Taino by Jose Barreiro

told Torres. Instructing him to take no more than five days, the admiral said: “Find the Great Khan.”

    Thirty-three. Caréy’s doubts and my certainty.
    Caréy plotted to leave the Castilian ships as soon as possible. He hoped at Cubanakán’s village he could slip away to the forest and later make his way home. But now we were barely on the edge of old Camagüeybax’s territories, with whom we had no particular relations. “What do the Castilians want, really?” he despaired, as we walked thin trails south over the coastal hills into Camagüeybax’s plains. “They want to see Cubanakán but won’t sail west; now he sends us here. I do not like this, Guaikán, and I don’t understand what you find so curious about them.”
    It was true. I was still intrigued. I still liked the Castilians. What’s more, I believed them to be men-spirits, sent by the Spirit of Spirits, first Creator, Yayá, first grandfather to us, in the Castilians’ words, “Our Father, Who Art In Heaven.” The Castilians, I felt, were wonderfully superior and clever, and anything they said was bound to be right.
    â€œThey have done you no harm, Caréy,” I argued with my guaxeri .
    â€œThey take me against my wish,” he responded.
    â€œDon’t worry so much,” I remember I told him. “We’ll all return home safely.”

    Thirty-four. Meeting Baigua, a ni-Taíno of Camagüeybax, the old ladies call for jaguajiguatu .
    We walked two days, joined by crowds that reached into hundreds, arriving at the village of a secondary cacique , one of old Camagüeybax’s ni-Taínos, by the name of Baigua. Baigua’s village was the largest by far that we had encountered, and he had been preparing a feast for a day before we arrived. Along the way we had seen small clusters of bohíos , maybe four or five together, but Baigua’s yukaieke was made up of more than fifty bohíos , probably a thousand people, and it was where Torres finally decided to stop.
    Baigua greeted us with great courtesy, in the open Taíno style. He was the sweetest of caciques , only middle-aged but doted upon by grandchildren and old ladies and appeared to have not a care in the world. He had a kind face that stood out for its gentility, even among Taíno. All around his large yukaieke , as far as you could see on a valley of rolling hills, there were planted conucos (raised beds) of yucca , ñames , potatoes, and other types of tubers, much maize , pineapple, herbs, and edible grasses, all interwoven with fruit stands of guayaba , mamey , caimitu , anon , guanabana and other fruit and nut trees. The batéy, or main plaza, had been recently swept clean. Around the cacique ’s central fire, several Taíno ceremonial seats, duhos , were arranged for us.
    After exchanging gifts and eating (they served much meat of the delicious yaguasa , the Cuban tame duck), Caréy let me do the talking. As I was by then accustomed, I conveyed my heartfelt views that the covered men were truly special, sacred, that they had come from the sky in huge canoes with wings like seagulls, and they could guide a ship against the wind. Instructed by Torres, I inquired after the Great Khan. They responded that they knew him but that he lived farther west. I asked, too, after caona , guanin , or any other metal, of which they claimed to have none. Torres was obviously disappointed with the second answer but gratified by the first, although, certainly, they only referred to Cubanakán, the Cuban cacique and not the Mongol ruler. Torres showed profound relief when informed that the walk to the “Khan’s” towns would take more than fifteen suns, as it excused him from continuing the exploration. With an air of great solemnity, he announced we would spend the night at Baigua’s village and return to ship at first light.
    Poor Torres, whom I came to like very much,