Taino (33 page)

The Columbus brothers, including Diego Columbus, the other sibling, who came along with Don Christopherens on the second trip, listened to the great
cacique
's offer, spoken in grand gestures and meant to cover the needs of generations. For a few minutes, they were entranced. “He is a smart old man,” Don Bartolomé whispered. Guarionex finished by assuring the brothers that his men were most enthusiastic about the offer, and he looked at the admiral directly.

The admiral laughed. “But what could he want,” he said, “in return for his food.”

“There is something,” the
cacique
responded. “Stop the gold tribute, which is maiming my people. We cannot meet it in any case and it seems without sense to cause so much injury and death of people. We are trying,
señores
,” said the grizzled
cacique
, “but there is not that much gold to be gathered.”

I translated Guarionex's offer as generously as possible. It made sense to me, as the Castilian colonies were in fact suffering from constant hunger, and making food is what Taíno could do best. Relief provisions had not arrived from the motherland for them, and production in our own villages was greatly diminished by the comings and goings and incessant terror of Castilian squads. Famine had materialized in the areas most affected by violence. I could see that Guarionex's gesture spoke to our ancient Taíno idea to always offer food and gifts as a way to peaceful relations.

With sneers and short laughs, the Columbus brothers dismissed Guarionex's idea. I knew their mood and expected as much, as all afternoon I had heard them discuss the operations of gold mines (a bigger sifting pan seemed a good idea) and the upcoming trip by Don Christopherens to represent the long-term reality to the monarchs. “Thank the great
cacique
for his generous offer, Dieguillo,” he said. “Tell him we will certainly receive his men to work many
conucos
. However, as to the mines we offer a better idea.”

Bartolomé explained: “This is our wish: the great
cacique
is to redouble his efforts to mine for the gold. Identify new streams and mines to work on. By all means, plant more and more, but bring the gold without manufacture of fanciful excuses. Failure to do so will be to force harsher punishments on his people.” For good measure, the
adelantado
demanded the
cacique
take back Friar Pané into his village and continue his work of conversion.

“The
cacique
will not be heard,” I told Guarionex in our language, when I was certain his offer was not considered. “I am sorry, for it makes sense to provide for the food supply.” I even told him how honored I felt to spend time with him and to help him make the offer.

Guarionex left in full dejection but looked at me warmly as he left. I approached him, and he put his hand on my arm. “I appreciate your attempts to help us. Come and see me; I will tell you my stories.”

Later, the
caciques
, with Guarionex conducting them, refused for two seasons to plant extra
yucca
, thinking thus they would starve out the covered men. Just when the plan might have succeeded, a convoy of provisions arrived from Spain, the Castilians were replenished, and the
guaxeri
of Guarionex faced famine and much sickness on their second season without a
yucca
crop.

One hundred forty-three.
The first Castilian rebellion: Roldán attacks the admiral.

By this time, 1496 or '97, Francisco Roldán, the former mayor of Isabela, was in open rebellion against the
adelantado
. With a hundred Castilians under him, this
fascineroso
, or torrid one, as Columbus called him, moved constantly from the Vega Real to the Xaraguá region, making excursions into Bonao to commandeer gold and to Isabela to steal horses and cattle. Roldán made pacts, after his own manner, with several
caciques
, camping out with them, marrying himself and his men into several
cacicasgos
. The
caciques
listened with interest to his call for ending the tribute system and his threat to kill the Columbus brothers, but then recoiled at the treatment received from his own desperadoes.

During one of these runs, Roldán himself and another captain took over Guarionex's village and twice raped his younger wife, Bema. As Guarionex pondered starting a second war on all Castilians, his mother's helpers once again ran the persistent Pané off and took hold of all the church items left in a small chapel the friar had built. For lack of a better approach, they buried the religious items in a recently planted field of
yucca
, a field assigned to the ceremony of the three-cornered
cemi
, the Yucahuguama, planted thus with the new tuber field, prayed for and watered by urine to call forth early germination.

Pané was mortified and cried for the admiral the news of the great sacrilege. Demanding swift punishment for the perpetrators, he identified six men who took part in the act, all nephews of Guarionex.

The
adelantado
ordered the six men captured. Then he burned them at the stake.

I visited Guarionex during that time. He cried in fury and agony at the punishment of the young men, having also lost his own son at the Battle of la Vega. Even though I was in the service of the admiral and the
adelantado
, Guarionex and I talked a great deal. I commiserated with him about his poor young men, and he accepted me without hesitation as a fellow Taíno seeking also for a way out of the horror that had befallen us. It was then he asked me to stay with him a while, calling me a nephew and introducing me to his youngest sister, Ceiba, in consideration of marriage.

One hundred forty-four.
I take a bride, Ceiba.

I had met Ceiba twice, we had even spoken, and neither of us had qualms about meeting again during a couples' dance arranged by the
cacique
. The
adelantado
Columbus was in the vicinity, chasing after Roldán, when Guarionex's offer to me was made public. For his own reasons, the
adelantado
encouraged me to stick close to the old
cacique
, whom he still considered potentially dangerous. With our route opened by Guarionex and Ceiba in agreement, I quickly began the arrangement for a marriage ceremony by moving a hammock into my new wife's
bohío
.

This was the beginning of the best part of my miserable life. For nearly a year, the Castilians busied themselves with the building of new forts, starting new mines and moving the main metropolis of Española to the new site of Santo Domingo, on the southern coast. The
adelantado
chased Roldán and his two hundred men around the Xaraguá area (not far from where I write), while the admiral embarked for Castile to combat accusations by the rebel's friends, including Father Buil and Captain Margaritte, that the “Genoese tyrants” were committing atrocities against Castilian and Indian alike. A respite of sorts, short but sweet, was the gift of those days for me.

One hundred forty-five.
Making a family, home days.

It is only now, experiencing as I am the freedom of this rebel camp, that I fully appreciate those days with Ceiba, in the old court of Guarionex, those blissful few months of a season of relative peace, when Guarionex put through
areito
after
areito
, singing from his great repertoire of hundreds and hundreds of story songs and ceremonial chants, recalling the ancient prophesies and teachings with me.

Ceiba and I liked each other. She was a mature woman, slightly older than me. In our second month, a full wedding ceremony was arranged, and Guarionex had a new
bohío
built to house the new couple. In our custom, a nuptial
bohío
like this must be built all in one day, with many people working. That day was a great celebration, with many joyful elements, all the more heartfelt as the times were certainly harsh and the people had already much to mourn. But the people of her
yukaieke
loved Ceiba a great deal, and they accepted me as a possible factor in relieving the great burdens imposed upon them. And it did happen, once, that I turned away a band of four Castilians who wounded a
guaxeri
of Guarionex and were intent on settling forcefully in the village. The
adelantado
, I lied to them in perfect Castilian, had given strict orders, under penalty of death, that Castilian soldiers stay out of Guarionex's village.

Ceiba and Catalina's people were friendly and frequent visitors. Thus a large group came with Catalina to the wedding. Catalina, a cousin of Anacaona's and older by ten years than Ceiba, led her young cousins in singing moon songs. In the early evening, she gifted us a fortune telling, looking to our destiny as a couple, a fertility search with
manatí
bone games that always came out two. Everyone nodded as this was considered good fortune, and the elders all reminded me of it months later when our twin boys were born. Catalina, bless her heart, came to help with the birth.

One hundred forty-six.
Enriquillo's camp is like the old
yukaiekes
.

I am glad to be here. This camp reminds me of those days, when we went for months not seeing even one Castilian and we could take the time, every day, to be Taíno. Ceiba and I put in a
conuco
all our own, even tobacco and herbs we planted. We worked together every day, bathed at the stream twice a day, and coupled excessively, day after day, wherever and whenever we wanted. She was wide of shoulder and hip, a strong woman who could work and work in the sun and who made love with certainty, grabbing a man firmly and opening herself in full trust, and she was so easy and so wonderful to love. For those months, as her belly grew and we continued to sneak around like mice in the corn, I became a poet in the style of old Guarionex and my grandfathers of childhood, full of thoughts for our little family and for our village and formulating thoughts of peace and words of love for Ceiba and words of reason and harmony for the Castilians, feeling in love strong enough to carry impacts of importance.

One hundred forty-seven.
The old man knew so much.

I sat with Guarionex and I heard him many times ponder the future. I grew to love the old man and through him was once again touched with the beauty and the reason of our Taíno customs. Guarionex knew it all. He was one of the very few, even in the best of times, who could remember the songs for all the
areitos
, all of the origin stories, the traditions and safekeeping practices for each and all of our
cemi
helpers. About the medicines, he knew their ceremonies and could check and instruct
behikes
and medicine women who regulated such things. But his interest was the peace pact, for which he could draw on a great repertoire of memories.

Peace-pacting was a strong tradition in Guarionex's court, and he was often drawn to help resolve fights between
caciques
. With me he talked much about these things, and together we wondered the motivations of Castile, why they settled on Taíno lands and what accommodations might yet be made with them so that our people could survive.

One hundred forty-eight.
Death Spirits that open sores in our faces.

It happened, too, that with the spread of Castilian settlements new illnesses grew among our people. There were constant deaths in villages where once the occasion was relatively rare. Every day now many people were dying and many others laid up on hammocks, very hot and retching and unable to eat, ears and noses running liquid and in many cases, open sores formed on our peoples' faces and bodies.

Guarionex pondered out loud on all this. Through the
cohoba
I experienced with him then, I did see my elders (though I could not talk to them), and I remember that they gestured for me to not come near them, but to stay where I was and open my ears and eyes wide. I saw my old men of Guanahaní and my father's mother, who waved at me, clasping her hands with two thumbs raised. I had not experienced the
cohoba
long enough to know what to do within my trance, nor how to move about, nor how to bring forth sound. I had no real skills, though I felt at ease with it, and in the morning my body felt clean and my mind clear.

Guarionex was powerful in
cohoba
and could communicate with his grandparents and especially with his great-grandfather, Caiçiju, a
behike
of renowned power whose
cohoba
vision of three generations before Guarionex shared with me.

“Caiçiju fasted six days,” Guarionex told me. “Every night he took
cohoba
and dreamed. Three nights he received sorrowful messages for one or another of his relatives. Then, even animals reported to him stories of future hardships. One night, Vital Force Supreme Spirit, Yucahuguama Bagua Maórocoti, the one without grandfather, of grandmother born, He who is Creator of our sea and islands, creator of all fish and of our Taíno people, Ancient Waves of our Ocean, spoke to him. He took Caiçiju out of himself and into the bright day sky past a thin cloud cover. Caiçiju told later that he reentered our world through the clouds to see our crablike island. On the ground, he moved through his known haunts. A man spirit, not Yucahu, he said, showed him his third generation on this earth, not free, as was his own, but enslaved, chained and lashed, dying of hunger. He saw covered men, he said, who came from the east and rode four-legged beasts full of fury.

“Caiçiju asked himself, how can this be? Who could do such a thing? He thought of the Carib, their pesky raids, but that didn't make sense, as they seldom settled for long and even then, more often than not, were taken in by our people.