In Sanlucar de Barrameda, the Atlantic ports of Spain, armadas of ships raise their sails and, leaving the harbors, head west. Caravels, brigantines, and galleons are coming into the sea rapidly and without hesitation. In essence, they are small vessels, but to contemporaries, they seem vast and powerful. Indeed, these ships had such a system of sails, which allowed them to carry out various maneuvers in the open sea and to sail almost upwind. They were destined to have a decisive, though quite different, impact on the historical fate of entire continents (Alvar, 1993). Four centuries later, a distant descendant of one of the earliest conquistadors, the Cuban-French poet José María de Heredia, would compare the departure of these ships to the solemn and ominous flight of raptors from the nest.
Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a nobleman from Extremadura, is the author of one of the most valuable books – “Shipwrecks,” which, for more than four centuries, has enjoyed unchanging success among readers from many countries. “Shipwreck” is an outstanding historical, geographical, and literary monument to the era of great geographical discoveries, a living witness account of the first European who crossed the entire southwest of the North American continent. According to the text, Cabeza de Vaca found himself on the Texas coast with a handful of exhausted, half-dead men. Showing fortitude and strength of mind, he managed to adapt to the new, unusual conditions, living for many years among the Indians, and then, rallying the three survivors of Spaniards around him (Alvar, 1993). Upon his return home after ten years of wandering, Cabeza de Vaca wrote the king a report on the expedition.
Soon after receiving a patent to organize an expedition to La Plata, he sailed for a second time to the New World, where new hardships awaited him. During his absence, in 1542, the Medina del Campo bookseller Juan Pablo Musetti, to whom Cabeza de Vaca left a draft of the report, published it in a separate book called Shipwrecks. Reading Shipwrecks, one cannot help but marvel at the author’s remarkable memory: dates, names, events, their sequence – everything is reproduced with exceptional fidelity. Special scientific studies of recent times show that only in very few cases Cabeza de Vaca allows minor factual inaccuracies. At the same time, as the reader will see from the contents of the book, he was deprived of the opportunity to take any notes for eight years.
The report of Cabeza de Vaca contains valuable scientific information (Alvar, 1993). It was and will remain an essential scientific source for Americanists of different specialties – historians, ethnographers, geographers, as well as zoologists and botanists. It describes the fauna and flora of the vast territories of the North American South and Southwest in the pre-colonial period. The book’s scientific value, however, does not yet fully reveal the source of its longevity. In Shipwrecks. Cabeza de Vaca recounts the dramatic failure of the expedition, the extraordinary long odyssey of a handful of Europeans lost in the vast expanse of the North American continent. The author does not need to embellish or color the events he experienced – so bright and fantastic is the reality he describes. That is why the report Cabeza de Vaca reads like a thrilling adventure novel.
The main attraction of the book which can be noticed immediately, lies in the personality of its author. Cabeza de Vaca’s book is, first and foremost, a human document that testifies to the enormous physical and moral capacities of man (Alvar, 1993). It may well be classified as one of those inherently humanistic works of world culture that push the boundaries of the usual perceptions of the human personality itself. At the same time, Cabeza de Vaca is quite a child for his age. Therefore, both his book and himself become more understandable when viewed in the context of the age.
“Shipwrecks” was preceded by two other reports which came into the world not long before the publishment of the analyzed paper. The first was written by Cabeza de Vaca and his companions in Mexico and given to the viceroy. This report has not yet been discovered but the attempts still exist. The second was written by Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes and given by Cabeza de Vaca to the audience in Santo Domingo. The original of the second report does not appear to have survived, but an account of it is contained in Gonzalo Hernández de Oviedo’s General and Natural History of the Indies. “Shipwrecks” is the third report in this series and the first personal report by Cabeza de Vaca.
This book was popular among the ordinary readers and those, who were full of the adventure spirit. It was published twice during the author’s lifetime: in 1542 and in 1555 (Alvar, 1993). In the 1555 edition, Cabeza de Vaca combined the Shipwrecks with his new book, Commentaries of the Adelantado and Governor of the Rio de la Plata, in which he recounted his stay in South America (Alvar, 1993). The text of “Shipwrecks” in this volume differs somewhat from the original version. However, since the second edition was a lifetime edition, it is the one that should be considered authentic.
“Shipwrecks” had already been translated into other languages in the 16th century: into Italian in 1556 and into English in 1572 (Alvar, 1993). In this connection, it is necessary to make a few remarks about its literary peculiarities. The sixteenth century was marked in Spain by the flowering of business prose, devoted to the history of the discovery and conquest of America and containing a variety of information about the new continent. Business prose was represented by official reports, letters, and notes of old men, as well as historical chronicles. “Shipwrecks” is undoubtedly an outstanding example of this factual literature (Alvar, 1993). However, one cannot ignore the genre peculiarity of Cabeza de Vaca’s book: formally a report to the king, it is also built on the laws of the work of fiction. The interaction of these two principles explains the author’s principles of selection and coverage of facts.
On the one hand, Shipwreck is characterized by the objectification of the narrative, the dating of events, their presentation in a strict, chronological sequence, or the protocol reproduction of discussions and deliberations (Alvar, 1993). On the other hand, when recounting the misfortunes of the survivors of the expedition when describing the relationship between the Spaniards and the Indians, the nature of the narrative changes significantly. It becomes expressive and emotionally intense; the impassioned narrative is replaced by an exciting story, which clearly shows an element of personal evaluation.
The attention of the author lingers on “microscopic” facts that are hardly relevant in a chronicle or report but are very important for the fulfillment of the artistic tasks of the book. Such, for example, is the episode in that tells about the author’s five-day wanderings with torches in his hands; such is the story of a poor Indian woman subjected to severe punishment for the fact that she mourned the death of someone close to her (Alvar, 1993). The genre-stylistic complexity of Shipwrecks is further shaded by the explicitly publicistic sound of the chapters devoted to the protection of the Indians.
The Spanish Academy included Cabeza de Vaca among its exemplary authors. Indeed, “Shipwrecks” is written in a solid and expressive language with a considerable stylistic range. However, it does not go beyond Cabeza de Vaca’s contemporary business and colloquial speech, and there is no trace of affectation or affectation in it. At the same time, the language of Cabeza de Vaca lacks the refinement, the rationing that can be found, for example, in the works of Bartolomé de Las Casas (Alvar, 1993).
In general, Cabeza de Vaca’s literary technique is far from perfect: the narrative is not always logically divided into chapters, the chapters are too unequal in length, and the titles often correspond to the content of the previous chapter. The book is replete with highly long periods with little internal cohesion, tedious repetitions, unwieldy turns of phrases, and complex ways of conveying dialogue through indirect speech. In spite of this, the work the author has done is fundamental not only to the field of literature but also to the field of geography. The examples and events described in “Shipwreck” demonstrate real life, full of travel and the difficulties faced by the traveler during the whole period of discovering new lands or opportunities.
Reference
Alvar. (1993). The account: Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca’s relacion. Arte Publico Press.