Paolo Taviani

Toward the end of 1236, the Mongol army began its invasion of Europe. Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia, and Ukraine were attacked. In Moscow and Kiev, Krakow and Pest, looting and destruction spread. In winter the Danube froze. The Mongols crossed it and took Buda, entered Austria and reached the slopes of the Alps. To the south they conquered Split and set fire to Kotor (Jackson, 2005, pp. 63–74; Sinor, 1999). News of the Mongols’ arrival spread rapidly. They inspired terror. The demonization of the enemy was set in motion.1 The Mongols aroused the idea that the end of the world was coming. The hordes of warriors were identified with those of Gog and Magog who would run rampant as the Day of Judgment drew near (Bezzola, 1974, pp. 54–55, 105–108). In England, in the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Albans, Matthew Paris (n.d./1877) wrote his Chronica Majora [Greater Chronicle], including in full the testimony of a certain Ivo of Narbonne, translated here into English:

An immense horde of that detestable race of Satan, the Tartars . . . rushed forth like demons loosed from Tartarus. . . . They are inhuman and of the nature of beasts, rather to be called monsters than man, thirsting after and drinking blood, and tearing and devouring the flesh of dogs and human beings. . . . They are invincible in battle. . . . They have no human laws, know no mercy, and are crueler than lions or bears. (pp. 270–277)2

According to scholars, the goriest and most outrageous passages of the letter were additions by Paris himself (Hilpert, 1981, pp. 160–164). What is certain is that the beastly, diabolical traits of the Tartars were easily accepted in the monk’s imagination. In fact, to give the most explicit account possible, Paris drew a macabre scene (figure 5.1) on the lower edge of the page of the manuscript: three Tartar warriors feasting on the flesh of the vanquished.3

The way Matthew Paris imagined the fearsome Tartars is a prime example which I believe can be a useful reference point for evaluating the way Europeans later conceived other enemy warriors, the indigenous peoples of the New World. This is because Paris’s Tartars are not simply the result of the author’s personal fantasy, nor are they the expression of a universal archetype. Rather, they are the image that the circumstantial information—the news of the Mongols’ arrival—caused to unfold into view in a preexisting matrix, following a historically determined pattern, culturally shared but also dynamic and declinable, for representing the enemy warrior. Before going further, we should briefly review the genesis of this pattern. To do so, we must go back to the time when the Roman Empire turned Christian.

What drove Roman imperialism in those early centuries of expansion before it became Christian? This is a very old and tough question.4 Fortunately, a simple observation might suffice here: Rome never went to war to educate foreign peoples, or to civilize the rest of the world. Rome would fight to ensure border security, or obtain new resources (including enslaved people), or extend its trading links. These were the reasons that led Rome to seek supremacy (imperium) over other peoples—as prophesied by Jupiter and recommended by Anchises in the famous verses of Virgil.5 But in the same years in which Virgil was composing his poem, Horace—his friend and like him a celebrator of Augustus—wrote in his open letter to the latter ruler: “Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror, and introduced her arts into rude Latium.”6

Of course, where Roman rule reached, its models of lifestyle arrived too. However, this process was a consequence of imperialism, not the driving force. Rome’s imperialism was never grounded in a will—or alleged need—to export its cultural models and way of life.7 This is evident both in the political debate of the time and in the historiographic narratives that soon followed (Mazzarino, 1956, 1966).

A certain civilizing initiative had already appeared in the political debate of the ancients, specifically in Athens during the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. His. Pel. 2.37–41). And before that, in the Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions, military expansion of the empire was strongly attributed to the will—or at least to the grace—of a “great god” (Ach. R. Ins. DBi 5–9, XPh 3–4). But Roman imperialism, from the beginning, had very little interest in ideological or theological expansionism. With regard to gods, we have to consider that when inciting the Roman legions to war, or when justifying the wars of conquest after they had taken place, no one ever appealed to the desire to spread the cult of Jupiter or Quirinus, of Juno or Minerva, nor even the cult of the emperor. No one ever used such an argument, neither with sincerity—that is, believing what he said—nor opportunistically, as would so often happen later. Roman temples were founded almost everywhere in the ancient world. and the cult of the Capitoline triad, or that of the emperor, spread with the expansion of the empire. But the legions did not fight for the founding of those temples, nor for the spread of that cult. As Woolf explains,

Religion has had a more central place in other imperial expansions. . . . Other Roman institutions played a much greater part in promoting and facilitating expansion: patronage and slavery, military alliance, and Roman law are obvious examples. The gods, it seems, were passengers on this journey. (2012, pp. 121–122)

Things changed afterwards. Eventually, in the fourth century, with Constantine and Theodosius, the decisive turning point was reached. During this period, those who lived in the Empire felt that they were under siege. The anonymous Latin author of a treatise on war machines wrote: “Above all it must be recognized that wild nations are pressing upon the Roman Empire and howling round about it everywhere [circumlatrantes], and treacherous barbarians, covered by natural positions, are assailing every frontier” (De reb. bel. 6.1). It was in a context described thus, by an observer of the time, that the process of integration between the Church and the Empire occurred.

For Christian communities it was a radical ideological twist. Early Christianity shared the aversion of other Jewish movements to Rome’s supremacy, although this was manifested as a kind of detached indifference. The Empire was dust. It was irrelevant in any case—in the eyes of the Lord—and not even worth fighting against. At the end of time, Rome’s power would be swept away. Paul the Apostle and his companions believed that the end was imminent.8 In the fourth century, however, Christians began to see the Empire in a completely different light. During their military exploits, writes Eusebius of Caesarea, God and the Son of God led the emperors, Constantine and his son Crispus. They fought with them; they were their symmáchoi [allies] (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 10.9; see especially 10.9.4). Because the victories of the Empire are based on God’s will, they are part of his plan. For Christians, the Empire became the instrument through which the good news would be spread throughout the world.9 The newly converted Julius Firmicus Maternus, addressing the Emperors Constans and Constantius, wrote:

After the destruction of the temples, you are advanced greatly by the power of God. You have conquered enemies; you have extended the empire. . . . At no time has the venerable hand of God deserted you; at no time has he denied aid to you while laboring. (Firm. Mat. Err. prof. rel. 28.6.95–101, 29.3.45–56)

Imperial Christianity tended to interpret the message of the Gospel in drastic terms: humanity was divided into two parts, those who act in the name of God and those who oppose it. Did the Master not say: “He who is not with me is against me”? (Matthew 12:30, Luke 11:23). Those who oppose God must necessarily fall under the sphere of influence of the Devil. At the end of the fourth century, the two halves of humanity—those with God and those with Satan—corresponded, respectively, to the Empire and its enemies. These enemies might be internal or external: heretics, rebels, pagans, and barbarians. Thus, a theological conception of war was established, tying back, in a way, to what was already found in the Old Testament (Yahweh levelling the way in front of the armies of Israel), but adding a new trend, that of the universal propagation of the one true faith. This trend, absent in the Jewish tradition, tends to coincide with the Roman Empire’s expansionism.

In early Christian literature, war and weapons appeared as metaphorical elements. Military metaphors were habitually used to describe the struggle between demons and the people of God. It is a rhetorical model that dates to Paul the Apostle.10 He imagined the weapons of the miles Christi, the soldier of Christ, as weapons only in a metaphorical sense. None of the Christians, at the beginning, advocated the use of real weapons in the name of God. Later, however, following Constantine and Theodosius, the use of weapons and the practice of prayer began to be very concretely and reciprocally connected. A letter by Augustine of Hippo demonstrates this association precisely and succinctly, as in a mathematical formula. In a reply to his friend Boniface—a general who asked for enlightenment on the compatibility of the Christian faith with the profession of the soldier—Saint Augustine allays his every doubt, writing: “Alii ergo pro vobis orando pugnant contra invisibiles inimicos; vos pro eis pugnandolaboratis contra visibiles barbaros” [Some, then, in praying for you, fight against your invisible enemies; you, in fighting for them, contend against the barbarians, their visible enemies] (August. Ep. 189.5.17–19). The Christian Empire is defended and expanded through prayer and battle. Alongside the spiritual and metaphorical weapon of prayers, now the more concrete prayer of weapons appears. The invisible enemies are the demons. The difference between barbarians and demons is a mere question of visibility. It becomes implicit, even obvious, that the enemy warriors are possessed—or at least could be possessed—by demons, since the enemy warriors of the Christian Empire are milites Diaboli, soldiers of the Devil.

This way of conceiving conflicts fit perfectly into imperial and Christian ideology. However, it proved effective and lasting for another reason as well: it helped to better bear the weight of military defeats. Should there be a defeat, it reduced the risk of losing confidence in eventual victory. Recalling de Martino’s dialectics on cultural crisis and strategies for redemption, we can say that the figure of the warrior-demon became the linchpin of a device for preventive redemption (1954, pp. 18–19).11 Powered by satanic force, the milites Diaboli are able to deliver terrible blows—such as the first sack of Christian Rome in 410—but the final victory will always belong to the milites Christi because this is God’s will. In fact, over the course of the following centuries, the more serious the threat perceived, the more vivid the image of the demon-possessed warrior would become, just as it was during the Mongol invasions in Matthew Paris’s day.

It is on these premises that I would turn to consider the way indigenous warriors were represented in European reports during the years of the conquest of America. What follows is, for me, a survey of a new territory. It is one which can certainly be subject to further investigation and verification, but which nevertheless finds its raison d’être precisely in the premises that constitute my starting point, that is, in the framework of a comparative perspective. What role did the stereotype of the warrior-demon play in building up the image of the Amerindian warriors?

The first description of the Indians to be made public is the one found in the famous Letter to Santángel, written by Christopher Columbus in early March 1493, having just landed in Lisbon after his first transoceanic voyage (Columbus, 1990).12 Columbus writes that the natives he encountered “have no iron or steel, nor any weapons; nor are they fit thereunto; not because they be not a well-formed people and of fair stature, but that they are most wondrously timorous.” As weapons they use only reeds, on the top of which they insert a sharp stick, but “even these, they dare not use,” as they prefer to flee. Therefore, Columbus has decided to leave a garrison on one of those islands, near a fort, and he is sure that there will be no problems, because neither that king nor his men “know what arms are, and go naked. . . . they are the most timorous creatures there are in the world.” And the Spaniards in the garrison, if they just wanted to, could destroy the whole island. The Admiral heard of those who live on a certain island called Quaris (Carib), people that the natives of all the other islands consider “ferocious” and cannibals. But he believes that they are no more fearful than those he has met in person, and that they actually are ferocious only in comparison with others who are really very cowardly.13

A dozen years later, in Augsburg, the famous Mundus Novus was published (Vespucci, 1996b).14 It revealed to readers across Europe that the newly discovered lands on the other side of the Atlantic were a new portion of the world, completely unknown before that time. The first publication of the brochure was sponsored by a group of Italian and German businessmen, led by the powerful Bartolomeo Marchionni, based in Lisbon (Descendre, 2010, pp. 680–681, 685; Luzzana Caraci, 1999, Vol. 2, pp. 65, 72, 359).15 The goal was to promote and motivate a financing firm for a new expedition across the Atlantic.16 The text elaborately interweaves first- and secondhand information (Luzzana Caraci, 1999, Vol. 2, p. 71). In it we read that the peoples of the New World “wage war upon one another without art or order. . . . Their weapons are bows and arrows, and when they advance to war, they cover no part of their bodies for the sake of protection, so like beasts are they in this matter.” Those that are taken prisoner are eaten. And it is not only prisoners; there, human flesh is a common food. Vespucci (1996b) says he himself saw “salted human flesh hanged up to dry between the huts, just as we use to hang bacon” (pp. 310–311). The cannibalism of the Native Americans spread in the European imagination but was not depicted as something hard to defeat. The Indians are cannibals, but not warriors to be feared.

It is worth noting that in both texts the naivety of the natives is manifested both in war and in the economic sphere. Columbus (1990) says that they are happy to give precious things in exchange for objects of no value: they “gave whatever they had, like senseless brutes” (p. 312). The Mundus Novus states that they have no markets and do not know commerce (Vespucci, 1996b, p. 310). The enthusiastic advertising is clear and the goal was the same: to persuade readers that investment in transatlantic expeditions was a fantastic deal.

The reports of the first clashes between natives and Europeans do not evoke a very different impression. The indigenous warriors are relatively dangerous with their arrows, but it is easy to protect oneself from these with the shields provided by Western technology. On a few occasions, there are natives who may even appear less cowardly than usual and who deserve to be esteemed for their osadía [bravery] (Álvarez Chanca, 1993, p. 26), but to defeat them it takes only a few cannon shots or the unsheathing of swords. In the largest clash, Vespucci (1996a) describes how fifty-seven Europeans set hundreds of enemy warriors on the run, killing many and capturing 250, themselves counting only one casualty and twenty wounded (pp. 350–351; see also pp. 339–340). It is not difficult to keep the natives at bay, even when they are hostile and fighting. However, they may have some nasty surprises in store. The classic example is another episode described by Vespucci. In August 1501 he was part of an overseas expedition. Having reached a “new land,” the Christians dropped anchor and tried to make contact with the locals, who seemed rather suspicious:

On the seventh day we went on shore, and we found that they had arranged with their women; for us, we jumped on shore, the men of the land sent many of their women to speak with us. Seeing that they were not reassured, we arranged to send to them one of our people, who was a very agile and valiant youth. To give them more confidence, the rest of us went back into the boats. He went among the women, and they all began to touch and feel him, wondering at him exceedingly. Things being so, we saw a woman come from the hill, carrying a great stick in her hand. When she came to where our Christian stood, she raised it, and gave him such a blow that he was felled to the ground. The other women immediately took him by the feet and dragged him toward the hill. (Vespucci, 1996a, p. 370)

After a skirmish, and the retreat of the Indians on the hill, “the women were still tearing the Christian to pieces. At a great fire they had made, they roasted him before our eyes, showing us many pieces, and then eating them” (pp. 370–371).

Vespucci is not highly respected for his trustworthiness, and that is particularly true for this episode. But what matters here is that this was precisely the episode that caused a real stir among European readers of the time, contributing decisively to the public success of the pamphlet (Luzzana Caraci, 1999, Vol. 2, p. 90). It also became the subject of one of the earliest depictions of American cannibalism, as an engraving (figure 5.2) printed in the German edition of the same text, in 1509.17

In words and images, it was the first time European audiences were offered an example of a Christian soldier killed and eaten by the cannibals of the New World. It seems significant that he is killed not by an enemy warrior with some degree of bravery, cunning, or possession by demons, but by a woman who strikes from behind, taking him by surprise.

Even in the sources of the following years, when there was less superficial knowledge of the indigenous Americans and the conquest had begun, certain constants tended to remain. One of the most noteworthy testimonies is that of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. In two adjacent sections (chapters 24–25), Cabeza de Vaca (1542/1984) describes indigenous warfare. The most negative trait he notes is that whenever there is “particular enmity, they snare and kill each other at night, unless they are members of the same family, and inflict great cruelties on one another.” But Cabeza de Vaca also stresses their great ability to resolve disputes within the community peacefully, seeing to it that the anger of the contenders “has subsided.” With regard to techniques in battle, he writes at one point: “They all are warriors and so astute in guarding themselves from an enemy as if trained in continuous wars and in Italy” (pp. 103–107).

Courage, cunning, and skill: not even a hint of demon-possession appears in these warriors. This may be due to the author’s vision; in fact, Cabeza de Vaca believes he is on the right side, on the side of the only true God. However, his way of viewing the indigenous peoples is quite particular. Although he does happen to mention a case of anthropophagy, it is subsistence anthropophagy, practiced by Europeans (p. 87). He even denies that they make sacrifices and worship idols (p. 137). Cabeza de Vaca lived with the indigenous people of Florida for years and became somewhat integrated into their communities. It seems that this experience drastically reduced the weight of certain stereotypes in his way of seeing things. More than any other European of his time, Cabeza de Vaca seems to have acquired the right distance from which to observe the other. Thus, his testimony is valuable on a whole, but much less helpful for a more specific study of the stereotype.

Quite different indeed is the case of Hans Staden, who also recounts his experiences among the indigenous Americans. His Warhaftig Historia [True History] (1557) is a triumph of stereotypes. The entire book is centered on ritual cannibalism among the Tupinambá of present-day Brazil. Staden describes some scenes of the Indians fighting and also dedicates a chapter to their weapons (Staden, 1557/1978, Pt. 1, chapters 4, 18–19, 42; Pt. 2, chapter 28). However even his pages do not reveal demon-possessed warriors. The “savages” are lightning fast in combat. They are good archers and when attacking they may threaten to eat their enemies. At one point, Staden himself gets them to give him a bow and arrow, and fights with them, like them: “I shouted and shot arrows in their manner, as best I could” (Pt. 1, chapter 29). What distinguishes Staden from the savages is not the manner of fighting, but principally the acts of cannibalism. Tupinambá cannibalism—as Staden presents it—is the essential part of certain ceremonies, but is not based on an insatiable, aggressive thirst for blood. Staden’s Tupinambá are not aggressive like bears and lions. As Diego Álvarez Chanca (1993, p. 22), the doctor on Columbus’s first expedition, had already written, the Indians fight and take prisoners in order to celebrate feasts.

A rather more institutional author than Staden was Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo,18 official chronicler of the Indies. Recent criticism has cast light on a certain variability in his attitude toward indigenous Americans, influenced by changing events as well as by developments in Spanish law (Myers, 2007, pp. 113 and following). However, for most of his life he saw the connection between the Indians and the Devil as a simple fact and believed that in many cases such a situation could be remedied only by eliminating them. One of his most quoted maxims establishes an instructive parallel between the gunpowder used to fire on the native “infidels” and the incense burned to honor God: a concrete and updated—if perhaps a bit extreme—result of the Augustinian formula we saw above.19 Yet, browsing his pages, we see that this demonic trait is tied not so much to warring tendencies in the American indigenous, but to other “abominable customs,” mainly idolatry, anthropophagy, and sexual behaviors, all elements often intertwined with the celebration of feasts (Oviedo y Valdés, 1854, pp. 124–140). Oviedo also stigmatizes the indigenous Americans’ bellicosity—that of the Island Carib archers in particular (pp. 31–35)—but this is not the strongest argument for their links with demons. They are rather warlike, but not too much so, and not all of them; some are even peaceful.

A passage in Oviedo y Valdés contains an interesting detail. It is taken from the preface to book 5 of the Historia General y Natural de las Indias [General and Natural History of the Indies]:

These Indians (for the most part of them) are a people far removed from wanting to understand the Catholic faith, and it is a case of hammering cold iron [i.e., futile] to think that they will ever be Christians. This is how things have seemed to them in their cowls, or better yet, in their heads, as they do not wear cowls, nor were their heads like those of other folk, for they have such robust, thick skulls that the most important piece of advice which Christians have when they do battle with them is not to hit their heads by blades, as their swords will shatter. Just as their skulls are thick, so is their reasoning bestial and ill-intentioned. (1854, pp. 124–125)20

Skillful in the use of metaphor, the historian finally reaches his point: the Indians have a “bestial and badly inclined understanding.” As far as I can recall, the topos of the “thick head,” so difficult for the Christian faith to penetrate, had already appeared in the literature of colonization when, at the end of the twelfth century, the dura cervix [stiff neck] was that of the Irish, in the words of Giraldus Cambrensis (1867, p. 83), a staunch supporter of English supremacy over Ireland. But Oviedo is not just presenting a metaphor; he sets up a scene by describing a battle. Significantly, he assigns the indigenous Americans a completely passive role. The problem is merely the fact that their skulls are naturally hard and tough (like that of donkeys, as we shall soon see). In the New World, solidarity with the Devil does not produce fearful warriors but obtuse individuals naturally resistant to the one true faith.

The stereotype of the warrior-demon seems to have had little effect on European relations with the Indians. There may be a very simple reason for this, namely that Christian Europe never really felt threatened by them. However, there was certainly no shortage of occasions when European settlers felt directly threatened by the Indians. It will be useful to see at least a couple of examples.

Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, a member of the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies, tried to maintain a middle ground between enemies and defenders of the Indians. In one of his letters to Francesco Sforza, in 1524, having reported various reprehensible actions by the conquistadors and wishing to rebalance the scales to justify the institutional refusal to allow them freedom, he reported an incident that took place in the Chiribichi region of present-day Venezuela (Anghiera, 1530/2005, p. 776). The Dominicans had built a convent there and dedicated themselves to raising and educating the children of the indigenous notables. It appeared as if they had managed to do so, until one day two of them, having become young men, the very ones that the Dominicans “thought they had converted from the natura ferina of their ancestors to the dogmas of Christ and to human ways,” find a shelter to flee to, “like wolves,” and “resumed the evil customs of their origins.” They gathered several armed men from the nearby territories, took command, and attacked the convent. They conquered it, destroyed it and slaughtered everyone, educators and servants alike.

According to Anghiera, this episode is “particolaris horrida causa” [the most serious among the reasons] justifying the refusal to grant freedom to the Indians. What the European settlers have to fear is not the natives’ warlike strength, but the risk of nursing snakes at their breast. The more the threat is felt, the more the stereotype stands out, but even here it is restrained, nuanced, referenced only through allusion. Anghiera does not represent the two boys as demonic warriors, though he comes close. The two young man behave more like wolves.

It was not only Anghiera’s personal sensibilities that were affected by the events at Chiribichi. There was fallout on an institutional level as well. Some of the friars escaped death because they were away at the time of the assault. Afterwards, one by the name of Tomás Ortiz presented a report to the Council of the Indies, followed by a very frank comment on the nature of the Indians. Anghiera (1530/2005), who was present at the meeting, gives it word for word. It is a well-known text, but it is worth rereading.

On the mainland they eat human flesh. They are more given to sodomy than any other nation. There is no justice among them. They go naked. They have no respect either for love or for virginity. They are stupid and silly. They have no respect for truth, save when it is to their advantage. They are unstable. They have no knowledge of what foresight means. They are ungrateful and changeable. They boast of intoxicating themselves with drinks they manufacture from certain herbs, fruits, and grains, like our beers and ciders. They are vain of the products they harvest and eat. They are brutal. They delight in exaggerating their defects. There is no obedience among them, or deference on the part of the young for the old, nor of the son for the father. They are incapable of learning. Punishments have no effect upon them. Traitorous, cruel, and vindictive, they never forgive. Most hostile to religion, idle, dishonest, abject, and vile, in their judgments they keep no faith or law. Husbands observe no fidelity toward their wives, nor the wives toward their husbands. Liars, superstitious, and as cowardly as hares [covardes como liebres]. They eat fleas, spiders, and worms raw, whenever they find them. They exercise none of the humane arts or industries. When taught the mysteries of our religion, they say that these things may suit Castilians, but not them, and they do not wish to change their customs. They are beardless and if sometimes hairs grow, they pull them out. They have no sympathy with the sick and if one of them is gravely ill, his friends and neighbors carry him out into the mountains to die there. Putting a little food and water beside his head they go away. The older they get the worse they become. About the age of ten or twelve years, they seem to have some civilization, but later they become like real brute beasts. I may therefore affirm that God has never created a race fuller of vice and composed without the least mixture of kindness or culture. . . . We have seen this with our own eyes: they are as foolish as donkeys [insensatos como asnos] and they give very little importance to killing themselves. (p. 778)

It is noteworthy that throughout the report there is not a single reference to organized violence, war, or combat. The only minimal statement to this regard is that the Indians are “as cowardly as hares.” In the official account, the wolves have become hares. Or possibly donkeys.

In another circumstance—perhaps the most famous of all—the conquistadors found themselves in a desperate situation. I am referring to the days preceding and following the Noche Triste [Night of Sorrows] in June and July 1520. The Spaniards and their allies, the Tlaxcalans, all led by Cortés,21 had first been under siege in Mexico Tenochtitlan, and were then forced to leave the city in haste and flee for seven days before they were able to shake off the enemy pursuit. In the report of the events he sent to Charles V, Cortés (1985) indicates the cause of that temporary defeat: the enormous disparity in numbers between the sides (pp. 157, 159–160). It is very likely that this was a reason of convenience,22 but this is not the point. Cortés recalls that the enemies attacked “shouting,” but also that they fought “hard,” “bravely,” and “strongly” (pp. 156, 159, 165–166). Nothing else. It may be, as Todorov writes, that Cortés is capable of understanding, before taking and destroying (Todorov, 1982, pp. 163–169). But Bernal Díaz del Castillo23 (1632/1977) remembers the events more or less in the same way: the problem was the enemies’ number (Vol. 1, pp. 385–399, passim; see also p. 114). He does, however, add a detail explaining that during the siege, when the rebels shouted threats, they said “that they had to sacrifice to their gods” the flesh and blood of their enemies, and they had to celebrate, feasting on their legs and arms (p. 387). The problem with the Indians always appears to be their strange way of feasting.

In the famous dispute between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, in Valladolid (mid-sixteenth century),24 many aspects of the indigenous peoples of the Americas were discussed, but none referred to demon-possessed warriors.25 As regards Las Casas, it will be useful to take a look at his writings,26 even if—according to him—it was not the Indians that stood with Satan, but the conquistadors. In attacking the natives, the Spaniards are “devils,” and “the devils of Hell” are no worse, wrote the Protector of the Indians (Las Casas, 1552/2006, pp. 222, 228). It is, however, in the third part of his Historia de las Indias [History of the Indies] that we find a more interesting passage. Las Casas (1986) describes the massacre of Coanao, in what is now Cuba, which he himself witnessed. A group of about a hundred Spaniards, having arrived at a village, wanted to test the blades of their swords, which had been sharpened a few hours earlier. “A Spaniard, in whom the Devil is thought to have clothed himself, suddenly drew his sword. Then the whole one hundred drew theirs and began to rip open the bellies and to cut and kill those lambs—men, women, children, and old folk” (pp. 113–114). The stereotype of the demon-possessed warrior here appears quite clearly and is almost explicit. After so many missed opportunities, it is rather surprising to find it in this episode, referring to a Spanish soldier, instead of to the natives.

Before concluding, we may consider a few other images. The first European depictions of Native Americans are woodcuts. In the oldest original one (figure 5.3),27 we see armed natives in the background. They are naked and some of them are holding reeds, those reeds that they possess but “dare not use,” as Columbus had written. In fact, as we see here, upon the arrival of the Europeans, the natives flee.

From the early sixteenth century we have the first engravings with indigenous warriors in the foreground (figure 5.4). They are armed with bows and arrows, and with clubs and pikes as well. All of them are illustrations for various editions of writings attributed to Vespucci, published between 1505 and 1507. The human figures still have very European traits and attitudes inspired by Renaissance figurative art. In some—such as the two shown here—the weapons are at rest, and we can see women alongside the warriors.

From the same edition of the Dutch version of the Mundus Novus, we find the first depiction of Native Americans in combat (figure 5.5). The scene is rather odd, in that the engraver’s intent is to represent a combat using bows and arrows, but having in mind the image of a sword fight. In any case, it is a military scene with all male figures, and no acts of cannibalism are depicted.

As far as we know, the oldest depiction of American cannibalism is a large engraving printed in Augsburg, probably in 1505, and attributed to Johann Froschauer.28 Added to the engraving is a long caption, based on information found in the letters attributed to Vespucci.29 But what is notable is how the information has been reworked and interpreted by the engraver (figure 5.6).

A woman is nursing her baby while two children are gazing at her. A mature warrior, carrying a bow at rest, dominates the scene. He beholds the woman both lovingly and with authority. Two other warriors are talking to each other. It is, however, the background that reveals the heart of the picture. We see a convivial scene in which a man is eating a human forearm while another is kissing a woman who, in turn, is about to eat a human thigh. From a beam of the shed hangs half of a human body in the smoke. The three men with weapons show no aggressive or feral traits. Everything seems very calm, serene, and quiet. At sea, European ships are coming and going. It is a scene of everyday life. The Indians placidly practice free love and eat human flesh.

Part 1 of Staden’s book—the narrative—contains at least six engravings concerning battles in the Americas; none make references to cannibalism (Staden, 1557/1978, Pt. 1, chapters 4, 14, 19, 29, 41–42). Cannibalism does appear in two other engravings belonging to the same part. One of these show women and children in a village, but no armed men (Staden, 1557/1978, Pt. 1, chapter 40). The other one is a unique case in the entire book, showing people bearing arms and acts of cannibalism (Staden, 1557/1978, Pt. 1, chapter 43). The setting is a temporary camp, were Tupinambá warriors return from battle. The text explains that they bring with them prisoners able to walk, who will be taken to the permanent village to later be killed and eaten during the usual feasts. To not let anything go to waste, the Tupinambá also bring some wounded enemies to be eaten on the spot. It is however in the second part of the book—the ethnographic section—that we find the most consistent and homogenous set of figures describing ritual anthropophagy. Step by step, each phase of the ceremony is represented (Staden, 1557/1978, Pt. 2, chapter 29). Cannibals are not depicted as warriors, they are not carrying weapons, and with them there are always women and even children. The atmosphere of the scenes is that of a folk festival. In the years that followed, cannibalism was also represented with more cruelty and a darker atmosphere, as for example in the engravings published in André Thevet’s Cosmographie Universelle [Universal Cosmography] and America Tertia Pars [America: Part III], edited and illustrated by Theodore de Bry. However, even among such works, we find scenes that show women and children in the foreground, but not armed warriors (Thevet, 1575, f. 946r; de Bry, 1592, p. 179).30

Our journey has reached its conclusion. The sources we have treated have very different approaches, intentions, and recipients. Authors such as Cabeza de Vaca and Oviedo, Vespucci and Las Casas, Staden and Cortés, had very little in common with each other. However, despite all the differences, they all seem to be very reluctant to tie to the Native Americans the stereotype we are considering. By reading their works, and observing the figures that enrich their texts, the impression one gets is that the figure of the demon-possessed warrior, fearsome and bloodthirsty, occurs quite rarely in the early depictions of the indigenous people of Americas.

It is worth wondering why. Had the stereotype gone out of fashion? It would not seem so, given what Las Casas wrote about the Spanish butcher who instigated the massacre of Coanao. Or perhaps the reason is the one we have already mentioned, that the Native Americans were never a military threat to Europe? This could be the simple reason. However, we have seen that the indigenous warriors were, on certain occasions, a very dangerous threat to the conquistadors. Furthermore—other than the Noche Triste and similar situations—how many failed European expeditions were there? How many expeditions got lost and were never heard from again? Or—more generally speaking—was it that the Europeans’ attitude toward non-Christian peoples had become more favorable? Well, the tone of the report on the Chiribichi’s defects, as well as the opinions of people like Oviedo, do not seem to confirm this idea. There were, perhaps, also other reasons that led the Europeans to use the stereotype of the demon-possessed warrior so judiciously.

When the first caravels arrived in the Indies, the plan was not conquest but business. What no one had expected to find was all that land and all that potential labor force. What use could be made of it all? The theological and ideological debate about the natives—their nature, their souls, and their intellect—revolved around this problem. What was to be done with the Indians? Keep them as slaves? Involve them in the exploitation of their lands? Or—since they did not seem to create much profit, but rather trouble—exterminate them?

While all this was being discussed, it was nonetheless necessary to keep them available as a labor force and to keep their land attractive for investors. This would be done not only through concrete initiatives, or groundwork, but also with adequate work in terms of symbolism. On the symbolic front, Satan—the demonization of the “other”—was certainly a winning card.31 But having Satan too firmly connected to the indigenous warriors could backfire. Proposing investments in the New World would become more difficult. Who in Europe, in those years, even after the missions of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and followers, would have financed an expedition to conquer Mongolia? But luckily, it just so happened that the Indians were cannibals who practiced free love. Thence there was a symbolic solution: Satan’s influence manifests itself in their idolatrous ceremonies, which involved cannibalism and free love. The theme of the demon-possessed warriors remained more or less implied, but it was placed in the background, or it was just left unspoken. This was not a planned solution, but rather a frame of reference toward which various voices gradually aligned themselves, more or less consciously and intentionally, a sort of habit that became more firmly established the wider it spread. Was it also a trick? Was it a means for deceiving the European courts and financiers? I do believe so, and I would also say that it worked rather well. Historiographically speaking, however, the deception also caused at the least some severe collateral damage: it obscured the military art of the Native Americans for centuries. We can get a sense of this just by comparing the few pages Prescott (1843/1936, pp. 30–32) devoted to the Aztec military structure with the recent works of Ross Hassig (1988, 1992).

A great deal has been written about cannibalism in the Americas,32 from the classic Volhard (1939) to the radical Arens (1979), to the ponderous work by Jáuregui (2008), with its fifty-page bibliography. It has been debated for centuries to what extent it was grounded in the habits and customs of the peoples observed, and to what extent in the stereotypes of the observers. But the topic I am speaking about is much narrower. It is the issue of the link between the cannibal and the demon-possessed warrior as imagined by Christian Europe. The sources examined show that this link could be worked into different solutions according to the historical conditions and needs—ideological or cultural, but also economic—that fed it. The Tartar cannibals are very different from the Native American cannibals.

When Columbus encountered the Indians for the first time, he was surprised to see that they were not familiar with swords; when they touched them, they wounded themselves because they grasped them by the blade. Columbus jotted down a few words in his log, addressed to Spanish royalty: “These people are very naive about weapons. . . . whenever Your Highnesses may command, all of them can be taken to Castile or held captive on this same island; because with fifty men all of them could be held in subjection and can be made to do whatever one might wish” (Columbus, 1990, pp. 42–43). Columbus was an extraordinary navigator and a good geographer, but he certainly did not excel in political and military acumen. Now he really believed he had found the path to fame, power, and wealth. He put his trust in the power of Christendom and in the meekness of the natives. He did not imagine that in a short time, swords very similar to those with which the natives hurt themselves by mistake—maybe even those same swords—would have slaughtered the local people just to test their sharpness. In October of 1492, Columbus was very optimistic; the Indians made him daydream. But in just over a year, after the La Navidad disaster,33 the situation would radically change. The idyllic panorama, as it had appeared at first, had been turned upside down. Columbus’s dream was shattered. Yet, even after that point, something of that dream, so agreeable and tempting, would continue to infect the image of the Native Americans that would gradually be offered to the European public: the image of an extremely barbarous people, but very easy to dominate.