Eduardo Galeano - The Memory of Fire Trilogy - Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

The crown, an exact replica of the one that adorned the emperor in Europe, has toured the streets of Mexico. On a damask cushion it was borne in procession. The multitude prayed and chanted behind it while the bells of all the churches rang out the death toll. The chief nobles paraded on horseback in mourning, black brocades, black velvet cloaks embroidered with gold and silver; and beneath a canopy, the archbishop, the bishops, and their spectacular miters broke through clouds of incense.

For several nights the tailors have not slept. The entire colony is dressed in mourning.

In the slums, the Aztecs are in mourning, too. They have been for months, nearly a year. The plague is exterminating them wholesale. A fever never known before the conquest draws blood from the nose and eyes and kills.

(28)

Now that you see with your eyes,

take notice.

See how it is here: there is no joy,

there is no happiness.

Here on earth is the place of many tears,

the place where breath gives up

and where are known so well

depression and bitterness.

An obsidian wind blows and swoops

over us .

The earth is the place of painful joy ,

of joy that pricks.

But even though it were thus,

though it were true that suffering is all,

even if things were thus on the earth,

must we always go with fear?

must we forever tremble?

must we live forever weeping?

So that we may not always go with groans ,

so that sadness may not ever saturate us ,

Our Father has given us

smiles, dreams, food ,

our strength ,

and finally

the act of love ,

which sows people.

(110)

The native chiefs of Huexotzingo now bear the names of their new lords. They are called Felipe de Mendoza, Hernando de Meneses, Miguel de Alvarado, Diego de Chaves, or Mateo de la Corona. But they write in their own Náhuatl and in that language send a long letter to the king of Spain: Unfortunates we, your poor vassals of Huexotzingo …

They explain to Philip II that they cannot reach him in any othc way, because they don’t have the price of the journey, and they tell their story by letter. How shall we speak? Who will speak for us? Unfortunates we.

They never made war on the Spaniards. They walked twenty leagues to Hernán Cortès and embraced him, fed him, served him, and took charge of his sick soldiers. They gave him men and arms and timber to build the brigantines that assaulted Tenochtitlán. After the Aztec capital fell, the Huexotzingans fought with Cortés in the conquest of Michoacán, Jalisco, Colhuacan, Pánuco, Oaxaca, Tehuantepec; and Guatemala. Many died. And afterward, when they told us to break the stones and burn the carvings that we worshiped, we did it, and destroyed our temples … Whatever they ordered, we obeyed.

Huexotzingo was an independent kingdom when the Spaniards came. They had never paid tribute to the Aztecs. Our fathers, grandfathers, and ancestors did not know what tribute was and paid it to no one.

Now, however, the Spaniards are demanding such high tribute in money and in corn that we declare before Your Majesty that little time will pass before our city of Huexotzingo disappears and dies.

(120)

Primitive Christianity, primitive communism: the bishop of Michoacán draws up ordinances for his evangelical communities. He was inspired in founding them by the Utopia of Thomas More, by the biblical prophets, and by the ancient traditions of America’s Indians.

The communities created by Vasco de Quiroga, where no one is master of anyone or anything and neither hunger nor money is known, will not multiply throughout Mexico as he wished. The Council of the Indies will never take the foolish bishop’s projects seriously nor even glance at the books that he obstinately recommends. But here utopia has returned to America, where it originated. Thomas More’s chimera has been incarnated in the small communal world of Michoacán; and in times to come the Indians here will remember Vasco de Quiroga as their own — the dreamer who riveted his eyes on a hallucination to see beyond the time of infamy.

(227)

They crowned him yesterday. Curious monkeys trooped up among the trees. Fernando de Guzmán’s mouth dripped guanábana juice, and there were suns in his eyes. One after the other, the soldiers knelt down before the throne of sticks and straw, kissed the hand of the elect, and swore fealty. Then they signed the declaration with a name or an X, all who were not women or servants or Indians or blacks. The scribe made it official, and independence was proclaimed.

The seekers of El Dorado, lost in midjungle, now have their own monarch. Nothing binds them to Spain except resentment. They have repudiated vassalage to the king across the sea: “I don’t know him!” cried Lope de Aguirre yesterday, all bone and fury, raising his sword covered with mildew. “I don’t know him or want to know him, nor to have him nor obey him!”

In the village’s biggest hut the court is installed. By the light of candles, Prince Ferdinand eats endless cassava buns spread with honey. He is served by his pages, cup and ewer bearer, and valet; between buns he gives orders to his secretaries, dictates decrees to his scribes, and grants audiences and favors. The royal treasurer, chaplain, chief majordomo, and steward-taster wear tattered doublets and have swollen hands and split lips. The sergeant at arms is swarthy-skinned Lope de Aguirre, lame in one leg, one-eyed, almost a dwarf, who conspires by night and supervises the brigantine construction by day.

Ax- and hammerblows ring out. The Amazon currents have ground their ships to pieces, but ahead two new keels rise on the sand. The jungle offers good timber. They have made bellows out of horses’ hides; nails, bolts, and hinges out of horseshoes.

Tortured by mosquitos and gnats, smothered by humid and fever-laden vapors, the men wait for the ships to grow. They eat grass and vulture meat, without salt. No dogs or horses are left, and the fishhooks bring up nothing but mud and decayed algae, but no one in the camp doubts that the hour of revenge has come. They left Peru months ago in search of the lake where according to legend there are solid gold idols as big as boys, and now they want to return to Peru on a war footing. They won’t spend another day in pursuit of the promised land, because they realize that they already found it and are sick of cursing their bad luck. They will sail the Amazon, emerge into the ocean, occupy Margarita Island, invade Venezuela and Panama …

Those who sleep dream of the silver of Potosí. Aguirre, who never closes his remaining eye, sees it awake.

(123 and 164)

At center stage, ax in hand, appears Lope de Aguirre surrounded by dozens of mirrors. Outlined on the backdrop, the profile of King Philip II, black, enormous.

Lope de Aguirre( to the audience ): On the road of our defeat, passing through death and misadventure, we took more than ten months to reach the mouth of the Amazon, which is a great, fearsome, and ill-starred river. Then we took possession of Margarita Island. There I cashed in twenty-five traitors on gallows or garrote. And then we made our way onto the mainland. King Philip’s soldiers are trembling with fright! Soon we’ll leave Venezuela … Soon we’ll be entering the kingdom of Peru in triumph! ( He turns and confronts his own pitiful image in one of the mirrors. ) I crowned Fernando de Guzmán king on the Amazon River! ( Raises his ax and splits the mirror. ) I crowned him king and I killed him! Same with his captain of the guard and the lieutenant general and four captains! ( As he speaks he smashes all the mirrors one after the other. ) Same with his head steward and his chaplain! … And with a woman who was in on the plot against me, and that fellow born in Greece who thought himself such a big shot, and an admiral … and six more of their allies! … And I appointed new captains and a sergeant major! They wanted to kill me and I hanged them! ( Pulverizes the last of the mirrors. ) All of them! All of them! … ( He sits, almost suffocating, on the ground covered with glass. The ax held high in his fists, his eyes astray. Long silence. ) As a lad I crossed the sea to Peru because I was worth more with a lance in my hand … A quarter of a century! … Mysteries, miseries … I dug out whole cemeteries to get silver and gold for others … I put up gallows in the middle of unborn cities … I hunted down crowds of people on my horse … Indians fleeing in terror through the flames … Gentlemen with fancy titles and borrowed silk clothes, sons of something or other, sons of nobody, agonizing in the jungle, frothing at the mouth, eating dirt, blood poisoned by arrows … Up in the mountains, warriors in steel armor pierced right through by blizzards more violent than any arquebus volley … A lot of them found graves in the bellies of vultures … A lot ended up as yellow as the gold they were hunting for … Yellow skin, yellow eyes … And the gold … ( Drops his ax. Painfully opens his hands, which are like claws. Shows his palms .) Vanished … Gold turned into shadow or dew … ( Looks down incredulously. Long silence. Suddenly he rises. Back to the audience, raises his bony fist toward the huge outline of Philip II, projected with his pointed beard against the backdrop. ) Damn few of you kings go to hell, because there’s damn few of you! ( Walks toward backdrop, dragging his lame leg. ) Ungrateful bastard! I lost my body defending you against the rebels in Peru! I gave you a leg and an eye and these hands that aren’t much use to me! Now the rebel is me! Rebel till death for your ungratefulness! ( Faces audience, unsheathes his sword. ) Me, prince of the rebels! Lope de Aguirre the Pilgrim, Wrath of God, chief of the cripples! We don’t need you, king of Spain! ( Colored lights go on at various points on the stage. ) We mustn’t leave any minister of yours alive! ( Sword in hand, lunges at a beam of reddish light. ) Judges, governors, presidents, viceroys! War to the death against all court whores! ( The beam of light stays in place, indifferent to the sword cutting it. ) Usurpers! Thieves! ( The sword wounds the air. ) You have destroyed the Indies! ( Attacks beam of golden light. ) Lawyers, notaries, ink-shitters! How long must we endure your robberies in these lands won by us? ( Sword slashes beam of white light. ) Monks, bishops, archbishops! You won’t even bury a poor Indian! For penitence you keep a dozen girls in the kitchen! Traffickers! Traffickers in sacraments! Swindlers! ( The sword’s futile assaults on unblinking beams of light, which multiply across the stage, continue. Aguirre begins to lose strength and looks ever more alone and insignificant. )