The Conquest of the River Plate (1535-1555). active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
as I also know his grave faults.
[10] Voyages dans l’Amérique Méridionale, par Don Felix Azara; Paris, 1809; Introduction, p. 20.
Azara is one of the few who deny that the country was inhabited by a multitude of various nations, as many writers have asserted, and nevertheless enumerates and describes no less than thirty-two nations and more than fifty tribes. I maintain there was only one nation, the Guaraní; and in the province of La Plata, described by Alvar Nuñez and by Schmidt, the Guaranís were divided into twenty-one tribes, who differed only in their habits, or their arms, or in the nature of the country inhabited by them. These are the tribes entered on my ethnographical map. The others, mentioned by the writers in question, would be merely unimportant groups, designated by the name of their chief, or by some nickname applied to them by their neighbours or enemies. The tribes I record are the following: Quîrandís, Chanás, Charuas, Yarós, Arechanés, Minhuános, Timbús, Tobas, Mocobís or Mbocoys, Abipones, Agaces, Mepenes, Mbaiás, Payaguás, Guaicurús, Cheriguanos, Xarayos, Itatines, Guatós, Cariyós, Tapiis; all these are Guaranís. I do not treat of the other principal tribes, situated in the interior of the country between Paraná and the Andes, because they do not concern the narratives of Schmidt and Alvar Nuñez.
To the errors of Schmidt in nomenclature and distances must be added others of fact, doubtless more important. These also are rectified in the notes, which the reader will find in the corresponding place. In these, however, I have not touched on the subject of cannibalism attributed to the natives, because this deserves separate treatment here.
I believe there is not a single author of history and travel, at the time of the conquest of America, who has not admitted the assertion, and repeated it, that the natives were anthropophagi. Even the name cannibals was invented in the early years of the conquest. When Christopher Columbus established himself in Hayti, he asked the feeble, unarmed, and hospitable Indians he found there, for some information concerning other islands and their inhabitants, and they informed him that further on there were perverse men who made war upon them to rob and enslave them. These Indians of Hayti gave the name of Carib and Caniba to the islands inhabited by their enemies, called Caribes.
Columbus says, in the unique autograph document that is known concerning his first voyage of discovery,[11] that these Indians are held in all the islands to be very fierce, and that they eat live flesh (carne viva). He considers them, however, on the whole, equal to the others. This is the first origin of the tale of cannibalism, for the letter of Columbus, in which this statement is made, was immediately translated into Latin and published at Rome, and in this translation the Spanish words, comer carne viva, were interpreted by the Latin phrase, carne humana vescuntur. Long afterwards (from 1527 to 1559) the celebrated Bartholomé de las Casas wrote his Historia de las Indias, in which he gave an abstract of the journal of Columbus’ first voyage. In his summary, Las Casas relates what Columbus says, amplifying, correcting, or abridging, as he found convenient; and there the great discoverer appears repeatedly speaking of Indians who ate human flesh.
[11] Letter of the Admiral Christopher Columbus to Luis de Santángel, Contador Mayor de los Reyes Catholicos. (Navarrete Coleccion de Viages, tomo i, p. 167.) An identical letter was addressed by Columbus to the Contador Rafael Sanchez.
This alteration of the text of the letter of Columbus was repeated by the conquistadores and missionaries to justify the enslaving of the Indians- xxxviii - and the horrible cruelty with which they were treated, commending in this way their perils and their labours in the military and spiritual conquest.
Cannibalism, under its name of Anthropophagy, originated with the fable of Polyphemus, and I am convinced that it is a calumny spread abroad from the time of Saint Jerome, when this brutality was attributed to the Scotch, down to the present day, when it is asserted that there are cannibals in Oceania and Africa.
I do not say this in defence of the Indians, but for the honour of human nature, not so bad as the creative genius of poets and authors of fiction have supposed it to be. That barbarous Indians are treacherous; that when they slay their enemies they will tear them to pieces and burn them, is beyond dispute. But that they will eat their flesh is a slander and a despicable falsehood founded on interested motives. I have yet to find the man who will tell me in good faith he has seen the Indians eat human flesh. Schmidt does not say it, nor does Alvar Nuñez, nor any other of the historians of America, though all repeat the tale; and there are some who, even at the present day, believe that the Fuegians, those unhappy savages of the extreme south of the continent, are cannibals.
In my new historical work, shortly to be given to the press, I shall treat of this interesting subject more at large; for the present I limit myself to the denial of a deed which I could only credit were I to see it with my own eyes.
These tales of cannibals and of Amazons, of giants and of pygmies, met with by certain travellers in unknown countries, are the brilliant spangles wherewith to dazzle the eyes of the vulgar anxious for marvels, and disposed to believe that in other parts there are men with tails, and women warriors who live without men, and monsters which have only existed in mythology and in fable.
I hope the readers of this Introduction, and of the notes, will be indulgent with respect to style, bearing in mind that what they read is a translation from the Spanish language in which I write.
I cannot terminate without giving my thanks to Mr. E. Delmar Morgan, Honorary Secretary of the Hakluyt Society, for the active co-operation he has afforded me in the preparation of this work.
Luis L. Dominguez.
16, Kensington Palace Gardens, London, November 1890.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
I.
ULRICH SCHMIDT.
ULRICH SCHMIDT’S voyage to the River Plate was published for the first time, in a Collection of Voyages, edited by the booksellers, Sebastian Franck and Sigismund Feyerabend, in the middle of the 16th century, at Frankfort-on-Main. The title of this collection is:
“Warhafftige Beschreibunge aller theil der Welt, darinn nicht allein etliche alte Landtschafften, Königreich, Provinzen, Insulen, auch fürnehme Stedt und Märckte (so denn allen Welt-beschreibern bekant seind), mit fleiss beschrieben werden, sondern auch sehr viel neuwe, so zu vnsern zeiten zu Wasser durch vil sorgliche und vormals vngebrauchte Schiffarten erfunden seyn, welche im andern disem nachfolgenden Buch von Schiffarten genañt auss rechtem grundt der Cosmography vnd Geometry erfunden, angezeigt werden. Dessgleichen auch etwas von New gefundenen Welten, vnd aller darinn gelegenen Völcker, ihrer Religion vnd Glaubens sachen, ihrem Regiment, Pollicey, Gewerb, handtierung vnd andern gebreuchen mehr, etc., auss etlichen glaubwirdigen (fürnehmer Scribenten) Büchern mit grosse mühe vnd arbeyt, etc.
“Durch Sebastian Franck von Wörd, zum ersten an tag geben, jetst aber mit sondern fleiss auff ein neuwes vbersehen, vnd in ein wolgeformtes Handtbuch verfasset. Anno MDLXVII.”
The book of Schmidt appeared in the second part of this collection under the following title:
“Warhafftige vnd liebliche Beschreibung etlicher fürnemen Indianischen Landtschafften vnd Insulen, die vormals in keiner Chronicken gedacht, vnd erstlich in der Schiffart Vlrici Schmidts von Straubingen, mit grosser gefahr erkündigt, vnd von ihm selber auffs fleissigst beschrieben vnd dargethan.”
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