The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (7 page)

Caon was very happy in España. The rest of us wanted to go home, especially when the winds blew from the west where the mountains rose like a dim wall up to the sky. We smelled our small lands on that wind, and our longing clutched at our hearts like a closed fist. But Caon was too busy exploring the wonders of the land – from the weavers'
bohios
where they spun their rich cloths to the foundry where they turned metal to gleaming water and, of course, the artisans'
bohios 
where dyes were mixed and barks painted. He learned much in the months we stayed in España and, when Colón was ready to sail back to Ciguayo, Caon said he would stay.

I was not surprised. In España he had the tools to make the things in his head real. But, if it had been that alone, he would not have stayed, he would have returned with the tools. But in his travels through the city he had seen men who did nothing but make beautiful things and who were respected for doing so. They were not his people, yet in some way I did not – could not – understand, Caon felt himself to be one of them. So, when the air in that land grew so cool that our very bones ached, we left with Colón to return to our small lands. There were seventeen ships with fifteen hundred men on them. Caon, dressed in the bright cloths of the Españols, looked a lonely figure on the crowded and shouting docks as we drew away over the grey sea. But I understood that those visions in his head were like commands from Yúcahu.

Five hundred years passed before I found out what happened to Caon. He died only a few years after we left. I returned there for the first time in centuries three years ago. In some of the architectural designs of the smaller palaces, and in some of the faces of the church sculptures, I thought I saw traces of Caon's work. But no doubt this was just my imagination.

There was a steady wind so we made good time leaving España. We stopped at some small lands to pick up strange animals. There were squawking, silly-faced birds named chickens which could not fly, and fat round-nosed beasts like our quenks, and huge beasts such as horses and cattle. We had not seen much of such animals, except for the horses and the cattle, while we were in España and I now began to understand at least one secret of the Españols' power. With such beasts to work their fields and to be killed for their meat, they did not need to hunt. They had more time to create their clever devices. But I was not jealous – with all their power, I did not think that they were a happy people.

There were several priests on board Colón's ship. One of these priests talked with me often. His name was Ramón Pané and all the Españols called him ‘father', although his god had forbidden him to sex with women. Pané wanted to know everything about how Tainos worshipped Yúcahu and Atabey. This surprised me, for I knew the Españols believed only their god was a real god. But he was a kind man, and even taught me how to make the marks of words on the long journey back to our small lands. Colón hardly spoke to me any more, although I now carried the name of his son. I often saw him looking at the other fourteen ships with an expression of both pride and worry.

We had told him of a shorter way to reach the small lands, for on his first trip he had not realized how far across the ocean they spread. Colón was pleased at this, but the first question he asked was whether these small lands had gold. We did not know, but he followed the path we set. There was a very clever Español who used the compass and the needles and the hourglass to make a drawing on paper-cloth of the path the ships sailed. Within two moons we landed on the first island, which the Españols called Dominica. We stayed there a short time and then we went to a neighbouring island. We stayed here a little longer, for the Españols who went ashore became lost in the forest. They also found a Carib settlement which, though empty, still had body parts from one of the Caribs' raids on a Taino or Arawak village. The Españols thought that the Caribs were people who ate of their own kind. We knew that they only ate certain parts of their enemies' bodies in order to get their enemies' strengths, but we did not tell the Españols this – we did not want them making friends of the Caribs, who often raided our villages and carried off our women. But the Caribs themselves soon made enemies of the Españols, for on the next island the Españols landed on, the Caribs came out in their
canoas
and attacked with bows and arrows. I saw then the true power of the Españols. Arrows bounced off the metal shirts the Español fighting men wore, and they loaded iron balls into the round tubes that looked like penises without heads and, using fire, sent these balls flying into the middle of the Carib war party with a mighty splash and a sound like thunder. The Caribs surrendered.

But this small battle did not have the effect I had hoped for. After the captured Caribs had been locked away in the ship's belly, Colón asked me who they were. The question surprised me.

‘They are Caribs,' I said. ‘They are the eaters of flesh whose huts you found.'

‘They look just like you Tainos,' he said.

‘No, they do not,' I said.

‘How are they different?' he asked. The black dots of his blue eyes had become very small.

‘Their foreheads are not flattened and they scar their faces and their ornaments are different...' I shrugged. If Colón could not see what was right before him, nothing I could say would make a difference. The seed of suspicion in the
cunoco
of his heart grew into a twisted vine when he landed at Ciguayo. All the men he had left behind had been killed. The huts they had built close to the beach had been destroyed, and we found many graves close by. The picture that entered my mind was so clear it was like a vision – the black-skinned man in his brown tunic walking among the Españols who fell like mosquitos before his very gaze.

When Colón spoke his voice was as cold as the air of España. ‘Let us go see your cacique, Diego,' he said.

We knew something was wrong as soon as we entered the village. Several of the
bohios
had been broken down, including the square-shaped
bohio
of Guacamari. Some of the Españols had chosen to dwell in the village – now there were only circles of blackened ash to mark the
bohios
that had been built for them. All the Españols except Colón drew their swords when Guacamari came out of the hut Maiakan had occupied and greeted us. He had a cotton bandage wrapped around his thigh and walked with a stick.

‘Ask him what happened to my men,' Colón told me.

Guacamari began by denying that he had killed the Españols. He pointed again and again to his destroyed
bohio
and to his wounded leg. It was the cacique Caonabó who ruled Maguana in the south of the island, he said, who had killed the Españols for mistreating his subjects.

Colón watched Guacamari unblinkingly as I translated. He asked only one question.

‘How did my men mistreat the Tainos?'

Guacamari answered that the Españols had started taking the possessions of the Tainos and several of them had claimed three or four women as their own and carried them into their
bohios
.

‘Not that I minded, cacique Colón,' said Guacamari, ‘for your men were our guests. But Caonabó did not feel he was under the same obligations of hospitality as myself. Your men left my village and raided his. That is why he destroyed my
bohio
and stabbed me in the leg...'

Colón listened to Guacamari repeat himself for several more minutes, then told his men to hold him. Colón then cut away Guacamari's bandages. The flesh beneath was unmarked and, for a moment, I thought that Guacamari possessed my own powers of healing.

‘Forgive me, cacique Colón,' Guacamari began to babble. ‘Everything I told you is the truth. I only faked this injury to help you believe me...'

I translated rapidly, feeling ashamed. This was what Guacamari's need to be cacique had brought him to – begging for his life. He could have told his story with dignity – and I knew he was speaking the truth, for he would not have killed the Españols in his own village and remained there for the return of Colón – and accepted the consequences. But now he was like a pleading child.

I thought that Colón might kill Guacamari. I thought he would set out for Maguana at once, to take revenge on Caonabó. But he did neither of these things. Instead, before he left, he unrolled a bark upon which was marked the words of the cacique Ferdinand. This Colón read out to the entire village while I translated. I have forgotten many things in my five hundred years, but the words Colón spoke on that day are burned into my brain forever.

‘In the name of King Ferdinand and Juana, his daughter, Queen of Castile and Leon, etcetera, conquerors of barbarian nations, we notify you as best we can that our Lord God Eternal created Heaven and earth and a man and woman from whom we all descend for all times and all over the world. In the five thousand years since creation the multitude of these generations caused men to divide and establish kingdoms in various parts of the world, among whom God chose St. Peter as leader of mankind, regardless of their law, sect or belief. He seated St. Peter in Rome as the best place from which to rule the world but he allowed him to establish his seat in all parts of the world and rule all people, whether Christians, Moors, Jews, Gentiles or any other sect. He was named Pope, which means admirable and greatest father, governor of all men. Those who lived at that time obeyed Saint Peter as Lord and superior King of the universe, and so did their descendants obey his successors and so on to the end of time.

‘The late Pope gave these small lands and mainland of the ocean and the contents hereof to the above-mentioned King and Queen, as is certified in writing and you may see the documents if you should so desire. Therefore, Their Highnesses are lords and masters of this land; they were acknowledged as such when this notice was posted, and were and are being served willingly and without resistance; then, their religious envoys were acknowledged and obeyed without delay, and all subjects unconditionally and of their own free will became Christians and thus they remain. Their Highnesses received their allegiance with joy and benignity and decreed that they be treated in this spirit like good and loyal vassals and you are under the obligation to do the same.

‘Therefore, we request that you understand this text, deliberate on its contents within a reasonable time, and recognize the Church and its highest priest, the Pope, as rulers of the universe, and in their name the King and Queen of Spain as rulers of this land, allowing the religious fathers to preach our holy Faith to you. You own compliance as a duty to the King and we in his name will receive you with love and charity, respecting your freedom and that of your wives and sons and your rights of possession and we shall not compel you to baptism unless you, informed of the Truth, wish to convert to our holy Catholic Faith as almost all your neighbours have done in other small lands, in exchange for which Their Highnesses bestow many privileges and exemptions upon you. Should you fail to comply, or delay maliciously in so doing, we assure you that with the help of God we shall use force against you, declaring war upon you from all sides and with all possible means, and we shall bind you to the yoke of the Church and of Their Highnesses; we shall enslave your persons, wives and sons, sell you or dispose of you as the King sees fit; we shall seize your possessions and harm you as much as we can as disobedient and resisting vassals. And we declare you guilty of resulting deaths and injuries, exempting Their Highnesses of such guilt as well as ourselves and the gentlemen who accompany us.'

We left Ciguayo to go to Xaymaca and then to Cubanaca and on every island Colón read out to the Tainos the words of the cacique Ferdinand. Though we did not know it yet, that bark was the sentence of doom upon our people.

Little more remains to be told. This might seem an odd cliché to apply to the genocide of the next twenty dry seasons. But there are certain things the human mind, even a mind as old as my own, cannot encompass. The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of thousands is a statistic.

In the time it takes a boy to become a man, nearly every Taino had been killed – by too much work and too little food, as the Españols searched like devils for the yellow metal they worshipped; by suicide, as many Tainos killed themselves and their children, rather than live as slaves; by disease, especially the pox which struck us down by the thousands; and by the Españols' savage sport, such as testing their swords' sharpness on our bodies or tying us to racks over slow fires for their amusement.

What more can I say? And, even if there were more to say, I would not want to say it.

On that second voyage, Colón found gold in Cubanaca. I left him when we sailed back down to the coast of Xaymaca. I think he barely noticed my going- the blue eyes, which had once looked upon the beauty of our small lands and called them a paradise, now saw only the yellow metal. I settled on Xaymaca, whose mountains filled the sky, and I took a wife and lived quietly. I saw Colón once again, ten wet seasons later when his ships, infested by wood-eating worms, were sunk in the white sands of Cow Bay, where the manatees often sported. I was living in the village of Maima, which was close to the sea, and I went to meet him. I had to remind Colón who I was, although I had changed not a whit in the passing years. He, however, had grown very old. His hair was now completely grey and the blue of his eyes had become as pale as a midday sky. His Español magic was still strong, though. After the villagers had gotten enough trinkets in exchange for food, they refused to continue supplying the stranded Españols. But Colón was able to make the sun disappear during the day, and so frightened were we all that we gave the Españols as much food as they wanted, although they ate in a day what would have kept us for a week.

But the gods always demand tribute, and that one feat of great magic drained Colon's power. His men fought among themselves, and Colon's hands became like claws, and an Español ship came and only watched from the distance before leaving without them.