The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

by Eduardo Galeano

  The soldiers throw down the witch and leave her trembling on the threshold.

  Then the ugly old stone idol greets the ugly old witch in the Quechua language: “Welcome, princess,” says the hoarse voice from under the official’s foot.

  The official is flabbergasted and falls sprawling on the floor.

  As she fans him with a hat, the old woman clutches the fainting man’s coat and cries: “Don’t punish me, sir, don’t break it!”

  The old woman wants to explain to him that divinities live in the stone and if it were not for the idol, she would not know her name, or who she is, or where she comes from and would be wandering the earth naked and lost.

  (221)

  Prayer of the Incas, Seeking God

  Hear me,

  from the sea up there where Thou livest,

  from the sea down here where Thou art.

  Creator of the world,

  potter of man,

  Lord of Lords,

  to Thee,

  with my eyes that despair to see Thee

  or just for yearning to know Thee

  if I see Thee,

  know Thee,

  ponder Thee,

  understand Thee,

  Thou wilt see me and know me.

  The sun, the moon,

  the day,

  the night,

  the summer,

  the winter,

  they don’t walk idly,

  but in good order,

  to the appointed place

  and to a good end.

  Everywhere Thou carriest with Thee

  Thy royal scepter.

  Hear me,

  listen to me.

  Let me not tire out,

  let me not die.

  (105)

  1565: Mexico City

  Ceremony

  The gilded tunic glints. Forty-five years after his death, Moctezuma heads the procession. The horsemen move at walking pace into the central square of Mexico City. Dancers step out to the thunder of drums and the lament of chirimía pipes. Many Indians, clad in white, hold up flowered branches; others, enormous clay cooking pots. The smoke of incense mingles with the aromas of spicy sauces.

  Before Cortés’s palace, Moctezuma dismounts.

  The door opens. Among his pages, armed with tall, sharpened halberds, appears Cortes.

  Moctezuma bows his head, crowned with feathers and gold and precious stones. Kneeling, he offers garlands of flowers. Cortés touches his shoulder. Moctezuma rises. With a slow gesture he tears off his mask and reveals the curly hair and high-pointed mustachio of Alonso de Avila.

  Alonso de Avila, lord of gallows and knife, owner of Indians, lands, and mines, enters the palace of Martín Cortés, marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca. The son of a conquistador opens his house to the nephew of another conquistador.

  Today the conspiracy against the king of Spain officially commences. In the life of the colony, all is not soirees and tournaments, card and hunting parties.

  (28)

  1566: Madrid

  The Fanatic of Human Dignity

  Fray Bartolomé de las Casas is going over the heads of the king and of the Council of the Indies. Will he be punished for his disobedience? At ninety-two, it matters little to him. He has been fighting for half a century. Are not his exploits the key to his tragedy? They have let him win many battles, but the outcome of the war was decided in advance. He has known it for a long time.

  His fingers won’t obey him anymore. He dictates the letter. Without anybody’s permission, he addresses himself directly to the Holy See. He asks Pius V to order the wars against the Indians stopped and to halt the plunder that uses the cross as an excuse. As he dictates he becomes indignant, the blood rises to his head, and the hoarse and feeble voice that remains to him trembles.

  Suddenly he falls to the floor.

  (70 and 90)

  1566: Madrid

  Even if You Lose, It’s Still Worthwhile

  The lips move, speak soundless words. “Forgivest Thou me, Lord?”

  Fray Bartolomé pleads for mercy at the Last Judgment for having believed that black and Moorish slaves would alleviate the fate of the Indians.

  He lies stretched out, damp forehead, pallid, and the lips do not stop moving. From far off, a slow thunderclap. Fray Bartolomé, the giver of birth, the doer, closes his eyes. Although always hard of hearing, he hears rain beating on the roof of the Atocha monastery. The rain moistens his face. He smiles.

  One of the priests who accompanies him murmurs something about the strange light that has illumined his face. Through the rain, free of doubt and torment, Fray Bartolomé is traveling for the last time to the green worlds where he knew happiness.

  “I thank Thee,” say his lips in silence while he reads the prayers by the light of fireflies, splashed by the rain that strikes the palm-frond roof.

  “I thank Thee,” he says as he celebrates Mass in sheds without walls and baptizes naked children in rivers.

  The priests cross themselves. The clock’s last grains of sand have fallen. Someone turns over the hourglass so that time will not be interrupted.

  (27, 70, and 90)

  1568: Los Teques

  Guaicaipuro

  Never again will the river reflect his face, his panache of lofty plumes.

  This time the gods did not listen to his wife, Urquía, who pleaded that neither bullets nor disease should touch him and that sleep, the brother of death, should never forget to return him to the world at the end of each night.

  The invaders felled Guaicaipuro with bullets.

  Since the Indians elected him chief, there was no truce in this valley nor in the Avila Mountains. In the newly born city of Caracas people crossed themselves when in a low voice they spoke his name.

  Confronting death and its officials, the last of the free men has fallen shouting, Kill me, kill me, free yourselves from fear.

  (158)

  1568: Mexico City

  The Sons of Cortés

  Martín was the name of Hernán Cortés’s oldest son, his blood son born of the Indian woman Malinche. His father died leaving him a meager annual pension.

  Martin is also the name of Hernán Cortés’s legitimate son, born of a Spanish woman, a count’s daughter and niece of a duke. This Martín has inherited the coat of arms and the fortune: He is marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, owner of thousands of Indians and leagues of this land that his father had humiliated and loved and chosen to lie in forever.

  On a saddle of crimson velvet embroidered with gold, Martín the marquis used to wander the streets of Mexico. Behind him went his red-liveried guards armed with swords. Whoever crossed his path doffed his hat, paid homage, and joined his entourage. The other Martin, the bastard, was one of the retinue.

  Martín the marquis wanted to break with Spain and proclaim himself king of Mexico. When the plot failed, he babbled regrets and named names. His life was spared.

  Martín the bastard, who has served his brother in the conspiracy and everything else, is now writhing on the rack. At his side, the scribe records: He was stripped and put in the cincha. On being admonished, he said he owed nothing. The torturer gives a turn to the wheel. The cords break the flesh and stretch the bones.

  The scribe records: He is again admonished. Says he has no more to say than what he has said.

  Second turn of the wheel. Third, fourth, fifth.

  (28)

  1569: Havana

  St. Simon Against the Ants

  Ants harass the city and ruin the crops. They have devoured more than one heavy-sleeping Christian via the navel.

  In extraordinary session, Havana’s authorities resolve to ask the protection of a patron saint against the bibijaguas and other fierce ants.

  Before the Reverend Alonso Álvarez, lots are drawn among the twelve apostles. The winner is St. Simon, whom they take as advocate so that he may intercede with Our Lord God, that He may remove all ants from this community, the houses and haciendas of this town,
and its environs.

  In return, the city will throw an annual party in honor of the blessed St. Simon, with sung vespers, Mass, compulsory-attendance procession, and bullfight.

  (161)

  1571: Mexico City

  Thou Shalt Inform On Thy Neighbor

  From the balconies hang coats of arms, gay carpets, velvets, banners. The armor of the knight of the Order of Santiago, who dips his standard before the viceroy, glitters. Pages raise their big axes around the immense cross nailed to the scaffold.

  The inquisitor general is arriving from Madrid. Kettledrums and trumpets announce him. He comes on the back of a mule with jeweled trappings, amid countless lighted candles and black capes.

  Under his supreme authority heretics will be tortured or burned. Centuries ago Pope Innocent IV ordered assassins of souls and robbers of the faith of Christ to be rewarded with torments; and much later Pope Paul III prohibited the torture to last more than an hour. Since then, inquisitors take a small break from their work every hour. The inquisitor general newly arrived in Mexico will see to it that green wood is never used in the executions, so that the city will not be choked with noxious smoke; and he will order them for clear days so that all may appreciate them. He will not bother with Indians, since they are new in the faith, feeble folk, and of little substance.

  The inquisitor general takes his seat beside the viceroy. An artillery salvo greets him. The drums roll and the town crier proclaims the general edict of the faith. The edict orders everyone to inform on anyone they know or have seen or heard, not excepting wives, husbands, fathers, or anyone else, no matter how intimate. All are obliged to denounce live or dead people who have said or believed heretical, suspicious, erroneous, reckless, offensive, scandalous, or blasphemous words or opinions.

  (115 and 139)

  1571: Madrid

  Who Is Guilty, Criminal or Witness?

  The face itself, or the mirror that reflects it? The king does not think twice about it. By decree he orders the confiscation of all the manuscripts left by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas so that they may not fall into the hands of bad Spaniards and enemies of Spain. Especially worrying to Philip II is the possible publication or circulation in some manner of the extremely voluminous History of the Indies, which Las Casas could not finish and which survives, a prisoner under lock and key, in the San Gregorio monastery.

  (70 and 90)

  1572: Cuzco

  Tùpac Amaru I

  He comes dragging his feet on the cobblestones. On the back of a dwarf donkey, a rope about his neck, Túpac Amaru approaches the scaffold. Ahead of him, the town crier proclaims him tyrant and traitor.

  In the main square, the clamor swells up.

  “Inca, why do they take you to cut off your head?”

  The murmurings of the throng of natives become an uproar. Let them have us all killed! shriek the women.

  High on the scaffold, Tupac Amaru raises a hand, rests it against his ear and calmly lets it fall back. Then the throng falls silent.

  There is nothing but silence when the executioner’s sword cleaves the neck of Huaina Cápac’s grandson.

  With Túpac Amaru, four centuries of the Inca dynasty and nearly forty years of resistance in the Wilcabamba Mountains come to an end. Now the storms of war, the harsh rhythm of the conches, will no longer fall on the valley of Cuzco.

  (76)

  The Vanquished Believe:

  He will come back and move about the earth. The highest mountains know. Being the highest, they see the farthest.

  He was the son of the sun and a simple woman.

  He took the wind prisoner; and tied up the sun, his father, so that time might endure.

  With harness and lash, he brought stones to the heights. With those stones he made temples and fortresses.

  Wherever he went, the birds went. The birds greeted him and gladdened his steps. From much journeying his feet spilled blood. When the blood of his feet mixed with the soil, we learned to cultivate. We learned to speak when he told us: “Speak.” He was stronger and younger than we.

  We have not always had fear in our breasts. Not always bumped along, like the ups and downs of our roads. Our history is long. Our history was born on the day we were hauled from the mouth, the eyes, the armpits, and the vagina of the earth.

  Inkarrí’s brother Españarrí cut off Inkarrí’s head. He has been. The head of Inkarrí turned into money. Gold and silver spurted from his shit-filled entrails.

  The highest mountains know. Inkarrí’s head is trying to grow toward his feet. The pieces of him will surely come together one day. On that day he will walk the earth followed by the birds.

  (15 and 162)

  1574: Mexico City

  The First Auto-da-Fé in Mexico

  Ever since the town criers spread the edict of the delations, denunciations have rained down against heretics and bigamists, witches and blasphemers.

  The auto-da-fé is celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent. From sunrise until dusk the Holy Office of the Inquisition passes sentences on the scarecrows dragged from its cells and torture chambers. High on the sumptuous scaffold, surrounded by lancers and cheering crowds, work the hangmen. No such multitude can be remembered at a public celebration or at any thing of very great solemnity ever offered on earth, says the viceroy of New Spain, who attends the spectacle on a velvet throne with a cushion under his feet.

  The punishments of vela, soga, mordaza, abjuration de levi, and one hundred and two hundred lashes are meted out to a silversmith, a cutler, a goldsmith, a scribe, and a cobbler for having said that simple fornication is not mortal sin. Various bigamists suffer similar inflictions, among them the Augustine friar Juan Sarmiento, who with his back one raw wound marches off to row in the galleys for five years.

  The Negro Domingo, born in Mexico, and the mestizo Miguel Franco receive a hundred lashes each, the former for having the custom of denying God, the latter because he made his wife confess to him. A hundred, too, for the Sevillian apothecary Gaspar de los Reyes for having said it was better to cohabit than to be married and that it was licit for the poor and afflicted to perjure themselves for money.

  To the galleys, hard prison for the mischievous, go various Lutherans and Jews, who sucked their heresy in their mothers’ milk, a few Englishmen of the pirate John Hawkins’s fleet, and a Frenchman who called the pope and the king poltroons.

  An Englishman from the mines of Guanajuato and a French barber from Yucatan end their heretical days in the bonfire.

  (139)

  1576: Guanajuato

  The Monks Say:

  She came to Mexico twenty years ago. Two doves guided her to Guanajuato. She arrived without a scratch, although she crossed the sea and the desert, and those who carried her lost their way. The king sent her to us in gratitude for the wealth that never stops spurting from the bowels of these mountains.

  For more than eight centuries she had lived in Spain. Hidden from the Moors, she survived in a cave in Granada. When Christians discovered and rescued her, they found no wound on her wooden body. She reached Guanajuato intact. She remains intact, performing miracles. Our Lady of Guanajuato consoles both poor and rich for their poverty; and she shields alike from the cold those who sleep outdoors and in a sheltered palace. In her infinite mercy she does not distinguish between servants and lords. No one invokes her and fails to receive divine favor.

  By her grace many Indians of Guanajuato who go to her with repentance and faith are now being saved. She has stayed the sword of the Lord, who with just fury castigates the idolatries and sins of the Indians in Mexico. The afflicted who brought their supplications to her and paid due charity have not been touched by the pestilence.

  In other areas, the Indian whom typhus does not kill dies of hunger or hardship. There are corpses in the fields and in the plazas, and there are houses filled with them in which all died and no one remained to tell of it. Throughout Mexico the pestilence is raising such a stink of putrefaction and smoke that we Spa
niards have to go about holding our noses.

  (79 and 131)

  1576: Xochimilco

  The Apostle Santiago versus the Plague

  Here even nursing babies have paid tribute, in money and in corn. If the pestilence goes on, who will pay? Local hands have built the cathedral of Mexico. If the plague does not stop, who will sow these fields? Who will spin and weave in the workshops? Who will build cathedrals and pave streets?

  The Franciscans discuss the situation in their monastery. Of the thirty thousand Indians in Xochimilco when the Spaniards came, four thousand are left, and that is an exaggeration. Many died fighting with Hernán Cortés, conquering men and lands for him, and more died working for him and for Pedro de Alvarado, and the epidemic is killing more.

  Fray Jerónimo de Mendieta, the monastery guardian, comes up with the inspiration that saves the day.

  They prepare to draw lots. An acolyte, blindfolded, stirs slips of paper in the silver dish. On each slip is written the name of a saint of proven prestige at the celestial court. The acolyte chooses one, and Father Mendieta unfolds it and reads: “It’s the Apostle Santiago!”

  From the balcony it is announced to the Indians of Xochimilco in their language. The apocalyptic monk speaks on his knees, raising his arms. “Santiago will defeat the pestilence!”

  He promises him an altar.

  (79 and 161)

  1577: Xochimilco

  St. Sebastian versus the Plague

  During the tough years of the conquest, the clash of arms was heard from the tomb of Santiago on the eve of each battle; and the apostle fought with the invading hosts, lance in hand, on his white horse. Clearly the apostle Santiago has the habit of killing Indians but not of saving them. The plague, which barely scratches the Spaniards, continues massacring Indians in Xochimilco and other parts of Mexico.