish who had come to enslave
were now
slaves themselves.
I have already said how
throughout this entire land we went about naked, and since we were not
accustomed to it, like serpents we changed our skins twice a year. And with the sun and the wind there
appeared on our chests and backs some very great ulcerations, on
account of the
large loads we carried, which cut into the flesh of our arms. And the land is so rugged and
impassable that many times when we gathered firewood in the dense
thickets when
we finished taking it out we were bleeding in many places from the
thorns and
brambles, for wherever the ensnared us they broke our skin. Sometimes it happened to me that after
shedding much blood in gathering wood, I could not haul it out, either
on my
back or dragging it. When I saw
myself in such difficulties I had no other remedy por consolation but
to think
of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, and the blood he shed for me, and to
consider how
much greater had been the torment he suffered from his crown of
thorns...
Other tribes
treated their
strange visitors more kindly.
Believing they "came from the sky" they ascribed to them
healing powers, and encouraged them to become shamans.
Cabeza de Vaca himself, employing his
gift for language and survival, became a trader between tribes,
traveling from
the coast inland, bringing back deer and buffalo skins in exchange for
shells
and pearls. Of the residents of
the island of Malhado, who were called Cavoques, the author observed in
Chapter
14:
The women are given to hard
work. They inhabit this island
from October to the end February.
They sustain themselves on roots... which they dig out from
under the
water. All the people of this land
go about naked. Only the women
cover part of their bodies with a type of fiber that grows on trees... They are a people who freely share what
they have with one another. There
is no lord among them.
It seems the
concept of
private property is a relatively recent invention in North America.
These people love their
children more and treat them better than any other people in the world. And when it happens that one of their
children dies, the parents and the relatives and all the rest of the
people
weep. And the weeping lasts a
whole year, that is, each day in the morning before sunrise the parents
begin
to weep, and after this the entire community also weeps.
And after a year of mourning has
passed they perform the honors of the dead and wash themselves of the
ashes
they wear...
In contrast the
Indians who
held Dorantes and Castillo, called the Han, are described in
Chapter 18:
... (they) intimidated them
in order to more easily make them their slaves... and not content to
slap them
and strike them, they would pull put their beards for amusement... These people, because of a custom they
have, kill their own children because of bad dreams, and when female
children
are born they allow dogs to eat them, and cast them away.
The reason they do this is that all the
people of that land are their enemies, and with them they have
continual war,
and if by chance they should marry their daughters, their enemies would
multiply... for this reason they prefer to kill them.
When we asked why they did not marry them themselves they
said it was an ugly thing to marry their relatives.
When these Indians are to marry they buy women from their
enemies...
Their sustenance is chiefly roots of two or three kinds, and they hunt for them throughout the land. They are very bitter, but the hunger that these people have is so great that they are forced to eat them... (they also) eat spiders and ants eggs and worms and lizards and salamanders and snakes and vipers that kill men when they strike; and they eat earth and wood and everything they can find, and deer excrement, and other things that I will refrain from mentioning. They keep the bones of snakes and other things they eat, and grind up everything afterward and eat the powder it produces.
Chapter 19
describes the
three surviving Christian's plans to escape enslavement together by
meeting at
the time when the prickly pear fruit ripens, and the various Indians
who held
them as slaves would all come to the same region. Their
escape required six months of planning, secret
meetings and coordination.
The best season that these
people have is when they eat prickly pears, because then they are not
hungry,
and they spend all their time dancing and eating of them, night and day. The entire time that they last they
press them and open them and place them to dry. After
being dried they place them in certain baskets like
figs (in fact this cactus came to be known as the Indian Fig). Many times when we were with these
people we went three or four days without eating, because there was
nothing. To cheer us
up they told us we should not be sad, because soon the prickly pears
would be
ripe, and we would eat many and drink their juice and our bellies would
be very
big, and we would be very content and happy and without hunger. And from the time they told us this
until the prickly pears were ready to eat was five or six months.
The escape was
finally
accomplished in the summer of 1534, and the remaining Spanish survivors
--
Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes -- together with the African
slave
belonging to Dorantes, Estebanico, resumed their long walk along the
Texas
coast in the direction of the Rio Grande.
To gain strength for their journey they traded fishing nets they
had
made and what few animal skins they had accumulated, in exchange for
two dogs
they planned to eat.
Chapter 23 is
entitled "How
we departed after having eaten the dogs" and it begins:
After we ate the dogs it
seemed to us that we had the strength to go on ahead, and commending
ourselves
to God our Lord to guide us we took leave of those Indians. And they guided us to others of their
language who were near there. And
pursuing our course it rained that entire day, and we walked in water... And that night we arrived to where
there were 50 houses (of Indians), and they were astonished to see us. ... they came to us placing their hands
on our faces and bodies, and afterward they passed their hands over
their own
faces and bodies. And we
remained that night, and come the morning they brought us the sick
people they
had, begging us to make the sign of the cross over them, and they gave
us what
they had to eat, which were prickly pear leaves. And
because of the good treatment they gave us we stayed
with them for some days. And in the end we took leave of them,
and we left
them weeping because of our departure, because it grieved them
profoundly.
The author
returns to
recording his observations "Of the customs of the Indians of that land:"
From the island of Malhado
to this land (near the Rio Grande) all the Indians whom we saw have as
a custom
from the day their wives know they are pregnant not to sleep with them
until
after two years of nurturing their children, who suckle until they are
twelve
years old, at which time they are of an age that by themselves they
know how to
search for food. We asked them why
they raised them in this manner and they said that because of the great
hunger
in the land it happened many times.., that they went two or three days
without
eating, and sometimes four; and for this reason they let their children
suckle
so that in times of hunger they would not die...
All these men are accustomed to leaving their wives
when there is disagreement between them, and they marry again whomever
they
please; this occurs among the childless men, but those who have
children remain
with their wives and do not leave them.
And he notes
"How the
Indians are quick with a weapon:"
These are the people most
fit for war of all I have seen in the world. The
manner in which they fight is low to the ground. And
while they are shooting their
arrows they go leaping about from place to place, avoiding the arrows
of their
enemies, so much so that they manage to suffer very little harm... And (when they) are shot through by
arrows they do not die of the wounds, if they are not struck in the
abdomen or
the heart; instead they heal very quickly. They
see and hear more and they have sharper senses than any
other men that I think there are in the world. They
are great sufferers of hunger and thirst and cold, as
they are more accustomed and hardened to it than others. This is what I
have
wanted to tell because, beyond the fact that all men desire to know the
ways
and practices of others, the ones who sometime might come to confront
them
should be informed about their customs (in warfare) and stratagems,
which tend
to be of no small advantage in such cases.
Unfortunately
Cabeza de Vaca
didn't wander through Iraq and send a copy of his narrative to the
White
House.
Chapter 26 is called, "Of
the nations and languages:"
On the island of Malhado
there are two languages: some are called of Cavoques, and the others of
Han ...Ahead
on the coast of the sea live others who are called the Deguenes, and in
front
of them, others who have as a name the ones of Mendica.
Farther down the coast are the
Quevenes, and in front of them on the mainland the Mariames... And following forward along the coast
are others who are called Guaycones, and facing these Indians on the
mainland
The Yeguazes. With these join the
Cultalchulches, and others who are called Susolas, and others called
Comos. And ahead on the coast are the
Camoles,
and on the same coast further along are others whom we
called the people of the prickly
pears. All these people have
dwellings and villages and diverse languages.
Among these many
tribal
groups and languages, none is believed to have survived into the
present era. As discussed in the Winter
2004 edition
of the Journal of the Southwest,
edited by our colleague Joe Wilder, there was
a dramatic depopulation of the Americas following the arrival of the
Spanish. Through war, disease and
enslavement,
the Native population fell from as many as 90,000,000 to under
3,000,000 in
just 80 years.
Yet Cabeza de
Vaca must have
had a great gift for language, for otherwise he would not have survived.
In this entire land the
people intoxicate themselves with something they smoke and they give
everything
they have for it... They also
drink another thing which they extract from the leaves of a tree like
an oak,
and they toast it in certain vessels over the fire...
And when it has a great deal of foam they drink it as hot as
they can tolerate it, and from the time they take it out of the vessel
until
they drink it they shout, "Who wants to drink?" ...
He continues,
In all the time that I was
among these people I saw only one wicked thing; and that was a man
married to
another man, and these are effeminate impotent men.
And they go about covered like women, and they perform the
tasks of women, and they do not use a bow, and they carry very great
loads. And among these we saw many of
them,
unmanly as I say, and they are more muscular than other men, and
taller.
Evidently gay
marriage isn't
really an invention of the Democrats after all.
It is also revealing to ponder what was considered
women's work: heavy lifting.
Chapter 27, "Of
how we moved
on and were well received:"
After we departed from those
whom we left weeping, we went with others to there houses. And we were
well
received... and they brought their children for us to touch with our
hands, and
they gave us much mesquite flour.
This mesquite is a fruit that, when it is on the tree, is very
bitter,
and it is like carobs. It is eaten
with earth and with it, it is sweet and good to eat.
The manner in which they prepare it is as follows: they make
a pit in the ground to the depth that they desire.
And after throwing the fruit in this hole, they grind it
with a timber as thick as a man's leg and a fathom and a half long
until it is
very fine, and in addition to the earth that sticks to it from the
hole, they
bring another hand-full of dirt and throw it in the hole and they grind
it
again a while longer.. . And they
put in as much water as is necessary to cover it. And
the one who has ground it tastes it, and if it seems to
him that it is not sweet enough, he asks for more dirt and he mixes it
in... And they all sit down... and
each one puts his hand in and takes out what he canÉ And those
who find
themselves at this banquet, which for them is very great, end up with
swollen
bellies from the earth and water they have drunk.
Now begins the
third and
final phase of the journey, and of the book. When
the four survivors finally neared their original
destination of Pánuco on the River of Palms, approaching to with
50 miles of
there along the western gulf coast -- they inexplicably and
deliberately turned
inland, away from their goal of seven years wandering, and began
following the
Rio Grande north, through West Texas into New Mexico.
Cabeza de Vaca gives an unconvincing explanation, saying
that they now felt that all the people of the coast were bad, and they
therefore decided to travel inland.
The more likely truth is that, after all those years of
privation, they
yet hoped to discover lands that held riches, and to reach the South
Sea. Once again, however, they seriously
underestimated distances, thinking that from the North Sea (the Gulf of
Mexico)
to the South Sea (the Pacific) across upper New Spain was 200 leagues,
or 600
miles -- when in fact it was 1,500 miles, or 500 leagues across.
Thus they
entered the
southwestern deserts and high grasslands, advancing rapidly as they now
came as
"children of the sun" or men from the sky who were welcomed as great
healers. In the valleys of
southern New Mexico they saw the American bison, which Cabeza de Vaca
called "cows"
and compared to the cattle of Castille.
He recorded for the first time dwellings made of earth, instead
of brush
and grass. It is possible that he
saw one of the New Mexican pueblos, or an outlying Pueblo of the Casas
Grandes
culture centered in Chihuahua.
Among these
people the
Christians practiced as physicians, curing the sick by blowing on them,
and
making the sign of the cross over them, and praying to God. Whether by miracle or faith, it worked
often enough that their fame as healers spread. As
they traveled they gathered behind them a great throng of
followers, numbering at times over three thousand. "Indians from 100
leagues around were traveling with
us at that time," relates the author.
Some researchers
think that
in this stage of their journey they crossed southeastern Arizona
following the San
Pedro River or the Chiricahua mountains. And in this way they traversed
Sonora
to the Rio Yaqui. No one is
certain of their exact route, for the descriptions have no reference
points,
only descriptions of rivers or mountain ranges encountered. What is known is that they ended up in
northern Sinaloa, near Culiacán, which is now the state capital.
As their reunion
with
Western Civilization approached, the Cabeza de Vaca party notice signs
of
fellow Christians: burned cornfields, destroyed Indian villages, and
Native
people hiding in the mountains to avoid the Spanish slave hunters
seeking to
supply the silver mines of Zacatecas.
Cabeza de Vaca sought to assure his followers that no harm would
befall
them from the Christians, with whom he would intercede.
Of July 22,
1536, Cabeza de
Vaca writes:
... following the trail of
the Christians that day I went ten leagues, and I passed through three
places
where they had slept. And the next
morning I reached four Christians on horseback who expressed great
shock upon
seeing me so strangely dressed and in the company of Indians. They remained looking at me a long
time, so astonished that the neither spoke to me nor managed to ask me
anything.
The survivors
were led away
under guard, and the Indians who followed them were attacked and
enslaved.
The journey back
to Spain
took a further year, through Mexico City, Veracrœz and then a stop in
Havana,
where a military debriefing of the three Spaniards was conducted. This led to the publication of a "Joint
Report" which has subsequently been lost, leaving Cabeza de Vaca's
Relaci—n the sole surviving record of these events. The African
Estebanico
remained in New Spain, soon returning north as the guide for Fray
Marcos de
Niza's search for Cibola, which led to the Spanish colonization of New
Mexico
and the Indian Pueblos.
After arriving
home in Spain
on August 9, 1537 -- more than ten years after he had set out with
Narváez --
Cabeza de Vaca wrote his Relación, between 1538-1540. He sought
and received
another military appointment which took him again across the Atlantic
as
Governor of Paraguay (but that's another essay...).
Upon discovering
Cabeza de
Vaca's Narrative for the first time I was both fascinated by his story
and
moved by his observations of humanity.
La Relación is filled with
universal stories of cruelty and kindness, generosity and greed,
suffering and
gladness.
In closing I am
reminded of
a thought from a 20th century American writer whose work will,
hopefully, be
the topic of my next essay before this group -- and that is Kurt
Vonnegut, who
explained in a message to youth how, during their lives (or as Vonnegut
says,
"during your visit to planet earth") they can expect to meet all
kinds: "You will meet people so mean that you can't believe it, and
people
so kind that you can't believe it.
People so foolish you can't believe it, and people so wise you
can't
believe it." And there are
many things you can't change, certain things are true about humans that
were
true 400 years ago in the time of Shakespeare or Cervantes, and will be
true
tomorrow.
It seems to me
that Cabeza
de Vaca captured similar truths when he wrote of his passage through
the
unexplored lands of North America, for others to read long after his
visit to
planet earth had ended. Which is
one of the great gifts of literature.
I thank you for
your
attention.
*****
WHO WAS CABEZA
DE VACA?
Alvar
Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca
was born sometime between 1485 and 1492 in Jeréz de la Frontera,
Andalucía, the
town in southern Spain famous for its wine known to English speakers as
Sherry. His paternal grandfather
was Pedro de Vera Mendoza, conqueror of las Islas Canarias, the Canary
Islands. The surname Cabeza de
Vaca was his mother's, and given him in honor of an ancestor who held
the rank
of Captain of the Fleet of Jeréz and Master of the Order of
Santiago, a
prominent figure in la Reconquista, the reconquest of Spain from the
Moslems in
the 15th Century.
The origin of
his unusual
last name, which literally means "cow's head", is the subject of legend. A story repeated in early translations
of La Relación tells of an even earlier ancestor who in the 13th
Century played
a role in the defeat of the Moors (as the Islamic inhabitants of Spain
were
referred to – although the Caliphs were in fact not from Morocco, but
from Damascus).
The story goes
that in 1212
A.D. – already five centuries into the struggle for re-conquest, for
the
Islamic invasion took place in the year 711 – that in the year 1212 the
Spanish King, at the head of his army had stalled in efforts to push
back the
Moors, who held fortified positions in the mountain passes of the
Sierra Morena
range north of Sevilla. A shepherd
named Mart’n Alhaja appeared in the Spanish camp, claiming to know the
mountains so well that he could show the Spanish an unguarded pass. He did so by marking the pass with a
cowÕs skull. The army crossed
through, taking the Moors by surprise and defeating them in the Battle
of Las
Navas de Tolosa, a decisive battle in the reconquest (although this
particular
liberation struggle would require nearly three centuries more before
Ferdinand
and Isabella would completely drive the Moslems from Spain in 1492 –
the
same year of Columbus's first voyage to America).
But back to
1212, when this
grateful King, Sancho de Navarra, ennobled the humble shepherd and his
descendants with the title "Cabeza de Vaca." This
was reported by Morris Bishop in his 1933 publication,
The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca (New York, Century Publishers), although
later
researchers Adorno and Pautz have debunked this story as myth.
Nonetheless, it
makes for a good story, and one rooted in the history of Spain.
Our author, Alva
Nuñez
Cabeza de Vaca, began his career in the military, fighting in Italy
from 1511
to 1513. In 1520 he distinguished
himself in service to Charles I of Spain (also known as Charles V, Holy
Roman
Emperor) in the defeat of Francis I of France in Navarra, northern
Spain. In 1527 he sought the opportunity
to
join the ranks of the Conquistadores, the conquerors of the New World,
following
in the footsteps of Columbus and Cortes.
His luck was to sign on with Narváez as the mission's
treasurer and
second tier officer under the Governor.
In 1540,
following his
miraculous survival and return to Spain (and in the same year his
"Account"
was published in Zamora) Cabeza de Vaca received a commission as
governor in
the southern cone of Latin America, and led the expedition to found
Asunción,
Paraguay. He ruled there for five
years until being imprisoned, accused of corruption through the
intrigue of
political rivals. He again
returned to Spain, this time a prisoner.
Perhaps remembering his earlier service to the crown, Charles V
commuted
his sentence, but he was barred from returning to the Indies, as Spain
called
its American colonies, and he lived out his days as an hidalgo
(mid-rank
nobleman) in his hometown of Jeréz de la Frontera.
PUBLICATIONS
La Relacion was
first
published in Zamora, Spain, in 1542, six years after Cabeza de Vaca's
return. The audience of the first
edition was the monarchy and officialdom, for purposes of furthering
the
conquest of the Americas. A second
edition was printed in 1555 in Valladolid by special permission from
the crown.
It was at that time divided into chapters, and intended for a wider
audience of
scholars. Minor variations exist
between the texts, which have been reconciled by the various
translators who
have consulted both editions.
As an expression
of the
interest this early history has generated in the U.S. for over 150
years, there
have been five translations of La Relación into English: the
first by Thomas
Buckingham Smith (Washington, 1851); the second by Fanny Bandelier (New
York,
A.S. Barnes & Co., 1905); the third by Cyclone Covey (New York,
Collier
Books, 1961) ; the fourth by Martin Favata and José
Fernández in 1993 (Houston,
Arte Pœblico Press, 1993); and the most recent by Rolena Adorno and
Patrick
Charles Pautz (Lincoln, University
of Nebraska Press, 1999).
Of these I have
read
three. Covey's translation was the
first I encountered, in 1994 – en el siglo pasado, in the past century,
as my teacher Jorge Olvera used to say.
I had first heard of Cabeza de Vaca from Jorge, and so when I
came
across a copy at the Singing Wind Bookshop I immediately bought it. After becoming captivated by the story,
which touches on the history of our region and of our nation, I have
since
sought out subsequent translations as I became aware of them.
Covey is
professor emeritus
of history at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
His 1961 translation, which he entitled "Cabeza de Vaca's
Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America," is
the most readable of the three: it is not
annotated, meaning fewer distractions
from the narrative, such that the reader becomes absorbed in the
episodic nature
of the story. To present the story
more fully, the translator took it upon himself to combine and
transpose text
from the two editions of La Relación (Zamora 1542 and Valladolid
1555). For this reason it is frowned upon
by
some later scholars. And while
Covey's language flows, later translators have disagreed with some
details of
his interpretations.
The second
translation I
have read, called The Account: Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca's
Relación, an
Annotated Translation, was made by Martin Favata of the University of
Tampa and
José Fernández of the University of Central Florida. It was published in 1993, and taken from the
1555 Valladolid
text. In the words of the
translators it is an effort to translate the archaic Spanish of Cabeza
de Vaca
into 'concrete, direct, concise language.' While
it is an accurate, even literal translation, it lacks
the character of Covey's version and omits the sometimes deliberate
indirectness of the Spanish language.
The third
translation,
called simply The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, is the most recent, published in 1999. The translators are
Rolena Adorno of Yale University and Patrick Charles Pautz, an
independent
scholar. This is the text from
which I will draw for this essay, for I find it to be the translation
which
best captures the feel and inflection of Spanish, as I have been able
to sense
from samples of original text that I have read. I
must qualify my judgment by stating that while I speak
modern Spanish, I am no expert on the archaic form of the language as
spoken in
the 16th Century. Spanish has
greatly evolved, as has English, since the 1500's.