DE GRAZIA'S CABEZA DE VACA

I have chosen to write the adventure of Cabeza de Vaca in the first person, with some dialogue - the reason being that it would add more interest and color to the story. I bring Cabeza de Vaca from Florida to Texas, through New Mexico, and into Arizona. I feel that Cabeza de Vaca and his companions may have spent Christmas in Arizona. They were the first non-Indians to travel in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico.

THE GREATEST STORY from page 35

"De Grazia Paints Cabeza de Vaca" is De Grazia's most serious work and in the documentation of Southwestern history, one of the most important. The impact of the De Grazia book is the smashing contrast of simple text and powerful illustrations. It is a striking book very different from his previous books. This is not a book of angel forms and adorable children. This is a book as real as the fascinating almost incredibly human heroism it portrays.

There are and will be historians out of rapport with De Grazia text and art. This is to be expected in creative interpretations of historical documentations. Hodge has explained that it was almost impossible to trace de Vaca's entire course with accuracy. "There are few Spanish narratives more unsatisfactory to deal with by reason of the lack of directions and distances." The value of the Cabeza de Vaca story and its place in history is held together by enough details and clues which have published the route and the findings as reported in his personal accounts with a high measure of relative certainty.

SPECIAL NOTICE!

The regular Artist's Proof Limited First Edition of "De Grazia Paints Cabeza De Vaca" is a special cloth hardbound volume of 80 pages, 9" x 12", price $13.50 each. Profusely illustrated with reproductions of original De Grazia oils, watercolors, drawings, enamels and ceramics. We sincerely urge our readers to patronize their favorite book dealers. As a special service to those readers remote from convenient shopping facilities, orders for this regular edition may be sent directly to: Cabeza De Vaca Gallery In The Sun 6300 North Swan Road Tucson, Arizona 85718 Please add $1.00 for mailing.

We hope our readers will be motivated to read not only the De Grazia version but also other masterpieces in literature which de Vaca's "La Relacion" has inspired.

One of these is, without doubt, Haniel Long's "The Power Within Us." In Long's words: "My account of Nunez is not the account he sent the King, apart of course from the actual facts. But I believe it to be the account he wished to send the King, and I try to show what, quite plainly, was happening to the spirit of the man. I wish him to address us four hundred years later, in this world of ours where human relation is still the difficult problem, and exploitation the cancer.

"Nunez found the limitless within the narrowly limited. He helped when he had no means of helping, and gave when he had nothing to give. So, what is interesting is that at a certain point he ceases to be a historical personage and becomes a symbol. If he were alive today, he would be free to bring into the open the inwardness of his adventure. Thus he would greatly concern the present western world and our entire human world, for we are his proper audience. In his emergency Nunez slides out of theories and prejudices which unfit one to live on. Possibly the capacity to survive depends upon courage of spirit to accept one's fate. Possibly also, danger can be a real benefit to the physical man. Nunez was remarkably flexible; he had what seems unlimited courage, unlimited strength. To him life itself was not different from hardship and danger, life was these things, and they are what make life good. His plight was hopeless, but he set in motion a train of thought and action which saved him. The weather-beaten explorer of the 16th century, lost in a thorny land among copper-colored savages and facing a blank future, discovered religion to be a reality of which he had never dreamed. His effort, his feeling for others, take novel paths; but underneath, quite apparently, lies an ageless and universal experience."

Americans respect manhood. America has been built upon progenitors born elsewhere. The deeds that have held the world together have not been of any one blood. In a universal sense we must respect manhood more than nationality and admire it for its own sake wherever it is found and it is found everywhere.

There may be greater stories written glorifying the pure qualities of manhood than the stories of Jesus and Cabeza de Vaca. There may be . . . JOSEPH STACEY Do Not Send Money or Requests For Books or Prints To This Magazine.

EDITORIAL NOTE

The most important movement of civilized man started with them . . . four men . . . who between 1528 and 1536, by venturing into inland North America, north of Mexico and west of the Mississippi became the precursors of the great American West.

Physically the biggest and strongest was the black African, Estevanico, the slave of Andres Dorantes, one of the three white Spaniards. The other two Caucasians were Alonso del Castillo Maldonado and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. None of them were explorers, though without knowing it they were involved in the first inland exploration of America. None of the four seeked any of the many honors and firsts now attributed to them. Fate played every mean trick in her book on the four men. They had come to the New World as potential settlers of Florida with Don Panfilo de Narvaez, and even in this world so full of great and greatest deeds, especially in the matter of journeys, they survived accidents, misfortunes and disappointments of every devilish and demoralizing description.

Reproduced on these two pages are similar but not identical illustrations which De Grazia uses to stimulate some thought provoking reflections. In the black and white drawing, the black man is at the head of the line. Cabeza de Vaca spearheads the human column illustrated on the opposite page. "If a monument had to be erected to the non-Indian who actually first set foot in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona . . . would it represent the black man or one of the Caucasians?"

It Was Foretold!

This story of an expedition is a sad one. The expediTo me, the amazing thing about this story is that the fate of the expedition was foretold. Supposedly, ten women were with the expedition. One of the women was told in Spain by a seer that the expedition would be a fiasco, doomed. If any would come out alive, it would be by the grace of God. The woman in turn told this story to the commander and to all those in the expedition who would listen. As the soldiers and horsemen were disem-barking in Florida, she told each woman aboard to look for another man, for the men going ashore would no longer be counted among the living. It was foreseen, and it was foretold.

The Número Uno man in the expedition was named Pánfilo de Narváez. He was a seasoned soldier, strong, courageous, and muy valiente. He was somewhat of a político. He knew his way around. He knew which way was up, and he aimed high. He had served the king as a military man for a long time. He had been involved in wars. He was an adelantado in the conquest of Cuba. He was a well-educated man, and rich. He had enough money to quit and spend the rest of his time with his family and lead a sedate peaceful life in his own hacienda. Instead he chose to seek the highest peak. His was the gambling spirit of an inquiet soul. He was a man with an inner drive, a force that is constantly in motion - all or nothing. But all or nothing in his case meant life or death. To gamble with your life means that if you lose, it will be death. He knew it, gambled, and lost.

Narváez was a close friend of Diego Velasquez, the governor of Cuba. Narváez happened to be in Cuba in 1519 when Governor Velasquez sent Hernán Cortéz sail-ing to Veracruz, Mexico, with the purpose of shopping around. Cortéz was to evaluate the region, colonize it, and perhaps trade. But a conquistador's purpose is to conquer, and that is what Cortéz had in mind. Cortéz liked what he saw highly civilized Indians and a beau-tiful country, rich in culture, tradition, and gold. He had to fight and fight hard to conquer. He was cruel and ruth-less, but he was a true conquistador. He destroyed the Indian civilization. He broke their idol and gave them his God to worship.

Back in Cuba, Velasquez had a change of heart about Cortéz. He lost faith in him. He selected Narváez to take command from Cortéz, to capture him and bring him back in chains as prisoner. Narváez was to be the hunter, Cortéz the hunted. Instead Narváez was captured, put in chains, kept as prisoner, and in the shuffle lost an eye a beaten man. What a blow it must have been to his pride. Sometime later Cortéz sent Narváez back to Cuba to Velasquez as a reject.

Narváez then went to Spain and was awarded a grant from the king of Spain, Charles the Fifth. Narváez was supposed to explore, conquer, settle, and become governor of the unknown country from Florida to the Rio de las Palmas, and to Pánuco near Veracruz, in the name of the king.

It was the practice for a conquistador to pay for his own expedition. Narváez was both a good soldier and had the money. This was the Golden Age of the Conquistadors, the Renaissance. History was being made, and the geography of the North American continent was being discovered. Dreams were spun about a paradise to live in, water to keep you young, gold in the streets, even houses built with gold, and where time never moves. But the scale of life is a breath, a balance. The weight of a hair will in an instant send what is on top to the bottom. All is rearranged. Yes, man proposes and the Lord disposes. The expedition was centered around, is written about, and is referred to as that of Cabeza de Vaca.

Cabeza de Vaca was born in Jeréz de la Frontera, Spain, about the time Columbus was discovering America. Although his name was Alvar Nuñez de Vera, he chose to go by his mother's surname. On both sides of his family his ancestors were notables. His grandfather on his father's side was the conquistador of the Grand Canary.

The legend of the name goes back to the reconquest of Spain, when the Christians were forcing the Moors south. At the Sierra Morena, north of Seville, the Moors held a pass where the Christians would have lost the battle, had it not been for de Vaca's ancestor, Martín Alhaja, a shepherd. He, knowing of another pass through the mountain, marked it with the skull of a cow. Then he went to tell the Christians. The battle was an important and decisive one. It gave the Christians victory. They were so rejoiced over this victory that the shepherd's name was changed from Alhaja to Cabeza de Vaca that is, the head of the cow.

This is a sample of the heritage the young Cabeza de Vaca grew up with. He was inspired and fired with the glow and pride of the conquistadors. He upheld the name of Cabeza de Vaca as a young man. In Italy he was a soldier of the king. He served and lived through the war at Ravenna, where 20,000 had died. With this background he went to Florida as treasurer of the expedition, to become one of the four survivors.

Two other conquistadors who survived with de Vaca were Andrés Dorantes from Bejar del Castanar, and his slave. Dorantes was a soldier full of dreams of riches, of the New World, a world to be conquered. He was an intelligent young captain who took with him his personal slave, Estebanico, an Arab Moor from Azamor on the coast of Morocco. Estebán was a negro of great strength and endurance, a humble human being with a big capacity to give of himself to encourage and help others. He, I am sure, had the least but gave the most. When the survivors were stripped of their social class and monetary standard and reduced to nakedness - reduced to the day they were born they became equal. Estebán stayed, with not a blemish of resentment, only love for his fellow man. Estebán was one of the great ones, a man's man.

The fourth survivor was Capitán Alonso Castillo, a native of Salamanca, and the son of a doctor. He was a student type, an intellectual who had good knowledge from his books. He adapted well mentally and physically to all the hardships of the conquistadors well enough to come out alive.

Children of the Sun

I remember one evening during the winter of 1534, while we were with the Avavares Indians. Another Indian from the Susolas arrived, wanting us to cure a dying man who lived at some distance away. When we arrived we found a large crowd. The Indian appeared to be lifeless.

Everybody was weeping. I made the sign of the cross. I prayed. Very gently I blew my breath on him. I touched him. Then I prayed to the Lord to watch over all the Indians. When we were ready to leave I was given gifts of tuna-cactus fruitand a bow and arrows. Early next morning, a large crowd came to where we were. They were as excited as little children, happy and full of chatter, happy because the dead man had come alive. The news spread fast all over this part of the country. We were proclaimed children of the sun. Though we had suffered much in the hands of the Indians, I developed a great love and deep understanding of them.

ARNOLD FRIBERG from page 15

Crowded, but I think the interplay between the simple areas and the highly finished ones with good detail is important.

"The challenge is to put a lot of stuff in without letting the painting get junky. It means you organize it. All those little pieces take their places in the pattern. Yes, I like a picture filled. Perhaps it's partly the influence of the illustrators with whom I grew up. But it's not just illustrators who do it. Holbein worked that way, filled it all up, got his heads right against the top. I don't do it because Holbein did it, though. It's just my natural way."

On February 23, 1973, in a ceremony sponsored by the Los Angeles County Women's Chapter of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, Arnold Friberg unveiled a painting that in many ways symbolizes his lifelong goals as an artist and his abiding principles as a man. Titled "The Prayer at Valley Forge," it is a 4x8-foot oil done in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the United States of America.

This is truly a "filled out" painting, but in the finest sense. Eternity is in it, with a sense of benign and all-powerful divinity watching over the man, his horse, and all they represent. At once earthbound and heaven-reaching, humble and beatified, this moving work may well represent the artist's finest moment to date.

"Since I was a boy I have always revered George Washington," Friberg says, "and I did this painting as a tribute to him. He held the whole Revolution together. He laid no claim to military genius, but that great frame of his must have been strained to contain his spirit. I think of him as a man like Captain Moroni, 'whose whole soul did burn with liberty for his people.' And how well he knew the loneliness of command, loneliness such as can come only to a great leader, loneliness that drove a strong man to his knees there in the bitter snows of Valley Forge.

strained to contain his spirit. I think of him as a man like Captain Moroni, 'whose whole soul did burn with liberty for his people.' And how well he knew the loneliness of command, loneliness such as can come only to a great leader, loneliness that drove a strong man to his knees there in the bitter snows of Valley Forge.

"I went to Valley Forge last winter, in the snow, and I went out there in the cold and the loneliness. It was a cold that chilled to the bone, a cold that froze my fingers until I could no longer sketch, but above all the spirit of that noble plot of ground was burning, or freezing, its honored memory into my heart. Meticulous research went into the depiction of the manmade accoutrements in the painting, Friberg says. Washington's uniform, his sword, his horse's gear, all still preserved in museums, were studied and sketched in minute detail so that the finished work could be as accurate as possible."

"But no amount of historical material can add up to a painting," Friberg says. "It's the spirit that has to be there, and I hope and believe that in "The Prayer at Valley Forge" it is there. Granted, the light looks natural, but I think it has been somehow transmitted through the alchemy of paint into God's holy light, that it speaks of nature's own cathedral, the great lines, the looming, unseen force, communing not so much with the mind as with the deep recesses of the soul. I don't know myself how it happened. I know only that if it doesn't happen, you won't have a work of art."