Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [96]
Guillermo Coma, the nobleman traveling with Columbus, remarked that they were accomplished mariners, traveling from island to island in canoes, “even as far as a thousand miles in search of plunder.” And they were ferocious. “They hand over the female captives as slaves to their womenfolk, or make use of them to satisfy their lust. Children borne by the captives are eaten like the captives.” It might have been for this reason that the Indian women were quick to resort to self-inflicted abortions.
Despite these repugnant practices, Guillermo Coma considered the Caribs “intelligent, sharp-witted, and shrewd,” qualities that gave him hope that “they could easily be led to adopt our laws and manner of life, when they realize that our manners are more mild and our manners more civilized than theirs. It is hoped, therefore, that they will in a short time abandon their savage character as a result both of instruction from us and an occasional threat that, unless they abstain from human flesh, they will be reduced to bondage and carried in chains to Spain”—a “civilized” society with terrors of its own, and which would all but exterminate the Caribs within a few years.
The Admiral marked the three-month anniversary of his fleet’s arrival in these islands on a note of nervous rapprochement with the Indians, whom they observed at close range. “All of them,” said Chanca, “go naked like they were born, except for the women of this island, who keep their waists covered by means of either a piece of cotton fabric that girds their hips or weeds and leaves. As an embellishment, both men and women paint themselves, some in black, others in white and red, in such an imaginative way that seeing them will make one truly laugh; their heads are shaved in patches with such various lock patterns that it is impossible to describe. In sum, all that in Spain we might wish to do on a madman’s head would here . . . be an object of refined attention.”
By this time, Columbus’s men felt safe enough to make a practice of sleeping on dry land rather than in their leaky, crowded ships. Although they feared another massacre, their encounters with the inhabitants proved peaceful enough, and even enjoyable. “We saw many things worthy of amazement: ‘wool-producing’ trees”—cotton shrubs—“and of great quality, too, so good that those who know the art affirm they could make good clothes with it,” Chanca said with satisfaction. And he found “very good mastic from the mastic tree,” the resin with which Columbus was familiar from his apprenticeship in the Aegean.
Concerning the Indians’ diet, the doctor approvingly noted a “bread made from a weed root” (cassava), and yams, which he considered a source of “excellent nourishment.” Guillermo Coma raved about them: “When eaten raw, as in salads, they taste like parsnips; when roasted, like chestnuts. When cooked with pork, you would think you were eating squash. You will never eat anything more delicious.” Michele de Cuneo, on the other hand, favored parrots. “The flesh tastes like that of the starling. There are also wild pigeons, some of them white crested, which are delicious to eat.” Not everything that grew on the island attained this high culinary standard. Chanca noted that the Indians routinely consumed “snakes, lizards, spiders, and worms found all over the land,” a stomach-turning regimen that made “these people more similar to animals, as far as I am concerned.”
By the end of March, La Isabela teetered on the verge of collapse. The physical labor prescribed by Columbus drove the overworked, undisciplined men to the brink of exhaustion. Nearly all