After being devoured by the cannibal indigenous, Mercenary published a book that at the time became a bestseller: it was the first time that a relationship on the Portuguese colonial territory reached the general public. the European people. So a book was published in which the author protagonist not only tells only about fauna, flora and geography of these unknown lands, but also describes the day by day, the customs and traditions of the cannibals, who reported that they were prisoners for Nine months.
It is not surprising that the German mercenary adventurer Hans Staden (1525-1576) has become so important. “His book has become the only source of information on this part of the world”, says the translator and publisher of Vanete Santana-Decademann, a collaborative researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of San Paolo.
This is because, although the employee, however, Vaz de Caminha (1450-1500) recorded the first Portuguese impressions in the Brazilian territory today, his writings have been limited for a long time, without being published to the public general. This, by the way, makes the work of the German adventurer even more original. As pointed out by the German Brazilian Franz Obemeier, in an academic article published in 2011, “Staden’s access to manuscripts on Brazil is unlikely”.
The true story of the devourers of wild, naked and ferocious men found in the new world, America – also known as two trips to Brazil – was published in 1557 in the old version of the Frankfurt book fair and soon attracted the attention of the market European editorial incipient.
These “wild, naked and fierce anthropophagous were the tupinambás, also called Tamoios, an indigenous group that was completely exterminated by colonizers.
Like Caminha’s letter, Staden’s story brings the “brand of an inaugural relationship and first for the opening of a world of new and so far unimaginable possibilities”, defines the historian Miriam Elvira Junghans, a cross from Oswaldo Cruz Cross’s cross of Oswaldo.
“The readings currently made [da obra] They try to understand it from the context in which it was produced: he was a sixteenth -century man, involved in the expansion company of the geographical horizons and knowledge of the world in which the West was committed [na época]”Contextualizes the researcher.”
This is the reason why, he explains, the narrative of the “rituals of cannibalism practiced by the tupinambás […] Rissed intensely in the European world.
“[O livro] It has become a bestseller. In the first year he had a second edition, observing that the impression of large-scale books was still new “, says the historic Daniela Rothfuss, a cultural coordinator of the Martius-Staden Institute.” In Europe of the 16th century.
According to Rothfuss, between 1625 and 1736, the adventurer account was published 16 times, “with translations in various European languages”. In Portuguese, the first translation was published only in the nineteenth century.
“This report was interesting not only for the leaders of European nations that had a commercial and economic interest in this part of the world, but also for anyone curious about this unknown place,” says Santana-Decdemann.
The saga of the adventurer
Born 500 years ago in Homberg, today Germany – the exact date is unknown; Only the year is known -Staden was in the Portuguese America twice between 1548 and 1555. In the first, he fought with Portuguese against the natives in the north -est and then against the French aboard a ship.
During the other journey, the plan was to reach the river plate, but two subsequent wrecks changed the destination. The first Staden and the group remained for two years on the current coast of Santa Catarina. From there, he embarked in San Vicente – a new wreck occurred in the Itanhaém region.
Finally, Staden was hired by the Portuguese colonists to act as a leader in the fort of St. Filipe da Bertoga. “He operated the cannon,” says the researcher Santana-Decademann. It was because of this defense work that the adventurer was captured and imprisoned by the indigenous tupinambás, who intended to devour him into an anthropophagic ritual.
For nine months he was a prisoner of natives, who prepared him for the cannibal act. After several attempts without success for more than nine months, he managed to escape: he was saved by a French pirate ship.
“In addition to Hans Staden, nobody has ever collected so accurate information on the habits of a cannibal tribe,” says Santana-Decademann.
In the interpretation of the researcher, Staden was able to escape only because during the period in which he was arrested, he showed that he did not have the characteristics desired by Tupinambás – who believed that anthropophagy was a way to absorb the qualities of the enemy . He shouted when he prayed to ask God for help and in several episodes he gave demonstrations of cowardice, fear and moral weaknesses such as the exercise of lies. “Tupinambás has simply lost interest in the meat and characteristics of Staden”, summarizes.
His unique experiences from the European point of view of the time ended up giving rise to the impressive report. Who, according to Professor Augusto Rodrigues, archivist and researcher of the Martius-Staden Institute, has become “an important reference of the time” because he has “anthropological, sociological, linguistic, cultural and biological information on the natives of the Brazil coast, as well as the data Geographicals of the Region, and were the pioneering relationships, so to speak.
It is interesting to note that Staden’s initial idea was not to come to colonial Brazil. “It was completely by chance. He wanted the adventure, but he was thinking of the Eastern Indies, enchanted by the stories of that millennial civilization,” says Santana-Decademann. But when he learned that that year all the shipments for this place had already gone, in the end he embarked on the first opportunity that seemed quite interesting to him.
Importance and inheritance
“Staden’s story is not seen in terms of true or false, but of meanings. Of the meanings of what he described to the world in which he lived and in the world in which we live now”, Gunghi puts around.
The charm aroused by Staden’s book ended up creating an idea of Brazil in the imagination. What needs if understood with many warnings is true. First of all because Brazil did not even exist as a nation, Staden was in the Portuguese colony located in America, an embryo of Brazil. In addition, their experiences have been located, not understanding the diversity of indigenous populations living in the territory. Finally, it was a perspective that took place exclusively from the point of view of a European white man.
In Rothfuss’s evaluation, the work became popular with “a new world and unknown to them [europeus]So exotic and primitive, therefore fascinating. Catholic Christian.
“They are descriptions of first -hand life, the beliefs and customs of the natives of the time, made by a European Eurocentrist. This, among other things, arouses a critical analysis of the European civil and indigenous wild civil talk, comments Rodrigues Comments.
The inheritance is present to date, which justifies Staden to be remembered five centuries after its birth. In addition to numerous academic studies, the work has been adapted to children and young people by the writer Monteiro Lobato (1882-1948). Junghans also stresses that this narrative echoed to movements such as modernism and tropicalism.
“The book bears Brazil in the name, although Brazil as a nation did not yet exist. But it was hit, all over the world, that what Hans Staden has narrated refers to Brazil’s habits,” says Santana-Decademann. “Historically, it has become a reference of Brazilian habits.”
In his doctorate, defended in 2007 at the State University of Campinas, the researcher studied this imagination.
For her, the book ended up contributing to the construction “Brazilian national identity” from the point of view of Europe. “To date we are seen as pure wild […]. It is not a desirable definition for said civil society, because we are cannibal, although only metaphorically only. The Brazilian is still seen in Europe as this carnival thing, full of colored feathers in the head […]Since this half of the child who does not have much notion of things, who does not have many instructions.
Source: Terra
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