Rolena Adorno, who co-translated the still-reigning Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, writes this still-prescient article that upends accepted narratives on Cabeza de Vaca. She quotes him alongside Oviedo to effectively argue that contrary to popular and persistent retellings of his story, Cabeza de Vaca was not entirely the deus ex machina we have been led to believe. She charts his journey after his shipwreck, subsequent enslavement, and as a reluctant shaman as groups suffering from the devastation of Spanish-born illnesses made a conscious decision to solicit his help. Later, as a trader, he finds himself an outsider able to negotiate the price of goods on well-trodden paths in times of war and peace. The most significant part of his journey, as Adorno tells it, is when he uses the skills he has learned as both shaman and trader to negotiate his travels. She identifies three types of fear: his initial fear of torture, his ability to inspire fear in native groups, and his ability to convince native groups they have nothing to fear from the Europeans as he ends his journey.

Cabeza de Vaca was never just a small party traveling, but he brought a large contingent with him, and they hardly traveled “aimlessly.”

Essentially, with a group of natives, some of whom would travel ahead, they would send word that a man who had the power to heal (and kill) was coming to pay a visit. Groups were instructed to lay out gifts of food and drink and other valuables, and they were set upon by the visitors. Adorno offers a damning quote from Cabeza de Vaca’s own writing: "They receive us weeping and with great sadness because they knew that wherever we went, the people were sacked and robbed by those who accompanied us, and when they saw us alone, they lost their fear, and gave us some prickly pears and not another single thing." (178) That is to say, without his group to accompany him, he was fairly ineffectual at inspiring his hosts to give him such great “gifts.”