5 Strangest Accounts of First Contact in History

I will never stop finding it funny that the first missionary was so ugly the Japanese literally went ''Oh it's a goblin''

The Arabic account of the Vikings was my favorite. The writer spends the entire time describing how vile the Vikings live compared to the Arabs only for the irony that the Vikings believe the Arabs are vile due to how they treat their dead. It’s a really poetic account on the two culture’s flipped view of what’s important.

First contact stories always strike me as records from a more magical and mysterious age, where one could stumble across whole continents of humans with totally dissimilar languages, beliefs and traditions.

That Japanese account on Europeans and "Their form of Buddhism" is absolutely fascinating

I forgot that Alexander named all cities after himself and was initially a bit confused in the first story

“Kenji, some goblins with long noses are here to see you”

What never ceases to amaze me is how each civilisation viewed itself as somewhat superior to their counterpart based on race, empire or religion. There's often a condescending attitude attached to these accounts describing their encounters with other people's whom they deem inferior to them. I guess that's why it was so easy to wage war back then because as far as they were concerned, the people they were fighting weren't a worthy adversary.

Never underestimate the Ancient Japanese art of absolutely decimating anyone different than them

The Zulu-English one was weirdly wholesome. They were fairly impartial.

Shaka pulling the oldest trick in the book Shaka: "Tomorrow we will hunt elephants, come along!" Englishmen: "We don't know if we have permission, nor are we inclined to do so" Shaka: "Scared?" Englishmen: "..." Englishmen: "We agree to hunt with you"

It’s always fascinating to hear how these chroniclers detailed the new and unfamiliar. You can feel the curiosity driving them

The encounter between Portuguese and Japanese is colossal.

It's quite interesting how the most "respectful" account was that of the British with the Zulu

Ibn Fadlan was such a gentleman. Everyone else is basically calling foreigners horrible, malformed creatures and abominations against natural order, meanwhile he just berates the Viking Rus for their dirtiness but still calls them gorgeous.

The Japanese description of the missionaries is great. What I'd love is to hear the account (if it exists, of course) of the same missionaries so we can have parallel stories of the same event(s). Awesome as always!

The last story of the British meeting with Shaka is pretty heart warming, usually anything to do with Europe and Africa ends with dead natives or some very uncool words being written about them, but in this acount the British seem to really be more friends rather then strictly empriacal visitors or conquers of the Zulu people which was a very fun exprience to watch. As always, your videos are one of a kind!

It's amazing how ancient and mysterious these accounts are. Now that the world is a smaller place, events like these will never happen again.

I doubt that hunt was planned, and it wasn't for the meat either. They were politely showing the guests their strength, so that they would be dissuaded from any invasion. Shaka Zulu was truly wise.

"Our arms aren't sufficient for hunting an elephant", proceeds to drop one with two shots . These people are using spears and bows which obviously worked well for them but nothing beats the boom stick .

The Japanese account in this video needs some explanations, otherwise it’s quite misleading. The text (Kirishitan Monogatari) was written in 1639, that means 96 years after the first arrival of the Portuguese (1543). And it was written with the specific purpose of denigrating Catholic missionaries. It was published right aftermath of Shimabara Rebellion (1637-1638), the last and the largest uprising against Tokugawa Shogunate in the former half of Edo period. The Tokugawa strengthened its dominance by destroying Toyotomi clan at the siege of Osaka(1614-1615) and they replaced pro-Toyotomi Daimyos with pro-Tokugawas in the region. Shimabara was once the domain of the Arima clan, which had been Christian. The Arima were moved out in 1614 and replaced by the Matsukura. The rebellion was mainly against Matsukura's misgovernance by peasants, with Christians and discontented samurais later joining the rebellion. Because the shogunate suspected that European Catholics had been involved in spreading the rebellion, Portuguese traders were driven out of the country by 1639, the exact year Kirishitan Monogatari was published. Basically Kirishitan Monogatari was written as a “propaganda” to instill the horrendous image of Catholic missionary in people. It consists of 12 chapters depicting the events in chronological order from the arrival of the Portuguese to the Shimabara rebellion. The part you heard in the video is the beginning of the first chapter of it, so it’s not “a naive first account” at all.