Cabeza De Vaca Case

Cabeza’s observation of various aboriginal customs seems to be the most interesting aspect of his expedition. Though some of the rituals may appear to be bizarre and funny to a modern reader, it cannot be denied that those are the examples that clarify how social those Indians are in spite of the face that they are not “enlightened” in the actual sense of the word. Especially, I want to refer to the chapter, “How the Indians Brought Us Food,” where Cabeza mentions that witnessing his and his companions’ wretched conditions all the Indians “felt great pain and pity” and “began to cry for more than half an hour.” He further mentions: “these crude and untutored people, who were like brutes, grieved so much for us, caused me and the others in my company to suffer more and think more about our misfortune” (57).This passage reminds me of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, where he explores the role of sympathy in a world where people face each other as spectators and spectacles. According to Smith, a sufferer finds comfort as he gets sympathy from his spectator, whereas the spectator in his imagination puts himself to the position of the sufferer and tries to feel what he (sufferer) feels. On the other hand, the sufferer also tries to perceive his spectator’s emotion and thus a “fellow -feeling” takes place between the spectator and the spectacle, which ultimately leads people to strive to maintain good relations with their fellow human beings and provide the basis for the general social order. Though the Indians’ world is devoid of any sophisticated enlightenment, I feel, most of the tribes that Cabeza speaks about have that “fellow- feeling” for each other, even deeper fellow- feeling than the people of the civilized societies. We remember that in the “Isle of Misfortune “when someone’s child happens to die, the parents and relatives and the whole village weep for him for a full year” (60). “When an offspring or sibling