The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

by Eduardo Galeano

They taught us about the past so that we should resign ourselves with drained consciences to the present: not to make history, which was already made, but to accept it. Poor History had stopped breathing: betrayed in academic texts, lied about in classrooms, drowned in dates, they had imprisoned her in museums and buried her, with floral wreaths, beneath statuary bronze and monumental marble.

I am not a historian. I am a writer who would like to contribute to the rescue of the kidnapped memory of all America, but above all of Latin America, that despised and beloved land: I would like to talk to her, share her secrets, ask her of what difficult clays she was born, from what acts of love and violation she comes.

There is nothing neutral about this historical narration. Unable to distance myself, I take sides: I confess it and am not sorry. However, each fragment of this huge mosaic is based on a solid documentary foundation. What is told here has happened, although I tell it in my style and manner.

Literal transcriptions appear in italics. The author has modernized the spelling of the ancient sources cited.

The dry grass will set fire to the damp grass —African proverb brought to the Americas by slaves

“I break this egg and the woman is born and the man is born. And together they will live and die. But they will be born again. They will be born and die again and be born again. They will never stop being born, because death is a lie.”

For the Maya, time was born and had a name when the sky didn’t exist and the earth had not yet awakened. The days set out from the east and started walking. The first day produced from its entrails the sky and the earth. The second day made the stairway for the rain to run down. The cycles of the sea and the land, and the multitude of things, were the work of the third day. The fourth day willed the earth and the sky to tilt so that they could meet. The fifth day decided that everyone had to work. The first light emanated from the sixth day. In places where there was nothing, the seventh day put soil; the eighth plunged its hands and feet in the soil. The ninth day created the nether worlds; the tenth earmarked for them those who had poison in their souls. Inside the sun, the eleventh day modeled stone and tree. It was the twelfth that made the wind. Wind blew, and it was called spirit because there was no death in it. The thirteenth day moistened the earth and kneaded the mud into a body like ours. Thus it is remembered in Yucatán. (208)

The first sun, the watery sun, was carried off by the flood. All that lived in the world became fish. The second sun was devoured by tigers. The third was demolished by a fiery rain that set people ablaze. The fourth sun, the wind sun, was wiped out by storm. People turned into monkeys and spread throughout the hills.

“Who will take on the job of dawning?” The Lord of the Shells, famous for his strength and beauty, stepped forward. “I’ll be the sun,” he said. “Who else?” Silence. Everybody looked at the Small Syphilitic God, the ugliest and wretchedest of all gods, and said, “You.” The Lord of the Shells and the Small Syphilitic God withdrew to the hills that are now the pyramids of the sun and the moon.

Sun and moon origins

Afterward the gods piled up firewood, made a bonfire, and called to them. The Small Syphilitic God ran up and threw himself into the flames. He immediately emerged, incandescent, in the sky. The Lord of the Shells looked at the bonfire with a frown, moved forward, backward, hesitated, made a couple of turns. As he could not decide, they had to push him. After a long delay he rose into the sky. The gods were furious and beat him about the face with a rabbit, again and again, until they extinguished his glow. Thus, the arrogant Lord of the Shells became the moon. The stains on the moon are the scars from that beating.

^^

But the resplendent sun didn’t move. The obsidian hawk flew toward the Small Syphilitic God. “Why don’t you get going?” The despised, purulent, humpbacked, crippled one answered, “Because I need blood and power.” This fifth sun, the sun that moves, gave light to the Toltecs and gives it to the Aztecs. He has claws and feeds on human hearts.

it was believed that the sun was given power through the sacrifice of humans/human hearts

Cloud let fall a drop of rain on the body of a woman. After nine months, she had twins.

Twin sons are lightning and thunder

That night a white gash appeared for the first time among the stars. A girl raised her eyes and asked in astonishment: “What’s that?” Immediately a red parrot swooped upon her, gave a sudden twirl, and pricked her between the legs with his sharp-pointed tail. The girl bled. From that moment, women bleed when the moon says so.

bruh me when menstruation

The sun never stopped shining and the Cashinahua Indians didn’t know the sweetness of rest.

After a big search they settled for the night of the armadillo. They borrowed it from him and never gave it back. Deprived of night, the armadillo sleeps during the daytime.

The gods spoke and demanded: to deserve fire, men must cut open their chests with obsidian daggers and surrender their hearts. The Quiché Indians offered the blood of their prisoners and saved themselves from the cold.

More sacrifice to recieve favors from the gods

White were once the feathers of birds, and white the skin of animals. Blue now are those that bathed in a lake into which no river emptied and from which none was born. Red, those that dipped in the lake of blood shed by a child of the Kadiueu tribe. Earth-color, those that rolled in the mud, and ashen those that sought warmth in extinguished campfires. Green, those that rubbed their bodies in the foliage, white those that stayed still.

Colors

cool lil chapter on the mythology of human sexuality

Frogs and men with axes worked on it for four days and four nights, but the tree wouldn’t fall. A liana kept it from touching the ground. God ordered the toucan, “Cut it.” The toucan couldn’t, and for that was sentenced to eat fruit whole. The macaw cut the liana with his hard, sharp beak.

It's interesting that throughout these myths, gods view animals and men as equals. Cool look into how Native American societies did not view men as having dominance over animals

Then the most unusual storm burst from the depths of the rivers. The waters rose, covering the world. Only one man survived. He swam and swam for days and nights, until he could cling to the top of a palm tree that stuck out of the water.

Flood story

The jaguar was out hunting with bow and arrows

Humanlike animals before they change form into how they now appear

The Grandfather sent tobacco to take his place among men. Smoking, the people talked with God.

Spirituality of smoking tobacco

the moon looked down from the sky at her friends’ house. The old peasant had built his hut in a forest clearing very far from the villages. He lived there like an exile with his wife and daughter. The moon found that the house had nothing left in it to eat. The last corn tortillas had been for her. Then she turned on her brightest light and asked the clouds to shed a very special drizzle around the hut. In the morning some unknown trees had sprung up there. Amid their dark green leaves appeared white flowers. The old peasant’s daughter never died. She is the queen of the maté and goes about the world offering it to others. The tea of the maté awakens sleepers, activates the lazy, and makes brothers and sisters of people who don’t know each other.

Moon gave maté as a gift to mankind for saving and feeding her selflessly

The gods buried the indiscreet chief in the ground and condemned him to be eaten by the others. As punishment for his curiosity, they covered his body with blind eyes.

free my mans potato he aint done nothin wrong

When Bopé-joku closed his lips, the corn withered and dried up. The happy whistlings that made the cornfields bloom and gave them vigor and beauty were heard no more. From then on the Bororo people cultivated corn with pain and effort and reaped wretched crops. Spirits express themselves by whistling. When the stars come out at night, that’s how the spirits greet them. Each star responds to a note, which is its name.

Spiritual nature of music

“Shell walk behind you. On approaching the country of the living, flesh will return to cover her bones. But you may not turn around till you arrive. Understand? I give you this chance.” Kumokums set out. The daughter walked behind him. Several times he touched her hand, which was more fleshy and warm each time, and still he didn’t look back. But when the green woods appeared on the horizon he couldn’t stand the strain and turned his head. A handful of bones crumbled before his eyes.

Biblical story of Sodom

anyone who kills receives in his body, without wanting or knowing it, the soul of his victim.

The bat’s caresses drew from the man the first laugh. The more he laughed, the weaker he felt. He laughed so much that finally he lost all his strength and fell in a faint. When the villagers learned about it, they were furious. The warriors burned a heap of dry leaves in the bats’ cave and blocked up the entrance. Afterward they had a discussion. The warriors resolved that laughter should be used only by women and children.

Laughter viewed as weakness, only to be expressed by women and children

In remote times women sat in the bow of the canoe and men in the stern. It was the women who hunted and fished. They left the villages and returned when they could or wanted. The men built the huts, prepared the meals, kept the fires burning against the cold, minded the children, and tanned skins for clothes. Such was life for the Ona and Yagan Indians in Tierra del Fuego, until one day the men killed all the women and put on the masks that the women had invented to scare them. Only newly born girls were spared extermination. While they grew up, the murderers kept repeating to them that serving men was their destiny. They believed it. Their daughters believed it, too, likewise the daughters of their daughters. (91 and 178)

**Whaaaaaat?? So interesting**

At dawn, the trumpet call announced from the mountain that it was time for crossbows and blowguns. At nightfall, nothing remained of the village except smoke. A man lay among the dead without moving. He smeared his body with blood and waited. He was the only survivor of the Palawiyang people. When the enemy moved off, that man got up. He contemplated his destroyed world. He walked among the people who had shared hunger and food with him. He sought in vain some person or thing that hadn’t been wiped out. The terrifying silence dazed him. The smell of fire and blood sickened him. He felt disgusted to be alive, and he threw himself back down among his own. With the first light came the vultures. There was nothing left in that man except fog and a yearning to sleep and let himself be devoured. But the condor’s daughter opened a path through the circling birds of prey. She beat her wings hard and dived. He grabbed onto her feet, and the condor’s daughter took him far away.

The horrors of and distain for war; the necessity of community

The Maya-Quichés came from the east. When they first reached the new lands, carrying their gods on their backs, they were scared that there would be no dawn.

the Quichés gather at the end of each night to greet the morning star and watch the birth of the sun. When the sun is first about to peep out, they say: “That’s where we come from.”

They carried the banner and the cloak of the god who had spoken to the priests in sleep and promised a kingdom of gold and quetzal feathers. You shall subject all the peoples and cities from sea to sea, the god had announced, and not by witchcraft but by valor of the heart and strength of the arm. When they approached the luminous lake under the noonday sun, for the first time the Aztecs wept. There was the little island of clay: on the nopal cactus, higher than the rushes and wild grasses, the eagle spread his wings. Seeing them come, the eagle lowered his head. These outcasts, massed on the edge of the lake, filthy, trembling, were the chosen, those who in remote times had been born out of the mouths of the gods. Huitzilopochtli welcomed them. “This is the place of our rest and our greatness,” his voice resounded. “I order that the city which will be queen of all others be called Tenochtitlán. This is Mexico!”

Call for conquest from God

They carried the banner and the cloak of the god who had spoken to the priests in sleep and promised a kingdom of gold and quetzal feathers. You shall subject all the peoples and cities from sea to sea, the god had announced, and not by witchcraft but by valor of the heart and strength of the arm. When they approached the luminous lake under the noonday sun, for the first time the Aztecs wept. There was the little island of clay: on the nopal cactus, higher than the rushes and wild grasses, the eagle spread his wings. Seeing them come, the eagle lowered his head. These outcasts, massed on the edge of the lake, filthy, trembling, were the chosen, those who in remote times had been born out of the mouths of the gods. Huitzilopochtli welcomed them. “This is the place of our rest and our greatness,” his voice resounded. “I order that the city which will be queen of all others be called Tenochtitlán. This is Mexico!”

*similar concept to manifest destiny

They carried the banner and the cloak of the god who had spoken to the priests in sleep and promised a kingdom of gold and quetzal feathers. You shall subject all the peoples and cities from sea to sea, the god had announced, and not by witchcraft but by valor of the heart and strength of the arm. When they approached the luminous lake under the noonday sun, for the first time the Aztecs wept. There was the little island of clay: on the nopal cactus, higher than the rushes and wild grasses, the eagle spread his wings. Seeing them come, the eagle lowered his head. These outcasts, massed on the edge of the lake, filthy, trembling, were the chosen, those who in remote times had been born out of the mouths of the gods. Huitzilopoch...

This emphasis on their origins from the gods seems to imply that they were viewed favorably or may have been seen as the children of or "made in the image of" their gods in a seemingly similar way that those who ascribe to Abrahamic religions may perceive themselves in relation to God (YHWH; JHVH; Allah)

They carried the banner and the cloak of the god who had spoken to the priests in sleep and promised a kingdom of gold and quetzal feathers. You shall subject all the peoples and cities from sea to sea, the god had announced, and not by witchcraft but by valor of the heart and strength of the arm. When they approached the luminous lake under the noonday sun, for the first time the Aztecs wept. There was the little island of clay: on the nopal cactus, higher than the rushes and wild grasses, the eagle spread his wings. Seeing them come, the eagle lowered his head. These outcasts, massed on the edge of the lake, filthy, trembling, were the chosen, those who in remote times had been born out of the mouths of the gods. Huitzilopoch...

Again, we see the idea of a "promised land" like that which is written about in the Torah/Bible; the Aztecs placed a spiritual significance upon their capital city Tenochtitlán So interesting to see the similar themes contained within ancient religions that did not cross paths (that I know of¿ may be worth looking into Leif Erikson and the stuff he done did idk) until the 15th century

He who made the sun and the moon warned the Taínos to watch out for the dead. In the daytime the dead hid themselves and ate guavas, but at night they went out for a stroll and challenged the living. Dead men offered duels and dead women, love. In the duels they vanished at will; and at the climax of love the lover found himself with nothing in his arms. Before accepting a duel with a man or lying down with a woman, one should feel the belly with one’s hand, because the dead have no navels.

ZOMBIES??? Also interesting to see how gender dynamics had evolved by this time; if you met a dead dude you gonna FIGHT and if its a dead gal you gonna FUCK. A clear distinction between genders and an established gender binary, at least in this example

The lord of the sky also warned the Taínos to watch out even more for people with clothes on. Chief Cáicihu fasted for a week and was worthy of his words. Brief shall be the enjoyment of life, announced the invisible one, he who has a mother but no beginning. Men wearing clothes shall come, dominate, and kill.

Unsure of whether or not the "clothes" mentioned here are about… 1. Being cautious when approaching a man wearing clothes at night because you cannot see his navel (that which distinguishes living from dead) or 2. Resisting men who come dressed in WESTERN clothes, prophecying the arrival of white colonizers, like many of these nations did (viewing them as either gods who should be respected or devils that signal the beginning of the apocalypse)

Stretched out on his mat, the priest-jaguar of Yucatan listened to the gods’ message. They spoke to him through the roof, sitting astride of his house, in a language that no one else knew. Chilam Balam, he who was the mouth of the gods, remembered what had not yet happened: “Scattered through the world shall be the women who sing and the men who sing and all who sing … No one will escape, no one will be saved … There will be much misery in the years of the rule of greed. Men will turn into slaves. Sad will be the face of the sun … The world will be depopulated, it will become small and humiliated …”

Big prophesy moment

They gaze at the stars, seeking God, but the sky is as inscrutable as this never-navigated sea. They hear its roar, mother sea, the hoarse voice answering the wind with phrases of eternal condemnation, mysterious drums resounding in the depths. They cross themselves and want to pray and stammer: “Tonight we’ll fall off the world, tonight we’ll fall off the world.”

Guanahaní

Taíno name for San Salvador, an island in the Bahamas and the first land reached by Columbus

the men who arrived from the sky! Bring them food and drink!” (52)

and behind them, trembling and weeping, enter the beings never before seen. They are the few who have survived the colds, the measles, and the disgust for the Christians’ food and bad smell. Not naked, as they were when they approached the three caravels and were captured, they have been covered up with trousers, shirts, and a few parrots that have been put in their hands and on their heads and shoulders. The parrots, robbed of their feathers by the foul winds of the voyage, look as moribund as the men. Of the captured women and children, none has survived.

Columbus brought back people to Spain along with his other trophies; these people were expected to conform to Western clothes and food, pushing away their culture and humanity; most did not survive the journey across the Atlantic, and all of the captired women and children died before the ships reached Europe

Alexander devotes more time to calculating the price of indulgences than to meditating on the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Everyone knows that he prefers very brief Masses, except for the ones his jester Gabriellino celebrates in a mask in his private chambers, and everyone knows that the new pope is capable of rerouting the Corpus Christi procession to pass beneath a pretty woman’s balcony.

me when church corruption waw

Even these remote heights far to the north are reached by the Inca Empire’s tax collector. The Quillacinga people have nothing to give, but in this vast kingdom all communities pay tribute, in kind or in labor time. No one, however far off and however poor, can forget who is in charge.

in the captain’s cabin, a young girl shows her teeth. Miquele de Cuneo reaches for her breasts, and she scratches and kicks him and screams. Miquele received her a while ago. She is a gift from Columbus. He lashes her with a rope. He beats her hard on the head and stomach and legs. Her screams become moans, the moans become wails. Finally all that can be heard are the comings and goings of sea gulls and the creak of rocked timbers. From time to time waves send a spray through the porthole. Miquele hurls himself upon the bleeding body and thrusts, gasps, wrestles. The air smells of tar, of saltpeter, of sweat. Then the girl, who seems to have fainted or died, suddenly fastens her nails in Miquele’s back, knots herself around his legs, and rolls him over in a fierce embrace. After some time, when Miquele comes to, he doesn’t know where he is or what has happened. Livid, he detaches himself from her and knocks her away with his fist. He staggers up on deck. Mouth open, he takes a deep breath of sea breeze. In a loud voice, as if announcing an eternal truth, he says, “These Indian woman are all whores.” (181)

horrifying

1459:

1495**

Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher’s brother and lieutenant, attends an incineration of human flesh. Six men play the leads in the grand opening of Haiti’s incinerator. The smoke makes everyone cough. The six are burning as a punishment and as a lesson: They have buried the images of Christ and the Virgin that Fray Ramon Pane left with them for protection and consolation. Fray Ramon taught them to pray on their knees, to say the Ave Maria and Paternoster and to invoke the name of Jesus in the face of temptation, injury, and death. No one has asked them why they buried the images. They were hoping that the new gods would fertilize their fields of corn, cassava, boniato, and beans. The fire adds warmth to the humid, sticky heat that foreshadows heavy rain.

Forced Christianization and cultural genocide of the Natives

The Guaraos, who live in the suburbs of Earthly Paradise, call the rainbow snake of necklaces and the firmament overhead sea. Lightning is glow of the rain. One’s friend, my other heart. The soul, sun of the breast. The owl, lord of the dark night. A walking cane is a permanent grandson; and for “I forgive,” they say I forget.

“Moors” is the Christian Spaniards’ name for Spaniards of Islamic culture, who have been here for eight centuries. Thousands and thousands of Spaniards of Jewish culture have been condemned to exile. The Moors will likewise get the choice between baptism and exile; and for false converts burn the fires of the Inquisition.

Persecution by Spaniards not only in America, but at home too