Read Online House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferré - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rosario Ferré
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Petra Avilés to work for them at the house. Brambon, Petra’s husband, moved in with them, too, and the couple installed themselves in the cellar. Petra worked as cook and Brambon became Buenaventura’s chauffeur.
Petra’s ancestors were Angolan, and when people told her she was strong as an ox she would smile and say that was to be expected, her ancestors drank ox blood. She was six feet tall and her skin wasn’t a watered-down chocolate but a deep onyx black; when she smiled it was as if a white scar slashed the darkness of the night. She wore brightly colored seed necklaces around her neck and steel bracelets on her wrists, and she went barefoot, so the only thing you heard when she walked into a room was her bracelets tinkling like spearheads. Petra was born in 1889 in Guayama, a town famous for its sorcerers and medicine men, and her parents had been slaves. As slavery was abolished in 1873, she was born free.
Petra’s grandfather, Bernabé Avilés, whose African name was Ndongo Kumbundu, was born in Angola. Petra herself told Manuel and Willie Bernabé’s story when they were children, and it would make their hair stand on end. Bernabé was chieftain of a tribe living in Bié Plateau, an area six thousand feet above sea level and one of the richest in Angola, when one day Portuguese traders raided his tribe and made him a prisoner. He was taken to the port of Luanda and put aboard a ship that landed in nearby St. Thomas. That same year he was brought to Puerto Rico in a small frigate and sold to Monsieur Pellot, a sugarcane hacienda owner in Guayama, which had lush cane fields all around it.
The black insurrection of Saint-Domingue at the beginning of the nineteenth century had kept Puerto Rico in constant fear of slave revolt. Saint-Domingue had been burned to a cinder, and practically no sugar was being produced there. This had caused sugar production to increase on the other islands, and many new slaves had been brought to the plantations. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the black slave population in Puerto Rico totaled almost one-fourth of the inhabitants. The neighboring St. John and St. Croix had had horrendous slave insurrections and became floating torches, their white populations mercilessly slaughtered with sugarcane machetes.
Slaves from Angola, Kongo, and Ndongo shared fundamental beliefs and language, part of a rich culture. They had their own religion, and their chieftains were spiritual leaders whose duty was to look out for their people. They believed in Mbanza Kongo, a mythical city of ivory minarets surrounded by a forest of date palms, with an underground river flowing beneath the city. The river separated the world of the living from the world of the dead, and was both a passage and a barrier. In Mbanza, each tribe had its own street and the inhabitants lived in peaceful coexistence; the fields of corn, wheat, and cereal around it belonged to everyone. The duty of every Angolan chieftain was to turn his own village into a Mbanza Kongo.
Bernabé had been chieftain of his tribe, and when he first arrived in Guayama, he couldn’t understand why all the land on the island belonged to a few white hacendados dressed in white linen suits, with panama hats on their heads, when the rest of the population lived in abject poverty. Nor could he understand why he was baptized into a religion where God was called Jesus, when he had always prayed to Yemayá, Ogún, and Elegguá, whose powerful spirits had guided him, helping him heal the people of his tribe. But what had really overwhelmed him was that he was forbidden to speak Bantu with the other Angolans and Kongos living in La Quemada.
Bernabé, like the rest of the adult bozal slaves recently arrived from Angola, spoke Bantu. But if anyone was caught speaking it, even if he was speaking only to himself, he would be punished with fifty lashes. Bernabé had a terrible time accepting this. One’s tongue was so deeply ingrained, more so even
Petra’s ancestors were Angolan, and when people told her she was strong as an ox she would smile and say that was to be expected, her ancestors drank ox blood. She was six feet tall and her skin wasn’t a watered-down chocolate but a deep onyx black; when she smiled it was as if a white scar slashed the darkness of the night. She wore brightly colored seed necklaces around her neck and steel bracelets on her wrists, and she went barefoot, so the only thing you heard when she walked into a room was her bracelets tinkling like spearheads. Petra was born in 1889 in Guayama, a town famous for its sorcerers and medicine men, and her parents had been slaves. As slavery was abolished in 1873, she was born free.
Petra’s grandfather, Bernabé Avilés, whose African name was Ndongo Kumbundu, was born in Angola. Petra herself told Manuel and Willie Bernabé’s story when they were children, and it would make their hair stand on end. Bernabé was chieftain of a tribe living in Bié Plateau, an area six thousand feet above sea level and one of the richest in Angola, when one day Portuguese traders raided his tribe and made him a prisoner. He was taken to the port of Luanda and put aboard a ship that landed in nearby St. Thomas. That same year he was brought to Puerto Rico in a small frigate and sold to Monsieur Pellot, a sugarcane hacienda owner in Guayama, which had lush cane fields all around it.
The black insurrection of Saint-Domingue at the beginning of the nineteenth century had kept Puerto Rico in constant fear of slave revolt. Saint-Domingue had been burned to a cinder, and practically no sugar was being produced there. This had caused sugar production to increase on the other islands, and many new slaves had been brought to the plantations. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the black slave population in Puerto Rico totaled almost one-fourth of the inhabitants. The neighboring St. John and St. Croix had had horrendous slave insurrections and became floating torches, their white populations mercilessly slaughtered with sugarcane machetes.
Slaves from Angola, Kongo, and Ndongo shared fundamental beliefs and language, part of a rich culture. They had their own religion, and their chieftains were spiritual leaders whose duty was to look out for their people. They believed in Mbanza Kongo, a mythical city of ivory minarets surrounded by a forest of date palms, with an underground river flowing beneath the city. The river separated the world of the living from the world of the dead, and was both a passage and a barrier. In Mbanza, each tribe had its own street and the inhabitants lived in peaceful coexistence; the fields of corn, wheat, and cereal around it belonged to everyone. The duty of every Angolan chieftain was to turn his own village into a Mbanza Kongo.
Bernabé had been chieftain of his tribe, and when he first arrived in Guayama, he couldn’t understand why all the land on the island belonged to a few white hacendados dressed in white linen suits, with panama hats on their heads, when the rest of the population lived in abject poverty. Nor could he understand why he was baptized into a religion where God was called Jesus, when he had always prayed to Yemayá, Ogún, and Elegguá, whose powerful spirits had guided him, helping him heal the people of his tribe. But what had really overwhelmed him was that he was forbidden to speak Bantu with the other Angolans and Kongos living in La Quemada.
Bernabé, like the rest of the adult bozal slaves recently arrived from Angola, spoke Bantu. But if anyone was caught speaking it, even if he was speaking only to himself, he would be punished with fifty lashes. Bernabé had a terrible time accepting this. One’s tongue was so deeply ingrained, more so even
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