It is known that the idols to whom the islanders pay public worship represent goblins which appear to them in the darkness, leading them into foolish errors; for they make images, in the forms of seated figures, out of plaited cotton, tightly stuffed inside, to represent these nocturnal goblins and which resemble those our artists paint upon walls.
[Note 19: Roman Pane was a Jeronymite friar who, as here stated, wrote by order of Columbus. His work was in twenty-six chapters covering eighteen pages, and was inserted at the end of the sixty-first chapter of the Storia of Fernando Columbus. The original Spanish MS. is lost, the text being known in an Italian translation published in Venice in 1571. Brasseur de Bourbourg published a French translation in his work on Yucatan, Relation des Choses de Yucatan de Diego Landa. Paris, 1864.]
I have sent you four of these images, and you have been able to examine them and verify their resemblance to the goblins. You will also be able to describe them to the most serene King, your uncle, better than I could do in writing. The natives call these images zemes. When they are about to go into battle, they tie small images representing little demons upon their foreheads, for which reason these figures, as you will have seen, are tied round with strings. They believe that the zemes send rain or sunshine in response to their prayers, according to their needs. They believe the zemes to be intermediaries between them and God, whom they represent as one, eternal, omnipotent, and invisible. Each cacique has his zemes, which he honours with particular care. Their ancestors gave to the supreme and eternal Being two names, Iocauna and Guamaonocon. But this supreme Being was himself brought forth by a mother, who has five names, Attabeira, Mamona, Guacarapita, Iella, and Guimazoa.
Listen now to their singular beliefs relating to the origin of man. There exists in Hispaniola a district called Caunauna, where the human race took its origin in a cavern on a certain mountain. The greater number of men came forth from the larger apertures, and the lesser number from the smaller apertures of this cavern. Such are their superstitions. The rock on whose side the opening of this cavern is found is called Cauta, and the largest of the caverns is called Cazabixaba, the smaller Amaiauna. Before mankind was permitted to come forth, they ingeniously affirm that each night the mouths of the caves were confided to the custody of a man called Machochael. This Machochael, having deserted the two caves from a motive of curiosity, was surprised by the sun, whose rays he could not endure, and so was changed into stone. They relate amongst their absurdities that when men came out of their caverns in the night because they sought to sin and could not get back before the rising of the sun, which they were forbidden to see, they were tranformed into myrobolane trees,[20] of which Hispaniola plentiously produces great numbers.
[Note 20: This name is comprehensive of several kinds of trees whose fruits are used in compounding astringent and slightly purgative medicines.]
They also say that a chief called Vagoniona sent from the cavern where he kept his family shut up, a servant to go fishing. This servant, being surprised by the sun, was likewise turned in like manner into a nightingale. On every anniversary of his transformation he fills the night air with songs, bewailing his misfortunes and imploring his master Vagoniona to come to his help. Such is the explanation they give for the nightingale's song. As for Vagoniona, he dearly loved this servant, and therefore deeply lamented him; he shut up all the men in the cavern and only brought out with him the women and nursing children, whom he led to an island called Mathinino, off the coasts; there he abandoned the women and brought back the children with him. These unfortunate infants were starving, and upon reaching the river bank they cried "Toa, Toa" (that is like children crying, Mamma, Mamma), and immediately they were turned into frogs. It is for this reason that in the springtime the frogs make these sounds, and it is also the reason why men alone are frequently found in the caverns of Hispaniola, and not women. The natives say that Vagoniona still wanders about the island, and that by a special boon he always remains as he was. He is supposed to go to meet a beautiful woman, perceived in the depths of the sea, from whom are obtained the white shells called by the natives cibas, and other shells of a yellowish colour called guianos, of both of which they make necklaces. The caciques in our own time regard these trinkets as sacred.[21]
[Note 21: The following passage does not lend itself to admissible translation. Viros autem illos, quos sine feminis in antris relictos diximus, lotum se ad pluviarum acquarum receptacula noctu referunt exiisse; atque una noctium, animalia quædam feminas æmulantia, veluti formicarum agmina, reptare par arbores myrobolanos a longe vidisse. Ad feminea ilia animalia procurrunt, capiunt: veluti anguillæ de manibus eorum labuntur. Consilium ineunt. Ex senioris consilio, scabiosos leprososque, si qui sint inter eos, conquirunt, qui manos asperas callossasque habeant ut apræhensa facilius queant ritenere. Hos homines ipsi caracaracoles appellant. Venatum proficiscuntur: ex multis quas capiebant quatuor tantum retinent; pro feminis illis uti adnituntur, carere feminea natura comperiunt. Iterum accitis senioribus, quid facieudum consulunt. Ut picus avis admittatur, qui acuto rostra intra ipsorum inguina foramen effodiat, constituerunt: ipsismet caracaracolibus hominibus callosis, feminas apertis cruribus tenentibus. Quam pulchre picus adducitur! Picus feminis sexum aperit. Hinc bellissime habuit insula, quas cupiebat feminas; hinc procreata soboles. "I cease to marvel," continues the author, "since it is written in many volumes of veracious Greek history that the Myrmidons were generated by ants. Such are some of the many legends which pretended sages expound with calm and unmoved visage from pulpits and tribunals to a stupid gaping crowd.">[
Here is a more serious tradition concerning the origin of the sea.[22] There formerly lived in the island a powerful chief named Jaia who buried his only son in a gourd. Several months later, distracted by the loss of his son, Jaia visited the gourd. He pried it open and out of it he beheld great whales and marine monsters of gigantic size come forth. Thus he reported to some of his neighbours that the sea was contained in that gourd. Upon hearing this story, four brothers born at a birth and who had lost their mother when they were born sought to obtain possession of the gourd for the sake of the fish. But Jaia, who often visited the mortal remains of his son, arrived when the brothers held the gourd in their hands. Frightened at being thus taken in the act both of sacrilege and robbery, they dropped the gourd, which broke, and took flight. From the broken gourd the sea rushed forth; the valley was filled, the immense plain which formed the universe was flooded, and only the mountains raised their heads above the water, forming the islands, several of which still exist to-day. This, Most Illustrious Prince, is the origin of the sea, nor need you imagine that the islander who has handed down this tradition does not enjoy the greatest consideration. It is further related that the four brothers, in terror of Jaia, fled in different directions and almost died of hunger because they dared stop nowhere. Nevertheless, pressed by famine, they knocked at the door of a baker and asked him for cazabi, that is to say, for bread. The baker spit with such force upon the first who entered, that an enormous tumour was formed, of which he almost died. After deliberating amongst themselves, they opened the tumour, with a sharp stone, and from it came forth a woman who became the wife of each of the four brothers, one after another, and bore them sons and daughters.
[Note 22: Diego Landa, in his Cosas de Yucatan, and Cogolludo (Hist. de Yucatan), treat this subject. Peter Martyr likewise elaborates it in his letters to Pomponius Lætus and the Cardinal de Santa Croce. Opus Epistolarum, ep. 177 and 180.]
Another story, most illustrious Prince, is still more quaint. There is a cavern called Jouanaboina, situated in the territory of a cacique called Machinnech, which is venerated with as great respect by the majority of the islanders as were formerly the caves of Corinth, of Cyrrha, and Nissa amongst the Greeks.[23] The walls of this cavern are decorated with different paintings; two sculptured zemes, called Binthiatelles and Marohos, stand at the entrance.