excerpt
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
Manolis Aligizakis 