Song of the Hummingbird Read online

  Song

  of the

  Hummingbird

  A Novel by

  Graciela Limón

  Arte Público Press

  Houston, Texas

  1996

  This volume is made possible through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

  Recovering the past, creating the future

  Arte Público Press

  University of Houston

  452 Cullen Performance Hall

  Houston, Texas 77204-2004

  Cover illustration and design by Kath Christensen

  Limón, Graciela.

  Song of the hummingbird / by Graciela Limón.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-10: 1-55885-091-0 (pbk: alk. paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-55885-091-0

  1. Indians of Mexico—First contact with Europeans—Fiction. 2. Aztecs—First contact with Europeans—Fiction. 3. Mexico—History—Conquest, 1519–1540—Fiction. 4. Indian women—Mexico—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3562.I464S66 1996

  813’.54—dc20

  95-37666

  CIP

  © The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

  Copyright © 1996 by Graciela Limón

  Printed in the United States of America

  6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6

  In Loving Memory of Guadalupe H. Gómez

  “Go to the region of the wild maguey to erect a dwelling

  of cactus and maguey,

  and there place woven mats.

  “You will then go to where light begins,

  and there you must scatter your flowers.

  “You will then go to where death abides,

  in that land of white flowers you must also

  scatter your flowers.

  “And then you will go to the land sown with seed,

  there you must also cast your flowers.

  “And then you will go to the region of thorns,

  and in the land of thorns you also must

  scatter your flowers.

  “And you will scatter your flowers, and thus

  reach the gods.”

  Words of Coatlicuie,

  Goddess of the Earth and Death

  Mother of Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli

  It is a pleasure to acknowledge and thank Dr. Nicolás Kanellos, publisher of Arte Público Press, and his staff. I also extend my gratitude to him for editing this work. Song of the Hummingbird is my third novel published by Arte Público Press and I say at this point that I consider it a privilege to be part of its team of many outstanding U.S. Latina and Latino authors. I also thank Sister Martin Byrne, colleague and friend, who read the manuscript and shared her valuable insights.

  G.L.

  Author’s Note

  The protagonist of this novel says to Father Benito Lara, “My name is Huitzitzilin, but because I know the difficulty my language causes your tongue, you may call me Hummingbird, since that is what the word means.”

  I’m grateful for the protagonist’s thoughtfulness. Nonetheless, I have chosen to use her name as it is in her native Nahuatl. I want her to know that my respect for her begins with the recognition of her name as it was given to her at birth. Although the name is initially difficult to pronounce, I know that my readers will soon join me in admiring its beauty and resonance.

  Huitzitzilin also uses the word Mexica when speaking of her people even though most of us have come to use the word Aztec in its place. Here also, my readers will find me following her example.

  The protagonist of Song of the Hummingbird will tell her own story. However, let me first say something about her life, her times and the events that she witnessed. Of noble Mexica birth, she was a young woman when the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, at that time known as Tenochtitlan. Like most of her people, she experienced the awe caused by those bearded white men when they first arrived; a wonderment that soon gave way to the outrage of seeing the devastation of her land, the disruption of her life, and the end of civilization as she knew it.

  Huitzitzilin not only witnessed the obliteration of Tenochtitlan, leaving hardly a vestige of its greatness, but she suffered the loss of her Mexica identity. Along with her people, she experienced being forced to discard her traditional dress and to take up strange garments; to change her name; to speak a language foreign to her tongue; to forsake her ancestral gods; and in the end, to be part of the diaspora of a once great civilization.

  I now ask my readers to listen carefully to her tale—her song—which is a version of those times different from what has been affirmed for centuries. Her story is told from the point of view of an indigenous woman. It is one which will at first appear reversed, like the reflection of writing in a mirror; but it is Huit-zitzilin’s story. It is believable because she was a participant and a witness. Like that same reflection in the mirror now grown dim with the passage of years, her story is what happened, even though not recorded in the history written by the conquerors of her land.

  G.L.

  Song

  of the

  Hummingbird

  Chapter

  I

  Coyoacán—the outskirts of Tenochtitlan-Mexico— 1583.

  The Franciscan monk approached the convent entrance, cautiously tugged at the rope that rang the bell, and waited tensely until he heard the shuffling steps of the gatekeeper. When a small window cut into the door opened, he caught a glimpse of a woman’s wrinkled face. The white wimple framing her head hid any other signs of age.

  “Good morning, Sister. I’m the new confessor, Father Benito Lara.”

  The nun had small, myopic eyes that stared at the priest’s face unabashedly. “You’re young. Much younger than the one we had before you.”

  She shut the panel with a thud that forced him to blink involuntarily, then he heard the brass key turn loudly in the lock, followed by the creaking of hinges as the door lumbered open. Father Benito stepped into the vast cloister enclosed within the convent. He was momentarily halted by the nun who took time to scan him from top to bottom. She saw that he was of a medium build, thin, light-complected, and that his hair, already beginning to thin to baldness, was chestnut-colored. The rough, brown wool of the habit he wore was as yet not frayed or threadbare.

  “I see that you haven’t been a friar that long. Let us see how this land treats you and if you can accustom yourself to it.”

  Father Benito did not catch the full meaning of the nun’s words, but he nevertheless followed her quietly when she motioned him to come into the corridor. To his left, the priest took in the images of saints, prophets and angels sculpted into the walls. To his right, his eyes scanned a garden shaded by orange, lemon and pomegranate trees. The place was lined with clay pots filled with geranium and bougainvillea flowers. A large stone fountain was at the center of the garden. As he walked, he could make out the sound of splashing water, its tinkling mingled with the scraping of his sandals on the tile floor. He followed silently until the nun led him to a secluded nook at the end of the main cloister, where he was able to make out the figure of an elderly woman. He saw that she was sitting in the center of a patch of pale sunlight.

  “She’s been nagging Mother Superior to get her a confessor. Really, she can be such a nuisance even though she is an old woman! She knew that we had to wait until a new priest was assigned to the convent, but oh, no! She demanded special attention right away! She keeps reminding us that she’s nooo-bi-li-ty.” The nun puckered her mouth and mockingly slurred the word.

  “Please, Sister, it’s no bother. Besides, as you say, she is
very old, and perhaps she senses that her end is near. The spirit many times tells the body. . .”

  The nun did not allow Father Benito to finish. “These people are not like us, Father. They have no spirit!”

  Even though she had mumbled, the priest made out what she said.

  “Don’t say that, Sister. You’re wrong. We’re all God’s children. Now, if you will allow us to be alone for a while. I’ll let you know when I’m finished.”

  When the priest was alone, he stood for a long while gazing at the frail woman with the waning autumn light spilling over her bony shoulders. She appeared to be lost in thought and seemed to sing as she rocked back and forth in her chair. He realized that she was even older than he had thought when he first saw her. Her skin looked brittle and transparent, yellowish-brown in tone. His eyes shifted to concentrate on the old woman’s hands and noticed that they were tiny and tightly encased in thin skin; they fluttered nervously from time to time.

  “Like brown swallows,” he thought.

  He stepped closer, hoping to get her attention, but she was oblivious to his presence. As he got closer to her, he confirmed that he had been right. She was singing, but he could not make out the words of her song. Father Benito was now so near the old woman that he could see that her face was small, skeletal, and that one of her eye sockets was empty; its darkened hollow was marked with scars. Her hair was white, coarse and stringy, and it was fastened tightly at the nape of her neck.

  The priest was gaping at the old woman with such concentration that when her face suddenly whipped around to look at him, he was startled. He flinched with unexpected fright. Her good eye, he saw, was bird-like and it glared at him with a black, flinty pupil that made him shiver.

  “Ah! You must be the priest who has come to hear my last confession.”

  Father Benito was taken by surprise and he couldn’t find words with which to answer. As he was scolding himself for being so awkward, he heard himself say, “Last confession? Señora, what makes you think such a thing?”

  She giggled, exposing toothless gums. Her nose hooked downward, giving her the look of an eagle. “Perhaps I should say, my only confession, because I have never told any of your priests the real sins of my life. Come, sit here by me.”

  She pointed to a small chair that Father Benito had not seen before. He moved closer to her as he tried to make himself comfortable in the seat. She stared at him steadily, making him squirm and fidget with one of the thick knots on the cord that hung from his waist. Not knowing what to say, the priest mutely reached into his pocket and pulled out a purple stole. The woman looked at him with more intensity as he clumsily fixed the strip of cloth around his shoulders.

  “You’re very young. Where were you born?”

  “In Carmona, Señora,” he stammered.

  “Over there?” She pointed her nose at a spot somewhere behind him. He unthinkingly swiveled his head to look at where she had pointed, but saw only the faded stucco of the convent wall. After a few moments, however, he understood what she had asked.

  “Yes, I’m from Spain. I was born in a small village outside of Seville.” He paused for a few seconds, waiting for her to speak, but she had returned to her silence. Clearing his voice, Father Benito asked, “And you, Señora, where were you born?”

  “Here.”

  With that, the woman returned to her silence.

  Father Benito again cleared his throat. “Shall we begin?”

  She ignored his question. “I was born here, where this building, this house of women has now been constructed. My father’s house was built on this very place.”

  Seeing that the priest was confused by what she had said, she added more. “That house—the first one— was destroyed by Captain General Cortés before he gave the land to your people. He and his captains did much of that, but I suppose it was all meant to be.”

  The woman focused her eye on the monk. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  She ran her tongue over dry lips as she wagged her head in calculation. I was born eighty-two years ago, during the Melancholy Days. In your reckoning, spring of the year 1501. What I am remembering happened many years before you were born. But perhaps you know some of the details of those times. I mean those days when your captains and your four-legged beasts came across the waters to infest our world.”

  Father Benito was jolted by the sharp edge of her remark, and for an instant he felt like retorting with his own ideas, reminding her of the blessings the Spaniards had brought to her people. He decided instead to keep his words to himself. After all, he told himself, she was only an old woman and they had just met.

  The woman sighed, moving her head from side to side despondently. “We were guided by a divine trinity. One brother was all-knowing, the other was a preacher and priest, but the last one thirsted for human hearts.”

  “You’re confused, Señora. That is not the Trinity at all.”

  Father Benito’s voice was urgent, rising above the soft garden sounds; it echoed in the hollows of the cloister ceilings.

  She ignored the monk and spoke as if lost in the solitude of another time, another place. “With the passage of time my people grew to revere this third brother, forgetting the good one, listening to words prompting the Mexicas to wage war in this land and to gather new offerings for him, the lord of blood. So it was that my people abandoned the planting of maize and became a nation of tiger and eagle warriors.”

  Father Benito’s body shivered with the same revulsion he used to feel when he was a schoolboy listening to his teachers tell of what the explorers had encountered in the Indies. He remembered letters, circulated and read everywhere, even from church pulpits. He recalled vivid descriptions of bloodied temples, hearts carved out by obsidian knives, human flesh devoured by bloodencrusted warlocks who called themselves priests. His mind flashed back to the solemn requiem mass that had been dedicated to the memory of two soldiers, natives of his hometown; they had been slashed and eaten by those sorcerers. He was deep into his memories when he was startled back to the present by the woman’s words.

  “In the beginning, I didn’t understand why the tribes surrounding us became our enemies so easily, but now that I am old, it’s clear to me. It was because of that god’s constant demand for human hearts that we became feared, and then detested. It had to be! Then, on top of it all, the preacher god unleashed his wrath on our faithlessness—just as he had promised. It was at that time that your people came to devastate us.”

  Father Benito knew that this was not a confession, but he was intrigued by what the woman was saying. He had never heard of those events told by someone like her, someone native to that land. He moved closer to her, straining to grasp her lilting words, which had become more and more accented as she drifted back in time.

  “The Mexica people were splintered by the Spaniards and we were cast out of our kingdom like scattered leaves. We had thought that we were the light of the universe and that our city was the mirror of the world. Instead we were uprooted and destroyed by your people. When it first happened, we were wracked by hunger and pestilence; all we did was weep because we saw that now we were the strangers in this land, not you. Our warriors were humiliated and died with dirt in their mouths. As for me, I was young then, and with my children I walked aimlessly among crowds of lost, drifting people. Like everyone else, I wailed, hoping that the gods would feel pity.”

  She stopped abruptly as if realizing that she had revealed secrets unintentionally. After some moments she sighed, and whispered, “But that was then. It’s over now.”

  Father Benito felt embarrassed by what he had heard. Not knowing what to say, he waited, hoping that the right words would come to him. Nothing else occurred to him, so he decided to have the woman begin her confession.

  “Señora, the morning is drawing to a close, and I must return to say mass this afternoon. Please, shall we begin? In name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Gh. . .”

&nb
sp; She interrupted the priest. “You want to hear my sins, don’t you?” Her voice was shrill and transformed from its previous soft tones. When Father Benito stared at her without answering, she added, “You don’t even know my name, and you want to hear my sins.”

  “It is you who have called me to come. Please! Let us begin.” This time he silently made the sign of the cross.

  “My name is Huitzitzilin, but because I know the difficulty my language causes your tongue, you may call me Hummingbird, since that is what the word means.” She smoothed the folds of the shawl that outlined the sharp angles of her shoulders.

  “Although I am now destitute, I am of noble birth, a descendent of Mexica kings. My life has been a path which has taken unforeseen turns. The first of those unexpected twists happened long before the arrival of your captains, when I was still a girl. On that day Zintle and I went swimming.”

  “Swimming is not a sin.”

  “Is fornication a sin?”

  Father Benito blushed so intensely that the skin around his eyebrows took on a purplish hue. He was again without words, so he averted his face from her questioning gaze.

  “Zintle was my cousin. He, too, was noble and like me, he paid a high price for that happenstance. You’ll hear more about him later on. On the day I am speaking of, he and I ran toward the river. We romped and jumped. We skipped and lunged. We ran in a straight path, then we snaked back and forth, all the while letting out whoops and squeals of joy. We ran, unconscious of our young vigor, taking the gift of energy lightly. We ran until we lost our breath. Then we flopped on the watercress that covered the river embankment. I can still smell its sweetness, its damp, green matting.”

  Huitzitzilin stopped speaking and turned to look at the monk. She saw that even though his head was lowered, he seemed to be listening to her.

  “We laughed, snorting through our noses and then giggling even more at the sounds we were making. What made us laugh so much? I don’t know.”