# Americas: Census at contact myth **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 14, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309 "2011-04-14T00:45:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/241 "2011-04-19T01:13:28Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > And with respect to North American schollars, of course they have lot of resources, but I don’t expect an American studying in its ivory tower, to have the details of what happened here, without consulting local scientists. More silly assertions without foundation, based on your own prejudices that are contradicted by the evidence. Many faculty members of [Center for Latin American Studies, University of California, Berkley](http://clas.berkeley.edu/Academics/faculty/index.html) who deal in history, ethnic studies, etc., have been recruited from Latin America, (including Chile). No ivory towers. No _yanquis_ posing as _latino_ experts. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/242 "2011-04-19T01:19:21Z")
@MichaelQReilly That’s why is so important to read and analyze chronicles of Spanish explorers. I read Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios, and the impression that produced to me it was a low density continent. Now, with respect to the mortality of Indians, did you know that Pocahontas had the time to reproduce with Rolfe? Even more, she only died of a contagious disease after she went to Britain, and she didn’t die immediately after arrival! Many natives went to Europe, and came back alive! I don’t deny natives were more fragile than Europeans to contagious diseases, but you well know that when mortality increase in a population, fertility also increase, cancelling the impact out. I know a decline of population existed, anyways, but nobody will convince me that “95%” of the population died. That’s exagerated. Not even in the Caribbean, the more affected region, the natives disappeared by mixed with the newcommers, as the genetical studies show. Now, if you accept the population of North American indians had relatively low density, you would easily match that number with the number of incomming immigrants, and model the actual amerindian genetics of White and Black Americas (which is not null). However, of all the Americas, the only place that hasn’t make a full mtDNA study of its whole population is the U.S.A. Brazil has it, Colombia, Cuba, DR, Chile and all the countries of the region had them, except the U.S. What we see elsewhere is that the genetical proportions match history. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/243 "2011-04-19T01:21:08Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > More silly assertions without foundation, I won’t answer silly assertions without foundation. Thanks. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/244 "2011-04-19T01:38:33Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > OK. The first citation to the descriptions to Cabeza De Vaca is the following: > Fuente: Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (author) > Naufragios y comentarios Really, was that so hard? [Here’s](http://books.google.com/books?id=AfyKjLIl_48C&printsec=frontcover&dq=alvar+nunez+cabeza+de+vaca&source=bll&ots=0zPzQgfnUn&sig=9I8BoRmP-0pQPqNKVY9PVm4y8vs&hl=en&ei=--WsTdqXNIjk0QGYm6jHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=20&sqi=2&ved=0CIEBEOgBMBM#v=onepage&q=alvar%20nunez%20cabeza%20de%20vaca&f=false) what pops up on the first page of a Google (English) search for “Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca” Seems like plenty of translations are available. So far, nothing to indicate an unusually low population density, unless you make some stretches. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/245 "2011-04-19T01:42:29Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Really, was that so hard? > > Seems like plenty of translations are available. So far, nothing to indicate an unusually low population density, unless you make some stretches. Wait. That’s only the first quotation. Besides, I didn’t say it was an “unusually low” densidy. Just a low density. Of course, to a person of the 21th century, low densities are a lot higher than in the 15th century! Just remember that at that time Europe had 1/10 of today population, and China also had about 1/10 of theirs current one. If the Americas had 1/10, that would give 60 millions, but you shouldn’t forget the average food productor in the Americas wasn’t much efficient at all, compared with Eurasia. With the exception of Mesoamerica and the Inca, the rest of the Americas were a lot less efficient in food production. Otherwise, just read the book and convince yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/246 "2011-04-19T02:20:16Z")
First, you can read the entirety of the de Vaca’s _Le Relacion_ [here](http://alkek.library.txstate.edu/swwc/cdv/about/index.html). After looking through it I will say that in the vast majority of de Vaca’s travels he is pretty much constantly in the presence of natives. He makes few statements about the actual populations involved, and thus I don’t see how his narrative can be used to meaningfully come to any valid conclusions about the population of the entire continent. While the text has many quotes you could use to support the idea that the regions de Vaca was traveling through were heavily populated, there are also others that could argue the converse. Of course, traveling along the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Mexico City even in the year 2011 you will see massive variations in population. Focusing on the sparsely populated portions would, of course, give you a totally ignorant view of what the total population of the region was (as would focusing only on the major cities.) So what it really boils down to is de Vaca’s account just genuinely doesn’t seem that useful to me as a tool for coming to a scientific number of population in the region. Certainly I can’t imagine the mindset that goes into supporting it over archaeological studies. Cabeza de Vaca’s account is the account of one very lost, sometimes starving, always struggling Spaniard in a land as foreign to him as an alien planet would be to us; while it’s an amazing account with great value especially in the practices of the various native tribes he describes, it is not a dispassionate or particularly fact-laden account (de Vaca claims at various points to have healed all individuals who ask for it satisfactorily, and at one point to have raised a dead man back to life.) The thing about archaeology is you can actually study the physical remnants of a culture, you can study the size of their communities, you can make _scientific_ arguments about what sort of agricultural population you would need to support a village of a certain size, and how many people lived in the villages themselves and et cetera. You can go from there to creating relatively sophisticated estimates of population. Arguing that Cabeza de Vaca’s solitary account should serve as superior evidence for population estimates than the diligent work of individuals who have done massive amounts of archaeological research is ludicrous. It’s like using Marco Polo’s book as an estimate for the population of China, you wouldn’t get anywhere with that, either, because it isn’t a book that was about collecting census data. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/247 "2011-04-19T02:27:52Z")
First, La Vaca didn’t claim he raised a man from the dead. He explains very clearly he played the role of Shaman, and that role allowed them to survive and getting free food, and that he become famous in a large region. You presured me for two days to look for quotations of Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios. Now that I started, you get back and claim Vaca’s accounts aren’t valid. Yes, you can’t estimate the exact figure from his comment, but you can get informed that the populations were small, and that living was hard. Hunger and poverty was quite common in several populations he described. At least Vaca was present on the events. All the modern calculators and scientists haven’t had the chance to see the reality with theirs very eyes. For instance, all the chronicles point to the fact during colonial times the Amazons was a region with a low density, no matter than indigenous were violent against outsiders. I don’t know why we have to change that model only because some people claim the population was huge. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/248 "2011-04-19T02:32:24Z")
**pinguin** what is the largest city you have ever been to during your life? What is the population of the largest city you have ever been to during your life? Second, don’t act put out because we kept asking you for quotations. You are the one that are claiming de Vaca as your source. This forum is about debating ideas, and just because you find something to support your argument does not mean it will be immediately accepted. My argument is that a single man’s account is not the same as a census, and that it is actually _less_ useful for making determinations about large-scale things such as estimations of an entire region’s population. Single accounts such as these are very useful for learning about the culture, day-to-day life and etc of peoples from the past, but they are not the same as large scale archaeological and demographic analysis. You’re essentially saying that me writing a short tale about how I walked through the abandoned factories of Detroit, Detroit is depopulated and a small city and etc, when in fact it still has 700,000 residents. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/249 "2011-04-19T02:40:02Z")
As for de Vaca’s healing, you are correct he did not originally start doing it out of choice but because the natives who captured him would not feed him otherwise. However this passage clearly shows he is genuinely claiming he healed and raised the dead: > [@](#): > > Once the Indians had left with their cured companions, we left for another place where some others were eating prickly pears. These are called the Cutalches and Malicones, which are also the names of other languages. With them were others called the Coayos and the Susolas, and from another place some called the Atayos, who were at war with the Susolas. The Atayos and the Susolas fired arrows at each other every day. Throughout the land the only thing people talked about was the marvelous deeds that God our Lord worked through us, and people came from many places asking us to cure them. After two days some Susolas came to us and asked Castillo to go cure a wounded man and other sick people, saying that among them was a man about to die. Castillo was a timid physician, especially when the cases were frightful and dangerous. He thought that his sins would sometimes prevent a successful healing. The Indians told me to go heal them, because they liked me and remembered that I had cured them at the place where we gathered nuts and they had given us nuts and hides. This had happened when I came to join the Christians. So I was obligated to go with them. Dorantes and Estebanico went with me. > > When I neared their huts, I saw that the sick man whom we were supposed to heal was dead, because there were many people weeping around him and his lodge was dismantled, a sign that its owner was dead. When I got to the Indian, I saw that his eyes were turned. He had no pulse and it seemed to me that he showed all the signs of being dead. Dorantes said the same thing. I removed a mat that covered him, and as best I could I beseeched our Lord to be pleased to grant him health and to grant health to all who needed it. After I made the sign of the cross over him and breathed on him many times, they brought his bow to me along with a basketful of ground prickly pears. Then they took me to cure many others who had sleeping sickness. They gave me two other baskets of prickly pears, which I gave to the Indians who had come with me. Having done this, we returned to our dwellings. Our Indians, to whom I had given the prickly pears, remained there and returned that night. They said that the man who was dead and whom I had healed in their presence had gotten up well and walked and eaten and spoken to them, and that all the people we had healed had gotten well and were very happy. This caused great wonder and awe, and nothing else was spoken about in the entire land. > > Our fame spread throughout the area, and all the Indians who heard about it came looking for us so that we could cure them and bless their children. When the Cutalchiches, the people who were with our Indians, had to leave for their homeland, they offered us all the prickly pears they had stored for their journey, without keeping any. They gave us flints up to a palm and a half long, which they use for cutting and which they highly prize. They asked us to remember them and to pray to God for their good health, and we promised them that we would. With this they left as the happiest people in the world, after giving us the best things they had. > > We remained with those Avavares Indians for eight months, keeping track of the time by the phases of the moon. During all this time, people came from many places seeking us, saying that we were truly children of the sun. Up to this time Dorantes and the black man had not performed any healings, but we all became healers because so many people insisted, although I was the boldest and the most daring in undertaking any cure. We never treated anyone who did not say he was cured. They were so confident that our cures would heal them that they believed that none of them would die as long as we were there. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/250 "2011-04-19T02:43:39Z")
We don’t have a census. Where do you want I found a census on pre-Columbian times? Inca quipus had some figures, but Spaniards ignored those so much very few translations survived at all! That would be the closest to a census I could figure it out. As far as I know, there aren’t census figures in wampus. The chronicle of Cabeza de Vaca is the closest we have to a “picture” to pre-Contact North America. We have nothing less. With respect to largest cities, I have lived in Chile and Canada during my life. The city where I live has 7 million people. Remember than in South America our cities are quite large. Now, in pre-Columbian time, a city of 100.000 was huge and extraordinary, both in Europe and in the Americas. Only China has larger cities during the Middle Ages. Now, the Indigenous town didn’t have much than 50 to 100 people. In Southern Chile, Indigenous lived in a network of farms, without a single small town. The total population has been estimated between 200.000 to 500.000 people, stretching the figures. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/251 "2011-04-19T02:46:49Z")
Did he said “He” raised the dead? I don’t read that there. I read Cabeza de Vaca, fervent believer as all the Spaniards of the time, asked God to help him in that situation, and God helped him. Simple enough. The merit wasn’t of De Vaca but God. If De Vaca had claimmed in his book he raised dead people from the grave, he would have been burned by the Inquisition. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/252 "2011-04-19T02:50:17Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > With respect to largest cities, I have lived in Chile and Canada during my life. The city where I live has 7 million people. Remember than in South America our cities are quite large. How do you know the city you live in has 7 million people? ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/253 "2011-04-19T02:51:32Z")
Because I hardly fit in the subway train. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/254 "2011-04-19T02:52:13Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Did he said “He” raised the dead? I don’t read that there. I read Cabeza de Vaca, fervent believer as all the Spaniards of the time, asked God to help him in that situation, and God helped him. > > Simple enough. The merit wasn’t of De Vaca but God. > > If De Vaca had claimmed in his book he raised dead people from the grave, he would have been burned by the Inquisition. He claimed a man had no pulse, that they had torn down his home as those people did when someone was dead, that his eyes were lifeless. He then says he prayed over the man and the man rose from the dead. If someone is without pulse and laying there dead, they do not come back to life. So whether de Vaca genuinely believed he raised the person from the dead or that “God worked through him” doesn’t matter, I find that whole part of the tale highly suspicious. Throughout his account de Vaca often speaks of incidents in which God essentially works miracles that save de Vaca or help de Vaca out (often these miracles are things such as providing healing to people who cannot walk and et cetera.) We can thus say that either de Vaca genuinely witnessed dead people come back to life, crippled people walk again, or that he just made those parts of his tale up to spice up the book that he wrote. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/255 "2011-04-19T02:53:15Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Because I hardly fit in the subway train. So it is your contention that if you can hardly fit in a subway train, the city must have 7 million people? People can hardly fit in the trains in Tokyo, does Tokyo have 7 million people? ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/256 "2011-04-19T03:01:58Z")
I know my city, fellow. What kind of question is that? South America, unlike North America, has very large urban centers, where cities above 5 millions are common, and even there are some reaching 20 millions, and lot of places where density is still very low. South American largest population, as a general rule, but not without exceptions, are about two hundred miles from the coast, and the interior, still today, has smaller populations. Still today we have more highways following the contours of the region that crossing straight ahead from the Pacific to the Atlantic. There are still projects to connect Brazil to the Pacific coast with better highways than today. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/257 "2011-04-19T03:04:17Z")
Here’s a good thought exercise. Without specifically mentioning the number of people you see, the number of buildings you see, the specific size of those buildings, the specific size (in square miles/kilometers) describe a city in such a way that we could reliably tell how many people lived there. For bonus points do so in such a way that we could distinguish between say, one city with 1,000,000 people and a city with 5,000,000. Or between one city with 15,000 people and one city with 60,000 people. The truth of the matter is that is an insanely difficult task. When de Vaca came to a village he often did not describe how large it was. He would occasionally mention numbers, but usually did not. He would occasionally mention number of houses, but usually did not. When he just spoke of villages generically he did often did not mention how many houses were there or how many people. Meaning it could have been 10 people or 100. When they fought large groups of natives, he often did not tell how many natives were attacking. When he traveled for extensive periods of time and spoke of seeing lots of inhabited land, he often did not mention the relative density. And finally, he cut a path from Florida to Mexico, stayed for some 6-7 years as a slave in one region, and probably did not visit many settlements that he traveled very closely to, so even if he had accurately told the size of every single village he visited we still would not have an easy time getting an accurate count based on de Vaca’s observations. What is interesting to note is that the region de Vaca traveled through could have had 5 million people and it would not conflict with his tales. Five million people spread from Florida to Mexico is not very many, and would look very sparse. Even 10 million would. You realize Florida today has 20 million people? I can take you to parts of Florida that are extremely sparsely populated, I could walk you 100 miles in around Florida in a path in which you would see few people. Is that evidence Florida has a low population? Of course not. At the same time, I wouldn’t suggest we accept that Florida has 20 million people just based on walking around Miami and Orlando. I would instead say that such voyages are not an accurate way to come about population estimates. We should instead look at the cities, how many streets are there, how many buildings, you can start to make estimates based on that. (Of course in the modern world we just send out census workers.) What’s interesting is the “Census at contact” premise you’ve started with is essentially a giant straw man. Who has ever claimed there was a census at contact? The work of all professionals I have ever seen in this field instead focuses on archaeological data, conclusions based on long accepted methods of estimating for example how many people would live in a village of x size, how many people would require farmland of x area. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/258 "2011-04-19T03:05:30Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > He claimed a man had no pulse, that they had torn down his home as those people did when someone was dead, that his eyes were lifeless. He then says he prayed over the man and the man rose from the dead. > > If someone is without pulse and laying there dead, they do not come back to life. So whether de Vaca genuinely believed he raised the person from the dead or that “God worked through him” doesn’t matter, I find that whole part of the tale highly suspicious. Throughout his account de Vaca often speaks of incidents in which God essentially works miracles that save de Vaca or help de Vaca out (often these miracles are things such as providing healing to people who cannot walk and et cetera.) We can thus say that either de Vaca genuinely witnessed dead people come back to life, crippled people walk again, or that he just made those parts of his tale up to spice up the book that he wrote. Why are you so suspicious? Perhaps because you ignore the mentality of the time. One thing is what De Vaca made Indians to believe. A different thing is what he believed. And still a third thing is what really happened. We already said that De Vaca was playing the role of a Shaman. He believed God helped him to surpass this dangerous test. What happened? It is not the first time a catalepsy or a person considered dead have raised… It happens once in a while, and you know it. If so, De Vaca was simply lucky. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/259 "2011-04-19T03:07:15Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > I know my city, fellow. What kind of question is that? South America, unlike North America, has very large urban centers, where cities above 5 millions are common, and even there are some reaching 20 millions, and lot of places where density is still very low. South American largest population, as a general rule, but not without exceptions, are about two hundred miles from the coast, and the interior, still today, has smaller populations. Still today we have more highways following the contours of the region that crossing straight ahead from the Pacific to the Atlantic. There are still projects to connect Brazil to the Pacific coast with better highways than today. Cabeza de Vaca did not know Florida and the other lands he traveled, he was a foreigner. If I dropped you today in a large city with 10 million people, and you did not know its population before hand, how could you know that it had 3 million more people than your home city? The answer is you absolutely could not. Also, “I know my city fellow” is stupid, you do not know that your city has 7 million people in it based on direct observation. Is it your claim that you observe a certain number of people each day and you have thus concluded your city has 7 million people Of course not, you know your city has 7 million people in it because your government has made some reasonable effort at counting them and thus the population figure is a generally known fact by the public at large. What I’m saying is your personal experience actually could _never_ tell you that your city had 7 million people in it, unless you’re telling me you have some magical means of direct observation that causes you to intuitively “know” that you’re observing a city of 7 million. That just isn’t the case, you know it has 7 million because your government has counted them, and you might be capable of using that as a frame of reference when comparing it to other cities to generally guess as to whether they are larger or smaller. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309/260 "2011-04-19T03:08:48Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Why are you so suspicious? Perhaps because you ignore the mentality of the time. > One thing is what De Vaca made Indians to believe. A different thing is what he believed. And still a third thing is what really happened. > We already said that De Vaca was playing the role of a Shaman. > He believed God helped him to surpass this dangerous test. > What happened? It is not the first time a catalepsy or a person considered dead have raised… It happens once in a while, and you know it. If so, De Vaca was simply lucky. Because I have many reasons to be suspicious of a man who, upon returning to Spain with a fabulous tale, writes a book that glorifies his name, his faith and God’s love for him. There are countless examples in which first hand accounts of travels of European explorers have many wild fabrications in them. I’m not saying de Vaca was a bad man or his tale isn’t trustworthy, I’m just saying you can’t trust it without reservation because there are obviously things in it that are pretty clearly the work of fantasy and not something that ever could have happened. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-census-at-contact-myth/578309.md?page=14)