The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (6 page)

The Lucayans and the Españols now crowded around each other, the former anxious to get these gifts from the gods and offering them cotton and birds and jewellery in return, telling them to come to the village to eat. The Españols ignored the cotton and the birds, but examined the pendants and necklaces and bracelets carefully.

Caon, who stood beside me, said, ‘Perhaps these are not the
guamikinas
Maiakan spoke of.'

‘Perhaps not,' I said.

‘They have much power,' Caon said. Besides the ships, he had noted the cleverness of the rings and the singing cups.

‘The Lucayans think they have come from heaven.'

Caon said, ‘Well, if they have, they are very
smelly
gods.'

I laughed long. The leader glanced at me and I put my hand to my mouth in an eating gesture and pointed back to the forest. He nodded and spoke to his men. We went back to the village together, where the
nitainos
, headed by the cacique, waited to meet these gods on earth.

I did not think they were gods. They were too ugly. The skin of their bodies was pale like palm-heart, while their faces were the colour of raw meat because of the sun. Their lips were thin and their bellies were round and soft. The only beautiful thing about them was their eyes, which varied in colour from the brown of the earth to the green of the sea to the blue of the sky. Their hair, too, made some of them seem like brightly-coloured birds, being red like parrot-feathers or yellow like the sun.

They ate much food very quickly, and returned to their ships a handspan past midday. Before they left, their leader made signs to our cacique indicating that he wanted some Tainos to guide them to the next land. He also indicated that he wanted me. I agreed. It was my destiny. Caon came with me, and four others. Caon would have gone even without me – I had noted the gleam in his eyes when he had seen the clever metalwork of these Españols .

It was aboard their giant
canoas
that I began to believe that these men were in fact gods. Their ships moved across the waters faster than any Taino
canoa
. They had many magical objects, such as sand-filled containers shaped like a woman, made of stone as clear as pond water, which they used for marking time (as though the sun was not dependable enough). They had two finger-thick joined metal needles, which they used to find out where they were. Most wondrous, however, was the round cup with a needle in it, which always pointed in the same direction no matter which way you turned the cup.

Caon was especially fascinated by all these things. But he was fascinated by everything, including the way the Españols weaved their clothes and sails and made their great ships and their metal knives that cut so easily. Many moons later, when he learned to talk with their tongue, he said to me, ‘There are so many things we never thought of. To use wind to drive our
canoas
, to use fire to shape metal and turn sand to glass, make drawings for our words...'

‘We never needed those things,' I said.

‘No,' he agreed. But I knew the nameless longing he had felt throughout his life had now become named in the objects of the Españols.

What most bothered Caon, I think, was that the power of the Españols, although great, was that of men, not gods. They could not move without the wind and their ships stopped the next night because there was none. Even so, we reached Cubanaca in less than two days and Ciguayo in less than one moon. By that time, I had begun to understand their tongue. In all my lives to come, I would always have a quick grasp of languages, and the leader had me follow him all over the ship, telling me words, and he was a man who stopped moving only when he slept.

By the time we reached Ciguayo, one of the ships had gone another way. Colón and the master of that ship had quarrelled and I had picked up enough of their language by that time to know that they had argued about gold. The master of the other ship, which was called the
Pinta, 
had sailed in another direction to find this yellow metal. I could not believe that these men would become so angry over such a thing. Indeed, I could not believe they had come from the other side of the world just to find this. The iron, which they used to make their devices, seemed to me to be far more valuable and the glass of their ornaments far more beautiful. But, despite their cleverness, the Españols seemed in many ways to lack reason.

So by the time we reached Ciguayo, I had come back to my first opinion – that these men were not true gods, although their power was godly indeed. And even that power had its limits, for the second of their great ships ran aground when we approached the shore. My people, the Ciguayaos, welcomed the strangers warmly, as had the Lucayans. They ate with us and, as soon as he had a chance, Guacamari drew me aside for a private talk.

‘Are these the
guamakinas
the
bohutu
Maiakan spoke of?'

I said, ‘They cover their bodies and they seek
guanín
. But they are generous with their gifts.'

‘The most deadly danger is that which you do not see,' Guacamari said. He thought for a while, then said, ‘Many of them have strange skins.'

‘Like the belly of a fish,' I agreed.

Guacamari shook his head. ‘Their skins have many small marks, as though an insect had eaten small bits of their faces.'

‘Oh,' I said. I had not noticed.

Guacamari got to his feet, dusting off his legs. We had been sitting in Maiakan's now empty
bohio
. The Españols were being fed by several unmarried women in Guacamari's
bohio
.

‘We must become friends with these
guamakinas
,' he said.

‘Yes,' I said. I was glad to know that Guacamari did not accept the prophecy as though it had to be.

‘Their leader wants some of us to return to his
bohio
with him. The men who were on the ship that cannot float will stay on Haiti. He promises to return within a season.'

‘I will go.' I did not need to think about it. It was my destiny, my very name. But I left with a troubled mind. It was not only that the
guamakinas
were to be on my small land while I, the Preserver, left. But on the very day I sailed away on the ship named
Nina
, I saw for the first time the man – the creature who has pursued me through the centuries – whom I call the Shadowman. The
Nina
was pulling away from the shore, wind billowing in the sails like a giant bird's wings. The entire village, headed by Guacamari, had come to the beach to see us off. The Españols who were left behind stood in a group by themselves. I stood on the deck, looking at my people, my throat a lump and hot tears running down my face.

Then, in the trees behind everyone, I saw a figure standing by himself. He was partly hidden but I knew at once he was not a Taino. He was dressed in a brown tunic that left his arms and legs bare. I knew he was not an Español, either, for his skin was blacker than a bat's wing. His immobility and the unusual thickness of his arms and calves made me think for a moment that he was a stone statue. But then he drew back and was hidden by the forest, leaving me to wonder if he had been real or a trick of my eyes.

So I returned with Christophorens Colón to the land of España. The Shadowman came often to my dreams during the moons I stayed in the land of the
guamakinas
. Colón left over thirty Españols on our island, who were to cause great troubles while they lived there and even greater trouble when Colón returned to find them all dead. And the first thing I would think of was the Shadowman, walking the land like a doom.

I do not remember much of my stay in España. There was too much that was new and beyond my understanding. The Españols' villages had buildings of stone and wood, so big that they could have contained a thousand
bohios
. Men rode on animals that snorted like demons, and which were so big and fierce that they could easily have killed the Españols who controlled them. The sun seemed too high in the sky, as though the land were further away. Perhaps because of this, the air was always very cool, so everyone was always covered. Even the least of these Españols wore many finely-woven cloths, often dyed in rich colours, like the green feathers of the parrot or the pink of the flamingo or the red of the cardinal's tuft or the blue of the kingfisher's back. It was a rich land – most people carried knives made of metal, and there were many ships in the harbour even larger than the ones Colón had come in.

España confused my mind. But there were far more confusing things about the Españols than their possessions. First, I could not understand why these people would come to our seas seeking wealth when even their lowest, it at first seemed, had so much more than the highest cacique. Then, for all its magnificence, their cities had a stink so high that all six of us were faint for days and could not eat. It was a smell of animals and waste and unwashed bodies and rotting food. After we had settled in the small stone room, we tried to go to the river every day to bathe. The wife of the Españols' cacique, when she heard of this, forbade bathing as being against their god's will. We could not understand why their god would object to a man being clean, but it was so. Many of their priests, especially the female ones, who covered even their heads, boasted that water had never touched their bodies, save for the tips of their fingers when they had to sprinkle the special water allowed by their god. So it was not surprising that their city stank.

The Españas' religion was the strangest thing about them. The largest and most beautiful buildings in the city were not for living in, but for their god and his son Hésus. One of the first things Colón showed me was the inside of these buildings, which had many beautiful things such as finely-carved
duhos
of polished wood and cups of gold and silver, some with brightly-coloured jewels embedded in them, and windows with glass dyed in colours that gleamed like a humming bird's feathers. And yet, in the middle of such beauty, these Españas had set the statue of a man hanged on a cross with thorns on his forehead and pegs driven through his hands and feet. It was for this man, who was the son of their god, that this great temple had been built.

‘Why do you worship a man being tortured?' I asked.

‘God so loved the world the He gave His only begotten Son,' Colón answered, ‘that man might not perish but have eternal life.' I did not understand. He said, ‘This is the sign of God's great love for us, that Hésus died for our sins. It is the love we worship, not the torture.'

I found out later that the reverse was the truth.

His god was very important to Colón. Once I had understood enough of his language, he immediately began teaching me the god's ways so I could pass on his words to my Taino brethren. The first act he had us do when we met the cacique Ferdinand and his wife Isabella was to recite some words, a call to his god in a language that the Españols did not speak save for their prayers. After we had said these words, one of their
bohutus
sprinkled water on our heads. We were then all given Español names. I was named Diego Colón, which was also the name of Colón's son. He seemed to have a special liking for me.

After this ritual, I asked Colón many questions about the Español religion, which he was glad to answer. But his answers left me even more confused. It seemed that the cacique Ferdinand was not the chief priest – the main
bohutu
lived in another country and there was always much argument between him and Ferdinand about who ruled over the lesser
bohutus
. And, in the same season that Colón had come to Ciguayo, Ferdinand had begun something called the Inquisition. The purpose of this Inquisition was to make people worship the Español god by imprisoning, torturing and killing those who did not. The main targets were persons of a tribe named Jews, but there were too many of them to kill or put in the small rooms with iron bars. Many of these Jews, enough to fill seven hundred large villages, had been driven out of España. Their crime, Colón explained, was that their forefathers had killed the son of the Español god. Yet Colón had told me just days before that the god had sent his son to be killed. It also turned out that the Jews' god was the same as the Españols' god and that the son of this god was also a Jew.

I doubted the sanity of these Españols.

At this same ceremony, the cacique Ferdinand and his wife Isabella presented Colón with several of the soft barks upon which the Españols marked their words. These cloth pages, which he showed me afterwards, had both drawings and symbols. There were flowery designs on all the pages. One page, which Colón kept looking at again and again, was divided into four parts. The first two sections on top had a golden Español
bohio
against a red field on one side, and on the other side in a silver field there was a great golden beast with fangs and hair on its neck and enormous clawed paws. The lower two parts of the page showed on one side a silver ocean with many golden small lands and, on the other side, a golden continent and a deep blue ocean with five large golden anchors.

‘My design,' Colón told me, in the voice of one speaking about his newborn child.

This cloth, he explained, gave him land and wealth and authority. Yet I could not tell what he loved more – the cloth or the small box filled with metal coins he had received from the cacique Ferdinand. The Españols used these coins for trading. When we went outside to the stone courtyard, one of the men from Colon's ship ran up to him and tried to take the box away. There was much shouting and some of the cacique's fighting-men came to Colon's defence, so the sailor ran away. I understood that the box of coins was supposed to be given to the man who had seen Guacamari first, but Colón felt he deserved it since he had guided the ships from España to the Taino small lands.

That was the moment when I began to mistrust Colón.

In the following days, all the Tainos saw much of the country. We were carried everywhere to be shown to the Españols, who took great delight in touching our skins and hearing us speak, even though they could not understand us. It was a big country, whose land never ended. But it was not as beautiful as Bohio – the trees had less leaves and the grass was shorter and there were many parts where almost nothing grew. What shocked me most, however, was that most of the people in this rich country were poorer than even the least Taino. They had clothes and objects, but they did not have enough to eat and were not allowed to use the land to plant food as they wished. I could not understand how this could be so, and all the Español nobles I asked to explain simply laughed. But I understood that the land was owned only by the nobles, who were very few in number, and they told the other people, who were very many in number, where to live and what to plant. I did not understand how anyone could own the earth, which was created by the One above Yúcahu – and above the Español god, too – and who did not concern himself with the things of this world. But this was how it was in España and the nobles grew fat and wore many cloths and lived in
bohios
that could have held almost an entire village.