Elcano and the First Circumnavigation of the World Book 2
Copyright© 2026 by Mark West
Chapter 8
We continued sailing south and when we passed the equator we could no longer see the north star. Continuing south-south-west, we reached a land called Tierra del Verzino, also known as Brazil at 23 degrees 30 minutes south latitude. We landed at the place called Cape San Augustine on 13th December more than 2 months from when we left Tenerife. Our pilot, Juan Carvalho, had lived in this land for four years when he served as a pilot in the service of Portugal. The Portuguese called this land Rio de Janeiro because they had discovered it in the month of January, but it was actually a bay without a river. They visited the area once a year in search of the wood from there that is greatly prized in Europe and they had established a trading post on one of the islands in the bay. That is where Carvalho had elected to remain after the trading fleet returned to Portugal. During his time there, he had married a local woman and fathered a son by her before returning to Portugal on a fleet about three years previously. He was a loquacious story teller and inflamed the imagination of the crew with his tales of the lascivious lifestyle of the local women. Carvalho assured Magellan that it would be safe to restock our supplies at that place because the Portuguese fleet would have left. However, when we finally sighted land, it was far to the north of the area that Carvalho knew. So, Magellan made the decision to sail south without landing until we could reach his goal. The main problem with this decision was that it took two weeks of sailing against the wind to arrive and during that time we were within sight of the land. This made the sailors feel that Magellan had no respect for their condition as they were reduced to eating hard tack and drinking the weak wine that they received each day. They wanted to land and search for fresh water and hunt for food, but Magellan ignored their pleas.
Finally, we arrived at that port on Saint Lucia’s day, and while we remained there, we experienced weather hotter than when we had crossed the equator. As we approached the shore, we saw hundreds of men, women and children assembled on the beach. The men launched their boats and paddled furiously towards our ships. Not to be outdone, many women threw themselves into the sea and swam swiftly to where we had anchored. Then, they clambered like spiders up the sides of our ships finding any hand or toe hold on the rough planks of the sides. Carvalho suddenly cried out because he had seen the wife he had abandoned three years previously in the mass of bodies in the water. He threw down a rope ladder to assist her to climb on board and she greeted him fondly by throwing her arms around his neck.
The Brazilians are olive-skinned more than black. They go naked, as Carvalho had told us, not even covering their genitals, but they cover their buttocks below the waist with parrot feathers which seemed to us to be extremely ridiculous, although this only applies to the men, as the women and children are completely naked. The hair on their head is short and flat, but the men do not have a beard, nor any bodily hair because they pull out any hairs that grow. The men and women paint their bodies and faces in different colours and with many designs. Most of the men have 3 holes pierced in their lower lip from where they hang small cylindrical stones about a finger length in size. However, the women and children do not use this uncomfortable adornment. They do not have a king or any idea of owning land. That is why when they fight it is not to conquer the territory of their neighbours but for valour and to demonstrate courage.
The country of Brazil produces all kinds of fruit and it is so big that Spain, France and Italy would easily fit into it. It belongs to the King of Portugal. Its natives are not Christians, and do not have any religion. They are naked and they live in harmony with nature. They say that they live for many years, with some reaching 125 years and even 140 years. They live in very large houses which they call boi. They sleep in cotton nets which they call amache with each end suspended from a thick beam. In each house, there are usually about 100 men with their wives and children, so the houses are always noisy.
They make their boats called canoes by hollowing out a tree trunk with sharp stones which they use as we do iron as they have no knowledge of iron. Some canoes are large enough to hold 30 or 40 men. They paddle with short wide paddles such as bakers use for removing bread from ovens. When I saw them with such dark skin, naked and with shaved heads it seemed as if I was seeing the boatmen from the river Styx.
Both men and women are as well proportioned as us. They eat the human flesh of their enemies, but not always and not because they think it is better than other meat. This custom began as follows: an old woman had only one son who died in a fight with the enemies of his tribe. The war continued and after a few days the man who had killed her son was captured and brought before the old woman. When she saw him, she was mad with rage and, falling on him like a rabid dog, bit him. Later the prisoner was able to escape and returned to his own people. He told them that their enemies had wanted to eat him while alive, and as proof, he showed them the bite marks on his back. Since that time, both tribes of that region began to really eat the enemies that they captured.
The enemy who is captured isn’t eaten immediately. Instead, they cut him in pieces and give them to those who had taken part in the fight. They take the body parts home and smoke them. Every 8 days they cut off a small part, cook it, and mix it with their other food in memory of the victory they have obtained. Our pilot, Juan Carvalho, who had lived in this land for 4 years, told me about this custom.
With these people we found a good supply of chickens, battate, a fruit called pigne that looked like a large pine cone growing from the ground and not from a tree, and which was very sweet and tasty, sugar cane, and also meat from an animal called tapir which looks like a cow, and many other things too numerous to mention. The natives make round white bread from a substance that they obtain from under the bark of a special tree, and which looks like cottage cheese, but we did not like the taste.
We bought all these from the people who lived there at bargain prices. For a fish hook or a knife, they gave us 6 chickens; for a comb, 2 ducks; for a small mirror or a pair of scissors, more fish than 10 men could eat; for a small bell, a basketful of battate, which are a very large root vegetable that look like turnips and taste like chestnuts. I exchanged a playing card showing a king of diamonds for 6 chickens, and judging from their satisfied looks, they seemed to think that they had the best of the bargain.
There are so many parrots that a small mirror can buy 8 or 10. There are also some very beautiful cats that are yellow like little lions. There are a great number of pigs including some that have their navels on their backs, and among the birds there are some very large ones that have beaks in the shape of a spoon, but which do not have tongues.
Sometimes, to obtain a hatchet or a knife, they promised us one or two of their daughters as slaves because they do not value virginity, but they will not offer their wives for anything in the world, and the wives are completely faithful to their husbands. According to what we were told, the wives are so chaste that they refuse to have sex with their husbands during the day. The women are responsible for the hardest work. They go to the mountain to pick the fruits that they eat and bring them back home in baskets that they carry on their heads. If they have children, they carry them in cotton nets slung from their necks. Their husbands are so jealous that they always go with them armed with a bow made from Brazil wood or black palm and arrows made from cane. I leave out other details of the lives of these natives for fear of being boring.
They are very trusting and good-natured, and it would be easy to convert them to Christianity. When they saw the small boats from our ships, they believed that the ships had given birth to them and that the ships nourished them when they were floating at their sides. By chance, they worshipped and respected us. Before we arrived at the port, they had been suffering from a drought as it had not rained for two months. However, our arrival coincided with a change in the weather, so that they believed we had descended from the sky to bring them the rain that they needed. In the ten days that we stayed with them, we celebrated Mass twice on the land, and they attended with great respect in silence. Believing that we were going to remain with them longer, they began to build a house for us, but when they saw that we were preparing to leave, they cut huge quantities of Brazil wood to give us.
The captain and I were witnesses to a very strange occurrence one day. The young women often came on board to sell themselves for sex with the sailors in exchange for some small present. One day, one of the most beautiful came on board, no doubt for the same reason. However, having seen a nail about as big as a finger, and thinking that nobody had seen her, she picked it up, and rapidly used it to pierce the lips of her vagina, and bending low, she quickly departed. Was she trying to hide it? Was she trying to use it as an ornament? That was what we were not able to decide.
I was curious to discover what that young girl had done with the nail, so I arranged to go ashore in the longboat that we used to ferry men and goods to and from the shore. When I landed, I enquired from some children where I could find her because I had already learned some simple words of their language.
Some words of those people of Verzino: millet: maiz flour: hui fishhook: pinda knife: tasce comb: chigap scissors: pirame bell: itanmaraca good, better: tum maragathum
The children directed me to one of their boi but when I entered, I saw many sailors with women lying in amaches and engaged in congress. Among them, I saw Cartagena, Mendoza and Coca shamelessly naked and rutting like animals in full view of everyone. Not wishing to give the impression that I had come to that house for the same reason, I hurriedly left and went back to the ship without discovering what the young girl had done with that nail. I later found that my decision was wise because that night Magellan ordered his master-at-arms, Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa, to go with some men and bring back any officer that they found in the houses. When Espinosa returned to the Trinidad he had with him Cartagena and Coca. Obviously Mendoza had returned to his ship alone some time earlier.
Both Cartagena and Coca were naked and Magellan ordered them to be tied up and to kneel before him in full view of all. Then he proceeded to ask in a very angry voice if they had no thought of their duties as well as the bad example they were giving to the common sailors. When he had finished his tirade, he ordered the two wretches to be kept tied up and naked on deck until the morning.