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

Carriages are still banned for Indians, prostitutes, and those punished by the Inquisition.

(213)

For twenty years Spain has reigned over Portugal and all its colonies, so that a Spaniard can walk the earth without treading on foreign soil. But Spain is the most expensive country in Europe: It produces ever fewer things and ever more coins. Of the thirty-five million escudos born six years ago, not even a shadow remains. The data recently published here by Don Martin González de Cellorigo in his Treatise on Necessary Policy are not encouraging: by virtue of chance and inheritance, every Spaniard who works maintains thirty more. For those with incomes, work is a sin. The gentry have the bedroom as a battlefield; and in Spain fewer trees grow than monks and beggars.

Galleys laden with the gold of America sail for Genoa. The metals arriving from Mexico and Peru do not even leave a smell in Spain. The feat of the conquest seems to have been achieved by German, Genoese, French, and Flemish merchants and bankers.

In Valladolid lives a crippled and myopic youth of pure blood, with a sharp sword and tongue. In the evenings, while his page removes his boots, he dreams up couplets. In the morning his snakes slither under the doors of the royal palace.

Head buried in his pillow, young Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas personifies in his head the force that turns a coward into a warrior and that softens up the most severe judge; and cursing this trade of poet, he rubs his eyes, draws up the lamp, and with one tug hauls from inside his head the verses that won’t let him sleep. The verses tell of Don Doubloon, who

is honorably born in the Indies ,

where the world accompanies him ,

comes to die in Spain

and is buried in Genoa.

(64, 183, and 218)

In the mills that press and squeeze sugarcane and men, each slave’s work is measured as the weight of the cane and the pressure of the crusher and the heat of the oven are measured. The strength of a slave is exhausted in five years, but in only one year the owner will recover the price paid for him. When slaves cease to be useful hands and become useless mouths, they receive the gift of freedom.

In the mountains of northeastern Brazil hide the slaves who win freedom before sudden old age or early death topples them. The sanctuaries where the fugitives take refuge, in the groves of lofty palms in Alagoas, are called Palmares.

The governor general of Brazil sends out the first expedition against Palmares. It consists of a few poor whites and mestizos anxious to capture and sell blacks; a few Indians who have been promised combs, knives, and little mirrors; and many mulattoes.

Returning from the Itapicurú River, the commander of the expedition, Bartolomeu Bezerra, announces in Recife: The core of the rebellion has been destroyed. And they believe him.

(32 and 69)

An illustrated and enlarged edition of Cesare Ripa’s Iconology is published in Rome. This dictionary of symbolic images shows the world as it looks from the north shore of the Mediterranean.

On top appears Europe, the queen, with her emblems of power. Horses and lances support her. With one hand she holds up the columns of the temple, with the other she holds a scepter. She has a crown on her head and other crowns lie at her feet, amid miters and books and paintbrushes, zithers, and harps. Next to the horn of plenty lie compass and ruler.

Beneath, to the right, Asia. She offers coffee, pepper, incense. Garlands of flowers and fruit adorn her. A kneeling camel awaits her.

At one side, Africa, a dusky Moorish woman topped by an elephant’s head. On her breast, a necklace of coral. Around her the lion, the snake, the scorpion, and ears of grain.

Beneath everything America, a woman with face fearsome to look upon. She wears feathers over her naked olive skin. At her feet she has a newly severed human head and a lizard. She is armed with bow and arrows.

(125)

Santiago’s town council has purchased a new branding iron — of silver — to brand Indian slaves on the face. The governor, Alonso de Ribera, orders that a fifth part of the value of each Araucanian sold at the ports of Valdivia and Arica should go to the costs of war and maintenance of the soldiery.

One hunting expedition follows another. The soldiers cross the Bío-Bío and do their lashing out at night. They burn and butcher and return with men, women, and children roped around the neck. Once branded, they are sold to Peru.

The governor raises the spouted wine pitcher and toasts the battles won. He toasts in the Flemish style, like Pedro de Valdivia. First, swig after swig to the gentlemen and ladies who come to his mind. When he finishes with people, he toasts saints and angels; and he never forgets to thank them for the pretext.

(94)

Right after Christmas, nature’s heavy artillery blew up the city of Arequipa. The cordillera exploded and the earth vomited the foundations of houses. People were left in fragments under the wreckage, crops burned under the cinders. The sea rose up, meanwhile, and smothered the port of Arica.

Yesterday, at dusk, a barefooted friar assembled a throng in Lima’s plaza. He announced that this libertine city would collapse in the next few hours, and with it all its surroundings as far as the eye could see.

“No one will get away!” he howled. “Not the fastest horse nor the swiftest ship will be able to escape!”

At sunset, the streets are already filled with penitents scourging themselves by torchlight. Sinners proclaim their sins on the corners, and from the balconies rich folk throw silverware and party dresses down into the street. Hair-raising secrets are revealed out loud. Unfaithful wives tear up pavingstones and use them to beat their breasts. Thieves and seducers kneel before their victims, masters kiss the feet of their slaves, and beggars have not hands enough for so much charity. The Church receives more money than in all the Lents in its history. If not seeking a priest to confess to, people seek one to marry them. The churches are crammed with folk who want to nestle within their protection.

Then the dawn.

The sun shines on Lima as never before. Penitents look for ointments for their flayed backs, and masters pursue their slaves. Newlyweds inquire for their just-acquired husbands whom daylight has evaporated; people who repented of their sins wander the streets in search of new ones to commit. Sobs and curses are heard behind every door. There is no beggar who hasn’t dropped from sight. The priests have also hidden themselves, to count the mountains of coins that God accepted last night. With the leftover cash, Lima’s churches will buy in Spain the authentic feathers of the archangel Gabriel.

(157)

Captain Alonso González de Nájera, who has lived six years in Chile, remembers and relates.

He speaks of those who are born amid trumpets and drums, the noble host who wear coats of mail from the cradle and make a wall of their bodies against attacks by the Indians. He insists that rain pulls grains of gold out of the Chilean soil and that the Indians pay tribute with gold they take from the bellies of lizards.

He also tells of a rare fruit, with the color and form of the heart, which explodes with sweet juices at the touch of the teeth. For vividness, flavor, and scent it could well compete with the most delectable fruits of Spain, although over there in Chile they insult it by calling it a strawberry.