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The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar

Peepal Tree Press Ltd

Amerindian

I

My first memory is of walking out of a cave. That was more than five hundred years ago. My people believed that our race came out of a sacred cave on the small land of Ciguayo, that came to be called Hispaniola and later Haiti. They said I was a special gift from our supreme zemi YÚcahu, who was the lord of the cassava and the sea. When I was older, I heard that my mother had walked into the cave with her stomach flat like a buren and come out three days later as round as a batey ball. The bohutis said that Atabey, the goddess of fertility, had planted the seed in my mother's womb. That made me kin to Yúcahu, who was Atabey's son. My mother never removed her virgin's headband. That caused much talk among the tongue-waggers, but their gossiping was whispered because of what the priests had said.

When her time came, my mother returned to the cave with a bahanarotu, who was to be the midwife and to read the signs of birth. The village waited outside. The cave was somewhere in the mountains that rose in the centre of the land like the backbone of a sleeping giant. The people waited three days, and when I walked out there was a great and fearful silence. I remember the tall trees and my people with their bodies like smoothwood, and the green land falling away to a silver strip of sea, and I remember the bright blue sheet of the sky. I must have fainted, for I remember nothing more until I awoke in the bohio of the cacique.

They told me later that my mother had died in giving birth to me and that the bahanarotu was found raving mad in the cave. So the Ciguayao people, and later all Tainos, knew that my coming was not a good sign. The priests talked about what to do with me. The bahanarotu only said the same words over and over again in her madness — 'water demon, water demon' — but it was not clear whether I had been sent to stand against the demon, or whether I was the demon itself.

My people were not a fearful race, for Taino means 'noble', and the priests said that Yúcahu would not have sent me unless it was for a good purpose. Talk stopped when our cacique, Guacamari, took me as his son and brought me to live in his bohio. Guacamari was a good chief and a good man, but he did not take me in because the sap of his heart overflowed. Later, when I was older, I understood that he won respect in the eyes of the other five caciques of the small land by what he did. If I were a protector, having me in his home would bring fortune. If I were a demon, he showed courage by taking me into his home. In either case, I was kin to Yúcahu, as my sea-green eyes showed. But it was all for nothing. Neither I nor any other Taino could have protected us from the guamikinas, the covered men. Our god, Yúcahu, gave the Tainos cassava; their god, Jehovah, gave the guamikinas swords. My true nature was one which no one could know. Only the mad bahanarotu, whose name was Maiakan, might have known. But she now spent her days mumbling to herself.

I stayed out of this woman's way. She began screaming whenever she saw me. It was hard to keep out of her way, because Guacamari put her up in a hut right next to his own. He wanted her close if she ever began to speak in the voices of Atabey or Yúcahu or some other powerful zemi.

There was always a space between me and everyone else. How could there not, when at birth I was already a child of five seasons and, I was told, grew to the size of ten within one passing of the rains? I do not remember any of this. I only remember that this tale of my life was sung in the areyto, which told the deeds of our ancestors, and that particular song was not made until the covered men came and it was known that Yúcahu had sent me because of them. Then everyone understood why, even before I was born, my mother had said that my name was to be Guaikan, which means 'precious crossing'.

I had no kin. My mother had been marked from childhood. Both her parents and her two younger brothers had been drowned in a storm when she was ten years old. Her father, who would have been my grandfather, was a trader. He rowed his canoa over the sea as far north as Guanahani and to many of the small lands in between, and even paddled as far south as IÃ(c)re and up the rivers of the greatland for the stone tools and the gold ornaments that the Mayans made so well. It was on one of the short trips that the family was caught by a storm on the sea. The girl-child was the only one who survived. She was found two days later holding on to an oar by a lone fisherman coming from Cubanacan. So our people knew she had been protected by Yúcahu, and when she became pregnant by no man, no one was surprised. After she lost her family, she was brought up by her father's brother and, even among our well-made people, was considered of great beauty. She was named Wai'tukubuli, which means 'Tall is her body'. But by the time I was born, her father's brother had died. He had been killed by a demon in the forest who had pierced his neck with a dart dipped in cassava juice. But I do not know if this is true. The imaginations of the village tonguewaggers were as fertile as the land itself. I was born shortly after my uncle's death and my having no blood relations was a sign that I was indeed a Chosen One. What need has the kin of Yúcahu for any earthly family?

The grown-ups looked on me with respect, but because of this the children did not play with me. I had no friends until I was nearly a man, and then only one. This would be hard on a child anywhere, but it was especially hard on a Taino child. Tainos lived by three things — worship, cassava, and batey. I was allowed to help with the sweet potato and squash and beans in the small garden at the back of the bohio, but I never got to play batey with the other children. When they were playing hide, I was never asked to seek. When they were playing with a wooden ball between three or four of them, they never chose me to be on a team. But, like all small children, I was not aware of my hurt.

Batey was the centre of our lives. We worshipped the cassava because it was a crop that did not need much tending and it could keep in the ground for three seasons if need be. This left plenty time for batey.

This is what I was left out of. The only friend I had was the only other boy in the village who also did not play the game. His name was Caonabó. He did not have any parents, either. His mother had also died in childbirth and his father had rowed out to sea and never returned. Caon was a strange-looking boy because his kinfolk, given the newborn baby at the time of the yearly celebrations for the cacique's zemis, did not bind his head with boards as carefully as they should have. As a result, his forehead was straight instead of sloping back from the brows as it should have been. He was not ugly but he looked like he was of another tribe, like the Arawaks or the Caribs. That was enough reason for the other children not to be friends with him, since children never like those who are different. This proves that most grown-ups stay as children inside.

Caon was called a bad boy by the grown-ups, because he was not interested in planting and would work in the fields only if forced to. He was also strange in his ways. He wore three times as many decorations as the grown-ups. He had coloured feathers stuck in his hair and on cotton strings tied around wrists and ankles. He wore several darts of wood and bone in his ears, and on them hung various pendants and a long feather. He did not just paste on the dyes which we put on their bodies to keep off insects, but pasted them on in different colours and designs. I thought he decorated himself to draw attention away from his odd features — a foolish idea, since his decorations made him look even stranger.

But it was not only his appearance that was not usual. He would disappear into the forest for half-a-day, but he never came back with any fruit or fish. When he did not go into the forest, he would spend hours sitting at the edge of the clearing, chipping stones into knives and whittling pieces of wood. This habit added to the strangeness of his body, because regular playing of batey made everyone's bodies as taut and as flexible as carved spears. But Caon looked smooth and full, like an almost-ripe squash, and he did not have scars on elbows and knees like everybody else.

I did not have these scars either, but for a different reason. I did not play with the other children, but I was always busy. I went into the forest alone to try and catch iguanas, and climbed the trees to set traps for parrots, and I went down to the river that ran behind the village with a cotton net I had made myself to catch fish. I also walked to the sea and played on the beach with a batey ball that I borrowed from Guacamari. I did not tell him I was borrowing it. Batey balls were the most valuable and valued objects in the village. The balata trees, from whose sap the balls were made, grew only on the greatland. The small land Tainos got the balls by trade and they were kept by the cacique in his bohio. I knew Guacamari would never lend one to a child, kin to Yúcahu or not, and so I got a large cloth from one of my bohio mothers and I would conceal a ball in it when I was going into the forest or down to the beach alone. I became quite skilled at keeping the ball in the air using only shoulders and thighs and head. This did not mean I was good. After all, I was playing only against myself. But another child might have given up on batey entirely. To me that would have been admitting defeat. By practising batey, I refused to be defeated. It is in such small things that a man's spirit truly shows itself, though there can be no pride in this since that spirit is given to him at birth. And so I played one-person batey every day in a cove where no one could see me. The only movement I could not do was the body dive and twist to keep the ball bouncing, because there was no one to bounce it back to me.

I was less than ten seasons old when I started doing these things, but there was no grown-up watching to stop me. Since I had no parents, it was easy to slip away. Guacamari ignored even his own children, as he was occupied with his duties, and his wives naturally paid more attention to their own children than to me. Once I came back at mealtimes or was there for planting, no one noticed my long absences. I was injured often when I first started running away. The first time, I fell from a tree and broke my leg. It hurt very much and I cried for hours, alone in the forest. But I was able to straighten the leg, and by the time I returned to the village late that evening, it was strong again. On another occasion, I was attacked by a quenk. But I ate some fruit and drank lots of water and my wounds closed enough so that when I returned home at nightfall no one noticed. I always got very hungry and very thirsty when I was injured, and the few times I was unable to get food or water I fell asleep and awoke healed, but very weak. I never had any scars. I did not think there was anything strange about any of this, and it was not until much later that I found out that other people were not like me. Yet I must have known by instinct, or at least by the power of observation that all small children have, that I was unusual. I always felt that other people were less brave than I. I was not afraid of anything. I think it was this bravery that prevented the other children from teasing me, as they teased Caonabó.

For all these reasons, I realized Caon was like me. I do not mean that we had anything in common. I mean that he was like me because he had nothing in common with anyone else, including myself. That in itself can be a stronger bond than same interests, tastes or character. I do not know whether he felt this same connection. He was about two or three seasons older than me, I think, but he was even more reserved and more separated. I, at least, had the respect of the elders. So it was I who made friends with him when, returning one day after a day's iguana-catching in the forest, I almost tripped over him at the edge of the village clearing — I had not returned by the trail.

'I am sorry,' I said.

He was sitting cross-legged with a stone knife in one hand and a wooden bowl in the next. He looked up at me. He was surprised, but the expression had come on his face after I apologized, not when I stumbled out of the bushes. I suppose he was not used to politeness from the other small-ones.

'It is well,' he said.

I gestured with my right hand — I was holding two fat iguanas tied like bows with cotton string in my left — at the bowl he held in his lap.

'Is that from Gonave?'

He was carving a pattern into the side of the bowl. When I looked closer, I realized that the bowl was unfinished. 'No,' he said.

I saw that he was pleased at my mistake. Gonave was a very small land on the sunset side of Haiti, and its people had such skill in woodcarving that it was said that even the food of the worst cook tasted wonderful when served in a Gonave bowl.

I put my iguanas on the ground and sat down cross- legged beside Caon. 'Where did you get the knife?' I asked. Most of our stone tools came from the mainland to the south.

'I made it.'

'I can never find a good stone,' I said. My own knife was the usual limestone shard wrapped with cotton. Caon's knife was a longish stone flaked until it had a razor edge. It even had a carved wooden handle wrapped in cotton.

He did not answer for a while, then he said, 'I can show you a place where you might find some good pieces.'

'Yes?'

'Yes.'

I looked up at the sun. 'Tomorrow?'

'That would be well.'

I got up and then I untied one of the iguanas and re-tied him, neck to tail. 'You can have this for your pepper-pot.'

Another boy of my age would have said for your mother's pepper-pot.

But neither of us could make that mistake. He nodded.

'Thank you.'

We were friends from that day until he died twelve seasons later, in the giant stone bohio of the covered men.

II

We set out the next day before the sun got too high. But it was a cool day, for there were long black clouds in the sky. Caon led me into the forest, in a direction I had never gone before. It began to drizzle almost as soon as we left and then a heavy downpour started. We squatted underneath a large tree, still getting wet, but the pelting drops were broken by the tree leaves so they did not sting. We both wore loincloths so we did not have to carry our knives in our hands and would have bags for game or shells. Caon had stuck several things into his loincloth — his stone knife, as well as a limestone one, and a gouge made of conch shell. He had also strung the small bowl he had been carving the day before around his neck. Now, as we squatted beneath the tree, he began carving an intricate pattern around the outer rim of the bowl.

'You like carving, eh?' I said.

He nodded.

I said, 'I like it a little. But it is hard work.'

'It takes much effort. But it is not like work for me.'

'How so?' I asked. I expected to hear a secret of how to make work seem not like work.

'I like to make things beautiful,' Caon said.

It was not the answer I had been hoping for, but I thought it was a good answer. I did not know anyone else who liked to make things beautiful so much that they would carry a bowl on a trip just to do that. I had walked only with my knife and fishing cord wrapped around my waist. I sat and watched Caon carve his bowl in the rain. He used both his limestone knife and the shell gouge. He did not make a simple design of lines or circles as most people did. Instead, leaves and vines appeared around the lip of the bowl. I was almost disappointed when the rain stopped and he got to his feet.

We walked for a long time, often leaving the trails and at one point climbing down a low cliff, until we came to a small valley. One side of this valley was of gray-blue rock and at the foot of it were many pieces of stone. It did not take long to find a long, tapered piece that would make a fine knife-blade.

'How did you find this place?' I asked Caon, for even the men of our village did not know of it. Those who had stone knives had got them from trade.

'I go everywhere,' Caon said.

We started back up the trail. We did not want to reach back to the village too late. I said, 'Is that what you do when you come in the forest? Walk on the trails, look at animals?'

Caon nodded.

'Why?' I asked.

'It gives me ideas. And I see interesting things.'

I didn't quite understand this. Things were interesting if they were useful; and ideas were only ideas for getting food and other things of value. But Caon meant something more than this, which I could not grasp. But I did not mind. The stranger Caon seemed, the more I liked him. For I had always been viewed as by other people as strange, and I thought of myself in that way also. In most ways, we all become what we are told to be. But, as far as it is possible to escape that fate, Caon had done so.

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Excerpted from The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar by Kevin Baldeosingh. Copyright © 2013 Kevin Baldeosingh. Excerpted by permission of Peepal Tree Press Ltd.
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