Seen through the lens of the Wagnerbuch, it seems plausible that the author of the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, having concentrated on the psychological problem of the Lutheran’s anxiety about God’s grace, was able to forego without further ado an expansion of the geographical view of the world so as to include the new continent west of the Atlantic.
His successor was more interested in the exotic, even cannibalistic world than in the landscape of a troubled believer’s soul and was consequently able to accomplish such an expansion regardless of the inherent topic of apostacy and without any concern for the raised eyebrows of theologians uneasy with curiositas. What is more, he accurately calculated what would appeal to his readers. At the same time, the exact opposite could be conceivable: that the Faustbuch author might have found all manner of thematically useful material in the reports about heathen, devil-dominated America, given his theological interests focused on the devil as seducer to unbelief. Such first-hand reports, brimful of adventures, were abundant in the second half of the century, and a creative man of letters would have found them more appealing than encyclopedic reference works (cosmographies, for example), matter-of-fact summaries of success stories (such as Columbus’s), or the brief coverage found in broadsheets.
At this point, it is helpful to look at the German-language descriptions of the cannibalistic New World already mentioned in passing. They began to appear from 1550 onwards from the pens of Protestant authors. Some enjoyed considerable success. More than likely, they would have been accessible to the chapbook author, given his wide-ranging engagement with the contemporary printed sources. It is really only a question of four such works, all told. In the literary life of the time, they set themselves apart as a clearly visible, discrete group.
They are the only German-language eyewitness reports about America to appear in the entire century.32 That distinction alone would have drawn attention to them, not least in the context of the “empirical turn”
32 Die neuen Welten, 76, 92. Concerning the Protestantism of the authors, see Hans Staden, Warhaftige Historia (n. 6), XXIII.
in the contemporary “Faustian” quest for knowledge. For the authors attached special importance to the authentic experiential content of their works and made that known in their titles, forewords, dedications, or conclusions (cp. note 72). Moreover, they addressed themselves in particular to the world with which the German reader was conversant.
The works in question are:
1. Philipp von Hutten’s 1540 letter from Venezuela, in Ferdinandi Cortesii von dem Newen Hispanien so im Meer gegem [sic]
Nidergang […] (Ferdinand Cortes’s of the New Spain in the Sea Towards Sundown), Augsburg: Philipp Ulhart, 1550, fol.
LIr-LVIIv.33
2. Nicolaus Federmann, Indianische Historia. Ein schöne kurtzweilige Historia Niclaus Federmanns des Jüngeren von Vlm erster raise so er von Hispania vnd Andolosia auß in Indias des Occeanischen Mörs gethan hat / vnd was ihm allda ist begegnet biß auff sein widerkunfft inn Hispaniam / auffs kurtzest beschriben / gantz lustig zu lesen (Indian History. A Lovely Entertaining History of Niclaus Federmann’s, the Younger of Ulm, First Journey which He Made from Spain and Andalusia to the India of the Ocean Sea, and What He Encountered There Until his Return to Spain;
Described Most Concisely, Most Amusing to Read), Hagenau:
Sigmund Bund, 1557.34
3. Hans Staden, Warhaftige Historia vnd beschreibung eyner Landtschafft der Wilden / Nacketen / Grimmigen Menschfresser Leuthen / in der Newenwelt America gelegen / vor und nach Christi geburt im Land zu Hessen vnbekant / bisz vff dise ij nechstvergangene jar / Da sie Hans Staden von Homberg auß Hessen durch sein eygne erfarung erkant […] (The True History and Description of a Territory of Savage, Naked, Fierce, and Cannibalistic People Situated in the New World America, Before and After the Birth of Christ Unknown in the Land of Hessia until the Past Two Years when Hans Staden of Homberg in Hessia Came to
33 Quotations are from the reprint in Das Gold der Neuen Welt (n. 7), 51–80.
34 Quoted from the reprint in N. Federmanns und H. Stades [sic] Reisen in Südamerika, ed.
Karl Klüpfel (Stuttgart, 1859).
Know Them Through his Own Experience), Marburg: Kolbe, 1557.35
4. Ulrich Schmidel, Wahrhafftige und liebliche Beschreibung etlicher fürnemen Indianischen Landtschaften und Insulen die vormals in keiner Chroniken gedacht und erstlich in der Schiffart Ulrici Schmidts [sic] von Straubingen mit grosser gefahr erkundigt und von ihm selber auffs fleissigt beschrieben und dargethan (The True and Lovely Description of Various Grand Indian Territories and Islands, Never Before Imagined in Any Chronicle and First Explored at Great Danger on the Voyage of Ulrich Schmidt [sic] of Straubingen Who Himself Most Assiduously Described and Presented It), in Sebastian Franck, Ander theil dieses Weltbuchs von Schiffarten (Part Two of this Worldbook of Navigation), Frankfurt: Martin Lechter für Sigmund Feyerabend und Simon Hüter, 1567.36
The authors of these four texts about the infamous lands of cannibals have this much in common: they allowed themselves to be lured by the fabled gold and silver riches of South America, even though they, no less steadfast Protestants than the author of the Faustbuch, should not have let themselves be blinded by the treasures of the world. But apart from that similarity, their stories reveal very different pictures of their personalities. Federmann and his successor Hutten were unshakeable in their belief in their Christian, European superiority over the Indians.
They held leading positions in the administration of a colony in present-day Venezuela that Emperor Charles V had signed over to the Welsers, an Augsburg business family, as a fief to colonize, develop economically, and exploit. In this capacity, they undertook military expeditions of conquest into the interior of the country in 1530–1531 and 1535–1538. Staden and Schmidel were comparatively uneducated
35 Numerous reprints. Facsimile and version in contemporary German in: Hans Staden, Warhaftige Historia (n. 6).
36 Numerous reprints. Edition used: Warhafftige Historien. Einer Wunderbaren Schiffart / welche Vlrich Schmidel von Straubing / von Anno 1534. biß Anno 1554, in Americam oder Neuwewelt / bey Brasilia vnd Rio della Plata gethan (Nürnberg: Levinus Hulsius, 1602; rpt. of the 1599 edition). Facsimile in: Ulrich Schmidel, Wahrhafftige Historien einer wunderbaren Schiffart, ed. Hans Plischke (Graz 1962). Quotations are from this edition.
mercenary soldiers who signed on in 1548 (again in 1550–1554) and 1536–1553 respectively for Portuguese and Spanish colonial expeditions to Brazil (Staden) and the La Plata region of Buenos Aires, upriver to Asunción, and into the Gran Chaco of present-day Paraguay (Schmidel).
The reports of these four Germans concerning their experiences vary.
Federmann’s is delivered in a factual, documentary style with relatively few personal reactions and impressions; it is a translation of an official report of the expedition written by a Spanish notary that Federmann only slightly expanded. Hutten’s letter from Venezuela (the only letter of his printed in the sixteenth century) is personal and diary-like. Staden’s narrative is vivid and lively, followed by a second part consisting of a descriptive appraisal and ethnological study that presents his insights into the culture of the cannibals who had held him captive for nine and a half months. (He had been a rifleman who had risen to be commander of a small fort.) Schmidel’s recollections chronicle almost two decades in Spanish service, which involved him in countless military engagements against the indigenous peoples in the La Plata region and the Gran Chaco.