Making the choice

Continuing the reading of  “a land so strange”, the author, Resédenz, this time presents us the story of those four survivors vastly changed status as they set themselves as the medicine men. Reading through the whole chapter, it’s all full of how the Indian people treated them as higher authority and became their company for the exploration. The Indian people gave whatever they need: “shelter, food, and gifts to the four men in exchange for access o their healing power”. (Reséndez,190). In addition, they would set foot into the tribe’s enemy territory for the sake of those four noble men. In making this comment, the writer urged us to believe that those Indians didn’t enslave those Europeans. Not only because they hadn’t had the ideology of slavery, but also because of their kind-hearted and honest personalities. If the Indians took them as the slave, those four survivors wouldn’t gain such status. The definition of “slavery” is that slaves ought to perform whatever the slavers told them to do and they were unable to disengage in such order. Clearly, the four survivors are thought to be the “son of the god” by the Indians, which directly contradict to the ideas that the europeans were being enslaved that mentioned in the previous chapter. Thus, In my opinion, the natives were very kind and friendly to the castaways before the European conquistadors reached the New World.

Not only the Natives treated them like “son of the god”, the four “medicine men” also rewarded the Indian people and gained benefits mutually.  According to Reséndez, once those four noble men received the presents from one tribe, they would give the rest to their followers.(193) The essence of the argument is that those four castaways are also grateful for the efforts those Indians spared and the kindness that Indians presented to the four. In addition, as the writer puts it, “other christians has already reached these remote lands and were casing so much harm to the natives”. Basically, Reséndez is implying that those four castaways developed the friendship with the natives and decided to help those Indians when they heard the Indians are brutally killed by the European conquistadors. This is a sign of the rationality overcoming the sensibility. It is true that the four castaways were indeed up in the air, however, instead of galloping to the Conquistadors, they took the Indians interest before the their sense of belonging to the Europeans. Additionally,  from my perspective of view, the impulse of helping the Indians is due to their belief in God. The God’s will is rooted inside every angle of their life. Everything is under the supervision of the God. The four deserted people knew that it is a God’s will to testify if they could stand the test.  It is their decision to choose whether they should lounge to the side of the Europeans or staying and helping by the Indian side. At last, they chose the later one.

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