Welcome to Cabeza de Vaca.

Episode 13, The Utility of Belief.

I'm Brandon Seale.

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso Castillo,

Andres Dorantes, and Estevan had planned to escape from the Native American bands holding them during the prickly pear harvest of 1533.

During the prickly pear harvest, tribes from all over South Texas came together because it was pretty much the only time when the barren landscape offered enough edible foodstuffs to support mass migrations. Just days before the

four old expeditionaries were about to escape, however, a fight broke out amongst their respective

bands, which ended up scattering the bickering factions and with them the four surviving Narvaise

expeditionaries. Individually, they knew they had no chance of reaching their destination on the

Panuco River, the northernmost point of New Spain, wherever that was. And so their forced separation

condemned them to yet another year of slavery, of mistreatment and

mosquitoes, of hunger and hardship, of disease, and the prospect of death every day.

In his account, Cabesa de Vaca always glosses over the most desperate parts of his ordeal.

And so to give you an idea of how bad of a year this really was for him, he covers it in only three

sentences.

Quote, and this year I endured a very bad life, not only from hunger, but also from the

mistreatment that I received from my Indians, such that I had to flee three times from the master who held me.

Each time they all went out to search for me and put a lot of effort into trying to kill me.

But Lord our God and His mercy wanted to preserve and protect me from them, end quote.

Each word of this frustratingly short synopsis contains clues, I think, into what this year was actually like for Cabesa de Vaca.

Here's the first clause again, quote, and this year I endured a very bad life, not only from hunger, but also from the mistreatment that I received from my Indians.

Well, the archaeological record confirms the state of near constant starvation that

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