by Andrew Rowen
Cristóbal turned to the naked peoples to introduce himself and his men and to determine where exactly he had arrived. He took a few steps toward the forest and raised his free hand, intended as a gesture of peace. The paramount cacique approached with reciprocal steps, raised both arms as a gesture of friendship, and spoke in a language unlike any Cristóbal had ever heard. Cristóbal greeted him in Castilian, judging him no older than thirty, unaware he was the peoples’ leader.
The two men realized they could communicate only by gesture. With smiles, softer words, and hand movements indicating openness and the absence of weapons, each assured the other that harm was not intended. Both peoples perceived an offer of friendship extended, and Cristóbal and the paramount cacique advised their men bearing arms to refrain from using them. The paramount and subordinate caciques advanced to meet the visitors, and the Guanahaníans waiting at the forest’s edge crowded onto the beach to congregate about them. The caciques were astounded how much cloth apparently covered the visitors’ bodies. Cristóbal was astounded that the naked peoples—now standing beside him—had no shame, embarrassment, or even awareness of their nakedness.
The caciques were eager to introduce themselves and offered water and cazabi to the visitors. One presented Cristóbal with a gourd of water, which he sniffed closely before taking the slightest sip. Diego de Arana tested it, as well. Finding the water sweet, Cristóbal and his crews drank freely, and the Guanahaníans were gratified. The Castilians examined the cazabi, guessed that it was much like unleavened bread, and, after tasting small morsels, began to eat heartily—their first fresh breadstuff in weeks. The Guanahaníans were delighted.
Bakako and Yuni left the forest edge to meet Father and join a crowd examining one of the visitors, fascinated by the cloth that hid most of his body and the absence of body paint. He wore a necklace with a strange, wood ornament or cemí, like two sticks crossed. His face was hairy, like a hutia, with tangled locks upon his chin and cheeks.
Bakako touched the cloth on the visitor’s chest and legs and discovered it to be heavier than cotton. He rubbed the material where feet would be and found it strangely firm. After hesitation, he touched the skin of the visitor’s arm—it was pale, moist with sweat, and warm, as if the visitor were human. With trepidation, Bakako softly touched the hair on the chin and the visitor turned to him and smiled. Someone handed the visitor a gourd of water, and Bakako saw the visitor’s teeth, tongue, and thirst were those of a man.
The crews felt honored and amused by this groping, perceiving the wonderment at their clothing and skin a flattery, an admiration of superiority. But, as the sun’s heat rose, the visitors began to sweat profusely, and Bakako and others wondered whether the burden and discomfort of wearing cloth was borne to hide deformities such as a tail or, worse, the dead’s absence of a navel. Bakako studied the youngest visitors on the beach—perhaps just years his senior—baffled whether they simply were ashamed of their bodies. The paramount cacique and his subordinates grew suspicious that the unnatural body coverage hid weapons or unknown powers.
Naked men congregated around Cristóbal, seeking to touch him, too, but reservedly, now cognizant of his authority. Rodrigo Sánchez carried a sack of gifts for the inhabitants, and Cristóbal plucked a red skullcap from it and, with a flourish, gave it to the people’s leader. The paramount cacique was honored, recognizing that the gift—as the giver—came from beyond the horizon and was thereby imbued with precious significance. Cristóbal handed a small, round hawk’s bell to a second man, demonstrating how it tinkled when shook, and a glass bead necklace to a third, showing how to make it glimmer in sunlight. All were charmed. Cristóbal distributed similar gifts to many others, and the Guanahaníans reveled that the gifts came from beyond their known world.
Cristóbal noticed that the men had broad, flat foreheads and some bore scars. He pointed to the scars, shrugged his shoulders, and asked slowly in Castilian what caused them. The cacique responded in Taíno that they were suffered repelling invaders. Cristóbal pointed to the sea, bit his teeth, and made a hand motion suggesting a shark. A nitaíno understood and waved his head in denial and asked a warrior to display his spear. Cristóbal understood that men had caused the wound. A wounded man pointed across the sea, and Cristóbal inferred that an enemy raided from neighboring islands.
Cristóbal asked one of his sailors bearing a sword to step forward and draw it from its sheath. The Guanahaníans watched the sailor pull a silver stick thinner than a spear from an appendage at his hip and hold it upright to the sky, flashing in the sunlight. A nitaíno stepped forward to touch it and, unaware of the blade’s sharpness, cut himself. The Guanahaníans clamored with surprise and Cristóbal told them in Castilian that this object was a sword. Many stepped forward to touch it—this time more carefully—impressed by its sharpness and, despite its thinness, its unusual strength.
The paramount cacique grew silent, acknowledging that he hadn’t appreciated the extent of the visitors’ weaponry. Cristóbal asked a sailor to reveal a knife, and many admired when the visitor drew it from a sheath on his leg. The paramount and subordinate caciques glanced warily among themselves, confirming that the unnatural cloth did indeed conceal weapons.
The Guanahaníans soon graciously offered fish and fruit. Cristóbal observed that the fish was fire charred and well cooked, and his sailors enjoyed it. He could not identify the fruit, but found it succulent. The paramount cacique and his subordinates grew comfortable with the visitors, in spite of their weapons. They presented Cristóbal with a gift of dry leaves (tobacco), which he graciously accepted without understanding its use. After conferring among themselves, the caciques dispatched messengers inland to instruct the women that it was safe to return with the children to their villages.
As the afternoon waned, Cristóbal recognized that his crews were exhausted, many not having slept for a day, and ordered that all return to the ships for the night. While suspecting men could remain ashore safely, he could not be certain of that or allow it. He indicated by gesture to the naked men around him that he and the crew would return in the morning.
As the launches pulled from the beach, some Guanahaníans followed them into the water, swimming beside them. Others followed in canoes. They brought skeins of cotton, brightly plumed parrots, and spears, and sought to exchange them for more of the beads, bells, caps, and other items they had seen. Cristóbal and his men were amused, as well as surprised at the trade terms these people accepted—a few glass beads could be exchanged for a large skein of cotton. The Guanahaníans were equally surprised—for an ordinary cotton skein, they could obtain an object from beyond the world.
Bakako and Yuni asked Father’s permission to swim to the visitors’ canoes, but he forbade it. Father reflected that, as for his own children, it was too early to conclude these visitors were not Caribes bent on capture. Father hinted that, if the visitors remained overnight, Father and Uncle might trade with them the next day and bring the two boys along.
Canoeists approached the three large beasts—be they that—with caution. Their enormous hulks and appendages loomed far higher into the sky than any bohío ever built. The notion that the visitors were human and had built these things seemed incredible. Many feared the beasts’ graceful inertness belied their true spirit, which would awaken with fearsome brutality.
After sunset, the Guanahanían canoeists and swimmers returned to the beach. Sailors stood as lookouts on each ship. In the twilight, Cristóbal turned to his journal, which he had missed recording the previous day and night. While exhausted, he was exuberant and keen to memorialize the triumph of landfall.
Before writing, Cristóbal reflected with conviction that the Lord must have destined that he be the first to discover land and, with bitterness and jealousy, that it would be intolerable in light of their fickleness and disobedience that a crew member receive the queen’s pension or, worse, that Martín receive credit for the discovery. The flickering light he thought he had seen on October 11 had
been followed soon by actual landfall, and Cristóbal carefully recorded in the journal Gutiérrez’s confirmation of this sighting.
Turning to October 12, envisioning Queen Isabel and King Fernando listening as he wrote, Cristóbal explained the expedition had achieved the first landfall at an island and that he had achieved the natives’ good friendship through exchange of trifles. He reported the natives were poor and went entirely naked, with handsome bodies and good countenances, and that they painted themselves in colors. They knew nothing of iron or arms, save wooden spears, and they suffered attacks by people who came from the mainland to take them as slaves.
Cristóbal reflected to himself that the territory possessed had none of the wealth expected of Cipangu. He wrote that the island’s peoples appeared to belong to no religious sect, permitting their easy conversion to Christianity, and should make good servants. He was invigorated that the exploration for new lands would commence at dawn and planned to capture six young men with apparent intelligence and geographic knowledge to serve as guides and interpreters.
FROM THE HEAVENS, GUANAHANÍ,
October 13–14, 1492
Bakako, Yuni, and Abana were too excited to sleep. As the waning moon rose, they overheard Father and Uncle discussing their plans to join the village cacique trading with the visitors the next day.
“Is Father letting us come?” Yuni whispered.
“I can’t tell,” Bakako responded.
“Can I come, too?” Abana asked.
“No,” Yuni replied. He wondered, “Will they still be there tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” Bakako reflected. “They must have approached by night and could leave at night, like spirits. But I think they said they would stay.”
“Are they spirits or men?” Yuni asked.
“I don’t know. They don’t swim like fish or live on other islands or come from caves. They must come from the sky. I’ve never heard of men coming from the sky.”
“Where are their mommies?” Abana wondered.
“Who knows,” Yuni answered. “I saw one of them take a piss.”
“So did I,” Bakako affirmed. The boys chuckled, and Abana broke out laughing. “Maybe they’re both man and spirit. Maybe they call upon spirits we don’t know about.”
“Are they nice?” Abana asked.
“I don’t know,” Bakako replied, conscious of repeating himself. “Probably.”
The children detected the muffled whispers of villagers sneaking from their bohíos to steal quietly through the forest to the beach to spy on the visitors. Father and Uncle decided to do so, and, after considering the danger, Father consented that the boys come along, leaving Abana to sleep with Mother. They quietly slipped out of the bohío and, in the moonlight, slunk along the short path through the forest to peer south into the bay.
The enormous hulks floated silently, their tall appendages enveloped by the starry heavens, their bellies silver in the moonlight. Small fires glowed at their tips. They had shifted position with the tide. A few men or spirits stood on them, but the rest had vanished, perhaps asleep or risen to the heavens for the night. After a few moments, one chanted a soft areíto, barely audible over the surf. Father whispered that the beings would remain in the morning, and the four returned to the bohío. Throughout Guanahaní, its peoples eagerly awaited dawn.
At the first light, Cristóbal rose to inspect his ships and scan the beach where the naked peoples already gathered. There were now women among them, also entirely naked, and Cristóbal was astonished the women walked among their men without shame or concern, and the men apparently without lust. He remembered that Adam and Eve beheld their nakedness only after falling from grace and pondered whether these people were so simple as to be untainted with evil. He realized his sailors would quickly succumb to temptation and lust, and he brooded whether peaceful relations could be jeopardized, damaging the prospects for these peoples’ peaceful subjugation.
At dawn, the crews of the three ships rose to behold the men and women ashore. After morning hymn, some crudely jested they had achieved paradise and could not wait to go ashore.
The Guanahaníans listened to the areíto drift across the water and their distrust of the enormous hulks subsided, as it appeared the pale visitors lived within. Men embarked in canoes or simply swam to greet the visitors, seeking to obtain objects from the sky. They clambered up the hulks’ sides, often assisted by visitors, and congregated on the decks. They beheld the hulks from within and were astonished, some by the enormity and others by the realization that the hulks were wood, inanimate, and had been carved from trees.
The Guanahaníans graciously offered cazabi and water. Cristóbal traded trifles with them, intent that every person be satisfied. Crewmen also traded, perceiving the terms extraordinary and relishing the bargains achieved. The Guanahaníans cared little or nothing what they traded to obtain an object from the sky, and, after obtaining it, they quickly jumped back into their canoes or the bay to return to home, without lingering to study or admire the visitors. The crews perceived them simple, timid, and backward. Cristóbal recognized that cotton was of value to the sovereigns and determined to forbid sailors to trade for gold, spices, or cotton except as he approved on behalf of the sovereigns and to punish offenders.
After breakfast, the village cacique, Father, Uncle, and others loaded their parrots, cotton, and other trading items into a canoe, leaving just enough room for Bakako and Yuni to nudge aboard, and paddled abreast of the largest hulk. Cristóbal noticed the boys and warmed to a fleeting recollection of his sons. He motioned for the boat to come alongside and the men to mount aboard. Bakako looked to Father, who ordered him and Yuni to remain in the canoe. Cristóbal came to the rail, gazed down at Bakako, pointed to the boat, and shrugged his shoulders.
Bakako trembled that he had done something wrong. The visitors’ cacique pointed to the canoe again, raised his eyebrows as if to ask a question, and spoke in his strange tongue. Bakako did not understand, but he sensed an attempt to learn the word for canoe. Bakako spoke in Taíno. “Canoa. It’s a canoa.”
Cristóbal recognized the boat was carved from a single trunk like those at Mina and was taken by its seaworthy design. He smiled, pointed, and replied. “Canoa. Canoa.”
The village men murmured with appreciation, and Father quivered with both fear and pride. He gulped anxiously as his son then pointed to the hulk.
Cristóbal responded in Castilian. “Ship. It’s called a ship.”
“Ship,” Bakako replied in Castilian, smiling. “It’s called a ship.”
Cristóbal noted the boy’s intelligence. Bakako studied the side of the “ship,” trying to determine how the wood before him held together, for it was in different pieces and there were no cords. He examined the large vertical slab of wood descending into the water at the tail of the “ship” and puzzled if it served as a fin.
Cristóbal observed that a few of the canoeists, including their leader, bore a gold piece through a nostril or earlobe. He pointed to his own nose, to the leader’s gold nosepiece, and then shrugged, asking in Castilian what it was. The village cacique understood the question as a compliment and explained in Taíno that it was gold jewelry, which many of his people wore. Cristóbal responded in Castilian that gold was what he wanted most, and he would trade generously for it. Rodrigo Sánchez brought forth the sack of gifts and Cristóbal pointed to the nosepiece and then to the sack and then to the nosepiece again.
The cacique and his men nodded they understood. They were surprised that jewelry was of such interest. Cristóbal offered the leader a large, red skullcap in return for the nosepiece, and the cacique cheerfully accepted.
Cristóbal held the nosepiece aloft with one hand, waved his other hand across the entirety of San Salvador’s coastline, and shrugged his shoulders, asking in Castilian whether the piece came from Guanahaní. He repeated the gesture, very slowly.
The villagers conferred among themselves for some time. All knew the answer was no, as Gu
anahaní had scant gold, but they suspected the visitors would leave to trade elsewhere once this was understood. Some felt this would be a disappointing result, others that it was the best outcome. The village cacique responded in Taíno that it came from islands south, where a grand cacique had much gold. The cacique pointed south, touched the gold piece Cristóbal now held, and pointed south.
Cristóbal pointed to himself, pointed south, pointed to the cacique and his party, and pointed south again, and asked in Castilian whether the cacique and his men would lead Cristóbal south to the gold.
The villagers murmured among themselves again. Some feared that the visitors indeed had come to capture Guanahaníans, perhaps by guile rather than force. The cacique ignored Cristóbal’s request and simply pointed to the gold piece and waved his arms across the southern horizon to assure him that gold would be found there.
Cristóbal traded for the villagers’ remaining gold pieces, and they returned to shore. Father obtained a hawk’s bell, and a visitor gave Bakako and Yuni each a glass bead, which they proudly displayed to friends.
Sailors took turns ashore and found the island’s large freshwater lake and an abundance of wild cotton. Most everyone they met, including the women, offered them cazabi, fish, fruit, and water. For the first time, the sailors stood side by side with the women, and most interpreted the women’s friendliness and nakedness as invitations. But the women fled with fear when the sailors sought to touch them.
That night, Cristóbal reflected on the attributes of San Salvador’s peoples, including their olive skin and temperament. He worried he had deviated south of Hierro regardless of the sovereigns’ contrary instruction,2 and he observed in his journal that the Guanahaníans’ skin was the color of Canary Island heathens—as should be expected because San Salvador was on the same latitude—and that they were docile. He indicated that, while San Salvador had some gold, he would not lose time on the island and planned to leave the next day to find Cipangu.