Abstract:
This is the story of a double haunting. On one hand, Spanish explorers and
conquerors (Conquistadores) were immersed into a totally new and
unknown territory when they achieved the task of going further north of
Mexico and, sometimes, what they found was terrifying; on the other hand,
their own actions contributed to the creation of an appreciation of
Europeans as quasi-demons.
The two selected texts are good accounts of this double haunting. Both
beginning in the Florida Peninsula and going deeper into the country,
Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios [Shipwrecks] and Garcilaso’s La Florida del
Inca, deal with supernatural events, magical practices, kidnapping and
torture and, specially, the astonishment of the Spaniards when they had to
confront and were haunted by the uncanny.
