Genesis Read online

  On an Indian’s back the priest arrives at the palace.

  The viceroy offers him pineapple preserve and hot chocolate and asks how he likes the city.

  In the middle of Father Gage’s eulogy of Mexico, its women, carriages, and avenues, the host interrupts: “Do you know that I saved my life by a hair? And a baldpate’s hair at that …”

  From the viceroy’s mouth bursts a torrential account of last year’s uprising.

  After much smoke and blood and two helpings of chocolate drained sip by sip, Father Gage learns that the viceroy has spent a year in the San Francisco monastery and still cannot put his nose outside the palace without risking a hail of stones. However, the rebellious archbishop is suffering the punishment of exile in remote, miserable Zamora, a few priests have been sent to row in the galleys, and the hanging of three or four agitators sufficed to crush the insolence of the hoi polloi.

  “If it were up to me, I’d hang the lot,” says the viceroy. He rises from his chair, proclaims: “Yes, the lot! The whole of this damned city!” and sits down again. “These are lands always ready for rebellion,” he breathes. “I have cleaned the bandits off the roads of Mexico!”

  Confidentially, stretching his neck, he adds: “D’you know something? The children of Spaniards, the ones born here … Who was at the head of the mob? It was them! The Creoles! They think the country belongs to them, they want to rule …”

  Father Gage stares with the eyes of a mystic at the heavy crystal candelabrum that threatens his head and says: “They give grave offense to God. A second Sodom … I saw it with my own eyes this evening. Worldly delights …”

  The viceroy nods confirmation.

  “For they shall soon be cut down like the grass.” The priest passes sentence. “They shall wither as the green herb.”

  He takes the last sip of chocolate.

  “Psalm Thirty-seven,” he adds, gently resting the little cup on his plate.

  (72)

  1625: Samayac

  Indian Dances Banned in Guatemala

  The monks proclaim that no memory or trace remains of the rites and ancient customs of the Verapaz region, but the town criers grow hoarse proclaiming the succession of edicts of prohibition.

  Juan Maldonado, judge of the Royal Audiencia, now issues in the town of Samayac new ordinances against dances injurious to the Indians’ consciences and to the keeping of the Christian law they profess, because such dances bring to mind ancient sacrifices and rites and are an offense to Our Lord. The Indians squander money on feathers, dresses, and masks and lose much time in rehearsals and drinking bouts, which keep them from reporting for work at the haciendas, paying their tribute, and maintaining their households.

  Anyone dancing the tun will get a hundred lashes. In the tun, the Indians have a pact with demons. The tun, or Rabinal Achí, is a fertility dance dramatized with words and masks, and the tun is also the hollow log whose beat is accompanied by long, resonant trumpets as the drama of the son of the Quichés, prisoner of the Rabinals, proceeds: The victors sing and dance in homage to the greatness of the vanquished, who says a dignified farewell to his land and mounts to the stake at which he will be sacrificed.

  (3)

  1626: Potosí

  A Wrathful God

  The lake stampedes, smashes the dike, and invades the city. Many are ground to pieces by the flood. Mules drag bits of people out of the mud. A mixture of Spaniards, Creoles, mestizos, and Indians ends up in common graves. Potosí’s houses look like broken corpses.

  The fury of Lake Caricari does not abate until priests parade the Christ of the True Cross through the streets. When they see the procession approaching, the waters halt.

  From the pulpits of all Peru the same sermons are heard in these days: “Sinners! How long will you play games with the mercy of the Lord? God has infinite patience. How long, sinners? Have not the warnings and punishments been enough?”

  In these broad and opulent realms, the bursting of Potosí’s lake is nothing new. Forty-five years ago a huge rock plunged suddenly onto a community of Indian sorcerers in Achocalla, a few leagues from the city of La Paz. The only survivor was the chief, who was struck dumb and told the story by signs. Another immense rock buried a community of heretical Indians shortly afterward in Yanaoca, near Cuzco. In the following year, the earth opened and swallowed men and houses in Arequipa; and as the city had not learned the lesson, the earth showed its fangs a little later and left nothing standing except the San Francisco monastery. In 1586, the ocean overwhelmed the city of San Marcos de Arica and all its harbors and beaches.

  When the new century began, the Ubinas volcano blew up. Its anger was such that the ashes crossed the cordillera by land and reached the coasts of Nicaragua by sea.

  Two warning stars appeared in this sky in 1617. They would not go away. Finally they moved into the distance thanks to the sacrifices and promises of the faithful all over Peru, who prayed five novenas without a stop.

  (142)

  1628: Chiapas

  Chocolate and the Bishop

  He doesn’t put in black pepper, as do those who suffer from chills on the liver. He doesn’t add corn, because it bloats. He generously sprinkles cinnamon, which empties the bladder, improves the sight, and strengthens the heart; nor does he spare the hot, well-ground-up chilis. He adds orange-blossom water, white sugar, and achiote spice to give color, and never forgets the handful of anise, two of vanilla, and the powdered Alexandria rose.

  Father Thomas Gage adores well-prepared foamy chocolate. If not dunked in chocolate, sweets and marzipans have no flavor. He needs a cup of chocolate at midmorning to keep going, another after dinner to get up from the table, and another to stretch out the night and keep drowsiness at bay.

  Since he arrived in Chiapas, however, he hasn’t touched it. His belly protests; but Father Thomas prefers living badly between dizziness and faintings if it avoids the fate that killed Bishop Bernardo de Salazar.

  Until recently, the ladies of this city would go to Mass with a retinue of pages and maids who, in addition to carrying the velvet hassock, brought along a brazier, boiler, and cup to prepare chocolate. Having delicate stomachs, the ladies couldn’t endure the ordeal of a prayer service without the hot elixir, still less a High Mass. So it was, until Bishop Bernardo de Salazar decided to ban the custom because of all the confusion and hubbub it caused it in the church.

  The ladies took revenge. One morning the bishop turned up dead in his office. At his feet, broken in pieces, the cup of chocolate that someone had served him.

  (72)

  1628: Madrid

  Blue Blood for Sale

  Off the coast of Matanzas, in Cuba, the Spanish fleet has fallen into the hands of the pirate Piet Heyn. All the silver coming from Mexico and Peru will end up in Holland. In Amsterdam, Heyn gets promoted to grand admiral, and a national hero’s welcome is prepared for him. From now on, Dutch children will sing:

  Piet Heyn, Piet Heyn

  Short is your name

  but long is your fame.

  In Madrid, heads are clutched. Of the royal treasure, only a hole remains.

  The king decides, among other emergency measures, to put new noble titles on the market. Nobility is granted for distinguished deeds. And what deed more distinguished than having the money to pay for it? For four thousand ducats, any plebeian can wake up a noble of ancient lineage; and he who last night was the son of a Jew or grandson of a Muslim can start the day with pure blood.

  But secondhand titles can be had cheaper. Castile has plenty of nobles who would go around with their arses in the air if their capes didn’t cover them, gentlemen of illusory grandeur who live brushing invisible crumbs from their jerkins and mustaches: they are offering to the highest bidder the right to use the Don, which is all they have left.

  Those who have come down in the world have in common with those who ride in silver carriages only a sense of honor and nostalgia for glory, a horror of work—begging is less unworthy— and a d
isgust for bathing, which is a custom of Moors, foreign to the Catholic religion, and frowned on by the Inquisition.

  (64 and 218)

  Song About the Indies Hand, Sung in Spain

  To Ronda one goes for pears,

  for apples to Argonales,

  to the Indies for money

  and to the Sierra for follies.

  My husband went to the Indies

  his poverty to end:

  came back with a lot to tell me,

  but precious little to spend.

  My husband went to the Indies

  and brought me back a dirk

  with an inscription on it that tells you:

  “If you want to eat, work.”

  The men go off to the Indies,

  to the Indies for a golden lark.

  Right here they have the Indies,

  if they only wanted to work!

  (19)

  1629: Las Cangrejeras

  Bascuñán

  His head creaks and hurts. Stretched out in the mud amid the pile of dead, Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán opens his eyes. The world is a mess of blood and mud, riddled with rain, which whirls and bounces and splashes and whirls.

  Indians throw themselves on him. They tear off his armor and his iron helmet, dented by the blow that knocked him out, and jerkily strip him naked. Francisco manages to cross himself before they tie him to a tree.

  The storm lashes his face. The world stops spinning. A voice from inside tells him through the yells of the Araucanians: “You are in a swamp in the Chilián region in your land of Chile. This rain is what dampened your powder. This wind is what blew out your fuses. You lost. Listen to the Indians who are arguing about your death.”

  Francisco mutters a last prayer.

  Suddenly a gust of colored feathers bursts through the rain. The Araucanians make way for the white horse that charges up spurting fire from its nostrils and foam from its mouth. The rider, masked by a helmet, sharply reins in his horse. The horse rears up on two legs before Maulicán, winner of the battle. Everyone falls silent.

  “It’s the executioner,” thinks Francisco. “Now it’s all over.”

  The feathered horseman leans down and says something to Maulicán. Francisco hears only the voices of rain and wind. But when the horseman wheels around and disappears, Maulicán unties the prisoner, takes off his cape, and covers him with it.

  Then the horses gallop southward.

  (26)

  1629: Banks of the Bio-Bio River

  Putapichun

  Soon they see a throng approaching from the far-off cordillera. Maulicán spurs his horse and advances to meet Chief Putapichun.

  The group from the cordillera also has a prisoner, who stumbles along between the horses with a rope around his neck.

  On a flat hillock, Putapichun sticks his three-pointed lance into the ground. He has the prisoner unbound and throws a branch at his feet.

  “Name the three bravest captains of your army.”

  “I don’t know,” babbles the soldier.

  “Name one,” orders Putapichun.

  “Don’t remember.”

  “Name one.”

  He names Francisco’s father.

  “Another.”

  He names another. With each name he is told to break the branch. Francisco watches the scene with clenched teeth. The soldier names twelve captains. He has twelve sticks in his hand.

  “Now dig a hole.”

  The prisoner throws the sticks into the hole, one by one, repeating the names.

  “Throw dirt in. Cover them up.”

  Then Putapichun passes sentence. “Now the twelve brave captains are buried.”

  And the executioner brings down on the prisoner the club bristling with nails.

  They tear out his heart. They invite Maulicán to take the first sip of blood. Tobacco smoke floats in the air as the heart passes from hand to hand.

  Then Putapichun, swift in war and slow in word, says to Maulicán: “We came to buy the captain you have there. We know he is the son of Alvaro, the big chief who has caused our land to tremble.”

  He offers him one of his daughters, a hundred Castilian sheep, five llamas, three horses with tooled saddles, and several necklaces of precious stones. “All that would pay for ten Spaniards and leave something over.”

  Francisco swallows saliva. Maulicán stares at the ground. After a while he says:

  “First I must take him for my father and the other chiefs of my Repocura region to see. I want to show them this trophy of my valor.”

  “We’ll wait,” Putapichun says calmly.

  “My life is just one death after another,” thinks Francisco. His ears hum.

  (26)

  1629: Banks of River Imperial

  Maulicán

  “You bathed in the river? Come up to the fire. You’re shivering. Sit down and drink. Come, Captain, are you dumb? And you talking our language like one of us … Eat, drink. We have a long journey ahead. Don’t you like our chicha? You don’t like our unsalted meat? Our drums don’t make your feet dance. You’re in luck, Captain boy. You people burn the faces of captives with the iron that doesn’t rub out. You’re out of luck, Captain boy. Now your freedom is mine. I’m sorry for you. Drink, drink, tear that fear from your heart. I’ll hide you. I’ll never sell you. Your fate is in the hands of the Lord of the world and of man. He is just. So. Drink. More? Before the sun arrives we’ll be off to Repocura. I want to see my father and celebrate. My father is very old. Soon his spirit will go to eat black potatoes over beyond the snow peaks. Hear the footsteps of the night walking? Our bodies are clean and vigorous to start the trip. The horses are waiting for us. My heart beats fast, Captain boy. Hear the drums of my heart? Hear the music of my happiness?”

  (26)

  1629: Repocura Region

  To Say Good-Bye

  Moon by moon, time has passed. Francisco has heard and learned much in these months of captivity. He has learned, and someday will write, the other side of this long Chile war, this just war that the Indians made against those who deceived and wronged them and took them as slaves, and even worse.

  In the forest, kneeling before a cross of arrayán branches, Francisco says prayers of gratitude. Tonight he will be hitting the trail for Nacimiento fort. There he will be exchanged for three captive Araucanian chiefs. He will make the journey protected by a hundred lances.

  Now he walks toward the settlement. Beneath a brush arbor a circle of threadbare ponchos and muddy faces awaits him. The strawberry or apple chicha passes from mouth to mouth.

  The venerable Tereupillán receives the cinnamon-tree branch, which is the word, and raising it, he makes a long speech of praise for each of the chiefs present. Then he eulogizes Maulicán, the brave warrior, who won such a valuable prisoner in battle and knew how to take him alive.

  “It is not for generous hearts,” says Tereupillán, “to take life in cold blood. When we took up arms against the Spanish tyrants who held us under persecution and humiliation, only in battle I felt no compassion for them. But afterward, when I saw them as captives, it gave me great sadness and pain, and it hurt my soul to perceive that truly we did not hate them as persons. Their greed, yes. Their cruelties, their arrogance, yes.”

  Turning to Francisco, he says: “And you, Captain, friend and comrade, who are going away and leaving us hurt, sad, and without consolation, do not forget us.”

  Tereupillán drops the cinnamon branch in the center of the circle and the Araucanians shake the ground awake, stamping their feet.

  (26)

  1630: Motocintle

  They Won’t Betray Their Dead

  For nearly two years Fray Francisco Bravo had been preaching in this village of Motocintle. One day he told the Indians he had been called back to Spain. He wanted to return to Guatemala, he said, and stay here forever with his beloved flock, but his superiors over there in Spain would not let him.

  “Only gold could convince them,” said Fray Fra
ncisco.

  “Gold we don’t have,” said the Indians.

  “Yes, you do,” corrected the priest. “I know there’s a seam of it hidden in Motocintle.”

  “That gold doesn’t belong to us,” they explained. “That gold belongs to our ancestors. We’re just looking after it. If any were missing, what would we say to them when they return to the world?”

  “I only know what my superiors in Spain will say. They’ll say: ‘If the Indians of that village where you want to stay love you so much, how come you’re so poor?’”

  The Indians got together to discuss the matter.

  One Sunday after Mass, they blindfolded Fray Francisco and made him turn around until he was dizzy. Everybody went along behind him, from the oldest to children at the breast. When they reached the back of a cave, they took off the blindfold. The priest blinked, his eyes hurting from the glitter of gold, more gold than all the treasures of the Thousand and One Nights, and his trembling hands did not know where to start. He made a bag of his cassock and loaded up what he could. Afterward he swore by God and the holy gospels that he would never reveal the secret, and he received a mule and tortillas for his journey.

  In the course of time the royal audiencia of Guatemala received a letter from Fray Francisco Bravo from the port of Veracruz. With great pain to his soul the priest was fulfilling his duty, as an act of service to the king in an important and outstanding matter of business. He described the possible location of the gold: “I think I went only a short distance from the village. There was a stream running to the left …” He enclosed some sample nuggets and promised to use the rest for devotions to a saint in Malaga.