"Por Andarmos Todos Casy Mesturados": The Politics of Intermingling in Caminha's Carta and Colonial American Anthologies
According to the chronicler of Pedro Álvares Cabral’s arrival on the coast of what is now Brazil in April of 1500, less than a week after their first contact with the Portuguese crew, the natives ‘‘poucos a poucos mesturaranse cõ nosco, e abracauãnos e folgauam’’ (96) [‘‘little by little mingled with us. And they embraced us and had a good time’’] (24). The scribe later portrays the Portuguese as equally engaged in the ‘‘mingling,’’ while also suggesting that their motivation extends beyond ‘‘having a good time’’: ‘‘este dia os uimos de mais perto e mais aanosa vontade por andarmos todos casy mesturados’’ (96, my emphasis) [‘‘On that day we saw them closer and more as we wished, for all of us were almost intermingled’’] (24).1 Such scenes of peaceful intermingling and ‘‘merrymaking’’ (96; 24) between Europeans and Amerindians have earned Pero Vaz deCaminha’s letter toKingManuel a foundational position in the Brazilian literary canon and contributed to notions of the distinctive benevolence of Portuguese colonization. Historians and literary critics alike have interpreted the letter as not only the nation’s ‘‘birth certificate’’ but one that attests to a painless delivery.2 The Carta [Letter] may also earn a place in the early ‘‘American’’ canon, if the trend toward more expansive and inclusive anthologies of colonial American literatures prevails. Susan Castillo and Ivy Schweitzer’s The Literatures of Colonial America (2001) includes an extract of Caminha’s letter, along with selections from both North and South America that are translated from Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and various Native American languages. The preface to Carla Mulford’s Early AmericanWritings (2002) claims a similar comprehensiveness, stating that ‘‘texts included represent the cultures of Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch, Swedish, German, and English speakers’’ (xviii), although no Portuguese-language texts are in
Team Comp
The Tucson Summit was deeply inspiring and more than a little intimidating formanyof us. Peoplemade humble jokes about ‘‘baby steps.’’ Comparative work is hard to do, no matter the direction it takes. New languages are difficult and time-consuming to learn and new archives take time to explore, and the first summit made many of us worry about how much time it will take to get up to speed in new areas even as it excited us with all the possibilities of a more expansively comparative American studies. But maybe we do not each individually need to master all this to keep developing the momentum from the first encounter. At the next summit, I would like to see us try some experimenting with research teams in place of traditionally conceived panels. What I envision is a group of inspired and energetic conference organizers who see themselves as team coordinators. It would be necessary for these people to command a joint expertise that spans the Americas.They would use their expertise and their networks to coordinate teams of scholars whose single areas of expertise match up provocatively with those of the other members of the panel teams (there might have to be an initial round of volunteering combined with a bit of creative recruiting). There could be teams grouped around topics, for instance: women’s studies, postcolonial studies, poetry, religion and identity, hybridity, autobiography, diaspora, nation-state, manhood studies, scientific discourse, race, novelistic discourse, circumatlantic, intimacy, colonial discourse, religious discourses, and so on. Once appointed, the team’s jobwould be to figure out how tomake their materials and approaches work comparatively and deliver a focused presentation on that subject at the next conference. There are any number of ways that this might develop in the doing. I am imagining teams of three to four, though perhaps it would be more effective in groups of two or three. What I would propose is that each person send the group the piece of their own scholarship they would want to start working from, and after
Prevalence of lice on dairy cattle in England and the bordering counties of Wales
A postal questionnaire was used to collect information on the prevalence of lice on cattle on a random sample of dairy farms in England and the bordering counties of Wales. Replies were received from 1040 (52.8 per cent) of the 1970 farms which were mailed. Fifty per cent of farmers reported having ever seen or suspected lice in their herds and 29 per cent reported possible infestations in the winter of 1996/97. Visits were made to 24 farms in the south west of England during February 1998. Twelve of the farmers said that they had seen or suspected lice in their herd since October 1997, and that lice were more frequently observed on the adult cattle. However, examination revealed lice on 18 of the 24 farms, and adult cattle were the least likely group to be infested.