Maguana was preparing for war.
Their enemies had begun raiding again, beating like rough waves against the villages that lined the coastal shores.
At first Maguana and Jaragua managed to avoid conflict as their enemies attacked the provinces under the control of rival caciques, but at the last turn of the moon, the fearsome warriors had destroyed one of Maguana’s villages. It was an attack that Caonabo was determined to answer and he summoned his nitaino and junior chiefs to discuss their war strategy.
“Every blow struck by the Caniba would be answered,” he told his men from the shade of the sacred Ceiba tree that towered over his caney.
As he surveyed the group, Caonabo’s eyes were narrowed and glazed, his throat hoarse from repeated retching, the cohoba ritual complete.
For three days, the cacique had fasted and purged with a vomiting stick, purifying his body for the food of the spirits. On the morning before meeting with his war counsel, he had inhaled cohoba mixed with tobacco and in a hallucinogenic state, communicated with the gods.
“I have travelled,” he told his men. “The spirits have spoken. The time for travel is right. Anacacuya, the Great Chief of the Stars, now sits at the middle of the sky. He will guide our way
and the Mighty Yucahu will guide our arrows. Vengeance will be ours.”
His statement roused a loud cheer.
“I have called on Bohechio for aid and together, Jaragua and Maguana will answer our enemies.”
More cheers.
In the caney, Anacaona heard her husband’s declaration and she trembled, remembering vividly her own encounter with the Caniba guerillas. Caonabo was strong, she knew, and her elder brother, Bohechio was wise, but so too was her father. And he had been defeated.
That evening, when they were alone together, Caonabo repeated his promise to exact revenge for his people.
“The Canibas are strong at sea,” he rasped, lying in his hammock and staring at the roof of their home. “But we will defeat them. Let them bark like dogs in the ocean, but they must not touch another hair in Maguana.”
Anacaona was silent. She wanted to encourage her husband to be strong and brave. She wanted to feel the excitement which would have once thrilled her at the declaration of war, but somehow pregnancy had changed her, and the impetuous and single-minded girl who would have raced alone after a suspected intruder, had been replaced overnight by a careful and cautious woman who thought of other things besides revenge.
Still, she understood well the bad luck that would follow if she weakened her husband’s focus by crying about her fears. So she masked them, like her mother, and she smiled.
“You will be fierce, Caonabo,” she said trying to muster as much confidence as she could. Absently, she passed a hand across her stomach which had grown large and round. “You will protect the lands that will one day be your son’s.”
And she placed her husband’s hand on her stomach to feel their young prince move.
“Look,” she said. “Already he fights to do battle at your side.”
Caonabo’s laughter then was loud and rich, and Anacaona found herself chuckling along with him, her fears for a moment forgotten.
That night, she dreamed again of shadowed warriors and woke up shivering, her body drenched with perspiration, her stomach as hard as a rock.
She heard the flutter of a bat’s wings as it circled their caney in the dark and immediately thought of her father.
“Please protect him,” she whispered. Fluttering wings were the only response.
In the days that followed, canoes lined the shores of Maguana as far as the eye could see as warriors gathered from neighbouring Jaragua. T
The communal batey was filled, this time not with men out to play a game of ball, but with warriors seeking the guidance of the gods before they went to battle. The air was thick with tobacco smoke, in the caciques’ hands the maquetaurie guava ready to inhale cohoba under the direction of their bohiques.
Each night, areito dancers entertained, their music gaining in tempo and ferocity as the dancers beat up clouds of dust, reenacting battles past in which the warriors of Maguana were victorious.
Down on the beach, labourers worked arduously on the canoes ensuring that each contained sufficient weapons for battle and calabash gourds to bail out water.
And Anacaona, witnessing the preparations and conscious of the women who looked to her for strength and direction, steeled
herself to ignore the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of the woodpecker anxiously boring a hole into her chest.
On the final day, before the men readied themselves to set sail, many were startled to hear the sharp bark of Caonabo’s laughter echoing from his caney as his wife served him the meal of
the day- barbecue.
Their daughter was born while Caonabo was away at war.
Anacaona had been masking the first twinges of pain for several hours as her husband and his men prepared to set out to sea. That morning, she had woken to a slight trickle down her thighs, a sign the elder women had told her to expect, but she had said nothing.
She kept up the façade as other wives and children milled around her- an encouraging smile on her lips, her back arched in a confident poise.
She was the Cacica, it was her duty to reassure her people. But then the sun dipped beneath the sea, the last of the canoes disappeared beyond the horizon and the enthusiasm of all the well-wishers was replaced by an unsettling quiet. The pain in Anacaona’s stomach was by then a dull throb that ebbed and flowed like the tide.
Trembling to contain the pain, Anacaona eased down into a wooden seat and summoned her helpers.
“I think it is time,” she said. The women needed no further explanation.
Stragglers were shooed away and the elders, experienced in childbirth, gathered around.
They took her from the bench and guided her to a straw mat on the floor of her caney, urging her to lie flat.
On the ground, the pain continued to ebb and flow, growing in intensity as the hours slipped by while the gaps, in which she experienced any ease, shrank smaller and smaller until it
was all one blinding pain.
“Atabey,” it was the only word Anacaona could muster through clenched teeth. Someone brought the bone-white zemi of their Mother Goddess also depicted in labour.
“Oh Great Mother, give me strength.”
The pain throbbed, and Anacaona, drenched in more perspiration than she might have felt standing in the midday sun, cried out weakly for space.
“I need air!”
But then the women shifted and a waft of sea breeze caressed her and Anacaona recoiled.
“It hurts!” she screamed, hearing in her own voice the ridiculousness of her complaint.
“Relax,” one woman said, mopping her brow. “Relax and breathe slowly. It will help.”
But Anacaona had already caught a whiff of the sea, and panicked thoughts of her husband and his men had taken hold of her.
It was not yet time to give birth, she felt. Caonabo should be here. And she feared that the fact that she had gone into labour so prematurely was an omen that her husband would lose in battle.
“I can’t relax,” she gritted, thrashing on the bed and wishing for the relief of tears.
It was a long and difficult labor. The moon was in the middle of the sky when she finally gave birth, the baby’s lusty cries replacing her screams. It was over.
Anacaona wanted to feel relief. She wanted to know that everything was okay with her little warrior, that he would
live to meet his father, but then a haze of weakness consumed her and the only thing she heard before slipping out of consciousness was, “It’s a girl.”
Anacaona was standing once again in the clearing of Yaguana, hidden in the shade of the bohios as her mother cupped her face and told her that everything would be fine.
Fire was blazing all around them. Their men were falling. Savages were screaming in delight.
Anacaona trembled, but her mother’s hands, calloused from years of washing, were cool against her face.
“Ana, it will be okay,” she said. “The men are at war, but it will be okay.”
And Ana listened for the uncertainty she had heard in her mother’s voice as a little girl, but there was none. Instead, her mother was smiling.
“I have a daughter,” Anacaona blurted, realizing as the words came out that it was the birth, and not the battle that raged around her, that was the source of her fear. It was as though
her conversation with her mother was taking place against a backdrop that was not quite real.
The fighting, she knew, could not touch her.
“I know,” her mother’s smile was sad, but there was no sense of defeat in her eyes. And for the first time, Anacaona recognized her mother’s strength.
It was a different battle that a woman fought, not one with arrows and knives. They sacrificed themselves for their men, children, communities and kingdoms. They were the salt of the earth, but theirs was a battle that was often unrecognized in a world where valour was counted only in the lives taken.
Unlike men who recorded every conquest, a woman’s strength was never discussed.
“We need women to continue,” her mother said. “Or we will cease to be.”
It was a puzzling statement, but before Anacaona could ask another question, her father appeared, standing behind her mother, his headdress tall and resplendent. And he too was
smiling at Anacaona, unconcerned by the battle that raged around them.
“Pa,” Anacaona felt the wetness on her cheeks as she fell to her knees. Her first chief.
Together they spoke, her mother and father, their voices blending and intertwining with each other.
“Caonabo has won a great victory,” he said.
“Her name, let it be Higuemota,” she said.
And they were gone.
“Caonabo!” gulping for breath, Anacaona sat up. The women watching over her rushed to her side, cool hands pressed against her forehead.
“The fever is gone,” one whispered to another, relief spreading through the room.
“You have been gone for a few days,” they said to Anacaona.
“I have been visited,” she said.
And then there was another flurry, as the women brought the little princess to Anacaona.
It was strange, the feeling that overcame her as she looked for the first time at the little baby that had come from her womb, marveling at her soft, fluid limbs. She kissed the soft cheek,
automatically cooing with delight as the baby’s eyes flew open, appearing to stare directly at her.
“You will be beautiful,” she smiled, thinking of the callouses on her own skin as she gently wiped the fuzz away from her daughter’s soft forehead. Soon, the baby’s head would be
bound by two pieces of board, a ritual to flatten her forehead and ensure her beauty.
To the women she said, “Her name must be Higuemota.” Exhausted, her eyes fluttered shut once again. “When the cacique returns victorious from battle, we will celebrate.”
Hi friends,
For this week's submission to the Scholar & Scribe community, I am continuing the story of the legendary Taino chieftain, Anacaona.
History states that Anacaona was married to a great warlike cacique who fought fiercely for the Taino people, Caonabo. He was eventually captured by the Spanish and died at sea. Anacaona was also the mother of the beautiful Higuemota.
This story continues after Anacaona is married to Caonabo and an alliance is formed between her brother and husband's kingdoms. Here, Caonabo prepares to go to war and Anacaona is ready to give birth.
While the details of the story are imagined, I tried to research as much as I could about the Taino language, practices and beliefs during this period, and I tried to incorporate this into the story. I hope this was done well and I truly hope you enjoy the resulting story.
Thanks for reading.
