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By Root 732 0

has finished his prayer he remains for some time with bowed head, looks up to the sky, and speaks. All respond to him in a loud voice, and having spoken, they all give thanks; and he relates the vision he had while stupefied with the cohoba he stuffed up his nose and that went to his head.” During the séance, he spoke of his communing with the cemís, of their enemies fleeing, and of the victory to come. Or he might warn of famine, or massacres, “whatever comes into his addled head.” Horrified and faintly amused, Father Pané mentions that “they say the house appears to him upside down, and the people to be walking with their feet in the air.” He was talking about astral projection, or out-ofbody experiences triggered by cohoba.

Father Pané believed that conversion to Christianity could break these ancient patterns, and he embraced those Indians who made the leap from their sinful lives to the church. Yet his detailed report demonstrated to Columbus how difficult it would be to conquer and administer this part of the world, trying to bring European ideas of order to people who lived in other spiritual realms and obeyed other voices.

Father Pané heard from Columbus himself about an Indian community with its own language, distinct from the others. It would be his assignment to live with these people and their cacique, Guarionex. Dismayed, the priest questioned Columbus about the wisdom of the order. “Sir, how can Your Lordship ask me to stay with Guarionex, when the only language I know is that of Macorix?” Father Pané beseeched Columbus to provide an Indian companion.

“He granted my wish,” Father Pané was pleased to report as he joined forces with a bilingual Indian named Guaicavanú, who later converted to Christianity and took the name of Juan. “Truly, I looked upon him as my own good son and brother.” The priest and the sympathetic Indian named Juan took up their new post, where they stayed with Guarionex for nearly two years, “during which time we instructed him in our holy faith and the customs of the Christians.” But it was not easy: “At first he appeared well disposed toward us, causing us to believe that he would do all we wished and wanted to become a Christian, for he asked us to teach him the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, the Credo, and all the other prayers and things that are proper for a Christian to know.” Later, “he grew angry with us and backslid from his good purposes on account of the principal men of that country, who scolded him for obeying the Christian law.” So they abandoned Guarionex for another cacique, “who seemed well-disposed to us and said he wanted to be a Christian.” His name was Maviatué.

“The day after we left the village and dwelling of Guarionex for the land and people of Maviatué, the people of Guarionex built a hut next to the chapel, where we have left some images before which the neophytes could kneel and pray and find comfort.” The chapel and its objects immediately became a source of irritation for the lapsed Christians. Two days after Father Pané’s departure, “by orders of Guarionex six men came to the chapel and told the seven neophytes . . . in charge to take the sacred images that I had left in their care and destroy them because Fray Ramón [Pané] and his companions had gone away and would not know who had done it.” The six followers of Guarionex pushed the guards aside, “forced their way in, took the sacred images, and carried them away.”

As if that were not bad enough, the Indian raiders hurled the images to the ground, buried them, and urinated on the mounds, saying, “Now will you yield good and abundant fruit?”

When he heard about the incident, Bartholomew Columbus felt impelled to demonstrate that he could be as decisive in his dealings with the Indians as his illustrious brother had been hesitant. “He brought those wicked men to trial, and their crime having been established, he caused them to be publicly burned at the stake.” If Bartholomew believed this punishment would chastise the Indians once and for all, he was quickly forced to realize his error. “Guarionex