SPAN 3302
Monday, January 29, 2007
in reverse
Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative is interesting because the breakdown of his expedition is attributed to the winter. The so called “Winter General” struck again, just like he did later on with Napoleon and Hitler. The entire trip looks like a provocation when he writes “and that, to embark was to tempt God, because since we departed from Castille we had suffered so many hardships and experienced so many storms, so many losses of men until arriving there” (58). The expedition turns into an entirely different quest. Soon the search for gold turned into a quest for water, food, and survival. Cabeza de Vaca writes about the paradox he was confronted with.
His “thirst was increasing and the water killing us” (76). They came for Gold but the real gold is water.
The hope of finding a port and a way to escape was mixed with a profound religious feeling. The constant reference to God and the word “Christians” used to designate the other Spaniards can be seen as an attempt by Cabeza de Vaca to maintain a cultural bond with the Spaniard culture, even though he is dressed like the natives and “always went about naked as they did” (121). The religion that they were supposed to use in their conquest soon became a bizarre syncretism mixing Native American religion with Christianity. The Conquistadores are supposed to conquer the natives by force after the brief speech required by the “Requerimiento,” but everything is turned upside down. They try to conquer a village but only women and children are there! In some cases they “beseech” the natives to take them to their houses, which they accepted promptly and gladly. Some of natives even had great sorrow and pain for them.
Also that story shows us that the whole concept of slavery (96) is not necessarily something that Europeans created and imported into the rest of the world, but rather something tied to human nature. Moral values among Natives are different among the tribes. Some seem to be cruel (128). Others don’t love their children as much as the others (107), and some have practically no love toward the elderly. The different attitudes of tribes reveal that the so called “barbarous” natives, as stated by the “Requerimiento,” are more complex than they seem.
Through the story, God becomes the prominent character to whom Cabeza de Vaca constantly refers. Some sicknesses are defined according to the Bible just as “the sickness of Saint Lazarus” (109). Does Cabeza de Vaca give himself a messianic role through his kind of healing ministry (93/94, 117/120)? Cabeza de Vaca writes that “we gave them to understand that, if they believed in God our Lord and were Christians like us” (121). This passage seems irrelevant to us today, but according to the “Requerimiento, it would have been a mistake not to include it into the narrative. In any case, the narrative is interesting for its cultural approach, and in the way that in the midst of such hardships Cabeza de Vaca always tries to fit his mission into the requirements of the “Requerimiento.”
His “thirst was increasing and the water killing us” (76). They came for Gold but the real gold is water.
The hope of finding a port and a way to escape was mixed with a profound religious feeling. The constant reference to God and the word “Christians” used to designate the other Spaniards can be seen as an attempt by Cabeza de Vaca to maintain a cultural bond with the Spaniard culture, even though he is dressed like the natives and “always went about naked as they did” (121). The religion that they were supposed to use in their conquest soon became a bizarre syncretism mixing Native American religion with Christianity. The Conquistadores are supposed to conquer the natives by force after the brief speech required by the “Requerimiento,” but everything is turned upside down. They try to conquer a village but only women and children are there! In some cases they “beseech” the natives to take them to their houses, which they accepted promptly and gladly. Some of natives even had great sorrow and pain for them.
Also that story shows us that the whole concept of slavery (96) is not necessarily something that Europeans created and imported into the rest of the world, but rather something tied to human nature. Moral values among Natives are different among the tribes. Some seem to be cruel (128). Others don’t love their children as much as the others (107), and some have practically no love toward the elderly. The different attitudes of tribes reveal that the so called “barbarous” natives, as stated by the “Requerimiento,” are more complex than they seem.
Through the story, God becomes the prominent character to whom Cabeza de Vaca constantly refers. Some sicknesses are defined according to the Bible just as “the sickness of Saint Lazarus” (109). Does Cabeza de Vaca give himself a messianic role through his kind of healing ministry (93/94, 117/120)? Cabeza de Vaca writes that “we gave them to understand that, if they believed in God our Lord and were Christians like us” (121). This passage seems irrelevant to us today, but according to the “Requerimiento, it would have been a mistake not to include it into the narrative. In any case, the narrative is interesting for its cultural approach, and in the way that in the midst of such hardships Cabeza de Vaca always tries to fit his mission into the requirements of the “Requerimiento.”
posted by Nicolau Pereira at 7:03 AM
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