把狗放出來

“Vasco discovered that the village of Quarequa was stained by the foulest vice. The king’s brother and a number of other courtiers were dressed as women, and according to the accounts of the neighbours shared the same passion. Vasco ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs. The Spaniards commonly used their dogs in fighting against these naked people, and the dogs threw themselves upon them as though they were wild boars on timid deer.” [Peter Martyr de Anghiera, De Orbe Novo. The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D’Anghera (translated by Francis Augustus MacNutt, New York & London: The Knickerbocket Press, Volume I, 1912), pp. 285.]

偶然尋到這一張圖片，令我很有興趣知道背後的故事。十六世紀西班牙人入侵南美洲，探險家巴爾沃亞(Vasco Nuñez de Balboa)在巴拿馬登陸，立即叫獵犬咬破四十個土著的咽喉，理由是他們將男作女，干犯了雞姦罪(Sodomy)。今天我們雖然是文明多了，可是骨子裡想跟巴爾沃亞一樣放出獵犬的卻仍大有人在。

忘了說，巴爾沃亞最後成為第一個發現太平洋的歐洲人，留名青史。