See also new Mexico Bustamantes, Youngest Daughter, Turn the Hearts of the Children I and II.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Clara Jo and Jerome add to family History
Clara Jo is the youngest of Auntie Lola (Delores Baca Candelaria) four children. Her children started two years after I was born, so her oldest Helena and I were pretty good friends. They came and stayed a couple of weeks with us about every two summers, but Helena and I were pen pals even into out adult years. When Brent and Lynae and I went on adventures two summers Helena, Working at the San Diego Zoo, gave us tickets for the Zoo and Wild Animal Park and we stayed at her house. Those are favorite memories for Brent and Lynae. I hadn't seen "Jo" for maybe 30 years, when I got to see her in April, and started this written conversation again. Thank you Jo. Click on page to enlarge.
See also new Mexico Bustamantes, Youngest Daughter, Turn the Hearts of the Children I and II.
See also new Mexico Bustamantes, Youngest Daughter, Turn the Hearts of the Children I and II.
The Mayan princess 1
The Mayan princess
Why did you smash that pot, you worked all day, making coils and forming them. I thought we could go fish when you were finished.”
“I know, but it wasn’t perfect. I have to make a perfect pot to give to the god of nature. The fire ceremony will be tomorrow and I have to have a perfect pot, painted perfectly to present there. And even then, I won’t be sure it is perfect until after the fire ceremony; I wish I could present more than one at a time so I would know at least one would be acceptable after the firing.”
What do you want? Your pots are very beautiful and your paintings are perfect, the colors are from every source we can find.
“I want the colors to be perfect like nature is perfect. When I finish a pot I don’t have the same colors I started with, some of the pot are blackened by the fire, some colors change to the color of mud. I want to make a perfect pot to present to the god of nature the way he has made colors.
Leave it and come with me to the village. I want to show you something.
I don’t like to go into the village now that the Spaniards have taken over. They have changed everything. I want things to stay the same.
Well you don’t have that choice now, the Spaniards took over the Aztec and Mayan cities before you were born and now they are here and we have to live with the changing world, that’s what my parents have told me.
OK, I need a break anyway, and on the way back I want to try that new spot for clay slip, perhaps if I can get the right type to make my pots, the colors will come out more true.
The two Mayan youngsters walked through the jungle paths toward the Mayan village, now changed by through the years of their life to be more Spanish than Mayan, but the children were taught well by their mothers the histories of their people and the stories of the various gods representing nature.
I want to see the pottery they put in to that building at the edge of the market a few days ago. Remember they said this was the day they would be cool enough to remove and sell.
In the village the young people went through the market place, buying food for their lunch. Most of the merchants were closing down for the afternoon siesta. The sun was hot on the path and their sandaled feet had toughened from walking. A crowd was forming at the edge of the market and they migrated towards it out of curiosity. There were murmured acknowledgments of delighted surprise as the doors of a small building were opened. From it, after many days, were drawn on wooden paddles, the most beautiful painted pots that either had ever seen. The colors were true to nature, and from one pot to the other were matched by color. The pots themselves were perfectly straight as they were when they were put in. She gasped as she drew close to the shelves of pottery displayed for all to see for the first time. That was the pottery she had dreamed of many times in her sleep and had made so many efforts to duplicate. The building had been called a kiln and the Spaniards had built it with bricks they had fired in a different village and brought here for the purpose of providing a kiln. This was the first time any of them had seen the results.
You know I would be a princess and you a prince in our tribe if the Aztec king had not given away his empire and ours to the Spanish Conquistadores” ______-stated sourly as she scooped up the clay mud from the river bank, more determined than ever to get those perfect colors.
Yes, Of course I know, but I think it is more fun being free to play in the river and make our own pottery with the clay slip than to have to prepare to be chief of our tribe.
Aren’t you afraid that you will be taken away by the Spaniards? Some of the chief’s sons from tribes around ......... have been taken. I don’t think they are used as slaves, but they say they are being taught to be more like Catholics.
Yes, and many of the young girls we used to do ceremonial dancing with have also been taken. They say they are to marry Spanish Soldiers and raise their children as Spanish Catholics, what ever that meant.
Why did you smash that pot, you worked all day, making coils and forming them. I thought we could go fish when you were finished.”
“I know, but it wasn’t perfect. I have to make a perfect pot to give to the god of nature. The fire ceremony will be tomorrow and I have to have a perfect pot, painted perfectly to present there. And even then, I won’t be sure it is perfect until after the fire ceremony; I wish I could present more than one at a time so I would know at least one would be acceptable after the firing.”
What do you want? Your pots are very beautiful and your paintings are perfect, the colors are from every source we can find.
“I want the colors to be perfect like nature is perfect. When I finish a pot I don’t have the same colors I started with, some of the pot are blackened by the fire, some colors change to the color of mud. I want to make a perfect pot to present to the god of nature the way he has made colors.
Leave it and come with me to the village. I want to show you something.
I don’t like to go into the village now that the Spaniards have taken over. They have changed everything. I want things to stay the same.
Well you don’t have that choice now, the Spaniards took over the Aztec and Mayan cities before you were born and now they are here and we have to live with the changing world, that’s what my parents have told me.
OK, I need a break anyway, and on the way back I want to try that new spot for clay slip, perhaps if I can get the right type to make my pots, the colors will come out more true.
The two Mayan youngsters walked through the jungle paths toward the Mayan village, now changed by through the years of their life to be more Spanish than Mayan, but the children were taught well by their mothers the histories of their people and the stories of the various gods representing nature.
I want to see the pottery they put in to that building at the edge of the market a few days ago. Remember they said this was the day they would be cool enough to remove and sell.
In the village the young people went through the market place, buying food for their lunch. Most of the merchants were closing down for the afternoon siesta. The sun was hot on the path and their sandaled feet had toughened from walking. A crowd was forming at the edge of the market and they migrated towards it out of curiosity. There were murmured acknowledgments of delighted surprise as the doors of a small building were opened. From it, after many days, were drawn on wooden paddles, the most beautiful painted pots that either had ever seen. The colors were true to nature, and from one pot to the other were matched by color. The pots themselves were perfectly straight as they were when they were put in. She gasped as she drew close to the shelves of pottery displayed for all to see for the first time. That was the pottery she had dreamed of many times in her sleep and had made so many efforts to duplicate. The building had been called a kiln and the Spaniards had built it with bricks they had fired in a different village and brought here for the purpose of providing a kiln. This was the first time any of them had seen the results.
You know I would be a princess and you a prince in our tribe if the Aztec king had not given away his empire and ours to the Spanish Conquistadores” ______-stated sourly as she scooped up the clay mud from the river bank, more determined than ever to get those perfect colors.
Yes, Of course I know, but I think it is more fun being free to play in the river and make our own pottery with the clay slip than to have to prepare to be chief of our tribe.
Aren’t you afraid that you will be taken away by the Spaniards? Some of the chief’s sons from tribes around ......... have been taken. I don’t think they are used as slaves, but they say they are being taught to be more like Catholics.
Yes, and many of the young girls we used to do ceremonial dancing with have also been taken. They say they are to marry Spanish Soldiers and raise their children as Spanish Catholics, what ever that meant.
Journal of a Mayan Princess
I sat on the leafy pallet running my fingers through the wet clay, dreaming of the day I could create a vessel so beautiful it would be accepted by the high priests at the temple to burn incense.
As a small child I loved the feel of the cool wet clay and pressing it into the molds to make simple bowls and serving platters for our own family dinners.
I painted simple images on them and presented them to be fired.
I always felt so proud when my dishes were used to serve the family
and especially when they were brought to serve the priest
or other visitors that came to our home.
The making of vessels was expected as part of all young
girl's home making skills, but mine were especially admired.
Perhaps it was vein of me to be so proud, but even as a small child,
I knew my pressed vessels and the design I painted on them were special creations.
I was barley old enough to reach the top of the largest vessels when I began to reach down to gather handsful of the slippery whitish, clay and roll it into long slender snakes.
Protecting the ropes of clay with damp leaves, I formed the bottom of my first coiled vessel, carefully winding the coil in tight spirals with no spaces in between.
I guided the clay up layer by layer, each representing Mayan people
throughout all generations of time.
The coils shape and define the new pot, before my eyes. I wanted to make my very first coiled vessel perfect.
I was disappointed when the shape was uneven and it did not match the image I had in my mind.
I continued to try, day after day attempting to match reality with my vision of perfection.
Before I was a year older I presented my first perfectly shaped vessel to the fire god.
It was shaped perfectly from any view.
I had pressed each coil firmly in place with wet hands,
smoothing on the inside and on the outside as I build up layer after layer.
After it dried for a day in the sun, I scrapped the roughness from it with a stone knife and completed the perfection of its shape by rubbing and buffing every space on it, leaving no sign of the coils used to build it, no air trapped in bubbles to burst and crack the pot during the firing.
I watched the Quetzal bird, his red chest puffed out and yellow and green back feathers hanging gracefully from his body.
How I wished I could find a way to imitate the bright colors of nature even after the pot came from the fire.
I painted the designs on my vessel using different thickness of slip to bring contrast and brightness to the color, and I used lime pigment to create contrast and brightness.
I knew it was up to the fire god to bless my paintings so there would not be strange variarions in the color, or worse yet, black smudges from the changes in heat and smoke.
I used the iron based slip, painting extra layers, and more layers in spots to add contrast and brightness.
It would turn the brightest reds and yellows brown as it baked.
I longed for a way to control the process, but I knew that in all the millennium that our people had coiled painted and baked these very vessels there had been nothing created to protect the integrity of the color.
Sticks and branches piled above my precious offering were set ablaze and fuel was added to insure continuios hot fire.
I turned to watch my brother carving, intricate and true to the traditions of the ceremonial masks. Each individual mask was unique, yet followed the traditions of uncounted generations.
He was asked by many to make the masks for their dances and celebrations.
“Do you believe that storoy of the Quetzal bird?” I asked idly, just to begin a conversaton with him.
"Grandfather says before the Spaniards came, the birds had only yellow and green feathers.”
Grandfather lived long before the Quetzal bird turned red. He lived long before the Spaniards came to our land with their metal suits and swords.
“Have you ever seen a Spaniard?”
As children we knew the dangers the Spaniards brought to our villages; whole families and villages had been killed by deadly diseases they brought.
Others were killed by their swords in unexpected attacks that were not understood by our people.
When the first Spaniards came by sea through the foggy bay their ship appeared to have come from the sky. All Mayan people know the tradition of Quetziquatal, the great white god, returning to our people.
He would come from the sky, they said.
Those seeing the ships beleived it was him returning as promised, and welcomed and worshipped him.
We later learned his name was Captain Hernando Cortez,
and he was just a man, a very cruel and savage man,
whose main interest was in the slaves and gold he could ship back to Spain.
During one of the Spanish attacks against a village in 1524, a Spaniard struck down a Mayan warrior,Tecum Uman, defending his village.
The Quetzal bird then flew down and laded on the Mayan Warrior; as he flew away his chest feathers had turned to the color of blood.
Since then relics of Spanish soldiers were collected to ward off the ravages of the gods of war and disease.
Many of the shields were colorfully painted.
Colors not seen here, except in nature.
I wondered how they could paint the metal with such colors.
I traced the zig-zag pattern in the lightning symbol as Tx Chel,
goddess of rain hurled a lightening bolt with such power it brought the rain.
“If we could find out where they get the colors, or how they make them, I might be able to paint my pottery with the colors as bright as weavers use in weaving hulitas.
My brother and I set out on a journey to discover the origin of the brightly colored paints used by the Spaniards.
We were found and taken prisoners by Spanish Soldiers. I never saw my brother again. I do not know what became of him.
I beame the slave of Captain Cabesa de Vaca and bore three of his children. I
learned the secrets of color, and now Iam able to make beautiful pottery for our family.
The Captain return to Spain or died at sea,
but I have not seen him for many seasons.
My children do not know him, only of him.
I teach them the art of coiled pottery and carving masks,
and we use the magic of color the Spaniards brought;
the most beautiful in all the world.
Besides my children and my freedom, Captain De Vaca brought me a kiln.
My colors are no longer at the mercy of the gods of fire,
but depend only on my god given talent for painting a story
and selecting true colors and images to adorn the vessel.
As a small child I loved the feel of the cool wet clay and pressing it into the molds to make simple bowls and serving platters for our own family dinners.
I painted simple images on them and presented them to be fired.
I always felt so proud when my dishes were used to serve the family
and especially when they were brought to serve the priest
or other visitors that came to our home.
The making of vessels was expected as part of all young
girl's home making skills, but mine were especially admired.
Perhaps it was vein of me to be so proud, but even as a small child,
I knew my pressed vessels and the design I painted on them were special creations.
I was barley old enough to reach the top of the largest vessels when I began to reach down to gather handsful of the slippery whitish, clay and roll it into long slender snakes.
Protecting the ropes of clay with damp leaves, I formed the bottom of my first coiled vessel, carefully winding the coil in tight spirals with no spaces in between.
I guided the clay up layer by layer, each representing Mayan people
throughout all generations of time.
The coils shape and define the new pot, before my eyes. I wanted to make my very first coiled vessel perfect.
I was disappointed when the shape was uneven and it did not match the image I had in my mind.
I continued to try, day after day attempting to match reality with my vision of perfection.
Before I was a year older I presented my first perfectly shaped vessel to the fire god.
It was shaped perfectly from any view.
I had pressed each coil firmly in place with wet hands,
smoothing on the inside and on the outside as I build up layer after layer.
After it dried for a day in the sun, I scrapped the roughness from it with a stone knife and completed the perfection of its shape by rubbing and buffing every space on it, leaving no sign of the coils used to build it, no air trapped in bubbles to burst and crack the pot during the firing.
I watched the Quetzal bird, his red chest puffed out and yellow and green back feathers hanging gracefully from his body.
How I wished I could find a way to imitate the bright colors of nature even after the pot came from the fire.
I painted the designs on my vessel using different thickness of slip to bring contrast and brightness to the color, and I used lime pigment to create contrast and brightness.
I knew it was up to the fire god to bless my paintings so there would not be strange variarions in the color, or worse yet, black smudges from the changes in heat and smoke.
I used the iron based slip, painting extra layers, and more layers in spots to add contrast and brightness.
It would turn the brightest reds and yellows brown as it baked.
I longed for a way to control the process, but I knew that in all the millennium that our people had coiled painted and baked these very vessels there had been nothing created to protect the integrity of the color.
Sticks and branches piled above my precious offering were set ablaze and fuel was added to insure continuios hot fire.
I turned to watch my brother carving, intricate and true to the traditions of the ceremonial masks. Each individual mask was unique, yet followed the traditions of uncounted generations.
He was asked by many to make the masks for their dances and celebrations.
“Do you believe that storoy of the Quetzal bird?” I asked idly, just to begin a conversaton with him.
"Grandfather says before the Spaniards came, the birds had only yellow and green feathers.”
Grandfather lived long before the Quetzal bird turned red. He lived long before the Spaniards came to our land with their metal suits and swords.
“Have you ever seen a Spaniard?”
As children we knew the dangers the Spaniards brought to our villages; whole families and villages had been killed by deadly diseases they brought.
Others were killed by their swords in unexpected attacks that were not understood by our people.
When the first Spaniards came by sea through the foggy bay their ship appeared to have come from the sky. All Mayan people know the tradition of Quetziquatal, the great white god, returning to our people.
He would come from the sky, they said.
Those seeing the ships beleived it was him returning as promised, and welcomed and worshipped him.
We later learned his name was Captain Hernando Cortez,
and he was just a man, a very cruel and savage man,
whose main interest was in the slaves and gold he could ship back to Spain.
During one of the Spanish attacks against a village in 1524, a Spaniard struck down a Mayan warrior,Tecum Uman, defending his village.
The Quetzal bird then flew down and laded on the Mayan Warrior; as he flew away his chest feathers had turned to the color of blood.
Since then relics of Spanish soldiers were collected to ward off the ravages of the gods of war and disease.
Many of the shields were colorfully painted.
Colors not seen here, except in nature.
I wondered how they could paint the metal with such colors.
I traced the zig-zag pattern in the lightning symbol as Tx Chel,
goddess of rain hurled a lightening bolt with such power it brought the rain.
“If we could find out where they get the colors, or how they make them, I might be able to paint my pottery with the colors as bright as weavers use in weaving hulitas.
My brother and I set out on a journey to discover the origin of the brightly colored paints used by the Spaniards.
We were found and taken prisoners by Spanish Soldiers. I never saw my brother again. I do not know what became of him.
I beame the slave of Captain Cabesa de Vaca and bore three of his children. I
learned the secrets of color, and now Iam able to make beautiful pottery for our family.
The Captain return to Spain or died at sea,
but I have not seen him for many seasons.
My children do not know him, only of him.
I teach them the art of coiled pottery and carving masks,
and we use the magic of color the Spaniards brought;
the most beautiful in all the world.
Besides my children and my freedom, Captain De Vaca brought me a kiln.
My colors are no longer at the mercy of the gods of fire,
but depend only on my god given talent for painting a story
and selecting true colors and images to adorn the vessel.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Read THe Mayan Princess and Journal of a Mayan Princess to understand the importance of the KILN to the emerging Mayan people under the Spanish rein of terror.
The Kiln is as large as a small house. See Lynae standing next to she is dwarfed by its size.
These are the styles of the original Kilns brought by the Spaniards with the conquistadores in the 1500's.
The Mexican village women hand shape and paint the many products to go into the kiln for sale in the market place.
Intricate artistic renderings hold their color when fired at amazingly high temperatures in the kiln.
Double click for a close up of the back ground pieces ready to paint and present to the kiln.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Mayan Princess' creations after Spaniard's Kiln
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Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca A Journal from Spain
April 17 the year of our Lord 1545
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
April 17 the year of our Lord 1545
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
April 17 the year of our Lord 1545
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
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