European
Depictions of the Other: Man in the State of Nature a) Christopher
Columbus among the Arawaks at Tortuga, 18 December
1492 He [a native American
`ruler'] and his counsellors were extremely sorry that they could not understand
me, nor I them. Nevertheless I understood him to say that if there was
anything I wanted, the whole island was at my disposal. I sent for a wallet
of mine in which I keep, as a memorial, a gold coin bearing the portraits of
your Highnesses and showed it to him, saying, as I had done on the previous
day, that your Highnesses were lords and rulers of the greater part of the
world and that no princes were greater. I showed him the royal banners and
the banners of the cross, which he greatly admired. He said to his
counsellors that your Highnesses must be very great princes, since you had
sent me fearlessly from so far away in the sky to this place. Other
conversation took place between them of which I could understand nothing
except that they were clearly most astonished by everything.(Christopher
Columbus, The Four Voyages,
Penguin 1969, p. 89) (b) Jean De Léry
among the Tupinamba at the Bay of Rio, 1557 [On the natives' fear of
thunder] Adapting ourselves to their crudeness we would seize the occasion to
say to them that this was the very God of whom we were speaking, who to show
his grandeur and power made heavens and earth tremble; their resolution and
response was that since he frightened them in that way, he was good for
nothing. ... the Americans are visibly
and actually tormented by evil spirits ... even in this world there are
devils to torment those who deny God and his power ... one can see that this
fear they have of Him whom they refuse to acknowledge will render them
utterly without excuse. While we were having our
breakfast, with no idea as yet of what they intended to do, we began to hear
in the men's house (not thirty feet from where we stood) a very low murmur,
like the muttering of someone reciting his hours. Upon hearing this, the women
(about two hundred of them) all stood up and clustered together, listening
intently. The men little by little raised their voices and were distinctly
heard singing all together and repeating this syllable of exhortation, He, he, he, he; the women, to our
amazement, answered them from their side, and with a trembling voice,
reiterating that same interjection He, he, he, he, let out such cries, for
more than a quarter of an hour, that as we watched them we were utterly
disconcerted. Not only did they howl, but also, leaping violently into the
air, they made their breasts shake and they foamed at the mouth - in fact,
some, like those who have the falling-sickness [i.e. epilepsy] over here,
fell into a dead faint: I can only believe that the devil entered their body
and that they fell into a fit of madness. [At this point Léry adds an account of the European witches' sabbath, taken from a leading French witchcraft expert,
Jean Bodin. Then he continues:] I have concluded
that they have the same master: that is, the Brazilian women and the witches
over here were guided by the same spirit of Satan; neither the distance
between the places nor the long passage over the sea keeps the father of lies
from working both here and there on those who are handed over to him by the
just judgement of God. [Léry
then continues with his account of the chanting of the Tupinamba]
Although I had been among the savages for more than half a year and was
already fairly used to their ways, nonetheless (to be frank) being somehat frightened and not knowing how the game might
turn out, I wished I were back at our fort. However, after these chaotic
noises and howls had ended and the men had taken a short pause (the women and
children were now silent), we heard them once again singing and making their
voices resound in a harmony so marvelous that you would hardly have needed to
ask whether, since I was now somewhat easier in my mind at hearing such sweet
and gracious sounds, I wished to watch them from nearby... At the beginning
of this witches' sabbath, when I was in the women's
house, I had been somewhat afraid; now I received in recompense such joy,
hearing the measured harmonies of such a multitude, and especially in the
cadence and refrain of the song, when at every verse all of them would let
their voices trail, saying Heu, heuaure, heura, heuraure, heura, heura, oueh -
I stood there transported with delight. Whenever I remember it, my heart
trembles, and it seems their voices are still in my ears. (Stephen
Greenblatt, Marvelous
Possessions: The Wonder of the New World, 1991, pp. 14-16) (c) Bernal Díaz
among the Aztecs of Mexico, 1519 When we saw all those cities
and villages built in the water, and other great towns on dry land, and that
straight and level causeway leading to Mexico, we were astounded. These great
towns and cues and buildings rising from the water,
all made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision from the tale of Amadis. Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it was
not all a dream. It is not surprising therefore that I should write in this
vein. It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first
glimpse of things never heard of, seen or dreamed of before... (p. 214) They led us to some very
large buildings of fine masonry which were the prayer-houses of their idols,
the walls of which were painted with the figures of great serpents and
evil-looking gods. In the middle was something like an altar, covered with
clotted blood, and on the other side of the idols were symbols like crosses,
and all were coloured. We stood astonished, never
having seen or heard of such things before. (p. 20-21) (Bernal Díaz, The
Conquest of New Spain, Penguin, 1963) (d) Arthur Barlowe, The
First Voyage Made to Virginia (1584) Two English captains, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, were
sent forth in 1584 by the powerful courtier Sir Walter Raleigh to discover
territories in North America suitable for colonization. In honor of Queen Elizabeth,
who styled herself the "Virgin Queen," Raleigh named the land his captains encountered "Virginia." Barlowe's account of the voyage appeared in Richard
Hakluyt's The Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English
Nation (1589, with an expanded edition
1598–1600). Thomas Hariot's A Briefe and True Report of the Newfound Land of Virginia (NAEL 8, 1.939-43) appeared in the same
collection. (e) Ovid, The Golden Age: Metamorphoses Bk
I:89-112 The Golden Age This was the Golden Age that, without coercion, without laws,
spontaneously nurtured the good and the true. There was no fear or
punishment: there were no threatening words to be read, fixed in bronze, no
crowd of suppliants fearing the judge’s face: they lived safely without
protection. No pine tree felled in the mountains had yet reached the flowing
waves to travel to other lands: human beings only knew their own shores.
There were no steep ditches surrounding towns, no straight war-trumpets, no
coiled horns, no swords and helmets. Without the use of armies, people passed
their lives in gentle peace and security. The earth herself also, freely,
without the scars of ploughs, untouched by hoes, produced everything from herself. Contented with food that grew without
cultivation, they collected mountain strawberries and the fruit of the
strawberry tree, wild cherries, blackberries clinging to the tough brambles,
and acorns fallen from Jupiter’s
spreading oak-tree. Spring was eternal, and gentle breezes caressed with warm
air the flowers that grew without being seeded. Then the untilled earth gave of
its produce and, without needing renewal, the fields whitened with heavy ears
of corn. Sometimes rivers of milk flowed, sometimes streams of nectar, and
golden honey trickled from the green holm oak. (f) Montaigne, "On
Cannibals" (1587) (Study Guide) These nations then seem to me
to be so far barbarous, as having received but very little form and fashion
from art and human invention, and consequently to be not much remote from
their original simplicity.... for to my apprehension, what we now see in those
nations, does not only surpass all the pictures with which the poets have
adorned the golden age, and all their inventions in feigning a happy
state of man, but, moreover, the fancy and even the wish and desire of
philosophy itself; so native and so pure a simplicity, as we by experience
see to be in them, could never enter into their imagination, nor could they
ever believe that human society could have been maintained with so little
artifice and human patchwork. (g) Daniel Dafoe, from Robinson Crusoe (1719) chapters 14 and 15. (Friday) He
was a comely, handsome fellow, perfectly well made, with straight,
strong limbs, not too large; tall, and well-shaped; and, as I reckon,
about twenty-six years of age. He had a very good countenance, not a
fierce and surly aspect, but seemed to have something very manly in his
face; and yet he had all the sweetness and softness of a European in
his countenance, too, especially when he smiled. His hair was long and
black, not curled like wool; his forehead very high and large; and a
great vivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. The colour of
his skin was not quite black, but very tawny; and yet not an ugly,
yellow, nauseous tawny, as the Brazilians and Virginians, and other
natives of America are, but of a bright kind of a dun olive-colour,
that had in it something very agreeable, though not very easy to
describe. His face was round and plump; his nose small, not flat, like
the negroes; a very good mouth, thin lips, and his fine teeth well set,
and as white as ivory. After he had slumbered, rather than slept, about half-an-hour, he awoke again, and came out of the cave to me: for I had been milking my goats which I had in the enclosure just by: when he espied me he came running to me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the possible signs of an humble, thankful disposition, making a great many antic gestures to show it. At last he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to my foot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as he had done before; and after this made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, and submission imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me so long as he lived. I understood him in many things, and let him know I was very well pleased with him. In a little time I began to speak to him; and teach him to speak to me: and first, I let him know his name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life: I called him so for the memory of the time. I likewise taught him to say Master; and then let him know that was to be my name: I likewise taught him to say Yes and No and to know the meaning of them. I gave him some milk in an earthen pot, and let him see me drink it before him, and sop my bread in it; and gave him a cake of bread to do the like, which he quickly complied with, and made signs that it was very good for him. I kept there with him all that night; but as soon as it was day I beckoned to him to come with me, and let him know I would give him some clothes; at which he seemed very glad, for he was stark naked. As we went by the place where he had buried the two men, he pointed exactly to the place, and showed me the marks that he had made to find them again, making signs to me that we should dig them up again and eat them. At this I appeared very angry, expressed my abhorrence of it, made as if I would vomit at the thoughts of it, and beckoned with my hand to him to come away, which he did immediately, with great submission. I then led him up to the top of the hill, to see if his enemies were gone; and pulling out my glass I looked, and saw plainly the place where they had been, but no appearance of them or their canoes; so that it was plain they were gone, and had left their two comrades behind them, without any search after them. 1. John White Watercolors: "The
True Pictures and Fashions of the People in That Parte of America Now Called Virginia" (1585) (from Virtual
Jamestown) 2. Shakespeare, from The Tempest (Act I, scene ii) (1610) Study Guide 3. Voltaire, from Candide (1755) Chapter 16: “The Biglugs: Man in the State
of Nature”; Chapter 19: “Surinam” For extra reading: Norton Anthology 16th Century
Topics: Renaissance Exploration, Travel, and the World Outside
of Europe |