Taino

by Jose Barreiro

  Silverio rides a yellow gelding I rented from the abbot, who was pleased to see me off. “The work will do you good, Dieguillo,” he said, though he warned me not to go near Oviedo’s cattle ranch near San Juan de la Maguana. Of course, I intend doing no such thing, as my mission here is to work two weeks at carpentry on Solana’s trapiche, while Silverio rides on to the Bahuruku. I am trusting young Silverio, who is mostly a resourceful lad, precisely from the people of Guarionex, with this delicate mission. Interestingly, he worries not the danger presented by the governor’s cuadrillas but wonders if Enriquillo’s warriors might not lynch him, which deed they have carried out at various times against suspected mánso informers. “I can avoid the Castilians, Don Diego,” he assures me. “But I fear the guaxeri of the cacique.”

  I prepare for him tonight a note, waxed over and wrapped inside the sheath of his machete, that will deliver him and be delivered to the baby boy. Meanwhile, I will write not during my stay at Solana’s sugar mill but instead will hide my writing things away here with Yoruba, whom nobody bothers, while I fulfill my obligation in that stifling atmosphere. When I find myself at the Taíno camps, at our free places on the Bahuruku, where my people are still maintaining themselves, there I will write again.

  One hundred fifteen. Two weeks later, sugar mill story.

  Once again tonight at Francisco Pedro’s bohío I take up the pen. Two weeks exactly have passed, and later this morning I will ride my whiteface mare to the old Camin River, where it enters the plain. Word from Silverio already awaited me here, delivered two days ago by a mounted guaxeri of Enriquillo’s. It indicated the place of my entrance to the free country.

  I make only two quick notes before departure. One is how excited I am to be near the baby boy. The daring ride of his messenger, who was chased by two Spanish squads before slipping free, warms my heart.

  The second note is this: at Solana’s hacienda, which is on the foothills of this plain, I saw the remains of the irrigation canals used years ago by Bohekio’s gardens. This dry plain, rich in soil but poor in water, required an intricate plan from that thoughtful cacique’s forebears, who turned out large quantities of yucca, yams, corn, and beans.

  At the hacienda, a foreman from Asturias berated an African man. “Negro etúpido!” he yelled as the Negro man led a wagon of water pulled by an ox. The trail was rough and the African, who led the ox by way of a nose ring, kept tripping, jerking on the ox’s nose so that it bled. The foreman let fly the whip, three, four times, at the poor Negro man’s shoulders. Their activity was to transport a huge barrel of water, carried by ox wagon, to moisten the soil of the vegetable gardens. As the blows stopped, the African recovered his composure to lead the ox, but then the wagon wheel itself became stuck as the road’s edge collapsed. I was walking by with two planks of wood, keeping my head low. That’s when I saw the old canal, under the dry-cracked lode. It was the old irrigation canal my good Taíno brethren used forty years ago to water all of this beautiful plain, turning a dry valley, year by year, into mountains of food. Typical maguacokío, I thought, beating someone else in frustration when the solution to his problem is right under his feet!

  One hundred sixteen. A new day begins.

  Tired I am tonight, exhausted and agonized by my cramping leg, after a journey through iguana trails, down rivers, and up buttes. But I am found, I say, and I write this in the bright night of a circle moon. I am here, I say. I am lying up in a hammock, in the yukaieke of the Cacique Guarocuya (my baby boy Enriquillo), surrounded by the constant din of the forest.

  I saw him already; he was there at the water’s edge to greet me, Doña Mencia, as always, at his side. They are so young and yet their manner so grave, so beautifully calm. I am entirely content to see them, to be here, to write these words—incredibly, wonderfully—by moonlight. Now the coquí, our tree frog, barks in his quick rasp and the whole forest chirps back. I note it happily. Near me, also on a hammock, young Silverio sleeps, breathing in tandem with the night.

  Silverio helped guide me here. He came in the company of a young warrior from this camp, a tall thin man named Cao, after the black crow of our islands. He claims descendancy from Hatuey’s people, on the old Guahaba province, just north of here. I could see they were good friends already. In only three weeks with Enriquillo’s men, young Silverio has lost the nervousness that has characterized him for me. I met the two by a huge ceiba tree that grows in a place of large boulders, where the river turns west and enters the plain. We rode upriver a while, then it got thick and they let their horses go.

  I left the whiteface in a meadow. With the help of the guaxeris, I made a corral surrounding a heavy salt stone. The corral is closed off by the river on one end and thick brush and a post fence hidden behind trees. I expect she will be alright there. We then walked for six days, the going so rough at times I wondered if we would crisscross the Bahuruku’s thirty leagues of length along the coast and twenty-five leagues of width inland before getting somewhere. We followed the river up rugged peaks and through brush so thick we had to crawl on hands and knees. Then slowly we made our way down the valley called Cayobani to the shores of the big lake called Aybaguanex. Cao located his canoe, hidden in the brush, and we paddled off, trailing a line and a wide basket weighed down to scrape bottom, which caught about three dozen hand-sized xaiba crabs. The line caught one large fish I did not recognize but which Cao said was good eating.

  Enriquillo and Mencia waited at the waters’ edge. It brought tears to my eyes to see them in white cotton garments surrounded by captains and guaxeri and to hear the sweet words of our language, “Caraya tao, cacique Guaikán, welcome to our home.”

  It was late afternoon. We drank a pineapple drink, ate guayabas and small sweet plantain—a food of the Africans that traveled quickly into our conucos—but no hot meal, as there were yet another four hours to walk. It was this walk, brisk and totally uphill to a plateau, that cramped my leg and lay me out.

  One hundred seventeen. In the free Taíno territory.

  I now see part of their yukaieke, eight wide bohíos set back on the open plateau, saluted by moon’s shadows. I smell the smoke of the braziers, where fish and pig and crab are barbecuing, and I can hear the soft murmuring of guaxeris as they prepare the food and they greet and feed the outposted warriors coming in from their guard. Tomorrow I will see the place by sunlight and the enchantment will, I am sure, dissipate, a war camp it is, after all. But now as I struggle with my tired eyes and fight the pain of my caimán-bitten leg, I feel with certainty the reason for my being alive. Thanks it be to the Yucahuguama Bagua Maórocoti, first powers, Lord Spirit of the Yuca Beings, Spirit of the Sea, Male Spirit without grandfathers of Woman Only Born; it is in you, the Three Combined Into One, who still breathe life into our Taíno nostrils; thanks it be to your mother, Atabei, Mother of Waters; thanks it be to Itiba Cahobaba, Ancient Bleeding Mother, mother of Deminán, leader of the Four Brothers, remembered creators of our Taíno world: please be with us, all the greatnesses; thanks be to all the cemis you have empowered, Xán-Xán, please be with us, yes, all, and thanks to you, yes, again, yes, and again and again, yes. Xán, Xán Katú, Xán Xán Katú.

  One hundred eighteen. Greetings by Enriquillo and Doña Mencia, council of captains.

  Three days have passed since I touched this pen, three days full of life I have spent with the men and women of this place. Now, on a clear day, I will make notes.

  The morning after my last entry, I awoke with the sun already midsky. A boy watched over me as I opened my eyes. He peered to make certain I was awake then ran to tell. I was up and stretching when Enriquillo and Doña Mencia walked up. He brought water in a bowl and she a white cloth. I washed and then we went to where they had food for me. Enriquillo was immediately busy with two men, and Doña Mencia indicated a meeting was starting that morning. As I ate, nine captains arrived, one by one. They all took a drink and sat around the fire.

  None of them I recognized. Five were clearly of Taíno or Cig
uayo stock, three were mixed Indian with Castilian, and one Indian mixed with African. They all dressed like Enriquillo, in grayish white cotton pants to just below the knee, no shirt, their corazas (suits and vests made by rows of thick, tightly woven chord) spread out at their sides. All nine captains carried sword and lance, three held crossbows, and two were armed with harquebus. One by one, they all bowed their heads to be touched by Enriquillo or Mencia before taking their seats.

  I will tell first about the young cacique. Barely over thirty years old and already a fighting leader for fifteen years, Enriquillo has the old Taíno look, with a long, hawk nose, long black hair, lean body with a broad chest and taut calves. Enriquillo is taller than most Indians. He wears wrapped leather sandals made of manatí hide and braids his hair in one lone strand down the center of his bare back. He too protects himself with coraza and has two pages who carry extra swords for him. His eyes are stone black and deep, with a brightness in their gaze that touches the soul. He seldom smiles, never laughs, but speaks in a low tone, gentle but firm, a concentrated mindfulness I have seldom seen before in any of our people. It has been ten years or more since I saw Enriquillo. Once was in the second year of his struggle, when I carried to him a message. He looked more then like the guinea hen he had been nicknamed after as a boy. His eyes scurried and didn’t fix. He spoke to me then, our first time together in several years, with great distance, openly but tersely, even haughtily. He had the attitude of the free stallion toward the tamed donkey. The haughtiness is totally gone now. The eyes fix intensely, and he is calm. All the captains hold him in great esteem and some revere him immensely. His two pages, thin young men, complain that he seldom sleeps but nightly leads them around his camp’s perimeters and sometimes even out to other lookouts, weapons always at the ready. In the Indian Bahuruku, Enriquillo is gavilán (big hawk), the final judge. His word, trusted by all, often becomes law.

  Doña Mencia is his reason for being, his open love, and his greatest ally. In our old saying, “The men are the jawbone; the women are the backbone.” Thus with Doña Mencia, who takes care of everything. Never does Enriquillo’s return find Doña Mencia asleep. This she would never allow. In her words: “He watches over all of us; I watch over him and what he does.” Everything is ready, always, because of her. She runs the whole food line, organizing harvests and food preparation at the camp and at far-off conucos, where stashes of food are kept. Her stashes have saved many a cutoff Indian chased by Spanish cuadrillas, many a camp discovered and scattered via insufficient vigilance. Standing with her feet wide apart, legs straight, hand on a hip, usually with a baby or small child from one of her young women, the look of Doña Mencia penetrates. Regal is her demeanor as she points with her chin or lips for guaxeri to pick up or bring food, instructing messengers to other camps, crew leaders to their fields, a constant source of direction and information.

  Doña Mencia wields a machete with total dexterity and one captain, Romero, told me yesterday that she has wiped blood from it after combat. She wears pants, too, cut at the knee. A cloth wrapped around her torso covers her breasts. She likes a shawl, too, in her evening repose, when the elders talk and smoke. There is nothing extravagant about Doña Mencia, but she commands naturally, clearly of ni-Taíno line. In her face Doña Mencia is slightly round, rather like her grandmother, the well-loved cacica Anacaona. She is well-rounded of breast and buttock, also, again, like the revered cacica of this old Xaraguá province, who was a most imposing woman.

  The meeting of captains the morning of the day before yesterday was little about my visit, as they are all active warriors with many responsibilities and important points to discuss. Enriquillo introduced me briefly. “An uncle I have in my camp, whom you now see,” he said. “He is one of our caciques, who saved my father’s life and my own, many years ago. Though he lives with the friars, as I once did, he is Taíno.” A small white pipe he lit with tobacco and had me smoke first, a sign of respect, then rolled tobaccos were passed around to the captains and to Doña Mencia and other principal women, who sat in the second circle backing their men.

  Done with his smoke, Enriquillo spoke to everyone. “All of you are my nephews, your children are my grandchildren,” he said. “Always treat each other well and help each other.” “Xán, Xán Katú,” the captains returned, in agreement. The warrior captains, with the women of their families, then greeted Enriquillo and called him grandfather. Everybody brought presents, which Enriquillo promptly offered to the visitor, baskets of fruit and cassabe, stacks of tobacco leaves, a good rope, a hammock, a cake of wax for light, a large clear conch full of live cucuyos, the lightning bug of our islands. These were all put at my feet, as guest of Enriquillo. Doña Mencia later bundled the gifts up in the hammock and had them carried here to my bohío across the clearing from her own. (The cucuyos, or lightning bugs, I let go a few each night in my bohío, where they cut back and forth, hunting mosquitoes by the hundreds.)

  Of the captains, three are from other main camps and six run separate conucos, or garden camps. There are four main camp areas, spread out in the Bahuruku over several days’ walking distance. They also have hidden gardens and fruit orchards. Warrior groups on raids emerge from the thick and rugged mountains in places far from the home camps. Usually a major action is preceded by the taking of several horses, somewhere in the vicinity, which are used in raiding haciendas or towns, holding up travelers and particularly in helping outrun Spanish squads, or cuadrillas, which take their toll.

  One hundred nineteen. Younger captains’ proposals for raids to procure arms and munitions and tools.

  The main purpose of that morning’s meeting was a request by three of the captains to carry out expeditions near San Juan la Maguana. They spoke in favor of a “lightning” raid to a ranch in the nearby foothills, where they could apprehend ax handles, iron hoes, and saws for planking wood; they spoke of a place where they could gain more powder and shot for their harquebuses, maybe even a small piece of artillery.

  The two younger captains spoke directly and stood together firmly, yet their manner was quiet and deferential to the cacique, who did not respond at first but invited more reasoning from the raid’s proponents and the opinion of the others. As the captains discussed the proposals, groups of guaxeri walked by and stopped briefly, but this was clearly a captains’ meeting and no one offered them seats, so they went about their business.

  The wizened captain named Tamayo, who commands four dozen men, reasoned for the younger captains. “My cacique,” he said. “Everything that makes us stronger in our fighting, I favor always, so my opinion will be obvious. In full sincerity, hear it then for what it is.

  “The Castilians press on us with more and more frequency. There is talk of a big attack, from several sides, as they have done before. We need better fortifications, gun powder and I think a piece or two of artillery, for which they would respect us that much more.”

  This Tamayo is a tough fighter who has led most of the rebels’ excursions into the plain and all recent raids on ranches. The Castilians fear him most of all, as he gives no quarter and expects none. Recently, after a skirmish, he captured two Spanish soldiers. One, an older man, cut the gut of his lieutenant, named Antonin, who later died from the wound. Tamayo ordered his men to hang the Spaniard. The other prisoner was a sixteen-year-old Castilian lad. Tamayo pitied him and spared his life, but he ordered the boy’s sword-handling hand cut off. When the young man offered his left hand, the warrior who captured him complained, as he had seen him fight with the right. The young man begged and cried. “‘Don’t petition us, you lucky boy,” Tamayo told him. “You are fortunate that, because of your age, I don’t hang you.”

  Of the other captains, one more sided with Tamayo, while the rest nodded to Enriquillo to speak their mind for them. The young cacique stood to speak. He took in his hand a black, caoba-wood cane. These will be his exact words, translated into the Castilian.

  “Tamayo, my captain,” Enriquillo began; the use of a pers
onal name indicated some tension within him. “I am very happy that you are with us. You are a strong warrior and a defender of our people, and I greet you. Remember our history in these mountains, which we entered separately and yet on similar grounds. I am very happy now two years that we have joined forces, as I have sought that for many years previous to our mutual pact, when you agreed to come under my cacicasgo.

  “Now, hear my words. In all my time in the Bahuruku, since the year of 1519, I have been the advocate of our quiet withdrawal, fighting as we had to, but with constant vigilance. This, as you know, has been my strategy. Defensive vigilance, survival, and, always, retaliation. Not attack, but retaliation. Thus, my young men and women are trained early to run, fight, plant, and harvest, recognize the herbs, fish and catch birds and pigs and iguanas, all on their own. Thus, many times the Castilians have tired of hunting us, as we seem to them to live on air and feed on tree leaves and, as they say, on lizards. As they tire of hunting us and will run out of food and wind, I have sometimes punished them, and hard. Thus the time of the seventy we trapped in a cave, before you came to us; thus the time I punished the Castilian captain San Miguel, his malignant attack on our camp in 1528, when I followed him home and burned his ranch.