Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
Our method was to bless the sick, breathing upon them, and recite a Paternoster
and an Ave-Maria, praying with all earnestness to God our Lord that he
would give health and inuence them to make us some good return. In his clemency
he willed that all those for whom we supplicated, should tell the others that they
were sound and in health, directly after we made the sign of the blessed cross over
them. For this the Indians treated us kindly; they deprived themselves of food that
they might give to us, and presented us with skins and some tries.
So protracted was the hunger we there experienced, that many times I was
three days without eating. The natives also endured as much; and it appeared to
me a thing impossible that life could be so prolonged, although afterwards I found
myself in greater hunger and necessity, which I shall speak of farther on.
The Indians who had Alonzo del Castillo, Andrés Dorantes, and the others that
remained alive, were of a dierent tongue and ancestry from these, and went to
the opposite shore of the main to eat oysters, where they staid until the rst day
of April, when they returned. The distance is two leagues in the widest part. The
island is half a league in breadth and ve leagues in length.
The inhabitants of all this region go naked. The women alone have any part
of their persons covered, and it is with a wool that grows on trees. The damsels
dress themselves in deerskin. The people are generous to each other of what they
possess. They have no chief. All that are of a lineage keep together. They speak two
languages; those of one are called Capoques, those of the other, Han. They have
a custom when they meet, or from time to time when they visit, of remaining half
an hour before they speak, weeping; and, this over, he that is visited rst rises and
gives the other all he has, which is received, and after a little while he carries it
away, and often goes without saying a word. They have other strange customs; but
I have told the principal of them, and the most remarkable, that I may pass on and
further relate what befel us.
Chapter XVI
THE CHRISTIANS LEAVE THE ISLAND OF MALHADO.
After Dorantes and Castillo returned to the Island, they brought together the
Christians, who were somewhat separated, and found them in all to be fourteen.
As I have said, I was opposite on the main, where my Indians had taken me, and
where so great sickness had come upon me, that if anything before had given me
hopes of life, this were enough to have entirely bereft me of them.
When the Christians heard of my condition, they gave an Indian the cloak of
marten skins we had taken from the cacique, as before related, to pass them over to
where I was that they might visit me. Twelve of them crossed; for two were so feeble
that their comrades could not venture to bring them. The names of those who came
were Alonzo del Castillo, Andres Dorantes, Diego Dorantes, Yaldevieso, Estrada,
Tostado, Chaves, Gutierrez, Asturiano a clergyman, Diego de Huelva, Estevarico
a black, and Benitez; and when they reached the main land, they found another,
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