Chapter Index

× Proem 1. Which Tells When the Fleet Sailed, and of the Officers and People Who Went with It 2. How the Governor Came to the Port of Xagua and Brought a Pilot with Him 3. How We Arrived in Florida 4. How We Entered the Land 5. How the Governor Left the Ships 6. How We Entered Apalachee 7. What the Land is Like 8. How We Left Aute 9. How We Left the Bay of Horses 10. Of Our Skirmish with the Indians 11. What Happened to Lope de Oviedo with Some Indians 12. How the Indians Brought Us Food 13. How We Found Out about Other Christians 14. How Four Christians Departed 15. What Happened to Us in the Village of Misfortune 16. How Some Christians Left the Isle of Misfortune 17. How the Indians Came and Brought Andrés Dorantes and Castillo and Estebanico 18. How He Told Esquivel's Story 19. How the Indians Left Us 20. How We Escaped 21. How We Cured Some Sick People 22. How They Brought Other Sick People to Us the Following Day 23. How We Left after Having Eaten the Dogs 24. About the Customs of the Indians of That Land 25. How the Indians Are Skilled with a Weapon 26. About the Peoples and Languages 27. How We Moved On and Were Welcomed 28. About Another New Custom 29. How They Stole from One Another 30. How the Custom of Welcoming Us Changed 31. How We Followed the Corn Route 32. How They Gave Us Deer Hearts 33. How We Saw Traces of Christians 34. How I Sent for the Christians 35. How the Mayor Received Us Well the Night We Arrived 36. How We Had Them Build Churches in That Land 37. What Happened When I Wanted to Leave 38. What Happened to the Others Who Went to the Indies
TOC
La Relación - page 43

grows on the trees. Young women cover themselves with deerskins. These people share all that they have with one another. There is no chief among them, and all the people of one lineage live together. Two language groups live there: one group is called the Capoques and the other the Han. They have the following custom: when they know each other and see each other from time to time, before speaking they cry for half an hour. When this is finished, the one who is visited rises first and gives the other everything he owns. The other one accepts and in a short while leaves with it. Sometimes they leave without saying a word after accepting the gifts. They have other strange customs, but I have described only the principal and most noteworthy ones so that I can go on and tell more of what happened to us. CHAPTER SIXTEEN How the Christians Left the Isle of Misfortune After Dorantes and Castillo retumed to the island they gathered together all the Christians who were scattered about and discovered that there was a total of fourteen. As I said, I was on the other side, on the mainland, where my Indians had taken me. There I had gotten so sick that nothing could have given me hope of surviving my illness. When the Christians learned of this, they gave an Indian the sable mantle that we had taken from the chief, as we noted above, to take them to where I was so that they could see me. Twelve of them came, because two of them were so weak that they did not dare bring them along. The names of the twelve that came are Alonso del Castillo, Andrés Dorantes and Diego Dorantes, Valdivieso, Estrada, Tostado, Chávez, Gutiérrez, Asturiano (a clergyman), Diego de Huelva, Estebanico the black man, and Benítez. Once they reached

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