The name, and the sea
This is the story I grew up with.
Anacacuya was a guide. His brother-in-law, Guahayona, wanted his sister, and wanted him out of the way. So out on the water he called to him — look what a beautiful cobo there is in the water — and when Anacacuya leaned over the side to look at the conch, Guahayona took him by the feet and threw him into the sea.
And he rose as a star. The one that holds still while the rest of the sky turns, so that anyone out on the water after him would have something to steer by.
It was never told to me as a tragedy. It was told as where the fixed point came from: the man who was thrown away became the thing people navigate by.
The man who was thrown away became the thing people navigate by.
The oldest written version of this was set down around 1498 by a friar, and that original is lost. What survives is a translation of a copy. Most of what was told out loud is simply gone — through war, through disease, through the destruction of the people who told it. This one reached me anyway.
Words that crossed over
- huracán
- hurricane
- hamaca
- hammock
- canoa
- canoe
- barbacoa
- a platform of palm wood — later, barbecue
- maíz
- maize
- batey
- the open plaza in front of the chief's house
- cobo
- the queen conch — the shell in this story
- güiro
- the gourd, and the instrument made from it
- coquí
- the small frog you hear at night
- areíto
- the sung, danced telling of what happened
- Borikén
- the island, before its current name
- Boricua
- its people, still
You speak some of this language already.
Taíno heritage belongs to Taíno people, and they are here. I am Puerto Rican, raised on what survived. I do not speak for anyone.
Find your star. Hold it.