By JOHN CURL
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE EARLIEST SOURCES
AN AFTERWORD AS AN INTRODUCTION
& THE AMAZING SURVIVAL AND RENEWAL OF THE TAINO NATION
I
Yaní tainó, yaní tainó.
Let the Taíno language be heard.
·
Yaní tainó, yaní tainó. Dayaní.
Goeíz nitaynó guajirós guacá!
·
Imagine the sand of the beach called
Girón, fine and white, the big bend
that turns the corner of the Bay of Pigs,
Cuba.
·
Imagina la arena de Playa Girón,
fina y blanca, gira
en el rincón
de la Bahía de Cochinos
Cuba.
Tócala. Tómala con la punta de tus dedos.
Déjala caer.
Estás tocando la sangre del imperio.
·
Touch it. Take some in your fingertips.
Let it fall. You are touching
the blood of empire.
A cloudless midday, May twenty-sixth,
fourteen-ninety-four, two years after his first
“voyage of discovery,” the Italian Cristoforo
Columbo – Christopher Columbus – called
by the Spaniards Cristóbal Colón – approaches
the mouth of the Bay of Pigs. He is
on his second voyage to “the Indies.”
He thinks he is off the coast of China,
and carries letters of state
from the king and queen of Spain
to the Great Emperor Khan.
He stands on the quarterdeck, squinting
at the shore, wondering
if Cuba is finally the mainland he seeks.
The sun is a searing disc
directly above his head. His troubled thoughts
turn back to Isabela, his colony on Haiti,
with half his men sick, the rest angry and bitter,
little gold collected, food supplies low,
the Indians strained and wary.
Yesterday’s shore had been lined
with Indian villages, the ships
often surrounded by Taíno-Arawaks in canoes
offering songs and gifts to their visitors
from “the sky,” (not yet understanding
what it meant
to be subjects of a European king), but today
at the mouth of the Bay of Pigs
Columbus sees no village, the shore
is mangrove swamp, impenetrable.
Suddenly
glistening before them: a white
crescent of sand laced with palm groves.
Churning water: a great herd of beasts!
The Indians call them manatee,
but the seamen call them pigs.