The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar by Kevin Baldeosingh

Colón returned to find them all dead. And the first thing I would think of was the Shadowman, walking the land like a doom.

VII
    I do not remember much of my stay in España. There was too much that was new and beyond my understanding. The Españols’ villages had buildings of stone and wood, so big that they could have contained a thousand bohios . Men rode on animals that snorted like demons, and which were so big and fierce that they could easily have killed the Españols who controlled them. The sun seemed too high in the sky, as though the land were further away. Perhaps because of this, the air was always very cool, so everyone was always covered. Even the least of these Españols wore many finely-woven cloths, often dyed in rich colours, like the green feathers of the parrot or the pink of the flamingo or the red of the cardinal’s tuft or the blue of the kingfisher’s back. It was a rich land – most people carried knives made of metal, and there were many ships in the harbour even larger than the ones Colón had come in.
    España confused my mind. But there were far more confusing things about the Españols than their possessions. First, I could not understand why these people would come to our seas seeking wealth when even their lowest, it at first seemed, had so much more than the highest cacique. Then, for all its magnificence, their cities had a stink so high that all six of us were faint for days and could not eat. It was a smell of animals and waste and unwashed bodies and rotting food. After we had settled in the small stone room, we tried to go to the river every day to bathe. The wife of the Españols’ cacique, when she heard of this, forbade bathing as being against their god’s will. We could not understand why their god would object to a man being clean, but it was so. Many of their priests, especially the female ones, who covered even their heads, boasted that water had never touched their bodies, save for the tips of their fingers when they had to sprinkle the special water allowed by their god. So it was not surprising that their city stank.
    The Españas’ religion was the strangest thing about them. The largest and most beautiful buildings in the city were not for living in, but for their god and his son Hésus. One of the first things Colón showed me was the inside of these buildings, which had many beautiful things such as finely-carved duhos of polished wood and cups of gold and silver, some with brightly-coloured jewels embedded in them, and windows with glass dyed in colours that gleamed like a humming bird’s feathers. And yet, in the middle of such beauty, these Españas had set the statue of a man hanged on a cross with thorns on his forehead and pegs driven through his hands and feet. It was for this man, who was the son of their god, that this great temple had been built.
    â€˜Why do you worship a man being tortured?’ I asked.
    â€˜God so loved the world the He gave His only begotten Son,’ Colón answered, ‘that man might not perish but have eternal life.’ I did not understand. He said, ‘This is the sign of God’s great love for us, that Hésus died for our sins. It is the love we worship, not the torture.’
    I found out later that the reverse was the truth.
    His god was very important to Colón. Once I had understood enough of his language, he immediately began teaching me the god’s ways so I could pass on his words to my Taino brethren. The first act he had us do when we met the cacique Ferdinand and his wife Isabella was to recite some words, a call to his god in a language that the Españols did not speak save for their prayers. After we had said these words, one of their bohutus sprinkled water on our heads. We were then all given Español names. I was named Diego Colón, which was also the name of Colón’s son. He seemed to have a special liking for me.
    After this