CORONADO

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, “La Relación… ,” trans. Fanny Bandelier, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca Famy and his Companions from Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536,” (New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1905):

Recently washed ashore with a few fellow survivors, De Vaca appraises his new circumstances and hosts:

They are a very merry people, and even when famished do not cease to dance and celebrate their feasts and ceremonials. Their best times are when [the prickly pears that they call] "tunas" are ripe, because then they have plenty to eat and spend the time in dancing and eating day and night. As long as these tunas last they squeeze and open them and set them to dry. When dried they are put in baskets like figs and kept to be eaten on the way. The peelings they grind and pulverize.

The juice is sweet and has the color of must. There are many kinds of tunas, and some very good ones, although to me all tasted well alike, hunger never leaving me time to select, or stop to think which ones were better.

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