The majority of the novel shows the expedition going anything but well. The travelers experience all kinds of obstacles that result in their starvation, dehydration and even their enslavement by Native Americans in the New World. It is apparent throughout the first half of the journey, that the travelers were unprepared for the hurdles that they had to face, making it easy for the reader to believe that Narváez’s expedition was inept in their endeavors. However, in Chapter 8, Reséndez writes that:

The castaways continued to burnish their reputation as healers. Cabeza de Vaca in particular became more confident in his skills. He became bolder in his inventions; he was no longer content merely to pray and blow. The medical procedure he employed may go some way toward explaining his success. ( Reséndez 189)

Reséndez completely changes the argument to argue that though the men seemed unfit to explore the New World at the beginning. They ultimately were able to adapt to the ways of life in the Americas. It is important to understand this new development in the text so that the audience understands that Reséndez believes that the journey the men went on was not easy, but they are ultimately capable of learning the ways of the land.

According to Cabeza de Vaca “Four naked unarmed outsiders were led by hundreds, even thousands, of Indians. They were fed and protected and passed off from one indigenous group to the next, as if they were prized possessions moving along an ancient trading route across the continent (Resendez 188).” Cabeza de Vaca’s point in this paragraph is that not all Native Americans were savages as they were and have been portrayed. It shows that even though Cabeza de Vaca and his crew were these Natives captives they still treated his group with respect.

According to the Mexican historian Andrés Reséndez, the four travelers “felt greatly disturbed and saddened that other Christians had already reached these remote lands and were causing so much harm to the natives”(204). Reséndez’s point is that throughout their travels, the four outsiders developed a new perspective on the Native Americans, and though they still felt that the natives would be better off as Christians under Spanish rule, they did not wish to bring harm to the natives. Having lived among the natives in the New World for several years, the four survivors were able to gain a new appreciation for the natives and their culture. They decided they wanted to convert these natives in a humane way. Looking deeper into Reséndez’s words, it is clear that he is arguing that their experiences changed the three Spaniards and the African.

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.

Chapter 8 of A Land So Strange exemplifies the changing roles that are taken by the four remaining survivors of the Florida expedition. Primarily, they are renown within several Indian communities as healers and for this reason, Andrés Reséndez maintains that “Four naked and unarmed outsiders were led by hundreds, even thousands, of Indians. They were fed and protected and passed off from one indigenous group to the next, as if they were prized possessions moving along an ancient trading route across the continent” (188). Medicine men is exactly what these men were deemed to be at this point in their journey. They sharpened their skills and were performing much more complicated procedures. A ritual soon enveloped and the four castaways would travel from community to community healing natives and receiving food, shelter, and elaborate gifts in return. This quote portrays the invaluable nature of the healers by the Indian communties and objectifies their presence. Their reputation becomes determined by others based off of their doings and a huge sense of responsibility overtakes them with this job. The above quote also implies the inescapable life that they had to live in before continuing the exploration that they had set out to do. Along the same lines, it is important for understanding the different lifestyles the castaways had to adapt to and the difficulties that the natives had imposed on them and their lives.

In Andrés Reséndez’s book A Land So Strange he follows the journey of Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, Castillo, and Estebancio. These four men were a part of a colonization group but through a series of unfortunate events they all died (except for these four) and ended up traveling from Florida to Mexico. They became slaves but eventually ended up becoming “medicine men.”

As medicine men they were treated very kindly and were greatly desired, but the medicine men became a part of a peculiar custom. When the medicine men traveled from village to village, “those who had accompanied the medicine men would pillage the new hosts, entering their huts and plundering whatever possessions or food they could carry back to their own encampment. In return, they left the medicine men,” (191). This left their new hosts with very little, because after this ritual took place, they then would offer the medicine everything they had as gifts. The medicine had their pick of food, clothing, and other items. The villages were fine with this ritual however, because they then would walk the medicine men to the next village and become the pillagers.

This act of taking the new village’s possessions but leaving the medicine men implies that the medicine men were almost seen as possessions themselves. It can be compared to giving someone a diamond but taking their food, pots, pans, and furniture because then, and only then, is it a fair trade. The medicine men were considered the best possession someone could have. Reséndez’s argument is that the medicine men were not considered men, but merely tools that could heal.

In the two chapters that we read for today, Reséndez describes the castaways’ time enslaved by the natives. Throughout these two chapters we learn a lot about Native American society and culture, but also specifically their economy.

I agree that independent and unaffiliated merchants, such as Cabeza de Vaca, were important figures in Native American society, a point that needs emphasizing because many people still think of Native American trade as being between two groups or tribes without a middle man. At the beginning of the Spaniards’ relationship with the natives, they were treated well, but slowly became slaves. (143) However, the native cultures that the Spaniards interacted with were not slaving societies. They didn’t systematically take slaves as the Europeans did but rather “tolerated like stray dogs and permitted to stay as long as they made themselves useful.” (146) Once Cabeza de Vaca left the band on Malhado, he joined the Charrucos, a band at war with several other groups around them. This left them unable to trade with hostile groups, which allowed Cabeza de Vaca to become an independent merchant, a middle man for them. He writes “‘And this occupation served me well because practicing it, I had the freedom to go wherever I wanted, and I was not constrained in any way nor enslaved,” showing how a former slave could become a merchant in the New World and a valued one at that. He was what allowed warring tribes to trade with each other, shifting what people usually think of when they think of native economies. Another way the castaways obtained goods was through practicing their healing, which they thought came from God. They became very famous through the land and natives would beg for their help. They claimed to have never failed at healing someone, and in exchange, the natives would give them bountiful gifts, thus further cementing the respect and power individuals could have inside of a community they didn’t belong to.

I agree with Reséndez’s arguments about culture and hospitality because each group of natives treated the outsiders differently, based on the circumstances. The outsiders became enslaved by the natives on the island of Malhado, because from the perspective of the natives, the outsiders were useless (they couldn’t hunt or do any of the ‘manly’ jobs). However, as the outsiders made their way south towards Pánuco, they began to develop reputations as healers, and thus each group of natives that they encountered began treating them with great respect. Reséndez did a good job of arguing that sometimes the natives treated them poorly, and other times with great respect. I agree with Reséndez, but I also want to add more details to the explanations as to why each group treated them different.

In terms of hospitality, most groups of natives seemed to be relatively hospitable to the outsiders; the natives often provided them with food, drink, and other resources. Certain groups were not hospitable at all. The Camones killed all the Europeans they saw on sight. Several groups threw rocks, fired arrows, and otherwise harassed and attacked the Europeans. I believe the lack of hospitality from these groups can be attributed to a fear of the unknown. Alternatively, once the last four outsiders became known as healers, the natives went out of their way to be hospitable to them. The four were brought food and drink, as well as the ill of that particular group. It was also said that many native women were attracted to the four. Thus, the hospitality of the natives varied greatly on which group of natives the outsiders encountered and the circumstances in which they encountered them.

Thus, Reséndez’s theory of native hospitality is extremely useful because it sheds light on the difficult problem of creolization. Reséndez argued that the reaction and hospitality of the natives towards the outsiders varied greatly, and this gives us an inside look into the clash of these different peoples. Sometimes, when the natives first saw the outsiders, they were unkind, and other times they were friendly. It shows that when two different cultures collide, there is no telling what may happen. The results could be positive or negative.