Tag: oppression

Arrows

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excerpt

Guacaipuro surveyed the damage.
“Your god,” he panted, “is evil.”
Then he seemed to see something in the shadows of the bushes
illuminated by the firelight, and all distress lifted from his
countenance. He reached out, but life left him at that moment. He
collapsed onto Urquía, his face buried in her bosom. I gawked at
them. He had trusted me with her life, and there she was, dead. And
he saw her die.
I was on my feet. Where had all the air gone? I gasped, trying to
suck it in, and stumbled away. My knees buckled, and I held myself
by the middle. A shout emerged from the centre of my soul, a long
throat-shredding, “No!”
She hadn’t converted either.
The Spaniards stepped back. I would have liked to see them try
and touch his body, chop off his head and take it as a trophy.
Something stopped them. Horror, I guess. As they fled uphill,
leaving only desolation behind, I felt Benjamin’s big hand on my
shoulder.
“Coming?”
I shot him a loathing look; pain choked me, tears stung my eyes,
my head throbbed. I saw in the fleeting expression that crossed his
face that that was the last thing he expected from me. He strode
away, looking back over his big, swaying shoulders a couple of
times. It was not his fault, of course, but at that moment he became
the Spaniards, a group I did not want to belong to any longer. My
reaction was unjust, and I knew it, but couldn’t bring myself to be
like Jesus.
Had I ever?
The next hours were filled with the numbness of incredulity. I just
sat there until the hut was nothing more than a glowing mass of
smouldering thatch. Desolation after the storm. Not a breath of hope
in the air. Nothing but pain and sorrow. Fragments of the person…

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Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Brother Rordan, tied up alone in another hut, wondered about his new friend, Ul.
So far, no one had been able to get him to say more than a few words. Rordan still
knew nothing about him except for his strange name.
Brown Bear and his son, Running Deer, returned from mourning at the Island
of the Dead to find the camp deserted. Corn Mother was gone but had drawn into
the sandy soil at the door to his lodge a picture of the hunt. He erased the message
meant for his eyes alone.
A young Native with spear stood watch while Rordan relieved himself at a long
pit, dug some distance from the huts. As he squatted, he looked toward the hut
where he’d spent the night, hoping for some sign of the others but he was alone
with his guard. Perhaps they were only being let out one at a time. His business
done, Rordan was led back to one of a dozen or more small huts. The huts were
slung low and covered with sheets of thick birch bark woven between saplings. At
the centre of the camp, several Native women ground corn and roots on a large flat
rock surface with wooden mortars.
In the semidarkness, Rordan’s guard tied his hands behind his back and attached
him once more to the centre lodge pole. Another Native came in with a wooden
bowl of corn mush and baked fish and tried to feed him but he refused to open his
mouth. Rordan heard distant drumming and felt a headache coming on. His eyes
burned but he couldn’t close them. The Native gave up his attempt to feed him and
finally left with the food bowl. Rordan preferred the quiet and darkness.
Brown Bear asked to see the captives. He looked in on two but did not recognize
either. In the farthest lodge, he saw Bjorn, his companion from the night of
the hunting feast, tied to the lodge pole, refusing to eat the food being offered by
Broken Wing. Brown Bear took the bowl and sat facing Bjorn. As soon as Broken
Wing left the lodge, Brown Bear untied Bjorn and handed him the food bowl.
Neither tried to speak. Bjorn wolfed down the corn and fish while Brown Bear sat
and watched his friend eat.
Rordan opened his eyes and gazed down at his previously bare feet now dressed
in gold slippers. His body was covered with brilliant, multicoloured feathers. Rordan
looked up to where a low ceiling had held him in darkness. The sky was filled with
stars. He extended his arms, no longer tied to the lodge pole behind his back and
effortlessly floated up, high above the captors’ village.
He flew with a myriad of birds of many colours, over forests, rivers, and great
expanses of desert landscape with deep canyons and pink sandstone plateaus.
He flew on between mountains capped with snow. Rordan glided above their
frosted solitude then down over a steamy jungle to a vast city on a lake. There
he saw exotic flowers and sparkling fountains and heard strange and beautiful
instrumental music. The birds led him on to another city on a hill. Here were
many pyramids of white and pink stone. People dressed in flowing robes of multicoloured
feathers moved up and down countless steps.

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Arrows

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excerpt

Guacaipuro surveyed the damage.
“Your god,” he panted, “is evil.”
Then he seemed to see something in the shadows of the bushes
illuminated by the firelight, and all distress lifted from his
countenance. He reached out, but life left him at that moment. He
collapsed onto Urquía, his face buried in her bosom. I gawked at
them. He had trusted me with her life, and there she was, dead. And
he saw her die.
I was on my feet. Where had all the air gone? I gasped, trying to
suck it in, and stumbled away. My knees buckled, and I held myself
by the middle. A shout emerged from the centre of my soul, a long
throat-shredding, “No!”
She hadn’t converted either.
The Spaniards stepped back. I would have liked to see them try
and touch his body, chop off his head and take it as a trophy.
Something stopped them. Horror, I guess. As they fled uphill,
leaving only desolation behind, I felt Benjamin’s big hand on my
shoulder.
“Coming?”
I shot him a loathing look; pain choked me, tears stung my eyes,
my head throbbed. I saw in the fleeting expression that crossed his
face that that was the last thing he expected from me. He strode
away, looking back over his big, swaying shoulders a couple of
times. It was not his fault, of course, but at that moment he became
the Spaniards, a group I did not want to belong to any longer. My
reaction was unjust, and I knew it, but couldn’t bring myself to be
like Jesus.
Had I ever?
The next hours were filled with the numbness of incredulity. I just
sat there until the hut was nothing more than a glowing mass of
smouldering thatch. Desolation after the storm. Not a breath of hope
in the air. Nothing but pain and sorrow. Fragments of the person I…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562848

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Questions of Survival
“Why does Father Finten dislike me so?” Rordan held the post in place while Keallach
lifted the beam into position and secured it with two strands of vine.
“I’m sure you are mistaken, Brother. Father Finten cares for all of us. Hold that post
steady. I cannot tie it secure if you keep waving it around.” Keallach lashed the two
pieces together. Now he stood and faced Rordan. “I think Father Finten likes his Brothers
to be trusting, not always thinking the worst will happen as if abandoned by God.”
Rordan shook his head and spat a tiny mosquito onto the sand. “Do you really
believe that? Finten does his own share of complaining. Then he tells us to have
faith in Divine Providence.” He wished he could say what he really felt about Father
Finten without having to feel so guilty about it, like he was speaking against some
great saint.
“Be happy; we’re free of those Viking slavers.”
“That big wrestler could kill us all in our sleep.” Rordan did not really believe that,
but he hated to be put in his place.
“If Blonde Bear slits anyone’s throat, I am sure it will be yours. Now let’s get
this other end up and perhaps we’ll have a place to sleep tonight.” Keallach lifted
the other end of the beam into position and secured it, while Rordan held the
post almost steady.
White Eagle greeted the young brave, Broken Wing, with calm patience.
He himself would investigate. Mountain Lion, levelheaded in times of emergency,
would accompany him. This time, they’d approach the camp with great
care. These hairy strangers were unpredictable. This much they had already
learned.
“Vikings have been raping and killing innocent people since I can remember.
Why should Illska and Hrafen be any different?” Finten spoke as he took the lance
Bjorn had cut for him from a straight sapling. He felt the sharp barbed tip with his
thumb, having never before held such a weapon in his hand.
Bjorn was cutting another sapling to form a lance for himself. “In the old days, it
was different. Usually it was kill or be killed. Better to kill them first. Some fought
for land. Some fought for family. Of course, many raided for profit. And yes, many
were cruel and loved killing, raping and burning. But not all Norsemen are pirates.”
Having trimmed off the side branches, he now began to cut a point at the small
end. “My father and my father’s father were hunters. We lived on the land in peace.
My father treated his thralls with care and respect. They were allowed their language…

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Arrows

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…how to use the strainer made of woven palm leaves. She took me to a
kind of oven that consisted of a circular structure with a large, flat
earthen plate on top and a fire burning underneath. I poured the
grated root and scattered it into a more or less round cake. I stood
there watching over it, lest it burn. I admired my first cassava cake,
an irregular spill, and fingered it so often that it cracked into pieces. I
ate it that night—it tasted like triumph.
From a tree beside the hut where I slept, I ate mamones by the
dozen, playing with the big, velvety seeds in my mouth until my
teeth felt as if they would fall out. The guavas, which had disgusted
me because of the little worms that sometimes infested them, I now
ate with delight—worms and all.
In time, I learned to differentiate the people of the Teque nation
from the others, who remained indistinguishable. Pure joy filled me
when, thanks to the boys who had taught me to use a bow, I
contributed a small, wild pig. After that, people spurned me less.
Tiaroa, Guacaipuro´s sister, came to me one day and offered me
an onoto—a red-dyed, sleeveless, hoodless tunic. My cassock was in
tatters, but it was the significance of the gift that left me speechless:
they had accepted me. I took the tunic and went to Tamanoa´s grave
to show it to him, so that he could rest assured that I was making
progress.

Weeks turned into months. I kept my distance from Apacuana. As
far as I could tell, she was not living with Baruta, and yet she was not
with other men either. Sometimes when I went to my cave to pray, I
would wonder to myself what might happen if she ever followed me
there, and I struggled to dismiss these thoughts, and often flayed
myself accordingly.
I preferred to make progress teaching my language to
Guacaipuro. If he could one day learn to read the New Testament,
he might be awakened to the ways of our Lord. I often ate at his
house and exchanged words with him. He was particularly puzzled…

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Arrows

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…didn’t address me. We ate in silence, and I contented myself with
what he offered me. I knew it was pointless to discuss Tamanoa, to
protest.
“Do you know why I have decided you will not die like your
servant?” he finally asked, breaking the silence, scowling at the fish
he was eating.
“I think God must have told you to let me live.”
He snorted.
“I am not to tell you why. It is for a reason for someone else to say.
But I know it took courage for you to come to us. And now I see the
way you have mourned your servant. Pariamanaco has told me. I
had never believed it possible that a white man could cry over an
Indian, as you call us, half-breed or not.”
“Tamanoa was my friend,” I said, feeling sadness and anger
welling within me. I dropped the bite of plantain I had pinched
between myfingers onto the plantain leaf. “Why did you kill him?”
“Half-breeds, they are traitors. They are not white, not one of us.
They learn our ways and betray us.”
“Tamanoa was good,” I said a bit more sharply than I had
intended.
He gave me a derogatory grimace.
“Why did you save her?” he asked, referring to his wife.
“I didn’t, God did.”
He glared at me briefly, but then turned his attention back to the
fish and cassava.
“I want what is good for you,” I continued. “I want you and your
people to see the Creator when you die.”
He gave me a fearsome scowl.
“I’ll see Mareoka. I am shaman, don’t need you for that.”
“Only born-again people can see him,” I paraphrased, for
understandably they did not have a word for baptism. “That is the
message I bring.”
“Born again? How can you be born again? That is crazy.”
“You are born again when I pour water over your head in the
name of the Father, the Son and the . . .”—suddenly it struck me …

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Arrows

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thundersticks of the white men, never making it to the appointed
battlefield. Others fell under the hoofs of the frightening beasts or
were stuck by the long spears while trying to break through metal
with their wooden swords.
Guacaipuro and Paramaconi persisted in their attempts to pass,
thinking that the rest of the coalition must long be engaged in battle.
Precious hours went by. It was past noon when Losada, sick to his
stomach in bed, was notified of the unnatural gathering of savages
on the outskirts of the city.
The several caciques that had opted to wait and those who had
wanted the charge soon found the choice made for them. I was told
later by Benjamin that Losada dressed leisurely when alerted to the
Indian presence, showing once again the temperance that had
always characterized him. He chose thirty men and appointed the
rest to the protection of the city.
The cavalry went out first, forming a crushing front with horses
bred and trained for bodily conflict: horses that would kick, turn and
caracole on command; that would not shy away from the sound of
battle; that would dismiss wounds as long as they could stand. The
infantry followed, finishing off any stubborn traces of life. Many
Indians fled in confusion, but it was a massacre all the same.
In my days with the conquistadors, I heard many stories of battle
and triumph. In those accounts, there were always thousands of
Indians attacking a handful of heroes who, despite the odds,
managed to come out victorious. The Indians could not possibly win
simply because of their inferior means, but had there been so many
thousands, as the Spanish accounts relate, I am sure no Spaniard,
half-breed or traitorous Indian would have survived.
From living amongst them, I knew there was no lack of courage or
commitment from the Indians. On that day, according to Benjamin,
after the Spaniards had thought most of the Indians were dead or
had withdrawn, a solitary voice defied Losada. There, amid corpses
and dying friends, stood Tiuna with gold bracelets on his arms and a
gold pendant on his chest. He was a warrior from the Caracas
Indians, of which Catia was cacique.

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Arrows

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Arrogant and stupid, that’s what I was. And being what I was, I
failed to stop the last great war. I hesitated. I waited too long.
One night I was startled awake by drums in the small hours
before dawn. Indians used hollow tree trunks that were remarkably
loud, hitting them with sticks of about the length and diameter of a
forearm. The women started a hellish racket that would have
awakened Lazarus.
I went outside and found the fires blazing and a sizable group of
women walking rhythmically about in single file, each with a hand
on the shoulder of the next in the firelight.
Some men stood while their women painted their bodies with
crushed onoto seeds mixed with ashes and adorned them with
feathers. Others were ready and gathering their weapons. There was
tension in the air. I made my way through the confusion in search of
someone who could explain what was happening.
I went to Guacaipuro’s hut and saw him standing very still at the
entrance, his gaze lost in the distance. Beside him, Baruta, painted
and feathered, waited unobtrusively. Someone tapped me on the
arm. Pariamanaco was breathing fast, a stern expression on his
boyish face.
“What’s happening?” I asked him.
“War.”
“Who? Where?” I asked.
“The city they founded.”
“Santiago de León de Caracas?”
He shrugged, curving the corners of his mouth. Those words
meant nothing to his ears.
“I must talk to your uncle.”
“He ordered to be left alone. He doesn’t want to talk. All caciques
will bring their men. They will meet at Maracapana. It is too late for
talk.”
“Maracapana?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know where that was. He had never been
more than a few miles from the confines of the village.
Gaucaipuro stood while Urquía ceremoniously placed a jaguar’s

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Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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the ship’s rail while Brother Berach bathed his fevered face. Hrafen climbed aboard
in a fury of curses. First, he picked up the bucket of water Berach had been using and
dumped the contents on the two monks. Then he grabbed the protesting Berach by
the back of his tunic, swung him around, and flung him against the rail. The old man
lay unmoving on the deck.
Brother Keallach had taken a few moments from the hot job of caulking to
come on deck to relieve himself over the side. On seeing what was happening between
Hrafen and the two elderly Brothers, he bounded to the prow to face the
bully. Though he shook with anger at such an unwarranted attack, he held himself
in check while the Norseman continued his tirade. When Hrafen bellowed that the
two old thralls must have been responsible for the ram’s escape in the first place,
Keallach, who had seen how the animal bolted the moment it was released from
its pen on board ship, could neither speak nor understand the Norse tongue. As it
was, the two men stood glaring at one another. The Norseman picked up the empty
bucket and flung it with all his might toward the open sea. Then he stomped off to
the far end of the knarr.
Finten, Rordan, Ailan and Lorcan came on deck, along with Atall their guard, to
see what was going on. But Kyrri was sufficiently deaf that he had not been disturbed
by the ruckus on deck. He just carried on caulking and did not come up until he
noticed his helpers were gone.
Father Finten knelt in a slowly forming puddle of blood to hold the old man, now
limp in his arms. Brother Berach’s neck hung at an odd angle, blood trickling from
his open mouth. Rordan and Ailan crossed themselves and dropped to their knees
in silent shock, tears streaming from their eyes. Keallach stood glaring at the bully,
holding his own anger.
Brother Lorcan did not kneel. He looked at Keallach, turned to follow his gaze toward
the killer and slowly, deliberately walked toward him. By the time they thought
to hold him back, it was too late. Hrafen picked him up with both hands around his
throat, shook him violently and heaved him over the side.

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Arrows

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When he had finished with my face, he gave me an appreciative
look and nodded his satisfaction. Then, he extended the gourd to me
and told me to do the same over the rest of my body. I was reluctant
at first, but after a spell he left, and I began to feel the itching ease.
Good enough for me, I thought, and proceeded to do as I was told.
I was squeezing the last of the sap and applying it to my groin
when Guacaipuro appeared, still wearing his perpetual scowl.
“Mareoka,” he said.
Apparently he was resuming our conversation. He extended his
hand, palm upward. I looked at it stupidly and then at his
countenance, failing to grasp his meaning.
“Mareoka,” he repeated. He thrust his hand toward me again. I
felt as though there was a tiny monk running amok inside my head,
looking in every corner for something related to this one magic word
that was the gateway to his witchcraft.
“Ah! Mareoka!” I slapped my forehead, as if I suddenly
understood.
For the first time, Guacaipuro smiled, as if he had finally won me
over. From the pocket of my habit I extracted my copy of the New
Testament that he had previously rejected by tossing it onto the
ground. I offered it to him again. “Mareoka,” I said, solemnly.
If I was agreeing that Mareoka was superior, it was only to allow
me the freedom to prove to him otherwise. I hoped God would
forgive me.
“Tamanoa,” I said, pointing to my friend.
Guacaipuro was more interested in the strangeness of the book. I
seized the opportunity to take advantage of my newfound
respectability by untying the ropes. Guacaipuro did not appear to
object. I moved slowly, deliberately, until Tamanoa was able to
stand beside me, free.
Guacaipuro shook his head, dissatisfied. He took the rope and
tied Tamanoa’s wrist to my wrist. This was his compromise
solution. I must not allow my servant to run away. As soon as I
gleaned his intent, I yanked hard on the rope, jerking Tamanoa
beside me.

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