This electronic edition scanned and edited by http://www.jrbooksonline.com

THE BROADWAY TRAVELLERS

EDITED BY SIR E. DENISON ROSS

AND EILEEN POWER

H A N S S T A D E N

THE TRUE HISTORY

OF HIS CAPTIVITY

1557

Translated and edited by Malcolm Letts

with an introduction and Notes

Published by

GEORGE ROUTEDGE & SONS, LTD.

BROADWAY HOUSE, CARTER LANE, LONDON

First published in the Broadway Travellers, 1928

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

BILLING AND SONS LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER

PREFACE

HANS STADEN'S book is not altogether unknown to English readers, for it was translated and issued by the Hakluyt Society to its members in 1874, with an Introduction and notes by Sir Richard Burton. It has long seemed to me that Hans Staden deserves a wider public, and I have therefore made a new translation and have incorporated the quaint and interesting woodcuts which were printed in the first edition, and which must have carried wonder and terror into many a German home in the 16th century. Sir Richard Burton was British Consul at Santos for some years, and knew the country of Hans Staden's captivity very intimately, and by the courtesy of the Council of the Hakluyt Society I have been enabled, as occasion arose, to make use of certain of his notes. In every case where I have done so I have added the initials R.B.

The first translator, Mr. A. Tootal, worked from the Frankfurt edition of 1557, which was a reprint without the original woodcuts. The true first edition was issued at Marburg on Shrove Tuesday, 1557, by Andres Kolben at the sign of the Clover Leaf, and this is the edition from which my translation has been made. Apart from the woodcuts the differences are not many, but a point has been cleared up here and there, and a whole paragraph has been restored in Chapter XXXIII of Part II.

I desire to express my thanks to the Council of the Hakluyt Society for the permission indicated above; to the Royal Geographical Society, and particularly to its Librarian, Mr. Ed. Heawood, for advice and assistance; to Professor R. Häpke of Marburg University for information concerning Dr. Dryander, the learned Marburg professor who first introduced Hans Staden to the world; to the publishers for the willingness with which they acceded to my request for the reproduction of all the woodcuts; and to my wife for much help in checking and proof-reading.

Staden's spelling of proper names is most erratic. I have not attempted to correct him except in the case of well-known places such as Dieppe, Lisbon, Antwerp, etc. It seemed useless to print Depen, Lissebona, Antdorff, or Lunden, but where necessary I have added the modern names in brackets after Staden's rendering, or in the notes. I have no knowledge of the Tupi language and have left the Tupi words as Staden printed them, but here again there is no consistency. Kawi, a drink, has three different spellings, and the Tupinambá are sometimes called Tuppin Imba and sometimes Tuppin Inba.

The first edition of the book is very scarce. I have worked on a beautiful copy in the Grenville Library at the British Museum.

MALCOLM LETTS.

Easter, 1928. This electronic edition scanned and edited by http://www.jrbooksonline.com