A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca by Andrés Reséndez (review)

A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca. By Andrés Reséndez. (New York: Basic Books, 2007. Pp. 328. Illustrations, maps, further reading, notes, index. ISBN 978-0-46506-841-8. $26.95, cloth.) My first impression of this volume was probably similar to that of many others: what justifies a new book on Cabeza de Vaca? In recent years there have been no troves of new sources, no major archaeological discoveries, no long lost diaries unearthed that appreciably change the contours of our understanding of de Vaca’s ordeal. However, first impressions can be deceiving. The justification for this volume is not a new archival source but a new authorial voice. It is the narrative power of the Reséndez account that makes this book worthwhile and offers to a wider audience the extraordinary tale of Cabeza de Vaca’s wanderings. The story that Reséndez tells is well known to scholars. The Pánfilo de Narváez expedition began in 1527 and was intended to explore and take formal possession of the Spanish territories around the Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to Tamaulipas. The entire undertaking was plagued by bad planning, abysmal leadership, and still worse luck. Cabeza de Vaca (and three other members of the expedition) survived a voyage that included two hurricanes, complex indigenous politics, a constantly shifting language barrier, near starvation, and thousands of miles of walking. Their traverse of the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico was a first for Europeans and an early case of a Spaniard who “had gone completely native” (p. 2). In this book, Reséndez has attempted to walk a fine line between popular nonfiction and historical research, aiming to draw an audience of educated readers who are not necessarily specialists. A popular evocation of this journey that fell short was Nicolás Echeverría’s Cabeza de Vaca (1991), a hallucinatory film that sometimes seemed more interested in the ‘trip’ than the trip. Reséndez takes a different tack, arguing that “[t]oo often, the human dimension of these encounters is lost in the crucible of grand imperial narratives”(p. 9). His retelling is offered as a corrective to the usual view of the contact phase as a profoundly imbalanced process favoring European explorers, especially since it was the Europeans who suffered subjugation. The threat to the narrative of an exegesis of the historical literature is avoided through providing citations at the end of paragraphs and extensive discussion of specific points in the endnotes. There is no question that Reséndez has distilled the academic literature on everything from Gulf of Mexico tides to live scarlet macaws to produce this account; he simply does not allow it to intrude on the narrative flow. The maps and illustrations are appropriate in number and appear just as the reader needs them. A minor problem for the reader is the lack of discussion about the language barrier. All parties are described as communicating through signs, and various characters are described as gifted with language skills, but the reader is never provided an adequate explanation of the coping mechanism involved in this most basic tool of survival. A larger problem was the persistent use of the phrase “must have” throughout the book to ascribe motivation, knowledge, or emotion. On one level, it becomes tiresome to read the same words several times per page. Moreover, it creates an uncomfortably tentative feeling in the text: what do we 314 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 314 know and what is supposition? It is in this respect and this respect alone, that Reséndez strays from that fine line between popular and academic writing. Historians will certainly enjoy this volume, but will gain the most from the detailed endnotes and the lengthy “Further Reading” section, which offer a comprehensive guide to the most recent research on Cabeza de Vaca. University of North Texas Aaron W. Navarro Historic Native Peoples of Texas. By William C. Foster. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. Pp. 364. Maps, illustration, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-29271-792-3. $60.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-29271-793-0...