When telling a story like this, I often ask myself, What will I be called in the future? Will it be ruler of Xaraguá, or Toa? As my uncle’s days grow close to their end, will he choose me to rule Xaraguá or will he favor Behechio?
All I know is that whether as cacica or mother, whatever I do will always be for the good of my people.
FULL MOON, DAY 15
With the final sighting of the full moon, my father and uncle and a group of subchiefs from the villages linger in the plaza near Matunherí’s temple before going to sleep. They fill their pipes with fresh tobacco from the harvest and tell stories of past moons: of hurricanes that muddied the rivers and of tempests that demolished entire settlements. They tell of skies filled with clouds that spewed out rain, which flooded their crops and left them with little to eat. They tell of calling on our ancestors to save them, and of how, just when they thought they were all going to die, the rains would stop and the moon would come out and they would begin a new season of planting and they would think of the moon as a marble garden that is always replenishing itself and they would immediately feel more hopeful.
Listening to Baba, Matunherí, and the subchiefs, I carve on a flattened rock as round as the moon the entire realm of Quisqueya, of which Xaraguá is only one part. Quisqueya, which we also call Ayiti and Bohio, being a hand and each separate territory, a finger.
On the island of Quisqueya, there is also Maguá, the realm of valleys and plains, and Higüey, a populated region where food grows easily. There is Marién, which is carefully sheltered between high mountain ranges and the sea and is full of gold and copper mines. Then there is, aside from Xaraguá, my most favorite region, Maguana, ruled by the handsome Caonabó, whose name means “Ruler of the House of Gold.”
My uncle has taken Behechio and me to visit all the other chiefs of Quisqueya and their territories, and many of the chiefs have also come to Xaraguá. This, so that harmony can be maintained whether my uncle rules Xaraguá or Behechio or I do.
Matunherí’s moonlit gathering particularly brings to mind the face of Caonabó, the ruler of Maguana. When Behechio, Matunherí, and a large group of our people visited with him in Maguana, he arranged an areito in our honor, a feast of singing and dancing and ball games that lasted for several moons. As we were leaving Maguana, Chief Caonabó offered Matunherí several high-backed ceremonial chairs, all carved in stone and adorned with seashells and gold. He also gifted us with many beautiful ceramic vessels and strong cotton hammocks. He is a most generous chief and I hope to see him again.
LAST QUARTER MOON, DAY 16
Baba organized a ball game after dusk, a batey by the light of the moon. Behechio caused much laughter among us players when he let the ball touch his hands on several occasions, missing his legs and lean backside. The group Behechio was leading lost the ball game. The group I was part of won.
Again my thoughts return to Chief Caonabó of Maguana. I wish Matunherí would decide to have us visit him again.
LAST QUARTER MOON, DAY 17
The guava growers’ children, whose work it is to protect the fields from the birds, toil very hard as the guava harvesting season approaches. Like us, the birds love these sweet fruits, and who can fault them?
Our elders tell us that our dead also like to eat guava and can even transform themselves into the fruit at night. When the children see a flock of birds flying over their fields, they wave their arms wildly as though they, too, wish they could fly.
LAST QUARTER MOON, DAY 18
I went with Yeybona to witness Nahe’s first swim. Like a toad he glides on the river, his mother’s hand firmly under him while he takes quick, short breaths that help keep him afloat.
After Yeybona and Nahe left, I stayed on the beach until nightfall, watching the sun fade from the sky and the moon and the stars appear. It was then that I noticed the feeble light of dimmed torches and heard the faint sounds of drums slowly heading toward the sea. I am sure now that it was them, the Night Marchers, ghosts of old warriors, walking from their burial grounds to the freedom of the sea.
I kept my head down, for if you ever see Night Marchers on their stroll from death to the afterlife, the elders say, they will carry you with them into the sea. And since I am not yet ready for the afterlife, I simply I listened to the faint sound of their drums and waited for their lanterns’ shadows to disappear before I ran home and slipped into a not-so-peaceful slumber.
LAST QUARTER MOON, DAY 19
I told Behechio that I heard the Night Marchers on the beach last night. He said many people think they hear Night Marchers when what they’re probably listening to is the sound of a distant village feast.
I was certain it was them, I told him. But he said he was playing his drum last night with Matunherí’s musicians and this is probably what I heard.
“Did you look at them?” he asked.
“I thought if you looked at them, you could die,” I said. “Which is why no one who’s claimed to have seen them is to be believed.”
“What about the faint lights slowly moving toward the sea?” I asked.
“The stars,” he said. “Moving in the sky.”
I couldn’t argue with him anymore. But I am sure of what I heard and felt. He was simply jealous. I had been in the presence of Night Marchers and he never had.
FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 1
Again we plant guavas
After an abundant harvest.
Sacred fruit,
Loved by both the living
And the dead,
May you blossom quickly.
FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 2
I have grown taller in the last period. I am even taller now than Behechio. So with the first sighting of the next full moon, I will have my haircutting celebration. This is the second time my hair will be cut since I was born. The first time was when I had just begun walking and I can’t even remember it now. This time when my uncle uses his ceremonial ax to cut my hair from waist length to my shoulders, I will become a woman.
My uncle has ordered Cuybio to make a special headband and skirt for me to wear to the haircutting ceremony. Bibi and I are making some neck, arm, and foot adornments. I will also be expected to perform my first dance as a woman. Matunherí has put some of his wives at my disposal, the ones most skillful at dancing. I have not consulted them because I want to create my own dance.
Behechio has arranged for the most elaborate ball game for the feast in my honor. Matunherí has also instructed that there be some mock fighting to entertain our visitors. He did not say who the visitors might be. Could Chief Caonabó be among them?
FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 4
Bibi and Baba have consulted Matunherí about which chiefs will be at my ceremony. Almost all the chiefs of Quisqueya will come or will send emissaries. As one who might one day rule Xaraguá, I will receive many wonderful gifts, as each of the caciques tries to outdo the others.
Behechio has asked Matunherí whether Chief Caonabó will come or send a replacement. We have learned that Chief Caonabó will come himself with many important people from his territory. Behechio is concerned about Chief Caonabó’s visit not for my sake but his. Behechio is actively seeking a wife now and he wants to personally consult with all the chiefs about this.
FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 5
I know now what my dance will be. It will be a dance of gratitude to the ancestors and to Matunherí, and then to my parents. Even though they surrendered Behechio and me to Matunherí to be raised as future rulers of Xaraguá, they did not abandon us but remained close by to help guide us toward our destinies. Bibi and Baba’s instruction has been as crucial to me as my uncle’s, but out of respect for Matunherí’s superior position I will apply many more movements in my gratitude dance to him.
I asked Baba to make the masks for my dance. He has always been the one to craft my masks in the past, for both large and small feasts. Even with Matunherí’s best artisans at my disposal, I would never have anyone but Baba make my dancing masks.
He always carves them just as I would myself.
HALF MOON, DAY 6
Cuybio has created the most radiant attire for my ceremony. Around my forehead I will wear a cotton ribbon dipped in hemp and scented herbs speckled with coral and gold.
Even though I am not accepting help from Matunherí’s wives, I gladly accepted his offer to have his musicians accompany me during my dance.
Baba has already completed the masks, too. They are the best he has ever done. As I requested, each mask shows my face at different ages, from the time I was an infant, like Yeybona and Piragua’s Nahe, to this moment. I will dance as a baby, then as a girl, then, with my own face, I will perform my gratitude dance. I have begun training with the masks, going deep into the woods with Matunherí’s musicians, where no one can hear or see us.
One additional reason to be extremely grateful to my beloved Baba: He crafted those masks so quickly, without asking me to sit with him so he could re-create my face. It must be that he knows so well the face of his golden flower.
HALF MOON, DAY 7
I was training for my dance in the woods when Behechio came to find me, saying that my uncle wished to speak to me immediately. Matunherí had heard that I’d refused the counsel of his wives and he wanted to know what kind of dance I would perform at the ceremony. I told him it was one of my own creation. He told me that my little dances were sufficient for our villagers, but we were going to have important people at the ceremony and I was to be sure not to shame him or Xaraguá. Even though I had only one of the masks with me, the one of me as an infant, he insisted that I perform my dance for him. I had no choice but to obey for he is not only my uncle but also the supreme leader of Xaraguá. Thankfully, he had no objections. Now that both he and Behechio have seen part of my dance, I must change it so that it might still be a good surprise.
HALF MOON, DAY 8
The worst curse: I have been bitten by niguas, and on my feet. My dancing feet. In the excitement of preparing for the ceremony, I had stopped wearing the amulets Bayaci had made me, and now I will pay a grave price.
Bibi called for Bayaci immediately, asking him for a quick cure that would prevent my feet from swelling further. The cure is this: Along with the purge of herbs, I must stop eating in order to purify myself. I was to do a cleansing fast on the eve of my ceremony, anyway, but now my fast will last longer, and I wonder if I will have the strength to participate in my own ceremony if I am starved and weak.
HALF MOON, DAY 9
I fear I will be a corpse as I travel toward womanhood, my body stiff and thin, my legs as large as tree trunks. Cuybio has made me some wide ribbons to wear around my feet to hide the swelling. Will these ribbons be sufficient? Cuybio is very skilled at crafting things with cotton, but can he save my honor? Xaraguá’s honor?
I pray to the ancestors for an immediate cure. If they truly wish for me to become a woman, I will be cured. If they mean for me to remain a girl, then I will hobble through my ceremony and I will not dance.
HALF MOON, DAY 10
It is the eve of my ceremony. With the purges and the massages and the fast, my feet have grown a bit smaller. I even left my hammock, where I have been resting, to walk around my uncle’s courtyard, taking very careful steps. I still feel as though the little pests are at war in my feet, but niguas or no niguas our guests have already begun to arrive and my ceremony must proceed as planned.
FULL MOON, DAY 12
It was a marvelous ceremony. At sunrise, Bayaci woke me to examine my legs and they were as flat as before. Only the tiny marks remained where the pests had bitten into my skin. I thanked the ancestors with great joy. They must have visited me during the night and removed all the poison from my feet so I could dance in their honor. (Bayaci’s very tight, herb-soaked dressing helped as well.)
Bayaci was glad I was better. He had been worried — though he never showed it — that my uncle would blame or even punish him for not curing me in time for the ceremony.
Once Bayaci saw that I was well, though still a bit weak, he insisted that I be fed a plate of pineapples and salted fish to build up my strength.
After I ate, Bibi weaved my hair into a long braid, which hung like a rope down my back. My uncle was then carried on his highest chair to visit me, offering me a figurine of a frog — a special amulet, or zemi, that had belonged to my grandmother.
After Matunherí left, Bibi helped me cover my whole body in red paste made from the crimson-seeded roucou plant, then I put on my beautiful attire from Cuybio. I no longer needed the wide cotton ribbons for my ankles, but I wore them for good fortune when the time came to walk from my parents’ house to the plaza, where everyone was waiting.
Matunherí was carried at the head of the procession on his ceremonial chair. He sounded a conch shell; Behechio followed behind him, then me. When I reached the plaza, it was full not only with our guests from far away but also with the villagers, who had come to watch.
Matunherí spoke a few words, calling on the ancestors to stand with me on this day and for the rest of my life. Then a ceremonial cloth and stone were brought forward. Bibi lowered the cloth for me to lie on and Baba lay the stone down where I was to put my head.
Letting my braid slip behind the stone, I looked up at the sky and waited for my uncle to drop his ax. Up above me, the sun was bright, its rays bouncing off everything, including the blade of my uncle’s ax when he raised it from his side, preparing to strike in my direction.
For a moment I feared my uncle’s hands would tremble and he would let the blade fall on my neck. Then I had one of those sensations that the ancestors might be speaking to me, and what they seemed to be telling me was that I might be in a situation like this again one day, but in that future moment something painful might be done to my neck.
There was no time for me to think further on this for just as quickly as my uncle’s ax was raised and lowered, my head felt lighter and my hair was gone.
My uncle bent down and raised my fallen braid for all to see. Sounds of approval rose from the villagers, and just like that I was disjoined from my childhood, the way a baby is separated from its mother when its umbilical chord is cut.
Matunherí reached down again and raised me from the ground. I felt a bit dizzy and couldn’t see very well at first, perhaps because my eyes had been facing the sky and the floating white clouds. Then Matunherí embraced me, as did Behechio and my parents.
A chair, which had been especially made for the ceremony, one with a slightly lower back than my uncle’s, was placed in the middle of the courtyard, where I sat to greet my guests and receive my gifts.
I was offered many bracelets and necklaces made of silver and gold and others made from sea rocks, shark teeth, seashells, and clay. I received extravagant headdresses from the chiefs and their emissaries, and belts embellished with dye and feathers. There were also large gifts of food: baskets of fish, whole iguanas, turtles, and manatee, peppers, peanuts, sweet potatoes, plantains, yams, corn, beans, squash, bananas, guavas, pineapples, and papayas.
Many of the chiefs had brought their daughters and nieces with them hoping that Behechio would choose one or several of them as wives. After greeting many of these young women who might one day be my sisters, I finally came face-to-face once more with Chief Caonabó. He looked like the great chief he was, adorned in his large breastplate of copper, silver, and gold and a headdress made from the feathers of birds unlike any we have in Xaraguá. He was carrying a well-carved scepter decorated with translucent stones. His hair was long in the back, almost as long as mine had been before my ceremony, but it was neatly cut in the front, framing his golden bronze face. His gift to me was a cage full of those birds from which the feathers of his headdress seem to have been pulled, birds for which we have no name here. The birds were each as bright as a rainbow, with every feather a different color. Even the servants who were collecting the gifts on my behalf seemed puzzled as to what might be done with these types of birds. Should they be kept for decoration
or should they be killed and eaten? They were so beautiful I could not think of ever having them killed.
As the servants accepted the cage of birds, Chief Caonabó leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “I hope you will fly from here like these birds and come to Maguana.”
I asked him why he would give me birds he was so certain would fly from here and return to Maguana.
He said he was hoping I would feel so much pity for the birds that I would let them out of their cage and when they flew away would follow them.
Before I could ask any more questions, he turned and walked away, crossing the courtyard to rejoin my uncle.
I soon lost sight of him, having to pay attention to my other guests and exchange a few words with them. There were more gifts and good wishes, then it was time to eat.
The meats and fishes were grilled and roasted on a tall barbacoa stand. As one who had been ill and fasting for some time, I wanted to eat every piece. Still, everyone, including myself, ate their fill and, after a short rest, either watched or participated in mock fights and ball games.
As the sun set, it was my turn to dance. My uncle’s musicians were marvelous, for even though we had stopped training for the dance when I was bitten by the niguas, no one watching would have ever known it. The musicians followed my every step, adjusting quickly when I surprised them with unfamiliar movements. My feet, too, were as buoyant as the breeze and it was as though the niguas were helping rather than hindering me.