Taino (39 page)

“I remember the dog, Becerrillo,” I said. “He went on the same ship as I.”

Barrionuevo laughed out loud. “Yes, the dog. I had forgotten that dog.”

It was that awful dog, I believe, not the soldiers, that defeated Agueybanax. He was a war mastiff, big as a pony and with jaws that could snap a man's leg. In Borikén, when that war started, I saw two of our Indian men gutted out by Becerrillo in but a few seconds. This was the sport of Ponce, who favored that sort of spectacle. A great laugh he caused once, when the Becerrillo he let lose against an old Indian woman, made to run for the purpose of being torn to pieces. As the dog approached her, the old woman sat down. She said in our language: “Big dog, do not kill me, I mean you no harm.” The Becerrillo sniffed at her but did not bite. Instead, he lifted his leg and pissed on her.

I told the story to Barrionuevo. I always tell that story to make the old Castilian captains laugh, and it always gets a rise out of them, how an old woman's terror ended in dog piss. Barrionuevo laughed. I knew he would.

“That dog was a wonder of nature,” Barrionuevo said. “Never has there been such an animal again.”

“He had not a chance to breed,” I reminded him and he nodded. That was another story. Having gifted Barrionuevo his laugh at the expense of an old woman of my own kind, now I wanted to interject on our behalf. “The Becerrillo was executed by a poisoned arrow.”

“A Carib war party murdered him,” Barrionuevo offered.

A raid was mounted just to kill the awful beast and did succeed in putting a poison arrow into him. And they were not Carib but our own Taíno men from the lesser islands who killed him. But I let the error pass. The Castilians have always confused our different Indian peoples.

“Those were some grand days, eh, my friend?” Barrionuevo said as he walked away.

I am glad for his gesture of friendship, but I disagree. Those were horrible, confusing days. In Borikén, our Taíno still believed the Castilians to be spirit people, men who knew not death. Agueybanax, a fearless
cacique
, could not get his men to fight such beings. One of his
caciques
, Urayoán, ordered his men to drown a young Castilian named Salcedo just to see if he could die. Three days Urayoán waited before declaring Salcedo dead. Then he went to war. That was on the Guarabo River, as I remember it.

One hundred eighty-six.
Barrionuevo has questions about Enriquillo.

Barrionuevo listened out my story then commandeered the conversation. “But the
cacique
Enriquillo, he knows the Castilians can die.”

I nodded. “There has been much killing, on all sides, to prove it.”

“I quarrel none with that fact,” Barrionuevo offered. “But I have a question for you: Enriquillo takes to the bush in 1519. I understand his reasons—the rape of his woman and the ill treatment at the
encomienda
. But why then, and why him? Such abuse was common, after all.”

“Everything else failed for him,” I said. “With your forgiveness, even the schemes of the good friar Las Casas, bringing the Hieronymite fathers to abolish the
encomienda
…”

“Those friars were bribed. They ended up owning Indians themselves.”

“That is what I mean. Enriquillo could see no other recourse. He tried to bring his case to the court. He even understood the queen's laws protecting the family.”

“I hear he carries himself with dignity.”

“Yes, a very serious man.”

“From Anacaona's people?”

“His father was a lesser ni-Taíno and a good man. He died of his wound later, but Enriquillo's
yukaieke
survived the massacre. On my own recommendation, Enriquillo himself went to the Franciscans, who instructed him in Christianity and the law.”

Barrionuevo is short and rotund of belly. He has a wide, very white face that exudes determination.

“He sounds like a man of his word, from all I've heard. If he wants, he could make peace this time,” he said. “His case is acceptable if he would seek a pardon and pacify his people.”

I was gratified to hear Captain Barrionuevo express himself thus. Enriquillo has wanted no more. And he knows this is the last chance for peace.

“It is the general feeling right now to make a peace,” Barrionuevo said. “The king has much to administrate already. Here, few of your Indians are left, but in Yucatán and Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru, they are many, many. And the Africans are expensive to bring over. The talk, even in Santo Domingo, is to secure a way that will not destroy the laborer or slave. What is sought is a long-term prosperity. After all, if Enriquillo can carry on such a war here, what might not happen on the mainland?”

“The young
cacique
is not a man of threats,” I said. “A good approach by a man of your honesty…”

“Of course. If not by peace, the killing will be total when we press on. The queen herself said, ‘No quarter for the treasonous…'“

“A man has only so much killing in him,” I said, angling for his own sentiment.

“For me, it is so,” Barrionuevo let on, opening his heart to me in a way that feeds my hope.

May 16, 1533

One hundred eighty-seven.
Picking at my wound.

Today I write in Rodrigo's small room as our ship sails slowly against a strong current. We sail along the coast and soon will be at Yaquimo, a port near the foothills of the Bahuruku. There I will disembark and seek the baby boy to make proper arrangements for a parley. I feel totally engaged in this peacemaking now, my concentration deviates not, and it feels I have everything in motion.

I think of many things today. I think of my other son, Heart of Earth, who went with me under Velazquez. I think of Ponce de León, the conqueror of Borikén, who later went to Cuba. I think of Las Casas, who was there, too. I think, too, of that awful monster of nature, Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa, who settled Camagüey, in Cuba, as his own private kingdom, fornicating and killing our people at will.

Barrionuevo's casual reference to the lack of Indians left in these islands, referring directly to my own Taíno people, picks at my wound. Yes, it is true what he says, but I am deeply chagrined and would say this: Everywhere there has been death around me these past forty years, everywhere in my world. We had no pestilence here and we were healthy, healthy. The evil came with them; it did.

One hundred eighty-eight.
Hatuey, “Certainty of sun in the sky,” our great hero.

There is so much to tell, and by this mist of sea that surrounds me right now I will leave as much of it as I can, speak the names and write the deeds of the dead, impolite though it may be to do so, jarring, in our Indian way as a badly sung
areito
.

The fight went to Cuba with Hatuey, a great hero of my race. Hatuey, who fought Velazquez in retreat after the Massacre of Anacaona, and who moved his people in canoes to Cuba. He settled near Maisí Point, and he warned his hosts: “The Christians have but one god, and that is the shiny metal they call gold. They must have it, and they will kill and maim anyone in the way of its possession.”

Hatuey took the Cuban ni-Taínos to the top of a mountain that overlooked the ocean. He was greatly respected, even in Cuba, and when he asked them to bring all their gold ornaments, most people did so willingly. They had already heard the tales and felt the cruelty of the Castilians in Cuba. Boricuas had traveled to their island, and Castilian slavers, beginning with the admiral himself, had many times taken captives away. Guamax, the elder, as I have written, and later Bayamo, cursed all covered men/floating cave dwellers during the first voyage days…

Hatuey, ni-Taíno and
cacique
, was a grave and valiant man. The Cuban
caciques
, as I heard it several times during my years in Cuba, gathered around him, and many old people touched his hand to their own heads. The substance of his words was still a fresh memory among our cousins there.

Hatuey told them: “Our people have things in common, but not so with the covered men, not so. They covet much and they are so small inside in their covetousness.

“They know many things, but they dismiss their dreams; they try not to think about them. Invited to
cohoba
, they hate it, then go on to kill our
behikes
and
cemis
.” The gold he asked to be put in baskets. Together, many people, hundreds and hundreds of principal people, went up promontories by the ocean and over fast running rivers, sang, prayed, danced, and tossed their gold baskets to the waters.

Velazquez landed in Cuba in 1511, and within weeks his men engaged Hatuey several times. With much harquebus, they forced the
cacique
's retreat over the coastal mountains. After one brief combat, two mastiffs cornered him on a rocky ledge. He was by then in the territory of old Bayamo, who had spoken so vigorously with the admiral twenty years earlier. At a place called Yara, the soldiers tied him to a stake and gathered dry brush, preparing to burn him alive. I tried to dissuade Velazquez from the deed by reminding him that Hatuey had a wide following, but he paid me no mind. “A lesson we will teach with this immolation,” he said and ordered all captured Taíno to witness the act.

Hatuey looked gravely on, humming his death song. He begged not for his life, but a priest approached him and, with me interpreting, offered up words that recalled and continued that other dialogue, so many years ago. (I say we have places on these magical islands that make us repeat ourselves, places where time turns in a circle and the land reclaims its own intelligence from us humans, generation after generation.)

“You ought to seek the baptism from me, Hatuey,” the young priest said to the grave
cacique
, “so that you may be saved.”

Hatuey looked at him not but toward the sky, at the wide hot sun that dominated the day. Such was the meaning of his name, Hatuey, “Certainty of sun in the sky.”

“I offer you baptism, savage man,” the priest repeated.

Hatuey answered loudly, so the other Indians could hear. “And what will it get me, your little water?”

All ears were glued to his words. Not only the Indians but also Velazquez leaned forward to hear what Hatuey might say.

“It will open for you the gates of Heaven and life everlasting,” the priest responded. “Without it, you are condemned to the Hell of eternal fire.”

Hatuey thought a while, looking at the sun and never at the priest. Finally, he asked, “And the Castilians. Upon death, where do they go?”

“If baptized and repentful, they go to Heaven,” the priest replied.

“I want not to be with such mean people,” said Hatuey loudly. “Baptize me not. I prefer to go to Hell.”

The priest walked away, shaking his head. I watched the face of Velazquez, that queer man who later killed his own wife. I had to laugh to myself, he was so absolutely chagrined. Watching Hatuey, too, I saw the slightest trace of a grin on his face, which never wavered again. He burned alive for two hours and never cried out but stared at the sun while his strength held and then, as he drooped, gazed upon Velazquez and me, eyes open, even in death, that light grin still visible on his darkening lips.

May 19, 1533

One hundred eighty-nine.
The spirits are all around us.

I am filled with longing for my boys today as we sail along these shores. Surrounded by Castilians am I, soldiers and sailors, but even with Rodrigo, as warm a friend as can be had and often at my side, I am alone with the little voices. On board, no action is required of me; I sit long hours looking back at the wake of our ship on the water, wondering. Visions I see in the foam of our waves, faces of our people in the fluff of clouds. Thousands upon tens of thousands were we, uncounted and replenished as the cloudy flocks of doves and parrots that fill our skies. And now we are but handfuls, here and there a group of huts, the rest in
encomiendas
, month by month replaced by Africans brought over by the shipful. We of the islands, we Taíno, now blend into the white and the black, and our language is little heard.

We were we not weak, truly, nor stupid. Our mothers taught us well. Taíno women bore children firmly, prepared sustenance, sang with the heart of the generations so our ancestors surrounded us, sharing the trance of the living. Remembered in the breeze, the spirits of our dead we breathed into our very bosoms. Adventurous and hardy, our men met the sea with full hearts. We feared not hurricane, we welcomed wind and rain.

Out of our very winds, Castilians have sucked the life, their very breath has made us die by the thousands. This have I seen: our people dropping one upon another, circling blindly like leaves in a storm. The worst was in 1519, just as the baby boy struck his blow for freedom. Though already cut by more than half, we were many even then. In 1519, we dropped and dropped. It is one thing to see the blood run and the body die; it is quite another to see the living spirit suddenly depart from dozens and dozens and hundreds and thousands of people at once and see no wound, no reason, no fault.

May 21, 1533

One hundred ninety.
Another conversation with Barrionuevo.

I spent time with Barrionuevo again today. We talked about Cuba. It turns out Barrionuevo once knew Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa, the young cosquistador I was given to by Velazquez.

“We called Porcallo the ram,” Barrionuevo laughed. “He was a small man, but so brusque and decisive in his actions, everybody feared him.”

“He was another Hojeda,” I said. “But without the physical grace.”

“I did not know Captain Hojeda.”

“Hojeda was quite good looking, in the Castilian manner. Fair-haired and perfectly proportioned in his chest and limbs.”