The Journal of California Anthropology

It seems clear from these observations that persons dealing with old book engravings may be on shaky ground if they attempt to interpret specific historical episodes from loosely documented illustrations, parts of which may be products of sheer imagination rather than first-hand observations. There is often no way of telling whether such illustrations were conceived as supplementary descriptive devices or merely as decorative suggestions of exotic places.

The well-reported custom of "crowning" the Europeans exemplified here may have further overtones in suggesting that the simple natives were thus symbolically giving away their lands to the god-like invaders. Counter to this is the possibility that they were merely being shrewd, knowing that they would soon be overcome by the explosives-bearing foreigners if they did not offer some kind of obeisance. The first of these alternatives would be most attractive to the competitive European backers of the various overseas expeditions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and perhaps to their descendants as well.