The Spanish Polemic on Colonisation
Part six - Cabeza de Vaca and what the Indians wanted (2)
The hospitality of the Indians
I take up the story from the time of their arrival on Galveston, the Island of Ill-Fate, using an old translation by Fanny Bandelier that comes in handy. The handful of washed-up Spaniards was soon confronted by a hundred Indian bowmen. With no hope of resistance or escape, they signalled their peaceful intentions. The Indians accepted this and brought them food. Afterwards, feeling fortified, they tried to relaunch their boat, and they stripped off all their clothes the better to drag it out of the sand. Then they set out to sea, but soon they were flung back on shore, exhausted and naked.
“At sunset the Indians, thinking we had not left, came to bring us food, but when they saw us in such a different attire from before and so strange-looking, they were so frightened as to turn back. I went to call them, and in great fear they came. I then gave them to understand by signs how we had lost a barge and three of our men had been drowned, while before them there lay two of our men dead, with the others about to go the same way.
Upon seeing the disaster we had suffered, our misery and distress, the Indians sat down with us and all began to weep out of compassion for our misfortune, and for more than half an hour they wept so loud and so sincerely that it could be heard far away.
Verily, to see beings so devoid of reason, untutored, so like unto brutes, yet so deeply moved by pity for us, it increased my feelings and those of others in my company for our own misfortune. When the lament was over, I spoke to the Christians and asked them if they would like me to beg the Indians to take us to their homes. Some of the men, who had been to New Spain, answered that it would be unwise, as, once at their abode, they might sacrifice us to their idols.
Still, seeing there was no remedy and that in any other way death was surer and nearer, I did not mind what they said, but begged the Indians to take us to their dwellings, at which they showed great pleasure, telling us to tarry yet a little, but that they would do what we wished.”
About an hour after arriving at their lodges the Indians began to dance and made a great celebration that lasted all night. The Spaniards were more convinced than ever they were going to be sacrificed. However, this proved not to be their hosts’ intention.
Some castaways who were washed up on the mainland had a worse time. “Five Christians, quartered on the coast, were driven to such an extremity that they ate each other up until but one remained, who being left alone, there was nobody to eat him.” And when the Indians heard about this Christian cannibalism… they were shocked and appalled! “There was such an uproar among them, that I verily believe if they had seen this at the beginning they would have killed them, and we all would have been in great danger.”
Within a short space of time a total of eighty Spaniards in this part of the expedition was reduced to fifteen. Then, ominously, the natives began to die too. “The natives fell sick from the stomach, so that one-half of them died also, and they, believing we had killed them, and holding it to be certain, they agreed among themselves to kill those of us who survived.” However, the man who was then Cabeza de Vaca’s master (a medicine man?) deduced that the Spaniards could not be responsible for the fatalities. “When they came to (kill us) an Indian who kept me told them not to believe we were the cause of their dying, for if we had so much power we would not have suffered so many of our own people to perish without being able to remedy it ourselves. He also told them there remained but very few of us, and none of them did any harm or injury, so that the best was to let us alone. It pleased Our Lord they should listen to his advice and counsel and give up their idea.”