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 self-indulgent life that Magellan—and duty—denied him.
While the sailors pursued their casual liaisons with the Indian women, 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—Magellan decided to follow the tradition of looking the other way.