their chests.
In Venezuela, according to Father Pedro Simon, there were Indians with ears so big they dragged along the ground.
In the Amazon, according to Cristóbal de Acuña, there were natives who had their feet on backward, heels in front and toes in the rear.
According to Pedro Martín de Anglería, who wrote the first history of America but never visited it, in the New World there were men and women with tails so long they could only sit on seats with holes.
DRAGON OF EVIL
In America, Europe encountered the iguana.
This diabolical beast had been foreseen in depictions of dragons. The iguana has a dragon’s head, a dragon’s snout, a dragon’s crest and armor, and a dragon’s claws and tail.
But if the dragon was like the iguana is, then Saint George’s lance missed the mark.
It only acts strangely when in love. Then, it changes color and mood, grows nervous, loses its appetite and its way, and becomes skittish. When not tormented by love, the iguana makes friends with everyone, climbs trees in search of tasty leaves, swims in rivers just for fun, and naps in the sun on flat rocks, hugging other iguanas. It threatens no one, knows not how to defend itself, and is not even capable of giving a stomachache to humans who eat it.
AMERICANS
Official history has it that Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first man to see, from a summit in Panama, two oceans at once. Were the natives blind?
Who first gave names to corn and potatoes and tomatoes and chocolate and the mountains and rivers of America? Hernán Cortés? Francisco Pizarro? Were the natives mute?
The Pilgrims on the Mayflower heard Him: God said America was the promised land. Were the natives deaf?
Later on, the grandchildren of the Pilgrims seized the name and everything else. Now they are the Americans. And those of us who live in the other Americas, who are we?
FACES AND MASKS
On the eve of every assault on a village, the Requerimiento of Obedience explained to the Indians that God had come into the world and left Saint Peter in his place and that Saint Peter named the pope as his successor and the pope had bestowed all these lands on the queen of Castile and for that reason they must either leave or pay tribute in gold and in case of refusal or delay they would be attacked and they and their women and their children would be enslaved.
This Requerimiento was read at night in the wild, in the language of Castile without interpretation, in the presence of a notary and not a single Indian.
THE FIRST WATER WAR
The great city of Tenochtitlán was of water born and of water built.
Dikes, bridges, sewers, canals: along streets of water two hundred thousand canoes traveled back and forth between houses and squares, temples, palaces, markets, floating gardens, planted fields.
The conquest of Mexico began as a water war, and the defeat of water decreed the defeat of everything else.
In 1521, Hernán Cortés laid siege to Tenochtitlán, and the first thing he did was take an ax to the wooden aqueduct that carried drinking water from the Forest of Chapultepec. Following many massacres, when the city fell, Cortés ordered the temples and palaces demolished and the rubble thrown into the liquid streets.
Spain did not like water, the devil’s toy, a Muslim heresy.
Vanquished water gave birth to Mexico City, raised on the ruins of Tenochtitlán. Engineers picked up where the warriors left off and, over many years, they blocked up with stone and earth the entire circulatory system of the region’s lakes and rivers.
Then water took revenge, flooding the colonial city repeatedly, which only confirmed that it was an ally of the pagan Indians and the enemy of all good Christians.
Century after century, the dry world waged war on the wet world.
Now Mexico City is dying of thirst. In search of water, it digs. The deeper it digs, the further it sinks. Where once there was air, now there is dust. Where once there were rivers, now there are avenues. Where
In Venezuela, according to Father Pedro Simon, there were Indians with ears so big they dragged along the ground.
In the Amazon, according to Cristóbal de Acuña, there were natives who had their feet on backward, heels in front and toes in the rear.
According to Pedro Martín de Anglería, who wrote the first history of America but never visited it, in the New World there were men and women with tails so long they could only sit on seats with holes.
DRAGON OF EVIL
In America, Europe encountered the iguana.
This diabolical beast had been foreseen in depictions of dragons. The iguana has a dragon’s head, a dragon’s snout, a dragon’s crest and armor, and a dragon’s claws and tail.
But if the dragon was like the iguana is, then Saint George’s lance missed the mark.
It only acts strangely when in love. Then, it changes color and mood, grows nervous, loses its appetite and its way, and becomes skittish. When not tormented by love, the iguana makes friends with everyone, climbs trees in search of tasty leaves, swims in rivers just for fun, and naps in the sun on flat rocks, hugging other iguanas. It threatens no one, knows not how to defend itself, and is not even capable of giving a stomachache to humans who eat it.
AMERICANS
Official history has it that Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first man to see, from a summit in Panama, two oceans at once. Were the natives blind?
Who first gave names to corn and potatoes and tomatoes and chocolate and the mountains and rivers of America? Hernán Cortés? Francisco Pizarro? Were the natives mute?
The Pilgrims on the Mayflower heard Him: God said America was the promised land. Were the natives deaf?
Later on, the grandchildren of the Pilgrims seized the name and everything else. Now they are the Americans. And those of us who live in the other Americas, who are we?
FACES AND MASKS
On the eve of every assault on a village, the Requerimiento of Obedience explained to the Indians that God had come into the world and left Saint Peter in his place and that Saint Peter named the pope as his successor and the pope had bestowed all these lands on the queen of Castile and for that reason they must either leave or pay tribute in gold and in case of refusal or delay they would be attacked and they and their women and their children would be enslaved.
This Requerimiento was read at night in the wild, in the language of Castile without interpretation, in the presence of a notary and not a single Indian.
THE FIRST WATER WAR
The great city of Tenochtitlán was of water born and of water built.
Dikes, bridges, sewers, canals: along streets of water two hundred thousand canoes traveled back and forth between houses and squares, temples, palaces, markets, floating gardens, planted fields.
The conquest of Mexico began as a water war, and the defeat of water decreed the defeat of everything else.
In 1521, Hernán Cortés laid siege to Tenochtitlán, and the first thing he did was take an ax to the wooden aqueduct that carried drinking water from the Forest of Chapultepec. Following many massacres, when the city fell, Cortés ordered the temples and palaces demolished and the rubble thrown into the liquid streets.
Spain did not like water, the devil’s toy, a Muslim heresy.
Vanquished water gave birth to Mexico City, raised on the ruins of Tenochtitlán. Engineers picked up where the warriors left off and, over many years, they blocked up with stone and earth the entire circulatory system of the region’s lakes and rivers.
Then water took revenge, flooding the colonial city repeatedly, which only confirmed that it was an ally of the pagan Indians and the enemy of all good Christians.
Century after century, the dry world waged war on the wet world.
Now Mexico City is dying of thirst. In search of water, it digs. The deeper it digs, the further it sinks. Where once there was air, now there is dust. Where once there were rivers, now there are avenues. Where
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