INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9330527 Among the cannibals and Amazons: Early German travel literature on the New World Dunlap, Samuel Roy, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1992 Copyright ©1992 by Dunlap, Samuel Roy. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Among the Cannibals and Amazons: Early German Travel Literature on the New World b y Samuel Roy Dunlap B.A. (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) 1982 M.A. (University of California at Berkeley) 1984 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in German Literature in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA at BERKELEY Committee in charge: Professor Blake Lee Spahr, Chair Professor Frederic C. Tubach Professor William Nestrick 1 9 9 2 The dissertation of Samuel Roy Dunlap is approved: £ ' • / ' 9 - Chair ' . ( A i tL < ^ l i r C c / \ Date L- Date University of California at Berkeley 1 9 9 2 Among the Cannibals and Amazons: Early German Travel Literature on the New World Copyright © 1992 b y Samuel Roy Dunlap Among the Cannibals and Amazons: Early German Travel Literature on the New World by Samuei Roy Dunlap Abstract From the beginning, tales of travel and adventure have delighted, entertained, and even horrified their audience. With stories of great bravery and tenacity in the face of seemingly insurmountable hardship and danger, the story-teller or narrator described an exotic landscape vastly different from the monotony of the domestic hearth. This exotic landscape, always far away and at the edges of civilization, was the homeland of fantastic beasts, strange hybrid partly-human and partly-animal creatures, cannibals, and Amazons. These beings made their repeated appearance in works of art and literature, and their existence was taken for granted. In the wake of Christopher Columbus' first voyages of "discovery," the New World rapidly became the setting for European exploration and subsequent colonization. The Spanish and Portuguese established early claim to New World territories, and they were soon joined by representatives of other nationalities eager for a share in the perceived riches of the Americas. The least-known of these nationalities who claimed a piece of the New World are the Germans, the writings of whom form the subject of this investigation. The early German colony occupied much of present-day Venezuela, and its surviving literary remains consist of letters, a journal, and one work intended for publication. We will examine the works of these men, Titus Neukomm, Philipp von Hutten, and Nicolas Federmann, and particular emphasis will be given to how the New World lands and peoples are described. These descriptions will be compared with other contemporary sixteenth- and seventeenth- century travel narratives and we will discover recurring themes as well as the continual presence of the cannibal and Amazon figures. We will see that just as in the areas of art and iconography where visual motifs are freely exchanged, borrowed, and copied, literary motifs of the New World are similarly recycled, creating, in essence, variations on a theme. Just as the artistic and literary spheres share a common vocabulary of images and motifs, we will discover, too, that both art and literature serve to describe, depict, and define the self against the "other," the foreign, and the exotic. In Memoriam Jim Dunlap Brinkley, Arkansas, 8 May 1924 Las Vegas, Nevada, 24 March 1991 iv Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Germans in the New World 42 I. Titus Neukomm 52 II. Nicolas Federmann 54 III. Philipp von Hutten 63 Chapter 2: The Land and the People 81 I. The Land 83 II. The People 86 III. Federmann's Narrative 94 Chapter 3: Among the Cannibals and Amazons 117 I. Cannibals 11 7 II. Amazons 136 Concluding Remarks and Observations 154 Bibliography 167 The Munich Woodcut (1505) 187 Appendix 1 188 Appendix 2 192 v Acknowledgements So many people have provided support, encouragement, and assistance over the years that I cannot adequately thank them all. Thanks, first, to my family and friends. In Las Vegas: Sidney, Thomas, Jeannie, Louise, and Dr. Koester, my first German professor. In Palo Cedro: my favorite Aunt Leslie. And to all new-found friends in the Bay Area: Louis, Linda, Steve and Greg, Nick and Doris, Rebecca and Frank, Helen and Kate, Byron, Marty, Jim, Jane, and John. Finally, thanks—and best wishes—to Paul. Thanks to the German Department for providing its generous support during my tenure there. Special thanks to Viki, without whose unfailing and constant assistance with bureaucratic intricacies and red tape I could not have met this goal. To my committee, Blake Lee Spahr, Frederic Tubach, and William Nestrick, many thanks for your comments and criticism—it paid off. But most of all, thanks to my three "mentors," who over the years have taught me much of life, patience, discipline, and professionalism: my father Jim; Hart Wegner, who first introduced me to modern German literature and film; and Warren Travis, who provided much-needed emotional support when times were rough. Additional credit is due the rich resources and collections of the Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Its always helpful and knowledgeable staff, as well as the Inter-Library Borrowing service, are to be commended. 1 Introduction The literature of travel—whether the tales of Marco Polo or Columbus, the journals of Louis and Clark, or Muir, or the fictional travels of Ulysses or Alice—have delighted generations of readers. Stories of the Spanish conquistadores appeared in school textbooks, and students were able to trace their footsteps through the North American Southwest, the Mayan Yucatan, and the Peruvian highlands. These tales were filled with violent acts against native peoples of seemingly violent, bloodthirsty (sometimes cannibalistic) cultures. Somehow, though, details of cultural annihilation were subsumed into the overall picture of European colonization in general, and the philosophy of (North) American "Manifest Destiny" in particular. A fact that most histories of the period omit, however, is that the Germans were also involved in a campaign of New World colonization and exploration. Some thirty years after Columbus had laid the groundwork for subsequent Spanish and Portuguese advances into the Americas, the Germans began their ill-fated attempt at colonization on the north coast of Venezuela. It is against the general framework of exploration and discovery established by Columbus and continued by the Spanish and the Portuguese, that the German story, the subject of this investigation, takes place. While it is beyond the scope of the present project to provide an detailed introduction into the scope and variety of travel literature, a few general preliminary comments are in order. Primary sources of information for this phase of initial exploration and subsequent colonization consist of reports, journals, and letters of the men—participants, explorers, colonizers—themselves. These first-hand accounts form a part of the greater literature of travel which includes subjects as varied as writings about foreign lands and climes written specifically foi the readeT or potential traveler, polemical treatises on how to travel, written in the neo-classical tradition of the apodem ic.1 and the Grand Tour of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Medieval guidebooks to sites in the Biblical world served to satisfy the desire for personal spiritual growth. And the travel narratives—the incredible adventures of Marco Polo in the East and his travels to the Court of the Great Khan, the strange and bizarre (fictional) tales of Mandeville, and the outright lies of the fictional braggart rogue Baron von Miinchhausen—all served to "inform" the reading audience at home and to satisfy their curiosity. A major contribution to the field of travel literature is the anthology Travel Literature Through the Ages (1988). The goal of the work, as editor Percy Adams says, is "to inspire further reading of books that to the loss of thousands of educated people are too often neglected."2 The most recent edition of the anthology Harper American Literature (1987) includes an entire new first section entitled "The Literature of the New World: 1492-1620." The point is, as editor Donald McQuade explains, "to supplant the narrow, northeastern, Puritan bias" of existing anthologies and "to extend the conventional boundaries of the American literary tradition."3 The new section is both significant and important.