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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page essay that analyzes passages from the chronicle of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, which recounts his experiences with the Narvaez expedition to the New World in 1527. The writer examines issues of language, faith and knowledge. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khvaca.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
a royal expedition, whose purpose was to aid in the conquest of the North America. After enduring a hurricane, the expedition landed in Florida in 1528, where the expedition leader,
Panfilo de Narvaez, claimed the land as a lawful possession of the Spanish empire. At this point, Narvaez made fateful decision to split his land and sea forces, which resulted
in the ships never being able to rendezvous. Further complications landed Cabeza de Vaca and his companions on the Gulf Coast. For the next four years, Cabeza de Vaca and
an ever dwindling number of companions trekked through the complex world of the Native Americans inhabiting East Texas at that time. Cabeza de Vaca records that he and his companions
came across a "great variety and number of languages, and God Our Lord favored us with a knowledge of all, because they always could understand us and we understood them."
However, later in his chronicle, he comments, "had there been a language in which we could have made ourselves perfectly understood, we would have left them all Christians." This disparity
points to one of the principal problems that the conquistadors encountered with communication. When Cabeza de Vaca comments on how easily they communicated with the Native Americans, he goes on
to make it clear that this communication was primarily by sign language. He writes that "when we asked they would answer by signs, as if they spoke our tongue and
we theirs." He also comments that while between various members of the group, they spoke a total of six languages, these languages were frequently insufficient for communication because, in the
New World, they encountered "more than a thousand different ones." Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume, as Cabeza de Vaca indicates, that the primary form of communication with the natives
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