Se equivoca el fuego / The fire blunders

It's quite probable that one of the reasons why Eduardo Galeano will be visiting Mani during his literary tour in Yucatan has to do with this wonderful piece he wrote years ago in his book “Memoria del Fuego” Los nacimientos (named Genesis in its English edition). When I come to think about how I first got in contact with Galeano's writing style, this immediately springs to mind as the first text that I ever read of him.

Mani has become a symbol for those involved in the defence and continuation of the legacy of the Maya people. This is where a vast amount of the literature, science and art of the Post-Classic Maya was destroyed and it remains as a scar in the historic memory of Yucatan.

These days Mani is however a place where one of the most interesting and innovative attempts at renewing and transforming the lives of the Maya is happening. This is precisely the Escuela de Agricultura Ecologica "U Yits Ka'an", where Galeano will be speaking to Maya and other Yucatecans about literature, politics and history.

Here I present you with the text, first in Spanish, and then in English.

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1562

Maní

Se equivoca el fuego

Fray Diego de Landa arroja a las llamas, uno tras otro, los libros de los mayas.

El inquisidor maldice a Satanás y el fuego crepita y devora. Alrededor del quemadero, los herejes aúllan cabeza abajo. Colgados de los pies, desollados a latigazos, los indios reciben baños de cera hirviente mientras crecen las llamaradas y crujen los libros, como quejándose.

Esta noche se convierten en cenizas ocho siglos de literatura maya. En estos largos pliegos de papel de corteza, hablaban los signos y las imágenes: contaban los trabajos y los días, los sueños y las guerras de un pueblo nacido antes que Cristo. Con pinceles de cerdas de Jabalí, los sabedores de cosas habían pintado estos libros alumbrados, alumbradores, para que los nietos de los nietos no fueran ciegos y supieran verse y ver la historia de los suyos, para que conocieran el movimiento de las estrellas, la frecuencia de los eclipses y las profecías de los dioses, y para que pudieran llamar a las lluvias y a las buenas cosechas de maíz.

Al centro, el inquisidor quema los libros. En torno de la hoguera inmensa, castiga a los lectores. Mientras tanto, los autores, artistas-sacerdotes muertos hace años o hace siglos, beben chocolate a la fresca sombra del primer árbol del mundo. Ellos están en paz, porque han muerto sabiendo que la memoria no se incendia. ¿Acaso no se cantará y se danzará, por los tiempos de los tiempos, lo que ellos habían pintado?

Cuando le queman sus casitas de papel, la memoria encuentra refugio en las bocas que cantan las glorias de los hombres y los dioses, cantares que de gente en gente quedan, y en los cuerpos que danzan al son de los troncos huecos, los caparazones de tortuga y las flautas de caña.

The Fire Blunders

Fray Diego de Landa throws into the flames, one after the other, the books of the Mayas.

The inquisitor curses Satan, and the fire crackles and devours. Around the incinerator, heretics howl with their heads down. Hung by the feet, flayed with whips, Indians are doused with boiling wax as the fire flares up and the books snap, as if complaining.

Tonight, eight centuries of Mayan literature turn to ashes. On those long sheets of bark paper, signs and images spoke: They told of work done and days spent, of the dreams and the wars of a people before Christ. With hog-bristle brushes, the knowers of things had painted these illuminated, illuminating books so that the grandchildren’s grandchildren should not be blind, should know how to see themselves and see the history of their folk, so they should know the movements of the stars, the frequency of eclipses and prophecies of the gods and so they could call for rains and good corn harvests.

In the center, the inquisitor burns the books. Around the huge bonfire, he chastises the readers. Meanwhile, the authors, artist-priests dead years or centuries ago, drink chocolate in the fresh shade of the first tree of the world. They are at peace, because they died knowing that memory cannot be burned. Will not what they painted be sung and danced through the times of the times?

When its little paper houses are burned, memory finds refuge in mouths that sing the glories of men and of gods, songs that stay on from people to people and in bodies that dance to the sound of hollow trunks, tortoise shells, and reed flutes.

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It is in this symbolic place that Galeano will present his new book “Espejos” (Mirrors) which reminds us of “certain episodes of the human adventure in this world, from the point of view of those who were left out of the picture”.