“Yes, I believe in sequence…” I said.
He admonished me: “The intent of all writing is to discern God’s master plan in the life of our Christian nations, regardless of the greed or brutality of our fellow humans beings. It is alright to describe the customs of your people, even as they appear in your own life, Dieguillo, but see these events in the context of our Christian faith. The Devil himself runs your pen otherwise. That same devil that is in the lust of your male blood.”
He shocks me much, as I remember the teachings of our behikes, how they spoke of our being as men, to accept the wish for the yuán’s release. I mostly remember their words were true and gentle. Their words are still so much more clear to me than what the good friar reclaims.
Thankfully, Las Casas changed the subject.
He wanted to know about Guacanagari, the noble. “In thinking about the life of the admiral,” he said, “the noble cacique Guacanagari appears to be a worthy counterpart from the Taíno culture…”
“Guacanagari was a pompous kid,” I said. “He was not a man of the stature of real ni-Taíno caciques, like Guarionex or Behechio.”
“Was he cowardly?”
“Not cowardly so much as very ambitious but weak as a chief,” I said.
“Well, that is the level of discussion I could use from you.”
“Guacanagari is next,” I said. “As I describe how we made our way from Cuba here to La Isla Española, how we met Guacanagari, and why the admiral founded his first colony at Fort Navidad.”
“Good,” he said. “Tell me about the caciques of that time, how Columbus met them, and their first relations.”
I promised I would. We were still talking when the call came to board ship. He said this: “One thing to keep in mind. As we know, the Carib were moving north onto the big islands with their raids. Had the Spanish not come, it is possible they would have eaten all of you by now.”
I laughed at that one, though bitterly. “No, Father,” I said, as he walked the plank, basket of fruits in hand. “We Taínos were incorporating both Macorixe and Ciguayo—and even the fierce ones that you call Carib—we were marrying them into our people, our women were teaching them our ways, we were defeating them with love.”
I got a nervous laugh out of him then, as the plank was pulled up, though I was serious: we Taíno had our diplomacy and our strategy; by our law we lived and let others live.
September 22, 1532
Fifty-seven. Breeding my mare.
It has been five days since I have written. With the good friar at sea on his way to Spain, my life is much quieter. I took time to catch up with my gardens and to have my mare bred, as she gives good young potros, which are always useful and a source of revenue. The good mare that I have and received from my famous namesake, Don Diego Colón is a fourteen-hand roan of Andalusian stock. I got lucky to breed her with an Arabian stallion owned by Don Federico Castellanos, a local hidalgo who has extensive cattle ranches. Antoncito, a half brother of Silverio, provided the entry, early last sunday, after I noticed Cariblanca dripping. I walked her over two pastures, and the Arabian paced excitedly with her smell in the air. Antoncito dropped the gate and walked away to hoe a field of yams. The horses pawed and sniffed and didn’t take long to consummate the act. The Arabian was still on Cariblanca when a huge swarm of bees, thousands and thousands, flew buzzing overhead. We were happy they missed us. Had they swarmed closer to the ground and bumped into us, they would have been quite dangerous.
Fifty-eight. Survival in humility.
Soon, I will go to the Bahuruku. Enriquillo will have cohoba ready. I will go there and we will mix it together. Then, according to his behike, we will snort and smoke right then or wait for a more propitious moment. I prepare now, fasting and concentrating. A route to peace must be found for the baby boy and his camps on the Bahuruku. Enriquillo’s people are the last of our free people on this island. Valiant they have been but are yet a small cay in a sea of Castilians. Growing Spanish numbers we face now that will not abate; they are stronger with each passing year. In Cuba, we are more than a dozen strong communities still, scattered here and there in mountain valleys. In Borikén, too, we hide camps in the mountains and in remote coasts. Of course, on my little islands, I hear, we are almost none left. And here in La Española, after thirteen years of war, we must find ways for the Castilian (or Spanish, as they call themselves more and more) to allow a community, a peaceful camp of Indians. This we cannot do by proposing such direct political opposition as Las Casas suggests. We suffer greatly still their dreaded coughs, as much as their furious swords. They surround us everywhere, and not only Castilians, but of the covered kind. French and English have I met, Christians also, talking differently but looking the same, doing the same. We Taíno, ni-Taíno, or guaxeri will survive meekly, I fear, or not at all.
Fifty-nine. Our ways were respectful of reproductive powers.
I find it comical listening to the good friar’s preponderance of words about the lust, invoking the Devil, even his cryptic references about our Taíno naturalness. I think today on my early cohoba teachings, and I recall the instruction, even before my own manhood. They would tell me to concentrate on the use of my eyes, my spirit, to control and amass the urge of the loins. This, we were told as youngsters, you do by identifying the lustful urge whenever it surfaces and putting it consciously at your side, like in a hanging bag. The man can do that, and it should not be a very difficult thing to do. At least, such was the teaching of my elders.
Our people used our mind a lot, not like the covered men, so forcefully, but subtly, in delicate ways. And, truthfully, I never saw a passion act among my people that was not intended by all concerned. And, unlike the covered men, too, it was not for its supposed evil that we controlled human passion, but for its power to communicate and create. Our own people went naked, it is true, but this did not throw off a tidal wave of lust coupling. People concentrated on their many productive activities rather well.
Even as a little boy, I heard the grown-ups talking of the coupling act as the energy of connection with the Spirit World of our ancestors. In the moment of human intimacy, if everything lines up, they said, our ancestors on the other side will feed us the spirit of the child to be, the one that will form from the seed in the womb. They said the coupling act itself releases the connective waters between our living world and the Spirit World and can create life (and much grief). But, they also taught, and strictly, that the urge of the loins and its act is disrespectful during preparation for prayer ceremonies. Coupling is not a good thing to do when trying to set up ceremonies to communicate with the Spirit World.
During the special times of ceremonial areitos, and in the cohoba, the behike and caciques, the housemothers and midwives all advised the men and women to abstain; and they did, everyone, without any resistance, as all the people wanted to help out and make sure the ceremonies would go well. Our people understood that the spiritual connection brought on by the coupling act must be carefully guarded at ceremonial times, when the worlds line up and the ancestors visit us formally. In our discipline, the men were more directly charged than the women and were instructed as to stages of control. Taíno men were taught to control the desire, when proper, and could do this for life. The men in fact took pride in doing that, so as not to be led by the yúan but by the eyes in life.
I repeat, the discipline of abstinence was much appreciated in our important activities—in the fishing and the sea, in the facing of the elements or enemies. The urge of the loins, as enjoyable as it is, was not the thing to look for in life. In fact, it is a very poor concentration, as the dead who protect us and breathe us life are made uncomfortable with the life heat of lust. There is for instance a great bent for the act of masturbation among the covered men. They do it, they laugh about it, they hide it, and they punish it. But as boys, we Taíno were taught not to abuse ourselves but to use the energy to connect, to let our urges and emotions well up, and then on an evening especially tender
, to imagine a love for our life before sleep. And this was an appellation to the Good Water herself, Attabei, to allow a human spirit opía visit our living hammock, to join our imagination in the dream-world and thus naturally release the pent-up love of our loins.
For Taíno, as you controlled your loins, so you gained spirit as a man and power to communicate with the spirits and cemis. In the home relations you followed their course, but in pursuit of spiritual power, you were not to let the passions dominate, and neither was strength meant to do violence. This was an understood agreement among our cacique and ni-Taíno families. Gentle treatment of the people by the caciques and by each other was a dominant idea for our people. I believe the discipline that Taíno men were taught about our “men’s wishes” was very important in making us see more clearly the larger things in life and to keep down the wish to do violence.
Women’s disciplines were very different. Even their language was different. In sexual adventure, they had more permission, particularly the young girls, who were guided in these matters by their old ladies, all mandated to increase the babies of their households and some of them quite lecherously given to the task. In one special ceremony, we even coupled the opías, or dead spirits, with our living goeizs, or souls, and even with our living bodies. (You can always tell an opía because the dead have no belly button.) Yet, even for this one ceremony, fasts from food and coupling were held in preparation, and areitos were dedicated. Pulp of guayava was fed to the spirits on those occasions and it was on those nights dream couplings and other experiences were reported by many people. YaYa, Vital Principle, marrow of life, was called forth by the women elders at that ceremony.
At regular times, the old people would say, it doesn’t really matter what people do. When the spirits rest in their Coaybay, when we the living are left to our own fortune, then permission to copulate was assumed, sometimes very openly, though I must say, among our men, the lure was the pleasure of the woman. This was pointed out by the old men as a man’s best reward, as they said, “to make a woman cackle.” Angry violations of our women I never saw and never heard of among my people prior to the arrival of the covered men.
Father Las Casas would call these notions vehement, but I noticed the Castilians, particularly the early ones without women, were often driven wild by desire when they saw our naked people. Hot loins, they had, lusting for the coupling act, a lust of possession itself that easily turned to blood. They put a lot of words to it, which the good friar repeats, but it defined them nonetheless. The Castilians, being dressed not naked, could not control their minds about it. They saw our women’s nakedness and had to have them, mostly by violence. And in their killing, they enjoyed the brutal sexual joke, cutting testicles and breasts and laughing about it. Constantly they needed enforcers for their laws to control their people. Even among their priests, who are supposed to abstain, very few do. Most fully dressed of Spaniards, many of the priests go for boys.
Sixty. I do not really feel shame.
I am glad to write about all things. Shame I felt when the good friar recalled my words about my night of puberty but it was mostly surprise. I realize now it is he who was shamed, maybe for his own memories or actions. The Castilians are different from our men the way they wish so much to hide their nature from each other and even from themselves. I still call them covered men, though I am now also covered, and I, too, would be shamed of my nudity.
I will be extra careful to select the good friar’s readings from these pages. I will not show him in writing anything that I could not tell him in person. I find the writing hard. It is so much easier to know what to say face-to-face. The moment guides our use of words. I tell a thought in the mood and the climate and the uniqueness of a moment, how it carries our heart’s secret meanings, to the eyes, to the body, and to the goeiz, to the trees and to the winds that record them.
September 26, 1532
Sixty-one. Indians tell Columbus to look elsewhere for women and gold.
I write now about early December 1492, during the first voyage, just seven weeks after leaving my home of Guanahaní with the first Admiral Columbus.
For days we scouted the coast of Bohío, having crossed over from Cuba. In Cuba, after losing several of their own people as captives, the local Taíno had raised the admiral’s expectation for gold. “Caona,” they said, pointing to Bohío, this Taíno homeland that would become this luckless Española. “That way, too,” they said. “You will find an island inhabited by only women. Matininó it is called. Women and gold, women and gold to make your heart glad.”
Columbus was intense as we left the Cuban coast at Maisí Point to cross the windward channel. I could say all the Castilians on ship were intense, very serious, talking only of gold. They believed it inevitable they would find a large mine. At vespers, as the admiral led the singing he would invoke a prayer, “Oh, please the Lord, lead me to the source of the gold mines.”
The good friar pointed out that Pinzón, captain of the Pinta, split off with a good wind and sailed part of Bohío’s coast on his own. I believe, (or, I should say, the admiral believed, since I formed this opinion from his) that Pinzón wanted to be first to sight the land with the gold. But Pinzón is not important. He rejoined us in due time with nothing of consequence to tell. (This Pinzón made it safely back to Spain. However, he died within days of his arrival, while the admiral lived to enjoy the glory of his deed.)
Sixty-two. Diving for yellowtail with Rodrigo and Caréy.
To continue: On the Santa Maria and the Niña, sailing the coast of Bohío, the days took a happy turn. One morning, drifting east along the coast, the admiral announced to our people that after exploring Bohío, he would return us to our homes, in Cuba and Guanahaní. Suddenly, the caniba tales were a lot less threatening and even the women relaxed. Suddenly, a red snapper run was all around our ships, the sea red with fish running by the tens of thousands.
I remember Caréy, Rodrigo, and I diving off the stern of the Santa Maria into a school of red snappers and yellowtails, how Caréy surprised everyone by catching a red snapper with his hand. Caréy held his fingers stiff like the head of a spear and, swimming with the fish, suddenly thrust his hand behind the gill of a snapper passing by. He held it up. Several sailors saw him do it and called to others. We were off the coast of what is now Cape Elephant, not far from the cacique Guacanagari’s village.
Sixty-three. Cibanakán faces the hammerhead, impressing the sailors.
In the water, hunting in the school of red snapper, which ran by us for hours, two sharks appeared, a small blue and a large hammerhead. Caréy and the rest of us left the water. Cibanakán reproached us. “Taíno men don’t leave the water because a shark appears.”
It was afternoon and the admiral napped. Two sailors were fishing on orders from Captain Juan Niño. Twice in a row, as they hooked and pulled on snappers, the hammerhead swooped in and sliced off a bite that left only the head on the hook. A crossbowman was summoned, and he shot several arrows at the beasts, hit the blue shark once but superficially. The blue disappeared, but the hammerhead persisted. A small crowd gathered.
Cibanakán pulled on my arm and I followed him to the captain. Cibanakán wanted to borrow the captain’s dagger. With hand signals and the Spanish words for fight and shark, Cibanakán indicated he would take care of the beast. I was very impressed by this; the captain was intrigued and gave us the dagger. Cibanakán faced the east, lit and smoked his cigar a few minutes, and watched as the hammerhead circled the caravel. Occasionally the shark would disappear underwater to come up moments later on an opposite side, swimming fast in a circle that widened and tightened as the fishing men hooked new fish. Cibanakán waited for the shark to go by and slipped into the water, swimming out as the shark circled wide then came around the ship toward him. He held the dagger in one hand (my father had done it with a coral knife) and I knew from the way he treaded water he was intent on a maneuver of our fishermen, flipping backward in the water as a shark rushed to bit
e, then coming up from underneath to stab its soft belly. It was not easily done and highly dangerous, and he took my breath away because it was one of the four great deeds for which my father was honored.
All the men awake on shift and all of our own people watched intently as the large hammerhead came around and Cibanakán swam calmly in place, dagger in hand. The ugly crab-headed beast was round as a horse, dorsal fin slicing the sea toward my uncle; suddenly, it darted like a swallow in midflight, going out wide on a circle away from the ship, staying on the surface and circling back, and Cibanakán in the water waiting. On the second encounter, the hammerhead came in strong and again suddenly darted, a sharp turn away from the large human form half in, half out of the water, turning and darting away in that great speed of sharks in a panic, sounding to the deep, away from the ship, away from the coast and out to the ocean free. The sailors and all our people cheered. Cibanakán climbed on board nimbly, though I could detect a slight shaking, and gave Captain Niño his dagger back. The sailors continued fishing.
It was already the next night when Caréy, lying in a hammock on one side of me, sang out loud enough for Cibanakán, on my other side, to hear: “Cibanakán had a dagger. He was brave. But he didn’t have to use it. The shark bolted in fright just to see his face!”
Cibanakán was our elder but not by so much that we couldn’t tease him. Even so, the teasing was also a way of honoring the deed. Tired as I was, I giggled over Caréy’s jokes half the night. Caréy was funny, going on about the hammerhead, how he would report to his spouse about the giant frog that suddenly appeared and what a fright it had given him.
Sixty-four. A generosity of parrots.
On December 12, 1492, a Wednesday, one of those dates I still remember from my day-keeping duties on the ampolleta, a young woman wearing a ball of gold encrusted in her nose was captured. Immediately the admiral was summoned. He ordered her clothed and fed. He gave her many presents and had several of us accompany her inland. “Make friends of her people,” he told me, this time sending Rodrigo along, as he was learning our language faster than any other sailor.
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