The Tupinambá Indians were one of the most celebrated peoples encountered by Europeans in the sixteenth century. Inhabiting a stretch of coastal Brazil that included present-day Rio de Janeiro, they were feared warriors, feisty conversationalists, and masters of colorful ceremony. And they slaughtered and devoured their enemies, a feature of their culture that chilled and fascinated Europeans in their time and continues to provoke controversy in our own. Eve Duffy and Alida Metcalf's book provides a fresh biographical interpretation of one of the chief sixteenth-century witnesses to Tupinambá society, the Hessian soldier Hans Staden.

Staden's sensational account of the Tupinambás' cannibalism has set the agenda for much of the recent scholarly discussion of his book. He himself trumpeted the news in his title: Wahrhaftige Historia und Beschreibung eyner Landschafft der wilden nacketen grimmigen Menschenfresser Leuthen in der Newenwelt America gelegen (1557). Despite the sensationalism of his story, a consensus has formed, as Duffy and Metcalf point out, around the high level of skill and accuracy of his ethnography of the Tupinambás. With this starting point in place, they interpret him as a “go-between,” a cultural type with challenges and tactics for survival that emerge over the course of their study.

Staden's story begins in early sixteenth-century Hesse, and Duffy and Metcalf bring to life his exposure to global expansion and early plunge into the conflicts of the Reformation. He first traveled to Portugal, hoping to board a ship to India. Instead he ended up taking two expeditions, the first Portuguese and the second Spanish, to Brazil. The first was a well-executed trip that took him to the New World and back in 1547–48. The second was a misadventure that eventually landed him in a Brazilian frontier fort where he was kidnapped by Tupinambá warriors in 1553. He lived among them in constant fear of being killed, until at last in 1555 he was picked up by a French ship and made his way back to Hesse.

Duffy and Metcalf break down the role of cultural intermediaries such as Staden into three categories: physical movement between countries and cultures; communication through their mastery of language on both sides; and representation of different cultures, in Staden's case through writing. More interesting than any of these, however, is a subtle feature of Staden as go-between that gradually becomes visible over the course of their biography: the remaking of his persona to fit his circumstances. Among the Tupinambás he first staked out a clumsy claim to be French (and hence one of their allies, versus their Portuguese enemies). With growing success he later took a native wife, fought alongside them in their wars, and announced prophecies that played on their anxieties and vanity. After returning to Hesse he turned back into a dutiful subject, collaborating with Philipp's leading humanist-administrator, Johannes Dryander, to produce a Christian captivity narrative in which he endured a martyr's torments before being rescued by a merciful God. Staden as go-between underwent a series of psychological transformations, feigned or real, turning into a part of Tupinambá society before the “return” to his native identity. The story is sometimes clumsily told. There is too much speculation about what Staden might have thought or done when the bare facts are compelling. But the story is also vividly told, and the authors have an important point to make about the lability of personal identity for those who travel between cultures.

The book makes a twofold contribution to German history. Within its brief compass it demonstrates the imprint of a decisive ruler such as Philipp on the intellectual life of his principality as his administrator Dryander helped to shape what might have been just an adventure story into a Protestant captivity narrative. It also offers an early example of the German traveler as agent of non-German empires, a role that Germans would continue to play for centuries to come. By tracing Staden's career as go-between and working in-depth on both the European and the American side of his adventures, the authors have deepened our understanding of German history in transatlantic perspective.