In Trinidad he talks about how the soil is “very excellent and
wil beare sugar, ginger, or any other commodity that the Indies yield” (4). The
Spaniards confess to having found grains of gold in some of the rivers, but
didn’t keep looking because they were headed to Guiana. Berreo (a Spaniard) has
the island of Trinidad under lock and key, and has told the Indians to not come
aboard or trade with Raleigh on pain of death, but the Indian’s displeasure at
their treatment by the Spanish seems to be included as a way to show that the
English could easily take the island. He lights the city of St. Josephs on fire
after he takes it? He captures Berreo. The queen is represented as being a
virgin, (Elizabeth) and one who “frees” nations from their oppressors… and the
Indians admire the queen’s portrait. Guiana is 600 miles further away than he
thought it was. Guiana is supposed to have more gold and riches than all of
Peru and Spain. The government and religion is also supposed to be the same as
Peru, meaning, I guess, that what worked there in conquering will work in
Guiana as well? El Dorado is said to exist here on the shores of a salt lake,
but its original name is supposed to be Manoa. The Guianians are called “great drunkards”
and there are “cannibals” reported on the island of Dominica. The Indians of
Trenedado (Trinidad?) have gold that came from Guiana, so do those in Dominica
and those called Tucaris, Choci, Apotomios, Cumanagots, and those
inhabiting Vensuello, Maracapana, and Guanipa.
The gold is most likely shaped as a “croissant”.
He then goes into a little bit of a
sideline in talking about Amazons and whether or not they existed. In Raleighs
account, they do, on the south side of the river in Topago and in some islands
near the mouth of the river. He uses classicism, and the myth of Medusa to say
these women have histories just like the Greeks and Scithians. The Kings and
men gather at the borders of the amazon once a year and the queens take their
pick, then the rest “cast lots for their Valentines”. Fo this one month they
dance and drink, then if they conceive a son they return him to the father, and
if it is a daughter they keep her and nourish her (Raleigh interestingly uses “it”
when referring to the female progeny). He does not find it to be true that they
cut off their right breast, they do put their prisoners to death though, because
they are cruel and bloodthirsty, especially against those who enter their territories.
The Amazons also have gold which they trade for green stones which were
considered to be healing stones.
Raleigh also does a fair job at
trying to trace the many rivers and their origins, although he gets it wrong by
suggesting there is another major river outside the Amazon.
In his questioning of Berreo about
Guiana, there are several moments where (knowing that there is no gold in
Guiana, let alone that El Dorado does not exist), you can see the problems with
Berreo’s story. Part of the problem lies in the fact that Berreo is a prisoner,
and therefore not the best and most trustworthy witness. He tells Raleigh that
he traveled 1000 miles more than he had hoped in his attempt to find it. The
indigenous in the area, too, have no reason to tell Raleigh the truth. There is
an interesting point when Raleigh, relating Berreo’s narrative, talks about how
the indigenous travel along the river “Amapaia” and have drinking water because
the river is tawny or red, and he’s told that they fill their pots in the
middle of the afternoon, but not when the sun is setting or at night because
the river is then poison. The information Raleigh provides, is thus not only
second-hand, but third-hand.
On page 39 (of my text) he talks
about slavery among the indigenous where they would sell their women and
children for 3 or 4 hatchets, which the Spaniards buy and then sell them in the
West Indies for 50-100 pesos. This section also compares the female indigenous to
the females in England and suggests they can be compared except for their skin
color.
Berreo, when he realizes Raleigh
intends to find Guiana, tries to convince him not to go, that they will suffer
many miseries, that the rivers would fight them in their large ships, that winter
was coming and the rivers would be swollen, that the indigenous would not talk
to them but instead run away and burn their towns, and that none would trade
with them because they knew that the Europeans love of gold would mean future
conquering and dispossession.
Raleigh gives an interesting
description of traveling the tributaries and around the islands. He writes that
“we might have wandered a whole year in that labyrinth of rivers, ere we had
found any way, either out or in, especially after we were past the ebbing and
flowing, which was in fewer days: for I know all the Earth doth not yield the
like confluence of streams and branches, the one crossing the other so many
times, and all so fair and large, and so like one to another, as no man can
tell which to take: and if we went by the Sun or compass hoping thereby to go
directly one way or other, yet that way we were also carried in a circle
amongst multitudes of islands, and every island so bordered with high trees, as
no man could see any further than the breadth of the river, or length of the
breach” (page 46).
He describes the customs of the
Tiuitiuas: they have houses on the ground in the summer and in the winter they
live in the trees. They never eat anything that is sown (meaning they are still
hunters and gatherers) and only eat “that which nature without labor bring
forth” (51). They kill deer, fish and pigs, and also harvest fruit. He considers
them to be manly, and usually at war with the cannibals, but of late everyone
is at peace to make war with the Spaniards. (Here it is clear that the “good”
indigenous are given descriptions and the “bad” indigenous are always just “cannibals).
The death rituals are described, where after the flesh has fallen off the bones
of their leaders, the bodies are hung in the house and ornamented with feathers
and gold plates.
Raleigh relates how growing closer
to the equator meant it got hotter and the air was harder to breathe.
He also relates that the Spanish
used the indigenous women to “satisfy their own lusts” but swears that his crew
did no such thing, even though the women were very young and excellently favored
and came to them naked (61).
He has a long digression on poison
arrows, which he wants to find a cure for. The most deadly poison he relates is
the Tupara. Which, apparently, works worse if the afflicted have drank any
alcohol. (maybe because it thins the blood?)
The end of the text is a call to other
explorers and explains how plentiful the land is and all the animal and plant
life to be found. He didn’t find gold, but he does relate other items such as
gums, peppers, wood, and that the soil is rich so it will be easy to plant
sugar and ginger just like in the West Indies.
On 115 “Guiana is a country that hath
yet her maidenhead, never sacked, turned, nor wrought, the face of the earth
hath not been torn, nor the virtue and salt of the soil spent by manurance, the
graves have not been opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor
their images pulled down out of their temples. It hath never been entered by
any army of strength, and never conquered or possessed by any Christian Prince.
It is besides so defensible, that if two forts be built in one of the provinces
which I have seen, the flood setteth in so near the bank, where the channel also
lies, that no ship can pass up, but within a pikes length of the artillerie,
first of the one and afterwards of the other: which two fords will be
sufficient guard both to the Empire of Inga and to an hundred other severall
small kingdoms, lying within the said river, even to the city of Quito in Peru.”
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