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  Genesis

  Memory of Fire, Volume One

  Eduardo Galeano

  “I believe in memory not as a place of arrival, but as point of departure—a catapult throwing you into present times, allowing you to imagine the future instead of accepting it. It would be absolutely impossible for me to have any connection with history if history were just a collection of dead people, dead names, dead facts. That’s why I wrote Memory of Fire in the present tense, trying to keep alive everything that happened and allow it to happen again, as soon as the reader reads it.”

  EDUARDO GALEANO

  Contents

  Preface

  First Voices

  The Creation

  Time

  The Sun and the Moon

  The Clouds

  The Wind

  The Rain

  The Rainbow

  Day

  Night

  The Stars

  The Milky Way

  The Evening Star

  Language

  Fire

  The Forest

  The Cedar

  The Guaiacum Tree

  Colors

  Love

  The Rivers and the Sea

  The Tides

  Snow

  The Flood

  The Tortoise

  The Parrot

  The Hummingbird

  The Night Bird (Urutaú)

  The Ovenbird

  The Crow

  The Condor

  The Jaguar

  The Bear

  The Crocodile

  The Armadillo

  The Rabbit

  The Snake

  The Frog

  The Bat

  Mosquitos

  Honey

  Seeds

  Corn

  Tobacco

  Maté

  Cassava

  The Potato

  The Kitchen

  Music

  Death

  Resurrection

  Magic

  Laughter

  Fear

  Authority

  Power

  War

  Parties

  Conscience

  The Sacred City

  Pilgrims

  The Promised Land

  Dangers

  The Spider Web

  The Prophet

  Old New World

  1492: The Ocean Sea The Sun Route to the Indies

  1492: Guanahaní Columbus

  1493: Barcelona Day of Glory

  1493: Rome The Testament of Adam

  1493: Huexotzingo Where Is the Truth? Where Are the Roots?

  1493: Pasto Everybody Pays Taxes

  1493: Santa Cruz Island An Experience of Miquele de Cuneo from Savona

  1495: Salamanca The First Word from America

  1495: La Isabela Caonabó

  1496: La Concepción Sacrilege

  1498: Santo Domingo Earthly Paradise

  The Language of Paradise

  1499: Granada Who Are Spaniards?

  1500: Florence Leonardo

  1506: Valladolid The Fifth Voyage

  1506: Tenochtitlán The Universal God

  1511: Guauravo River Agüeynaba

  1511: Aymaco Becerrillo

  1511: Yara Hatuey

  1511: Santo Domingo The First Protest

  1513: Cuareca Leoncico

  1513: Gulf of San Miguel Balboa

  1514: Sinú River The Summons

  1514: Santa María del Darién For Love of Fruit

  1515: Antwerp Utopia

  1519: Frankfurt Charles V

  1519: Acla Pedrarias

  1519: Tenochtitlán Portents of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air

  1519: Cempoala Cortés

  1519: Tenochtitlán Moctezuma

  1519: Tenochtitlán The Capital of the Aztecs

  Aztec Song of the Shield

  1520: Teocalhueyacan “Night of Sorrow”

  1520: Segura de la Frontera The Distribution of Wealth

  1520: Brussels Dürer

  1520: Tlaxcala Toward the Reconquest of Tenochtitlán

  1521: Tlatelolco Sword of Fire

  1521: Tenochtitlán The World Is Silenced in the Rain

  1521: Florida Ponce de León

  1522: Highways of Santo Domingo Feet

  1522: Seville The Longest Voyage Ever Made

  1523: Cuzco Huaina Cápac

  1523: Cuauhcapolca The Chief’s Questions

  1523: Painala Malinche

  1524: Quetzaltenango The Poet Will Tell Children the Story of This Battle

  1524: Utatlán The Vengeance of the Vanquished

  1524: Scorpion Islands Communion Ceremony

  1525: Tuxkahá Cuauhtémoc

  1526: Toledo The American Tiger

  1528: Madrid To Loosen the Purse Strings

  1528: Tumbes Day of Surprises

  1528: Bad Luck Island “People Very Generous with What They Have …”

  1531: Orinoco River Diego de Ordaz

  Piaroa People’s Song About the White Man

  1531: Mexico City The Virgin of Guadelupe

  1531: Santo Domingo A Letter

  1531: Serrana Island The Castaway and the Other

  1532: Cajamarca Pizarro

  1533: Cajamarca The Ransom

  1533: Cajamarca Atahualpa

  1533: Xaquixaguana The Secret

  1533: Cuzco The Conquerors Enter the Sacred City

  1533: Riobamba Alvarado

  1533: Quito This City Kills Itself

  1533: Barcelona The Holy Wars

  1533: Seville The Treasure of the Incas

  1534: Riobamba Inflation

  1535: Cuzco The Brass Throne

  1536: Mexico City Motolinía

  1536: Machu Picchu Manco Inca

  1536: Valley of Ulúa Gonzalo Guerrero

  1536: Culiacán Cabeza de Vaca

  1537: Rome The Pope Says They Are Like Us

  1538: Santo Domingo The Mirror

  1538: Valley of Bogota Blackbeard, Redbeard, Whitebeard

  1538: Masaya Volcano Vulcan, God of Money

  1541: Santiago de Chile Inés Suárez

  1541: Rock of Nochistlán Never

  1541: Old Guatemala City Beatriz

  1541: Cabo Frío At Dawn, the Cricket Sang

  1542: Quito El Dorado

  1542: Conlapayara The Amazons

  1542: Iguazú River In Broad Daylight

  1543: Cubagua The Pearl Fishers

  1544: Machu Picchu The Stone Throne

  War Song of the Incas

  1544: Campeche Las Casas

  1544: Lima Carvajal

  1545: Royal City of Chiapas The Bad News Comes from Valladolid

  1546: Potosí The Silver of Potosí

  1547: Valparaíso The Parting

  Song of Nostalgia, from the Spanish Songbook

  1548: Xaquixaguana The Battle of Xaquixaguana Is Over

  1548: Xaquixaguana The Executioner

  1548: Xaquixaguana On Cannibalism in America

  1548: Guanajuato Birth of the Guanajuato Mines

  1549; La Serena The Return

  The Last Time

  1552: Valladolid He Who Always Took the Orders Now Gives Them

  1553: The Banks of the San Pedro River Miguel

  A Dream of Pedro de Valdivia

  1553: Tucapel Lautaro

  1553: Tucapel Valdivia

  1553: Potosí Beauty and the Mayor

  To the Strains of the Barrel Organ a Blind Man Sings to Her Who Sleeps Alone

  1553: Potosí The Mayor and the Gallant

  1554: Cuzco The Mayor and the Ears

  1554: Lima The Mayor and the Bill Collector

  1554: Mexico City Sepúlveda

  1556: Asunción, Paraguay Conquistadoras

 
; 1556: Asunción, Paraguay “The Paradise of Mahomet”

  Womanizer Song, from the Spanish Songbook

  1556: La Imperial Mariño de Lobera

  1558: Cañete The War Goes On

  Araucanian Song of the Phantom Horseman

  1558: Michmaloyan The Tzitzimes

  1558: Yuste Who Am I? What Have I Been?

  1559: Mexico City The Mourners

  Advice of the Old Aztec Wise Men

  1560: Huexotzingo The Reward

  1560: Michoacán Vasco de Quiroga

  1561: Villa de los Bergantines The First Independence of America

  1561: Nueva Valencia del Rey Aguirre

  1561: Neuva Valencia del Rey From Lope de Aguirre’s Letter to King Philip II

  1561. Barquisimeto Order Restored

  1562: Maní The Fire Blunders

  1563: Arauco Fortress The History That Will Be

  1564: Plymouth Hawkins

  1564: Bogotá Vicissitudes of Married Life

  1565. Road to Lima The Spy

  1565: Yauyoa That Stone Is Me

  Prayer of the Incas, Seeking God

  1565: Mexico City Ceremony

  1566: Madrid The Fanatic of Human Dignity

  1566: Madrid Even If You Lose, It’s Still Worthwhile

  1568: Los Teques Guaicaipuro

  1568; Mexico City The Sons of Cortés

  1569: Havana St. Simon Against the Ants

  1571: Mexico City Thou Shalt Inform On Thy Neighbor

  1571: Madrid Who Is Guilty, Criminal or Witness?

  1572: Cuzco Túpac Amaru I

  The Vanquished Believe:

  1574: Mexico City The First Auto-da-Fé in Mexico

  1576: Guanajuato The Monks Say:

  1576: Xochimilco The Apostle Santiago versus the Plague

  1577: Xochimilco St. Sebastian versus the Plague

  1579: Quito Son of Atahualpa

  1580: Buenos Aires The Founders

  1580: London Drake

  1582: Mexico City What Color Is a Leper’s Skin?

  1583: Copacabana God’s Aymara Mother

  1583: Santiago de Chile He Was Free for a While

  1583: Tlatelolco Sahagiún

  1583: Ácoma The Stony Kingdom of Cíbola

  Night Chant, a Navajo Poem

  1586: Cauri The Pestilence

  1588: Quito Grandson of Atahualpa

  1588: Havana St. Martial versus the Ants

  1589: Cuzco He Says He Had the Sun

  1592: Lima An Auto-da-Fé in Lima

  1593: Guarapari Anchieta

  1596: London Raleigh

  1597: Seville A Scene in Jail

  1598: Potosí History of Floriana Rosales, Virtuous Woman of Potosí (Abbreviated Version of the Chronicle by Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela)

  Spanish Couplets to Be Sung and Danced

  1598: Panama City Times of Sleep and Fate

  1599: Quito The Afro-Indians of Esmeraldas

  1599: Chagres River The Wise Don’t Talk

  1599: La Imperial Flaming Arrows

  1599: Santa Maria They Make War to Make Love

  1600: Santa Marta They Had a Country

  Techniques of Hunting and Fishing

  1600: Potosí The Eighth Wonder of the World

  Prophecies

  Ballad of Cuzco

  1600: Mexico City Carriages

  1601: Valladolid Quevedo

  1602: Recife First Expedition Against Palmares

  1603: Rome The Four Parts of the World

  1603: Santiago de Chile The Pack

  1605: Lima The Night of the Last Judgment

  1607: Seville The Strawberry

  1608: Puerto Príncipe Silvestre de Balboa

  1608: Seville Mateo Alemán

  1608: Córdoba The Inca Garcilaso

  1609: Santiago de Chile How to Behave at the Table

  1611: Yarutini The Idol-Exterminator

  1612: San Pedro de Omapacha The Beaten Beats

  1613: London Shakespeare

  1614: Lima Minutes of the Lima Town Council: Theater Censorship Is Born

  1614: Lima Indian Dances Banned in Peru

  1615: Lima Guamán Poma

  1616: Madrid Cervantes

  1616: Potosí Portraits of a Procession

  1616: Santiago Papasquiaro Is the Masters’ God the Slaves’ God?

  1617: London Whiffs of Virginia in the London Fog

  1618: Lima Small World

  1618: Luanda Embarcation

  1618: Lima Too Dark

  1620: Madrid The Devil’s Dances Come from America

  1622: Seville Rats

  1624: Lima People for Sale

  1624: Lima Black Flogs Black

  1624: Lima The Devil at Work

  1624: Seville Last Chapter of the “Life of the Scoundrel”

  1624: Mexico City A River of Anger

  1625: Mexico City How Do You Like Our City?

  1625: Samayac Indian Dances Banned in Guatemala

  1626: Potosí A Wrathful God

  1628: Chiapas Chocolate and the Bishop

  1628: Madrid Blue Blood for Sale

  Song About the Indies Hand, Sung in Spain

  1629: Las Cangrejeras Bascuñán

  1629: Banks of the Bío-Bío River Putapichun

  1629: Banks of River Imperial Maulicán

  1629: Repocura Region To Say Good-Bye

  1630: Motocintle They Won’t Betray Their Dead

  1630: Lima María, Queen of the Boards

  1631: Old Guatemala A Musical Evening at the Concepción Convent

  Popular Couplets of the Bashful Lover

  1633: Pinola Gloria in Excelsis Deo

  1634: Madrid Who Was Hiding Under Your Wife’s Cradle?

  1636: Quito The Third Half

  1637: Mouth of the River Sucre Dieguillo

  1637: Massachusetts Bay “God is an Englishman,”

  1637: Mystic Fort From the Will of John Underhill, Puritan of Connecticut, Concerning a Massacre of Pequot Indians

  1639: Lima Martín de Porres

  1639: San Miguel de Tucumán From a Denunciation of the Bishop of Tucumán, Sent to the Inquisition Tribunal in Lima

  1639: Potosí Testament of a Businessman

  The Indians Say:

  1640: Sāo Salvador de Bahia Vieira

  1641: Lima Avila

  1641: Mbororé The Missions

  1641: Madrid Eternity Against History

  1644: Jamestown Opechancanough

  1645: Quito Mariana de Jesús

  1645: Potosí Story of Estefanía, Sinful Woman of Potosí (Abbreviation of Chronicle by Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela)

  1647: Santiago de Chile Chilean Indians’ Game Banned

  1648: Olinda Prime Cannon Fodder

  1649: Ste. Marie des Hurons The Language of Dreams

  An Iroquois Story

  Song About the Song of the Iroquois

  1650: Mexico City The Conquerors and the Conquered

  From the Náhuatl Song on the Transience of Life

  1654: Oaxaca Medicine and Witchcraft

  1655: San Miguel de Nepantla Juana at Four

  1656: Santiago de la Vega Gage

  1658: San Miguel de Nepantla Juana at Seven

  Juana Dreams

  1663: Old Guatemala Enter the Printing Press

  1663: The Banks of the Paraíba River Freedom

  Song of Palmares

  1663: Serra da Barriga Palmares

  1665: Madrid Charles II

  1666: New Amsterdam New York

  1666: London The White Servants

  1666: Tortuga Island The Pirates’ Devotions

  1667: Mexico City Juana at Sixteen

  1668: Tortuga Island The Dogs

  1669: Town of Gibraltar All the Wealth of the World

  1669: Maracaibo The Broken Padlock

  1670: Lima “Mourn for us,”

  1670: San Juan Atitlán An Intruder on the Altar

  1670: Masaya “The Idiot”

  1
670: Cuzco Old Moley

  1671: Panama City On Punctuality in Appointments

  1672: London The White Man’s Burden

  Mandingo People’s Song of the Bird of Love

  1674: Port Royal Morgan

  1674: Potosí Claudia the Witch

  1674: Yorktown The Olympian Steeds

  1676: Valley of Connecticut The Ax of Battle

  1676: Plymouth Metacom

  1677: Old Road Town Death Here, Rebirth There

  1677: Pôrto Calvo The Captain Promises Lands, Slaves, and Honors

  1678: Recife Ganga Zumba

  Yoruba Spell Against the Enemy

  1680: Santa Fe, New Mexico Red Cross and White Cross

  1681: Mexico City Juana at Thirty

  1681: Mexico City Sigüenza y Góngora

  1682: Accra All Europe Is Selling Human Flesh

  1682: Remedios By Order of Satan

  1682: Remedios But They Stay On

  1682: Remedios By Order of God

  1688: Havana By Order of the King

  1691: Remedios Still They Don’t Move

  1691: Mexico City Juana at Forty

  1691: Placentia Adario, Chief of the Huron Indians, Speaks to Baron de Lahontan, French Colonizer in Newfoundland

  1692: Salem Village The Witches of Salem

  1692: Cuápulo Nationalization of Colonial Art

  1693: Mexico City Juana at Forty-Two

  1693: Santa Fe, New Mexico Thirteen Years of Independence

  Song of the New Mexican Indians to the Portrait That Escapes from the Sand

  1694: Macacos The Last Expedition Against Palmares

  Lament of the Azande People

  1695: Serra Dois Irmāos Zumbí

  1695: São Salvador de Bahia The Capital of Brazil

  1696: Regla Black Virgin, Black Goddess

  1697: Cap Français Ducasse

  1699: Madrid Bewitched

  1699: Macouba A Practical Demonstration

  1700: Ouro Prêto All Brazil to the South

  1700: St. Thomas Island The Man Who Makes Things Talk

  Bantu People’s Song of the Fire

  1700: Madrid Penumbra of Autumn

  The Sources

  Index

  Preface

  I was a wretched history student. History classes were like visits to the waxworks or the Region of the Dead. The past was lifeless, hollow, dumb. They taught us about the past so that we should resign ourselves with drained consciences to the present: not to make history, which was already made, but to accept it. Poor History had stopped breathing: betrayed in academic texts, lied about in classrooms, drowned in dates, they had imprisoned her in museums and buried her, with floral wreaths, beneath statuary bronze and monumental marble.

  Perhaps Memory of Fire can help give her back breath, liberty, and the word.

  Through the centuries, Latin America has been despoiled of gold and silver, nitrates and rubber, copper and oil: its memory has also been usurped. From the outset it has been condemned to amnesia by those who have prevented it from being. Official Latin American history boils down to a military parade of bigwigs in uniforms fresh from the dry-cleaners. I am not a historian. I am a writer who would like to contribute to the rescue of the kidnapped memory of all America, but above all of Latin America, that despised and beloved land: I would like to talk to her, share her secrets, ask her of what difficult clays she was born, from what acts of love and violation she comes.