Latin American Folktales (4 page)
Stories transcribed from tape are more likely to preserve the naturalness of live storytelling, the hesitations, the self-corrections, and the little asides. These features, not as numerous as might be wished, have been kept in the English translations given here.
Most of the translations have been newly made, largely because so few Hispanic folktales have been published in English. The reason, evidently, is that Spanish is one of the two principal languages of the Western Hemisphere, and serious authors can assume that the serious reader, even in North America, does not want translation. Glancing at the bibliography, one notices such English-language titles as Wheeler’s
Tales from Jalisco Mexico
or Andrade’s
Folk-Lore from the Dominican Republic,
implying that the contents are in English. Instead they are in Spanish, and in many cases a highly authentic Spanish, transcribed from the living speech with all the changed vowels and consonants and dropped syllables that give the live performance its flavor. For readers accustomed to standard Spanish a translation is not without value. Needless to say, the charm of localized Spanish washes off in translation. The temptation to compensate by peppering the English version with Spanish terms has been resisted, though certain words have been retained, especially if they have already been imported into English or, in a few cases, if there is no satisfactory English equivalent.
If Hispanic folklore in English has been relatively rare, the opposite is true of Latin American Indian lore, which has almost always been published in translation and very plentifully in English. The present collection includes English versions by the anthropologist Ruth Benedict, from the Zuni (no. 113); and by the poet Langston Hughes, from the Zapotec (III, following no. 84).
Idiomatic features of Indian speech can sometimes survive translation. Among these is the coupling found especially in Nahua and Maya storytelling. A clear example is the Nahua, or Aztec, account of the eight omens, no. 1/III. Another is in no. 96, “The Bad Compadre,” where the beginning of the second paragraph has coupled phrases that stand out if printed as poetry:
His compadre, Juan, heard about it.
Then Juan said to his wife,
“Do me a favor,
do me an errand.
Go see our compadre,
maybe talk to his wife.”
The woman went,
she talked to the man.
In addition to the wake, or all-night vigil, stories during the twentieth century have been told in a variety of settings. After-dinner storytelling at home, storytelling at the grocery store on Sunday mornings (while other people are at church), and storytelling during work breaks at large plantations are often mentioned. But the wake has been the principal occasion, at least for
public
storytelling, whether in Cuba, Panama, Mexico, Chile, or elsewhere. This is not to say that the custom has been universal. The Mexicanist Stanley Robe tells of extensive folktale collecting in the region east of Guadalajara, where no one ever mentioned storytelling at wakes. Robe was suspicious, however, and stated that he “would hesitate to declare that it does not occur.” The point is that folklorists have found storytelling at wakes to be widespread, typical, and always to be looked for.
The selections that follow are identified by country, Indian culture (if applicable), and informant (if known). The name of the country stands alone or comes first if the text is of Hispanic origin. Thus “Mexico” indicates Hispanic, from Mexico; “Mexico (Nahua)” means basically Hispanic but from a Nahua source in Mexico; and “Nahua (Mexico)” means Nahua, or basically Nahua, from a Nahua source in Mexico.
PROLOGUE
EARLY COLONIAL LEGENDS
People say the dead are dead, but they are very much alive.
proverb / Cora (Mexico)
The story of the Conquest is the essential story of Latin Amer-ica, centered on Mexico and Peru but shared across national boundaries as a common heritage. World history itself has no comparable story of the clash of cultures and its aftermath of irreparable loss. In the later years of the sixteenth century the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who had participated in the events, could recall that when Cortés and his men had entered the Aztec capital with its towers and temples, “We said that it seemed like the things of enchantment that were told in the book of Amadis” and wondered if this were a “dream.” Half a world away and after two more centuries had turned, the English poet Alexander Pope in one of his philosophical ruminations could ask, for the sake of world harmony, that confident that readers would grasp the significance. Told and retold by documentarians, the tale has an independent life in native legendary lore that is not nearly so well known as the more plausible, if none the less colorful, memoirs of European eyewitnesses. The folkloric accounts are noteworthy for having taken shape so soon after the fact, even more so for the way in which they remove the Conquest from Western history, placing it within the realm of American Indian prophecy. The native raconteurs invite us to see that the entire disastrous episode was foreordained. Whether this is viewed as an act of resignation or defiance, it evidently puts the matter under native control.
Peru once more a race of kings behold
And other Mexicos be roofed with gold,
For comparison, a few historical signposts from the European side of the divide may be offered here.
In 1502 a Maya trading canoe was contacted in the Bay of Honduras during the fourth voyage of Columbus, the same year Montezuma ascended the throne of Mexico. In 1518 the expedition of Juan de Grijalva touched the mainland at Cuetlaxtlan, an outpost of the Aztec empire, and reports of strangers on the coast were carried to the court of Montezuma. Hernán Cortés and his army put ashore in 1519 and began making their way inland, reaching the capital on the morning of November 8, when the famous meeting between Cortés and Montezuma finally took place. Several months later the Spaniards were driven out; they returned and laid siege to the city, conquering it in May of 1521. Afterward, Cortés was rewarded by the Spanish Crown and made Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca. In native accounts Cortés is spoken of as the “marquis” or sometimes the “captain.”
As background, it should be mentioned that the Aztecs—that is, the sixteenth-century Nahua—did not consider themselves an ancient people. According to their own traditions, they were latecomers to the Valley of Mexico, replacing the Toltecs, who had ruled from the old capital called Tula, fifty miles to the north. The last or near-to-last king of Tula, the hero-god Quetzalcoatl, was said to have gone away to the eastern coast, where he disappeared over the sea, promising one day to return. Possibly the Spaniards, now appearing on the eastern shore with firearms and various marvelous accoutrements, were returning Toltecs. Thus Montezuma, taking no chances, addressed Cortés as though he were Quetzalcoatl, coming back to reclaim his kingdom—an event made all the more probable in that Quetzalcoatl was supposed to return in a year 1 Reed according to the Aztec calendar, and 1519 was indeed 1 Reed.
In Peru the events unfolded on a slightly later schedule. In 1514 an epidemic of European origin, possibly typhus, arrived in the Caribbean and began making its way from Panama down the coast toward Inca territory. Huayna Capac, the eleventh Inca (king), died in 1526, and his son Huascar was installed as twelfth Inca in the capital city, Cuzco, in the southern highlands. Atahualpa, another of Huayna Capac’s sons, was deputy ruler in the important regional capital of Quito, a thousand miles to the north. By the time the conqueror Francisco Pizarro and his men reached the highlands, Atahualpa had seized control of the empire and had arranged the murder of Huascar. In 1533 Atahualpa himself was executed by Pizarro’s army at Cajamarca, approximately halfway between Quito and Cuzco, near the old religious center of Huamachuco. With no Inca at the helm the empire fell swiftly under Spanish control.
Like the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas were upstarts in the long history of civilization in Peru. They are first noticed in native annals as a small tribe of the early 1200s in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, where they claimed to have emerged from the underworld through cave openings. From there they made their way to the site of their future capital, Cuzco. Over the generations they added territory until by the 1500s they controlled a vast empire, which they called Tahuantinsuyu, “land of the four quarters,” stretching from Ecuador through Peru and deep into Chile. The names and deeds of their kings were carefully kept by native chroniclers, and even as late as the twentieth century it was the duty of every schoolchild in Peru to memorize at least the bare list. The superior achievement was to rattle it off in a single breath:
Manco Capac (probably legendary)
Sinchi Roca (ruled about A.D. 1250)
Lloque Yupanqui
Mayta Capac
Capac Yupanqui
Inca Roca
Yahuar Huacac
Viracocha Inca
Pachacuti (ruled 1438–71)
Topa Inca Yupanqui
Huayna Capac (died 1526)
Huascar (died 1532)
Atahualpa (died 1533)
The eighth king, Viracocha Inca, is not to be confused with the god Viracocha, also called Coniraya or Coniraya Viracocha, often mentioned in Peruvian narratives. The Incas’ own special deity, however, was
Inti,
the Sun. Over the years the Incas adopted the gods of tribes they conquered, including the god Viracocha, eventually developing a sizable pantheon, as can be seen in the story “The Storm.”
It is probable that the great deity referred to in both the Aztec and Inca legends as “the Creator,” “the Lord of Creation,” or even “our lord who created the sky and the earth,” is not a native deity but a latter-day reflection of Christianity. In the account entitled “Bringing Out the Holy Word” this figure is called God or Only Spirit, and the entire content is inarguably Christian. Nevertheless, the diction and the style of delivery are native. First performed in 1565, this “bringing out” song was chanted to the accompaniment of a two-toned log drum played with rubber-tipped mallets. Similarly, the Peruvian narratives, especially those recorded in the 1500s, are said to have been chanted by professional recordkeepers.
1. Montezuma
I. THE TALKING STONE
Montezuma loved nothing more than to order great monuments that would make him famous. Beautiful things, it was true, had been commissioned by the kings who had gone before, but to Montezuma those works were insignificant. “Not splendid enough for Mexico,” he would say, and as the years went by he grew to have doubts about even the huge round-stone where prisoners were sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli. “I want a new one,” he said at last, “and I want it a forearm wider and two forearms taller.”
So the order went out to the stonecutters to search the countryside for a boulder that could be carved into a round-stone a forearm wider and two forearms taller. When the proper stone had been sighted, at a place called Acolco, haulers and lifters were summoned from six cities and told to bring ropes and levers. Using their levers, they pried the stone from the hillside and dragged it to a level spot to be carved. As soon as it was in position, thirty stonecutters began to chisel it with their flint chisels, making it not only bigger than any round-stone that had been seen before, but more unusual and more beautiful. During the time that they worked, they ate only the rarest delicacies, sent by Montezuma and served by the people of Acolco.
When the stone was ready to be taken to Mexico, the carvers sent word to the king, who ordered the temple priests to go bring incense and a supply of quails. Arriving at the stone, the priests decorated it with paper streamers, perfumed it with the incense, and spattered molten rubber. Then they twisted the necks of the quails and spattered quail blood. There were musicians, too, with conch horns and skin drums. And comedians also came, so that the stone could be entertained as it traveled along.
But when they tried to pull it, it would not be moved. It seemed to have grown roots, and all the ropes snapped as if they had been cotton threads. Two more cities were ordered to send haulers, and as they set to work, shouting back and forth, trussing it with fresh ropes, the stone spoke up and said, “Try what you will.”
The shouting stopped. “Why do you pull me?” said the stone. “I am not about to turn over and go, I am not to be pulled where you want me to go.”
Quietly the men kept working. “Then pull me,” it said. “I’ll talk to you later.” And with that the stone slid forward, traveling easily as far as Tlapitzahuayan. There the haulers decided to rest for the day, while two stonecutters went ahead to warn Montezuma that the great stone had begun to talk.
“Are you drunk?” said the king when they gave him the news. “Why come here telling me lies?” Then he called for his storekeeper and had the two messengers locked up. But he sent six lords to find out the truth, and when they had heard the stone say, “Try what you will, I am not to be pulled,” they went back to Mexico and reported it to Montezuma, and the two prisoners were set free.
In the morning the stone spoke again. “Will you never understand? Why do you pull me? I am not to be taken to Mexico. Tell Montezuma it is no use. The time is bad, and his end is near. He has tried to make himself greater than our lord who created the sky and the earth. But pull me if you must, you poor ones. Let’s go.” And with that the stone slid along until it reached Itztapalapan.
Again it halted, and again they sent messengers to tell Montezuma what it had said. Just as before, he flew into a rage, but this time he was secretly frightened, and although he refused to give the messengers credit for bringing him the truth, he stopped short of jailing them and told them to go back and carry out his orders.
The next morning, as the haulers picked up their ropes, they found that the stone once again moved easily, sliding as far as the causeway that led to Mexico. Advised that the stone had reached the other side of the water, Montezuma sent priests to greet it with flowers and incense, also to appease it with blood sacrifices in case it might be angry. Again it started to move. But when it was halfway across the lake, it stopped and said, “Here and no farther,” and although the causeway was made of cedar beams seven hands thick, the stone broke through them, crashing into the water with a noise like thunder. All the men who were tied to the ropes were dragged down and killed, and many others were wounded.
Told what had happened, Montezuma himself came onto the causeway to see where the stone had disappeared. Still thinking he would carry out his plan, he ordered divers to search the bottom of the lake to see if the stone had settled in a place where it might be hauled back to dry land. But they could find neither the stone itself nor any sign of the men who had been killed. The divers were sent down a second time, and when they came back up they said, “Lord, we see a narrow trace in the water leading toward Acolco.”
“Very well,” said Montezuma, and with no further questioning he sent his stonecutters back to Acolco to see what they might discover, and when they returned, they reported no more than what the king already knew. Still tied with its ropes and spattered with incense and blood offerings, the stone had gone back to the hillside where it had originally been found.
Then Montezuma turned to his lords and said, “Brothers, I know now that our pains and troubles will be many and our days will be few. As for me, just as with the kings that have gone before, I must let myself die. May the Lord of Creation do what he pleases.”
II. MONTEZUMA’S WOUND
Near the town of Coatepec in the province of Texcoco, a poor man was digging in his garden one day when an eagle swooped out of the air, seized him by the scalp, and carried him up toward the clouds, higher and higher, until the two of them were only a speck in the sky that quickly disappeared. Reaching a mountain peak, the man was taken into a dark cavern, where he heard the eagle say, “Lord of all power, I have carried out your command and here is the poor farmer you told me to bring.”
Without seeing who spoke, the man heard a voice say, “It is good. Bring him here,” and without knowing who took his hand, he found himself being led into a dazzling chamber, where he saw King Montezuma lying unconscious, as if asleep. The man was told to sit next to the king, flowers were put in his hand, and he was given a smoking tube filled with tobacco.
“Here, take these and relax,” he was told, “and look carefully at this miserable one who feels nothing. He is so drunk with pride that he closes his eyes to the whole world, and if you want to know how far it has carried him, hold your lighted smoking tube against his thigh and you will see that he doesn’t feel it.”
Afraid to touch the king, the poor farmer hesitated. “Do it!” he was commanded. Then he held the hot tip of the tobacco against the king’s thigh and saw that he felt nothing. He did not even stir.
The voice continued. “You see how drunk he is with his own power It is for this reason that I had you brought here. Now go back where you came from and tell Montezuma what you have seen and what I ordered you to do. So that he will believe you, have him show you his thigh. Then point to the spot where you touched him and he will find a burn. Tell him the Lord of Creation is angry and that because of his arrogance his rule is about to end. The time is short. Say to him, ‘Enjoy what is left!’ ”
With those words the eagle reappeared, took hold of the man’s scalp, and carried him back to his garden. As it turned to leave, it said, “Listen to me, poor farmer. Don’t be afraid. Strengthen your heart and do what the Lord commands, not forgetting a single word that he told you to say.” Then the bird rose into the air and vanished.
The poor farmer stood amazed, but with his digging stick still in his hand he went straight to Mexico and asked to speak to Montezuma. Given permission to enter, he bowed low and said, “Lord, I come from Coatepec, and while I was working in my garden an eagle came and took me to a place where there was a lord of great power. He made me sit down where it was bright and shining, and you were there beside me. Then he gave me flowers and a lighted smoking tube, and when it got hot he commanded me to hold it against your thigh. I burned you with it, but you felt nothing and didn’t move. He told me you didn’t know what was happening because of your pride, and very soon your rule would come to an end and you would be in trouble, because your deeds are not good. Then he told me to come back and tell you what I saw. The time will be short. Enjoy what is left.”
Remembering a dream he had had the night before, in which a poor man had wounded him with a smoking tube, Montezuma looked down at his thigh and saw that he had been burned. Suddenly the wound was so painful that he could not touch it. Without a word to the poor farmer, he called for his storekeeper and ordered him to lock the man up and give him no food until he died of starvation. As the prisoner was being led away, the pain increased and Montezuma himself had to be taken to his bed. For four days he lay suffering, and only with great difficulty were his doctors able to make him well.
III. EIGHT OMENS
Ten years before the Spaniards arrived, the sky omen appeared for the first time. It was like a fire tassel, a fire plume, a shower of dawn light that pierced the sky, narrow at the tip, wide at the base. Rising in the east, it reached all the way to the sky’s center, the heart of the sky, right to the sky’s heart, and so bright when it came up that it seemed like daybreak in the middle of the night. Then at sunrise it would disappear. It began in 12 House and kept coming up for a whole year. As soon as it appeared, men cried out, slapping their mouths with the palms of their hands. Everybody was afraid, everybody wailed.
There was a second omen here in Mexico. A fire broke out in the house of the devil Huitzilopochtli, the house known as His Kind of Mountain at the place called Commander’s. Nobody set it. It flared on its own. When it was first noticed, the wooden pillars were already burning, and the fire tassels, the fire tongues, the fire plumes were shooting out, licking the whole temple. People were screaming. They said, “Mexicans, your water jars! Run! Put it out!” But when they poured water, it just fanned the flames, and then there was a real fire.
A third omen. The thatch-roofed temple of the fire god, the temple called Tzommolco, was hit by lightning. It was considered an omen because there was no heavy rain, just a sprinkle. It was a heat flash for no reason. There was no thunder.
A fourth omen. While it was still daylight, a comet that looked like three comets came out of the west and fell in the east, like a long-tailed shower of sparks, with its tail stretched out far. As soon as it was seen, there was a great roar, as though people were screaming everywhere.
A fifth omen. The lake boiled without any wind to make it boil. It sort of welled up, welled up swirling. And when it rose, it went very far, all the way to the bottoms of the houses, flooding them. Houses were crumbling. This was the big lake next to us here in Mexico.
A sixth omen. Often a woman was heard. She went weeping and crying. At night she cried out loud and said, “My children, already we’re passing away.” Sometimes she said, “My children, where can I take you?”
A seventh omen. One day when the water people were hunting, using their snares, they caught an ash-colored bird like a crane, and they brought it to the Black Chambers to show it to Montezuma. The sun had peaked, but it was still daylight. On the bird’s head was a kind of mirror, a kind of reflecting surface, round and circular, and in it you could observe the sky and the constellation Fire Drill. When Montezuma saw this, he took it as a great omen. And when he looked again, he saw what seemed to be people coming into view, coming as conquerors with weapons, riding on animals. Then he called his astrologers and wise men and said, “Do you see what I see? It looks like people coming into view.” But as they were about to answer him, the image disappeared and they could tell him nothing.
An eighth omen. Monstrous people kept showing up with two heads on one body. They were taken to the Black Chambers for Montezuma to see, but as soon as he looked at them, they disappeared.
IV. THE RETURN OF QUETZALCOATL
One day a poor man who had no ears, no thumbs, and no big toes came before Montezuma and explained that he had something to tell. Wondering what kind of creature this could be, Montezuma asked where he had come from. “From Deadland Woods,” was the reply. And who had sent him? He had come on his own to serve the king and to tell what he had seen. He had been walking along the ocean, he said, when he noticed what seemed to be a large hill moving from one place to another on the water, and no such thing had ever been seen before.
“Very well,” said Montezuma. “Rest yourself, catch your breath.” Then he called for his storekeeper and told him to lock the man up and watch him carefully.
As the prisoner was being taken away, the king ordered his chief server, Tlillancalqui, to leave immediately for the seacoast to find out if the man with no thumbs had been telling the truth. “Take along your slave Girded Loins. Go to the ruler who serves me in Cuetlaxtlan and speak harshly to him. Say, ‘Who stands guard here? Is there something on the ocean? Why hasn’t the king been told, and what is it?’ ”
When they got to Cuetlaxtlan, they asked for the ruler and gave him the king’s message word for word. “Sit down and rest,” said the ruler. Then he sent a runner along the shore to find out the truth, and when the man returned, he was running fast. “I see something like two pyramids or a pair of hills,” he said, “and it moves on top of the water.”
The chief server and Girded Loins went to look for themselves. They saw the thing moving not far from the beach, and there were seven or eight men who came out in a little boat, fishing with fishhooks. To get a better view, they climbed a whitewood tree, a very bushy one, and watched until the fishermen returned to the twin pyramids with their catch. Then the chief server said, “Girded Loins, let’s go,” and they climbed out of the tree, went back to Cuetlaxtlan to pay their respects to the ruler, and rushed home to Mexico Tenochtitlan.
When they reached the city, they went directly to the palace to tell Montezuma what had been seen. “Lord and king, it is true. An unknown kind of people has come to the edge of the ocean, and we saw them fishing from a boat, some with poles, some with nets. When they had made their catch, they went back to the two pyramids that float on the water and were carried up into them. There may be fifteen in all, dressed in different colors, blue, brown, green, dirty gray, and red. They have headdresses like cooking pots that must be for protection against the sun. Their skin is very light, lighter than ours; most have long beards, and their hair hangs only to their ears.”
At this news Montezuma bowed his head and without saying a word put his hand on his mouth and sat motionless for a long time, as though he were dead or dumb, powerless to speak. At last he said, “Who can I trust if not you, a lord in my palace? You bring me the truth every day.” Then he told his storekeeper to go get the man with no thumbs and set him free. But when they went to the locker and opened the door, the man wasn’t there. He had disappeared.
The storekeeper was amazed and ran to tell Montezuma, who was also amazed, but after a moment’s thought said, “No, I am not surprised, because almost all those people from the coast are wizards.” And then he said, “Now I will give you an order that you must keep secret on pain of death. If you reveal it to anyone, I will have to bury you beneath my chair, and all your wives and children will be put to death and everything you have will be taken away and all your houses torn down and their foundations dug up until the water spurts from the ground. Secretly, then, I want you to bring me the two best gold casters, the two best jade carvers, and the two best feather workers,” and without delay the storekeeper went and found them. “Lord, they are here,” he called.
“Show them in,” answered the king, and when he saw them he said, “My fathers, you have been brought for a particular purpose. Reveal it to any man and you will suffer death and all penalties, houses uprooted, loss of possessions, and death to your wives, children, and relatives. Now, each of you must make two works. There must be a gold neck chain, each link four fingers wide, with pendants and medals; and gold wristbands, ear jewels, fans, one with a gold half-moon in the center and the other with a polished gold sun that can be seen from far away. You must do it as quickly as possible.”
In only a few days and nights the work was finished, and in the morning, when Montezuma was awake, they sent one of his dwarfs to tell him to come to the Hall of the Birds to see what had been made. “My lord, examine it,” they said when they saw him coming, and when he examined it, he found it good. He called for his storekeeper and said, “Take these grandfathers of mine and give them each a load of coarse mantles of four, eight, and ten forearms mixed, also fine mantles, blouses, and skirts for my grandmothers, and corn, chilies, squash seeds, cotton, and beans,” and with these things the workers went home contented.
Montezuma then showed the jewels and the featherwork to his chief server and said, “Here, the gifts are finished. You must take them to the one who has arrived, the one we have been expecting. I am convinced it is the spirit Quetzalcoatl. When he went away, he promised to come back and rule in Tula and in all the world. The old people of Tula are certain of this. And before he left, he buried his treasure in mountain ravines and in canyons, and these are the gold and precious stones we find today. Since it is known that he would return from the place in the sky beyond the ocean, the place called House of Dawn, where he went to meet with another spirit, and since it is certain that all kinds of jewels in this world were once part of his treasure, it can only be that he now returns to enjoy what is his. Even this throne is his, and I am only borrowing it.
“Return immediately to Cuetlaxtlan and have the ruler make up all kind of dishes, tamales, rolled tamales, tortillas with and without beans, all kinds of grilled birds, quail, grilled deer, rabbit, chili powder, stewed greens, and every kind of fruit.
“If you see that he eats these things, you will know he is Quetzalcoatl. If he does not eat them, you will know it is not he. If he likes only human flesh and if he eats you, all will be well because I myself will protect and maintain your houses, your women, and your children forever. Have no fear of it. Take Girded Loins with you, and if you see by these signs that their lord is Quetzalcoatl, adorn him with the jewels and give him the two large fans. Humbly beg him to let me die, and when I am dead he may come enjoy his mat and throne, which I have been guarding for him.”
The next morning the chief server and Girded Loins set out with the gifts, traveling day and night. The moment they reached Cuetlaxtlan they told the ruler to prepare the food, using the finest ollas and baskets, and at midnight they carried it all to the edge of the ocean, so that at daybreak there they were, waving their arms and signaling across the water.
The small boat was lowered. Four men came rowing to shore to greet them and to ask who they were and where they were from. But the Mexicans answered them only in signs, saying they wished to be taken to their lord to give him the things they had brought. Then they loaded the food and the sacks with the gifts and rowed back across.
When they reached the ship, the captain appeared with the Indian woman, Malintzin, who translated his words. “Come here,” she said. “Where are you from?”
“We are from the great city of Mexico Tenochtitlan.”
“Why do you come here?”
“O lady, our daughter, we have come to see your lord.”
Then Malintzin withdrew to an inner room and spoke to the captain. When she reappeared, she asked, “Who is your king?”
“Lady, his name is Montezuma.”
“Why did he send you? What did he say?”
“He wants to know where this lord intends to go.”
“This lord is your god, and he says he will go see King Montezuma.”
“That would please him very much. But he begs this lord to let him finish his reign, waiting until after his death before ruling the country he left when he went away.”
Then the Mexicans opened their sacks and presented the jeweled gifts and the two great fans, and when these had been received by the captain, they were passed from hand to hand, and the Spaniards admired them with much joy and great satisfaction. “O lady and daughter,” said the Mexicans, “we have also brought food for the lord and chocolate for him to drink.”
“The spirit will eat this food,” said Malintzin, “but first he must see you eat from it yourselves.” When the Mexicans had done as they were asked, the Spaniards all ate, offering the chief server and Girded Loins some sea biscuits, which were a little stale, and wine that made them drunk. They said that they wished to return with an answer to their lord Montezuma. “What is your name?” asked Malintzin. “My name is Tlillancalqui,” said the chief server. Then she gave him this answer: “Tell Montezuma we kiss his hands and will be back in eight days and come see him.”
Carrying these words, the Mexicans returned to their king and reported everything that had happened, describing the weapons they had seen and the horses, and showing him one of the biscuits.
“What flavor does it have?” asked the king, and touching it, he declared that it felt like tufa stone. He called for a piece of tufa, compared it, and found that the biscuit was heavier. Then he called for his dwarfs and ordered them to try it, and though they said it was good-tasting, Montezuma was afraid to eat it himself, saying that this was the food of gods. Instead, he ordered his priests to bring it to Tula and bury it in the temple of Quetzalcoatl. They took the biscuit, placed it in a fine jar all worked with gold, and covered the jar with a cloth. As they traveled north from Mexico, carrying incense burners, they sang songs of Quetzalcoatl, and when they reached Tula, they buried the spirit’s food to the sound of shell trumpets, the roaring of conch horns.