Tlee Narvaez Expedition, 1526-1536
77
which have been identified as of volcanic origin. That night they arrived at a beautiful river on whose banks were many houses. The Indians came out to meet them, bringing presents of powdered galena, which they used to paint their faces, and little bags of margarite. They also gave the newcomers beads and blankets of cowhides, evidently buffalo robes. It was here that they noted for the first time nut pines (pifiones) and were given some to eat. "In that country," says the narrative, "are found small pine trees, the cones like little eggs, but the seed is better than that of Castile, as its husk is very thin, and while green is beaten and made into balls, to be thus eaten." Here, too, Cabeza de Vaca performed the first surgical operation recorded in the history of medicine within the present limits of the United States. "They fetched a man to me," says Cabeza de Vaca, "and stated that a long time since he had been wounded by an arrow in the right shoulder, and that the point of the shaft was lodged over his heart, which, he said, gave him much pain, and in consequence he was always sick. Probing the wound I felt the arrowhead, and found it had passed through the cartilage. With a knife I carried, I opened the breast to the place, and saw the point was slant and troublesome to take out. I con- tinued to cut, and putting in the point of the knife, at last with great difficulty I drew the head forth. It was very large. With the bone of a deer, and by virtue of my calling, I made two stitches ... and with hair from a skin I staunched the flow [of blood]. They asked me for the arrowhead after I had taken it out, which I gave, when the whole town came to look at it." Thus without the use of anaesthetic and with no antiseptic precautions was the first operation performed. It was successful. The patient suffered no ill effects of shock and the wound healed so well that Cabeza de Vaca declares, with some pride, that it "appeared only like a seam in the palm of the hand." 89 The Spaniards showed these Indians the copper bell and were told that in the place from where it had come there were buried in the ground many plates of the same material. The Christians concluded this must be in the country of the South Sea (New Spain), because the natives also assu,red them there were fixed habitations there. The reference is doubtless to some of the pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. Setting out again they went along a much more thickly settled region, where many followers joined them from village to village. They passed
89 Hodge, 96-97.
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