Journal #2

Nika Bogoslovsky
9/28/07
#2 De Vaca

"When a daughter marries, she must take everything her husband kills in hunting or catches in fishing to the house of her father, without daring to eat or to withhold any part of it, and the husband gets provided by female carrier from his father-in-law's house."

Summary:

This is a detailed letter from Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca to Emperor Charles V describing his journeys with the native Americans. In this letter he holds nothing back, and tells his experiences how they are in truth.

Response:

If I could, I would have quoted the entire letter. I can't believe how detailed De Vaca is about his life with tribe after tribe. The strongest feeling that comes to me when I read his letter is that these people were not nearly as savage as I have been taught to think. For crying out loud, Disney's Pocahontas has an entire song called "Savages" for the natives John Smith meets. De Vaca lets us know how structured their lives were. They were not savage or heathen at all. They had plans for their children, structured families, medicine, rich agriculture etc. and they were living, even thriving off it. I was so surprised when I read this because I really had no idea how detailed natives lived, I was used to the Columbus story heard back in middle school. It's interesting how closely in time De Vaca and Columbus lived, yet De Vaca was worlds away in action and passion and thinking from Columbus.