Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 
Castaways [EPUB ebook] 

This enthralling story of survival is the first major narrative of the exploration of North America by Europeans (1528-36). The author of
Castaways (
Naufragios), Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, was a fortune-seeking nobleman and the treasurer of an expedition to claim for Spain a vast area that includes today’s Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. A shipwreck forced him and a handful of men to make the long westward journey on foot to meet up with Hernán Cortés.


In order to survive, Cabeza de Vaca joined native peoples along the way, learning their languages and practices and serving them as a slave and later as a physician. When after eight years he finally reached the West, he was not recognized by his compatriots.


In his writing Cabeza de Vaca displays great interest in the cultures of the native peoples he encountered on his odyssey. As he forged intimate bonds with some of them, sharing their brutal living conditions and curing their sick, he found himself on a voyage of self-discovery that was to make his reunion with his fellow Spaniards less joyful than expected.


Cabeza de Vaca’s gripping narrative is a trove of ethnographic information, with descriptions and interpretations of native cultures that make it a powerful precursor to modern anthropology. Frances M. López-Morillas’s translation beautifully captures the sixteenth-century original. Based as it is on Enrique Pupo-Walker’s definitive critical edition, it promises to become the authoritative English translation.



This enthralling story of survival is the first major narrative of the exploration of North America by Europeans (1528-36). The author of
Castaways (
Naufragios), Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, was a fortune-seeking nobleman and the treasurer of

Inhoudsopgave

Contents


List of Illustrations

Editor’s Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction


Prologue

I Which Recounts When the Fleet Sailed,

and the Officers and Men Who Went in It

II How the Governor Arrived at the Port

of Jagua and Brought a Pilot with Him

III How We Reached Florida

IV How We Marched Inland

V How the Governor Left the Ships

VI How We Reached Apalachee

VII Of the Manner of the Land

VIII How We Departed from Aute

IX How We Departed

from the Bay of Horses

X Of the Fight We Had with the Indians

XI Of What Befell Lope de Oviedo

with Some Indians

XII How the Indians Brought Us Food

XIII How We Had News

of Other Christians

XIV How Four Christians Departed

XV What Befell Us in

the Isle of Ill Fortune

XVI How the Christians Departed

from the Isle of Ill Fortune

XVII How the Indians Came

and Brought Andres Dorantes and

Castillo and Estebanico

XVIII Of the Report Given to

Figueroa by Esquivel

XIX How the Indians Separated Us

XX How We Escaped

XXI How We Cured Some Sufferers There

XXII How They Brought Us More

Sick Folk Next Day

XXIII How We Departed after

Eating the Dogs

XXIV Of the Customs of the Indians

of That Land

XXV Of the Indians’ Readiness

to Use Arms

XXVI Of the Tribes and Their Languages

XXVII How We Moved and

Were Well Received

XXVIII Of Another New Custom

XXIX How Some Indians

Robbed the Others

XXX How the Custom of Receiving

Us Changed

XXXI How We Followed the Maize Road

XXXII How They Gave Us Hearts of Deer

XXXIII How We Saw Traces of Christians

XXXIV How I Sent for the Christians

XXXV How the Mayor Received Us Well

on the Night We Arrived

XXXVI How We Caused Churches to Be

Built in That Land

XXXVII Of What Befell When I

Decided to Return

XXXVIII What Befell the Others Who

Went to the Indies


APPENDIX A Note on the Text

APPENDIX a The American Cultures Described

in Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Over de auteur

Enrique Pupo-Walker is Centennial Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Vanderbilt University. His edition of Naufragios was published in Spain in 1992. Frances M. López-Morillas is an award-winning translator living in Austin, Texas.