“Sometimes, when it was my turn to get wood, and after it had cost me much blood, I was not able to bring it out, either by carrying or dragging. When I found myself in such labors I had no other remedy or consolation but to think of the Passion of Our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and of the blood that He shed for me, and to consider how much more serious was the torment from the thorns which He suffered than that which I was suffering. Sometimes the Indians would order me to scrape and soften hides, and the greatest good fortune that I had there was the day in which they gave me something to scrape, because I scraped very much and I used to eat those scrapings and they would sustain me for two or three days.” #ÁlvarNúñezCabezadeVaca, Winter 1534 - Summer 1535 “The Ordeal of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, An account of his stay of eight months with the Avavares, “who received him well,” in 1534, between his 1528-1540 odyssey, which set out from Spain in June, 1527, with five ships and six hundred men to explore and settle the lands between Florida and Mexico, but instead entered what would become the United States, he made one of man’s greatest land journeys, crossing from Texas and Mexico from the Gulf to the Pacific Ocean with two other white men, Alonso de Castillo and Andrés Durantes, and a Negro Christian slave from North Africa, Estevanico.” The Narrative of Álvar Núñez Cabeça de Vaca, edited by Frederick W. Hodge (Scribner’s., 1907)
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 20:36:31 +0000