Children of the Sun

The Legend Begins

Last time, we followed Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo, and Estebanico as they finally left the Texas coast behind. For years, the coast had been their prison. They had been castaways, captives, servants, traders, healers, survivors. But after escaping during the prickly pear harvest of 1534, the four men began moving west.

And almost immediately, something changed. They were no longer simply begging for food and hiding from danger. Native communities began to receive them. Feed them. Guide them. Bring them the sick. And pass them from one group to another. The road west began to open. But it opened for a strange reason. People believed these four ragged survivors carried power.

They believed the men could heal others with their spiritual gifts. And soon, some would say something even more dangerous. That the four men were children of the sun. That kind of reputation could save them. Feed them. And protect them. But it could also turn them into something they could not control. Now, the legend of the four survivors begins to run ahead of them.

A Crowded Human Landscape

Before the journey continues, Cabeza de Vaca pauses to describe the world they were moving through. That matters. Because this was not empty wilderness. It was not one people, one language, or one frontier waiting for Europeans to enter it. It was a crowded human landscape. A world of nations. Villages. Seasonal camps. Enemies. Relatives.

Trade routes. Customs. And languages. From the Island of Ill Fate to the mainland and beyond, Cabeza de Vaca names group after group. Capoques. Han. Chorruco. Doguenes. Mendica. Quevenes. Mariames. Yguaces. Avavares. Maliacones. Cutalchiches. And many more. Some lived along the coast. Some farther inland. Some moved with the seasons.

Some lived in houses and villages. Some spoke languages their neighbors did not understand. This is important to remember. The four survivors were not moving through a blank space. They were moving through a living world. A world where information could travel faster than they could. Where one village could warn another. A world where reputation mattered.

A world where fear, hunger, generosity, and violence all moved along the same trails. Cabeza de Vaca also records customs that struck him as strange. He wrote, some of the people drank a powerful smoke, and he says they would give all they had for it. Others prepared a hot drink from leaves. They roasted the leaves. Boiled them.

Poured the drink into a vessel. Then drank it as hot as they could bear. The ritual had strict rules. Women were not supposed to move when the men called out during the ceremony. If a woman moved, the drink could be spilled. The men believed something harmful could enter through it. Cabeza de Vaca did not understand these customs as an insider.

He describes them as an outsider. Sometimes with curiosity. Sometimes with disgust. Sometimes with judgment. That is part of reading him carefully. He gives us precious details about a world almost no European had written down. But he is still a sixteenth-century Spaniard, looking at Native peoples through his own assumptions, his own religion, and his own sense of order.

So we should use his testimony. But not forget who is speaking. His written testament would go on to become one of the first and perhaps most in depth anthropological accounts of the native peoples ever written by a European and a crucial work for the understanding of conquistador era Texas History. After leaving the people who had wept at their departure, the survivors moved on to another group.

This new people received them well. They brought their children forward so the four men could touch their hands. They gave them mesquite flour. Cabeza de Vaca pauses to describe it. Mesquite was bitter when it came from the tree, he says, but these people prepared it in a way that made it sweet and good to eat. They dug a pit in the ground.

Put the pods inside. Ground them with a heavy stick. Mixed in dirt. Added water. Worked it again and again. Then the people gathered around and ate. To the Spaniards, it must have seemed strange. But to the people of that land, this was food. This was survival. This was knowledge built from generations of living in a hard country.

And for the four survivors, it was one more reminder that the land itself could not be separated from the people who knew how to live on it. Without them, the Spaniards would starve. The people made a great celebration for them. They danced. Held ceremonies. Honored the survivors And at night, six men watched over each of the four.

Not as guards. But as protectors. No one was allowed to enter the hut where each man slept until morning. Think about how far the story has shifted. These same men had once slept naked in the cold. They had begged for scraps. They had been beaten. They had eaten roots and raw meat. They had scraped skins and eaten the scrapings.

They had lived at the mercy of others. Now men stood at the doors of their huts to protect them through the night. Not because they had conquered anyone. Nor because they had wealth or Spanish soldiers behind them. But because people believed they carried power. The road west was now being built out of belief. When the four prepared to leave, women from another group arrived.

They knew where the next houses were. They could guide the survivors there. But there was no trail. That detail matters. When we imagine travel, we tend to imagine roads. Paths. Maps. A clear line from one place to another. That is not what this journey was. Again and again, the survivors depended on local people who knew the land.

Where the water was. Where food could be found. Which groups were friendly. Which were enemies. Which direction was possible. And which direction might mean death. The survivors did not want to wait for the women to rest and decided to strike out on their own. After some time, the women followed them. The group became lost and after several miles, they reached a spring.

There, the women caught up and told the survivors how hard they had worked to reach them. So the four took them as guides. Again, the pattern repeated. The Spaniards did not command the land. They did not master it. They survived by being carried through it. One guide. One village. One fragile relationship at a time. At sunset, they reached another large settlement of about a hundred houses.

Before they arrived, the people came out to meet them. They shouted. They slapped their thighs. They carried gourds with holes in them and stones inside. These were ceremonial objects. Cabeza de Vaca says they were used for dancing and for curing. The people believed these gourds had power. They believed they came from the heavens.

The reception was overwhelming. The crowd pressed in. Everyone wanted to touch the four survivors. They were so anxious to reach them that they nearly crushed them. Then they carried the men into their houses without letting their feet touch the ground. The healers from the sea had become something more than visitors. They had become living objects of wonder.

People did not simply want to feed them. They wanted to touch them. To be blessed by them. To bring their children near them. To feel some part of whatever power they believed the four men carried. The next morning, all the people of the village were brought forward. The survivors touched them. Blessed them. Made the sign of the cross.

Then the road continued. At the next settlement, they were received the same way. Food was given. Sick people were brought. The survivors blessed them. And again, people said they were healed.

Power Without Control

But now something darker began to appear. The people traveling with the four survivors began taking property from the villages that received them. Bows. Arrows. Shoes. Beads. Whatever could be taken. At first, the survivors could do little about it. They were troubled by it. Cabeza de Vaca says they were grieved to see people who had received them well treated so poorly.

But they did not yet have the authority to stop it. They were honored. But they were not fully in control. Their reputation had opened the road. But it had also created a moving crowd. And that crowd had its own customs. Its own interests. Its own hunger. Its own enemies. The four men were becoming powerful. But power did not always mean control.

As they moved from settlement to settlement, the custom of robbery grew worse. One group would escort them to another. Then rob the people who received them. The victims often accepted it. Or at least endured it. They were told they would be repaid later when the next group was robbed in turn. The journey became a chain of honor, fear, healing, celebration, and plunder.

That is part of what makes this moment so strange. The road west was opening. But it was not opening cleanly. People were feeding the survivors. Guiding them. Blessing them. Celebrating them. But other people were being robbed because of them. Cabeza de Vaca does not present this as something he approves of. He says the survivors were saddened by it.

But he also admits they could not stop it at first. This is one of the most realistic parts of the account. Their reputation protected them. But it also brought consequences they could not easily control. At another village, the people had already heard what happened when the four survivors arrived. And so, when the four came near, the people received them with sadness.

They wept. They were afraid. They knew that wherever the healers came, others might come behind them and take everything. At first, when they saw that the four were alone, they relaxed. They gave them prickly pears. They offered what they had. But at dawn, the people who had escorted the survivors the day before attacked the village.

They took everything. The villagers wept. And then the robbers explained what was happening. They said the four men were children of the sun. They said they had power to heal the sick. And power to kill. They said the people must not anger them. They said they must give them everything. Cabeza de Vaca calls these claims lies. And that matters.

He does not simply present himself as a willing god among Native peoples. He tells us that others were exaggerating the reputation of the four survivors for their own advantage. The legend had become useful. And because it was useful, it grew. A starving castaway became a healer. A healer became a holy man. A holy man became a child of the sun.

And that story could be used to feed, frighten, and rob.

Children of the Sun

From there, the survivors traveled for three more days. Before they reached the next settlement, word had already gone ahead. The people came out to receive them with celebration. Two Native healers gave them two gourds. And from this point forward, the survivors began carrying gourds as signs of authority. That is a fascinating detail.

The four men did not simply impose Spanish signs onto the Native world. They also adopted local signs that already meant something to the people around them. The cross remained. The prayers remained. The Catholic understanding remained. But the gourds mattered too. The survivors were still Christians. Cabeza de Vaca never stops interpreting their survival through the lens of his own Catholic upbringing.

But the way their authority worked on the ground was shaped by Native expectations, ceremonies, symbols, and customs. Four Christian castaways, walking west through Native lands, blessing people with the sign of the cross, breathing over food and bodies, carrying ceremonial gourds, and being called Children of the Sun.

A Changing Country

As they moved inland, the land changed again. The survivors followed the edge of the mountains. They turned away from the coast. They wanted to move through country where people were more settled and food was more abundant. They hoped that by crossing inland they might learn more of the land. And if they were able to reach Spanish territory, he could report what he had seen.

That was still part of Cabeza de Vaca’s mind. He was not only trying to survive. He was watching. Remembering. Interpreting. He had entered Florida as an officer of an imperial expedition. Now, after years of suffering, he was becoming one of the first Europeans to describe the interior of the continent. Not as a conqueror at the head of an army.

But as a wanderer moving from village to village. Then the signs of a larger world began to appear. At one settlement, Andrés Dorantes received a thick copper rattle with a face cast on it. The people valued it greatly. When the survivors asked where it came from, they were told it had been brought from the north. That there was much more of it there.

That it was highly prized. To the Spaniards, this suggested metalworking. Smelting. Molds. Settled people. Trade networks. Perhaps richer lands beyond. Then, at another place, people brought them pouches of fool’s gold. Ground antimony used as face paint. Beads. Cowhide robes. The four survivors were seeing fragments of a world they did not yet fully understand.

Metals moving through trade. Hides from distant animals. Precious stones. Foodways. Villages. Languages. Objects carried from one people to another. The farther they traveled, the clearer it became. The interior was not empty. It was connected. Then came one of the most dramatic healing scenes in the entire account. A man was brought to Cabeza de Vaca.

He had been wounded long before by an arrow. The arrowhead remained lodged near his heart. He was in pain. Sick from the old wound. Cabeza de Vaca touched him and felt the point inside. He could tell it had passed through cartilage. So he took a knife. Opened the man’s chest near the wound. Cut deeper. Worked the blade in. And with great effort, pulled the arrowhead out.

It was long. Then he stitched the wound with a deer bone. Stopped the bleeding with scraped hair from a hide. And gave the arrowhead to the people. The whole village came to see it. Then they sent it farther inland so others could see it too. The next day, Cabeza de Vaca cut the stitches. The man said he felt no pain. And according to Cabeza de Vaca, the cure gave the survivors even greater standing throughout the land.

This was different from prayer alone. This was not only ritual. This was surgery. Crude. Dangerous. But real. A foreign object removed from the body. A wound stitched. A man apparently improved. No wonder the story spread. For people already primed to believe the four men had power, this would have confirmed everything. After that, their authority grew even larger.

They traveled through valleys filled with game. Men carried clubs and hunted hares by surrounding them and striking as they ran. Hunters brought deer, quail, parrots, and other game. At night, the people brought so much food that each survivor was given more than he could possibly eat. But the people would not eat until the food had been blessed.

Each person came forward with his portion. The survivors had to breathe on it. Make the sign of the cross over it. Only then would the people eat. Cabeza de Vaca says that sometimes three or four thousand people traveled with them. Three or four thousand. Imagine the scene. A moving crowd. Hunters. Women carrying food. Children.

Guides. The sick. The curious. The afraid. The devout. The desperate. And at the center, four men who had once been naked castaways on the Texas coast, now blessing food for thousands. It was exhausting. Cabeza de Vaca says it became a great labor. A nuisance. That is another detail that keeps the story human. He does not describe this as pure glory.

He describes it as work. The same reputation that fed them also trapped them inside expectation. Everyone wanted to be touched. Everyone wanted food blessed. Everyone wanted access to the power they believed the four men carried.

A Moving Event

Still, this new world was very different from the coast. Food was more abundant. Game was plentiful. People brought mats and built houses for them. The survivors could command distribution. They could take a little food and give the rest to the leaders of the people, ordering it to be shared. That mattered. Because their authority was not only about healing anymore.

It was becoming social. They were being placed between groups. Between givers and receivers. Between villages and escorts. Between fear and peace. Between hunger and food. At times, enemies even became friends so they could receive the four men. That does not mean the survivors pacified the continent. We should not overstate it.

But in these moments, their reputation did create temporary peace. People who might otherwise have been hostile came together because of the strange power surrounding these men. The four survivors had become a moving event. A procession. A rumor made flesh. This was the turning point. The four men were no longer simply moving through the land.

In a strange way, the land was now moving with them. Guides, crowds, food, and fear all moved with them. And stories moved ahead of them faster than they could walk. And yet, beneath all of this, the danger remained. Because the reputation was built on belief. And belief can turn quickly. If people believed the four could heal, they might also believe they could kill.

If people believed they came from heaven, they might fear offending them. If people believed they were children of the sun, then sickness, death, drought, or hunger could all become dangerous. What happened when someone died? What happened when food ran out? What happened when guides refused to go farther? What happened when enemies stood in the way?

The road west was open now. But it was open because thousands of people believed something about these men that the men themselves could not fully control. That was the power of the legend. And the danger of it.

The Danger of Belief

By the end of this stage of the journey, the four survivors were no longer the same men who had left Spain. They had entered the New World as part of a conquest. They had expected command. Treasure. Glory. Governorship. Empire. But almost all of that had been stripped away. The army, horses, armor, governor, and plan were all gone.

What remained were four men walking west through Native lands, carrying gourds, praying over strangers, blessing food, following guides, accepting gifts, watching villages rob each other in their name, and trying to survive inside a world that had remade them. They were still Spaniards. Estebanico was still enslaved. Cabeza de Vaca was still a Christian and still an imperial servant.

None of that disappeared. But the journey had changed them. It had forced them into dependence. Forced them to learn. Forced them to see peoples the empire had barely imagined. And now, the land ahead was changing again. More fixed houses, corn, signs of trade, and stories of rich lands. More hints that somewhere beyond the next horizon, another world was waiting.

The four survivors had crossed from starvation into abundance. From fear into reverence. From captivity into legend. But they were not home. Not yet. And the most dangerous meeting of all still lay ahead. Because soon, after years among Native peoples, the four survivors would begin hearing rumors of men like themselves. Men with beards, horses, and lances.

Men who did not come as healers, but as slavers.

Next time...

the four survivors move deeper into the interior. The land begins to change again. They find corn. Fixed houses. Cotton. Turquoise. Trade goods from distant places. And at last, news of other Christians. For years, Cabeza de Vaca and the others had dreamed of finding Spaniards again. Men who might lead them home. But the first news of Christians would not sound like salvation.

It would sound like a warning. Because the Spaniards ahead were not wandering healers. They were not barefoot survivors. They were armed, mounted, lance wielding men. Taking Native people in chains. And after years of longing to return to the Spanish world, Cabeza de Vaca would discover something terrible. Rescue might be waiting.

But so was another kind of disaster.