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

The punishments of vela, soga, mordaza, abjuration de levi, and one hundred and two hundred lashes are meted out to a silversmith, a cutler, a goldsmith, a scribe, and a cobbler for having said that simple fornication is not mortal sin. Various bigamists suffer similar inflictions, among them the Augustine friar Juan Sarmiento, who with his back one raw wound marches off to row in the galleys for five years.

The Negro Domingo, born in Mexico, and the mestizo Miguel Franco receive a hundred lashes each, the former for having the custom of denying God, the latter because he made his wife confess to him. A hundred, too, for the Sevillian apothecary Gaspar de los Reyes for having said it was better to cohabit than to be married and that it was licit for the poor and afflicted to perjure themselves for money.

To the galleys, hard prison for the mischievous, go various Lutherans and Jews, who sucked their heresy in their mothers’ milk, a few Englishmen of the pirate John Hawkins’s fleet, and a Frenchman who called the pope and the king poltroons.

An Englishman from the mines of Guanajuato and a French barber from Yucatan end their heretical days in the bonfire.

(139)

She came to Mexico twenty years ago. Two doves guided her to Guanajuato. She arrived without a scratch, although she crossed the sea and the desert, and those who carried her lost their way. The king sent her to us in gratitude for the wealth that never stops spurting from the bowels of these mountains.

For more than eight centuries she had lived in Spain. Hidden from the Moors, she survived in a cave in Granada. When Christians discovered and rescued her, they found no wound on her wooden body. She reached Guanajuato intact. She remains intact, performing miracles. Our Lady of Guanajuato consoles both poor and rich for their poverty; and she shields alike from the cold those who sleep outdoors and in a sheltered palace. In her infinite mercy she does not distinguish between servants and lords. No one invokes her and fails to receive divine favor.

By her grace many Indians of Guanajuato who go to her with repentance and faith are now being saved. She has stayed the sword of the Lord, who with just fury castigates the idolatries and sins of the Indians in Mexico. The afflicted who brought their supplications to her and paid due charity have not been touched by the pestilence.

In other areas, the Indian whom typhus does not kill dies of hunger or hardship. There are corpses in the fields and in the plazas, and there are houses filled with them in which all died and no one remained to tell of it. Throughout Mexico the pestilence is raising such a stink of putrefaction and smoke that we Spaniards have to go about holding our noses.

(79 and 131)

Here even nursing babies have paid tribute, in money and in corn. If the pestilence goes on, who will pay? Local hands have built the cathedral of Mexico. If the plague does not stop, who will sow these fields? Who will spin and weave in the workshops? Who will build cathedrals and pave streets?

The Franciscans discuss the situation in their monastery. Of the thirty thousand Indians in Xochimilco when the Spaniards came, four thousand are left, and that is an exaggeration. Many died fighting with Hernán Cortés, conquering men and lands for him, and more died working for him and for Pedro de Alvarado, and the epidemic is killing more.

Fray Jerónimo de Mendieta, the monastery guardian, comes up with the inspiration that saves the day.

They prepare to draw lots. An acolyte, blindfolded, stirs slips of paper in the silver dish. On each slip is written the name of a saint of proven prestige at the celestial court. The acolyte chooses one, and Father Mendieta unfolds it and reads: “It’s the Apostle Santiago!”

From the balcony it is announced to the Indians of Xochimilco in their language. The apocalyptic monk speaks on his knees, raising his arms. “Santiago will defeat the pestilence!”

He promises him an altar.

(79 and 161)

During the tough years of the conquest, the clash of arms was heard from the tomb of Santiago on the eve of each battle; and the apostle fought with the invading hosts, lance in hand, on his white horse. Clearly the apostle Santiago has the habit of killing Indians but not of saving them. The plague, which barely scratches the Spaniards, continues massacring Indians in Xochimilco and other parts of Mexico.

From his cell as night falls, Father Mendieta hears shrieks and moans louder than the choruses of angels.

Someone has to intercede with the Lord, since the apostle Santiago is not interested, or Xochimilco will soon be Indianless. The Franciscans talk it over and decide to draw lots again. Fate picks the blessed Sebastian for saint-advocate.

They promise him an altar.

(79 and 161)

Beto, Indian priest of the Archidona region, saw a vision of the Devil in the shape of a cow, who told him God was very annoyed with the Christians and was not going to defend them. Guami, Indian priest of Tambisa, spent five days in the other world. There he saw marvels and listened to God, and now he has the power of rain and the power of resurrection. Beto and Guami announce that Indians who don’t join the rebellion will reap toads and snakes in eternally sterile fields.

The two prophets put themselves at the head of many lances. Southeast of Quito, the Quijo Indians rebel. They attack various towns and vainly await a rising in the mountains. The Inca’s son, Francisco Atahualpa, captain of Spanish troops, imprisons the mountain plotters and staves off the insurrection. The Quijo Indians are left all alone.

After some battles comes defeat. The Spaniards oblige all Indians of the Quijo region and the surroundings of Quito to attend the execution of the prophets Beto and Guami. They parade them through the streets of Quito, torture them with hot pincers, hang them, quarter them, and exhibit the pieces. From the royal box, Captain Francisco Atahualpa watches the ceremony.

(156)

Nearly half a century ago, a Spanish captain sailed from Seville for these unrenowned shores. He sank the whole fortune he had made in the sack of Rome into the expedition. Here he founded a city, a fortress surrounded by huts, and upriver from here he went hunting for the silver mountain and the mysterious lake where the sun sleeps.

Ten years earlier, Sebastian Cabot had sought the treasure of King Solomon sailing up this Plate River — so innocent of its silvery name — which has only mud on one bank and sand on the other and leads to other rivers that lead to jungle.

Pedro de Mendoza’s city didn’t last long. While his soldiers, maddened by hunger, ate each other, the captain read Virgil and Erasmus and made pronouncements for immortality. In short order, the dream of another Peru having vanished, he wanted to go back to Spain. He didn’t get there alive. Afterward came Alonso Cabrera, who set fire to Buenos Aires in the king’s name. He could and did return to Spain. There he killed his wife and ended his days in a lunatic asylum.

Comes now Juan de Garay from Asunción. Santa María de los Buenos Aires is born again. With Garay come a bunch of Paraguayans, sons of conquistadors, who have received from their Guaraní mothers their first milk and the native language they speak.

The sword of Garay, stuck into this land, outlines the shadow of the cross. The founders’ teeth chatter from cold and fear. The breeze plays rustling music in the treetops, and beyond, on the endless plains, Indians and phantoms silently spy on them.