Cabeza de Vaca was a man of his time. Born in Spain around 1490, he sailed to the New World during his teens. It was not long before he joined an expedition from Cuba to Florida to look for unchartered lands and, God willing, a fortune to plunder. It was a typical Conquistador plan that had already seen the fall of the Mexica (Aztecs) and would later see the collapse of the Inca empire. Cabeza de Vaca thought only of fortune; in fact, he was the expedition treasurer.
Within months of landing, and following a pointless trek through the swamplands of Florida, the men were exhausted and starving. Their ship lost, they decided to construct rafts and make a desperate bid for home. It was a fatal mistake; all bar Cabeza de Vaca and three others would either die in the attempt or would perish shortly afterwards.
Cabeza de Vaca was lucky; his raft washed up on Galveston Island, where the local Indians took him in. To his surprise, the Conquistador received compassion from the people he had set out to rob and kill. After regaining his health, Cabeza de Vaca found that previous experience as a Spanish gentleman left him with nothing he could offer the Indians and he found himself falling lower and lower in their esteem before becoming a virtual slave. After several years of hardship, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions broke free and decided to walk through Texas into northern Mexico before following the country south to reach the Spanish towns. It was an audacious plan.
Putting into practice survival techniques learnt from the Indians, Cabeza de Vaca endured by eating anything he could catch – worms and spiders got him through many days. He also developed genuine sympathy for the Indians he met, learning their language and ways. Slowly, the Spanish Conquistador was changing into something more.
Cabeza de Vaca also witnessed healing performed by local shamans, driving out illness through prayer and cleansing the body with plants. Although Cabeza de Vaca never understood why, people took him to be a shaman himself. Perhaps they thought his pale looks were symbolic of the otherworld or perhaps they acknowledged his profound hardship and suffering. For whatever reason, the Indians brought people to Cabeza de Vaca for healing and he obliged them. He and his companions made the sign of the cross over patients and commended them to God. Their ministrations worked and people reported miraculous healing from the hands of the Spaniards. Cabeza de Vaca was given food and other items in exchange and more people arrived to be healed.
On one occasion, Cabeza de Vaca saw that his patient had already died and so he prayed that God would accept the dead man’s soul, breathing over the body several times before making the sign of the cross. The local people probably recognised this as a form of psychopomping and gave Cabeza de Vaca the dead man’s belongings in token of gratitude.
Although Cabeza de Vaca had developed deep sympathy with the Indians and had forged a recognised position in their society, his aim was always to return to his own people and, eventually, he did just that. First reaching Mexico City, he then sailed for Spain, a full ten years after beginning his extraordinary journey.
Cabeza de Vaca did not forget his experiences upon his return and he wrote a book about his journey, still in print today and entitled “The Shipwrecked Men”. Unlike his contemporaries, compassion and respect tempered his attitude towards the Indians. When he became Governor of a region of Argentina, his benevolent attitude towards the native people interfered with the nobles’ desire to enslave them on plantations. Cabeza de Vaca might have been ahead of his time but, with the lack of support from his nobles, his governorship was to be short and he eventually died, ruined and in poverty back in Spain.
The journey Cabeza de Vaca made on foot, although impressive, pales in comparison to the journey he made in his heart. From Conquistador to Shaman, Cabeza de Vaca found his humanity and compassion in the desert. If only there had been more in his mould.
