Tiptoe said urgently, “We, too, would gladly give our lives if we could take some of theirs.” She leaned close, those extraordinary eyelashes wide, fixing me with eyes as dark and lovely as the lashes. “Only try us, Tenamáxtli. It would be the last thing the Spaniards would ever expect. An uprising of women!”
“And the last thing I should ever hope to be involved in,” I said with a laugh. “Me—at the head of an army of females. Why, every dead warrior in Tonatíucan would be convulsed, either with hilarity or with horror. The idea is ludicrous, my dear. I must seek men.”
“Go then,” she said, sitting back and looking extremely vexed “Go and get your men. There still are some in Michihuacan.” She waved an arm vaguely northward.
“Still some men here?” I said, surprised. “Purémpe men? Warriors? Are they in hiding? In ambuscade?”
“No. They are in swaddling,” she said contemptuously. “Not warriors and not Purémpecha. They are Mexíca, imported here to settle new colonies around the lake Pétzcuaro. But I fear you will find those men much less stalwart and much more meek than myself and the women I could gather for you.”
“I grant, Tiptoe, that you are anything but meek. Your name-giver must have badly misread his tonélmatl book of names. Tell me about those Mexíca. Imported by whom? For what purpose?”
“I know only what I have heard. Some Spanish Christian priest has founded colonies all around that Lake of Rushes, for some peculiar purpose of his own. And there being no Purémpe men still in existence, he had to bring men—and their families—from the Mexíca lands. I hear also that the priest coddles all those settlers as tenderly as if they were his children. His babes in swaddling, just as I said.”
“Family men,” I muttered. “You are probably right about their not being very much disposed to rebellion. Especially if they are being so well treated by their overlord. But if that is so, he sounds little like a Christian.”
Pakápeti shrugged, and that made my heart smile, for she happened to be naked at the time, and her darling breasts bounced with the movement. Not at all heart-smilingly, but frostily, she said, “Go and see. The lake is only three one-long-runs from here.”
* * *
The Lake of Rushes is the exact color of the chalchíhuitl, the jadestone, the gem that is held sacred by every people of The One World. And the low, rounded mountains enclosing Pátzcuaro are a darker shade of that same blue-green color. So, as I crested one of the mountains and looked down, the lake appeared to be a bright jewel that had been dropped upon a bed of moss. There is an island in the lake, Xarókuaro, that must once have been the brightest facet of that gem, for I am told that it was covered with temples and altars that glowed and coruscated with colored paints and gold leaf and feather banners. But Guzmán’s soldiers had razed all those edifices and scoured the island down to the barrenness that it still is.
Gone, too, were all the original communities that had ringed the lake, including Tzintzuntzaní, “Where There Are Hummingbirds.” That had been the capital city of Michihuécan, a city composed entirely of palaces, one of them the seat of Tzimtzicha, last Revered Speaker of the vanquished Purémpecha. From my mountaintop, I could see only one thing remaining from olden days. That was the pyramid, east of the lake, notable for its size and form, not tall but lengthy, combining both round and square shapes. And that iyékata, as a pyramid is called in Poré, I knew was a survivor from a really olden time, erected by a people who lived here long before the Purémpecha. Even in Tzímtzicha’s day, it had been ruinously crumbled and overgrown, but it was still an awesome sight to see.
There were again villages scattered around the lake’s rim, replacing those that had been leveled by Guzmán’s men, but these were in no way distinctive, all their houses having been built in the Spanish style, low and flat, of that dried adobe brick. In the nearest village, directly below the height where I stood, I could see people moving about. All were clad in Mexíca fashion and were of my own skin color; I saw no Spaniards anywhere among them. So I descended thither, and greeted the first man I came upon. He was seated on a bench before the doorway of his house, painstakingly whittling and shaping a piece of wood.
I spoke the customary Náhuatl salute, “Mixpantzinco,” meaning “In your august presence …”
And he replied, not in Poré, but also in Náhuatl, with the customary polite “Ximopanólti,” meaning “At your convenience …” then added, cordially enough, “We do not have many of our fellow Mexíca coming to visit Utopía.”
I did not want to confuse him by saying that I was actually an Aztécatl, nor did I ask the meaning of that strange word he had just spoken. I said only, “I am a stranger in these parts, and I only recently learned that there were Mexíca in this vicinity. It is good to hear my native tongue spoken again. My name is Tenamáxtli.”
“Mixpantzinco, Cuatl Tenamáxtli,” he said courteously. “I am called Erasmo Martir.”
“Ah, after that Christian saint. I too have a Christian name. Juan Británico.”
“If you are a Christian, and if you are looking for employment, our good Padre Vasco may make room for you here. Have you a wife and children somewhere?”
“No, Cuatl Erasmo. I am a solitary wayfarer.”
“Too bad.” He shook his head sympathetically. “Padre Vasco accepts only settlers with families. However, if you care to stay for a time, he will most hospitably afford you guest lodging. You will find him in Santa Cruz Patzcuaro, the next village west along the lake.”
“I will go there, then, and not keep you from your work.”
“Ayyo, you are no hindrance. The padre does not make us labor unceasingly, like slaves, and it is pleasant to converse with a newcome Mexícatl.”
“What is it that you are making, anyway?”
“This will be a mecahuéhuetl,” he said, indicating some nearly finished parts behind the bench. They were pieces of wood about the size and gracefully curvaceous shape of a woman’s torso.
I nodded, recognizing what the parts would be when assembled. “What the Spaniards call a guitarra.”
Of the musical instruments that the Spanish introduced to New Spain, most were at least basically similar to those already known in our One World. That is to say, they made music by being blown through or shaken or struck with sticks or rasped with a notched rod. But the Spaniards had also brought instruments totally different from ours, such as this guitarra and the vihuela, the arpa, the mandolina. All of our people were much amazed—and admiring—that such instruments could make sweet music from mere strings, tightly strung, being plucked with the fingers or rasped with an arco.
“But why,” I asked Erasmo, “are you copying a foreign novelty? Surely the white men have their own guitarra makers.”
“Not so expert as we are,” he said proudly. “The padre and his assistants taught us how to make these, and now he says we make these mecahuéhuetin superior even to those brought from Old Spain.”
“We?” I echoed. “You are not the only maker of guitarras?”
“No, indeed. Every man here in San Marcos Churítzio concentrates on this one craft. It is the particular enterprise assigned to this village, as other villages of Utopía each produce lacquerwork or copperware or whatever.”
“Why?” was all I could think to say, for I had never before known of any community devoted to doing just one thing and nothing else.
“Go and talk to Padre Vasco,” said Erasmo. “He will be happy to tell you all about his engendering of our Utopía.”
“I will do that. Thank you, Cuatl Erasmo, and mixpantzínco.”
Instead of saying “ximopanólti” in farewell, he said, “Vaya con Dios,” and added cheerfully, “Come again, Cuatl Juan. Someday I intend to learn to play music from one of these things.”
I trudged on westward, but halted in an uninhabited area and went among some bushes to change from my mantle and loincloth into the shirt and trousers and boots I carried in my pack. So I was Spanishly attired when I arrived at Santa Cruz P
étzcuaro. On inquiry, I was directed to the small adobe church and its attached casa de cura. The padre himself answered the door there; he was in no wise so aloof and inaccessible as most Christian priests are. Also, he was dressed in sturdy, heavy, work-stained shirt and breeches, not a black gown.
I made bold to introduce myself, in Spanish, as Juan Británico, lay assistant to Fray Alonso de Molina, notarius of Bishop Zumárraga’s Cathedral and said I was presently engaged, at my master Alonso’s behest, in visiting Church missions in these hinterlands, to evaluate and report on their progress.
“Ah, I think you will give good report of ours, my son,” said the padre. “And I am pleased to hear that Alonso is still toiling so assiduously in the vineyards of Mother Church. I remember the lad most fondly.”
So I and my prevarication were instantly accepted, without question, by the good priest. And good I found him truly to be. Padre Vasco de Quiroga was a tail, thin, austere-looking but really merry-humored man. He was old enough to be bald enough that he required no tonsure, but he was still vigorous, as was attested by his work clothes, for which he humbly apologized.
“I should be properly cassocked to welcome an emissary of the bishop, but I am today helping my friars build a pigsty behind this house.”
“Do not let me interrupt—”
“No, no, no. Por cielo, I am glad to take a respite. Sit down, son Juan. I can see that you are dusty from the road.” He called to someone in some other room to bring us wine. “Sit, sit, my boy. And tell me. Have you yet seen much of what the Lord has helped us to accomplish hereabouts?”
“Only a little. I talked for a while to an Erasmo Martir.”
“Ah, yes. Of all our skillful guitarra makers, perhaps the most skillful. And a devout Christian convert. Then tell me also, Juan Británico. Since you are named for an English saint, are you perhaps acquainted with the late saintly Don Tomas Moro, also of England?”
“No, padre. But—excuse me—I was given to understand that the men of England are white men.”
“So they are. Moro was this man’s name, not his race or color. He was but lately and unjustly and vilely slain—his Christian piety his only crime—executed by the king of that England, who is an odious and despicable heretic. Anyway, if you do not know of Don Tomás, I suppose you do not know of his far-famed book, De optimo Reipublicae statu…”
“No, padre.”
“Or of the Utopía he prefigured in that book?”
“No, padre, except that I heard the artisan Erasmo speak the word.”
“Well, Utopía is what we are trying to create here, around the shores of this paradisal lake. I only wish I could have undertaken it years ago. But I have not been that long a priest.”
A young friar came in, bringing two exquisitely carved and lacquered wooden cups, clearly Purémpe products. He handed one to each of us and silently withdrew, and I drank gratefully of the cool wine.
“For most of my life,” the padre went on, sounding contrite, “I was a judge, a man of the legal profession. And any practice of the law—let me tell you, young Juan—is a venal and corrupt and loathly occupation. At last, thanks be to God, I realized how I was so foully defiling myself and my soul. That is when I tore off my judicial robe, took holy orders and eventually was ordained to wear the cassock instead.” He paused and laughed. “Of course, many of my former adversaries in the courts have gleefully quoted to me the old proverb: Hartóse el gato de carne, y luego se hizo fraile.”
It took me a moment to translate that in my head: “The cat got a gutful of meat before it turned friar.”
He went on, “The Utopía envisioned by Tomás Moro was to be an ideal community whose inhabitants would exist under perfect conditions. Where the evils bred by society—poverty, hunger, misery, crime, sin, war—would all have been done away with.”
I forbore from commenting that there would be some people, even in an ideal community, who might wish to retain the right to enjoy sinning or waging war.
“So I have repopulated this pleasant piece of New Galicia with colonist families. Besides instructing them in the tenets of Christianity, I and my friars show them how to use European tools and how to employ the most modern methods of agriculture and husbandry. Beyond that, we strive not to direct or meddle in the colonists’ lives. True, it was our Brother Agustín who taught them how to make guitarras. But we found elderly Purémpe men who could be persuaded to lay aside old rivalries and teach the colonists the age-old Purémpe handicrafts. Now each village devotes itself to perfecting one of those arts—woodwork, ceramics, weaving and so on—in the finest tradition of the Purémpecha. Any colonists incapable of learning such artisanry make their contribution to Utopía by farming or fishing or raising pigs, goats, chickens and such.”
“But, Padre Vasco,” I said. “What use have your settlers for such things as guitarras? That Erasmo to whom I spoke, he did not even know how to play music on it.”
“Why, those are sold to merchants in the City of Mexíco, my son. The guitarras and the other crafted objects. Many of them are bought by brokers who, in turn, export them all the way back to Europe. We get handsome prices for them, too. The bulk of our farmers’ and herders’ produce also is sold. Of the money received, I pay a portion to the village families, equally divided among them. But most of our income is spent on new tools, seeds, breeding stock—whatever will improve and benefit Utopía as a whole.”
“It all sounds most practical and laudable, padre,” I said, and sincerely meant it. “Especially since, as Erasmo said, you do not make your people drudge like slaves.”
“¡Válgame Dios, no¡” he exclaimed. “I have seen the infernal obrajes in the city and elsewhere. Our colonists may be of an inferior race, but they are human beings. And now they are Christians, so they are not brute animals without souls. No, my son. The rule here in Utopía is that the people work communally for just six hours a day, six days a week. Sundays, of course, are for devotions. All the rest of the people’s time is theirs to spend as they like. Tending their own home gardens, private doings, socializing with their fellows. Were I a hypocrite, I could say that I am simply being Christian in being no tyrannical master. But the truth is that our people work harder and more productively than any whip-driven slaves or obraje laborers.”
I said, “Another thing Erasmo told me is that you allow only men and women already married to settle in this Utopía. Would you not get even more work out of single men and women, unburdened with children?”
He looked slightly uncomfortable. “Well, now, you have broached a rather indelicate subject. We do not presume to have re-created Eden here, but we do have to contend with both Eve and the serpent. Or with Eve as the serpent, I might better say.”
“Ayya, forgive my having asked, padre. You must mean the Purémpe women.”
“Exactly so. Bereft of their own menfolk, and learning that there were young, strong men here in Utopía, they have frequently descended on us to—how shall I say?—entice our men into performing at stud. They were absolutely pestiferous when we first settled here, and still to this day we get the occasional female visiting and importuning. I fear our family men are not all—or always—able to resist the temptation, but I am sure that unmarried ones would be much more easily seduced. And such debaucheries could lead to the ruin of Utopía.”
I said approvingly, “It appears to me, Padre Vasco, that you have everything well thought out and well in hand. I shall be pleased to report that to the bishop’s notarius.”
“But not solely on my unsupported word, son Juan. Go all the way around the lake. Visit every village. You will need no guide. Anyway, I would not want you to suspect that you were being shown only the exemplary aspects of our community. Go alone. See things plain and unvarnished. When you return here, I shall be gratified if then you can say, as San Diego once said, that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”
XIV
SO I WENT on westward, stopping for at least a night in each village I
came to, and then northward, eastward, southward, until I had circled the entire Lake of Rushes and come westward again to the very first village I had visited, San Marcos Churítzio, that one where Erasmo Martir resided.
I found it to be true, what Padre Vasco had said, that the lakeside people all lived in amity and prosperity and conviviality, and were understandably content to live so. And they had indeed mastered the ancient crafts of the Purémpecha. One village produced hammered copperware: dishes and platters and pitchers of graceful design and dimpled finish. Another village produced similar utensils, but of a kind of pottery to be seen nowhere else, colored a lustrous black by an admixture of powdered lead in the clay. Another made the long-famous Purémpe lacquerware: trays, tables, huge folding screens, all of a rich, shiny black, inset with gold and many vivid colors. Another made mats and pallets and baskets of braided rushes from the lake; they were, I had to admit, even more elegant than those woven by my lost Citláli. Another village made intricate jewelry of silver wire; another did jewelry of amber; another with the pearly nacre of mussel shells. And so on and on around the lake. Between and about the villages were the tilled fields, growing the newcome sweet cane and a sweet grass called sorgo, as well as the more familiar crops like maize and beans. All the fields were bearing far more lushly than any known in former times, before our farmers had the advantages of Spanish-imported tools and ideas.
There was no denying that these Mexíca colonists had benefited hugely from their association with the Spaniards. I asked myself: did the virtues of their winsome Utopía, then, counterbalance the miseries and degradations being suffered by their fellow Mexíca in the abominable obrajes? I thought they did not, for the latter Mexíca numbered in the many thousands. No doubt there existed other white men like Padre Vasco de Quiroga, who took the word Christianity to mean “loving kindness.” But I knew that any men of his kind were vastly outnumbered by the vicious, greedy, deceitful, coldhearted white men who likewise called themselves Christians and even priests.
Aztec Autumn Page 20
