As he passed the astonished crew, the soldier rasped angrily, “The heathen scratched me.”
It was then clear to the crewmen of the Santa Inez: Indians were fair game. Once they had learned this lesson, the crewmen became merciless toward the Arawaks, and if they came across Indian women accompanied by Indian men, they would often kill the warriors before raping the women.
There was no conscience involved: in the eyes of the Spaniards, the Indians were backward, benighted heathens. They were also defenseless. Their weapons of spears tipped with fish bones were useless against Spanish body armor, crossbows, harquebuses, and cannons.
Spanish culture, European aggressiveness, and a pitiless, genocidal Catholicism fell upon the Arawak tribes with a pestilential ferocity.
Chapter 15
You do not give up on a god just because he does not do your bidding. If you give a god love and he returns indifference, you do not abandon him. After all, he is the god and you the worshippper, the beggar, the one seeking favors and blessings.
Take the zemi, for example. It did not save Uncle Brayou, no matter how hard Orocobix had prayed and begged for mercy. Yet Orocobix still honored the zemi and cherished it as the treasure of his few possessions. In the bohio of Orocobix, the zemi still occupied a special place of respect and dignity. Every day Orocobix talked to it just as if the zemi had granted all his wishes and showered him with blessings. It did not faze a faithful heart if a god acted inexplicably. To such an ungiving god, the true worshipper continues to show love and devotion.
That was the thinking of Orocobix during the days that followed his expulsion from the vessel belonging to the gods from the sky. These thoughts were heartfelt and sent him back to the ocean front in search of God Carlos.
He went first to the pier, but the vessel was gone. He then roamed the fringes of the settlement, scanning the faces of the Spaniards for God Carlos; he had been doing so all day and at sunset he had a surprise encounter.
Carlos and the boy Pedro were trudging from the Santa Inez, which was still being careened, looking for a place to sleep that night. Orocobix was walking with his eyes downcast, peeping furtively at passing Spaniards, but without drawing too close. He knew from hearsay that the gods were capricious and that venturing too near them could provoke a sudden murderous blow. So he kept his distance yet still studied the face of every passing god. He was scuffling past a tree when the boy Pedro recognized him and cried out, “Señor Carlos, it is your Indian.”
“No,” said Carlos, glancing up, “it is not.”
“It is, señor,” the boy Pedro insisted.
To prove that the boy was wrong, Carlos snapped his fingers, and the Indian immediately stopped, turned, and looked at them with astonishment. Then he threw himself at the Spaniard’s feet.
“God Carlos!” he cried ecstatically.
“See!” the boy Pedro chortled with triumph.
* * *
The god and his follower talked in their strange tongues to each other with little understanding. They used hand signals and pantomiming and gestures, and when exasperation set in because they could not understand each other, they both raised their voices and spoke louder. With the boy Pedro watching, Orocobix spoke Taíno to the god, the god replied in Spanish, and both god and his adorer often tripped and stumbled over misunderstood meanings.
Gradually, Orocobix came to understand that the gods’ vessel was being repaired and that having no place to sleep, the two gods were spending the night under the sparse shelter of a tree.
Under a tree was no place for gods to sleep, Orocobix protested vigorously. They should, instead, come with him and stay the night at his bohio. Here they could fill their bellies and sleep peacefully in a hamaca.
All this Orocobix made the two gods understand, using gestures and repetition. The boy Pedro, having a young brain, grasped most of what the Arawak was saying.
“He invites us to follow him,” Pedro said.
Carlos was suspicious. “Well, I have my knife with me. I’ll cut his throat if he tries anything.”
“I am your servant,” Orocobix declared, beckoning the gods to follow.
“Let’s go with him,” the boy Pedro urged.
And so as night fell over Sevilla la Nueva, the two gods set out cautiously through the woodlands, following a trail known only to the Indian, who occasionally turned to make sure they were still behind him.
“Tell him I have a knife, and if he tries anything, I’ll cut his throat,” Carlos whispered to Pedro.
“I do not know the words,” the boy whispered back.
“I’ll cut your throat!” Carlos shouted at the Indian.
“Not much farther,” Orocobix replied over his shoulder.
“I’ll cut it from ear to ear!” Carlos yelled.
“I do not think you should say such things to one who worships you, señor,” the boy said quietly.
“Shut up,” Carlos snapped. “You don’t know the wickedness of men like I do.”
“You will eat shortly,” said Orocobix smoothly, taking a guess at what Carlos was saying.
They trudged on through the gathering darkness which was falling and threatening to blot out the trail underfoot. A feeble light dripped from a wrinkled old moon, casting a sickly pallor over the dark woodlands.
“Not much farther, oh gods from the sky,” Orocobix said encouragingly over his shoulder.
“Maybe I should just cut his throat now,” Carlos muttered.
“Gods do not do such things,” the boy Pedro said calmly. “But then, you’re no god.”
Carlos swatted him on the back of the head.
“That doesn’t make you one, either, señor.”
* * *
After walking for an hour, they arrived at the village, which they could hear from afar long before they saw it. On a night breeze came a faint singing and drumming that sounded at first like the buzz of a distant colony of insects. Orocobix turned and said with a grin, “Areito!”
He had forgotten that the shaman had called for an areito tonight—a ceremonial dance and feasting where the old stories of the beginning would be recited, the ancestors honored, and life communally celebrated.
As they drew nearer to the village, the sound they heard on the breeze became a distinct drumbeat pounding out a seductive rhythm, which got louder and louder. Soon, against the backdrop of an endless night, they glimpsed red and yellow flames in the darkness and a plume of smoke unrolling into the heavens.
They emerged from the woodlands into a lit clearing where a throng of naked Arawaks milled and swirled around an enormous bonfire, dancing and writhing to chanting and the rhythm of drums. Scattered over the ground and carefully avoided by the dancing revelers were zemis from different families representing gods and the ancestors. Although the drumming was loud and the chanting hypnotic, the milling crowd was as energetic and as well behaved as a congregation of Western Christians seized by the Holy Spirit.
At the sight of the two gods with Orocobix, the celebrating horde of naked brown Indians fell silent, the drumming abruptly stopped, and, as if grotesquely synchronized, hundreds of heads turned to gape with astonishment at the strangers.
Orocobix stepped in front of the two gods and cried out, “The gods from the sky have come among us! Let us greet them as honored guests!”
A roar exploded from the crowd and with a crush of footsteps, naked brown bodies surged forward in a gentle wave to engulf the two gods standing with Orocobix. An enormous tangle of hands reached out like tapping tentacles to gently touch the two gods. Many of the tribe had never seen the gods up close before but had only heard about them or glimpsed them in the distance, and even as Carlos shied away and wheeled to face this one and that one, the boy Pedro did not react with fear but returned the gentle touches with a smile. Like a brown sea, the naked bodies rippled and lapped gently against the strangers in an incoming tide that gradually receded, leaving the two gods and Orocobix enisled in an atoll of Arawaks.
T
he cacique stepped out of the crowd and approached the gods. Scowling, Carlos eyed him warily.
“We welcome you to our village, oh gods from the sky,” the cacique said formally, making a little curtsy of respect.
“What’s he saying?” Carlos muttered to the boy Pedro.
“I do not know, señor,” replied Pedro, “but it is nothing bad.”
For a moment all the figures, daubed with a flickering roseate tint by the flames, were frozen like pageantry players in a tableau. Then Carlos raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. Orocobix looked astonished, but he slowly lowered himself into the prostrated position that Carlos had taught him. The cacique was confused and unsure of what to do, but after a moment’s hesitation, he also sprawled out like a groveler beside Orocobix at the feet of the gods from the sky. His advisers followed his example as did the watching throng assembled before the huge fire, falling one by one to their knees as if blown low by the wind, until only one man was left standing defiantly among the bent-over bodies. It was Calliou, the hot-blooded elder, and he stood fiercely erect with a contemptuous expression on his face.
“They are not gods,” he cried. “They are only foreign men.”
“I do not think he believes in you, señor,” the boy Pedro whispered.
“I should strike him down,” Carlos growled.
“You are no god, señor,” said the boy Pedro, “and you have no weapon but your knife.”
“Stop saying that! They will hear you.”
From his prone position, Orocobix yelled, “They are gods! Calliou, you dishonor us with your disbelief!”
“Get up off the ground,” Calliou cried. “You bow low before men.”
“Command them to get up,” the boy Pedro whispered urgently, “before they do it on their own.”
Carlos made the sign for Orocobix to rise, bringing him scrambling to his feet. Everyone else stood up almost at once, and for a long moment, the Indians and the gods looked each other over speculatively with much fidgeting and whispering.
The silence was broken by Orocobix, who called out, “Food! Fish for the gods!”
“Gods do not eat fish,” Calliou rasped, “but dogs and men do.”
A few chuckles rippled through the crowd, and one or two old women clucked reprovingly at Calliou as the elder shuffled off to his bohio.
“Seat the gods beside me,” the young cacique commanded.
“Food, eat,” Orocobix said to the two gods, making a gesture with his hand to his mouth. Both gods understood, and being hungry, they willingly followed him through the crowd to the patch of ground where the duho of the cacique was perched. The big god was given the seat as a sign of respect, and the little god was seated right beside him on a woven cotton blanket.
The drumming and chanting resumed and once again the celebrants began gyrating and dancing around the bonfire as the gods, the cacique, and his advisers ate roasted fish.
Carlos was suddenly in a jubilant mood. “I think I was born to be a god,” he said, wolfing down his food.
“To believe that still does not make you a god, señor,” said the boy Pedro softly.
Carlos swatted him on this side of the head, hard, with the heel of his hand.
The boy touched his head where he had been struck and almost began crying. But he thought that the Indians would not understand a god who cried. So he bit his tongue and pretended that the blow did not hurt while Carlos ate fish and stared lustily at several naked women who sat nearby whispering and giggling at them.
“God Carlos,” Orocobix murmured prayerfully, his eyes brimming with love and devotion.
* * *
The night passed quickly, the gods patiently listening and watching as the reciters and chanters took turns telling ceremonial stories of creation, of the God Deminen and his three brothers who walked and lived in the sky. And although they watched the proceedings carefully, the visiting gods did not understand that ancient myths and tales were being told and retold, that the names of long-dead ancestors were being chanted in remembrance. Without writing, the Arawaks had no other way to remember their beloved dead or to preserve the ancient explanations of why “the men of the good,” which was the meaning of Taíno, were marooned on the earth.
Carlos and the boy Pedro dined that night on cassava bread, roasted fish, potatoes, mamey, guava, and anon, all manner of tubers, nuts, and on the flesh of wild birds that flew in such great perfusion that sometimes they appeared to the eye like a passing cloud. They drank a fermented liquid served in polished gourds and watched as the revelers took turns giving thanks to Yocahu for the bounty of the earth and the sea. To this greatest of gods were offered servings of manioc bread and drink, and his praises were joyfully sung.
The celebration came and went in receding waves of chanting and drumming broken by stretches of silence as the surfeited celebrants either passed out on the ground or staggered off to their bohios or sprawled around the fire staring at nothing. Soon, all that remained behind was the litter of sleeping naked brown bodies scattered around the clearing and the glowing heart of what had been the bonfire.
Carlos and boy Pedro spent the night in Orocobix’s bohio, which was made of the trunk and thatch of a single palm tree lashed together in a circular pattern. Inside was cool and dry but bare, being hung with two hammocks, which neither of the gods had ever seen before. There was no armoire, no vanity table or dresser filled with clothing and jewelry, only the faithless zemi propped up against the thatched wall.
Orocobix demonstrated to the two gods how they should climb into the hammocks and sleep, and once Carlos and the boy had settled down, he went outside the bohio and lay across its small open entrance where he spent the night to ensure that no curiosity seeker would disturb his guests.
It was an unnecessary precaution: crime was almost unknown among the Arawaks. No one in a village wanted for anything. No one ever went hungry unless all went hungry. No one possessed anything that anyone else would crave. The nakedness of the people was a reflection of the sparseness and simplicity of their hearts.
The land of the Arawaks was a mild land of plenty with no dramatic change of seasons, no harsh winters, no recurring climactic catastrophes other than the occasional hurricane. In this gentle land the Arawaks went about in their bare skin painted with dye made from the roots of plants.
The Arawaks could have made and worn clothes if they had desired, for even in 1520 Xaymaca was renowned throughout the neighboring islands as a prolific producer of cotton, which the women spent much of their time spinning and weaving. Later, the Spaniards would use Jamaica as the source of sail cloth.
So Carlos and the boy Pedro passed a peaceful night in the bohio while their Indian host slept sprawled across the small doorway like a faithful guard dog.
All this took place during a waning moon that dusted the village and its rows of rounded bohios with a grainy light that resembled a faint yellow pollen. Arawak legends call it “the old man’s moon” and say that it is a moon of impending change.
Chapter 16
The next morning two women appeared in the doorway of Orocobix’s bohio. Both cradled in their arms sick babies. One infant had a roasting fever; the other was wracked with coughing spasms so violent that it seemed on the verge of exploding.
“The gods are still asleep,” protested Orocobix.
The women began to make a fuss and raise their voices so that the gods would hear them and wake up, and no matter how hard Orocobix begged them to be quiet, they would not stop.
Hearing the commotion, Carlos and the boy Pedro climbed sleepily down from the hammocks. For a horrible moment neither one of them knew where he was, and they stared at each other with the bewilderment of actors who had blundered into the wrong play. Then the noise from the open doorway recalled them to their circumstances as the world reassembled itself from the pieces shattered by sleep.
Carlos stuck his head out the doorway, which brought a renewed wailing of hope and expectation from the grieving wome
n. The boy Pedro also stood in the open doorway, listening.
“God Carlos,” Orocobix said apologetically, “these are new mothers with sick children. They will not go away.”
“What did he say?” Carlos asked the boy Pedro.
“I do not know, but it looks like their babies are sick. When you can’t cure them, they will know that we’re not gods.”
Carlos scratched his hairy chest and made a guttural sound of clearing his throat. “Then I’ll cure them both,” he boasted with a loud belch.
He took a baby from its mother and felt the surge of unnatural heat coursing through its tiny limbs. Hoisting the baby over his head, he pretended to be muttering an incantation. But what he actually said was, “Recover, baby, or I’ll break your heathen neck.”
With that, he hurled the naked baby high in the air and caught it as it plunged headfirst back to earth. The mother screamed and yanked her baby from the god and stalked away, hurling at Carlos a backward look of disgust.
Carlos reached for the coughing baby, which the nervous mother handed him reluctantly. Grabbing that baby by the ankles, he began swinging it upside down in the long strokes of a pendulum, all the while chanting, “Get better, you little pagan rat, or I’ll feed you to the dog that doesn’t bark.”
After a few lazy swings, the baby stopped coughing and began changing color. Carlos handed the infant back to its perplexed mother.
“What kind of gods are these?” the mother said to Orocobix as she shuffled away. But she’d gotten no more than a few yards away when she suddenly stopped, turned, and exclaimed with amazement, “My baby has stopped coughing!” She hurried over to Carlos and threw herself at his feet, hugging her baby and moaning, “Thank you, God Carlos!”
“God Carlos,” Orocobix breathed devoutly, falling to his knees.
“What did you do?” asked Pedro.
“Who can say?” Carlos shrugged. “I was trying to terrify it so that it would not cough.”
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