SUN AND MOON
POEMS FROM OAXACA
MEXICO
Monologue
"They broke our walls," Mono whispered, "stone by stone.
A new church they built, on the land they stole from us.
Red was its roof from a thunderstorm of blood.
The white bones of their lightning scattered us like hail.
They ripped out our tongues and commanded us to sing.
Carved mouths were ours, stuffed with grass,
stone music forcing its way through our broken teeth.
Few live now who can read the melodies of our silence.
We wait for some sage to measure our dance steps:
pisando huevos, we walk on tiptoe.
A cross these stepping stones of time."
Mono means Monkey in Spanish. Monkey is one of the day names in the Mixtec calendar. Monologue, then, is Monkey, talking to himself.
Pisando huevos: literally "treading on eggs"; here, walking carefully.
.
Exile
a black-robed devil wielded a whip of wind
with a sea wave for a hammer he drove us from our fields
and struck down our temples
dark was the sky rage - deep was its anger
the sea god rose on stormy wings
his chariot was taller than our tallest house
who will wade in this river of mud?
who will ask for a blessing
now the sky has fallen?
homeless we sought our living abroad
beyond our hills:
a land where no man spoke our tongue
and every hand was turned against us
Inquisitor
He told me to read,
and plucked my left eye from its orbit;
he slashed the glowing globe of the other.
Knowledge leaked out: loose threads dangling,
the reverse side of a tapestry.
He told me to speak,
and squeezed dry dust between my teeth.
I spouted a diet of Catechism and Confession.
He emptied my mind of poetry and history.
He destroyed the myths of my people.
He filled me with fantasies from a far off land.
I live in a desert where people die of thirst,
yet he talked to me of men walking on water.
On all sides, as stubborn as stucco,
the prison walls listened, and learned.
I counted the years with feeble scratches:
one, four, two, three;
for an hour, each day, the sun shone on my face;
for an hour, at night, the moon kept me company.
Broken worlds lay shattered inside me.
Dust gathered in my people's
My heart was a weathered stone
withering within my chest.
It longed for the witch doctor's magic,
for the healing slash of wind and rain.
The Inquisitor told me to write out our history:
I wrote how his church had come to save us.
Rereading the Códices
"Two breasts: one green, one yellow, symbolic of the hill where the church stands; the church itself bicolored, strong stone walls, a spire. A large red heart symbolic of the love we bear for you, our masters. Two feet walking the path of enlightenment you opened before us; two hands pointing the way. The feet below the heart; the hands above the heart, like wings; and the heart becomes the body of the new place you have built for us. And in the heart is our sacred symbol: the Earthquake, a sign of leadership and power used only by those of Royal Stature and the Noblest Blood. Attached to the heart is the Numeral One which means Lord of the Earthquake; for you are Number One in our Hearts. Attached to the heart is a speech scroll showing felicitous words of praise; below it is the sacred earthworm, and beneath that the serpent head of wisdom and the flint knife promising strength through sacrifice.
But be wary: for our symbols are double-edged!
The colors of the hill are divided, as the hill is divided, showing strife and division. The church is on top of the hill, for the symbol has conquered the people, and the people are starving, subject, and destroyed. The feet are pointing in opposite directions, for the people are stalled. They have no forward movement, nor will of their own. For they are conquered by the sword and not by love. And the hands are pointing in opposite directions; for the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing. And the hands are reversed showing anguish and distress. The sign of the heart is the sign of the disembodied heart, torn from the heaving chest of the vanquished and thrown to the dogs. The sign of the earthquake is also the sign of movement. And that movement is a bowel movement. And one movement in the middle of the sacrificed heart is the victor excreting on the vanquished and treating them with scorn and contempt. The scroll protrudes from the nether part and says that the victors are speaking words of excrement, that verbal diarrhea issues from their lips. And the serpent has no feathers; it cannot fly. It is as a snake treacherous and bitter, crawling on the ground. The head of the serpent is two tongued and tells of treachery and of deceit. The flint is attached to a heart; it speaks of the heart that is as hard as flint, knowing no mercy.
And at the end that heart will receive no mercy in its turn.
The Mixtec Códices, native screenfold books written on deer hide, are Pre-Columbian pictographs that record the history of the Mixtec peoples. There are no words: only brightly coloured scenes containing information about rituals, gods, heroes, and ceremonies. Only a few very precious documents (Zouche-Nuttall, Vindobonensis, Borgia etc) survived the ravages of time and the continued purges of the Spanish Inquisition. This poem, self-explanatory for the main part, verbalizes typical symbols from the códices. Clearly, such symbols, as the poems suggest, are ambiguous and open to radically different interpretations.
The People
we were born in the caves
behind the water's curtain
through dank tubes of Earth
our mothers bore us
we emerged from the shadows
where sunlight couldn't reach us
we came at his call
Sun the Father
Sun the Holy Spirit
we greeted Zopilote
as he spread his wings above us
we praised him when his feathers
flamed in the sun's fire
never again will we crawl
beneath the earth my brothers
never again will we hear at the pit's mouth
the still small voices of our children
Zopilote: vulture; zopilote is a Trickster figure, helpful to man. Oaxacans say that he brought the fires of heaven down to earth upon his wings
high on Red and White Bundle the people pray and make sacrifice
five long nights without warmth and every night the people pray
they prick their tongues and their lips
they catch their blood in the ritual bowls and they study the ripples
stars in the distant sky are sparks that will set the heavens alight
if only they have sufficient strength
when the sun pours its life blood over the mountains
a river of redness drenches the hills and fattens the fields
the people rise from their knees to hail this promise of harvest
captured warriors dream of the stone on which they'll be sacrificed
the priests dress in white they paint their faces black
they wait in silence for a tongue of flame to call them to the hilltop
now the captives make their way upward to the sun's high kingdom
the strongest warriors will climb the sky and serve him forever
the humming bird in all its glory is not arrayed like one of these.
The New Fire Ceremony initiated a fresh calendar round and occurred every fifty-two years. All fires were extinguished for the space of five days while people waited for the sun to rise on the fifth day. Then fires were relit "from the flames of the sun" and the calendar cycle began again.
Red and White Bundle: one of the place names from the Zouche-Nuttall Códice, tentatively identified as Huachino in the State of Oaxaca.
Warriors were reborn as humming-birds and served the sun in their afterlife.
The Dead Man
Shadows move across the walls:
Murciélago: his promise dark with oblivion;
Tecolote: winged shadow, grey with despair.
Bound to this place,
his eyes weighed down with two bright shells,
the dead man lies on his back.
He cannot walk in his sleep and open the door.
He cannot stretch his hands before his eyes
and lift off the sea-shells;
nor can he pinch himself awake.
His mouth has slowly filled
with dust, like a dormant volcano.
He cannot turn his head;
he can only lie there, and wait, and listen.
"Listen to the dust as it settles in the corners."
"Listen to the spiders weaving dreams in their webs."
Murciélago (bat) and Tecolote (owl) are two of the figures the early Mexicans associated with death. They are often found in tomb carvings and wall paintings.
Opening the Tomb
The blond man spotted a known face in the crowd and cried
"To me, my friend! Come! Stand at my side!"
But the known face scowled, put on a mask, and showed its teeth.
Jaguar it became, or Muerte, and its flayed skin flapped.
"I have a document!" he said. "From the Ministry of Science!"
He waved his papers in the air.
The crowd waved back: knives, clubs, machetes.
"Our ancestors are buried there." they cried.
"Leave them alone in dust and silence! Let them sleep!"
But he ached for the bright gold buried in the tomb.
He turned away. The crowd rejoiced.
Next day he returned: with soldiers.
Then the fields were sown with bones and watered with blood.
New headstones sprouted overnight in the village.
Fresh mounds of earth, bright with flowers, white with crosses:
fresh treasures for yet more scientists to find.
New tombs are still being discovered and excavated. Much controversy, both political (distribution of precious treasures: they are sometimes stolen or transported to Mexico City) and cultural (desecration of a distant ancestor's burial place), surrounds the opening and excavation of tombs. Armed riots are not untypical.
Muerte: death. Jaguar and muerte are two more of the Mixtec day names. Carved and painted masks made from shells, pottery, and wood were frequently used in Mexican ceremonies.
New Tomb at Huijazoo
Four strong men carried me into this room.
My favourite figures were sketched on the walls:
an owl, a jaguar, Cocijo, all painted in red-and-buff.
At my side, jade beads, gold butterflies, a ceramic dog.
My friends stayed with me for three short nights.
Then they went away and I lay there in silence.
At first, I counted the days. But my mind came unstuck
somewhere around a thousand cycles of the sun.
Confusing the seasons, I lost count of the years.
Between me and the world, they left a wall of rubble.
It stood in the way of the walkers by night.
A tall man strode forth, blond, with a beard.
He ordered my people back and forth in a loud voice.
When the stone wall fell down, I was blinded by daylight.
My spirit was afraid. It fled my flesh and hid in the darkest corner.
They steal my owl and haul down my lion like a flag at sunset.
One by one, my gifts disappear. Suddenly I am lonely.
This is no place for my bones. I long for the comfort of my dog.
Cocijo: the Zapotec god of lightning and rain, commonly found on Zapotec ceramic urns which were placed in tombs.
Suchilquitongo
Here, the Cloud People wrapped themselves in colour.
They trod an imperial pathway laid at their feet
by the death and the rebirth of this recycled sun.
From the watchtower high on the escarpment
we can follow the outlines of tomb and temple;
this dip a ball court, that rise a palace or a house.
Águila and zopilote have flown these skies forever.
They rise in ever-widening circles,
now gradually fading out of sight,
now flashing fire from these living clouds.
Goat droppings line the dry stone path;
beneath our feet, remains of a vast stone stair;
around us slumber buildings buried in grass,
each room foreshadowed by a passing cloud.
Águila: eagle; another of the Mixtec day signs, as is zopilote. Note that Mixtecs and Zapotecs shared a similar calendar and were both known as the Cloud People.
Tomb 104, Monte Albán
Murciélago stares at us from the Jaws of Heaven:
he is trapped forever in Crocodile's mouth.
Cocijo wears a feathered headdress and flies on Owl's back.
Time has wrinkled the faces in the stone.
Jaguar's dark shadow shifts with us as we move.
A moon looks down from its niche in the stone:
white skull of the midnight sky, baring its teeth.
Inside, barely glimpsed at the back of the tomb:
galleries of reds-on-buffs, more niches,
a world beyond the finger of our flashlight.
Owls blinking in the daylight,
we leave at last.
Above this hole in the ground, birdsong:
the old world singing in the freedom of its cage.