Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

by Laurence Bergreen

  More troubling, the Indians practiced cannibalism and human sacrifice in the course of their battles. “They are a warlike people, and among them is much cruelty,” he warned. “Nor do they follow any tactics in their wars, except that they take counsel of old men; and when they fight they do so very cruelly, and that side which is lord of the battlefield bury their own, but the enemy dead they cut up and eat. Those whom they capture they take home as slaves, and if [they are] women, they sleep with them; if [they are] men, they marry them to their girls, and at certain times when diabolic fury comes over them they sacrifice the mother with all the children she has had, and with certain ceremonies kill and eat them, and they did the same to the said slaves and the children who were born of them.” Vespucci concluded, “One of their men confessed to me that he had eaten of the flesh of more of than 200 bodies, and this I believe for certain.”

  Vespucci’s Indians were most likely representatives of the vast network of Guaraní tribes. At the time of Magellan’s arrival, there may have been as many as 400,000 Guaraní Indians, grouped by dialects. They occupied huge regions of South America extending all the way to the Andes, and lived communally in huts sheltering about a dozen families each; polygamy was not unknown to them, but it was not common. They were short—rarely more than five feet tall—and, by European standards, stout. The men wore a simple G-string and occasionally a headpiece made of feathers; the women were fully clothed. They were adept at pottery, wood carving, and skillful in their weapons of choice: the bow and arrow and the blowgun. The origin of the name Guaraní, by which they were known to the outside world, is unclear; they called themselves Abá, their word for “men.”

  The arrival of the Armada de Molucca in Rio de Janeiro coincided

  with heavy rains that ended a two-month drought in the region. “The day we arrived the rain began,” Pigafetta noted, “so that the people of the place said that we came from heaven and had brought the rain with us.” The sight of strange ships arriving in the harbor inspired benign rather than warlike feelings in the hearts of the Indians, as Pigafetta later learned. “They thought that the small boats of the ships were the children of the ships, and that the said ships gave birth to them when the boats were lowered to send the men hither and yon.”

  Yet the Guaraní Indians disturbed Pigafetta as much as they had Vespucci. Pigafetta had no doubt that the Indians practiced cannibalism, and even contributed a story about the origins of the practice, “an established custom begun by an old woman who had but one son who was killed by his enemies.” Pigafetta continued, “Some days later, that old woman’s friends captured one of the company who had killed her son, and brought him to the place of her abode. She, seeing him and remembering her son, ran upon him like an infuriated bitch and bit him on one shoulder. Shortly afterward, he escaped to his own people, whom he told they had tried to eat him, showing them the marks on his shoulder.” The incident led to a never-ending cycle of attacks, followed by cannibalistic practices, or so Pigafetta claimed. He provided a gruesome description of how it had become part of everyday life: “They do not eat the bodies all at once, but everyone cuts off a piece, and carries it to his house, where he smokes it. Then, every week, he cuts off a small bit, which he eats thus smoked with his other food to remind him of his enemies.”

  As Magellan’s ships came to rest, a throng of women—all of them naked and eager for contact with the sojourners—swam out to greet them. Deprived of the company of women for months, the sailors believed they had found an earthly paradise. Any fear they might have had of Indian cannibals melted in the flame of carnal pleasure.

  Discovering that the women of Verzin were for sale, the sailors gladly exchanged their cheap German knives for sexual favors. Night after night on the beach the sailors and the Indian women drank, danced, and exchanged partners in moonlit orgies. But there were limits: “The men gave us one or two of their young daughters as slaves for one hatchet or one large knife, but they would not give us their wives in exchange for anything at all. The women will not shame their husbands under any considerations whatever, and as was told us, refuse to consent to their husbands by day, but only by night.” Even so, the sailors found it easy to take advantage of the women, and one of the women, in turn, tried to take advantage of the fleet.

  “One day, a beautiful woman came to the flagship, where I was,” Pigafetta wrote, “for no other purpose than to seek what chance might offer. While there and waiting, she cast her eyes upon the master’s room, and saw a nail longer than one finger. Picking it up very delightedly and neatly, she thrust it between the lips of her vagina and, bending down low, immediately departed, the Captain General and I having seen the action.” The reason for the astonishing behavior was the great value the Guaraní Indians placed on metal objects such as nails, hammers, hooks, and mirrors, all of which were considered to be more valuable than gold, more valuable, perhaps, than life itself.

  That was not the only disturbing incident involving these women. Under the strain of temptation, one of Magellan’s most trusted allies, Duarte Barbosa, who had offered critical assistance when Cartagena mutinied, all but lost his head in Rio de Janeiro. Falling under the women’s spell and envisioning a life of ease as a trader on these distant shores, he decided to desert the fleet. Magellan learned of the plan and intervened at the last minute, sending sailors to arrest Barbosa onshore and drag him back to the ships. The poor man spent the rest of the layover in Rio de Janeiro confined in fetters aboard his ship, gazing on the women and the selfindulgent life that Magellan—and duty—denied him.

  While the sailors pursued their casual liaisons with the Indian, Magellan transacted business with their men. He took on fresh supplies of water and provisions, trading insignificant trinkets, such as tiny bells that he had brought with him from Seville, for precious food. “The people of this place gave for a knife or fishhook five or six fowls, and for a comb a brace of geese,” Pigafetta wrote. “For a small mirror or a pair of scissors, they gave as many fish as ten men could have eaten. For a bell or a leather lace, they gave us a basketful of . . . fruit. And for a king of playing cards, of the kind used in Italy, they gave me five fowls, and even thought they cheated me.”

  The Captain General and the fleet’s three priests intended to maintain strict religious observance throughout the voyage, both to keep their own sailors faithful and to impress the local inhabitants with the power of Christianity, and the impressionable Indians eagerly accepted Magellan’s invitation to attend worship. “Mass was said twice on shore, during which those people remained on their knees with so great contrition and with clasped hands raised aloft that it was an exceedingly great pleasure to behold them,” Pigafetta reported, with obvious gratification and pride. Only later did Magellan learn that the Indians regarded the fleet as harbingers of good fortune because its arrival coincided with rain. Whatever the reason, “Those people could be converted easily to the faith of Jesus Christ,” Pigafetta concluded.

  The tranquillity of the fleet’s layover in Rio de Janeiro was interrupted by a traumatic event: carrying out Antonio Salamón’s death sentence on December 20. On the appointed day, Magellan summoned the officers and crew of Trinidad to watch the execution of the man who had committed a “crime against nature.” One of the sailors, never named, his face likely hooded to preserve his anonymity, strangled Salamón in full view of the other men, as a warning. The grisly spectacle, performed with military efficiency, increased resentment among the crew against the Captain General. There are conflicting accounts concerning Antonio Ginovés, the cabin boy whose life Magellan had spared. In one version, Ginovés suffered such extreme ridicule from other crew members that he threw himself overboard and was lost. And in another, the cabin boy, an object of scorn, was thrown overboard to his death. No matter which version was correct, the double tragedy marked the only time Magellan addressed the subject of homosexuality throughout the voyage. If homosexual relationships flourished again aboard the ships—and they likely did—Magella
n decided to follow the tradition of looking the other way.

  Five days later, the Armada de Molucca observed its first Christmas away from Spain in the shelter of Rio’s harbor, but there was little time to reflect on the holiday because the men busily prepared the ships for departure. Before weighing anchor, Magellan, together with his trusted pilots and navigators, attempted to determine the coordinates of Rio de Janeiro. Although they lacked the skills and instruments necessary to calibrate longitude with accuracy, they believed they could make useful calculations with the help of Ruy Faleiro’s tables and the advice of Andrés de San Martín, the fleet’s astrologer and astronomer. Not surprisingly, they arrived at an unreliable estimate, but they did make reasonably accurate calculations of the latitudes of several landmarks they had visited. Even Magellan’s best measurements, good to within a degree or two, were not accurate enough to warn subsequent travelers away from hazards such as shoals and rocks; they were, at best, rough approximations.

  Just before sailing, Magellan replaced Antonio de Coca, the fleet accountant who had briefly assumed command of San Antonio from Cartagena, with the inexperienced Álvaro de Mesquita. Both de Coca and Cartagena took the shuffle as an insult, because Mesquita had shipped out aboard the flagship from Seville as a mere supernumerary. The deposed captains cried nepotism, which was true, because Mesquita was Magellan’s cousin. The lack of qualified captains in the fleet’s roster would trouble Magellan throughout the voyage. Although he had a surplus of qualified pilots, most were Portuguese, and so excluded from the top ranks of this Spanish expedition. As the voyage continued, these professional, accomplished pilots served resentfully under the figurehead captains.

  After two weeks of sensual indulgence, the fleet’s departure from Rio de Janeiro on December 27 became an emotionally charged affair. João Lopes Carvalho, Magellan’s pilot, returning to Brazil after a seven-year absence, happily reunited with his former mistress, who introduced him to their son. Carvalho took an immediate liking to the lad, whom he called Joãozito, and enlisted him as a servant aboard ship. As the fleet prepared to embark, the pilot beseeched Magellan for permission to take along the mother of his child, but Magellan allowed absolutely no women on the ships. Carvalho would sail alone.

  Alarmed by the prospect of other liaisons affecting the crew, Magellan ordered an inspection of every inch of every ship for female stowaways. Several were found and swiftly returned to shore. When the fleet finally weighed anchor and sailed away, Indian women followed them in canoes, tearfully pleading with the men from distant shores to stay with them forever.

  Resuming a southerly course, the fleet, helped by favorable winds, reached Paranaguá Bay, off the coast of Brazil, by the last day of 1519. Intent on making up for time, Magellan ordered the ships to remain offshore rather than exploring the bay, one of the largest estuaries in the southwest Atlantic. Fully provisioned, the Armada de Molucca sailed on, day and night, until January 8, 1520, when Magellan spied a stretch of shoal extending as far as the eye could see. Concerned about hitting a concealed formation, he gave an order to drop anchor, but only for the night; in the morning, the fleet sailed on.

  On January 10, the rolling hills and mountains of the South American coast yielded to barely discernible hummocks and the suggestion of offshore islands. Carvalho declared that they had arrived at Cape Santa María, rumored to be the gateway to the strait. If luck favored the fleet, Magellan could reach his goal ahead of winter storms. It was now summer in these subequatorial regions, and he wanted to take advantage of the relatively mild weather and traverse the strait before the weather turned cold. Just when he believed he was approaching the mouth of the strait, all his maps turned to blank wastes and speculative renderings, and the monotonous barrier of South American coast continued without relief.

  Magellan’s hope for a swift completion to the expedition would not be fulfilled.

  Five months from Seville, the crew and officers had become familiar with the ships as well as the rigors and deprivations of life at sea. They had learned of the violence of storms, the life-and-death necessity of sounding the bottom, and the limits of the proud vessels in which they sailed over the surface of the limitless sea. The misery of seasickness was at last behind them. There had been no escape from the ordeal; even veteran mariners were vulnerable to its pains. According to folk wisdom, sexual activity increased the likelihood of seasickness, but it was a rare sailor who could resist the opportunity for coupling before setting out on a long voyage.

  At sea, sleep became the ultimate luxury, a solace nearly impossible to come by. The crew took naps whenever they could, night or day. Hammocks had yet to be introduced on board ships, so exhausted sailors appropriated a plank or, better still, a sheltered area of the deck where they could sprawl. They eased the wood’s bruising hardness with a straw pallet, and shielded themselves against the cold and wet with heavy blankets. Even then, comfort eluded them. The men never became accustomed to the foul odors brewing aboard their ships. Water seeping into the hold stank despite the efforts to disinfect it with vinegar; animals such as cows and pigs added to the reek, as did the slowly rotting food supply and the sickening smell of salted fish wafting from the hold.

  Pests were ubiquitous, an inescapable fact of life at sea. Teredos, or shipworms, bored through the hull, slowly compromising the seaworthiness of the entire vessel, and one ship in Magellan’s fleet eventually disintegrated because of the wretched little creatures. Rats and mice infested every ship, and the sailors learned to live with them and even to play with them. Magellan’s crew might have brought along a domestic creature new to Europe at the time—the cat—to hunt the rodents, following the practice of the day, although no record confirms that they did. It is recorded, however, that the men of the Armada de Molucca were plagued with all manner of lice, bedbugs, and cockroaches. When conditions turned hot and humid, the insects infested the clothing, the sails, the food supply, and even the rigging. The sailors scratched and complained, but they had no defense against the pests. Even worse, weevils invaded the hardtack, and it was further contaminated with the urine and feces of rodents. Crew members with growling stomachs forced themselves to overcome their inhibitions and swallow this disgusting, contaminated provender.

  Sailors found it nearly impossible to keep clean; many brought along soap and a rag for washing, but the only available water—seawater—caused itching and irritation. The sailors washed their clothes in seawater as well, with limited results. To keep warm and dry, sailors wore baggy, loosely fitting clothes consisting of a floppy shirt, often with a hood, over which they wore a woolen pullover known as a sayuelo, which was cinched at the waist. Sailors were known everywhere for their floppy, pajamalike pants (zaragüelles), which reached below the knees. Depending on the rank of the sailor, and the money at his disposal, zaragüelles could be made of anything from the cheap coarse linen known as anjeo (after Anjou, in France) to fine wool lined with silk taffeta.

  In foul weather, sailors and officers alike donned great blue capes called capotes de la mar; it was a common sight to see a watchman huddled within his cape, with only his head exposed, peering across a storm-tossed deck for hours on end. Sailors protected their heads (and ears) with a woolen cap called a bonete: more than any other article of clothing, the bonete was the mark of a sailor. Magellan brought along a number of caps, mostly in red, to befriend the Indians he expected to encounter along his route to the Spice Islands, but most sailors wore a bonete of a more dignified black or blue. Frayed from hard use and harsh conditions, the clothing demanded constant repair, and the sailors learned to become handy with a needle. Many sailors carried knives tucked into their waistbands for safekeeping.

  Sailors stored their gear in large chests. In addition to clothes, the chests contained simple wooden plates (useful for hurling during impromptu fights), eating utensils, and a jug to hold the daily ration of wine. The chests frequently contained a supply of playing cards—probably the most popular pastime aboard the ships of t
he Armada de Molucca—and books.

  The Inquisition imposed strict censorship laws, and sailors submitted all books they brought to sea for approval. The surviving records afford a glimpse of the reading habits of these men. Most volumes were devotional—the lives of saints, profiles of popes, accounts of miracles, and prayers to recite. Almost as prevalent (and probably more carefully read) were popular stories of derring-do and chivalry, of knights and damsels and vanquished villains. A few histories found their way aboard these ships, but the more literate sailors favored the most celebrated precedent for their own journey, Marco Polo’s Travels.

  Magellan’s crew was overwhelmingly Castilian and Portuguese, but representatives of every major country in western Europe, as well as North Africa, Greece, Rhodes, and Sicily filled the ranks. Their number included alliances of natural enemies: Britons and Basques, Flemish and French, all speaking in mutually unintelligible tongues.