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

The horse drags its rider along the ground, his foot caught in a stirrup. An arrow has killed him. The victims of the plunder, swift warriors, strike and disappear; and so push the invaders toward the coast where they landed years ago.

(153 and 204)

Metacom

Half of the Indian population has died in the war. Twelve English towns lie in ashes.

At the end of summer, the English bring to Plymouth the head of Metacom, the Wampanoag chief: Metacom, that is, Satan, who tried to seize from the Puritan colonists the lands that God had granted them.

The High Court of Plymouth discusses: What do we do with Metacom’s son? Hang him or sell him as a slave? Taking into account Deuteronomy 24:16, the first Book of Kings 11:17, II Chronicles 25:4, and Psalms 137 to 139, the judges decide to sell Metacom’s son, aged nine, in the Antillean slave markets.

As further proof of generosity, the victors offer the Indians a small piece of what used to be theirs: In the future the Indian communities of the region, whether or not they fought with Metacom, will be enclosed in four reserves in Massachusetts Bay.

(153 and 204)

Death Here, Rebirth There

The body, which knows little, doesn’t know it, nor does the soul that breathes; but the soul that dreams, which knows the most, does: The black man who kills himself in America revives in Africa. Many slaves of this island of St. Kitts let themselves die by refusing food or eating only earth, ashes, and lime; and others tie a rope around the neck. In the woods, among the lianas that drape from the great weeping trees hang slaves who by killing themselves not only kill their memories of pain but also set forth in white canoes on the long voyage back to their ancestral homes.

A certain Bouriau, owner of plantations, strolls through the foliage, machete in hand, decapitating the hanged:

“Hang yourselves if you like!” he advises the live ones. “Over there in your countries you won’t have a head! You won’t be able to see or hear or talk or eat!”

Another planter, Major Crips, the harshest castigator of men, enters the wood with a cartful of sugar pans and sugarmill pieces. He seeks and finds his escaped slaves, who have gathered together and are tying knots and choosing branches, and says to them:

“Keep it up, keep it up. I’ll hang myself with you. I’ll accompany you. I’ve bought a big sugarmill in Africa, and there you’ll work for me.”

Major Crips selects a big tree, a huge ceiba, ties the rope around his neck, and threads the slipknot. The blacks watch him in a daze, but his face is just a shadow beneath the straw hat, a shadow that says: “Let’s go, everybody! Quick! I need hands in Guinea!”

(101)

The Captain Promises Lands, Slaves, and Honors

Early in the morning, the army moves off from Pôrto Calvo. The soldiers, volunteers, and draftees are marching against the free blacks of Palmares, who are going about the South of Pernambuco burning canefields.

Fernāo Carrilho, senior captain of the Palmares war, addresses his troops after Mass: “Great as is the host of our enemies, it is a host of slaves. Nature has created them more to obey than to resist. If we destroy them, we will have lands for our plantations, blacks for our service, and honor for our names. The blacks fight like fugitives. We will pursue them like lords!”

(69)

Ganga Zumba

Thanksgiving Mass in the mother church: the Governor of Pernambuco, Aires de Sousa de Castro, picks up the tails of his embroidered coat and kneels before the throne of the Most Holy. Beside him, covered by an ample cape of red silk, kneels Ganga Zumba, supreme chief of the Palmares federation.

Peal of bells, din of artillery and drums: The governor grants to Ganga Zumba the title of sergeant at arms, and in proof of friendship adopts two of his smallest children, who will take his name. At the end of the peace talks held in Recife between delegates of the king of Portugal and representatives of Palmares, the agreement is drawn up: The Palmares sanctuaries will be emptied. All individuals born there are declared free, and those who have the hot-iron brand will return to their owners.

“But I don’t surrender,” says Zumbí, Ganga Zumba’s nephew.

Zumbí remains in Macacos, capital of Palmares, deaf to the successive groups offering him pardon.

Of the thirty thousand Palmarinos, only five thousand accompany Ganga Zumba. For the others he is a traitor who deserves to die and be forgotten.

“I don’t believe in the word of my enemies,” says Zumbí. “My enemies don’t believe it themselves.”

(43 and 69)

Yoruba Spell Against the Enemy

When they try to catch a chameleon

under a mat,

the chameleon takes the color of the mat

and they can’t tell which is which.

When they try to catch a crocodile

on the bottom of the river,

the crocodile takes the color of the water

and they can’t distinguish him from the current.

When the Wizard tries to catch me

may I take on the agility of the wind

and escape with a puff!

(134)

Red Cross and White Cross

The knots in a rope of maguey announce the rebellion and indicate how many days to wait for it. The speediest messengers take it from village to village throughout New Mexico, until the Sunday of Wrath dawns.

The Indians of twenty-four communities rise. They are those that remain of the sixty-six that existed in these northern lands when the conquistadors arrived. The Spaniards succeed in suppressing the rebels in one or two villages.

“Surrender.”

“I prefer death.”

“You’ll go to hell.”

“I prefer hell.”

But the avengers of pain advance destroying churches and forts, and after a few days are masters of the whole region. To wipe off the baptismal oils and get rid of the Christian names, the Indians plunge in the river and rub themselves with cleansing amole plants. Dressed up as monks, they drink to the recovery of their lands and their gods. They announce that they will never again work for others, that pumpkins will sprout all over the place, and that the world will be snowed under with cotton.

A noose is drawn around the city of Santa Fe, Spain’s last redoubt in these remote regions. The chief of the Indians gallops up to the walls. He is armed with arquebus, dagger, and sword and wears a taffeta strip he found in a convent. He throws down at the foot of the wall two crosses, a white and a red one.

“The red cross is resistance. The white, surrender. Pick up whichever you choose!”

Then he turns his back on the besieged enemy and disappears in a puff of dust.

The Spaniards resist. But after a few days they raise the white cross. A while back they had come seeking the legendary golden cities of Cíbola. Now they begin the retreat southward.

(88)

Juana at Thirty

After matins and lauds, she sets a top to spinning in the flour and studies the circles it draws. She investigates water and light, air and things. Why does an egg come together in boiling oil and separate in syrup? Forming triangles of pins, she seeks Solomon’s ring. With one eye clamped to a telescope, she hunts stars.

They have threatened her with the Inquisition and forbidden her to open books, but Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz studies the things that God created, which serve me as letters as this universal machine serves me as book.