The importance of Indigenous women as seen in the “Lupita” documentary, the growing research of the Indigenous before Columbus, the idea of God as a Woman, and relating these ideas to the plot of Erased Faces.

After you have completed the readings for Weeks 2-3 and watched the documentaries, write a 600 word (minimum) response regarding the aspects of Indigenous cultures before colonization, the importance of Indigenous women as seen in the “Lupita” documentary, the growing research of the Indigenous before Columbus, the idea of God as a Woman, and relating these ideas to the plot of Erased Faces. How do you see Indigenous spirituality and the idea of God gendered as a Woman. Try to make as many connections between the sources as you can.

Cite each source (both written and visual) at least once. No need for a Works Cited unless you cite an outside source. I provided the reading down below

No plagiarism!

Requirements: 600 words and more | .doc file

erased faces

erased facesA Novel ByGraciela Limón

This volume is made possible through grants from the City of Houstonthrough the Houston Arts Alliance.Recovering the past, creating the futureUniversity of Houston Arte Público Press 452 Cullen Performance Hall Houston, Texas 77204-2004Cover design by James Brisson Photo courtesy of Eduardo Vera, “Mayor insurgente Maribel, EZLN, October 1994” http://evera.home.ige.orgLimón, Graciela. Erased Faces / by Graciela Limón. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-55885-342-31. Women photographers—Fiction. 2. Women revolutionaries—Fiction. 3. Americans—Mexico—Fiction. 4. Indian women—Fiction. 5.Mexico—Fiction. I. Title. PS3562.I464 E7 2001813?.54—dc212001035543 CIP The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of theAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence ofPaper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.© 2001 by Graciela Limón Printed in the United States of America10 11 12 13 14 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

In memory of those who perished in the massacre of Acteal, Chiapas 22 December 1997

Although set against a background of conflict in Chiapas, this work is anovel. Places and people portrayed have been fictionalized.G. L.She meets with her face erased, and her name hidden. With her comethousands of women. More and more arrive. Dozens, hundreds,thousands, millions of women who remember all over the world that thereis much to be done and remember that there is still much to fight for.EZLN communiqué: Twelve Women in the Twelfth Year Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos 1996

ContentsAcknowledgmentsChapter 1 She didn’t look like me.Chapter 2 Adriana decided never to speak again.Chapter 3 We repeat ourselves.Chapter 4 She wondered if white things felt pain and sadness.Chapter 5 The mountain spoke to us.Chapter 6 You have already been among us.Chapter 7 Our people built that church.Chapter 8 The soil was gray; it had no color.Chapter 9 She felt that floating would turn to flying.Chapter 10 The gods made men and women of maize.Chapter 11 Why don’t you come and see?Chapter 12 In the end, los patrones are severe and unforgiving.Chapter 13 He even owns a mule.Chapter 14 Kap jol, the anger of the people.Chapter 15 I’ll see that he’s taken care of.Chapter 16 There was only emptiness.Chapter 17 The night in Tlatelolco had shaken him.Chapter 18 We call him Tatic, Little Father.Chapter 19 They crush us but we also crush ourselves.Chapter 20 There cannot be equality in a false peace!Chapter 21 He wondered if he would ever see her again.Chapter 22 It was quick. It was merciful.

Chapter 23 In these parts the only thing that matters is a signature.Chapter 24 They were innocent!Chapter 25 Why is the day moving in reverse?Chapter 26 What about me?Chapter 27 Emboldened, Juana mingled with the crowd.Chapter 28 You are my blessing.Chapter 29 The leash snapped!Chapter 30 In lak’ech. You are my other self.Chapter 31 The anguish, too, was the same.Chapter 32 She asked me to be the lips through which their silenced voiceswill speak.Books by Graciela LimónAbout the Author

AcknowledgmentsI’m sincerely grateful to Letitia Soto, my dearest cousin, as well as toAndy Soto, who accompanied me to Chiapas during the month of June1999. Circumstances were intimidating to travelers at the time, especiallysince we had to travel through the mountains between Palenque and SanCristóbal de las Casas, a region filled with armed military checkpoints. Iknow that I would not have had the courage to do it on my own. Letitia andAndy’s company, their courage, their chistes and cariño of what we sawand experienced, made that journey unforgettable and rich in information.Roberto Flores, valued colleague, shared remarkable photographs anddocumentation on the Zapatista War, and for that I’m indebted to him. Ithank him most especially. I’m very grateful to Mary Wilbur, one of thefirst readers of Erased Faces. Her input, suggestions and research enhancedthe work beyond my initial concept of it. Also, much gratitude to ToniZepeda for her numerous readings of the manuscript and for her helpfulinput. Finally, but not least of all, is Acción Zapatista which has been sohelpful to me in gathering information.G. L.

Chapter 1 She didn’t look like me.The Lacandona Jungle, Chiapas, Mexico, 1993.Her ankle-length dress caught in the thick undergrowth. Her legs andbare feet were bleeding from cuts inflicted by roots and branches mattingthe muddy ground. She ran, plunging headlong into a snare of decayingplants, oblivious to the pain that shot up her ankles, through the calves ofher legs, lodging deep in her thighs. She ran because she knew the dogswere gaining on her; she could hear their baying, and in seconds she beganto sense their clumsy paws pounding the darkened jungle floor. Terrified,she ran, lunging forward, panting, her body covered with sweat and her facesmeared with tears of dread.She could not be sure, but she thought that there were others runningalongside her. In the thick gloom of the forest, she caught sight of womenrunning, desperately clinging to babies, tugging at children trying not tolose their way in the darkness. Long cotton dresses pulled at them as theyplunged through the growth; straight, tangled hair stuck to their shoulders.She saw that those women were also afraid that the snarling dogs wouldcatch them and tear them to pieces. Men were running, and they, too, wereterrified—their brown, sinewy bodies pressed through the dense foliage,their loincloths snagged and ripped by gigantic ferns that reached out withdeadly tentacles.The Lacandón women and men ran because they understood that soonthey would be overcome and devoured by the ravenous pursuers. She ranwith them, but suddenly she stopped; her feet dug deep into the jungle slimeas she halted abruptly. She began to turn in circles, arms rigidlyoutstretched, but she could see nothing; she was blinded by fear, and shedarted in different directions. She had lost something, but she could notremember what it was that had slipped through her fingers. She dropped toher knees, groveling in the mud, digging, trying to find what it was that shehad lost. Her fingers began to bleed when her nails ripped from her flesh,

and her desperation grew, looming larger than even her pain, greater eventhan the terror of being overcome by the dogs.She was on her knees when she felt her long straight hair wrap itselfaround her neck. It got tighter and tighter. It began to strangle her.Frantically, her fingers dug into the taut coils that were cutting off herbreath. Nearly drained of air, she felt that her lungs were about to collapse.With each second, the hungry dogs got closer, but she was paralyzedbecause the pain of having lost something that was precious to her naileditself into her heart.Adriana Mora awoke startled, panting and covered with perspiration.She sat up choking, out of breath and in the grip of an asthma attack. In thedarkness she fumbled, trying to reach the inhaler that she had placed on therickety crate next to her cot, but her groping hand got tangled in themosquito net. She struggled with the mesh, knocking her dark glasses to theground, almost spilling a cup half-filled with water. When she finallyreached the device, she pressed it into her mouth and plunged once, twice,relieved to feel air clearing her throat and reaching her lungs.When Adriana’s heart returned to its normal rhythm and her lungsreadjusted, she sat with her back to the wall, still shaken and breathingheavily. Making out the palm ceiling as well as the earthen floor, she lookedaround the tiny hut, a palapa. Through the ridges between the cane stilts,moonlight seeped casting elongated shadows on the dirt. Trying to gain ahold on herself, she stared at the small table where she had propped herequipment: cameras, tripod, note pad, canvas jacket with its pockets stuffedwith lenses she used to capture the faces and bodies of Lacandón women.Adriana drew her legs up until her knees pressed against her breasts.Wrapping her arms around the calves of her legs, she leaned her headagainst her knees; she stayed that way, thinking of the nightmare fromwhich she had awakened. She was listening to the jungle sounds that filledthe night: the jumble of insect chirping that scraped against the heavybreathing of iguanas and other reptiles. Howling monkeys barked,chattering angrily as they swung from branch to branch. Screeching parrotscomplained because of the hooting of owls and other nocturnal birds.Adriana tried to decipher each sound. She wanted to identify what animal,

which insect had made what noise, but it was impossible because it allmelted into an indistinguishable cacophony of murmur, hissing, andhowling. The night vibrations of the jungle fused with the sad groaning ofthe muddy waters of the river that coiled around the tiny village ofPichucalco.She thought of the dream, trying to discern its meaning. She hadexperienced it before, but never had it been as vivid, as terrifying. The othertimes, the woman had been remote, someone else. This time, however, shehad no doubt: It had been she who was being hunted, she who was runningin the forest along with other natives. It had been she who had lostsomething precious, something loved and so riveted onto her heart thatreliving the dream made her feel pain beneath the nipple of her left breast.With outstretched fingers, she rubbed the palm of her hand over her chest;she was thinking, concentrating, trying to recognize what she had lost. Butit was useless, because she could not remember anything that had evermeant so much to her, not even the distant memory of her mother andfather.Unable to find the answer, Adriana straightened her head and cocked itto one side, this time listening to her dream. She stayed that way for a whileuntil she realized that she heard only the sound of menacing dogs. Hersearching mind then focused on the woman in the dream.“She didn’t look like me!”Mumbling out loud, Adriana flung aside the net and slid off the cot. Shewent to the stand where she kept a basin and water jug that she used towash her face and hands; above it, she had nailed a small mirror. Sheunhooked it and made her way past the gunny sack that covered theentrance of the palapa. Once outside, Adriana found herself in moonlightthat was bright enough to see her reflection.“It couldn’t have been me.”She studied her face: brown angular features, high cheekbones. Adrianaconcentrated, turning her gaze on her mouth and head: thick lips; short,curled hair. Then she went back into the hut, stretched out on the cot andstared at the palm-frond ceiling. She reflected on her nightmare, the bayingof dogs still echoed in her memory as did the sensation of pain. She broughther hands close to her eyes, turning them palms up, then down. There wereno cuts, no bruises.

She touched her forearms, searching, but her fingertips found only thescar tissue inflicted on her left forearm by scalding water when she was achild; she had been seven years old when that happened. Adriana’s mindhalted for a few seconds, remembering that day. Then she returned herattention to the dream, to any traces it might have left on her. She went onfeeling her body, pausing, searching for signs of pain, or even a slightindication of having been hurt, but she discovered nothing.A nagging sense of loss forced Adriana to shut her eyes because she feltthe sting of tears burning behind her eyeballs. She flung her arm across herface and remembered her life, how ever since she could remember, she hadfelt lost, separated, alone, always filled with fear. She was twenty-four yearsold, but sometimes she still felt as she had when she was a child; nothing inher life seemed to change—not inside of her. She was now a woman, on herown, making a living as a photographer. Wanting to be accomplished in herprofession, to publish her work, she had chosen to come to the jungle tocreate a photo history of the women of the Lacandona.Adriana stared at the thatched ceiling, her eyes wide open and vacant.She was remembering that when she had finished college in Los Angeles,she had drifted to New Mexico, where she stayed a short while. After thatshe decided to go south to Chiapas, so she made her way to the border, andfrom that point down to Mexico City, and from there she traveled toMérida, Yucatán, where she stayed only a few days. Then she pushed on toPalenque, attracted by the prospect of capturing on film what was left ofMayan civilization, but once there, she realized that it was for living facesthat she searched. So she put her things on a dilapidated bus that hadPueblos Indígenas painted in large letters on its windshield. When she gotoff the vehicle, she was in Pichucalco, on the edge of the Lacandona Jungle.Her thoughts drifted back to her childhood, probing incidents in her life,trying to explain why she had always felt such deep isolation. Then sherelaxed her body, allowing her memory to return to the past.

Chapter 2 Adriana decided never to speak again.Adriana was barely four years old the night she was awakened by loudvoices. She sat up, hugging her raggedy stuffed rabbit, listening, turning herhead toward the door, trying to make out who was screaming. Her eyeswere beginning to adjust to the darkness of the room when a blast silencedthe voices. The girl was struggling to make out the noise, when a seconddetonation shook the walls. Time passed but nothing happened. Then asmoky stench seeped into her room from beneath the closed door. Therewas no more yelling, no more explosions, so she slipped back onto herpillow.Everything was quiet again; she could not hear or see anything, not evenwhen she peeked out from under the covers. The girl listened for hermother’s voice, or the sound of her father’s heavy footsteps, but all sheheard were cars driving by their apartment. She wanted her mother to comeand wrap her arms around her, but there was only silence. Adriana driftedback to sleep.She opened her eyes again, but this time it was the sun that hadawakened her. With the frayed rabbit still in her arms and her legs crampedfrom being rolled in against her body, she stretched and looked around theroom. In one corner were her toys and on the other side was the smallcloset. She could see her dresses hanging neatly, one next to the other.“Mamá?”Adriana called her mother just as she did every morning. She waited,hugging her toy to her chest, but nothing happened. Her mother did notopen the door and peek around it to smile at her. Trying to see the sky, shelooked out the window. There was nothing there except the bare branches ofa tree.“Mamá?”This time Adriana’s voice was edged with tears because she wasremembering the noises she had heard the night before. She began to shiver,

thinking that her mother and father had gone away, leaving her alone. Shehad never before heard the house that quiet. She decided to go out to thekitchen to find them.Adriana, with her rabbit dangling from one hand, shuffled down thehallway to the bathroom, where she struggled onto the toilet. After that shewent to the kitchen. When she walked in, she felt happy all of a suddenbecause she saw her father taking a nap at the table. She looked carefully,taking in how he was sitting in his favorite chair, leaning his head in hiscradled arms. She was relieved to see him, although she had never seen himsleep that way.She tiptoed across the kitchen to the stove, where she expected to findher breakfast. At that moment, she wondered why her mother was not there.She looked first in the service porch, thinking her mother might be puttinglaundry into the washer. When she did not find her there, Adriana searchedthe small front room, where she found the television set turned on. That wasall. From there she made her way to her parent’s bedroom.“Mamá? Mamá?”She found her mother lying on the bed; she was taking a nap, too.Adriana decided not to go near her; she might awaken her. Still clinging tothe dingy stuffed rabbit, Adriana returned to the kitchen because she washungry. Trying not to make noise, she opened the cupboard and looked forher favorite cookies, but when she saw that the package was on a shelf toohigh for her to reach, she put down the toy and struggled to edge a chairinto position. She was able to do this quietly up until the last pull, when oneof the legs stuck in a crack in the linoleum. She yanked, then flinched at theloud, grinding noise that filled the kitchen. She shut her eyes and hunchedher shoulders, expecting her father to wake up and scold her, but nothinghappened. When she opened her eyes to look at him, she saw that he wasstill asleep. Relieved, she climbed up and lowered the box. Then she wentto the refrigerator, where she found a small carton of milk. Again she couldnot reach a glass, so she took the cookies and the container to the frontroom, where she munched as she watched cartoons until late into theafternoon.When she needed to go to the bathroom again, she decided to awakenher mother. As she neared the bed, Adriana saw that the sheets andbedspread were stained red, and that her mother held her father’s gun in one

hand. She saw also that there was a big bump on one side of her mother’sforehead, and that, too, was dripping with a red mess.Adriana was so frightened that she felt pee dripping between her legs;she could not help it, and she did not know what to do. She reached out andgrabbed one of her mother’s shoulders and shook her, trying to awaken her,but she felt that her mother was stiff and cold. Crying, she ran to where herfather was still sleeping, and she tugged at his shirt, hoping that he wouldwake up to help with her mother. Instead, her pulling pried loose one of hisarms; it fell inertly and dangled from his shoulder.She understood that something awful had happened to her mother andfather. She ran to the front door. Doña Elvira would know what to do; shealways did. When Adriana tried to open the door, however, she realized thatthe dead bolt was engaged and that it was too high up for her to reach, evenif she stood on a chair. She screamed and pounded on the door, but no oneheard her cries for help; no one heard her frail fists beating on the door.Night was falling, and the gloom inside the apartment terrified Adrianaso much that she ran to her room, where she hid under the bed, clutchingher stuffed rabbit. She came out only to nibble on crackers or to drink waterthat was in a container by the sink. She banged on the front door severaltimes during the days that followed, but gave up when no one heard her.Each time, she returned to the hideaway under her bed; its narrowness gaveher comfort and lessened her fear. But the tiny space began to lose itsprotection for Adriana; its confines seemed to close in on her, taking awayher breath, making her heart race and pound until she lost consciousness.She did not know how many times this happened to her.Finally, it was the stench, not Adriana’s weak pounding, that alertedDoña Elvira Luna. When that happened, the elderly neighbor stood outsidethe Mora apartment wearing an apron and still clutching a wooden cookingspoon in her hand. She twitched her nose, sniffing around the edges andhinges of the locked door, then banging on it as she stuck her nose up intothe air, wiggling her nostrils and upper lip, her wide open mouth gaspingbecause of the foulness that was polluting the air. When she realized what itwas that she was smelling, she ran down to the manager’s office.“Don Luis, come with me! Now! Something is terribly wrong in theMora apartment.”“What do you mean?”

“Don’t talk! Come!”The man and woman ran up the stairs and when they turned the cornergoing in the direction of Adriana’s apartment, Don Luis came to a suddenhalt. He, too, smelled the vile stench.“¡Santo Dios!”His hands were shaking so much that he could not insert the master keyinto its slot, so Doña Elvira snatched the ring, slid the key into place,disengaged the latch and opened the door. The manager flung himselfbackward as if he had been struck with a blunt weapon; he gagged andreached into his back pocket for a handkerchief, which he nearly stuffedinto his mouth.Doña Elvira was just as shaken, but she regained her balance after a fewseconds. Taking off her apron, she tied it around her nostrils and mouth, andentered the gloomy pestilent place, going first to the kitchen. When she sawMario Mora slouched over the table, one arm stiff and dangling, she knewhe was dead.“¡Marisa! ¡Adriana! ¿Dónde están?”Shouting for the girl and her mother, Doña Elvira ran from the kitchen tothe front room, where the television set was on but inaudible. Then shestaggered to the larger bedroom; there she discovered Marisa Mora’sdecomposing body.“¡Virgen Santísima!”She spun around looking for the child’s room, but when she finallyfound it, the door was closed. She flung it open and looked around; it wasempty. She was about to leave when something told her to search, so shewent to the closet and began poking and pulling at hanging dresses andplaysuits, but she found nothing. Then she glanced at the unmade bed. Withdifficulty, Doña Elvira got down on her hands and knees to peer under it;there she discovered Adriana, who at first also looked dead. Doña Elvira letout a wail so loud that even the cringing Don Luis forced himself into theapartment.By that time, Doña Elvira had recuperated enough to drag Adriana outfrom under the bed. As she did this, she realized that the girl was not deadbut unconscious. With the manager’s assistance, the elderly woman got toher feet with Adriana in her arms, and with unexpected energy, she ran pastMario Mora’s body, past the room where Marisa Mora lay; nothing stopped

her until she reached her apartment. There, she put Adriana on the frontroom sofa. Adriana lay there for hours before she could be awakened fromher trance, despite the ambulances, patrol cars, coroners, televisionreporters, investigators, and curious neighbors swarming through theapartment complex.The girl finally sat up; she was groggy, hair disheveled, confused, butaware of two men speaking in hushed tones in the kitchen. She felt DoñaElvira hugging her at one moment, then gently nudging her out of sleep.“Adriana, you have to wake up. Open your eyes!”The girl struggled with confusion, trying to focus her blurred eyes onDoña Elvira. Suddenly, one of the men came and plucked her off the sofaand carried her to the kitchen, where the light bulb hanging from a cordmade her blink even more. She thought she overheard Doña Elvirawhispering to her husband, and she was almost sure she could make out thewoman’s words.“No le digas ahorita.”“But we must tell her now. Later will be worse. You have to rememberthat the police want to talk to her. She has to know before then.”Doña Elvira’s husband spoke loudly, clearly. He was opposing his wife’swarning not to tell the girl what had happened.“¡No!”“¡Sí!”Adriana was now fully awake and she knew something terrible washappening. Whatever had occurred was so bad that Doña Elvira and herhusband were almost arguing over it. The man carrying Adriana intervened.“Your husband is right, Doña Elvira. The child must be told. If you waituntil later, it will only hurt her more.”Adriana looked at Doña Elvira and at her husband, then at the man whoheld her. They were neighbors, and although very old in her eyes, they werekind. They often looked after her while her mother and father were at workor out of the house.“M’ijita… “Doña Elvira’s voice quivered, then broke off, leaving her unable tospeak. She turned away and put her hands on the side of the kitchen sink.Her husband picked up where Doña Elvira had stopped.

“Adrianita. Listen to me very carefully. Something has happened to yourmamá and papá. They were in a bad car accident. And now… now… theyare in heaven. Now you must stay with us.”Adriana knew. She had lost her mother and father. They were dead, andshe knew that it had not been in a car accident. Adriana was only four yearsold, but she knew that her mother had killed her father. She knew becauseshe had been there when it had happened. What she did not understand wasthe reason why her mother had done such a thing, or why her mother hadabandoned her. Knowing, in conflict with understanding, collided in thegirl’s mind, causing her to lose her breath, strangling the air out of herlungs, and it was there, in Doña Elvira’s kitchen, that Adriana experiencedher first asthma attack.After that, when Doña Elvira Luna took her in, Adriana decided never tospeak again, because she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, thebreathing attacks would recur. But despite her not speaking, the attacks didreturn to torture her. Years passed, and because she was always silent,people became convinced that she was incapable of speaking. Only DoñaElvira knew the truth; only she understood the enormity of Adriana’sanguish and confusion. That old woman was the only one who realized thatAdriana’s soul had withered during the days in which she was a prisoner inher mother and father’s tomb.In the palapa, surrounded by the murmur and hissing of the jungle,Adriana felt her recollections so vividly that her nose twitched because thememory of stench surrounded her, as did the isolation of self-imposedsilence. Her heart beat wildly against her ribcage, just as it had done thatnight long ago, just as it did whenever she remembered.Struggling to control her racing heart because she feared anotherbreathing attack, Adriana conjured her mother’s image in her mind: browncomplexion, willowy body, black straight hair that hung to her waist. As ayoung woman, she had migrated with her family from Campeche in Mexicoto Los Angeles. In that city she met Adriana’s father, loved him, marriedhim. Yet, she had shot him dead, taking her own life at the same time andleaving her daughter alone. Now Adriana’s heart struggled with anger andlonging to know what had compelled her mother to do such a terrible thing.

Then the image of Adriana’s father rose from the rubble of her little-girlmemory. She saw the skin of his African ancestors, the muscular bodyinherited from a mix of races, the nappy hair of his family. This pictureblurred, giving way to the form of a man slumped over a kitchen table, onearm hanging inertly by his side. She was able to tolerate the image only afew seconds before her mind shut down, fatigued by the memory of hurtand abandonment. She drifted back to sleep until sunlight awoke her.

Chapter 3 We repeat ourselves.“¿Qué soñaste anoche?”The toothless Lacandón native Chan K’in asked Adriana this questionevery morning. In the beginning she found it strange that he never greetedher with a simple buenos días but always asked what she had dreamed thenight before. After a few days in the village, however, she discovered thatdreams were so important to the people that the question took the place of agreeting. At night, instead of buenas noches, she was told, Be careful ofwhat you dream tonight.“What did you dream last night, niña?”Chan K’in repeated the question. Despite the humid, warm air of thejungle, Adriana felt a shiver as she recalled her dream. She had decided toput it behind her, to disregard it, not to try to find meaning in what she hadexperienced. It was too frightening because it brought back the pain ofinexplicable loss. But now, as she stood looking at the old man, she feltcompelled to tell him.She was dressed in khaki pants and shirt, and she wore hiking boots.This was her usual way of dressing, and although it was different from thegarments worn by the native women, no one seemed to mind. They knewwhy she dwelled among them, and they trusted her enough to allow her totake photographs of them as they toiled in the jungle or fished in the river.“I dreamed many things, viejo. A dream that I’ve dreamed before, butnever so vividly.”Adriana spoke to Chan K’in in Spanish because she did not know hisnative tongue. She liked conversing with him, asking questions about thetribe’s traditions, its history, its culture. It was Chan K’in who explainedmeanings to her when she did not understand. As she gazed at the old man,she studied his frail face, and body. She did not know his age, but as shescrutinized him she gauged that he was very old; the skin of his brown facewas leathery and cracked. His nose was a beak, and his eyes were those of

an Asian nomad, or an eagle, she thought. Chan K’in wore his hair in thetradition of the men of his tribe: shoulder-length with straight bangs thathung covering his eyebrows. But unlike the younger men of the village, hishair was completely white. Since he sat on the ground cross-legged,Adriana joined him, sitting down in the same fashion and facing him.“It was very strange, viejo. At the end, I dreamed that I was beingpursued by hungry dogs and that I ran because my heart was filled withterror. There were other people running along with me. I don’t know whothey were, but they were dressed like your people. The strangest part of thedream, what I really cannot understand, is that suddenly I stopped, eventhough I could hear the dogs, even though I knew that I would be torn apartby them. I stopped because I had lost something precious, more preciousthan my life. I began to choke and I awoke.”Chan K’in looked at Adriana. He seemed to be studying her face, and hewas silent for a while as he gazed at her. Then he began to trace an imageon the soft earth with his finger, seemingly lost in thought until he returnedhis eyes to Adriana.“You know that the Lacandón people place meaning in dreams, don’tyou?”“Yes.”“A dream, though imperfect, is a mirror in which we see our past lives.Centuries ago we were driven from our towns and villages into thesejungles. We were hounded by white men who ran after us with fire weaponsand dogs. We were forced to abandon what we had built and plantedbecause the hunger of those men was without limit.”Adriana remained silent. She had lived with the tribe only a few months,but she knew already that there was much discontent. She was aware ofvoices that murmured, whispered, repeated stories passed down throughgenerations. But she found little to connect her story with what resonated inthose voices. Facing the old Lacandón, Adriana tilted her head, trying tounderstand, to find a similarity that would link her dream with what he wassaying. Chan K’in closed his eyes as he spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper.“It happened in Itza Canac, land of the Maya, in the Year of the Rabbit,as the Mexica people still tell. The woman had been wandering for days,perhaps longer, separated from her people by the soldiers. She was lost. Shewas not the only one. Most roads and pathways were clogged with roaming,

uprooted people aimlessly searching. Some traveled alone, but others werein small bands; most of them were looking for someone they mightrecognize.“The woman was thin, nearly emaciated, tired and thirsty, when shestumbled onto an army of Spaniards heading south. She discovered thattheir leader was a man by the name of Captain General Hernán Cortés. Shesaw that part of the entourage was made up of men and women like her, yetof a different tribe, people she did not recognize by their clothes orlanguage. The woman noticed, also, that one of those natives must havebeen important, since he was always guarded by soldiers. That man, sheobserved, limped grotesquely, as if his feet had been mutilated.“There was something about those people that alarmed her, but thewoman was more afraid of being alone, so she attached herself to the group.No one asked her questions. She stayed with them as they hacked their waythrough the jungle, crossing rivers, making camp at nightfall. During thosedays she was fed by a woman who, by the signs of her body, was with child.The woman never spoke; she merely gave out food and then returned to hersilence.“Finally, the marchers came onto what had once been known as ItzaCanac, now a bleak, deserted and pestilent place. They were all at the endof their strength; they could walk no farther. As they set up camp next to amud-clogged stream, the Spaniards filled the air with cursing and loudwords; the natives responded with morose silence.“The woman thought that she was the most fatigued of them all. Herdress was torn and soiled. Her feet were bruised, as were her arms andhands. Her straight hair, matted with sweat, clung to her forehead and neck.She was so tired that she could not eat. She simply collapsed near thestream, and there she fell asleep under a ceiba tree.“At dawn a clamor awakened her with a fright. Though her body achedwith weariness and pain, the woman forced herself to rise and seek cover.From there she could see the soldiers standing by the native they hadguarded so carefully. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as ifto relieve pain. He had a rope tied around his neck.“Soon a crowd formed around the captain general. He seemed enraged,uncertain of what to do next, and the woman saw that his gestures werefollowed closely by the others. To one side she made out the figure of a

priest. She had not seen him before, but his rough brown garmentdistinguished him from the metal coverings and weapons of the others.Also, he held a cross in his hands. By now, most inhabitants of those landsknew the meaning of that symbol.“In the throng, the woman was able to make out the woman who hadgiven her food, but now her silence was filled with grief. There were manyothers, men and women of that same unknown tribe. Every one of them hadtheir eyes riveted on the prisoner.“‘Cortés, you meant to do this from the beginning.’“She heard these words but did not understand them; they were not inher tongue. She knew, however, that their tone was solemn, filled withmeaning. She saw that the captain general ignored what the prisoner haduttered and instead made a sign with his hand. Suddenly, the prisoner’sbody was violently yanked into mid-air. The man struggled against the rope,but because his hands were tied behind his back, it was his body thatcontorted while his legs jerked grotesquely. He dangled from the rope,gasping and gurgling; his tongue wagged until after a short while it hunginertly between purple lips. Then there was stillness, and she saw that theprisoner was dead.“The woman approached a man whom she had not noticed before, butwhom she identified as someone of her land; his tunic and cut of hair toldher that he was a Chiapaneca. Now she wanted to know who that dead manwas and why he had been executed, so she crept close to the stranger andwhispered her questions.“‘Amigo, who is it that just died?’“The man was startled by her presence, so close to him all of a sudden.He looked at her, letting her know that he had understood her language butthat the woman had frightened him. He turned his head from one side to theother before responding.“‘I’ve heard rumors that his name is Lord Cuauhtémoc, a noble, the lastSpeaker of the Mexicas, the masters of Anahuac.’“‘Where is that place?’“‘It is far to the north.’“‘But why are they here, so distant from their land?’

“‘I heard that the captain general is in search of gold for himself and hismaster. He has already vanquished the Mexica empire and all its richness.When he was informed that these parts are rich in that metal, he feltcompelled to come and see for himself. Tongues also tell that he distrustedthe Mexica lord so much that he forced him to come along on the march.Our people wonder at the captain’s foolishness, since Cuauhtémoc is barelyable to walk. I hear he has been an invalid since having his feet burned bythe captain for not revealing the secrets of the Mexica people. Now LordCuauhtémoc is dead.’“‘Why has this happened?’“‘It is said that Cuauhtémoc was a traitor.’“‘A traitor? To whom?’“The man turned his gaze toward the woman. He seemed baffled by herquestion. He rolled his eyes, frowned and hunched his shoulders.“‘To them. Who else?’“When the woman moved away from him, she saw that the otherMexicas were on their knees, weeping. She stretched her neck to see moreand saw that the woman who had given her food was also crying. Shereturned her attention to the man.“‘Who is that woman?’“‘She is known as Huitzitzilín. She also is of the Mexica people, one oftheir noble families. She is famous among her people. I heard her tell thatshe was a witness to the assassination of Lord Moctezuma by the invaders,and that she even took part in expelling the captains from Tenochtitlán oneterrible night.’“‘Why is she here? Is she related to the nobles?’“‘Ah! You ask so many questions! I do not know why she is here. Noone knows why the others are here either. They are slaves now, no longernobles, and perhaps that is why they are here. Perhaps they werecommanded to come just as was Lord Cuauhtémoc.’“The woman remained silent as she stared first at Huitzitzilín, then at thedangling body of Cuauhtémoc. She was inundated by deep sorrow and asense that she had witnessed an event that would never be forgotten. Herthoughts were interrupted by the voice of the man.

“‘But see how the woman is with child? It is said that the child is that ofa white captain.’“‘One of the enemy is the father of her child? Did he force himself onher?’“‘I don’t know. How can anyone know?’“‘That is a terrible thing! What will the child look like?’“The man sucked his teeth and wagged his head, expressing confusion aswell as irritation. When he began to move away, the woman reached outand held onto him. His eyes slipped down from her face, stopping at a largescar of burned skin covering her left forearm and elbow. His eyebrowslifted, questioning her.“‘I was burned when I was a child. Someone pushed me into boilingwater.’“‘Ah! I’m sorry. Who would do such a thing?’“‘I have no recollection. When I try to remember, I can hear only myvoice weeping.’“The stranger looked at her steadily for a few minutes; he appeared towant to say something, but remained silent. After a while, he turned to lookat the assembled Mexicas and then returned his gaze to her.“‘Forgive me, but I must leave now.’“‘Wait, amigo! What about the strange one? The man with the cross inhis hands?’“‘He is a priest of the white religion. His name is Motolinía. It is aMexica name, but I do not know what it means.’“The man turned and walked away from her, and her eyes followed hismovements until he disappeared into the forest. The woman felt saddened,because he was one of her kind and now he had vanished. She was aloneonce again. She returned her attention to the cluster of mourners whohuddled around the body of their dead noble, still hanging from the ceibatree.“The woman felt compelled to help the Mexica bring down the corpse,and she assisted in disrobing the body, then rubbing it with ointments, andfinally shrouding it. All the while, she joined the grievers as they burnedcopal and murmured incantations. These prayers she could only mouth, notknowing the words but understanding that they were petitions on behalf of

the dead man for a safe journey to the other side. A litter was made, and onit the body was placed. She beheld all of these movements with curiosity,wondering where the Mexica would go to put their nobleman to rest.“Finally, when it became clear that the mourners intended to begin theirtrek to the north, the woman felt an urge to follow them, but decided insteadto return south, to the Valley of Ixtapa, where she might be reunited withher people. As the strangers departed, making their way through the dankforest, heading toward the place where she knew the gods dwelt, she turnedin the direction of her land, leaving that sad place to the hooting ofnocturnal birds and to sorcerers known to infest those parts.“Months passed before the woman finally arrived at Chiapas, the land ofher birth. Instead of family and home, however, she encountered gravemisery caused by enslavement, whippings, persecutions, and dogs thatravenously mutilated bodies. No matter how much she searched, she foundno one of her family. She crossed paths with men and women who wept,remembering the freedom into which they had been born but that had nowbeen snatched away.“But the day came when they could no longer tolerate that oppression.The Chiapanecas rose in rebellion against that injustice, and their resistanceand battles were so fierce that the Spaniards fled in terror to barricadethemselves in Comitán. It was from that small town that they regrouped,made contact with Captain General Cortés, and waited for assistance.“When other Spaniards arrived, they brought cannons, rifles, horses, andmore dogs. It was not easy for them, however, because the Chiapanecaschose to resist, and she was one of them. Battle after battle took place; eachtime the Spaniards were the winners. Their strongest weapon was thecannon, which not only ripped holes into mountainsides and dismemberedbodies, but caused terrible fear in the hearts of the Chiapaneca men andwomen. Slowly, her people were forced back, inch by inch, as they foughtwith arrows, sticks, and many times even with the nails of their fingers.“The Chiapanecas backed away, heading for Tuzla, the cradle of theirbeginnings, where no one even remembered from where or when they hadarrived. The woman knew the terrain; it was high in the mountains, split intwo parts by an immense gorge that fell in ravines toward a river. Everyoneknew it was their last stand; there was nowhere to escape to from there.That night, with the moon at its fullest, hundreds, thousands of the

Chiapaneca men and women decided that neither they nor their childrenwould live under the oppression of the invaders. The ritual began, and inclusters of families, they leaped over the ridge.“The woman decided to join the others and take her life, but she wasforced to wait for hours before reaching the ridge. The morning star wasrising by the time she and the last wave of Chiapanecas were nearing theedge. They clustered one against the other, knowing that in a few momentsthey would be on the other side of the sierra, there to begin their new life offreedom. As they began to chant the prayer of those who are passing, sheand the others heard the clatter of hooves. Pandemonium broke out.Understanding that the invaders would do anything to keep them alive for alifetime of slavery, the Chiapanecas, desperate to cheat the enemy, pushedto reach the ridge before the soldiers arrived.“The woman was close to the edge when she felt a pair of arms encircleher waist; at the same time, her feet were grabbed, and she was pulled to theground. She resisted, freeing her feet, then kicking and thrashing her legs,landing blows on the bearded face that pressed against her, and finally onthe man’s groin. She heard the pain-filled howl just as she bit into his arm,her mouth filled with coarse hair, nearly making her vomit. Disregardingher disgust, she clawed and contorted her body, trying to reach the edge ofthe cliff, but it was useless. She was to be one of the many held back to livethe life of a slave.”Chan K’in fell silent and returned to the pattern he had been drawing inthe sand. He seemed to be waiting for Adriana to speak, but when sheremained withdrawn, he spoke. He had no way of knowing that she wasstunned into silence by what he had said about the nameless woman’sscorched arm.“You want to know what all of this has to do with your dream?”“Yes.”“The people of this forest know that each one of us has lived not onlyonce, but in other times. What is happening to us now is a repetition of whathappened to us then. We also know that in each life we might have adifferent face or name, be a child or very old, or even be a man this time,and a woman the next. We repeat ourselves. You also have a repeated life.”Concentrating on Chan K’in’s words, Adriana wrinkled her brow. Shestared at him, listening, wondering if she had at last found the connection

between the old man’s words and her own story. She slipped her hand underthe long sleeve of her blouse and ran her fingers over the thick scar thatcovered her forearm.“Viejo, why do we not have a memory of those other lives?”“We do have a memory. We remember in our dreams.”Adriana lowered her head and leaned it to one side. She was looking atthe figure traced in the dirt by Chan K’in, trying to make it out, but it wasabstract, geometrical, and it held little meaning for her. As she listened, sherealized that his words were like that image: indecipherable, yet pointingthe way to understanding.“Could I be the woman of whom you’ve just spoken?”“Yes.”Adriana, intrigued by the ancient man’s ideas, thought for a while. Shewas moved by the possibility of being a native woman, living a repeatedlife.“If dreams can mirror our past lives, do you think they can also tell ourfuture?”The old man’s eyes narrowed to slits as he gazed at Adriana. Slowly,almost imperceptibly at first, he began to nod his head, which was thenfollowed by a swaying of his back.“What are you thinking, niña?”“I’m trying to understand what it is that I lost in my dream, and I can’tfind the answer. I believe it could be the loss of my mother and father, butwhat I feel is different, so I’m thinking that perhaps it’s something that I’lllose in the future.”“Perhaps it will be someone and not a thing at all.”Adriana tensed at the words coming from the old man because theyseemed to begin to answer her question. Her mind leaped, lunging indifferent directions, searching, not for something but for someone whoseloss might cause her such pain. She found only emptiness; there was noone. Her silence prompted Chan K’in to go on speaking.“Did you find someone who is important to you?”“No.”

“Yet that loss has inhabited your dreams. Perhaps it is someone whosepath has crossed yours in another time, another place, and who will againcome to you.”With those words, the old man got to his feet, dusted off dry leaves thatclung to his frayed tunic, and walked away from Adriana. She remainedsitting a long while, still cross-legged, elbows on her knees as she reflectedon what Chan K’in had said.She braced her elbows on her knees to cup her chin in her hands. Sheclosed her eyes. The sensations evoked by the nightmare were still with her,linking with other images she had recently dreamed. They blurred with thememories of her childhood, of her scarred arm, and those recollectionsstuck to the pit of her stomach, causing her much pain.

Chapter 4 She wondered if white things felt pain and sadness.When Adriana was seven, Doña Elvira died. Her husband became illshortly then after, and his children took him away. Adriana never saw himagain.“¿Qué vamos a hacer con esta niña? Es hija de negro, y su madre fueasesina.”Even then Adriana was aware that her African side made herunacceptable to many people in the barrio. Worst of all, no one hadforgotten what her mother had done to her father. No one wanted her until adaughter of Doña Elvira, Ramona Esquivel, finally took her in as a fosterchild. It was not affection that moved the woman to do this; it was themoney given to her by the county. Adriana knew this, and when she movedin with the Esquivel family, she did it filled with fear and sadness.There were other children, and except for Raquel, who was her age, theywere older than Adriana. All of them were resentful that she had intrudedon their family, and her silence only provoked them. Sometimes they beatup on her, though she fought back, she was usually pounded to the point ofwelts, bruises and tears. She hid in closets and under beds, but she could notstay in those places for long because she imagined that a putrid smellwrapped itself around her, taking her breath away, forcing her to come outof hiding before her terror turned into an asthma attack. Ramona Esquiveldid little to prevent her children from mistreating Adriana. At times sheeven joined them by making fun of her tight, curly hair and thick lips.“Look at you! You’re a real negrita, aren’t you?”The children laughed because of what their mother said, encouraging herto invent new ways to make them giggle. Adriana cried and tried to avoidthose mocking eyes. She did this by retreating into herself, pretending thatshe was elsewhere, that she was someone else. It was at that time that shelearned to be alone, and even to prefer to be by herself, although this only

brought back the memory of her father asleep on the kitchen table and hermother lying on red sheets.Adriana had been with the Esquivel family a few months when she andRaquel were sent to catechism school to prepare for their First HolyCommunion. She still refused to speak, even to the nuns, who tried to coaxher into responding to their questions.“Who made us?”“God made us.”“Raquel, I know you have the answers. I want Adriana to respond.”“Yes, Sister.”“Once again, Adriana. Who made us?”Adriana looked at the nun, refusing to break her silence, despite herliking the nun. She thought that Sister Geraldine was beautiful; she evenlooked like the statue of the Virgin Mary that was on the altar in the church.Her eyes were as blue, her skin was the same color of milk, and the veil shewore was almost the same as that of Mary.“Adriana, why won’t you respond? You know the answer, I’m sure. Youreyes tell me you can speak. Let me try another question. Why did Godmake us?”“God made us to love and serve him.”“Raquel! I know you know the answer. Please be quiet and give Adrianaa chance to speak.”“She won’t, Sister Geraldine. She never speaks, not even in school.She’ll never get out of first grade.”In time, the nuns gave up on Adriana answering the questions on Godand the Church. Nonetheless, they decided to put her forward with thegroup of boys and girls that would receive First Communion, hoping that itwould help her to open up.On that May day, Adriana was standing in line waiting for the processionto make its way into the church. Like the rest of the girls, she was dressedin a white dress, gloves and a long veil held at her temples by a band offlowers. Sister Geraldine went down the line handing each child a litcandle, which was to be held in the right hand, along with a rosary, as theymarched up to the altar. Most of the boys and girls were talking to oneanother, or to a parent, or to a sponsor, but, as always, Adriana was silent.

Her eyes were riveted on Raquel’s head; she was looking at the veil thatwas so white that it sparkled in the sunlight. She wondered if white thingsfelt pain and sadness, as she did.Sister Geraldine gave the signal for the children to begin the procession,then took her place at the end of the line. Inside the church, the organblasted out the hymn that signaled the children to begin the walk up theaisle. By the time Adriana stepped inside the high-vaulted vestibule, thechoir was singing O Sacrum Convivium, moving most of the mothers to dabtheir eyes in a show of emotion.As she walked, Adriana looked up at the paintings of saints and bishops;she was captivated by their faces and postures. Then she stared at the angelsand the huge statue of the Virgin Mary. Once, when the procession had topause, Adriana concentrated her eyes on the face of that statue, envying itsporcelain-white skin, blue eyes, upturned nose, and powder blue veil. Shelooked down at her brown arms, made darker by the contrast with her whitegloves and dress.When no one moved, Adriana realized that someone must have made amistake or taken the wrong seat, but she did not mind; she was not feelingimpatient. Instead, she again stared at Raquel’s veil, still wondering if it hadfeelings, and what would happen if she put the flame of her candle close tothe fine mesh.She looked around, trying to forget what had just come into her mind,but her curiosity grew until she decided to test it. At first nothing happenedas she neared the flame to the edge of the veil. She put it closer and closer,until a puff of smoke suddenly enveloped her face. She recoiled in shock asshe saw Raquel’s head in flames. Adriana thought that she looked longer,taller, as the flames swirled upward and her arms flailed wildly, trying to ripthe burning material from her head.“¡Ay! ¡La niña!”“¡Raquel! ¡Raquel!”An uproar shattered the reverence of the congregation as people rushedtoward Raquel in an attempt to help her. In a matter of seconds, a man tookoff his jacket and wrapped it around the girl’s head and shoulders. The otherchildren shrank back in terror, shrieking for a mother, a father, someone,anyone. The priest and two altar boys pressed their way through the milling,screaming crowd until they reached Raquel, whose whimpers became

weaker with each second. By the time her mother reached her, the girl hadlost consciousness. While all of this was happening, Adriana had fallenagainst a pew, watching, her eyes bulging.“¡Hija del diablo! ¡Hija de un diablo negro!”Raquel’s mother, in a hysterical fit, lunged toward Adriana, intending tohurt her. The woman’s words, telling her that she was the daughter of ablack devil, shocked Adriana even more, transporting her to the apartmentwhere her mother had murdered her father. Again, she smelled the stenchthat had invaded the place; she felt a tightness in her chest and her stomachturned until she vomited.Ramona Esquivel disregarded the mess at Adriana’s feet and she grabbedthe girl by the neck, shaking her with all the strength of her arms. Thecrowd stood aghast as she thrashed Adriana from one side to the other.Everyone was shouting and babbling.“¡La policía!”“¡Pronto!”“¡Una ambulancia!”Suddenly, from out of the throng, a pair of hands took hold of SeñoraEsquivel. The strength of that grip forced the woman from Adriana’s throat.The strong hands then took the girl through the crowd out of the church.Still gagging and breathing heavily, her face puffy and smeared with tears,Adriana looked up to see Sister Geraldine.“Why did you do such a thing, Adriana?”The nun muttered the question over and again, knowing that the girlwould not respond. Nonetheless, she felt compelled to ask because she wasbaffled by what had happened. She had never before experienced such atumult in church. Sister Geraldine stood staring down at Adriana; she, too,was breathing heavily.“I wanted to see if it would hurt the veil.”The nun began to say something that had nothing to do with whatAdriana had said, but cut off her own words abruptly. She blinked indisbelief at what she had heard: not Adriana’s words but rather her voice.The girl had spoken, and she did so in clear, correct words. There was noslurring, no incoherent connections. It was a complete, understandablesentence.

“Adriana! You can speak!”The nun, still shaken by the many unexpected happenings, took Adrianaby the shoulders as she turned her face up to hers. She looked intently at herface and head.“Little girl, you can speak!”Repeating her words, Sister Geraldine expressed her joy to Adriana, whoin turn was convinced that the nun was the Virgin Mary. If not, then shecertainly was an angel, the only one in her short life who had ever shownAdriana that she cared enough for her to protect her from pain.“She said that I’m the daughter of a black devil!”“Yes, she did say those words.”“Is that true, Sister?”“No! No one is the daughter of the devil. But you have to understandthat Señora Esquivel was very upset, and people say strange things whenthey’re frightened. God forbid it, but maybe Raquel will be scarred. You’llhave to apologize most sincerely to her and to God, and you must promisenever, never to do such a thing again.”As it turned out, Raquel Esquivel was not severely hurt; she lost most ofher hair but that grew back, and there were no scars left on her face.Apparently, the blaze everyone saw was that of the veil only. Aftercounseling and advice from the parish nuns, the family took Adriana back,but Ramona Esquivel tucked the incident in her heart, and never forgaveher.Not long afterward, when she was nearly eight years old, Ramona toldAdriana to heat water to wash the dinner dishes. Adriana did as she wastold, even though she could barely reach; she had to prop a chair against thestove to put the pan on top. However, when the water boiled and was ready,she knew that she could not carry it over to the sink, so she called SeñoraEsquivel and asked her to do it for her. Adriana was standing by the sinkwhen the woman, pot holders in hand, turned to her.“You want the water, m’ijita?”“Sí, señora.”“Where do you want it, mi chula?”Adriana turned to point her finger toward the kitchen sink when she feltthe searing pain of boiling water crash against her left side. She felt heat

invade her body, and it was so hot, so intense, that the light coming throughthe windows began to dim until she could barely see. The dimming soonbecame blackness, and then there was nothing.When Adriana regained consciousness, her eyes opened slowly to see anurse looking down at her. The face was a blur at first, then it began to takeshape, until finally it became clear. As the woman scrutinized her, Adrianaheard voices somewhere next to her bed.“Doctor, I tell you this was an accident.”“Explain how such a thing could happen accidentally if the child wasstanding by the sink, and the water was boiling on the stove? Remember,I’ve gone to your place, I’ve seen the kitchen, and anyone can see that thereis at least five feet of separation between the sink and stove.”“I’m telling you that she tried to pick up the pot and dropped the wholething on herself.”“But you’ve already said that she was standing by the sink.”“Well, I made a mistake! I didn’t mean it that way. Oh, shit! It’s all herfault. Look at what her mother did to her own husband. And look at whatthe little brat did to my Raquel! She’s a monster! I’m afraid of her.”“What does any child have to do with what her parents do, or don’t do?And as far as I’m concerned, what happened at that ceremony was just achildish thing. She had no idea of what could have happened! But this wasnot a childish prank nor an accident! This, Mrs. Esquivel, is very serious.Adriana will be lucky if she comes out of this without her face beingscarred. Her arm will be, that’s for sure. This is a terrible thing that’shappened to her. I can’t prove what really happened, but I can assure youthat she will not return to your place.”“¡Señorita Adriana! ¡Señorita Adriana!”The voices of several Lacandón girls yanked Adriana back to thepresent. It was time for her to join the women to begin the photo shoot.Adriana stood up, but the doctor’s voice was still ringing in her ears, as wasthe memory of pain, which hardly ever left her. She smiled at the girls,grateful that they had retrieved her from her past life. She signaled to themthat she would join them as soon as she got her equipment.

Chapter 5 The mountain spoke to us.The whir of turning film filled the air as Adriana aimed the camera andsnapped shot after shot. Surrounding her was a cluster of huts, each with itsopening facing a center in which kneeling women ground maize. Otherspatted tortillas into shape, then baked them on a comal placed over an openfire. Some women were embroidering huipiles, shawls worn by the villagewomen. Yet others were spinning cotton to be dyed and sewn into the fullskirts that marked the women of the tribe. These products would be sold inthe open markets of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Ocosingo.Adriana had been part of the village for several months, and in that timethe villagers, men as well as women, had come to feel at ease with her. Ithad been difficult in the beginning; no one would allow her to point acamera at them. Chan K’in explained that to reproduce a person’s image onpaper was the same as possessing the spirit of that man or woman. She hadexpected this, however, since many of the old women and men of her barrioin Los Angeles had similar ideas. She knew that trust had to happen beforeanything could be done, so she lived with them and waited until theyunderstood that she was a friend.“¡Micaela! ¡Muévete más para acá, por favor!”Whenever she asked one of the women to move closer, Adriana’s requestwas answered with a shy smile. She could overhear them twittering in theirlanguage. She knew they were gossiping about her, but she did not mind.She felt good about whatever they might say. She also liked the sound oftheir speaking because it echoed the sweet tones of bird songs filling the air.As she took each picture, she concentrated on faces while trying tocapture the dense jungle background. Sharp profiles with bird-like contoursattracted her most of all. Next to side views, Adriana focused on thealmond-shaped eyes outlined by long, straight lashes. She zoomed in onsmiles curved around small, white teeth, knowing that the black-and-whitefilm she used would capture the dark mahogany tones of the women’s skin.

Adriana looked to her left just in time to catch sight of a young mother,and, hoping to capture that image, she rapidly pointed her lens at the girl’shand as it uncovered a full breast. Muttering under her breath, Adriana gotcloser; she wanted to catch the image of the child as it suckled its mother’smilk.“¡Chispas! The girl can’t be more than thirteen.”She shot several frames of the mother and child before she lowered thecamera. Adriana focused her eyes on the young woman, thinking that shewas beautiful. She gazed at her face: an oval covered by brown, smoothskin. The girl’s eyes were filled with light; although Adriana knew theircolor was black, she thought that they appeared to be cast in silver. Thegirl’s hair was raven-colored, caught up in braids, with some escapedstrands, clinging to her forehead and neck.Adriana could not take her eyes off the girl’s face. She found the contrasthypnotic: the sight of the mother, still a child, offering the breast of a grownwoman to her baby. Adriana sat down by a tree, placed her camera next toher, and leaned against the trunk. She pulled a note pad from her pocket andbegan jotting down her impressions. As always, Adriana made carefulnotes, including not only the details of her subjects, but her own feelings aswell. Suddenly, a mix of emotions crept over her as she scribbled: love forthe young mother, envy because she was not the child sheltered in thosearms, sadness at having been robbed of love, fierce desire to discover thereason for her mother having murdered her father. Without warning, theexperience transported her thoughts to the beginning of her ownadolescence in Los Angeles.She was eleven years old. She was standing with Mrs. Hazlett on thecorner of Whittier and Kern; they were waiting for a bus. The social workerhad been Adriana’s case supervisor for a number of years, and the girl nowfelt at ease with her. In the beginning, when Adriana was recuperating fromher scalded arm, she had been afraid of Mrs. Hazlett, mostly because shewas different. She spoke only English, and she lived in a different part ofthe city. The woman was tall and lean. Her hair was a faded blond, her blueeyes were tiny, and she tended to squint them when she looked at people.

Her looks intimidated the girl for a while, but soon Adriana learned thatMrs. Hazlett was kind, that she wanted to help her.As they waited for the bus, Adriana, with her small suitcase proppedagainst her leg, felt sad because she was being placed in yet another home.She had been moved from foster home to foster home, and now she wouldhave to begin all over again. She would have to be with a new family, withdifferent people, but by now Adriana knew that anything could happen.Those people might like her, or maybe dislike her. There was a biggerchance, she thought, that they would not care for her, and no matter howmuch she tried to tell herself it did not matter, she was still afraid ofrejection.The street was clogged with cars and people who bustled in and out ofstores and small restaurants. Sidewalk vendors peddled fruit salad in papercones, music on cassettes, handmade jewelry, even shoes and shirts.Adriana wiggled her nose, sniffing the odor of frying food as she stared atpeople eating off paper plates while they waited for the bus. She wasfamiliar with the sounds and sights of that part of East Los Angeles becauseshe had been living with a family around the corner on Arizona Street.“My, my, that sure smells yummy!”Adriana knew that Mrs. Hazlett was trying to make things easier for herby speaking that way. She doubted that the social worker really liked thesmells. She even wondered if Mrs. Hazlett ever ate anything fried, or if sheate with her fingers the way those people were eating. She decided not tosay anything; instead, she pretended to be looking out for the bus.Mrs. Hazlett went on trying to cheer up Adriana. She made funny facesand quick remarks, hoping to lessen Adriana’s latest displacement, to makeit less depressing. The girl understood this, and she was grateful, yet shecould not help feeling sad.“Look, honey, it’s better to have a change of scenery. Just think of all therest of us who have to live day in and day out in the same old house. Atleast you move around. You’ll never be bored, that’s for sure.”Adriana pretended to giggle, but it was fake, unconvincing. She knewthat the families with whom she had lived never wanted her in the firstplace, that not one had ever loved her. At times she blamed the scar on herarm, thinking that it must have made her repugnant to anyone who saw it.At other times she was certain that a smelly cloud hung over her, forcing

people to back away from her. She wondered how it felt to be loved. Wheredid a person feel love? In the stomach? In the mouth? Where? The onlything she really knew was fear, which she felt all over her body, especiallyin her chest when her breathing became difficult and when her heartpounded against her ribs.“I know, Mrs. Hazlett. I’m sure there are a lot of kids who would love tobe like me. But I think that I would like to stay in one place for a long time,just for a change.”The bus finally came. It was packed, but Adriana and Mrs. Hazlett soongot a seat. Once they sat down, they were jostled back and forth, from sideto side as the bus jerked, stopping, going, dodging traffic. Adriana lookedaround, convinced that people were staring at her, but then she rememberedthat Mrs. Hazlett was different from the rest of the passengers, and shedecided that she was the reason people were looking at them.Adriana was relieved when they got off the bus at the corner of FourthStreet and Soto. She knew they were in Boyle Heights, a part of LosAngeles not far from the east side. Adriana looked up and down the streetand saw that it was just as crowded as where they had waited for the bus.Then she tugged at Mrs. Hazlett’s sleeve to get her attention.“Mrs. Hazlett, what’s the name of the family that I’m going to livewith?”“Orvitz. No! Wait a minute, that’s not right. Let me check.”Mrs. Hazlett pulled papers out of a bulky satchel hanging from her leftarm. She fumbled for a while, struggling because there was a breeze thatwhipped the pages from side to side.“Here it is. The family’s name is Ortiz. The house is just around thecorner. I’ve visited them, Adriana, and I know you’ll like them. SeñoraOrtiz has fixed up a room for you of your very own.”She took Adriana’s hand, and together they walked the short distance tothe two-story frame house. As they moved, the older woman spoke to thegirl, using encouraging and affectionate words. She said things that she hadnever before said to Adriana, so the girl listened carefully.“Remember, Adriana, that even though you don’t have parents, orbrothers or sisters, or anyone else like that, still you’ll find people who willcare just as much for you.”

“Like who, Mrs. Hazlett?”“Well, like friends. Friends can love us just as much as family.”“No one has ever loved me.”“That’s not true, Adriana. I care very much for you. I always will. Ah!Here we are. The Orvitz house.”“Ortiz, Mrs. Hazlett. Ortiz.”Adriana had no way of knowing at that time that the family in whichMrs. Hazlett placed her would be the last of her foster homes. Neither didshe know that it was there, in the home of the Ortiz family, that she wouldwitness her body change from that of a child into that of a woman.“Señorita Adriana.”Adriana was pulled away from her memories by a voice calling out hername. Caught by surprise, she could not make out where the voice wascoming from, or who it was that was calling. She sat up, turning in differentdirections, but all she saw were the women at their tasks; no one seemed tobe looking at her or wanting her attention.“Señorita Adriana.”Soon a figure moved away from the dense shadows of the forest into aclearing, showing herself. The woman approached Adriana who, still sittingby the tree, squinted her eyes as she tried to identify the stranger. When shecame near enough to Adriana, she extended her hand.“Me llamo Juana Galván. Mujer de la gente Tzeltal.”Adriana stumbled to her feet to return the handshake and acknowledgeher name. When she straightened up, she realized that she was much tallerthan the woman standing in front of her. She saw that Juana was diminutive,smaller yet than the other women of the tribe.“Sí. Mucho gusto. Soy Adriana Mora.”The other woman nodded, letting Adriana know that she was aware ofher name. Adriana looked at her intently, sensing that the woman wassomeone of importance in the tribe. For a moment, her eyes fixed on acrescent-shaped scar stamped over her left eyebrow. Adriana had neverbefore seen her, but Juana Galván, Adriana saw, walked and held herself in

a special manner. Both women looked at one another, taking in height,looks, ages.“Why don’t we sit down? Here where I was sitting.”They sat cross-legged, with elbows on knees. They were silent, stillscrutinizing one another. The day was drawing to its end, and the junglenoises were escalating toward their night pitch.“You were lost in thought. I had been watching you for a while, and youseemed to be far away.”“Yes. I was reliving my childhood.”“I do that often also. Where are you from, Adriana Mora?”“I’m from Los Angeles in California. Have you heard of it?”“Yes. Some of our young men have left us to go there to work and live.Most of them never return. They say it’s too far to come back. Is that true?”“Yes, it’s true. Los Angeles is far away from here.”“How did you get here?”“I first went to New Mexico. I went there to begin my work. I planned totake photographs of the women of the Hopi tribe.”“Are they people like us?”“Yes. In many ways.”“Would you say that we’re all related?”“Yes.”Juana and Adriana fell silent, as if listening to the rise and fall ofrhythms emerging from the jungle, but they were really considering oneanother. Beyond them, the howling monkeys, at times barking like dogs,then roaring like jaguars, made the loudest racket. Adriana returned to herstory.“I worked a few months with the tribe, but then I read a story about thepeople of these parts; it appeared in a magazine that had photographsincluded in it. Something in those pictures drew me. I wanted to come hereand see this jungle with my own eyes, so I put my things together and camehere.”“You did this by yourself?”“There were other people. I wasn’t the only one.”

“What I mean is, do you have brothers or sisters? Do you have ahusband?”Adriana felt herself tightening with each of Juana’s questions. She beganto feel uncomfortable, edgy. Instead of responding, she turned the directionof the conversation.“And you, Juana, are you from these parts?”“Yes. I have lived in the Lacandona all of my life.”They again became silent, giving way to the inner threads that wereconnecting them one to the other. After a few moments, Juana spoke as shejutted her chin in the direction of the camera.“You record images with that machine?”“Yes. I’m a photographer.”“That’s how you live?”“I try.”“You were writing in that pad. Are you also a scribe?”“Not exactly. I write down my impressions of a photograph, that’s all.”“Why do you do that?”“I might forget what I was thinking, what I was feeling, or there mightbe a color or a detail that I want to remember especially. Writing thosethings will help me remember later on when I examine the pictures I take.”Juana smiled as she pulled blades of grass from the ground, rubbing eachone between her index finger and thumb. She looked at Adriana, whoreturned her gaze.“When you take the images of our women, what is it that you’re lookingfor?”“I can’t be certain, Juana, but I think that what I hope to find is thetruth.”“The truth? About what?”“About the women.”“You think you’re looking at the truth when you take pictures of womentoiling, breaking their backs, growing old before their time, buried in themud of ignorance?”“You find what I’m doing wrong?”“No! Not wrong, but empty.”

Adriana, feeling misunderstood, did not like the direction theconversation was taking. She did not want it to continue that way, so shedecided to stop its momentum.“Please tell me the meaning of your words, Juana. I recognize them but Idon’t understand their meaning.”“When you take the face of a woman with your camera, and herexpression reflects misery, it is not enough to have that image on paperonly. You must also capture her spirit, and the reasons for its anguish.”Adriana’s mind jerked; she was astonished. The impact of Juana’s wordsmoved her profoundly because it was as if Juana had been able to reach intoher heart, into her soul, and discover what she most desired to do with herwork, with her life. She realized that Juana did understand her after all. Shenodded, letting Juana know that she agreed with her.Juana, her head tilted slightly to one side, did not take her eyes fromAdriana’s. Her gaze was intense; it lingered for moments on the otherwoman’s face. She appeared to be deliberating, considering an idea,analyzing it, bringing it closer to her tongue.“I know that you’ve seen the poverty in which we live. Our girls are soldfor a few pesos without having the right to say if they desire to be marriedor if they want children.”Adriana, who had been shifting her weight from one haunch to the other,not because of fatigue but because of tension, nodded, acknowledging thatshe understood Juana’s comments.“Twelve years ago, when I was your age, I took refuge in the mountains.There I joined men and women of my tribe, and other people who hadgathered to prepare to break the yoke that was imposed on us centuries ago.The mountain spoke to us; it told us to take up arms, and we listened. Wehave been training up there, gathering arms and information regarding ourenemies.”“Why are you telling me this? I’m not one of your people.”“No, you’re not, but soon you will be, and we’re certain that you will notbetray us. Besides, you, too, have suffered, haven’t you?”Adriana was astounded by Juana’s question, which she heard more withher heart than with her ears. Her dream returned to her. Fragments ofmemory flashed in her mind: someone like her running, terrified and

panting through dense jungle. Then Juana, contemplating Adriana, movedher lips as if to say something, but she kept quiet. A few moments passed,and when Adriana did not say anything, Juana again spoke. She repeatedthe question.“You have suffered, haven’t you?”“Yes.”“Inside and outside?”“Yes.”“That scar on your arm, is it part of the pain?”“Yes. It happened when I was a girl. Someone wanted to hurt me.”“The hurt was much deeper than your skin?”“Yes.”Juana looked away, thinking of Adriana’s pain while she touched thescar that curved over her eyebrow. When she returned her gaze, it was toagain look into Adriana’s eyes.“Some anguish is never forgotten.”It was Adriana who now opened her mouth to speak, but no sound cameout. The words froze in her mouth, suddenly blocked by an intense surge ofaffection for Juana. This unexpected emotion startled and confused her,causing her to recoil and to want to end the conversation. Sensing theturmoil that was accosting Adriana, Juana pursued.“Join us, Adriana.”“What good could I be to you? I’m not a native, much less do I havetraining in what you’re planning.”Juana straightened her back and she crossed her arms over her breasts. Itwas only then that Adriana focused on that part of her body; until thatmoment she had concentrated only on Juana’s face. She took in theembroidered, faded cotton blouse. The sash around her waist showed off thesmall woman’s plumpness.“We are about to embark on a plan for which we’ve been preparing formany years, one that will return to us what was snatched away long ago. Itwill be painful, and it will cause anguish, but it must take place. All of ouractions should be chronicled in writing as well as in images for the world tosee. You can do that for us.”

Adriana’s body drooped, accosted by a mix of fear and excitement. Aswirl of unrecognizable emotions caused by the woman facing her filledher, shaking her, forcing her to confront the vulnerability and loneliness thathad stalked her since her childhood. She felt a compelling attraction, a pulltowards Juana she had never before experienced for anyone. She lookedaway from her because she feared that what she was feeling would leak outthrough her eyes.“Will the people accept me?”“They already have. That is why I’m here speaking to you.”“Where will I get my supplies?”“We will see that you have what you need.”“Is there going to be bloodshed?”“Yes.”The thought of violence shocked Adriana, forcing her to wonder if shehad the courage. On the one hand, she found it easy to identify with thesuffering of the natives; she had recognized it each time she focused herlens on a woman; she saw it stamped on her face. She was convinced thatshe understood their misery because it reminded her of something inside ofher. Yet the shedding of blood was another consideration. She looked atJuana.“I don’t know if I have the courage.”“None of us knows that until the time comes.”Adriana nodded, remembering that she had yearned to understand thereality behind the images she captured on film. How else could she do that,she asked herself, except to get as close as possible to her subjects. To joinJuana would be dangerous, yet the idea of being in the heart of the conflictenticed her, making her forget whatever peril might come her way.However, without knowing it, much less admitting it, Adriana was above allseduced by Juana’s image, by her voice, by her ideas. In her mind Adrianahad already said yes.She returned to the palapa to pack her personal belongings; the camerasand attachments she would carry separately. As she sorted lenses, film andnotes on the cot, she felt apprehensive about what she was about to do, andthe haste with which she had agreed to join the rebels. She was morefearful, however, of the storm of emotions that had been unleashed in her

soul by her meeting with Juana. She tried to stop thinking of her and toconcentrate on what she was about to do, but the indigenous woman’s faceand her figure would not be erased from Adriana’s thoughts.She forced herself to think of practical things. She had been able to mailpart of her work to an editor in Los Angeles, but she had a collection ofrecent shots, along with numerous notes, still to be organized. She had todecide what to do with those photos and descriptions. After a while, sheplaced the material in a canvas bag, and left the palapa in search of ChanK’in. She found him at the edge of a clearing, working with a boy; theywere mending a broken farming tool. At first, neither of them saw Adrianastanding by their side, and she had to clear her voice to get their attention.“Buenas tardes, Chan K’in.”Her words startled him out of his concentration. The boy, too, wassurprised. When they realized that she was standing by their side, they gotto their feet.The old man smiled a toothless greeting. “Buenas tardes, niña.”With an eye signal, he told the boy to leave. When they were alone,Adriana sat down on the ground and crossed her knees. Chan K’in did thesame; he was still smiling.“I hear you are leaving. Voices say you are going up to the mountains.”Adriana was unable to mask her surprise upon discovering that the oldman knew her plans, since she had told no one of her conversation withJuana Galván. She looked at her watch and realized that less than an hourhad passed since she agreed to leave the village.“What do you think, viejo?”“I think it is good for you to do that. Your work will be important; theworld will see what is happening here.”“But I don’t even know who I’ll be living with, or in what way I’ll beable to help. Perhaps I’ll be nothing more than an intruder, a foreigner.”“That is not the case, niña. You are part of us. We used to be like stones,like plants along the road. We had no word, no face, no name, no tomorrow.We did not exist. But now we have vision; we know the road on which weare to embark, and we invite you to come and seek, to find yourself, and tofind us. We are you, and you are us, and through you the world will come toknow the truth.”

Adriana narrowed her eyes, concentrating her gaze on Chan K’in’scraggy face. She was touched, even surprised by his words and the intensityof their meaning. His voice, too, sounded youthful, vigorous; it filled herwith the courage that she had been missing only minutes before. She slowlyrocked back and forth on her haunches, thinking of what the old man hadjust said, especially about his invitation for her to find herself. Juana’simage flashed in her mind, and behind it came a memory she had longbefore forgotten. She had made love with a man, but she had not felt thenwhat she was feeling now for the small, indigenous woman.“I love you, Adriana.”Kenny’s mouth clung to hers as he rolled off of her. They had justfinished making love, but they were still locked in an embrace of legs andarms, hoping that the pleasure they had just experienced would not goaway. It was a dark night on Point Fermin, the place where she and Kennyoften met to talk and to be with one another.They were quiet for a long while, listening to the sound of wavescrashing against cliffs and rocks, but the breeze skimming off the Pacificwas cool, forcing them to put on their clothes. After that they sat side byside looking out toward Santa Catalina Island; scattered lights glimmeredfrom that shore.“Let’s get married, Adriana.”She listened to him but did not respond. Instead, she drew her kneestoward her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin there.Adriana seemed to be concentrating on the island’s faroff lights.“Why won’t you marry me?”“I don’t know.”“I don’t understand. We go through this every time we make love. Iknow you love me; I can feel it. Yet when it comes down to marrying me,nothing!”Adriana could not deny what Kenny was saying. When she was lockedin his embrace, her body did not hold back its pleasure. But, whenever hespoke of marriage, something inside of her shut down. She was afraid, andshe did not know what it was that frightened her. All she understood wasthat he offered something she could not return because her soul would not

let her do it. She felt that something inside of her was locked up, closed inon itself.“Kenny, I’m about to finish my courses. After that I’ll be able to beginwork as a photographer. I need to see how that goes. I need time, that’s all.”He got to his feet, frustrated with her response. Without a word, heturned from her and made his way toward the car. Adriana followed him,but once in the car, he refused to speak to her as they drove toward East LosAngeles. That was the last time she and Kenny Wallis saw each other.Adriana and Chan K’in remained silent for a long time facing oneanother, listening to the heightening of the jungle’s nocturnal voices andmurmuring. She felt the clamor intensifying their silence, creating anenergy that coursed its way through her arteries, her bones, muscles, brain,her entire being. Adriana smiled at Chan K’in, nodded, and then turned tothe satchel she still clutched in her hands.“Viejo, will you take care of this bag for me? It contains photographsand writings about the village. I think it’s good material, and when I return,I want to send them back home.”“I’ll watch over your things. In the meantime, let me give you myblessing.”Adriana bowed her head when she felt the weight of Chan K’in’s gnarledhands on it. She had little memory of her father and mother, but sheimagined them to be inhabiting the old man’s body at that moment. It wastheir blessing that was coursing through her body and soul, and it came toher through the bony fingers of the old Lacandón man.

Chapter 6 You have already been among us.Their trek to the mountain began at nightfall. Juana explained that it wassafer that way; the moon was full, and there would be enough light. As theybegan to make their way through the jungle, Juana said that they would bealone, but soon after this, Adriana felt that other people were walking alongwith them, heading in the same direction they were taking. SometimesAdriana slowed down, focusing her eyes on the gloom that surrounded herand Juana, but she saw nothing; she could only sense forms of peoplesomewhere nearby.Juana, with only a rolled-up petate lashed to her back, silently led theway, picking her way through the matted undergrowth. Adriana, toting afull backpack, followed the diminutive figure closely and concentrated onher black hair twisted into a braid reaching to her waist, the embroideredblouse covering her narrow rounded back, the wide sash girding her hips,the dark woolen skirt hanging limply to her ankles.As Adriana struggled with her load, she noticed that Juana movedsteadily, confidently, each step placed carefully on the right spot. Herhuaraches appeared to be part of the earth, curving around stones, moldingthemselves into the soft soil as she moved. Adriana’s boots, on the otherhand, became heavier, more cumbersome with each step, and she wishedthat she had exchanged them for sandals.The women moved through the jungle for several hours, pausing only torelieve themselves or to drink water. Finally, Juana stopped and gave asignal with her hand; it was time to interrupt their march. Adriana wasgrateful because she felt fatigued, thirsty and sleepy. She was soaked insweat, and her hands and face were scratched and stung by mosquitoes.Adriana eagerly looked around, searching for a place to unroll her sleepingbag. As she did this, she again sensed that others were with them, but shestill could not make them out. She saw nothing as she squinted. There wereonly shadows. She remembered the dream she had experienced the previousnight. In it she had felt the same thing: others beside herself, in the jungle,

lost and frightened. She decided that it was her imagination, prompted byher dreams and the ghostly shadows of the jungle.“We’ll rest here for a few hours. We can begin our march before dawn.We’ll be in camp by sunrise.”Juana spoke in clipped sentences, putting her lips close to Adriana’s ear;it was almost a whisper. Without thinking, Adriana eased her head closer toJuana’s mouth, and her nostrils picked up the other woman’s scent, a smokyfragrance mixed with the aroma of damp earth. She nodded and watchedher as she laid out her petate, on which she sat back on her heels. From asack she took out yuca and, after a moment, she handed half of it toAdriana. They ate in silence until Juana spoke.“You will make a good compañera.”“Why do you say that?”“Because I feel it here.”Juana tapped her chest and smiled at Adriana, who wrestled with a floodof emotion. She stared at Juana, both hoping and fearing that she would saymore, but Juana kept quiet, and after a while she rolled off her heels,reclined on her side and appeared to fall asleep.Adriana tried to sleep, but she was so tired that she could not. Every timeshe began to drift off, a jerking muscle violently yanked her back. Not eventhe lilting sound of murmuring cicadas and chirping crickets that filled thejungle’s darkness could put her to sleep. Finally, she decided to concentrateon the shadows cast by moonlight, hoping that this would help her relax.She stared at a large spot, a lagoon of light, not far from where she lay. Itshimmered like a mirror, reflecting different patterns against a tree trunk.As fronds and vines moved in the breeze, Adriana thought she made outstrange forms: a serpent wrapping itself around a tree; an enormous insectswooping over her, spreading its wings, fluttering and opening them, thenclosing in on itself; a creature with a pointed snout, sniffing, rummaging inthe gloom.Despite the heat Adriana shuddered. So she clamped her eyes shut anddrew the top of the bag over her head, but the images persisted behind hereyelids. That bright jungle mirror seemed to reach out to her. Sheconcentrated, trying to dispel its lure. After a while she was relieved whenthe reflections began to fade. Her mind calmed, drifted.

She remembered another mirror; she was eighteen years old. She was inthe bathroom of the Ortiz home, naked and contemplating her body.Someone was knocking at the door, telling her to hurry. She continuedstaring at her reflection, ignoring the pleading. She looked at herself. Nolonger a child, she had grown tall, thin but shapely. Her skin was the colorof coffee with cream, lighter in some places, darker in others, especiallyalong the inner part of her thighs and the cleavage between her breasts. Shestared at the nipples, which stood out taut, nearly black.Her eyes shifted to the side and focused on the scar on her arm; shetouched it carefully, softly, nearly expecting to feel the old pain. It wasdifficult for her to forget the anguish, and often she imagined that the scarwas hurting her all over again. She closed her eyes to get rid of thesensation. When she opened them again, she looked below her waist,stopping to examine the mound of thick hair between her legs, and fromthere down to her knees, calves and feet.With her eyes riveted on the mirror, Adriana gazed upward to her neckand face. There she saw a broad forehead, a straight, short nose, slightlybulbous at its tip. Beneath it were her full, wide lips, outlined by a darkbrown hue tinged with purple. She lifted her hands to her hair, feeling itstight curls, its thickness. She then looked into her eyes, which peered backat her. They were almond-shaped with short, curled lashes; their pupils weredark brown, flecked with green.The knocking became pounding, but Adriana refused to move. She wasspellbound by the sensations welling up inside and outside of her body. Herskin and hair felt connected to desires she sensed in her mind, in herstomach, on her breasts, in the intimacy between her thighs. Soon the fistswere hammering on the door with such force that she felt the vibrations onher shoulders. Suddenly, the door broke down, and something came at her,forcing her to run, to sprint through the jungle, naked and vulnerable. Herbreath caught in her throat; she began to choke because her lungs had runout of air. Something was behind her, gaining on her, lunging at her. Shecried out.“Adriana. ¡Despierta!”

She awoke to find Juana holding her. Drenched in perspiration and withher face smeared with tears, Adriana felt her heart pounding wildly; shecould not breathe. She struggled against suffocation while she stretched andgrabbed at the backpack, fumbling, tugging. She finally found the inhaler.She shoved it into her mouth and pumped, then she inhaled deeply andwaited for her lungs to stabilize.Juana held her in her arms until Adriana was able to calm down. Shewiped the sweat off her face, all the time reminding her that it had been anightmare, that she was safe, that nothing would harm her. Juana’s softwords reassured Adriana, calming her, allowing her to again fall into a deepand this time peaceful sleep. She was unaware of how long she had sleptuntil she became aware of Juana’s voice.“It’s time.”Juana was nudging her shoulders, whispering, trying to awaken her, butAdriana’s sleep was sound, and it took her seconds to realize where she wasand who was calling her. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind, butshe was still half asleep, unable to distinguish where and how her dreamhad ended. Suddenly, she felt a rushing urge to relieve herself. She easedherself away from Juana’s arms and crawled out of the sleeping bag stoodup and walked to the ferns, where she unzipped her pants, squatted, andallowed her body to drain. Then she returned to where Juana waited for her.Without saying a word, Juana turned and began to make her way throughthe jungle. Adriana looked around expecting to see someone, whoever itwas that had pursued her in her dream, in her mind. She saw only trees andthick undergrowth. She walked slowly, following Juana, at the same timereminding herself that it had been only a dream, her imagination that hadevoked those shadows. Nothing more. The words uttered by Chan K’infloated back to her, and she wondered if it really could be possible thatperhaps in more than a dream she had been chased through this jungle inanother era. She shrugged her shoulders, balanced her backpack, and pickedup her pace behind Juana.By the time the sun was rising, Juana and Adriana filed into camp. Thefragrance of tortillas hissing on comales wrapped itself around Adriana’snose, making her mouth water. Despite being exhausted, she felt a burst ofnew energy as she took in her surroundings. She saw at a glance that thecamp took up a large clearing in the jungle, where palapas and other

structures served as shelters. In most of those huts, she noticed that therewere weapons of different types.To the side she saw a sturdier house with windows. It was raised on afoundation, with stairs leading to a deck, then to the front entrance. Juanamade her way to that structure, and as she and Adriana approached, menand women came out to greet them with smiles and embraces. There wasmuch noise and jabbering.After a few minutes, however, Adriana perceived a marked change inmood. Serious expressions replaced smiles; joyful eyes became somber.Astounded, she looked around, taking in faces as she tried to discern thecause of the sudden change. Juana signaled her to stay where she was whileshe moved aside to speak with two members of the group. Adriana kept hereyes on the three, all the while knowing from Juana’s body movements thatsomething important was being discussed. In a few moments, Juana noddedand walked toward Adriana.Meanwhile, Adriana’s attention returned to the men and women millingaround her. She saw that they were all indigenous. She was surprised by thenumber of women, most of them young, who had made themselves part ofthat army. She concentrated on their faces, on the strength reflected in theireyes. Those were the faces that the world beyond the jungle would soon beseeing through the camera lens. There were a few older people, but most ofthat army of men and women, she noticed, appeared to be in their twentiesand thirties. Adriana could not understand what they were saying in theirlanguage. She did realize, however, that no one spoke Juana’s name.Instead, she heard the word “capitán” as it was repeated over and again inSpanish.When they reached the stairs leading up to the house, the throngdispersed and Juana gestured to Adriana to put down her gear.“Here I am known as Capitán Insurgente Isabel.”“You’re an officer?”“Yes. We’re an army.”Adriana, not knowing what to say, kept silent. She inwardly reproachedherself for being naïve, for not having prepared herself for what she wasencountering.“Why are you surprised? All armies have officers.”

“But you’re a woman.”“We’re all equal in this army.”“You even have a different name.”“We give up our original names as we give up the old ways.”Embarrassed, but not knowing exactly why, Adriana was at a loss as towhat to say; she only nodded. Again, she admired Juana’s way, the mannerin which she transformed what could be complicated into something simpleand natural.When they reached the top of the stairs, Adriana looked through theentrance and caught glimpses of men and women in discussion. As she andJuana entered, everyone turned in their direction, momentarily surprised,but then obviously relieved to see them. Adriana sensed that they had beenworried about their well-being. Along with this impression, she felt a heavymood in the room; tension seemed to hang in the air like a pall.Her eyes scanned those faces, moving from one to the other—seeing thatsome of the men were mestizos, and that they, as well as the women, wereall armed. These men and women were the leaders—of this she was certain—and as she had done minutes before, she concentrated on expressions,observing the jutting jaw of the man turning toward her, the prominentforehead of the woman looking intently at her, the nose of the womanstanding next to her. Later on, when these same people would put on masksto erase their faces, Adriana would be able to recognize each one by thecharacteristics she first observed as she met them.Again, Juana moved away from Adriana to approach one of the men.With him she engaged in a long, whispered conversation that betrayedsurprise, then what Adriana interpreted as exasperation. As they spoke, theothers kept silent, apparently knowing what Juana was hearing. When theywere finished, she nodded to the man and returned to the group. Juanaspoke in a low voice, her eyes shrouded as if she were thinking ofsomething else. “Compañeros, this is Adriana Mora. She has agreed tobecome part of our cause and to chronicle the enterprise on film. From here,the images she records will go out to the world.”Juana’s voice was steady and clear as she spoke in Spanish. Adriana wasmoved by Juana’s words because she had never been made to feel sowelcome. The apprehensions she had experienced melted away, leaving hercertain that what she was about to do was important and necessary.

Juana took Adriana to each of the officers, women and men, indigenousand mestizo. Even though they did not speak to her, she saw that theyaccepted her. Most of them shook her hand, others patted her on theshoulder.“This is El Subcomandante, our spokesman.”“This is Major Ana María.”“This is Comandante Ramona.”Juana paused when they neared a man who wore the long cotton tunic ofthe Lacandones over which he had strapped a cartridge belt and revolver athis waist. Adriana looked down at his feet, taking in the worn huarachesthat did not cover heavily callused heels and toes. She noticed also that hisfeet were oversized, too big, for his mediumsized body, and that one toewas missing from each foot.“This is Coronel Insurgente Orlando Flores.”Juana paused as she looked at the officer, and her face took on a seriousexpression showing respect as she introduced the Lacandón rebel. She thenwent on to name the other insurgents.After that she helped Adriana with her gear and showed her where shewould stay. It was a palapa, like the one she had in Pichucalco. Here, too,was a cot with a net covering as well as a basin and water jug placed on topof a small table. Adriana understood that she was being shown privilegebecause she had already noted that the rest, males and females, inhabitedthe long, open huts along the fringe of the camp, and that they slept inhammocks.From there Juana took her to the stream that skirted the living area andpointed to a bend where a waterfall churned up foam and spray. Then sheshowed her to the outhouses and to the communal kitchen. Everyone, sheexplained, helped with the cooking, cleaning and laundry. After the tour ofthe grounds, they returned to the palapa.“For now, rest and get used to your new base. Tell me what you need,and I’ll see that you get it. I’ll show you what we do tomorrow.”Adriana gazed at Juana. She again felt a strong pull toward her,compounded now by a sense that something dangerous was about tounleash itself on the camp. She hesitated, not knowing if she had the right

to ask, fearing that her question might sound like prying. After a fewmoments of wavering, she spoke up.“Juana, what’s happening?”“Why do you ask?”“I felt that something was wrong from the first moments with the group.The compañeros appear apprehensive.”Juana, with her usual directions, did not delay her answer. She looked atAdriana, head tilted to one side, allowing her face to show her thoughts.“Two policemen were killed. It was a brutal murder. They were mutilatedand cut into pieces. Now the catxul blame our people; thirteen men from thecanyons have been arrested. We have no doubt that they will be tortured andkilled.”Juana’s terse words had a deep effect on Adriana. She understood thatthe violence she had feared was already staring at her with unblinking eyes.Despite the little knowledge she had of the insurgents and her lack ofawareness of their plans, she knew that they were at a crossroad.“The Bishop has called for a rally. It’s to take place up there, in thecanyons,” said Juana, jutting her jaw, pointing in an upward direction.Then Juana tapped Adriana’s shoulder to let her know that she hadnothing more to say. She turned and walked away, heading for the center ofthe compound.Adriana stood looking at her until she disappeared into a hut. Shewondered if Juana was experiencing a similar inner turmoil. In her mind,Adriana examined every detail, every gesture of Juana’s, trying to discovera hint of what the woman thought of her, felt for her, but only the sensationof Juana’s arms around her as she fell asleep prevailed.Intense heat and humidity had now taken hold of the jungle. Adriana feltsweat seeping through her clothes and socks. She tried to put aside herdiscomfort as she rummaged through her backpack looking for her notepad. When she found it, she went to the small table and began to record herthoughts, observations and feelings.She noted the impact Juana was having on her and the confusion thatwas gripping her, as well as the unaccountable joy she was experiencing.With equal detail, she noted her fears and her admiration for the fierce

determination she had detected in the insurgents. When she finished,Adriana reread her notes and absentmindedly mouthed a faint yes.She sat at the rickety table for a while, allowing her thoughts to focus onthe insurgents. Like vivid photographs, each face was etched in her mind,and she again felt apprehensive, understanding the magnitude of theirmission. Again, Adriana wondered if she had the courage to be a part of it.With that weighing heavily on her mind, she moved to the cot, bent overand untied the laces of her boots. Putting one foot on her knee, she gruntedand struggled to pull off her drenched socks and heavy shoes. Adrianasighed with relief as she wiggled her toes in the air.She got to her feet and began peeling off clothing: canvas vest, khakishirt and pants, bra, panties. She stood naked for minutes, letting the sweatevaporate off her body. Then she reached into the backpack and pulled out along shirt, put it on and went out, making her way up the stream to thewaterfall. There she took off her shirt, slid down the grassy bank and wadedin toward a small pool of clear, swirling water. Heavy mist covered her,drenching her hair and skin, relieving her of the extreme heat her body hadbeen experiencing.Adriana dove down to discover that the bottom was several feet below.Resurfacing, she surrendered to the swirling emerald-colored water, faceuplifted, arms and legs outstretched as she floated listlessly, allowing thecurrent to swivel her in repeated circles. She clenched and unclenched herfingers, enjoying the pleasure of weightlessness, feeling the watery caresson her breasts and thighs. She looked up at the mahogany and ceiba trees,their branches and leaves meshed into a plush, green-black canopy aboveher. She narrowed her eyes taking in the colors: deep green, amber, black,emerald, yellow, orange. She was dazzled by the jungle that teemed withbutterflies, birds and flowers. Everywhere she looked there was dampness,richness, beauty. She closed her eyes and listened to the roar of the cascadeand the incessant cacophony of the forest. Her body and soul floated.Adriana remained there for a long while as her mind filled with Juana’simage, her own struggle with feelings of abandonment, and her new lifeamong the insurgents.

Chapter 7 Our people built that church.Juana’s body was limp as it surrendered to the curve of the hammockwhere she had lain awake during the long hours of night. The storm hadpassed; only the echo of thunder rumbled as it crashed against the distantmountains. The camp was silent except for the repeated whistles of sentries,signaling that the compound was secure.She felt a breeze whip under the hammock, lifting moisture sucked fromthe dampened jungle floor. There were gaps in the palapa’s thatched roof,and through them, Juana’s eyes gazed high above at the blackened canopyof entangled ceiba and mahogany trees. Her vision was riveted on thetreetops, but her mind was concentrated on the impending crisis facing theinsurgents. She closed her eyes, trying to capture some moments of rest, butfrom deep behind her lids Adriana’s face emerged.Juana shivered, making her think that rain had dripped onto her throughthe thatching, wetting her shoulders, or perhaps her hips. She ran her handsup and down her body, examining, touching, but found that she was dry.She sighed, realizing that it had been Adriana’s image that had made hershudder.Easing herself back into the hammock, Juana wrapped her arms aroundher head. With her eyes closed, she contemplated the sentiment she hadnever before experienced. She turned on her side, curling in on herself,unable as yet to understand what she was feeling, yet clinging and yieldingto its allure because it brought her solace and serenity.Juana sighed deeply and closed her eyes; she forced herself to think backon her life, hoping to discover in her past a similar sentiment, one thatwould explain what she was now feeling. Memories quickly wrappedthemselves around her thoughts, transporting her back to her childhood.

Juana Galván labored under the burden of woven shawls, huipiles andsashes piled high on her back. The bundle was secured by a band strappedaround her forehead, and except for her bare feet, her diminutive figure wasnearly obscured by the huge pile. Dawn had just broken. Streaks of sunlightwere cutting their way through the narrow stone passages of San Cristóbalde las Casas, past colonial façades, wrapping church spires and bell towersin a golden shroud.She had just turned fourteen, but Juana had been doing this work sincebefore she could remember. Every Wednesday, she and her mother madetheir way from the outskirts of the city towards the open market, where theywould set their wares on blankets stretched out on cobblestones. There theywould spend most of the day, selling what the women of the tribe hadfabricated.The city and the surrounding valleys had been lashed by a storm thenight before, transforming the streets and plazas into muddy streams. Theheat, churned up by the tropical rain, was already rising, and Juana feltsweat sliding its way down her back, dripping to her ankles. Thetemperature intensified as the women trudged past the Zócalo, a vast squaredominated by the cathedral. As she walked, Juana turned to the left to catcha glimpse of the distant sierra, almost always shrouded in thick clouds. Shethen turned to the right, trying to see the top of the huge crucifix planted inthe center of the square, but the weight on her back kept her from raisingher head and eyes. It was easier for her to trace its shadow, which coverednearly all of the plaza. She felt a slight shudder because, just as everyoneelse did, she knew it to be the place where people had been flogged by thepatrones up to just a few years before.She followed her mother as she made her way around corners and pastalleyways. After a while, she stopped to catch her breath. When she lookedup, Juana saw that her mother had also stopped and was leaning against hergoods. The girl didn’t have to wait to be told to put down her load. Togethermother and daughter rested on top of their colorful mounds, each breathingdeeply, knowing that they still had a way to go before reaching the stalls ofthe mercado.After a few minutes of rest, a smile spread across Juana’s face. She felt asudden surge of playfulness overcome her when she saw that the fringe ofher mother’s rebozo, which encircled her waist, dangled behind her almost

dragging to the ground. Juana giggled softly to herself, remembering themany times her mother had scolded her in disapproval of the pranks sheoften played on her sisters and the other village girls.In spite of the threat of a reprimand, Juana found that she could not resistgiving into temptation, so she crept over behind her mother’s back andsoftly, silently, took the fringe of the shawl and wrapped it tightly aroundthe cord that bound the bundle on which her mother sat. Then, even morestealthily, while struggling to smother her laughter, Juana moved back toher own things and waited.Soon enough her mother tried to get to her feet, only to be yanked backonto her haunches. She struggled again only to have a repeated force pullher back down. She jerked and squirmed, jiggling her legs, until she finallyunderstood. She smiled to herself and relaxed, but not before snapping herhead in Juana’s direction, shattering the girl’s self-control as she burst out ina fit of laughter that doubled her over in cramps. Juana’s laughter was sofilled with girlish mischief and mirth that it infected her mother, who joinedher, laughing first softly with a closed mouth, then in a loud, wide-openbelly laugh.Mother and daughter laughed without restraint, so much that otherpeople stopped whatever they were doing, and they, too, chuckled withoutknowing exactly why they were laughing. All this was happening in front ofthe Church of Santo Domingo, where people were rushing up the steps tomake it in time for early mass. Even those men and women stopped in theirtracks and joined in the fun.As Juana wiped tears from her cheeks, she gazed silently at her mother,wishing that they could be that happy always. But when she saw her facereturn to its usual sad expression, Juana realized that it had been only a briefmoment that would soon disappear. Trying to dispel that thought, Juanalooked upward at the imposing façade. She could not remember the numberof times she had stood in that place, looking up in that way, always feelingthe same astonishment. Each time she was drawn by the ornate stonework,the niches, the statues of saints. She looked at it not because she found itbeautiful, but because of intense curiosity and because it helped her forgether mother’s unhappy face.She wondered how it was that an artisan could carve a piece of stoneuntil it looked like a patrón, the owners and bosses of the haciendas. Even

the winged figures looked like the women of the haciendas and citymansions. How could it be, she asked, that a stone nose could be chiseled tolook like one of a mestizo? The same happened with eyes, chins, mouths,hands. As always, she wondered what those statues and stone robesconcealed. Was the body of a man or a woman under that rock? Since Juanahad never seen the body of a white person, woman or man, she could notknow how they might look; so she wondered.Suddenly, the bells of the church began to ring, calling people to mass.The metallic clanging was so loud that Juana felt its vibrations tug at herhair and pound on her chest. She looked over to her mother, who had freedher rebozo, and saw that she was already on her way to the stalls lined upbehind the church. She got to her feet and struggled with her load until shebalanced it on her back. In a few moments she caught up to her mother,shuffling briskly as she watched her point repeatedly toward the church.Our people built that church with the sweat of their bodies.Juana silently mouthed what she knew her mother was saying as shepointed at the church with a short, skinny finger. The thought of womentoting stones instead of shawls made Juana grateful that priests no longerordered such places to be constructed. The image of stooped womenabruptly halted her, and she envisioned the people who had been forced tobuild that church. Without thinking, Juana let the bundle slip off hershoulders as she recalled a story her mother often told.At that time their city was named Ciudad Real. That had been so manygenerations before Juana that all she knew was that it had been during thefirst reign of the white masters. It was a time when women who had beenher ancestors trudged up and down the mountain to mine stones for thechurch. Her mother told her that there was among them a special woman,singled out by her resistance to the bosses, as well as by the scar thatmarred the skin above her left eyebrow. Every day, that woman staggereddown the steep, narrow path, bent low under the burden of a stone-filledbasket. Its handles were strapped around her forehead; its weight pressedagainst her curved spine.On a certain day, the woman’s hands reached backward, clinging to theload so that it would not shift from one side to the other. She moved slowly,

deliberately, knowing that a false step would send her headlong down into aravine. She turned and looked upward to the pinnacle of the mountain,toward the long line of women: brown, bent, sweating, intense onaccomplishing the same task. In the rarefied air of the high altitude, thehuman snake gingerly coiled its way down, stooped and breathing slowlythrough its opened mouth.After a few moments, she swiveled her head forward, concentrating onher next step. When she reached the bottom of the trail, she dumped therocks onto the growing mound, then she turned around and began a freshascent to the mouth of the stone quarry.She and other women of her tribe had been doing this for years. Eachday, they wearily climbed the mountain, then returned down the slopes,ridding the cavern of the stones loosened by men who dug with picks aswell as fingernails. Here stones were produced for the new city namedCiudad Real.“¡Más rápido, indios perezosos!”The foreman barked out his offensive demand for more speed, moreefficiency. The woman, however, did not heed his words; she had heardthem for too many years. They had been uttered in different forms, bydifferent lips, at different times, but the meaning never changed. She insteadfocused her thoughts on the load under which she struggled.It was dark by the time the shift was halted. Wordlessly, the men andwomen took knapsacks and other possessions, and headed for town. Therethey were forced to attend evening mass. She walked slowly, her back stillbent because it had forgotten how to become straight even without a load.As she made her way to the Church of Santo Domingo, she chewed on apiece of yuca. She held each pulpy bite in her mouth to soften it because herteeth were decaying and loose.Soon she and the others entered the high vaulted church, where theheavy odor of incense and burning candles curled itself into her nostrils.She felt nauseous, but she ignored her churning stomach as she joined thewomen and men of her tribe, squatting on the stone floor, backs bent, eyesdrooping under the weight of fatigue.She nailed her vision to the floor as she rubbed her fingers first on thescar over her eyebrow, then on the floor’s surface, wondering if that stonewas one of many she had carted down the mountain. She remained that

way, hunched over her crossed legs, not looking toward the high altar. Shewas too tired to lift her eyes.The woman’s stooped, haggard silhouette suddenly melted into thevaporous air, vanishing from Juana’s eyes, which had become bright withtears of pity and admiration for that woman. Although she desired to bewith that distant ancestor, she realized that she had fallen behind, so shesnapped out of her trance and picked up her pace in an attempt to reach hermother.As she neared the marketplace, the charred maize aroma of elotes asadoswas the first to coil itself through Juana’s nostrils, and soon this blendedwith the smell of panuchos being served to a merchant who made his wayto his store. Fragrant scents collided with the pungent, acrid odors ofspoiled vegetables, moldy corncobs, rancid fruit, muddy corners.Everywhere there was noise, a clamor made up of vendors hawking wares,buyers driving a bargain, babies crying, dogs barking, bells clanging, dirty-faced children playing and shouting at one another.When Juana finally caught up with her mother, she found her alreadysitting on her heels, unfolding shawls and placing them on mats. Juana’sfather, who had gone ahead of them, was securing a corner of the canvasthat hung overhead, protecting them from the glare of the sun. She gotdown on her knees where she, too, sat on her heels as she began to put outthe garments she had carted. They were silent.Hours passed. People came to examine certain pieces, to ask prices, thentried to lower them. Some women bought blouses, or belts; others merelylooked and walked away. Juana felt drowsy and hungry, but she knew thather mother would soon bring out the bag that held their tortillas and beans.The thought of food made the girl’s mouth water.Juana looked at her mother, letting her know that she was hungry, but hermother ignored her. Juana was about to ask if something was wrong, when aman stepped under the canvas and stood in silence holding a straw hat in hishands. Juana stared at him; she had seen him before in the village. Sheremembered that at times he would follow her and would not take his eyesoff of her.“Juana, ven acá.”

Her face snapped toward the side of the stall from where her father wascalling her. He was sitting cross-legged, with his back rigid, and he held hishands, palms down, on his knees. Her mother sat behind him, as usual, onher heels. Juana obeyed and moved toward him. She, too, got down on herknees and sat on her heels. He spoke in the Tzeltal tongue, as they alwaysdid when they were alone.“Do you know this man?”“No, Tata.”“His name is Cruz Ochoa. You may greet him.”Juana knew that this was not a permission that her father was granting; itwas a command. Juana felt her stomach begin to ache, knowing thatsomething terrible was about to happen. She nevertheless turned to the manand nodded. He returned her gesture.She continued to look at Cruz Ochoa, taking in his face and his body. Hewas not old, yet older than she. He was not handsome, yet not ugly. She sawby his dress that he was not a Tzeltal man but a Lacandón. He wore thewhite cotton tunic of those people, and he wore his hair in their fashion:straight, covering the forehead down to the eyebrows, and long enough toreach the shoulders.Juana stretched her neck and looked behind her father to where hermother crouched. She saw that her eyes were cast down, but she could seeby the frown pasted on her face that she was feeling sadness for herdaughter. Juana returned her gaze to her father’s face, but his eyes wereriveted on a point somewhere above her head. She could hear peoplecoming and going by their stall, but she knew that they were stragglers,because it was not the time of day to market; that hour had passed. Sheturned her head toward the man, who stood without saying anything.“Buenas tardes.” Juana spoke in Spanish, since she did not know theLacandón tongue.“Buenas tardes, niña.”The brief greeting was followed by more silence because no one couldspeak until Juana’s father gave permission. Finally, he spoke.“This man will be your husband. He is willing to take you as his wife, tolive in the Lacandona, where you will have his children. He is a man of

influence. He even owns a mule, which he has offered to sell in exchangefor you. I have accepted his offer.”Juana felt as if a hand had gripped her throat, cutting off the air that herlungs needed to breathe. Vivid pictures of her three older sisters flashed inher brain. One by one, they, too, had been married by her father and at anage even younger than hers. She saw them as they grew thin and sickly witheach pregnancy. She saw them losing their teeth after being battered bydrunken husbands. She saw them become sullen women, worn out beforetheir time.She looked at her mother, and for the first time in her life, Juana realizedthat she, too, had undergone the same brutal treatment as had her sisters, aswell as the other women of the tribe. Juana saw that although her motherwas not more than thirty-five years old, she was toothless, her breastssagged, her hair was ragged and gray, and her skin was blotched. Thisrealization made her shiver because she knew now that this would also beher fate, and she did not want this for herself. She did not want to marryCruz Ochoa, or anyone else.At that instant, the image of the woman stooped under an intolerableburden of stones again came to Juana. The picture was vivid, stark,haunting, and she was so shaken by the turmoil she was experiencing thatshe sprang to her feet in an attempt to run away. Her father, however,moved faster than she, and he was able to grab one of her ankles as shelunged toward the street. She tripped, lost her balance and fell on her face,splitting her upper lip on the cobblestones. When she rolled over, her facewas covered with blood.The hammock swayed slowly, responding to the motion of Juana’shands. She moved her arms upward to her face, where her fingers touchedher lips, her nose, her cheeks. She massaged the scar over her eye,reminding herself that it had not been caused by her fall in the marketplace,but by something that happened later on. This thought moved her mind totake flight again, back towards the years that had launched her on the paththat led her to this encampment, to the struggle for which she was now aleader, and to the mystery of what she was feeling for Adriana Mora.

Chapter 8 The soil was gray; it had no color.Two weeks after meeting him, Juana stood by Cruz Ochoa on a side altarat the rear of the Church of Santo Domingo. The mass and marriage ritualwere over and the altar boy was snuffing out the candles. The familymembers and friends who had attended began to leave without sayinganything; they only patted the couple on the shoulders or on the arms.Juana’s mother was the only one to approach the couple to offer a blessing.After that, everyone dispersed, and Juana followed Cruz Ochoa as he ledthe way to the second-class bus station. She carried her belongings in asmall cardboard box.Juana was glad that Cruz was silent because she did not want to speak.She felt dejected and would not have known what to say to him if he didattempt a conversation. She knew, however, that sooner or later he wouldapproach her. In the meantime, she distracted herself by looking around atthe crowds of people waiting their turn to board buses. She looked in onedirection and saw people elbowing and shoving one another to get to thefront of the line. She turned her gaze in the opposite direction and saw awoman, a little older than she, with a child hanging on to her skirt, anotherone wrapped in her rebozo, and another in her womb. A man, who Juanawas certain was the husband, stood apart with his straw hat pulled low overhis brow. Everywhere Juana looked she saw people from different tribes,each wearing their native garments. She saw some like her, the Tzeltales,but there were Chol, Tzotzil, Zoque, Lacandón; there were even poormestizos in the crowd.Juana shut her eyes and mopped her forehead with the back of her hand.It had not rained in several days and the air was sweltering, oppressive.Most of the passengers were irritable and impatient to leave the city, hopingto find relief from the heat once in the countryside.“Ruta número cinco dirección Huixtán, Oxchue, Chol, Ocosingo.¡Pasajeros abordo!”

The shrill voice over the loudspeaker bleated out the route that wouldtake Juana and Cruz Ochoa to the point of their first transfer. FromOcosingo, they would take another bus to their final destination, El Caribal.As soon as people were able to make out the muffled announcement theyhad just heard, the shoving became intense. Juana was barely able to hangon to her box as the flood of travelers pressed toward the front entrance ofthe vehicle. Since the men pushed the hardest, they were the first to findseats, leaving most of the women and children standing in the middle aisle,or sitting there on their bundles and boxes.Seeing that Cruz had secured a place for himself at the front, Juana wasglad that she had been shoved all the way to the rear. She edged back as faras possible, placed her box on the floor, sat on it and leaned her body back.When she looked down the aisle, she saw that most of the women wouldhave to stand in uncomfortable postures until they got off the bus, makingher even more grateful for her place. From where she sat, she could seeCruz’s square head and flinty eyes as he turned to stare at her from time totime.The driver got on the bus and sat at his seat, turned the key in theignition and cranked the engine. Loud backfires erupted from the rustymuffler, and everyone instinctively held onto whatever they could, knowingthat the trip would not be smooth. Juana braced herself for the trip from SanCristóbal to El Caribal, the village where she would now live. The villagewas distant, on the fringes of the Lacandona Jungle, and because the buswould stop at most of the towns and settlements along the way, the journeywould take between seven and eight hours.The bus rumbled onto Highway 190 southbound, then on to 186eastbound, but just as the driver picked up speed and Juana felt that somedistance would be covered, the vehicle pulled over. Its first stop was LosLlanos, then after a short while they halted again at Huixtán, and onward,stopping almost every fifteen minutes. In the beginning, Juana was relievedwhen she saw that several passengers stepped down, but her mood changedwhen she realized that more people got on than got off. This happened ateach stop, until she thought that the bus would explode if more passengerswere taken on board.Three hours later, the bus rolled into Oxchue. At the time, Juana wasdrowsing, almost asleep, but the bumpy stop awakened her with a jerk. She

looked up to see that Cruz was once again looking back at her. She decidedto ignore him, thinking that each time he craned his neck and face towardher, his eyes became smaller. His eyes frightened her; they were tiny slits,like those of a wooden mask that glinted at her, boring into her, cutting likea knife.“¡Media hora, más o menos! ¡Todos abajo!”The driver was grumpy as he shouted that everyone was to get off thebus; they would have at least a half-hour wait. Juana was grateful for thechance to stand; her legs were cramped and her buttocks ached fromcrouching. She gathered her box in her arms and followed the press ofbodies off the bus. It was near dusk, the heat was diminishing and thepassengers didn’t mind walking down the dirt path that took them to foodstalls and roaming vendors.As Juana strolled, happy to exercise her legs, she passed butcher stallswhere chunks of raw beef and pork were hung out on giant hooks. Shelooked at the pieces of meat, blackened with flies and dirt. The smelldisgusted her, making her nauseous, forcing her to cross the highway to theother side, where grocers had erected their stands. In contrast to the putridstench of rancid flesh, this side of the road brought the aroma of tortillascooking on comales, blending with the fragrance of fresh popcorn.“¿Quiere palomitas?”Juana whirled around, startled by the outstretched hand offering her abag of popcorn. She had forgotten about Cruz, but now his face, so close tohers that she felt his breath on her cheeks, reminded her of his presence inher life. Dejection again flooded over her. Yet his offering struck her asthoughtful, unexpected, and she smiled stiffly as she put down her box sothat she could take the small bag. He intercepted her move, taking hold ofthe parcel. She responded in Spanish, “Gracias.”She nibbled the fluffy corn without saying anymore while walking,aware that Cruz was by her side. They continued until the structures ended;beyond that point only tiny palapas could be seen in the thick of palmfronds and banana trees. Juana, with nowhere to go, turned around,intending to head back where the bus was parked, but she felt Cruz take herby the arm and edge her toward the rear of the last stand. There the grassgrew taller than she and almost as tall as Cruz.

Juana resisted, but his grip on her arm only tightened. She knew what hewas going to do. She knew that she did not want it to happen, but she alsoknew that there was nothing she could do to avoid it. It was inevitable, shehad already told herself. It would come sooner or later. Cruz nudged Juanatoward the thickest part of the growth, forced her down to the ground, ontoher knees, out of sight.“¡Quítese los calzones!”Repugnance and nausea flooded Juana when Cruz ordered her to take offher pants, but she knew that if she did not do as he ordered, he would beather until she obeyed him. It would be no use shouting for help; no oneinterfered when a husband demanded what was considered to be his duefrom a wife. Juana removed her pants as Cruz stood looking down at her.She saw that with one hand he was lifting the tunic that reached his knees.He shoved her onto her back with the other one.“¡Abra las piernas!”She let herself roll back on the grass and opened her legs as he hadcommanded. She clamped shut her eyes, not wanting to see him come downon her because she knew what he was going to do. She had seen it happenmany times to girls and women of the tribe. She had seen a man take a girlas she planted maize, or as she wove a huipil, or as she put tortillas on thepan. She had seen her father do it to her mother. She had seen her sisterspinned down to earthen floors, straddled by men they called their husbands.Pain coursed up from her vagina to her brain. She felt that she wassuffocating. The weight of Cruz’s body pressed the air out of her lungs,forcing her to gasp over and again. She clawed at the damp earth, hoping todiminish the pain that intensified each time he plunged in and out of her forwhat seemed an interminable time. Finally, he gasped, shuddered andsighed. Then he rolled off her, coiled and pressed in on himself.Juana lay motionless, unable to move. It took time for the pain todiminish, allowing her to control her racing heart. She ran her hands up anddown between her inner thighs, trying to wipe away the thick discharge thatcoated them. After a few minutes, she thought she heard Cruz snore softly,but when he sprang to his feet, she knew that she had been wrong. Helooked at her with blank, squinty eyes.“¡Vámonos!”

Juana stumbled to her feet as she struggled with her clothes and fumbledin the grass for her box. She followed Cruz to the bus, where she found thatmost of the passengers were already seated. She realized that they werestaring at her because they knew what had happened. She realized that Cruzhad asked the man seated next to him to watch his belongings while he waswith his wife.She made her way back to her place and sat staring through a dirty,cracked window, wondering, for the first time, why her father had given herto Cruz Ochoa for the price of a mule. She stretched out her hands on herlap, palms up, as she examined them, seeing that they were smeared withmud and blood. The thought crossed Juana’s mind that although she mightlook the same, she was different because she had crossed over a bridge thattook her to an unknown land, which she neither loved nor hated. Her feetwere now planted on soil that was gray; it had no color.In the darkness of her palapa, Juana brought her hands close to her face,fingers outstretched, palms in front of her eyes as she remembered howresentment and disgust for her father replaced her first childlikequestionings. It happened during the grayness of the first years of her lifewith Cruz Ochoa. She squinted her eyes in the gloom, then she closed them,trying to remember another color, but it was of no use, the murkiness ofthose months that had passed into years washed over her memories. Sheturned her head to one side as her thoughts once again leaped over the ceibatrees, scurried through palm fronds, hovered over rivers and ravines, untilreaching those past years of her life in El Caribal.

Chapter 9 She felt that floating would turn to flying.El Caribal, a village on the fringe of the Lacandona Jungle, 1978.Torrential rain had deluged El Caribal for three days and nights withoutletup. The narrow river that fringed the cluster of huts had swollen andflooded, dragging trees and chunks of mud downstream. Animals howled inprotest as thunder and lightning caused the earth to shake, disturbing theirhideaways. At night, when the jungle was at its blackest, streaks of lightflashed on and off, sending terror through the dense growth of ferns andgiant trees.In her palapa, Juana was lying on a petate on the earthen floor. Exceptfor a small fire, the place was dark. She was covered with sweat, slowlyregaining consciousness, blinking her eyes as she tried to dislodge thecoating that blurred them. In a few minutes, forms began to take shape asshe looked over to the corner of the hut where she was able to make out thesilhouettes of three women. They were the village midwives: toothless oldwomen with wrinkled, parched skin, shoulders stooped from years spenttoting loads to the marketplace, hands gnarled from a lifetime of toiling inthe fields.Juana concentrated on their heads and faces, trying to clear her brain.She took in more of the women’s appearance, seeing how their hair wasbraided but disheveled and streaked with gray. After a few moments, sherealized that from her place near the side of the hut she could make out onlyprofiles: beaked noses, flabby jowls, hollow mouths, furrowed necks. For atime, Juana was vaguely aware that they were speaking in hushed tones.She concentrated. In a few minutes her hearing became attuned, and shecould make out their whispering. It sounded like dry fronds scraping onbark.“El niño se murió.”“Nomás no puede. Pobrecita mujer.”

Juana’s hands moved to feel her abdomen. It was empty. The child hadslipped out between her legs, and it had done so soundlessly because it wasdead. She felt her heart shiver. She dragged her hands to her breast andrubbed, trying to stop the trembling. Then she clasped her hands on her earsbecause she did not want to hear the hags pitying her, repeating over andagain how she could not keep a child in her womb long enough to deliver italive.More lightning flashed, filling the palapa with a light charged withviolence, made more threatening by the explosion of thunder that followedalmost immediately. Juana felt the earth under her shift; it too was filledwith fear. Four years had passed since her father had sent her away withCruz, and this was the third child she had lost. Remembering this pushedher into a pit of sadness, made intolerable to her because her grief wascoated with dread.“Pobre hombre.”“Buen hombre.”“Desafortunado hombre.”Poor man. Good man. Unfortunate man. The toothless mutterings of themidwives reached her again, this time sympathizing with Cruz Ochoa,pitying him for having a useless woman as his wife. Juana filled withdesperation, wondering why they pitied him and not her. Inside of her avoice asked why did they not understand that each child had beenconceived in fear and repugnance, robbing it of a reason to live. She turnedher head away from the silhouettes, hoping that she would again loseconsciousness, making them disappear, wishing that a bolt of lightningwould strike her, erase her from that hut, erase her existence.In the village, Cruz Ochoa was considered a good man. He neither drankalcohol nor did he beat his wife. For these two reasons alone, the women ofthe tribe envied Juana, because in most palapas, drunkenness and batteringwere common. What no one knew, however, was that Cruz was a man filledwith anger, with a rage that washed over Juana every time he glanced at her,every time he commanded her to open her legs. No one knew that theintoxication that possessed him was caused not by alcohol, but byfathomless bitterness. No one knew that although he did not beat her withhis fists, he attacked her with eyes filled with ire.

Days after the last miscarriage, Juana emerged to return to her tasks,grateful that Cruz had, at least for a while, disappeared into the jungle. Inher heart she wished that he might be devoured by jaguars, poisoned byserpents, swallowed by a river, but her mind yanked her from thesethoughts, reminding her that he would, in time, return. She braced herself,not knowing how he would vent his rage on her this time. During hisabsence, her mind filled with questions: Why was Cruz so embittered? Whydid he hate her, yet bury himself in her body with such abandonment? Whydid he not speak to her as other men did to their wives? The answers tothese questions never came to her. She resigned herself to living with a manfilled with shadows.One day, Juana knelt by the river, washing clothes. She was lost inthought, oblivious to the other women who chattered, exchanging gossip.The rain had stopped, but the river was still swollen, dragging tree trunksand dead animals down its course. Some of the women had tied their skirtsaround their hips, wanting to keep dry, but Juana had not bothered; she waswet up to her waist. Her motions were listless, mechanical, as she rubbedsoap onto a shirt, then scrubbed it against the flat rock at which she worked,then rinsed the garment in the rushing current. All the time, she wasthinking about how much she wanted to vanish.Suddenly, a fist from behind struck her neck, plunging her headlong intothe muddy water. The force of the blow knocked her unconscious. She didnot feel the pain of her face scraping against a rough surface, nor was sheaware that Cruz had leaped into the current, grabbed her by the neck, anddragged her limp body from the river. Had she not been unconscious, Juanawould have resisted him, hoping that her wish to be erased might havecome true by drowning.When she regained consciousness, she was on her back, where Cruz hadthrown her. Her face and nose were bleeding, making it hard for her to see,but after a while, when she was able to make out his features, she saw thatthis time he would go beyond just spilling his disdain for her through hiseyes. She realized that his fists would pound her with a strength thatmatched the bitterness that was devouring him.Juana and Cruz glared at one another for moments before she leaped toher feet and ran, slipping over the muddy banks of the river, regaining herbalance by clawing into the soil with her fingers. She did not have a

direction or place to go. Her legs simply obeyed the compelling impulse toescape Cruz, who sprinted behind, narrowing the distance between them,until she could feel his fingertips grazing her back.He latched on to her blouse, ripping it off, leaving her naked except forher skirt. He grabbed her shoulder with one hand, and with the other hespun her around to face him. Juana tried to defend herself by pushingagainst him, by trying to wiggle loose from his clutch, but it was useless;his grip was as strong as a vise. Then she saw one of his arms rise above hishead, fist clenched. When it struck her face above the left eye, intense painfroze her brain, and the day lost its light as blackness again enveloped her.Juana awakened to find that she was lying in mud. She put her hands toher face. It was puffed, bruised. She realized that she could see with onlyone eye because the other one, the one that had received the blow, wasswollen shut; the gash above it was deep and still bleeding. Then she puther hands to her breasts and felt the nipples hardening under her touch. Sheshivered, relieved that Cruz had not mutilated her body.She stayed there until her thoughts cleared, until she could think of whatto do next. One thought dominated the others: She had to leave Cruz Ochoa.She had to separate her life from his. She had to escape, even if it meantbeing devoured by the jungle. When this thought came more clearly intofocus, she struggled to her feet, stumbling and tripping again as she madeher way toward the river’s edge. There she began, with difficulty, to removethe clothing still on her body. Her hands were bloody and her fingers wereso bruised that taking off her clothes was painful, but finally she wascompletely stripped.Naked, Juana stepped into the water and waded towards its center, whereit was deepest and where the current was the strongest. It crossed her mindthat surrendering to the rage of the river would be better than submitting toCruz. When she was at the point where her feet no longer touched theground, she allowed her body to submerge, covering her breasts, neck andhead. Slack and inert, she floated downstream as the force of the currentcarried her with growing speed. Instead of resisting, she surrendered to itspull, not knowing where it would lead her, but satisfied that it was takingher away from Cruz Ochoa.Wanting, intending to die, Juana floated with the current of the river,grateful for its energy and speed, thankful for its embrace, which would

carry her to oblivion. But as she yielded to its flow, she began to feel anemotion that contradicted her desire to vanish. It was a small sentiment atfirst, but one that grew with each second, intensifying, possessing herentirely, and in a while she recognized the feeling: it was the desire to live.Eyes closed, arms extended away from her sides, she felt that floatingwould turn to flying, and that once airborne, she would find liberation. Sheopened her good eye and saw that day had turned to night. She flipped herbody over and began to swim across the current toward land.Juana walked for hours through the darkened jungle, oblivious of itsdangers, never once thinking of the coiled snake or the hiding jabalí. Shewalked, her nakedness and her bruised face forgotten. She moved, notcaring in what direction she was going, knowing that sooner or later shewould come to a village, where she would be given shelter. She stumbledupon such a place at dawn, when the women were busy preparing breakfast.“Me llamo Juana Galván. Necesito quedarme aquí.”“Está bien. Quédate aquí.”No one seemed surprised. Her nakedness and battered face told them shewas escaping, and they took Juana in as one of them. She remained in thatvillage, working with its women, earning the food she ate and the hut whereshe slept. She did not allow herself to think of Cruz Ochoa, nor of hisvillage. Whenever she was assaulted by those thoughts, she forced herselfto erase them from her mind. In that way, Juana passed several months,aware that although her body had healed, her spirit was shattered.One evening, three women came to her. They sat down crosslegged onthe earthen floor to face each other over the small fire that Juana continuallyfed with twigs.“Tu hombre te busca.”“Vino a la aldea mientras sembrabas maíz.”“Dice que te llevará con él.”These words stunned Juana, making her stomach ache. Each womantook her turn uttering what sounded like evil incantations.“Your man is looking for you.”“He came to the village while you were planting maize.”“He says that he will take you with him.”

Cruz Ochoa had stalked her, hunted her, and found her. She put herfingers to the scar over her eye; the skin was still tender, and she winced,feeling pain under the pressure of her finger. Juana’s mind, its thoughtsscattered and disrupted by what she had been told, soon focused. Cruz hadfound her, and he had spoken to the villagers. That meant that he had beenwatching her, waiting to ensnare her. Her back stiffened as she understoodthat he had been secretly spying on her for a time, perhaps days, or evenweeks. While she was unaware of his presence, his disdainful eyes had beenriveted on her as she walked, planted, ate, and even as she slept. Her headsnapped toward the palapa’s entrance, expecting to find him standing there.“¿Dónde está?”“Afuera.”Juana had not been wrong. Cruz was waiting outside the hut. Knowingthis cast her into a pit of sadness. She could not help or control the tears thatwelled first in her heart, moved up to lodge behind her eyelids, and finallyspilled over her cheeks. She understood that her liberation had been a falseone, that it had been a trap that had just slammed shut, catching her inside.In silence, Juana got to her feet to gather her things, which she thenrolled into the petate. She lashed it over her shoulder and stepped out of thehut without saying a word to the women. Cruz was standing under agnarled, stunted ceiba tree with his hat pulled down low over his brow.Juana could not make out his eyes, but she knew the fire that was burningthere. Without saying anything, he turned to make his way into the jungle,and with a silence that matched his, Juana followed Cruz Ochoa back to hisvillage.Not noticing if it was day or night, she lost track of time as they trekkedthrough the jungle. She lost a connection with her body, not caring whetherit was tired, or hungry, or needing to relieve itself. She followed Cruz,watching his back and the rear of his sandaled feet, watching as he hacked away through the dense jungle with a machete.It was morning when Juana and Cruz made their way though the centerof the village, he in front and she several paces behind him. She was awareof the villagers’ stares; she felt the impact as those harsh looks pastedthemselves onto her body. She could hear the secret thoughts crossing theminds of those women and men.“Mala mujer.”

“Bad woman.”“She deserves to be punished.”“Buen hombre.”“Good man.”“He does not deserve such a woman.”Juana stiffened her back and straightened her shoulders, rejecting thevillagers’ scornful thoughts. She felt bewildered by the pitiless looks caston her by the women as she passed by them, so close that she could almostfeel the fringes of their huipiles. She knew that they suffered similarcruelties from the men in their families, and yet they apparently chose todeny it, refusing to recognize what she was feeling. As Juana walkedbehind Cruz Ochoa, she wondered if those women secretly felt sympathyfor her, if they privately wished that she had escaped, and whether, out offear, they were hiding it instead.In the palapa, Juana snorted through her nose, remembering. She nowknew that the women had indeed wished that she might have escaped. Nowshe knew that they, too, were waiting for someone like her to show them theway, that their gossiping and words against her had been a pretense. Shenow knew this because when she finally left Cruz Ochoa, dozens of womenhad come to join the army of compañeras and compañeros. They werewomen who would never again return to those huts in which misery hadencased them.

Chapter 10 The gods made men and women of maize.El Caribal, 1980.“The gods made men of gold, but those men were hard, arrogant,unbending and ungrateful to their makers.”Juana Galván sat on her heels, bent over a metate. She was grinding cornfor masa, which she would then pat into tortillas. Most of the women of thevillage were busy at the same chore; they worked in the clearing aroundwhich the palapas and other living areas were clustered. The scraping ofstone on stone floated in the air. Despite the din a man’s voice was clear. Hespoke in Spanish, but Juana and the rest of the women could understandevery word.“Seeing this, the gods were dissatisfied with what they had done, and sothey made new men. This time they were made of wood. But they, too,were unbending and stupid, so once again the gods repented.”Juana stopped what she was doing to listen more intently. What the manwas saying was not new; it was a common belief among the people of theregion. What did capture her attention, however, was the sentiment behindthe voice. It seemed to be promising something more.“Then the gods came upon a new inspiration: They made men andwomen of maize. Those people were flexible, grateful, diligent and just.Soon, the gods saw that their labor had been good, that those made of maizewere the true men and women of this world. So they showered those peoplewith land, fruit, and children, making them rich. After this, the gods weresatisfied with their work, and they rested.”Juana listened, absentmindedly rubbing bits of masa from her fingers.She was thinking of the men of gold and wood. She, like all others of thosetribes, had been taught that her people were made of maize.“Then the men of gold and wood rose in anger against the gods becausethey had been replaced. They conspired and plotted, envious of the men andwomen of maíz who had inherited the richness of the land. Then, four

hundred years ago, they transformed themselves into the Catxul, false men,taking back what was given to the people of maize. The Catxul now governour lives because they possess war machines to protect their brutalconquest. The servants of the Catxul are the Aluxob, the liars who make upthe false government that rules us, the ones who deceive us and oblige us toforget our past. Together, these evil men have spread death and pain amongus.”Juana by this time was intrigued by the man’s words. She looked aroundand saw that other women were listening as well. She saw that not onlywomen were interested, but also men.“Do you not long for another life? Would you not like to be educatedlike the men and women of gold? What about you, the women—would younot want to feed your children better food? Don’t you want to give themmedicine when they are sick?”She sat back on her haunches, thinking. Six years had passed since shehad been married to Cruz Ochoa, two since she had attempted to escapefrom her life with him. He had stalked her and found her, and she hadfollowed him to his village, unresisting, knowing that any struggle would befutile. At the time, she had realized that to refuse to return to his hut wouldmean death. Although she had desired death rather than life with him,something inside of her had compelled her to cling to life.Juana put her fingers to the scar over her left eye; she stroked it over andover again. The skin layered on the gash was slightly discolored, so that itstood out on her forehead like a reflection of the eyebrow beneath it.Cruz had shown his disdain for her with more intensity since herattempted escape. He was always sullen, angry with her. This, however, hadnot kept him from accosting her sexually. He often came to herunexpectedly, as she was preparing a meal, or when she was on the hillsidesplanting seeds, or even when it was the time of month when she bled. Atthose times he penetrated her with a heat that seemed to pour out of hisskin, but never again did Juana get pregnant.“Are you not tired of being told whom to marry and when to do it?Would you not want to choose your own partner? Would you not want tosay when you are to have children, and how many?”Juana was impressed by the stranger’s words because he had utteredthem just as she was thinking of Cruz. She wanted to believe that there was

hope for a different life, but she mistrusted what he was saying because shethought that the choices he proposed were impossible; they went againsteverything she and others had been taught.“Look, everybody! I want you to know that we’re gathering, up there inthe mountain. Men and women just like you, who are tired, fed up! We needyou. We need the strength of your arms and legs, we need your intelligence,but above all, we need your courage. We are the people of maize who arefaceless right now, but soon we will regain the face that was erased by theCatxul so long ago. We will fight until that face is returned to us. When thathappens, you must be with us.”Juana got to her feet, forgetting about the dough and about the tortillasthat she should already have made. Her hands and forearms were crustedwith the yellow paste; even her hair and nose were smeared with it. Shestood because she wanted to speak to the stranger; she needed to knowmore about what he had said.“I want to hear more of what you’re saying.”“Compañera, that’s why I’m here. What’s your name?”“Juana Galván.”“Juana, my name is Orlando Flores. I’m a Lacandón.”Juana was at a loss as to where to begin. She fidgeted, scraping masa offher fingers and arms while she thought of what to say to Orlando Flores.She finally blurted out what first came to her mind.“Are there others like you?”“Do you mean others who think and hope for the same thing as I do?Yes. There are many others. They’re just beginning to gather—up there.Why don’t you come and see?”Orlando pointed with his chin in the direction of the mountains and theheart of the Lacandón Jungle. He smiled and Juana saw uneven teethpoking through a thin, drooping mustache. She examined his face and body,seeing that he was dressed in the white cotton tunic typical of his people.When she looked at his feet, she saw that they were too large for his bodyand that, despite the heavy huaraches he wore, his feet were covered withcalluses. Then she noticed that a toe from each foot was missing.“Amigo, are there females up there?”“Yes. There are many of them.”

“Are there only girls?”“No. There are also women who are married. Some come in couples;others have chosen to leave their husbands.”Juana’s eyes widened as she wondered if she had heard Orlando’s wordscorrectly. She wrinkled her forehead and narrowed her eyes while shereflected on what he had just said.“There are married women who have left their husbands?”“Yes.”“Who feeds those women?”“We do. We work together and share our food and other supplies.”“What about children?”“No. There are no children. They are left behind with someone else.”“What about husbands? Do they come by themselves?”“As with the women, some come in couples, some by themselves.”“Why do they come?”“To prepare for the day when we will rise against the government that istaking away our lives and our spirits.”“Do you accept only Lacandones?”“We accept everyone.”Juana stared at Orlando for a few moments, trying to put order to theclash of ideas and thoughts racing through her head. There was much todecipher, but most important of all was her strong attraction to whatOrlando was describing. His words seemed to be aimed at her, only her, butwhen she looked around, she saw that other women were looking in theirdirection, evidently interested in what was being said.“Amigo, I think you will be destroyed by the Catxul, and if we join you,we will be destroyed, too.“You’re wrong, hermana! We will not be shattered.”“When have our people ever been able to overcome our oppressors? Ifyou can tell me that it’s happened before, I’ll believe you.”Orlando’s face drooped, and Juana moved one step away from himwithout taking her eyes off of him. As she did this, however, he followedher, coming even closer to her than he was before she had moved. When hespoke, his voice was husky.

“Look, compañera, there have been many times when our people haveovercome the Catxul, but each time they have recuperated because help hascome to them in time. That will not happen again. Why? Because we can nolonger endure the burden placed on us by them. It’s very simple. Whenthere is no more blood in a body, there is no more blood. That’s the way itis. The Catxul cannot drain us anymore because they have already suckedus dry, and now that we are without blood, we will rise against them,because not to fight is to die.”“What is the name of the group?”“We don’t have one yet, but we will have one very soon.”That evening, Juana and Cruz ate in silence as usual. The distanceseparating them, she was convinced, was widening with each moment. Herthoughts were in turmoil as she contemplated what Orlando Flores had saidabout the people who were gathering in the mountains. She wanted to speakto anyone who would listen. She wanted someone to hear that a fire hadbeen ignited inside of her. She needed someone to know that the stranger’swords, as she ran them over and again in her mind, added fuel to that fire.It was early evening, and the jungle had begun its night song. She andCruz were squatting on the earthen floor of the palapa they shared, she onher haunches and he cross-legged, hunched over as he ate. The glowingembers in the small fire pit that separated them crackled as they died out,filling the air with smoke. She knew it was growing cold, and although shewas expected to keep it going, she did not try to stoke it.Juana stopped chewing, her mouth still filled with a half-eaten tortilla.She stared at Cruz, hoping that he would look up and catch the expressionin her eyes, but since he did not even glance at her, she took her timeexamining him. His nose, she thought, had grown longer over the past sixyears, and his mouth was an inverted halfmoon that pulled down his jowls,and the reflections cast by the fading embers cut strange patterns on hisface. She put a cupped hand over her mouth and spit its contents out intoher palm. She was still hungry, but could no longer eat. The sight of Cruzhad churned her stomach into nausea.Suddenly, his eyes snapped up in her direction. His gesture was sounexpected that she nearly lost her balance, almost toppling over on herside. His eyes were on fire, she thought; they glowed more than did theembers in the fire pit. She braced herself. She knew what was coming.

“¡Quítese los calzones!”His command for her to take off her underpants was the signal for whathe intended to do. But when he began to squirm closer to her, crawling onhis hands and knees, Juana knew that she was not going to obey Cruz thistime. She hunkered in a hostile position, glaring at him as she snatched acharred branch out of the fire. She gripped it with one hand, and with theother she threatened him, thrusting her clenched fist in his direction as shejabbed the burning stick closer and closer to his face, nearly scorching thewhiskers under his nose. At the same time, she heard her voice hissingwords with unexpected defiance.“¡Esta vez, no! ¡Nunca más!”Cruz fell back on his rump, gawking at her with disbelief stamped on hisface. Juana saw that he was overcome with surprise, that he did not knowwhat to do, and that he was shaken. After a few seconds, however, helunged at her, pouncing on top of her, momentarily overcoming her with hisbody weight. But as they rolled over and again in the dirt, she managed topull up his tunic, exposing his naked rear end. She still gripped the burningstick in her hand, and with a strength prompted by the indignity of six yearsof obeying his command to take off her underpants, to open her legs, toremain inert while he emptied himself into her—with that energy, shepressed the point of the burning branch against his buttocks with one handwhile she held his body with the other one.“Ahhhgggg!”Cruz groaned as he rolled over, jiggling his legs, twisting and thrashingin the dirt, trying to yank the stick away, but his contortions kept him fromgetting a grip on the fiery prong that stuck to his flesh. Juana, her chestheaving with anger and exertion, watched him but did nothing. Finally, hegot on his hands and knees and crawled out of the palapa, the stick firmlyseared onto his rump. He disappeared into the blackened jungle.Breathing through her mouth because her racing heart blocked her fromtaking in air through her nose, she waited on the alert, widening her eyes,turning her ears in all directions, hoping they would absorb any hostilesound. She knew that Cruz would return as soon as he regained hiscomposure and understood what had happened. She had defied him, evenhurt him. Soon the entire village would know the truth, and Cruz could notsustain the humiliation. She knew also that because of this, he would come

to kill her, and no one would prevent him from taking her life. Juanastrained her ears, expecting to hear him, but there was only the racket ofhowling monkeys and the shrill scraping of cicadas and crickets.Juana was frightened at what she had done because she never imaginedthat it was in her to do it, to defy Cruz. She was afraid, not knowing what todo next. She crouched, pressing her back against one of the supportingpoles of the palapa. She brought her knees tight up against her breasts,wrapped her arms around them, and there leaned her head. Her eyes wereclosed, but her ears were alert. It had grown dark in the hut. Only a few ofthe embers still glowed, but their light was dying.She lost track of time. She knew that hours had passed when she noticedthat the moon had risen, its rays cutting long shadows on the earthen floor.Then a light flickered in her mind, and Juana knew what she must do. Shecrawled to the petate on which she slept. She unrolled it, put a blouse,underpants, and huipil on it, and rolled everything into a bundle, which sheput on her back. Last of all, she filled a gourd with water. She walked out ofthe palapa that had served as her cell for six years, knowing in whichdirection she would go.

Chapter 11 Why don’t you come and see?Juana Galván left the palapa in El Caribal and headed west toward thesierra, where she knew she would find Orlando Flores. She knew also thatshe was going in the direction where the Lacandón Jungle became thethickest, where the trees and growth grew so dense that in some places noteven sunlight could penetrate its cover. Her people called it the place ofeternal night.She walked steadily, stopping from time to time only to rest. In places,the undergrowth was so thick that she was forced to retrace her steps to finda more penetrable path. As Juana traveled, flashbacks of her life in ElCaribal ran through her mind. Her thoughts filled with images of womenher age who toiled on mountainsides, doing the work of mules and oxen.She thought of beatings inflicted by demoralized, drunken husbands. Thenher mind focused on the image of Cruz Ochoa, and she felt a surge ofenergy, because she knew that returning to the village was now impossiblefor her. She trekked on without hesitation, disregarding danger.As she walked through the darkness, Juana remembered her father,certain that if he were with her, he would force her to return to Cruz to beghis forgiveness. Her father’s face, as he accepted the price of a mule for hisdaughter, burned behind Juana’s eyes, filling her with rage. To erase thatanger, Juana looked back on her childhood in an attempt to find somethingthat might bring her joy.No matter how hard she tried, she could not remember when she hadbegun to help her mother with the heavy work done by the tribal women. Ifshe and her mother were not going into San Cristóbal de las Casas to selltheir wares, it was Juana’s task to cart water to the village. When she wasnot doing that, she and the other girls prepared the soil for planting.Because the land the owners allowed the villagers was usually nothing morethan meager hillside patches scattered here and there, it was thought thatchildren could best manage the task of pulling out roots, small rocks andother growth. So she spent her days on her hands and knees, clinging

precariously to steep inclines, gathering rocks in her apron and luggingthem down to where they were dumped.Juana also remembered days when she and her mother went into the city.Often they would pass the street on which scribes sat at their desks, somewith writing machines, others with only paper and pens. Juana recalled thewonderment she felt seeing the lines of people who waited their turn to sitby the scribes, who would listen and write for them. She had envied thosemen because they could capture on paper what a person uttered with hislips. Even more intriguing for her were the times she saw the scribe look ata letter or a document handed to him by a Tzeltal, or a Lacandón, or aTzotzil, and she witnessed the wise man decipher what was written on it. Itwas a mystery to her how signs and symbols scribbled on paper could betransformed into words that could be spoken and understood.Overcome by fatigue, Juana finally allowed herself to stop her trek andtry to sleep. She fumbled in the darkness until she discovered a shelteredcove between trees. There, she squatted, holding her legs and leaning herhead on her knees. After a while, she gave up trying to sleep; she was filledwith too many thoughts. Most of all, it was impossible for her to forget thethreat of Cruz Ochoa, who would come after her, as he had the last time. Soshe got on her feet and moved on steadily until daylight began to filterthrough the thick mesh of mahogany branches and palm fronds. Soon afterdaybreak, she reached a river where she discovered a bank of water cress.There she ate and drank from the river.Juana wandered through the jungle, most of the time lost. She followedthe course of the sun by day, but at night, when blackness and animalsounds filled the wilderness, she hid in nooks and under trees, until onceagain daylight crept through the green density. It was not until the third daythat she came upon two women and a man walking single file in thedirection in which she was going. She saw by their dress that they, like she,were Tzeltales. She spoke to them in her tongue.“Amigos, I’m lost. I’m looking for a man named Orlando Flores. He’s aLacandón, and I know he lives in this region. Can you help me?”They looked at her and then at one another. Juana saw that theydistrusted her, not sure who she was, nor why she was searching forOrlando Flores. She was certain, however, that they recognized the name.One of the women spoke up, “Why are you looking for him?”

Juana looked directly at her, taking in her size, her age, her garments.She saw that the woman was of medium height, near her in age, and thatshe had a broad face with a short nose and small, bright eyes.“He’s asked me to come to join him and the others who are herepreparing.”“Preparing for what?”This time it was the man who spoke, and Juana turned to examine him.He was barely taller than the women and, she calculated, younger than anyof them. He appeared to be just beyond boyhood.“I don’t know exactly what it is that they’re preparing for, but I want tobe part of it.”Juana was disconcerted when the three people burst out in loud laughter,and her confusion heightened when she saw that they continued to laugh.The man hunched over, hugging his stomach while he howled in merriment.One of the women covered her face with her hands, trying to disguise heramusement, but her belly, which heaved in and out with suppressedguffaws, betrayed her. The other woman was laughing so hard that shepressed her knees one against the other as she stuffed her hand into hercrotch.Juana’s bewilderment turned into irritation as she understood that theywere laughing at what she had said. It apparently had been a stupid thing,but she remained calm despite the rising heat inside her. She crossed herarms on her chest, planted her feet wide apart on the soft earth, and quietlywaited until the chuckling ceased. Soon, the three of them wiped tears fromtheir cheeks and paid attention to her.“I know that I’m ignorant. I know you’re laughing because I knownothing. Still, I am one of you, and I want to join Orlando Flores and theother people like him. Please take me to him.”Juana’s words appeared to erase their distrust, and they looked at oneanother, showing that they regretted having mocked her. Confirming theirtrust in her, one by one they gave her their names.“My name is Porfiria.”“Mine is Torcuato.”“Amiga, my name is Tirza. Forgive us for laughing. We’re very foolish.We’re close to the camp, and I’m certain that Orlando will be glad to see

you. He’s always happy to welcome new recruits.”“My name is Juana Galván.”With Juana trailing, they formed a single line as they made their waytowards the campsite, which turned out to be less than an hour away. Asthey approached, she began to hear sounds of life: echoes of voices,clanking of metal, neighing of horses. Smells reached her; she caught thefragrance of wood burning and of food cooking. Noises and aromas grewlouder and more pungent with each step, and something inside of her toldher that she was crossing over into a new part of her life. She felt a mix ofjoy, excitement, apprehension, doubt, and curiosity, all at once. She knewthis would be her home, perhaps forever.Soon Juana saw that she had allowed her imagination to run wild withunchecked images, and her stomach churned with disappointment when shestood at the edge of the clearing and saw the stark reality. Having listened toOrlando’s words about the community, she had thought she wouldencounter a large organized station, with living areas, a school, a center forcommunal gatherings, fields for planting, weaving areas, sheds for tools,animals and equipment. But as her eyes scanned the site, she saw only afew dilapidated palapas, one or two leaning roofs, two scrawny horses, anda solitary campfire in the center. She looked at her companions, and theydiscerned her feelings. Torcuato took the lead by nudging Juana towards thecenter as he pointed with his chin.“Hermana, don’t be disappointed. We’re just beginning. What isimportant are our ideas, the rest will follow. There’s Orlando Flores. I’lltake you to him.”When Orlando saw them approach, he nearly ran to greet them. Juanasaw happiness stamped on his face, convincing her that she had made theright decision, after all. He took her hands in his and shook them withenthusiasm. Then he patted her on the back, all the time grinning his toothysmile. When he spoke, he did so in Spanish.“You came to see, after all!”“Yes.”“Are you thirsty? Hungry?”“Yes. I’m very thirsty.”“Come with me.”

He led her to the largest of the huts, which served as a kitchen. He founda gourd, which he filled with water. After rummaging in a basket, hehanded her a stack of cold tortillas. Juana did not mind. The water andtortillas tasted delicious.“I hope you can stay.”“I know that I will stay.”“Why do you say that?”“Because I will be killed if I return to the village.”“Ah!”Without another question, Orlando gave Juana time to eat and drink.Then he showed her the grounds, explaining the purpose for each hut andplace. The settlement was small, so it was only a short while before heshowed her where she would live.“We’ll eat again at sunset. Come at that time so we can all speak.”As soon as Orlando left her, Juana took the pack off her back andunrolled the petate. She hardly had time to put aside the clothes she hadrolled up in it, when she could no longer resist her fatigue. She flopped ontothe mat, where she fell into a deep sleep for several hours. When sheawoke, it was nearly dark and the jungle was already teeming with sound.Just as she sat up, wondering how long she had slept, Tirza came into thehut. As Juana was to discover, she would share the place with her andPorfiria.“Juana, come with me. We’re going to eat before the meeting.”“We’re going to have a meeting?”“Yes. Decisions have to be made.”“The women, too?”“Yes.”Juana was baffled and did not know what to say, so she did as she wasasked. She followed silently to the center of the cluster, where she saw agroup of men and women gathered around a campfire. She took time toexamine faces, but besides Tirza, she recognized only Torcuato, Porfiria andOrlando, who stood to one side listening. Her eyes focused on his big feet,wondering why he had not grown taller to match their size.

Food began to be circulated from hand to hand. A basket filled withfresh tortillas was the first thing to reach Juana. After this came a bowlfilled with beans, seasoned with chopped onion and salsa. She was sohungry that she squatted on the ground, placed her food between hercrossed legs, and ate with her fingers, dipping a tortilla into the beans, thenstuffing it all into her mouth. She closed her eyes, savoring the spicy flavorswith pleasure.When she finished eating, Juana noticed that people chatted quietly. Noone spoke to her directly, but she did not feel uncomfortable because shesensed that she had already been accepted as one of the them. Eventually,silence came over the group, although some of them were still lickingfingers or drinking from a gourd. Juana realized that everyone looked in thedirection where Orlando now sat cross-legged. She took her time as shestudied his face in the reflection of the fire. She focused on how hismustache drooped over his thick upper lip and saw that his eyes, whichwere small, became slits as he spoke.“Two people have joined us today. There, standing next to Saúl is ournew compañero Roque. And over there sitting next to Tirza is ourcompañera Juana. We welcome you both.”“Orlando, why are we wasting time with names, welcomes andintroductions when it is important for us to know what our next step willbe?”Faces snapped in the direction of the audacious voice. Juana heard itschallenging tone. Curious, she stretched her neck, trying to catch a glimpseof the speaker. Before she was able to identify the man, however, she sawsome people nodding their heads in agreement with him. Others mumbled,some loudly, others under their breath. She returned her attention toOrlando and saw that he sat with his back rigidly straight, his lips clampedso tight that they appeared to be a straight, hard line.“Our next step is to have patience because we must wait until we gathermore members. Then we must train until we are ready to defy thepatrones.”These words unleashed a torrent of remarks and questions that peltedOrlando from different directions. Juana had never witnessed suchoutspoken men. Her experiences had taught her that silence was usually her

people’s response. She saw, however, that Orlando answered every inquiryand comment looking each speaker in the eye.“Who will train us?”“We will train ourselves.”“To defy the patrones we need weapons, vehicles, clothing, boots, food,ways to communicate. Above all, we need money. Where will that comefrom?”“All of that will be provided.”“Provided? Who will provide that, Orlando?”“El Norte. People know about us up there, and they are collectingeverything we need. They will provide us with materials. For now, it is forus to get more people: men and women willing to fight a war, and even todie.”When Orlando kept tight-lipped and silent after these comments,everyone else followed his example. A hush fell over the group as if a veilhad been torn from a forbidden topic, and no one spoke until the same boldvoice again rang out.“Women? That’s crazy! ¡Estás loco! Women are useless in war! In fact,why are women here? War is not for women! This is none of theirbusiness!”As if they had been seared with burning prongs, all at once the womenhowled in rage. Loud muttering and hissing combined as clenched fistsslashed the night air. Women’s voices rang out, and hostile gestures wereaimed at the man who had uttered those words.“¡Cabrón!”“¡Qué chinga!”“We have toiled as much as you for centuries. Why shouldn’t we havethe right to fight?”“We have endured not only the fist of el patrón but that of our fathers,our brothers, our husbands. We have earned the right to be in the war!”The uproar coming from the women was such a clamor that it silencedthe man who had voiced his opposition. He said no more. Instead he slunkback where the reflection cast by the fire could not reach him. Juana staredin disbelief because she had never before seen women force a man away infear. Just then, the image of Cruz crawling away from her flashed in her

memory, and she realized that she had already made a man slink away inpain, and maybe even in fear. She breathed, forcing air into her lungs, thenexhaled slowly, coming to terms with the truth that she had already fought awar when she defied her husband.She returned her attention to the questions that had picked up once again,and to Orlando, who answered them, intentionally disregarding the issue ofwomen and war.“Orlando, it will take time to gather such an army. It cannot be doneovernight.”“We’ve got time. We’ve waited centuries.”“What will keep the patrones from wiping us out?”“The jungle will protect us as it has for so long. Secrecy will protect us,as it has for long years.”“If we make war on the mestizos, we will be destroyed.”“You and I might be destroyed, but others of our people will follow.”The onslaught of questions, doubts and demands for answers poundedOrlando, coming at him from men who had no experience in defying theauthority of the mestizos, and women who were for the first time believingthey had rights. Juana observed that the women with their silencedemonstrated confidence in what Orlando was saying. Then the barrage ofquestions stopped as suddenly as it had begun. It had been a rapid exchangeof words followed by a silence so complete that Juana thought that thesounds of the jungle had grown louder.Juana looked around, taking in the expressions of those around thecampfire. She stared at the men: disheveled, overworked, aged beyond theiryears. Juana then concentrated her eyes on the women, who were like her,mostly young, with determined faces that nonetheless reflected wearinessand impatience. After that, she looked into her own heart and saw that shewas in turmoil and confusion because she understood so little of what shehad just witnessed and heard. She knew, however, that what Orlando wasproposing was rebellion.After the group dispersed, Orlando came to where Juana remainedsitting. He sat by her side for a while before speaking. Behind them, in thepalapas, the murmuring of men and women mingled with the softstrumming of guitar strings, accompanied by humming voices. The crisp

sound of crickets and the faraway cascading rumble of water filled the air inthe distance.

Chapter 12 In the end, los patrones are severe and unforgiving.Juana gazed at Orlando’s face, knowing that he had fallen into thoughtand that his spirit was engaged in secret worlds. She contemplated himfreely, without shyness or reserve, taking in his profile, its long beakednose, the straight lashes and the tiny wrinkles that wrapped around hisslanted eyes. She had already taken in the brilliance of those eyes and sawhow they shone with a mixture of hope and apprehension. Left on her own,Juana scrutinized the man who was proposing resistance, even war, againstthe mestizos. She focused her gaze on his chest. It was shrouded by thecoarse Lacandón tunic, but its bony frame betrayed an underfed andoverworked lifetime. She looked at his rough hands, thinking that theirveins and knuckles appeared to be carved from hardwood. Juana’s eyesreturned to Orlando’s face to concentrate on the long, limp hair that coveredhis forehead and dangled down to his shoulders..“What are you thinking, compañero? Do you believe that the man whocried out a while ago was right about women and war?”“No. Women will have much to do with our struggle.”“Why do you say that when you know that in the palapas, in themercados, in the llanos, we are less valued than burros?”“It’s because you do more than half the work, because you suffer twiceas much as men, because you have the children, that you have earned andshould have an equal amount of authority.”Juana leaned her head to one side as she studied Orlando’s face. She hadnever heard a man acknowledge what in her heart she had felt, especiallysince her life had been joined to Cruz Ochoa.“Compañero, if that ever happens, it will be the first time. Don’t youthink that more than one man thinks like the one who spoke out? I can’timagine we would be allowed to participate in your plans as men do.”“He was wrong. Didn’t you hear how the women responded? Womenhave fought with men before, and it will happen again, because we will not

overcome the Catxul and the Aluxob if we don’t allow women to be ourpartners.”“The thieves and the liars… yes, you’ve spoken of those people before,compañero. But tell me, how can women help overcome those who havegrown used to being patrones?”“By not being afraid, and by fighting with weapons as well as words. Bymasking our faces in order to give a face to our people. By changing ournames, and returning lost identities to our ancestors. By forgetting our ownpasts so that we can give a future to our children.”Juana liked Orlando’s words, but she cared more for the way he spoke toher, because it was intense yet calm. She looked into his eyes despite herhaving been taught that a woman should not do so when speaking to a man.“Look, amiga, I will tell you of a woman who lived among us manygenerations ago and who led the first insurrection against the bosses. Shebelonged to the Tzeltal people. I first heard about her when I was a boyworking on an hacienda in Lacanjá. That history was told to me by a man, aLacandón who was educated and who became a teacher to the children of elpatrón. Whenever that maestro came into the kitchen to eat, I would askhim to repeat the story, and it became so important to me that I memorizedit until it became a part of me. Now I’ll tell it to you completely, but pleasedon’t interrupt me because, if I stop speaking, I’ll lose the thread of thestory and be forced to begin it again.”Juana sat with her eyes riveted to Orlando’s face, which soon appearedtransfigured as he began the story. She now stared at him without inhibition,because she saw that his eyes were closed and that he was no longer awareof her presence, much less her gaze. He sat cross-legged, with his handsresting on his knees, palms cupped upward, as if he were lost in prayer.“This story begins in Cancuc, Chiapas, in 1712, when the woman I speakof was sentenced to a lashing for having claimed to have heard the voice ofthe Virgin Mary commanding her to lead our people to freedom. She did notresist when she was strapped to the pillory by the soldier’s rough hands. Sheremained calm, her frail back naked and exposed to the lashes of the whip.Her body shuddered with the first blow, but when the next strokesdescended, her limbs refused to feel pain. What she did feel was the blood

trickling down her back onto her buttocks, coursing past the rear of herthighs until it saturated her ankles, finally seeping into the dirt, drenching ituntil its brown tones turned black. The whipping went on, biting into thewoman’s back. Only the lashing sounds broke the silence.“And still she stood, enduring the searing pain of the whip, her foreheadpressed against the pillory in such a way that the scar over her left eyebrowbegan to ache almost as much as the lashings. She tried to forget the miseryby concentrating her eyes on the people witnessing her punishment. Shesaw that she was surrounded by men and women of the commune whosefaces reflected rage and frustration at seeing one of their own people enduresuch meaningless and undeserved suffering.“As she swiveled her head from one side to the other, stretching her neckto get a better look, she saw that there was a multitude of people on everyside, and that their presence extended even beyond the range of her vision.They had come to witness the ordeal, and they did it respectfully, becausethe woman was now to them a special person. They had walked from as faraway as Chilón and Ocosingo to pay homage to her because she hadreceived and told of visions of freedom for our people.“The hissing of the lash was the only sound to shatter the silence whilethe whip ate at her flesh. Despite the pain, she focused her mind onwhatever she could see. She looked at the people, concentrating on thoseemaciated, dark faces, masks carved in wood, slits in the place of eyes,veiling pent-up rage. She suddenly realized that oppression and hatred hadtransformed the faces of our people; they no longer resembled ourancestors.“‘¡Infiel diabólica! ¡Que Dios Santísimo te perdone este pecadomortal!’“She turned around to see who had shouted those condemning words.Behind the soldier who was whipping her stood Brother Simón de Lara, aDominican priest, the only white man in the village of Cancuc. It was hewho had ordered the whipping with the intention of cleansing her of herdangerous ideas, and it was he who spoke. It was a lesson, he had toldeveryone, for those villagers who would not abandon their bent towardstheir ancient ways.“Brother Simón, spitting accusations of sin and devilish deeds at her,stood erect. His big jaw pointed toward the pillory while he held his arms

crossed under the long black cloth that covered his white gown. He noddedas each lash bit into the woman’s skin, but to his angry dismay, she did notcry out.“Unexpectedly, a shrill voice rang out from the crowd. Startled, she andeveryone, even the soldier, looked at each other and in every directiontrying to identify who had screamed, trying to make out what the voice hadyelled. But they heard only silence. And so the soldier returned to his task,and his grunting, along with the whirring sound of the whip, again broke thesilence. Then the faceless voice rang out again.“‘¡Cabrones! ¡Asesinos! ¡No tienen derecho! ¡Mátenlos!’“This time the woman heard the words clearly and she saw that everyoneelse had also understood. It was a signal to take vengeance. Our peoplemurmured and shifted, moving one foot, then the other. Brother Simónlooked into the crowd and saw its growing agitation. Then he raised hisarms high over his head as if defending himself against an invisible enemy.“‘¡En nombre de Dios… !’“His words were cut off by howling. She did not hear what he was aboutto say because our people lifted their arms and screamed out the pain ofgenerations of bondage. The wail was loud, anguished, and she heard herown cracked voice as it joined the clamor. Years of paying tribute tofaceless masters became intolerable. It was as if famine, scourgings,uprootings had become a gigantic knot that was strangling them. They wereLacondones, Tzeltales, Tzotziles, who would not tolerate that burden anylonger.“The woman was cut down from the pillory in time to catch a glimpse ofthe soldier as he dropped his whip and ran towards the forest. She also sawthe expression of horror stamped on the priest’s face as he realized whatwas happening. He stumbled over his long garment, trying to escape behindthe soldier, but Brother Simón was not fast enough. Rough hands took holdof him, knocking him to the ground. Hardened feet stomped on him untilblood spurted from his nose and cheeks while he rolled in the mudscreaming for pity.“The woman, bloodied and weakened by the flogging, was one of thefirst to accost him, tugging at his hair until she felt a handful rip away fromhis scalp. The others pushed, tearing at the priest’s garments, leaving himstripped. Men and women struggled, trying to at least dig their nails into the

white skin that had caused them so much misery, but the priest wiggled andthrashed his legs against our people until he was able to free himself. Nakedand bloody, he disappeared into the jungle.“From that place the news spread throughout the province of Zen-dales,reaching disbelieving ears and filling hearts with hope. The woman was oneof the messengers who traveled from village to village, telling of how thepeople had lifted their voices in outrage and forced the soldier and the priestto flee in fear. She, along with the other messengers, stirred the hearts of thepeople to courage, calling them to Cancuc.“It was in that village, in August of that same year, 1712, amidst thecrowd, that the woman who had been flogged gave the signal to begin thestruggle against the Spanish rulers. The women and men of the villages ofLos Zendales, Las Coronas, Chinampas and Huitiupán rose up in anger.They rebelled, overcoming the Spaniards and mestizos with the weight oftheir numbers and causing them to flee in terror to take a last stand inCiudad Real.“Later that month, our people marched on Ocosingo and Chilón andprevailed over their former masters. They fought with machetes and sticks,beating, hacking, screaming and terrifying the enemy. Emboldened by theirvictories, our ancestors pressed forward with one thought in mind: to castout the Spaniards once and for all.“After these encounters, the patrones tried to engage our people but werebesieged in Huixtán, and from there they retreated back to Ciudad Real,where for three months they languished, imploring help from their brothersin Tabasco and Guatemala. During that time, our people formed a newcountry, one free of menace, one joined by Tzotzil, Tzeltal and Chol. It wasat that time that messengers again went out to the multitudes with thewoman’s counsel. Everyone listened attentively because her words werefilled with truth.“‘Believe me and follow me, because there is no more tribute, or king, orbishop. The prophecy of throwing off the yoke and restoring our lands andliberty has been fulfilled.’“But the end came in November, when the Spaniards were reenforced bysoldiers from Guatemala who were armed with stone mortars and othermore advanced weapons. The first defeat of our people happened atOxchue, then another at Cancuc. After that, one village after the other

surrendered, despite our people knowing that what awaited them was worsethan death. The rebellion weakened, faltered, and ultimately was squashedby the soldiers. Not long after that, a report reached the Bishop of CiudadReal assuring the patrones that order would soon be restored.“‘Your Excellency,’ the message said, ‘the natives have been overcome;we are once again in control. But it must be noted that this has been themost extensive and most serious challenge to the presence of His Majesty’sauthority since our arrival in these lands. We must do all in our power toguarantee that the natives never again raise a hand against our sovereignrule. May Almighty God preserve us from another such rebellion.’“The woman and the rebels fled into the Lacandón Jungle and soughtshelter in the vastness and thickness of its growth. Soldiers and houndspursued them relentlessly, not caring that their swords slashed and slayedwomen and children, as well as men. The woman ran, exhausted by hunger,but kept on the move only out of fear of falling and being torn apart bythose dogs. That is where the story of the woman ends.”When Orlando ended the narrative, his eyelids fluttered as if he werecoming out of a deep sleep. After a while, he put his hands to his eyes,rubbed them and opened them as he focused on Juana. He licked his upperlip while staring at her, evidently waiting for words that might tell him whatshe was thinking. All he saw, however, was that she sat cross-legged andhunched over her hands, which she held clasped in her lap. He reached out,hesitated, then lifted her chin with his forefinger. He was surprised at thebrilliance of her eyes, but more by her words.“Why are we persecuted? What have we done to be so hated? Why dotheir dogs want to destroy us?”Orlando shifted his weight while he pondered Juana’s questions. Whenhe began speaking, his words baffled her because they appeared not to beanswering what she had asked. Nonetheless, she listened.“Compañera, when I was a boy still working on Finca Las Estrellas,Don Absolón Mayorga, el patrón, had a sister. She was so young thateveryone thought she was his daughter. One day, all the workers wereassembled out in the field where a post had been planted. All of us,servants, maids, laundry women, everyone that served inside and outside of

the main house, were ordered to that pillory. We didn’t know what wasgoing on, but I remember hearing the older people say that somethingterrible was about to happen.“Then, the sister of el patrón was brought out from the big house. Wecould all see that it was by force, because it was Don Absolón himself whowas pushing her forward. I remember that she was crying, that her face wasswollen and smeared, as if she had been struck many times. When theyreached the pillar, el patrón tore off her clothes until she was naked.Ashamed for her, we turned away, but he scolded us and ordered us to lookat his sister. We obeyed. Then he tied her to the pillory and whipped heruntil she fainted. After that he cast her into the jungle.”Orlando fell silent, leaving Juana more baffled than before. She tried totie his words to her questions, but could not find the connection. What shedid see, however, was a repetition of the scourging of the woman inOrlando’s story, only this time it was a mestiza, the sister of el patrón.“Compañero, what does this sad story have to do with the hatred thepatrones have for us?”“You see, Juana, Don Absolón’s sister was discovered to have been inlove with another woman. She was a manflora, a woman who loved one ofher own kind. I remember that he shouted for everyone to hear that whatshe did, what she was, and what she called love was a sin, that it wasrepugnant, that she was an animal with no reason to live.”Juana sucked in a deep breath, feeling frightened without fullyunderstanding why. She, herself, had never experienced love, much less hadshe ever imagined that a woman could have such feelings for anotherwoman. Hearing and knowing this made her heart pound. She thought ofher mother, of her sisters, of all the women of her village, and she wasunable to grasp what it would be like to love one of them.Orlando narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on Juana’s face,discerning her astonishment at hearing the story. Without waiting for her tosay anything, he continued.“Juana, after many years spent in cities and villages in search of theanswer to questions like yours, I now see why Don Absolón was soenraged. His sister had gone against his and all the other patrones’ rules andreligion. She was different and had dared to do what was forbidden, so hepunished her even though she was of his own flesh.”

Juana’s silence was deep. She had withdrawn so much into herself thatOrlando thought she was no longer listening to him. He waited for her toreturn to him and his words, but when she remained silent, he went on.“I also see that to the men who want to be our masters, being una indiaor un indio, being poor and forced to scratch a life out of a piece of dry dirt,being a manflora or a man who loves men, being anyone contrary, is all thesame. In their eyes, we share a common destiny in which we are hated,persecuted, tortured and condemned because we threaten their way of life.In the end, los patrones are severe and unforgiving.”Orlando moved closer to Juana and raised his hand to touch the scar onher forehead. It was a fleeting, tender touch. After a few moments, hecleared his throat.“Will you stay?”“Yes.”

Chapter 13 He even owns a mule.Juana, under the guidance of Orlando Flores, became TenienteInsurgente Isabel, and embraced the life of a guerrilla without reservation.Along with men and other women, she rose daily before sunrise, atetortillas and drank black coffee—the usual breakfast fare—and put in a fullday of training. Getting used to wearing pants and a man’s shirt posed adifficult obstacle for her; she found those garments tight, restraining, hot.But she soon realized that dressing like a man also gave her more mobilityand protection than did her long dress. Another hardship for her waswearing boots in place of the huaraches she had worn all of her life. Herfeet blistered, they became swollen, almost hobbling her, but in time sheadapted, and she enjoyed being able to step on sharp or prickly rocks andplants without worrying about her soles or ankles.Soon she learned to slither on her belly, almost silently, and crawl on herhands and knees as she approached mock targets, or enemies. Her elbowsbled, and her hands and arms ached from the pressure of carrying theunaccustomed weapon until her skin became coarse, scabbing over withnew bleedings on top of those wounds.Juana had never held a rifle and felt awkward when she was first orderedto take hold of one, but she soon became acquainted with its weight andfeel. She practiced shooting long hours, beyond what was expected, untilshe was able to place the bullet on the exact mark on the designated tree orbranch. This was also the case with running, ducking and leaping, all ofwhich she did with more success than any of the other new recruits, thesame compañeras and compañeros who in the beginning had laughed at herbecause she was short. That scoffing soon turned into admiration when itcould not be denied that no one could match Juana’s accuracy and speedduring maneuvers.Through the years, she changed. Not only was she transformed from thegirl who had sustained the blows of a morose husband into a woman nowtrained as a guerrilla, but during that time she had also developed her mind,

concentrating on learning to read, write and expand her skills in speakingSpanish. It was Orlando Flores who provided her first lessons, guiding heruntil she was capable of reading newspapers, written notices and otherarticles.Her face had also undergone a change; once round, it became elongatedand angular. Her nose had also thinned to a point, and her eyes were nearlyalways veiled by caution. Only her mouth remained the same. It was still asfull as when she had been a girl, and appeared always on the verge of asmile. This characteristic caused confusion in those who did not know herbecause her lips contradicted the seriousness of her other features.After a few years, when Orlando Flores and other members of theleadership noticed her dedication, and even more important, her successfultransformation into a guerrilla, Juana was included in the small group ofleaders. Shortly after that, supplies were purchased, brokered and evendonated for la lucha; they came from different parts of Mexico, and evenfrom other countries. Food, clothing, medicines, stockpiles of firearms andexplosives grew steadily. They were warehoused at strategically hiddenpoints, where they were held to be transported to the Lacandona. This wasdone by train, boat, and even on the backs of mules.It was determined that Juana would be the best of the group to bring inthose materials because of the self-assurance with which she walked andtalked, and because she was a woman, a Tzeltal, who would hardly drawattention. Teniente Isabel accepted the mission, but not until she trainedherself, learning the terrain, the cities, the rivers, the lakes, the borders thatmight present potential obstacles. When this had been accomplished, shechose to travel by herself, accepting the company of others only whennecessary to return with supplies.It was at those times that she mingled, dressed in a native skirt, blouseand huipil. Unnoticed, she traveled to hidden caches in Tabasco, Veracruz,Oaxaca, north to Monterrey and south across the border to El Petén andFrontera Echeverría in Guatemala. She forged rivers: Río Negro, Río SantaCruz and others that flowed in various directions, but that always yieldedfresh supplies. Strangers often saw her leap on barges or rafts, ride into avillage on the bare back of a burro, unsuspecting that she was no ordinaryTzeltal woman but someone on a mission.

Juana outwardly threw herself into the life of an insurgent, but inwardlyshe found herself trapped in loneliness, which grew as time passed, and herisolation deepened as she became obsessed by the memory of her fatherbartering her. She tried to understand why this feeling gnawed at her. Afterall, it was tradition; she was not the only girl to be exchanged. It hadhappened to her mother, to her sisters, to all the women she knew.He even owns a mule, which he has offered to sell in exchange for you.Juana was tormented by those words; they were engraved on her spirit, theytortured her, and no matter how much she tried, she was incapable offorgetting those lisping sounds as they dripped from her father’s lips. Afterseveral years, she understood that unless she confronted that memory, shewould never be free. That was when she went out in search of her father.During one of her trips to claim weapons and supplies, Juana reached theregion where Río Santa Cruz nears Lago Nahá, the site of her native village.She had been on a barge making her way toward Monte Líbano, when shewas filled with an urge to return to the place where she would find herfather, where she would ask him the questions that had haunted her foryears. When the boat stopped at Monte Líbano, she got off and walked tothe road leading to her village.On the way, she blended into clusters of people who walked the muddyroads, either making their way to the marketplaces of Ocosingo andComitán, or traveling in the opposite direction toward the lake villages ofTs’ibatnah, Mesabak, or Ah K’ak, as well as Nahá. It was a long walk,taking her an entire day.As Juana made her way, she observed her people, taking in the men andwomen who crowded the intersecting paths in that part of the LacandonaJungle. She scrutinized the men, those coming toward her heading in theopposite direction and those traveling her route. Some held reins pullingemaciated burros, or oxen; others pushed dilapidated carts loaded withsacks of beans or vegetables. She focused on their worn, wrinkled faces,their eyes downcast in dejection, and she mused how that look becametransformed once a person became an insurgent, someone convinced thatlife could be changed.Juana looked at the women especially. Some of them were just girlsalready burdened with hefty loads of goods meant for the market, or bybellies heavy with child, or by children that dangled from a backpack or

clutched at a skirt. In each one of those women, Juana, remembering herlife, saw her reflection first as a girl carting goods, then as a wifeexperiencing one ill-fated pregnancy after the other, all the time toiling inthe fields or by the river of El Caribal.Juana trekked along with everyone else, her feet pounding the hardenedmud, her throat coated with the fine dust lifted by the tread of countlessfeet. She felt energized by the sound of thumping huaraches, murmuringvoices, creaking carts, squalling children, but she was also filled with anger,knowing that such a life had been going on for decades, for centuries, thatthe pathway she and others now trod had been pounded into the ground byenslaved ancestors whose names were now forgotten.She wore the long woolen skirt of her tribe as well as a fadedembroidered blouse and huipil. She knew that outwardly she was justanother Tzeltal woman, but inwardly, she was different from them. Thisthought empowered her and reconfirmed her mission of finding her father.As she neared Nahá, however, her resolve began to falter because shewondered what she would say to him, how she would let him know that hehad condemned her to unhappiness for the price of a mule.When she neared Lago Nahá, Juana’s nose picked up the scent of waterand her ears caught whiffs of voices that skimmed the lake, reminding herof her childhood. Without having to ask, she took the path that rimmed thelake, heading for her family palapa, but when she arrived at the place, shefound nothing, only faded remnants of what used to be her family’sdwelling.Juana, astounded and not understanding, looked around, but there was noone; the place was abandoned. What she remembered as a flourishingcluster of huts was now a heap of rotting poles and palm fronds entangledin fetid mud pits. She looked toward the trees that had surrounded thedwellings and noticed that in their place were saplings growing out fromunder felled trees. Other than that, there was only silence broken by thesound of the breeze, rustling bushes and low-growing ferns.Bewildered, Juana paced the short distance to the rim of the lake, whereshe walked until she came across a group of women doing their wash. Theygawked at the stranger until the one who appeared to be the oldest spoke.“Demetria Galván?”“No, abuela. I’m her sister, Juana.”

“¡Ahhhhhhh!”A hushed expression that sounded like a sigh passed through thewomen’s lips, but Juana was not able to interpret its meaning. She noticedthat they stared at her, then one after the other, faces turned toward thewoman who had taken the lead.“You’re the wife of Cruz Ochoa, who lives in El Caribal.”Juana stiffened at the sound of the name that she never uttered. She knewthat, cutting through vast distances of jungle and mountain, there was atight system of communication between villages and tribes. Knowing this,however, had not prepared her to hear that name thrown in her face so soonafter her arrival.“Tongues said that you left him, but that he found you and brought youback to El Caribal.”“Those who speak say the truth, but only part of it. I left him again yearsago.”“¡Ahhhhhhhh!”“But that is not why I’ve returned to Nahá. I’ve come looking for myfather and my mother.”The faces again snapped in the direction of the elder woman. After thisthey glanced furtively at one another, their expressions betraying anxiety.Juana gazed at them in an effort to guess the meaning of those looks, butshe decided that asking questions would be more effective.“Where are they, abuela?”The old woman wiped soap from her gnarled fingers and dried her handson a faded apron. She was obviously filling time while she thought of herresponse.“Your mother is dead, niña. Drowned by the waters of this lake.”Juana felt a strange pressure in the pit of her stomach, which quicklyspread, becoming a profound sadness. She was also afraid, and sherecognized the feeling; it was what she felt after a torrential downpour,when the jungle and its animals fell so silent that she filled withapprehension. Her mother’s pained expression, when her father hadfinalized his bargain with Cruz Ochoa in the marketplace, became vividlyclear.“How did it happen?”

“A deluge of rain came, causing the lake to sweep away the palapas andsheds that fringed it. The torrent flooded us during the blackest hours of thenight; few down here survived. Your mother disappeared into the deepestpart of the water and her body was never found. Everything was gray andwrapped in mist that day.”“How long ago did this happen?”“Three years ago.”Eager to know her father’s whereabouts, Juana forced herself to putaside her grief. She would not, after having journeyed so far to see him,allow sadness to erase the reason for her coming.“Where is my father?”“Niña, do you see that path? If you follow it through those trees, youwill come to several palapas. The last one on the path is where your fatherlives.”“Muchas gracias.”Juana turned away from the group and headed for the trail pointed out bythe elder woman. As she walked, she felt her heart race, knowing that witheach step she was losing courage. Words she had rehearsed for this momentnow, one by one, escaped her mind, making her fear that she would bestruck dumb by the time she faced her father. Nonetheless, she walked,following the path to its end, until she arrived at the last of the huts.Juana paused at the entrance, long enough for her nose to pick up thesmell of smoke and tortillas. She knew what was going on inside: the sameas in her childhood days. Her father would be sitting cross-legged, silentand brooding, not because he was alone, but because he had always beenturned in on himself. She remembered, and for the first time she saw that heand Cruz Ochoa shared an impenetrable isolation. These thoughtsthreatened Juana’s resolve to face her father, even more because theyopened the door to her girlhood dread, which returned vivid and strong. Allwomen, she knew, shared this fear of the men in their family. She realizedalso that this condition resulted in isolation: the men from the women, andthe women from the men.Was that the reason why it was so easy, Tata? Juana heard herself talkingout loud. She hesitated for a moment, then instead of entering, she decidedto call out.

“¡Tata!”Juana waited, listening for a response, but all was silent in the hut. Shecalled out again, but this time she thought she heard movement. She movedaway from the low opening, expecting someone to emerge. When her fatherstepped out into the light of the early dusk, he seemed shrunken, muchsmaller than she recalled. He looked at her and responded as if she had beenwith him that morning, as if the years that had passed had been only hours.After a few moments, he gestured with his head for her to follow him intothe palapa. Once inside, they both squatted facing each other across thesmall fire.Juana was now used to speaking whenever she had something to say.She nonetheless observed the tradition of waiting for her father to speakfirst. A long time passed before he began to murmur, time during which herthoughts fell into place. As she waited, she felt relief that she no longerlived under the pall of deference to someone who did not return that samerespect. Thoughts of other women filled her, people who, like her, had takenone step after the other, leading them to fight for their worth. Her father’svoice brought Juana out of her musing.“You have brought the family shame.”“How?”“You have abandoned your husband.”“He was not my husband.”“You married him!”“You chose him!”Although quiet, their voices were charged with recrimination, withunspoken anger. Juana fought off rising emotions by trying to focus on herreasons for this encounter. She realized that her father had no notion that anew wave was washing over the minds of other women like her. It was hewho spoke again.“It is the duty of a father to choose for the daughter.”“What if Cruz Ochoa had not offered the price of his mule?”This time his eyes snapped away from the fire to glare at her. She couldnot discern if what she saw was anger or confusion. What she did know wasthat she had crossed a forbidden line.“If I had not found you a husband, you would have starved.”

“I left him many years ago and, look, I have not starved.”Her father backed away from the sparring and returned his gaze to thefire, giving Juana an opportunity to observe his face and body. He had agedsince she had last seen him, but his face had not lost its bony angles and sherealized for the first time that she looked like him. An inexplicablesensation overcame her when she saw that her nose, her eyes, her ears, wererepetitions of the same features of his face. She was amazed that she hadnot seen the resemblance before, and she inwardly asked how he could haveso easily traded off his own reflection. Then she looked at his body, seeingthat it was emaciated, and his hands were covered with scars, his fingersgnarled. He spoke again, and this time he looked at her, seemingly knowingher thoughts.“A daughter should not question her father.”“Tata, why did you sell me?”“I did not sell you! It was an exchange!”“Were you exchanged for the price of a mule by your father?”“I’m not a woman!”Juana could not speak anymore. It was clear that her father, like the othermen of her people, did not give the same value to a woman as to a man, andthat from that conviction flowed their every action.But knowing this did not help her find a way to contradict or to correct him;she did not know the words to reach him.Juana rose, left the palapa and walked in the opposite direction, towardthe jungle. She traveled until darkness forced her to take shelter in the nookof a giant ceiba tree. There, she spent the night thinking, straining to findwords that would ease the pressure draining her mind. She reflected on themotive for which she had returned to face her father. Was it to change him?Was it to make him experience the same misery she had felt? Why had shecome?As night moved toward its end, Juana thought that she had at last found away out of the labyrinth into which she had been cast after seeing her father.She understood that it was useless to expect him to change or to feel herbitterness or sadness. Yet, to live with anger was bound to destroy her. Shealso knew that if she was to find peace, another road was necessary; sheneeded to go in another direction.

How are fathers forgiven? How does it happen? Is it in their time, theirworld, their thinking?These questions took shape in Juana’s mind, but they remainedunanswered. She saw that night had crept by and daylight was filteringthrough the overhead canopy of branches. Although she had not slept, sheknew that she had gained some understanding with the notion offorgiveness. Juana decided that she would reflect more on it. She rose,brushed dried leaves from her rump, and turned toward Ocosingo, and fromthere, northbound to receive a new cargo of armaments and supplies.Years passed during which her father’s image began to fade as well asthe bitterness, liberating her to follow the path of insurgency. Her feeling offreedom was not complete, however, because she remained apprehensivethat one day Cruz Ochoa would track her, find her and again try to dominateher. This lingering feeling was realized one day when she was at the riverbathing. She was stripped to the waist; soap dripped from her long hairdown her neck, shoulders, and over her breasts. As she rinsed the suds outof her hair with a gourd, Juana suddenly sensed something: a presencenearby. Her body tensed, but without betraying her uneasiness, she inchedtoward the riverbank and reached for the revolver that was always by herside. With her other hand she got a towel and slid it over the weapon. Sheremained still but poised to spring, if necessary.“Juana!”She recognized Cruz Ochoa’s voice immediately. It was soft, as always,but still filled with anger. She was not surprised; she had been expecting hisreturn for years.“Juana!”She slowly raised her face as the soap continued to drip from her hair toher shoulders and breasts. As she did this, Juana cautiously got onto herknees, gaining balance as she judged the distance between herself and Cruz.Beneath the towel, her thumb cocked the revolver’s trigger.“¿Qué quieres, Cruz Ochoa?”“You! You’re still my wife, Juana, and I’ve come for you!”“I’m your wife, but I am not returning to your palapa.”“You are returning with me!”

As Cruz lifted his arm in hostility, Juana drew the weapon with bothhands and pointed it at his face. The sight of the gun unnerved him as if hehad been struck by an invisible fist. He reeled backward, eyes wide open,pupils dilated. When Juana spoke, her voice was steady, quiet, determined.“Turn around, Cruz Ochoa, head for your village and never return. If youdo, I’ll kill you. Te lo prometo.”Cruz was stunned as he stared at Juana. He saw, for the first time, thatshe had changed, that her face was different and that her eyes weretransformed. Her words cut into his brain, convincing him of herdetermination and ability to kill him. He turned in his tracks and vanishedinto the bushes.Juana waited until her heartbeat normalized before she dressed. Thesight of Cruz Ochoa’s face had filled her mouth with bitter saliva, butknowing that he would probably never return calmed her. To steady herselfeven more, she reminded herself that she had an assignment to carry outthat day. Focusing on this idea helped clear her mind. Word had reached thegeneral command of a photographer, a woman, who was living inPichucalco. Juana had been given the task to recruit her into their ranks.Dawn was breaking, and early light was seeping into Juana’s palapa.She was thinking that now she knew the name and face of thatphotographer. She now realized that she had spent the night relivingimportant moments of her life while searching for an explanation for thefeelings she was experiencing for that same woman, Adriana Mora. Withoutanswers, Juana shrugged it off for the moment and left her palapa toprepare for the day.

Chapter 14 Kap jol, the anger of the people.Lacanjá, a village in the Lacandona Jungle, 1963.Even before he knew it, Orlando Flores was to be among those who gaveenergy and life to tzak’ bail, the armed movement against los patrones. Intime, his followers would number in hundreds, even thousands, but in thebeginning it was his hand alone that first wielded the machete, lifted not toclear the paths of undergrowth, but to bring down the long line of masterswho had come to that land centuries before. Even as a boy, when he wasknown as Quintín Osuna, he would often smell the biting stench of kap jol,the anger of the people, as it seeped from palapa to palapa, as it snaked onits belly through rows of coffee plants in the highlands, as it coiled itselfunder the green gold of the giant mahogany trees in the heart of theLacandona Jungle. Even then the boy wondered how long it would takebefore his people rose in defiance of the masters.Orlando’s first recollections really began when he was fourteen yearsold, in the village of Lacanjá, where he was born and named Quintín Osuna.The cluster of huts was planted on property owned by Don AbsolónMayorga, a mestizo who sprang from a line of patrones dating from the firstdays of colonization. The Mayorga family lived on a vast estate, a finca,known as Las Estrellas. There, the men and boys of Lacanjá toiled on thecoffee plantations, or in the jungle as boyeros, those forced by the patronesto rob the forest of its precious mahogany known as green gold, oro verde.The women labored under similar stress in the household of the finca,where they were in charge of cooking, weaving, laundering and caring forthe Mayorga children. When a woman was not able to bring enough moneyto her palapa from her work in the big house, she was forced to join thehorde of men who daily trekked up the mountain to harvest coffee. Such awoman did this two or maybe three days out of each week. And if she hadan infant to care for at the time, she lashed the child to her breast andworked, stooped under the charring sun, as the baby suckled, first from onebreast, then from the other. Orlando Flores had been one of those children,

and it was from there, from his mother’s milk, that he sucked the outragethat coursed first through her veins, then through his own.When the boy was fourteen, he was called by el patrón to serve as ahouseboy. That was the day when Orlando’s memory began to record hislife, because he understood at that moment that his was a privilege notshared by many other boys of his tribe. Most of them were forced to trudgeto the highlands to tend the coffee plants, or worse, become boyeros in thejungle. Orlando became a good servant because he knew that his was a frailprivilege, one that had to be guarded lest it shatter. During the day, hepolished countless silver ornaments and dishes, he washed windows twicehis size, and he dusted glossy mahogany furniture, rubbing each piece untilhe could see his reflection peering back at him.In the evenings, he was instructed to put on a starched white cotton suitand to wait on Don Absolón by bringing him a glass of sherry. The old manroutinely took the after-dinner drink in the hacienda’s elegant parlor—avast, ornate room with glittering chandeliers where he sat by the recordplayer, savoring the tasty liqueur and listening to the music of Europeancomposers.After performing this duty, but before he was free to return to hisfamily’s palapa, Orlando had to report to the kitchen to help mop floors andclear away the dinner pots and pans. Each evening, the kitchen crew waitedfor the boy with anticipation, knowing that he would make them laugh,something those workers seldom did as they labored during the day. It hadbecome a routine. Orlando would saunter into the kitchen, holding himselfin the aloof manner of el patrón, pretending to sip his drink, the pinkie ofhis hand held stiffly in the air. All eyes were on him as the boy, acting out,placed an invisible record on the turntable, pretended to raise the volumeand danced as he and the others imagined white people danced. Orlandoswiveled, pirouetted and leaped high into the kitchen’s saturated air with hisarms held gracefully above his head, a snooty expression pasted on his face.Sometimes, because of the strain of leaping as high as he could, a tight,squeaky fart would escape from his rear, sending his audience intoconvulsions of laughter.Las torteadoras, women who spent their days kneading masa for theproduction of countless dozens of tortillas meant to feed not only theMayorga family but the entire army of household servants, clapped their

weary hands with each of Orlando’s escapades. Los cargadores, men whototed firewood for the giant ovens and stoves, and whose job it was to washgriddles and cast-iron caldrons, grinned widely at Orlando’s mocking theirmaster, their blackened faces contrasting with white teeth and glisteningeyes.It was during those days that Orlando met Rufino Mayorga, who was hisage. At first, when Rufino suggested that they go somewhere, Orlando washesitant, knowing that it was forbidden for someone like him to mingle withthe son of el patrón. But despite this forbidding rule, Orlando gave in andthe two boys often roamed the fringe of the jungle, playing or hunting smallgame. Then, as they grew older, they fished together in Río Lacanjá, andwhen the bites were few, they abandoned their poles and went swimmingand diving into the water from high branches. The forest rang with theirvoices as they shouted, daring one another to do different feats.“Epa, Rufino, I’ll bet you can’t dive from up here!”“Hey, Quintín, I’ll bet you can’t pee as far as I can!”As time passed, Orlando became more aware of the differences betweenhim and Rufino. The mestizo boy’s body was straight, with long legs, andhis skin was as white as milk. When Orlando began to notice this, he oftenglanced down to gaze at his own body, seeing that his legs were not longbut short and slightly bent at the knees. He saw also that his skin was dark,like the furniture he rubbed daily.It happened one evening as Orlando glided on sandaled feet over agleaming marble floor. He carried a crystal snifter filled with sherry,balanced on a silver tray. He carefully stood in front of Don Absolón,slightly bent forward as he offered him the drink. As always, el patrón wasdressed in evening attire with a starched white shirt secured at the neck by asilk bow tie. When he looked up at the boy, Orlando thought that the heavybags under the old man’s eyes were puffier than usual.Don Absolón gingerly took the glass with thumb and index finger whilehe riveted his glance on the boy’s face. His bulbous eyes narrowed as hestudied Orlando’s face. He did this in silence, taking his time, knowing thathis servant would not move away until he was excused. Seconds passed, butbecause this was unusual behavior for el patrón, Orlando began to sensetrouble. He shifted from one foot to the other as he hid the tray behind his

back, trying to conceal his hands that were beginning to shake. The boy’sgrowing apprehension eased when Don Absolón finally spoke.“How long have you been working in this house?”“Nearly two years, patrón.” “How old are you?”“Sixteen. I think.”“What do you mean, you think? When were you born? What year?”“No one is sure, but my Tata tells me it was during the years ofPresidente Alemán.”Don Absolón lifted the tiny glass to his jowls and sniffed its contents. Hewas calculating, remembering the dates of the Alemán administration. Allthe while, Orlando moved his weight from one foot to the other.“Yes, that makes you sixteen or so.”“Sí, patrón.”The old man drifted off into silence once again, but since he had notmade his usual hand motion excusing Orlando from his presence, the boyknew he was to stand there for as long as was necessary. Finally, DonAbsolón spoke, but only after draining the glass of its contents.“Why have you been keeping company with Rufino?”Orlando froze, his hand in mid-air as he was reaching to take the snifterfrom his master’s fingertips. Although Don Absolón’s voice was hushed,the boy heard the rough edge of accusation in the words that had drippedout of the old man’s lips.“We’re friends, patrón.”“Friends? Since when is someone the likes of you friends with aMayorga? Who gave you permission? What are you thinking?”The roar in Orlando’s ears prevented him from hearing the rest of whatDon Absolón was saying, and he found himself struggling against theintense desire to run and not stop until he had escaped those bulging, wateryeyes. When he saw the old man get to his feet, Orlando squeezed shut hisown eyes, expecting blows to come down on his face and neck. But nothinghappened. Instead, he was startled back into opening his eyes. He detectedthe sound of the soft leather of his master’s slippers shuffling on the marblefloor. Before disappearing into the darkness of the long corridor, DonAbsolón stopped and stiffly turned toward Orlando.

“En esta vida, siempre hay que guardar nuestro lugar.”In this life, it is always necessary to keep one’s place. The old man’swords echoed, bouncing off the vaulted ceiling, crashing down on Orlando.Once alone in the room, however, he responded to the urge to escape, andturned and fled through the huge dining room with its polished silver andcarved furniture. He ran through connecting hallways and parlors, untilreaching the vast kitchen. When he streaked by the cooks and dishwashers,they hardly recognized the blur of speed, and Orlando kept running until hecrashed through the low entrance to his palapa, panting and out of breath.“¿Qué pasa, Quintín?”“Nada, Mamá, nada.”He knew that his response to his mother, that nothing had happened,would not be enough. He was covered in sweat, gasping through a gapingmouth, and his face was twisted with fear. He knew she would not besatisfied until he told her the truth.“El patrón, Mamá… ““¿Qué del patrón, Quintín?”The boy’s heart began to return to its normal rhythm, allowing him tospeak. He swallowed a large gulp of saliva before telling her what hadhappened.“He knows that Rufino and I are friends.”“¡Ay, Dios Santo!”“But he didn’t do anything, Mamá! He just walked away from me whenI told him the truth.”“¡Ay, Dios Santo!”“Mamá, don’t worry. Nothing will happen. Maybe el patrón likes me asa friend for his son.”Orlando watched as his mother slid down onto her haunches and rubbedher hands together. She kept quiet, and her silence scared him. He wanted tohear that she agreed and that everything was fine, that nothing bad wouldhappen because of his friendship with Rufino Mayorga. Mother and sonremained in silence for the next few minutes as night drew near, and evenuntil Orlando’s father slipped in through the entrance. With a glance, hismother let Orlando know that he should wait outside, and he obeyedwithout saying a word. Once outside of the hut, however, he could hear the

soft murmur of his mother’s voice; he even thought that he heard herweeping.The next day, the boy’s ingenuousness was shattered when his father methim as he was leaving for work. Orlando was alarmed when he saw astranger standing not far behind his father, but curiosity overcame his fearalmost immediately. He leaned his head to the side as he peered at the man,who was too tall to be a Lacandón, but too dark-complexioned to be amestizo. The stranger stared at Orlando out of beady, onyx-colored eyesthat appeared not to have eyelids; those marble-like eyes were shadowed bybushy eyebrows that coiled upward like tiny horns. His nose curveddownward; it hung over a bulbous harelip through which the man’s frontteeth protruded. Orlando stared at that mouth because he had never seenanother like it, and he saw that although it was fringed by a mustache, theugliness could not be disguised.The man was dressed in khaki, with a revolver hanging on his belt.When Orlando looked down at his feet, he saw that the man wore heeledboots with pointed toes. His eyes snapped upward to again look at thatscary face, and he focused on the stranger’s large, northern-style sombrero,which he wore pulled low over his brow.Orlando’s father finally spoke. He did it calmly, but the boy detected fearin his words. Father and son stared at one another.“Hijo, el patrón has assigned you to work as a boyero, and this man ishere to take you to where you will be working from now on.”“¡Tata!”“Go, Quintín! Take care of yourself because now you’re a man and noone will be there to help you. Come to see us whenever you can.”“¡Tata!”Orlando saw grief stamped on his father’s face. When he turned to lookat the man to see if his reflected similar emotion, he saw only hardness anddetermination in his eyes. Suddenly, the boy was overcome with images ofwhat he had heard about the burden of a boyero: labor along teams of oxenthat pulled the giant mahogany trunks through the mud of the jungle; thedanger of being sucked in by mire to suffer a hideous death, either bysuffocation, or by being crushed under the hooves of the straining beasts;the pain of being devoured by carnivorous mosquitoes that tear at humanflesh, bit by bit; the agony of indescribable fatigue that can never be

relieved because the work is endless. Orlando had overheard grown menweep, telling how even one trunk of mahogany is known as oro verdebecause of its high cost in lives of men and animals, as well as for the highprice paid for its lumber.The stranger gave Orlando a short time to put a few belongings in a packand to say goodbye to his mother and father. After that, he found himselftrekking behind the sullen man, who was to lead him into the heart of theLacandona Jungle where the mahogany was harvested. Orlando followedhis guide, lost in silence, wondering if he would ever see his mother orfather again, asking himself if Rufino would try to persuade Don Absolónto bring him back to la finca. As he hiked, Orlando felt scared, and thesaliva in his mouth was dry and bitter.When they arrived at the campsite, Orlando saw a few dilapidated hutsclustered against a long shed that held more than a dozen hammocks. It wasnightfall, and there were scattered campfires, around which the boy madeout other young men, most of them close to him in age. He saw by the wayin which they crouched, or slouched on the ground, that they were dejectedand exhausted.As they neared the place, the man made a gesture with his hand, and aboy appeared out of the darkness.“This is the new boyero. Take him to your place. Show him what he’s todo. If he dies in the first week, you will be held responsible.”“Sí, señor.”Orlando felt a terror he had never before experienced when he heardthose words, and he bolted, intending to escape, but several bodies accostedhim almost immediately, tackling and knocking him to the ground. The boywho had been put in charge of him grappled with him until Orlando settleddown, breathing heavily through his mouth.“¡No seas pendejo! There’s no escape from here, so what’s the use ofbeing stupid? Come on, I’ll show you your hamaca.”Orlando followed the boy, who wore only pants cut off above the knees,taking in his back and spindly legs. He saw that his hair was encrusted withmud and that his ears and neck were streaked with caked slime. Orlandostared at the network of mosquito wounds that showed on the boy’s neck,back, chest and arms. He could tell that some of the scars were old, but thatothers were so fresh that blood still glistened on the scabs.

“My name is Aquiles Rendón. What’s yours?”“Quintín Osuna.”“Come on! Don’t hang your head that way. Soon you’ll get used to thisshit camp and make the best of it. I’ll teach you to stay alive, and that’s allyou have to know. Lots of the boyeros that come here don’t stop to thinkthat there’s only one important thing here, and it’s not food, not sleep, noteven money. The only important thing is not dying, staying alive. And I’llteach you how to do that, I promise. You know what, Quintín? You’re onegoddamn lucky boyero because El Brujo has put you in my hands.”Orlando, who had been walking alongside Aquiles, listening to what hewas saying, suddenly stopped, wondering why the man with the harelip wascalled the sorcerer. He looked at the other boy with curiosity.“Ah, sí, you want to know why he’s called a brujo. Well, for one thing,just look at his eyes and you’ll see that they’re the eyes of a bat. They’resmall, beady and black like those of a murciélago. Have you noticed thathis teeth are pointed? The guys around here all say that he never sleeps, thathe’s always watching so he can run to the patrón with whatever bad thingshe can say about us. Maybe he is a bat, or maybe he’s a brujo who knowsstinking witchcraft. Maybe at night his arms turn into webbed wings and heflaps over the caoba trees, spying on the whole goddamn jungle. I don’tknow. All I know is that wherever the giant caobas grow, that’s where heleads us. Another thing about him: If he even begins to hate a boyero, that’sit for that poor cabrón; that guy mysteriously is sucked into the mud neverto be seen again. Believe me, Quintín, I’ve seen that happen many, manytimes.”Orlando felt frightened by Aquiles’ talk of El Brujo and his sorcery.Such things happened, he knew. Knowing this added to his apprehensionabout the camp and the work he was supposed to do. To fight off his fear, heshifted his attention from the sorcerer.“What will I have to do? I’ve only heard of boyeros, not what they do.”“Well, amigo, a boyero is the poor cabrón who pushes the oxen to dragthe caoba trunks through the mud to a river so they’ll float away to thenearest port. You and I are boyeros, which means we’re less strong than anox, and because of that we’re less important. Don’t worry. Just do what I doand listen to what I tell you, and you’ll be safe.”

As Aquiles spoke, Orlando concentrated on his face and head: unrulyhair spiked by countless coats of slime; a broad, flat forehead; tiny, slantedeyes out of which a silvery spark flashed; high cheek bones and a broadmouth filled with large white teeth.“How long have you been working here?”“I was thirteen years old when my father got drunk and got into a fightwith one of the patrón’s servants. My father disappeared. No one knowswhere he is. I was sent here because I am the only son and had to take hisplace. That was three years ago, but I still have five more years because Iwas sent here for eight. How many years will you have to be here?”Shocked that he did not have an answer, Orlando gaped at Aquiles. Hedid not know how long he would have to be in that camp; no one had evenmentioned a term. He felt his chest tighten.“I don’t know. El Brujo didn’t say.”“¡Qué chinga, amigo! I never heard of any of the guys coming herewithout knowing for how long. You better find out, but not right away.Later on, when El Brujo sees you doing a good job, you can ask him. Hewon’t put the evil eye on you that way. Now, we’d better get to sleepbecause day after tomorrow, we head for the jungle at dawn and we need torest as much as possible. We’ll stay there for four weeks working, andbelieve me, there are no hammocks there. A boyero sleeps where he falls inthe mud at night, when he can’t walk anymore because he’s so tired. Thenat dawn El Brujo comes with his prong and sticks it into you until you getback on your feet to work for the day.”That night, Orlando hung listless in the swinging hammock as his mindwrestled with unanswered questions: Why am I here if my only mistake wasto be a friend to Rufino Mayorga? Why is Aquiles in this camp if he hasnever done anything wrong? Are the other boys here for similar reasons?What are the chances of escaping from this place?“Compañero, don’t think of it.”Aquiles’ voice cut through the darkness, startling Orlando, who suddenlythought that his companion had been hearing his thoughts. He rolled overon his shoulder to peer across to where Aquiles swayed in his hammock.Orlando squinted in the dark, trying to discern the expression on his face.“I know what you’re thinking. It’s what goes through all our minds whenwe first get here. But the camp is guarded at all times. Even if you don’t see

them, they’re waiting for any one of us who tries to run away.”Orlando felt his chest well up with frustration and rage, anger atsomething unseen, a presence he could not identify. Then Don Absolón’spuffy face appeared in the gloom, its baggy eyes leering at him, his slackmouth grinning. Orlando’s stomach ached when he swallowed the bittersaliva that had filled his mouth. He was miserable and confused as he hungin the flat, humid jungle air, not knowing that years would pass before hecould free himself from the mud of the boyero’s life.

Chapter 15 I’ll see that he’s taken care of.Young Rufino was standing next to the stone sink taking a drink of waterwhen he overheard the maids gossiping about his friend Quintín Osuna.When Rufino realized that they hadn’t seen him because he was standing ina dark corner of the kitchen, he decided to eavesdrop on them.“They took the boy. Several people saw El Brujo come after him.”“Comadre, are you certain?”“Sí.”“That overseer is a devil. He could only bring harm to Quintín. Butthen… well… maybe… I think you’re mistaken.”“Well, don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but others were standingnear the Osuna palapa and even swear that they caught a glimpse of theEvil One’s eyes.”“¡Virgen Santísima! If that’s what happened, we’ll never see youngQuintín again.”Rufino’s eyes widened as he listened to the women’s soft murmurs. Hecould not make sense of their words, but they filled him with fear. Thethought of his friend being taken away by his father’s overseeroverwhelmed him so much that the last gulp of water he had taken was stilltrapped in his mouth; his throat had clamped shut.“¿Por qué? What could the boy have done to be sent away with that evilman?”“Not much! Everyone knows what el patrón is like, and that any littlething can cause him to do the most terrible things. Remember his sister? Ifhe was so cruel to his own flesh and blood, what can anyone else expect.”In his mind, Rufino also asked the woman’s question: Why would hisfather punish his friend by sending him away from his mother and father?He remembered his aunt and her punishment, but that was different becauseshe had done something bad and deserved what she got. Quintín had donenothing except be a good friend to him.

Suddenly this thought froze in Rufino’s brain. He remembered that everytime he and Quintín had gone far into the jungle to play, it had been behindhis father’s back because he had known all along that he was not supposedto act as if Quintín was like him. He had not paid attention to any of thewarnings. Shaken, he put down the glass he was holding and dashed out ofthe kitchen, startling the maids and cooks as he rushed by them.Rufino found his father sitting at his desk in the study. The day wasending, but there was still enough daylight filtering through the tallwindows, allowing Don Absolón to read the document he held in his hands.When he heard the door close, he looked up as he removed the smallreading glasses that perched on the bridge of his nose.“Hijo. Come in.”“Buenas tardes, Padre.”The old man squinted as he focused on his son’s image. As always, hefelt a pang of emotion just looking at Rufino, his youngest, his favorite, thecenter of his hopes. There were the three older brothers, but Don Absolónhad long ago pinned his attention on Rufino as his successor. The old manabsentmindedly rubbed his chin with one hand and beckoned his son tocome nearer to him with the other.“¿Qué pasa, Rufino? You look upset. Are you feeling sick?”“No, Padre, I’m fine. It’s just that I’ve heard words that I think are onlygossip.”Sensing an awkward moment, Don Absolón sat up in the armchair as hemotioned to Rufino to sit in a nearby chair. He had expected that his sonwould require an explanation regarding the Indian boy, but he had notthought that the moment would come so soon. Nonetheless, the old manwas prepared.“What is it that you’ve heard?”“That Quintín Osuna was taken away by El Brujo.”“El Bru… Rufino, the best overseer on our property has a name. ¡Porfavor!”“I’m sorry, Padre, but I don’t know it.”Don Absolón was only trying to put Rufino on the defensive whilebuying time in which to discern his son’s feelings. The truth was that evenhe did not remember the overseer’s name. He sucked his teeth and shrugged

his shoulders, letting Rufino know that he should go on with what he wassaying.“¿Por qué, Padre? Quintín was my friend.”Don Absolón was momentarily taken off guard by Rufino’s looks andwords filled with emotion. He saw that his face had drained of its usualcolor, and he thought that the boy might even be close to tears. But insteadof moving him to sympathy, this impression of deep affection of his son forthe Indian boy only reinforced the old man’s decision to have done awaywith him.“Precisely!”“Precisely?”“Yes, Rufino! That the boy has cleverly made his way into yourfriendship is precisely why he should be sent away. His likes should neverforget their place when it comes to mingling with our families. In fact, Hijo,we, too, must be held to the same rule. We must not lose the place we haveoccupied for so many generations by letting those under us believe that theyare our equals.”Don Absolón abruptly halted his harangue when he saw that Rufino’sface was betraying confusion, and somewhere hidden behind the pupils ofhis eyes, the old man thought he detected resentment, even resistance towhat he was saying. When his son kept quiet, Don Absolón decided to takeanother route.“At any rate, Hijo, this is really only a trivial incident, one that you’llforget as soon as you go to the academy. As a matter of fact, this letter I’mreading is your acceptance as a cadet. Isn’t this what you’ve alwayswanted?”The tactic worked. Rufino’s eyes changed almost immediately onhearing that not only was he accepted by the military school in Mexico Citybut that his father was actually agreeing to it. But he was jarred by thesudden change in his father, since he had always said that he wanted Rufinoto stay on the finca to learn its ways of operation. Quintín Osuna’s absencebegan to recede to the back of his mind.“I thought you wanted me to stay here.”“Well, yes, that’s what I want. On the other hand, Hijo, it would be goodfor you to mingle with the men that have always been our right hand. Who

knows, you might even be a colonel or a general, eh? That’s it! GeneralRufino Mayorga!”Don Absolón’s bloated face contorted into a grimace as he patronizedRufino, humoring and condescending to his boyish wishes. He knew,however, that his youngest son would ultimately be his inheritor; he wouldassure this against whatever obstacles might arise. He knew that a few yearsaway from Las Estrellas would cure Rufino of his outlandish dream ofbeing an officer. The boy’s calling was to a much higher status.Rufino got to his feet as his heart raced with joy because he would bejoining the academy. As he turned to leave the room, however, heremembered the reason he had come to speak to his father in the first place.Quintín’s brown face flashed in front of him; it seemed to be waiting forRufino to do something.“Padre, what about my friend?”Don Absolón, who had already returned his attention to his papers,looked up. His expression was neutral, revealing nothing.“Don’t worry about him. I’ll see that he’s taken care of.”

Chapter 16 There was only emptiness.“Hey, Quintín, tomorrow I go out to do my last four weeks of shit work.What do you think of that, amigo? Eight years of this hell. ¡Qué chinga!And now I’m going back to my palapa. I wonder if there’s anyone left toremember me.”Orlando and Aquiles were ending a week of rest and ready to undergoanother four weeks of harvesting mahogany. Orlando sat cross-legged,leaning against a tree, staring into the campfire that crackled with burningembers. Though he appeared not to be listening to Aquiles, he was hearingevery word. As his companion rambled, Orlando felt torn between joy forAquiles because he would soon be free, and envy because he, himself, wasto remain locked into that life of captivity which he had now endured forfive long years.Orlando now remembered how he had worked up the courage to go to ElBrujo to ask him the length of his term as a boyero. He had dared toapproach the man just a day after his arrival, only to be told that el patrónwas thinking about it and would give word of his decision. When dayspassed and Orlando received only the bat-like glares of the overseer, hewent to him again.He approached El Brujo, afraid, but his desire to know what was tobecome of him overcame his apprehension. He swallowed a large gulp ofsaliva as he neared the man who, as always, stood apart and silent.“Señor.”“¿Qué quieres?”El Brujo beaked his upper lip as he glared at Orlando, who shifted hisfeet in nervousness, thinking that the man was deliberately toying with him,pretending to have forgotten their talk of a few days earlier. He breatheddeeply, trying to overcome the anger that was welling up in his chest.“I want to know what Don Absolón has decided about me.”“About you?”

“I mean, how long will I have to be a boyero?”“Until he decides that you have paid for your crime.”“Crime? I haven’t committed a crime!”“Are you defying Don Absolón’s wisdom?”“No, señor. I’m only asking a question.”“The answer to your question is that I didn’t ask el patrón what heintends to do with you, so I’m sure he’s forgotten all about you andwhatever you did.”El Brujo’s words stunned Orlando, who felt that his legs were about togive out and that he would crumble at the overseer’s feet. The boy held hisbreath, struggling to get control of his racing heart and the overwhelmingsurge of hatred flooding him. Aquiles’ words came to him: If he even beginsto hate a boyero, that’s it for that poor cabrón; that poor devil mysteriouslyis sucked into the mud, never to be seen again.Orlando turned away from the man without a word, knowing that hishatred had leaked out of his eyes, and that El Brujo was now sure to put theevil eye on him. Orlando didn’t care, however. Don Absolón and El Brujohad put him there for nothing, and what was worse, he would remain aboyero until he died, either with mud clogging his throat or from snake bite.What did it matter if the sorcerer put a hex on him? Nothing mattered now.It was only his second day in the camp, but Orlando knew he was a deadman. His hatred for El Brujo intensified with each step he took away fromthe man, and his body grew so cold that by the time he reached the campfireAquiles had started, he thrust his hand into the burning branches.“¡Epa, amigo! ¿Estás loco?”Aquiles lunged toward Orlando and yanked his hand from the embers,but not fast enough to prevent it from being scorched. The burn did nothingto lessen the chill that had invaded Orlando’s insides. His teeth rattled oneagainst the other, and his body shivered as if he were buried in ice.“¡Ese cabrón! ¡Ese cabrón! ¡Qué chingue a su madre!”Orlando stuttered, hurling insults at El Brujo, mumbling profanities thateven Aquiles had not heard. His friend, mouth open, stared at hiscompañero, not understanding the cause of his fury, but when Orlandoregained some composure, he told Aquiles what had happened, launchinginto more obscenities.

“¡Ay, amigo! This is not good! This is very bad for you. Be carefulbecause one day that devil will try to kill you.”Orlando could not bring himself to accept the sentence that El Brujo hadhurled at him. If Don Absolón had forgotten him, then it would be true thathe was to stay at the caoba camp until he died, by accident or at the handsof the sorcerer. A separate idea took hold of him: What about his motherand father? If the old patrón had indicted him so severely for doing nothing,what about them? Understanding this compelled him to begin a plan ofescape. He spent weeks spying on the guards that surrounded the camp.When he detected sloppiness in one or two of them, he concentrated ontheir every move: how they snoozed while the overseer was not keeping aneye on them, how they were careless with their weapons, how they becamedistracted when they joked and gossiped while on guard.After staking out the guards’ day shift, Orlando decided that if he wereto escape, his best chance would be after dark. So for countless evenings,while everyone slept, he crawled from his hammock and spent hours spyingon the night guards. He discovered that they were even more negligent thanthe day watch, and that they slept most of the time.One night, after waiting for Aquiles and everyone else to fall asleep,Orlando rolled a petate, lashed it to his back and tied a gourd filled withwater to his waist. He crawled away from the palapa, past circles of fadingembers in the center of the camp, past snoring boyeros, all the while grazingarms and legs that dangled from hammocks. Orlando slithered on his belly,clawing at the soggy earth with elbows and knees, struggling to muffle hisstrained breathing, knowing that the sound of a cracking branch might alertat least one of the snoozing sentries.As he moved, he felt joy surging through him, knowing that each strokeof his arms and legs dragged him further away from the camp, away fromthe hateful sorcerer. When he judged that he had penetrated the ring ofguards, he gingerly got to his knees and looked around him. The jungle wasespecially dark that moonless night, and there was only the humming ofnocturnal reptiles and the occasional whelp of a howling monkey. He got tohis feet and began to walk, carefully at first, then picking up pace until hereached a brisk rhythm, in spite of his sandaled feet sinking into the ooze ofthe jungle floor, hindering his speed.

Orlando’s heart beat wildly because of the exertion, but more so becausehe understood that he would soon be free, that no one would be able to findhim once he buried himself in the jungle, that never again would he fear asorcerer or any patrón. His mind raced at the same speed as his heart,thinking, planning, rejoicing, knowing that he was no longer a captive.He was suddenly yanked from his thoughts when something stoppedhim, and his legs seemed to be paralyzed as his ears tried to decipher astrange noise, something different, foreign to the night sounds of the jungle.He squinted his eyes as if this would sharpen his hearing. It was a rasping,flapping noise, like that of a bat’s webbed wings beating against the humidnight air.Orlando’s head jerked upward trying to see, but his vision was cut shortby the dense canopy of tree branches. Terrified, his eyes searched, eager topenetrate the gloom from which the whipping sound grew stronger andnearer; he even felt a swirling current of air graze his face. He began to turnin circles, arms outstretched, gnarled fingers groping wildly in the dark ashe strained to recognize the sound that was increasing his terror with eachmoment. His eyes were wide open, pupils dilated, as he scanned thetreetops until he thought he caught a glimpse of a bat’s silhouette. As hespun full circle away from the hateful image, his mouth open and gasping,his heart beating uncontrollably, a voice brought him to an abrupt halt.“Boyero, ¿Qué haces?”Orlando knew who it was. The shrill, hissing voice was unmistakable.When he gained control of his body, he turned toward the voice and he sawthe bulbous, onyx-colored eyes of El Brujo shining in the blackness. Evenin the dark, Orlando was able to make out the revolver in his hand. El Brujoheld it high, pointed at Orlando’s face.“¡Vámonos!”Nothing else was said. Orlando was so shaken that his tongue wassticking to the roof of his mouth. He could hardly force his legs to obey hismind, but he walked, nonetheless, stiffly at first, then at a brisker speed. Ashe moved, his mind was a swirl of confusion, fear and hatred. He could notunderstand how El Brujo had caught him, how he had known where to findhim in the jungle’s density and darkness. Orlando could not account for theflapping sounds he had heard, nor for the bat’s image he was sure he hadseen. He wondered if it had only been his imagination.

As he marched, he felt the sorcerer’s gun grazing the nape of his neck;he could even smell the man’s heavy breathing. Aside from that sound,everything was quiet. The jungle creatures were watching in silent awe, asif they, too, were wondering what would become of Orlando Flores.When Orlando and El Brujo reached the camp, it was bristling with thecomings and goings of men, no matter that it was before daybreak. At firstit was only a rumor that got around that someone had tried to escape, andthat it had been the new boyero Quintín Osuna. Few men were alarmedbecause a first infraction by a boyero usually received a mild punishment:five days without nourishment, except for water. But it was always El Brujowho decided on the severity.At dawn the gossiping among the boyeros stopped abruptly, when wordwent from mouth to mouth describing what was said to be Orlando’spunishment. It was to be the worst, not the mildest. Aquiles rushed to ElBrujo with the intention of intervening for his friend, but he saw that thesorcerer, two armed guards by his side, could not be approached. Besides,Aquiles also saw that Orlando was already being led to the pillory, where hewould be flogged until he lost consciousness.The lashing began in view of all of the workers; it was to be a lesson. Asthe whip cut through the air, each one of those men could feel the steel-tipped leather bite into his own flesh. Orlando at first was able to stay on hisfeet, but as the lashing increased, his knees began to buckle and eventuallycave in, so that he was hanging with the entire weight of his body held upby his wrists, which were strapped into an iron ring at the top of the post.Orlando’s knees had failed him, but his heart continued to burn withhatred for El Brujo and all he represented. Orlando stayed conscious byrepeating a promise to never forget what was happening to him, and whathappened every day to men like him, and what had happened to his peoplefor generations. His eyes fluttered, opened, fluttered and opened once again,letting everyone know that he refused to surrender to unconsciousness. Theguard who was whipping him tired and had to be replaced, but Orlando stillwould not faint. The flesh on his back was in tatters, yet he would not allowhimself to fall into darkness, despite the pain.The men around him began to shift and move in indignation as thewhipping continued; they cast angry eyes at El Brujo, but Orlando remainedalert, aware. The sorcerer, urged by the other overseers, finally gave the

order to cease the punishment. After all, his intention had been reached:Orlando was pulp and blood; the other boyeros had seen and learned theirlesson. Yet, he had one more detail to add to that example.“¡Córtenle un dedo de cada pie!”To have a toe severed from each foot gave Orlando intolerable pain andeven long after the wounds healed, the memory of that agony inhabited hisheart and mind, and would do so until the day of his death. He never forgotthat his was a solitary pain, but the suffering that anguished his people wasuniversal, and this thought mitigated his own agony. These were thethoughts that caused Orlando to cease being a boy.Now as he listened to Aquiles, Orlando realized that time had crawledfor him since then. He had aged as if more than five years had passed. Onlytwenty-one years old, his body had taken on the appearance of a much olderman. The constant labor of dragging chains through dense ooze whilestruggling against the pull of oxen had stunted Orlando’s growth; only hisfeet had developed, but they were now out of proportion with his body size,and each foot missing a toe. His arms were long and sinewy, their veinscoiled from elbows to hands like blue snakes trying to slither around untoldpockmarks left by relentless mosquito attacks. His face had broadened,flattened; his lips had also changed, clinging to the hollows caused byknocked-out teeth; and his eyes had lost the light that had been there on theday he left his palapa.Orlando’s greatest change, moreover, took place within him: somewherearound the heart, in the niche where his spirit lingered. The punishments hehad endured, as well as countless unanswered questions, had left him with agrowing anxiety, which surfaced masked as bitter rage. He often pickedfights with his compañeros, battering anyone who would so much as glanceat him.Because his intelligence had been stunted, neglected, his mind oftengroped blindly for a way out of its dungeon, and he looked for reasons, foranswers, but there was only emptiness. Orlando would often howl indesperation. He did this almost always when he was on a team of men,struggling, pulling at the chains that guided straining oxen. At those times,his screams disappeared into the din, swallowed by the clamor of grunting,cursing men, snorting beasts, shouting overseers and groaning, creakingtree trunks.

Now, listening to Aquiles, Orlando’s mind drifted; he was thinking ofwhere the mahogany trees grew. His thoughts traveled to the heart of thejungle, where torrential rain and humidity gathered in ravines and crevices,where that moisture penetrated the earth. There, fallen leaves rotted, mixingwith dirt, dead insects, and reptiles, becoming impenetrable mud. It wasthere that for thousands of years, the mahogany had flourished. Theirgrowth had been silent and secret until the patrones had discovered itsworth: a wood more precious than gold to people beyond the ports andrivers of the Lacandona.Orlando was thinking of how many boys he had seen perish, devouredby the mud of the jungle. His mind was looking at the gangs of workersresponsible for prodding and pushing teams of oxen into dragging a trunk,and how that tree became caked with mud, rendering it heavier with eachstep. He was used to seeing boyeros risk tripping just to goad the oxenahead, even if falling meant death under the beast’s hooves, or asphyxiationby mud.When the gang of workers finally cleared a section of trees, their taskturned to chopping at the jungle to make a path, a calzada, from the freshcaoba grove to the river. It was only at those times that the overseers, underthe bat’s eye of El Brujo, armed the boyeros with machetes. Because themorass was so dense, this work was just as awful as goading oxen. As eachman hacked at stubborn giant palms and undergrowth, he did so notknowing if he might be disturbing a nest of poisonous ants or falling into asnake pit. The overseers coaxed and pushed the workers forwardrelentlessly, shouting profanities and threats, commanding them to finishthe path, never allowing time for rest or a drink of water. Many times aboyero collapsed, drained of all energy, and this meant that he would be leftbehind to die.Now, as Aquiles chattered cheerfully, Orlando’s fingers massaged thesores on his arms, wounds caused by swarms of blood-sucking mosquitoes.As he did this, his memory brought back the image of the pinkish ooze thatdripped from a boyero’s skin, aggravated yet more by the demanding pokesof El Brujo, who used his prodding stick insistently.“¡Ándale, cabrón! ¡Jala! ¡Jala!”Come on, son of a bitch! Pull! Pull! These words, which he heardcoming from El Brujo’s mouth, snapped Orlando back to the present and to

the awareness of Aquiles’ presence. As he looked over to his friend, he triedto smile, but realized that his face was stiff, unwilling to bend to such agesture. He got to his feet and headed for his hammock, hoping that sleepwould erase the intolerable images invading his mind. Dawn came, but timehad dragged for Orlando that night because he had been unable to rest. Heknew these would be his last weeks with Aquiles, and he was saddened,knowing that his friend would leave, that he would probably never see himagain.When Aquiles and Orlando joined the gang of boyeros, they saw thatalthough they had been in the jungle for only a week, they were alreadyexhausted beyond endurance. They sluggishly lined up, listening for ElBrujo’s shrill commanding voice. The men began the trek into the densityof the jungle, followed by teams of oxen that looked as if they, too, sensedtheir own impending death. Two of them squatted on the ground, refusing tomove, and no amount of prodding or pulling could make them get to theirfeet. The drivers lost patience with them and ordered those remaining in thecamp to look after them. When Orlando saw this, he wondered what wouldhappen if he got down on the ground and refused to move.After a day’s march, El Brujo signaled that they had arrived at theharvesting site. As the boyeros looked over the surrounding area, they sawcountless prime caoba trees. Many of the boys secretly exchanged glanceswhich confirmed: I told you he’s a sorcerer. Other workers scratched theirhead, wondering how El Brujo always managed to find such rich reservesof timber, when others often lost their lives searching. Someone in the rearmuttered, “¡Cabrón brujo!”Orlando always kept his eye on the sorcerer, knowing that he, in turn,was continually spied on by those unblinking eyes. Years had passed sincehis attempted escape, but Orlando knew that the sorcerer planned to kill himand that Aquiles’ prediction would some day come true.Time passed, but nothing happened until the day foreseen by Aquilesarrived. At dawn, the caravan of boyeros and oxen struck a path toward thejungle, El Brujo, weapon in hand, at its head. The shift would begin withtheir dragging to the river a trunk left over from the night before. It wouldend with the beginnings of a path. Three men carried the necessarymachetes.“¡Ándenle! ¡Jalen! ¡Jalen!

El Brujo’s shrill call to pull the trunk shattered the first rays of light thathad begun to filter through the mesh of vines and trees. At his command,men and beasts strained to dislodge the tree that had doubled in weight asthe mud coating it had hardened overnight. The hooves of the oxen plowedinto the slime beneath them, sinking deeper each time the boyeros drovethem on. As the animals struggled, the ooze beneath them churned,deepening, thickening. Its sucking sounds struck fear in the men, and theyinstinctively kept a distance while trying to reach the oxen with theirprodding irons.The struggle was at its peak when Orlando, straining at his section ofchain, saw Aquiles slip; one of his ankles had buckled under his weight. Hesaw that his friend tried to regain his balance but the momentum of the pullworked against him, causing him to plunge headlong into the churningmire. Orlando dropped the chain and rushed to the edge of the mud, soclose that he felt the haunches of an ox brush his torso. He thrust his armsinto the slime, grabbed one of Aquiles’ shoulders and raised him up farenough so that he could gasp air through his opened mouth.As Orlando did this, the blast of a shotgun stopped all motion; even theanimals froze. He looked over his shoulder in time to see El Brujo lower theweapon he held in his hands. In that second, Orlando snapped his face backto look at Aquiles and saw that part of his friend’s face had been blastedaway. It was at that moment that Orlando realized that the shot had beenmeant for him.“¡Boyero Osuna! ¡A la chamba!”The gang stood in stunned silence as they saw that Orlando refused toobey the command to return to work and that he no longer cared what ElBrujo was ordering. They watched as he pulled Aquiles’ body from themire, dragged it to a small patch of solid ground, and there laid the remainsof his friend. They followed his movements, watching as he wipedwhatever mud he could from the bloodied face, and then gently crossed hisfriend’s arms over his chest.Orlando got to his feet, still not caring that the sorcerer was watchinghim, weapon in hand, with his bat-like gaze defying Orlando to dosomething. But then, with a speed that even El Brujo’s eyes could notfollow, Orlando leaped at the hold of machetes and, armed with one of the

sharpened long knives, he sprang toward the sorcerer, reaching him beforehe could raise his shotgun.Orlando’s arm, grown tough with five years of hacking and chopping,raised the machete and brought it down on its target. The cut was clean,swift. El Brujo’s head hit the ground while his body was still on its feet.Moments passed before it slowly crumbled to the soggy jungle floor, whereits blood oozed through severed arteries into the mire. Years later, thosewho witnessed the execution swore that the sorcerer’s blood was not red butwhite, like the milk of the yuca.Orlando looked around him and saw that the boyeros as well as ElBrujo’s underlings were paralyzed into inaction by what had happened. Noone moved or showed signs of daring to apprehend him. They only stared,mouths agape. Seeing that no one intended to accost him, Orlando, themachete still in his hand, approached Aquiles’ body and got down on hisknees. He placed the machete by the body, taking its inert hand and closingit around the weapon’s handle. He then got to his feet and disappeared intothe jungle.

Chapter 17 The night in Tlatelolco had shaken him.It was late October and the diffused autumn light filtering through tallwindows accentuated the reflection in the full-length mirror. Twenty-one-year-old Rufino Mayorga stared at his image and was pleased with what hesaw. His hazel-colored eyes took in his blond hair, oval-shaped face, longstraight nose, wide mouth highlighted by lips clasped in a jaunty smile. Hisglance slipped downward, pausing on his broad shoulders, slim torso, longlegs planted apart on the tiled floor. Rufino gawked at his mirrored image,gratified with how the officer’s uniform, knee-length boots and shinymedals rendered him an exceptionally handsome figure.He suddenly snapped out of his reverie when he remembered that he andother officers were expected at Los Pinos to dine with El Señor Presidente.The 1968 Olympic Games had ended and with those events a turbulentmonth had just closed in Mexico City. Rufino Mayorga had distinguishedhimself as a young officer, emerging from the bitter violence of those dayswith a sterling record, proving himself an enemy of the rabble that had triedto embarrass the country in the eyes of the world. Dinner with the presidentwas his reward.Rufino sniffed contentedly and looked at his watch, noting that there wasstill time before the driver was due to arrive. He walked to the window andstared out at the steel-colored sky while he waited. Soon it would be dark,but there was still enough light for him to make out rooftops, and fartheraway the silhouettes of the Tower of the Americas and other tall buildings.He craned his neck to look down at streets, now eerily silent after theturmoil of the past month.He turned his gaze north of the Zócalo, to Tlatelolco, and his thoughtsdrifted back to the mass student demonstration of October 2. The toweringsilhouette cut into the night by the church of Santiago de Compostelaloomed in his memory, its giant wooden doors slowly creaking shut. Thesquare was jammed with people chanting, shouting, singing, protesting. Inhis memory, Rufino looked beyond the left flank of the church and focused

on the building known as El Chihuahua; its balconies were filled withscreaming, ranting university students, its walls draped with insultingplacards and banners. Over tinny microphones, hysterical voices poured outscorn, all of it aimed at the government, at the ruling class, at the military.“¡Asesinos!”“¡Gorilas!”“¡Puercos!”“¡Gobierno de mierda!”When Rufino received the order to be one of the officers in charge ofdispersing the crowd, he felt proud, but when he actually confronted thatoutraged mass of people, he was filled with terror. Face to face, he realizedthat the troops he commanded were identical to the mob filling the plaza,except that his men were uniformed. Amid the turmoil, Rufino had lookedat them as if for the first time, seeing their flat, brown faces, accentuated byslanted eyes, broad mouths with lips that barely covered buck teeth. What ifthey turn on me? His soldiers did not turn on him; they obeyed his orderswhen he commanded them to fire into the crowd, leaving him wonderingwhy they fired on people who looked just like them.Rufino, standing at the window, thought he now heard the echo of panic-stricken voices floating in the chilly air, and his eyes conjured images ofbodies falling, riddled with bullets, others trampled by those trying toescape the carnage. He remembered looking upward and seeing thescramble of young men and women, leaping from an upper balcony to theone below, some making it, others falling two and three floors.The battle—his men against the students—lasted the entire night, andwhen it was over, Rufino felt sickened, not by the deaths and maiming ofpeople, but because he discovered that he detested the sound and stench ofviolence. He was convinced that the insurgents deserved to be crushed, andthat force was the only way. He wondered, however, if it was for the likesof him to carry out such tasks.Rufino turned away from the window, glanced at his watch, then lookedagain at his image in the mirror. He absentmindedly fidgeted with the topbutton of his tunic, then straightened one of the medals while his train ofthought returned to the subject of living a military life. He had to admit thatthe night at Tlatelolco had shaken him and deeply eroded his resolve to be

an officer. He had discovered that he found the experience too untidy, toomessy—not at all for him.Rufino stood in the middle of the room, lost in thought; his mind wastoying with an idea that had emerged on that violent night: My father wouldrejoice if I returned to stay at Las Estrellas. This thought conjured an oldmemory of his friend Quintín Osuna, of whom he had heard nothing. Overthe years, whenever he remembered to ask his father, Don Absolón wouldshrug his shoulders or merely change the subject. Rufino, as always whenthinking of his boyhood friend, discovered that he barely remembered hisface. He imagined that it now might resemble that of one of the soldiersunder his command, or he might even look like one of the dead students.Rufino was yanked out of his thoughts by a soft rap on the door,announcing that his car was ready.Before leaving, Rufino stepped over to the chair where he had laid hiscap and gloves. As he turned, he could not help but see his reflection in themirror once again. He was tall, handsome, refined, soon to reach the primeof his life. The image told him that a life in the barracks was not for him—perhaps for others, but not for him.

Chapter 18 We call him Tatic, Little Father.Orlando Flores became a fugitive in 1968, the year of the massacre atTlatelolco. It was also in that year that the Catholic bishops of LatinAmerica met in Medellín to ask one another how the Church was to spreadnot only the word of God, but also the word of God’s people. But thoseprelates were mostly perplexed; they had only the old ways to talk aboutGod. One of them knew what to do, nevertheless, and it was he whosignaled the exodus to freedom of the congregations he shepherded.Led by a bishop, the journey of the tribes that inhabited the canyons, thehighlands and the jungle was difficult; it took years. The spiritual centers ofthe movement became Ocosingo and San Cristóbal de Las Casas, whereteachers, organizers and social workers congregated after heeding thebishop’s call to catechize in a new manner, a way in which the people werebrought together not to hear but to be heard, not to erase their culture but toremember it, not to disdain their mysticism but to rediscover it.When this new spirit swept through Chiapas, Orlando was only twenty-one years old, but he, like his people, had already sustained indescribablephysical and mental pain; he had also killed a man. He knew that DonAbsolón would not be lenient, much less forgiving, of the native whomurdered his favored overseer. El patrón would not rest until he hadOrlando’s severed head dangling from a ceiba tree.These thoughts collided with concern for his mother and father. He wastorn between the certainty of death for himself if he went back to Lacanjá,and the fear that his family might be punished in retribution if he did notreturn. He pondered this dilemma and finally decided to flee into thedeepest part of the Lacandona Jungle, away from Lacanjá. This choicewould gnaw at Orlando thereafter, growing as years passed, filling him withguilt and sadness.Orlando wandered through the jungle, feeding on fish he captured fromrivers or small game he ensnared in traps he constructed. He emerged fromthe density from time to time, entering villages or rancherías where he

would accept food or a garment in return for small jobs rendered. In time,people grew to recognize him; they knew that he was a fugitive, shieldinghimself from a patrón or any of the many catxul who prowled in search ofnatives they hungered to punish.Orlando hid in the jungle for five years, and during that time he becamehaggard, deep wrinkles surfacing on his face. As time passed, solitudebecame a burden to him, growing until he decided that he had changed somuch that he would not be recognized if he emerged from hiding. Hedecided to head for Ocosingo, a town with streets and houses, a place wherehe could more easily disappear into the crowds of Tzeltales, Choles andeven other Lacandones. In an effort to make his capture yet more unlikely,he did away with the tribal tunic he still wore and put on faded trousers anda cotton shirt. He cut his hair short around the ears and neck, and combed itback on his forehead, making him look less like a Lacandón and more likean ordinary laborer. It was then that he changed his name to Orlando Flores.He worked in whatever place would give him a job: in the fly-infestedbutcher shops that lined the main market street, on construction sites layingbricks and smearing plaster on walls, on plantations picking beans.Countless times, Orlando stood on corners, along with other day laborers,waiting to be picked up by paneled eight-wheeler trucks that transportedgangs of men to work places, sometimes as far removed from Ocosingo asPalenque, where luxury hotels were in construction as a result of the flow oftourists.It was on those long trips when the fatigued men were given a break toeat a lunch of cold tortillas stuffed with beans to be swallowed with gulps ofwater, that Orlando began to concentrate on the workers’ talk. At first, hedisregarded their conversations, judging them to be mere babble, tuningthem out and taking the moment to catch a bit of sleep. But soon, he beganto listen, to take in what he was hearing as well as to witness the impact ofthose words; such talk had never before reached his ears.He heard, for the first time, mention of a bishop who had sent out hisrepresentatives to help the people, and that changes were happeningbecause of the new ideas being spread by those envoys. Slowly, Orlandobegan to understand that those men around him were speaking with onespirit, that they were no longer separated by tribal customs and beliefs, but

united by the conviction that, together, their lives could be changed for thebetter.¡Tierra! ¡Educación! ¡Salubridad!Land! Education! Health! When Orlando began to take notice of thattalk, he realized that his fellow workers were speaking of privileges enjoyedonly by the patrones and their offspring, and that now the natives weremurmuring of the possibility of having those same rights. He felt a mix ofreactions: disbelief, yearning, disdain, hope. Soon Orlando began to join inthe conversations by asking questions, challenging glib answers, raisingdoubts. Each time, to his surprise, his queries were satisfied with abelievable response.“Hey, amigo! Why don’t you come to our meetings? Sometimes we meetin Ocosingo, at others in San Cristóbal.”Orlando eventually did join the meetings, which were held in places noteasily observed by the police: sometimes in assembly halls, but mostly inchurches. At first, he only listened as the bishop’s representatives spoke,leading groups in discussion of different issues and concerns. He especiallyconcentrated on his fellow workers, men and women, who had bornewitness to family memories and histories, presenting testimonies andexperiences. Orlando kept silent for almost a year; despite his wanting tospeak, he felt inhibited. He feared bringing attention to himself. He wasafraid that his hatred and bitterness might spill out of his mouth, but most ofall he dreaded that he was not intelligent enough to speak. So his tonguestuck to the roof of his mouth.One evening his compañeros and compañeras met in San Cristóbal deLas Casas, in the Church of Santo Domingo. Orlando, who had never beenin that place before, was staggered by its huge altar and tabernacle. As heswiveled his head in all directions, his eyes reflected the glow of the goldleaf covering the church’s massive walls. He squinted as he gazed, firstupward at the ornate pulpit, then downward at the stone floor polishedsmooth over the centuries by bare feet and mendicant knees. As he walkedin, side by side with dozens of workers—the men with sombreros in hand,the women with heads covered by rebozos—he knew that they, too, wereequally amazed. He saw that they looked up and around, pivoting heads andcraning necks to get a better look at the paintings of saints, popes and

angels. Next to them, Orlando felt puny, diminished in the presence of suchgrandeur.“¡Órale, compañero! Don’t forget that our people made this place withtheir own sweat and bent backs.”Orlando swung around to see who had whispered those words to him,but he caught only a glimpse of a short woman who winked at him as shewalked by. He tried to catch up to her to speak to her, but she haddisappeared into the milling throng of natives. Then someone tapped himon the shoulder, letting him know that everyone was expected to sit, so hesquatted on his haunches and concentrated on the first speaker of theevening, the same woman who had spoken to him.“¡Hermanas y hermanos! Tonight I bring words to you that will makeour bishop better known to all of us. We will discover that he has been withus before, that he has felt not only our own pain but that of our ancestors ofmany generations ago. Look! Look up there!”As she spoke, the woman pointed a short finger at the pulpit that hadcaptivated Orlando; it was lodged in the upper part of the wall and rose highabove their heads. A surge of faces turned at once, lifting to observe thesmall, rectangular box shrouded at that moment in darkness.“It was from that pulpit that our bishop first spoke out in defense of ouranguish. It was from these very stones on which you sit that our ancestorslistened to him. This is my testimonial, words which I received from mymother, who received them from her mother, and she from her mother, andso on from the mothers beyond memory, reaching back to the year 1545,when our bishop walked up these steps and spoke. Please listen with yourhearts as well as with your ears.“At that time, one of our compañeras sat with our people in this place.She knew that there, close to the pulpit, stood the slave masters, the landand mine owners, the capitanes, those who kept order and received favorsfrom those above them, the maestros and priests who absolved a man fromsin if he paid the proper amount, or excommunicated him if he failed tohonor the system.“Behind those men stood their women, elegant and stiff, fluttering fans,playing with a loose end of lace, or tugging at underwear that was too tight,cutting into soft parts of their flesh. Those women attended mass daily

along with their servants, and it was the task of those maids to bring cups ofhot chocolate to their mistresses to fortify them during the long ceremony.“Our compañera’s mind wandered during the service; she was thinking,remembering. She had returned to her valley twenty years before, a timewhen she was searching for her family members who had vanished. Theyhad been among those who chose death by flinging themselves over cliffsrather than being snared into slavery. But she was prevented from killingherself, so there was nothing left for her to do but work for and obey thenew masters.“As our compañera’s thoughts drifted, her fingers touched a scar on herarm, and she remembered the searing pain caused by the boiling water, nomatter that it had happened years before, when she was only a child. Toforget her pain, she stared up at the statues: saints, women as well as men,with faces which resembled no one among her people. Then she shifted hereyes, squinting as she focused on the gold covering the walls of this verychurch. She let her vision focus on the altar and its golden tabernacle;everywhere she looked there was that yellow metal prized above all thingsby the masters. Look, compañeras and compañeros! The gold is still there.Just as she saw it!“Her attention at that moment was drawn by a boy, dressed in the samegarments as the priest, who walked onto the altar with a long pole to lightthe candles. Soon the front part of the church glowed with the amber andred tones set off by the tiny flames. She looked toward the elevated pulpit,concentrating on its ornate depiction of angels, devils, apostles, virgins,centurions, swords, lances and wheels—all of it snarled together like snakesin a pit.“Suddenly, the altar bell rang out telling everyone that our bishop wasabout to begin the mass. Our compañera stretched her neck to get a betterlook, because she had heard the rumor that this priest was different, that heoften scolded, even punished those of his own kind for injustices done tothe natives.“‘¡Indios, levántense!’“¡Compañeros! How well we know those words, eh? The skinny clericbarked out the order for our people to rise to their feet in sign of respect.Sighing and grunting, they got up, most of them struggling to straighten

backs so used to being curved and stooped. A young Lacandón man helpedour compañera to her feet.“Our bishop intoned the opening of the ritual and he was answered bythe congregation. Our compañera listened as the masters respondedvigorously, loudly, making certain that those around them took note of theirpresence. Our people, however, could only mumble the words because, likeus, they could not understand what they meant, nor could their tonguesrepeat the strange sounds. But they made sure to move their lips, becausethe cleric in charge watched them with eagle eyes.“As the mass moved forward, everyone continually stood, knelt, returnedto their feet, and then did it all over again. While the up-and-down rhythmadded to our compañera’s weariness, the motions appeared to invigorate themasters. As our bishop followed along with the ritual, his flock becameagitated, acting as if they were at a fiesta. Some whispered, others madeeyes at one another, smiling, flirting. Our compañera snorted through hernose when she observed how the women shuffled and twittered, slurpingloudly as they took their chocolate, making sure that everyone understoodthat their brew was made from a superior crop of cocoa beans. All thewhile, the service continued.“Soon, our bishop ascended that very same pulpit we now see to readfrom his holy book, but he refused to begin until there was completesilence. Minutes passed before the masters and their women realized thatour brother was waiting. When they finally hushed, he began to read. Atthis point our compañera opened her ears, deciding that she wanted to knowwhat he would have to say.“‘A lesson taken from the Apostle Saint John.’“By now our compañera realized that the tone of our bishop’s voice washarsh, even intimidating. She was happy when she saw the elegant men andwomen startled, staring up at the small figure, which seemed to become agiant with each passing moment, and whose eyes were filled with outrage.His purple vestments appeared to darken as he read. Our people listenedcarefully as well, trying to understand the lisping sounds of that otherlanguage, the sounds we all now know so well.“‘Come now, you, the wealthy, weep and howl over the miseries whichwill come upon you. Your riches have rotted, and your garments havebecome moth-eaten.’

“Our compañera saw the masters shift from one side to the other. Whenshe returned her gaze to our bishop, she saw that he sensed their agitation,and, interrupting the reading, he looked down at the upturned faces; heglared at their raised eyebrows, their pursed lips. Running his tongue overparched lips, he continued the reading; his voice was filled with risinganger.“‘Your gold and silver are rusted; and that rust will be a witness againstyou, and it will devour your flesh as fire does. You have laid up treasure inthe last days. Behold! The wages of the laborers who reap your fields,which have been kept back by you unjustly, cry out; and their cry hasentered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts!’“‘¡No!’“‘¡Shsss!’“‘¡Silencio!’“‘¡Abominación!’“Our compañera felt her heart racing when she saw that our bishop wenton reading, unafraid of the hissing and the irreverent shouting hurled at himby the congregation. Inexplicably, she understood every word, and sheclosed her eyes, hoping that he would not lose courage.“‘You have feasted upon the earth, and you have nourished your heartson dissipation in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to deaththe Just!’“Our bishop slammed shut the holy book that he held in one hand, andwith the other he gesticulated vigorously. He waved his clenched hand in anarc, swinging it from one side to the other, encircling those beneath him.Our compañera saw that everyone was staggered, first by the words of thereading, then by the priest’s hostile gestures. But he was not afraid. Hespoke again, this time with more anger.“‘Before I continue, I ask the maids to remove the cups, saucers and jugsfrom this House for this is the House of God! I command the rest of you tosit on the floor, just as those who serve you have done, for in this House weare all servants of God!’“Our compañera marveled when she saw that the congregation obeyedhim and got down on their rumps, but something in their bodies told herthat they hated our bishop, despite their obedience, and she knew the

reason. They despised him because he was our protector, and understandingthis made her put her fatigue aside. She could only think of what had justbeen said by our brother. Suddenly her concentration was interrupted by theyoung man next to her who wanted to know our bishop’s name.“‘Compañera, who is that priest?’“‘His name is Brother Bartolomé de Las Casas, but we call him Tatic,Little Father.’“Our bishop breathed in deeply, filling his lungs as he prepared to speakout again. He looked toward the rear of the church, and our compañerathought that his eyes met hers, but then he returned his gaze to thosehuddled beneath him, their fine garments wiping the dust off the floor.“‘It is a mortal sin to enslave the natives of this land! Blind cowards,whom Satan holds deceived, put down what you have stolen, or at least stopstealing! I command you to do this now! Otherwise, I shall excommunicateyou right here in this sacred House! Almighty God is my witness!’“Our compañera’s eyes widened because she understood our priest’swords, every one of them, and as she looked around, she saw that the othersalso had understood. Their eyes, too, were wide open, and filled withexpectation.“‘Traitor!’“‘Liar!’“‘Cut out his tongue!’“‘No! Cut out his heart!’“She heard the rumble of insults and threats, first in low, whisperingtones, then louder, and finally they were hurled against our bishop inpitched, shrill voices. The slave masters, capitanes and maestros, as well astheir women, got to their feet, faces red, veins puffed up with the blood ofoutrage, as they screamed their fury at our priest. Fists were raised indisgust, slashing the heavy air. They shuffled back and forth, like cattle.Soon, several men broke away from the crowd, daggers drawn. They leapedover the altar rail heading for the pulpit.“Our compañera rose to her feet with a speed that she thought her limbshad forgotten and, without thinking, she plunged into the milling,screeching crowd that shoved her back and forth. Suddenly she lost herfooting and she fell, pressed to the floor where the heeled slipper of one of

the ladies squashed her hand. She let out a groan but got to her feet again,forgetting the sharp pain in her hand. When she looked back, she saw thatmany of our people had followed her.“The attackers’ lunge toward our bishop had been halted by threesoldiers who had been standing behind the pulpit, giving him time todescend the narrow steps onto the floor of the church. He headed for thevestibule, but before reaching safety, his path was blocked by a beardedslave owner. As the man raised his dagger, our compañera and the othersjumped on him, all of them falling in a heap, rolling in the dust, amid theclamor of curses, obscenities and threats. This break gave our bishop timeto escape into the sanctuary at the rear of the church, leaving his enemiesinfuriated and filled with hatred.“Amigas y amigos, you can imagine how, at that violent moment, ourcompañera’s memory must have conjured the years during which she hadwandered, looking for what she and our people had lost. She thought of themany deaths, mutilations and floggings which she had witnessed. Now, herthoughts were riveted on the image of our bishop, who had dared to unmaskthe evils that had gripped our land. She had no way of knowing that hewould live many more years, never ceasing to decry what his countrymenwere doing, never halting his stinging words that assured the world that sheand her people were humans, with souls that wept because of pain inflictedon their bodies and for what was gone from their lives.“The next day, our compañera did not resist when she was strapped tothe pillory by a soldier’s rough hands. She looked around hoping to inspirethe others awaiting punishment, but she saw that she was surroundedinstead by a multitude of white faces, some bearded, others partiallycovered by mantillas. To one side was the front of this cathedral, its ornatepillars and niches staring down at her like empty eyes. In the oppositedirection, close to where she stood, was the huge cross that still rises nearlyas high as the cathedral. Soon its shadow would be cast over her. Shewaited patiently for its darkness to overcome her.“And so you see, my compañeras and compañeros, our bishop wasamong us then, just as he is living with us now. And then as now, ourhermanas and hermanos were, and are, punished for defending him. In thisvery place, if one listens, one can still hear his voice raised in our defense,as well as the sounds of whips cutting into the backs of our people. If he has

the courage now, as he had it then, to speak against injustice, I ask you:Why do we not have the strength to follow the path that he is again carvingout for us? If our compañera had the will to defend him then, why are weafraid to do so now?”The woman ended her testimonial with two images that danced in thechurch’s dim light: a compañera, overshadowed by a cross, awaitingpunishment, and a bishop who, in his attempt to stand up for the rights ofhis people, was living a repeated life. The narrative left the listeners stunnedby its challenging words that churned up memories of ancestral injustice.Silence prevailed within the ancient walls of Santo Domingo, while thecompañeras and compañeros listened to echoes of words from the pasttrapped in the church’s vaulted ceilings.Orlando Flores sat as if in a trance. He was remembering the story of thewoman who had led the insurrection generations ago—another testimoniallearned in the kitchens of the Mayorga finca. He was also struck withadmiration for the woman who had just spoken. Her memory, her gesturesand her way of speaking had unlocked his heart, allowing the fearsinhabiting it to spring loose to escape into thin air. He felt strong again,fearless, new, and he wanted to speak out.

Chapter 19 They crush us but we also crush ourselves.The Las Casas Indian Congress was scheduled to convene in SanCristóbal in October of 1974. It was the bishop who had called togethersuch a conclave, and although he declared that it was in memory of BrotherBartolomé de las Casas, its primary purpose was to hear the voices of thenatives, which had been silenced for nearly five hundred years.The year before the congress, when Orlando Flores had first experiencedthe bishop come alive in the storytelling of his compañera in the Church ofSanto Domingo, his own life took a new path. For days, even weeks, hecould not stop thinking of the man who was inhabiting this world in arepeated way. The repetition of life was not a new idea for Orlando; hispeople knew that this was a common occurrence. What baffled him,however, was his own role in the events that were swirling around him.What am I to do? Should I return to the jungle to protect myself? ShouldI remain here in the city or on the fincas to listen, to speak, to help? Thesewere some of the questions that robbed Orlando of sleep despite hisweariness beyond words from hard days’ labor. His body and legs achedfrom carrying loads on his back, or from countless hours spent stoopingover bean plants.He decided the least he could do was to become a part of the excitementthat was taking hold of the people: the Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chol, Lacandón.Despite his fatigue after work, he joined the groups of men and women whogot together in back rooms or in churches. He found that at those timespeople talked without restraint; everyone seemed to have something to say—except for him. Although he had wanted to speak right from the firstmeeting he attended, he found himself surrounded by the masses andlistening to the inspiring stories of others. Orlando still found himselftongue-tied.As his reticence struggled with his desire to speak, his attention wasriveted on the organizers whose presence became more apparent each timea meeting took place. Orlando saw that among them were women, as well

as men, and that they were mostly mestizos educated in cities, who wereresponding to the bishop’s call to prepare the people for the Indian Council.He observed those persons closely, listening to their words, scrutinizingtheir moves and gestures, because he distrusted them. He noticed that atfirst they visited workers only in the field or on the job site. But as 1973moved on, they became bolder, appearing at evening meetings as well.Their presence, Orlando realized, spurred everyone into questioning,planning, even expecting changes in their lives, and this disturbed himbecause he saw that the organizers did not give solutions but only gaveshort sermons about Christ and his apostles, and often about Bartolomé delas Casas. This forced Orlando to wonder where such words would lead. Helistened to the questions and remarks often provoked in his companions bythe organizers, but he thought most of their talk was essentially withoutdirection.The pressure caused by hearing so many things and not speaking upintensified in Orlando. With each meeting, he came closer to tellingeveryone that he thought that they were on a mistaken path. The truth wasthat in his heart Orlando doubted that any one of those organizers, with talkalone, could change what centuries had given to his people as their burden.Yet the misery experienced by his people was undeniable and growingwith each day. So he listened to the voices of the women and men who werelike him, and he remembered the years he had spent dragging mahoganytrunks through impenetrable mud while being prodded and driven as werethe oxen. He remembered El Brujo and his severed head and its staringeyes. He remembered his days of wandering in the jungle and DonAbsolón’s face.“¡Compañero! What about the land the mestizos stole from ourancestors? When will we get some of it back? They have the best land; weget rocky barrancas in which to plant our seed.”“I get paid only seven pesos a day for working like a burro, and most ofthe time I don’t even get money, just a paper that I can exchange for a kiloof beans at the company store.”“And what about us women who have to work like oxen, along with ourchildren, for even less than that?”“That’s right! Don’t forget us women! We want education for ourchildren. We need medicine for them when they’re sick. We want to be

heard!”Men and women uttered afflictions which cycled and repeated. Peopleused different words but said the same thing over and again until the timedid come when Orlando was finally able to put words together to say whathe wanted. This happened when one of the organizers again spoke ofBrother Bartolomé de las Casas.“I tell you, hermanas y hermanos, he walks among us.”Orlando felt a knot of words coursing from his heart toward his mouth,and got to his feet. He stood quietly, sombrero in hand, but the organizersaw him almost immediately. The man interrupted what he was about to sayas Orlando spoke.“No! That bishop died many generations ago!”Orlando’s voice rang out with such vigor that it bounced off the vaultedceiling, echoing through the church. Everyone turned in his direction. Manytwisted on the rickety pews on which they sat, trying to look at the face ofthe one who had uttered such a terrible thing.“Hermano, why do you say that?”“Because we all know that Brother Bartolomé died many years ago.”“Do you not believe that our lives repeat?”All eyes were pasted on Orlando. He felt their rounded pressure pushingin on his skin. Instead of feeling intimidated, however, he experienced asurge of energy moving through his body. During the first seconds it washot and slow, but then, as if it had broken through a barrier, his couragesoared.“I do believe that we repeat ourselves, but just as the bishop left us thefirst time, so will he leave us again with empty hands.”“¡No! Cabrón mentiroso.”“¡Fray Bartolomé se ha repetido!”“¡Él está con nosotros!”The gathering shouted, hurled insults at Orlando, protesting what he hadsaid. Many of them got on their feet; the shorter ones even jumped on chairsand pews to look at Orlando and to contradict what he had said.Orlando would neither be intimidated nor silenced. “Hermanos,hermanas, don’t be offended, for I am one of you.”

“Then why are you trying to discourage us?”“No, compañera, I’m not trying to dishearten or to make any one of usback down or turn away in fear. I’m only trying to find a way in which wewill have a true chance to overcome the patrones.”“If that’s so, why are you saying that our bishop is dead?”“Because he is dead. But, hermana, listen carefully to me. To understandthat he’s dead is not a bad thing. We all know his spirit is still with us. WhatI’m saying is that now it is our turn.”Orlando paused because he saw that the compañeras and compañeraswere baffled by his words. He was searching his mind for the words neededto say what he meant. He wrinkled his brow and licked the dryness from hislips.“What I mean is that we must be new Bartolomés. We must now take hisplace, stop our talk and do what he did. We must be the ones to care for oneanother, and defend one another with words, yes, but with actions as well.We must begin by loving ourselves and stop thinking of ourselves as stupidburros born to be slaves.”An uneasy silence followed his words as they reverberated in thetransparent, warm air. The compañeras and compañeros were amazed atwhat Orlando had said and by the conviction of his ideas. They gaped athim, some with open mouths. The organizer narrowed his eyes and pursedhis lips as he concentrated on what he had heard. An expression ofadmiration rapidly replaced one of disbelief.Even Orlando was astounded by the words he heard flowing from hismouth, because they gave life to thoughts that had nestled deep inside ofhim since his days as a boyero. He now realized that each time he hadwanted to describe what he felt inside, rage would render him speechless,and because of that, he had become as silenced as the oxen that churnedtheir hooves in the mud.“Amigo, come here where we can all see you. Tell us who you are andencourage us with more of your words.”The organizer walked toward the rear of the crowd where Orlando wasstanding. The man beckoned with both hands, inviting him to come to thefront of the group. Shyness, however, overcame Orlando, and he hesitated,not wanting to bring yet more attention to himself. Apprehension also creptinto his mind as he thought of the possibility that Don Absolón might have

spies among those gathered in the church. But the organizer would not backaway. He approached Orlando, gesturing all the while for him to comecloser.After a few moments, Orlando put aside his timidity. He began to move,and, twisting his sombrero in his hands, he made his way to stand in front ofthe group. There he saw, for the first time, a sea of brown faces upturnedtoward him. He took in the brightness of those eyes, the high cheekbones,the flat foreheads, many covered with the straight overhanging bangs of hisown people.“My name is Orlando Flores. I am a Lacandón, born close to the LacanjáRiver. I am one of you. I may not have suffered as much as some of you,but I, too, have been hurt.”Silence followed his words. Eyes were riveted on him, telling him thatthey were expecting more from him. Those looks were filled with suchintensity that Orlando felt himself losing his nerve, and he began edgingtoward the rear to regain his seat.“Wait, hermano Orlando! How are we to become new Bartolomés, if ourstomachs are so empty and flat that they cling to our backbones? How arewe to defend one another, when we are so weakened by hunger ourselves?How are we to see ourselves as more than burros when the patrones crushus with labor and disdain us each day?”Orlando returned the look that was in the woman’s eyes. He understoodthe meaning of her words and recognized the suffering in her plea. Heexperienced doubt and hesitated, because, although he wanted to answer herquestion, he did not know how to do so.“Compañera, I don’t have a cure for such pain, but I do have thebeginning of a response. Everywhere I look these days I see unity. WhenI’m laboring in the field or building a wall, when I sit to eat my tacos or totake a drink of water, I see harmony and hermandad in my compañeros. Ican forget that I’m a Lacandón, or that he is a Tzeltal, or that she is a Chol.I see only that I am like them, and that they are like me. I believe that if allof us can think this way, we’ll form a strength never before seen by thepatrones. Yes, they crush us, but we also crush ourselves by thinking ofourselves as they do. We must stop thinking that way. If we come together,remembering that our ancestors were good and powerful, we will be thenew Bartolomés.”

Orlando held his breath when he saw that most of the men and women inthe crowd turned to one another in heated talk. Some got on their feet,trying to reach someone in the rear, or farther up the aisle. There was handwaving, wagging of heads and pointing towards Orlando, who stood, feetplanted apart on the stone floor, as he tried to decipher his own words. Helooked over to the organizer, who stood a few paces away, and saw that hiseyes were focused on him. Orlando tried to discern the man’s thoughts, buthis expression was blank. The organizer blinked, as if trying to clear hisvision, and walked over to Orlando’s side.“Amigo, you have said important things.”“Others have said the same thing.”“Not as you have done. Look, the compañeras and compañeros haveunderstood you.”Orlando did as the organizer asked and turned again to look at the crowd.This time it was clear to him: They were happy, excited, nodding andsmiling. Now and then, glances were thrown his way, looks that told himthat he was trusted and that where he would lead, they would follow.“Compañero Orlando, why don’t you join our group of organizers? Weneed you.”“Why do you need me?”“Because already you are trusted.”“How do you know that, amigo?”“I have eyes and ears. I can see and hear.”“I’ll think more about what has happened here.”Orlando pondered the events of that evening for days. At the time, hewas working as a bricklayer with a gang that was trucked from Ocosingo toPalenque, where the laborers stayed for up to a week on the job. As heworked, he revisited his life, as if each brick he laid marked a differentmoment of experience. He saw himself as a boy, playing childish gameswith Rufino, then serving Don Absolón. This memory made Orlando’sstomach churn as he realized the power of that patrón. He asked himself,What if Don Absolón had not sentenced me to the caoba camp? Brick bybrick, he repeated this question over and again as his mind erected a wall ofunderstanding: it was not the sentence itself that was significant to Orlando.The important thing was that Don Absolón could do it, that he held that

authority in his hands, that there was nothing to rein in the power he heldover people like Orlando.When the job was done, he returned to Ocosingo with his minddetermined to accept the organizer’s invitation. That evening, he reported tothe meeting and began training as a leader of his people. In the beginning,he accompanied one or another of the organizers on trips out to remotevillages and settlements as well as to less distant communities. Orlandoobserved his companion as he or she spoke to the people in preparation forthe Indian Congress, which was now scheduled to take place in SanCristóbal de las Casas. He listened to words used, reflected on them,making them part of his own language.More importantly, he took in ideas regarding equality and ownership,health and education. The name of Emiliano Zapata was often invokedwhen speaking of land and liberty, and Orlando was gratified when he wastold that a native of the state of Morelos, a man like him, had fought anddied so that his people might have a piece of land and the freedom to farmit.Orlando caught on quickly and became an organizer himself, taking careto stay far away from the Lacanjá region. He gained confidence knowingthat his looks had changed almost entirely. Don Absolón, he was certain,could no longer recognize him, and he believed that even Rufino would notbe able to identify his boyhood companion. Nonetheless, Orlando journeyedwestbound, in the opposite direction of Lacanjá, concentrating on theTzotzil region.He went to the larger places first: into the northern areas of Simojovel,then down to Ixtapa, and over to Chamula. In between those centers,Orlando visited small villages, settlements and even clusters of palapas,with his message to unite and to prepare for the congress. He reached out tothose men and women who hesitated, some in fear, others in skepticism. Heknew when to back away, if necessary, hoping that when he returned, hiswords would be better understood. He spoke convincingly to anyone whowould listen, reminding them always of their worth as men and women,stressing the power and organization of their ancestors, often invoking thelegends of his people.He met with serious resistance several times from overseers of fincasand haciendas. He often had to cut off whatever he was saying to a gathered

group just to duck into a hiding place out of sight of a lackey of a patrón.Only once did Orlando come close to being captured. At that time, he wasin the community of Santa Marta speaking to a cluster of young women.“The gods made men and women of maize, but the catxul becameenvious.”Orlando had just begun to speak about the origins of their people,intending to push his lesson to the point where his listeners wouldunderstand who were the maize people and who were the catxul. Suddenly,a woman ran to him, and even though out of breath, she stammered awarning.“Hermano, someone is looking for you. Run!”Orlando dove for cover but not before he was spotted. He heard severalblasts of a shotgun as he disappeared into a thicket of bushes and from thereinto a wide span of trees. As he ducked and crawled, vivid memoriesreturned to him of the time when he was hunted by Don Absolón Mayorga.Orlando was saddened and angered by those recollections because hewondered if his life as a fugitive would ever end. Despite these thoughts,however, he did not give up, and after that incident, he always made certainto have a companion with him to watch his back, to warn him of anyimpending danger.After that, Orlando plunged deeper into his mission of bringing morenatives into the preparations for the congress. Primary in his strategy wasthe recruitment of leaders who were members of the different tribes: menand women who felt what was being said, who knew what suffering meant.The people trusted those native organizers, recognizing them as their own;and they followed them, wanting to be part of the congress. The barriersthat separated the city-bred mestizo organizer from the trust of the peoplemelted away in the face of someone who spoke of similarly experiencedafflictions, in their language. This tactic proved effective, especially overthe long run, since it was from this group that leaders would emerge twentyyears later: women and men who would follow Orlando into the LacandonaJungle, from where they would mount the new struggle.

Chapter 20 There cannot be equality in a false peace!The debate was heated but orderly as the members of the IndianCongress took their turns in explaining their positions regarding health,education, land and commerce. Orlando Flores sat at his place, listening,pondering what the other delegates were submitting. He felt proud ofhaving been elected to represent the Ocosingo delegation, but because hedid not know how to read or write, he felt intimidated. He knew, however,that sooner or later his ability to speak would lead to his participation in thedeliberations.He followed as the various views were explained by women and menrepresenting different tribes. He felt moved to hear the clarity of thosevoices reading declarations and summaries, or simply speaking from theheart, proving what the organizers had always said: The natives of thoselands had a mind with which to think, a tongue with which to speak, andgiven the opportunity, they would let their ideas be known.The hall was large. Its seats were placed in rows so that everyone couldsee the main stage where the speakers sat on either side of the president.The place was packed, there were no empty chairs. Orlando looked around,concentrating on the delegates’ faces and expressions. He saw men andwomen, most of them wearing tribal garb, who appeared uncomfortable inthe enclosed environment of the hall. Their eyes squinted, unused to theharsh glare of neon lights. Their hands fidgeted with a sombrero, or thefringe of a huipil, and they sat awkwardly on the metal folding chairs towhich they were assigned. Despite this, they seemed eager to adapt, tolisten, to be heard. It was only when the time came for each sector toforward their grievances, that the members grew restless and theenvironment in the hall became tense.“We are treated like slaves!”“Our customs are trampled on!”“We get the worst land.”

“Our children are sick and uneducated.”“We women are excluded from all planning!”Many times voices became shrill, and some people even got to their feetin frustration, babbling or waving a hand to get the attention of the speaker.Whenever that happened, the president of the congress hammered his gavelon the table and repeatedly reminded the members to respect the speaker’sright to be heard.“Hermanos, hermanas, please remember our goal: Equality in peace!We see it written above the entrance to this auditorium as we enter. We mustrespect each other if we are to be respected.”Those words cast a pall over the members, and Orlando wasdisappointed; he thought that the president should allow voices to rise andbe heard, even if they were speaking out of place. Otherwise, what goodwas the meeting? Each time a woman, or a man was silenced, Orlandobecame increasingly impatient, and he wondered what direction was beingtaken by the congress. He was also displeased to see that after the firstsessions, words seemed to be repeating, spinning, and their importancefading.Discussions dragged on, and after several days Orlando felt that littlewas being accomplished. He had anticipated the opportunity to be one ofthose who would speak out as he had in the past, but that chance nevermaterialized. He waited patiently, hoping to be pointed out by the presidentwhenever he raised his hand to speak, but he was not acknowledged. As hewaited, he became distracted and his mind wandered; thoughts swirled,entangling with memories.“I say that there cannot be equality in a false peace! That’s shit!”Orlando was yanked from his thoughts by the harshness of the voice aswell as by the crude expression. So far everyone had been careful not to usevulgar words. His face jerked toward the direction from which the wordshad come and he saw a man who stood in the middle of the audience.Orlando narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on the figure. He saw thateveryone else was doing the same. He took in the man’s shirt, trousers andeven the hat, which he had not removed from his head. What he saw toldOrlando that the man was from the city, that he was a mestizo, and thatmore than likely he was educated.

Everyone gawked at the speaker, some open-mouthed, but they werestartled back to attention when the president smashed his gavel on the table.Its crashing noise had never been so loud or explosive; it forced all faces toturn to the stage.“Amigo, we’re all here to listen and to be heard, but your words aredisrespectful. I will tell you not to express yourself in that manner again!”“Señor Presidente, I’m here in good faith, so I beg your pardon, butwhat I’ve been hearing during the past few days has made me losepatience.”“Identify yourself before you say any more.”“My name is Pedro.”“And your last name?”“I’m only Pedro. May I speak?”The president went into a huddle with the other speakers who shared thetable, some wagging their heads negatively, other shrugging their shoulders.They whispered and interrupted one another until the president spoke up.“We agree that at this meeting all the compañeros have a right to speak.Say what you must, but you must be brief, and watch your language.”The man looked to the uplifted faces that were concentrating on hiswords, turning in a circle as he spoke. Orlando saw that the man wasassured in his manner, relaxed but intense. He plunged his hands into thepockets of his khaki pants as he spoke.“Whatever accords you offer, whatever agreements you reach, if you doso in so-called peace, you are fooling yourselves into believing that yourlives will change. What here is being called peace is a false peace. It is thecondition that keeps you bound to the yoke, like dumb beasts. It is yourmasters’ tranquility, not yours! They will never share their prized land withyou! They will never erect schools for your children! They will alwayscheat you when you sell your beans and coffee to them. Your sweat, yoursilence, your suffering is your masters’ peace!”The gavel slammed on the table once again, signaling the protest of thepresident, who now got to his feet. He circled around the table and stood atthe edge of the stage.“Do you speak against the plans we’re making because we propose tocarry out our action in a peaceful manner?”

“Yes, Señor Presidente.”“What do you propose in the place of that plan?”“War!”The man hurled the word at the president and it exploded in midair, asdid the assembly. That word triggered an energy buried deep in the hearts ofthose people, shattering any semblance of orderly debate. The forbidden,feared, yet desired word had at last been uttered! Men and women got totheir feet, shouting, wagging heads, craning necks, stumbling over eachother as they strained to move from one place to the other. There waspandemonium. Orlando, lips pursed and scowling, glared at the man whohad dared to articulate the word. The man stood without moving. His calmdemonstrated that he had expected, and even wanted, the chaotic responseto his proposal.“This session is closed!”The president shouted above the din and banged his gavel repeatedly,bringing an end to the day’s meeting. People hardly heard the gavel as theyargued with one another, already engaged in the debate of war versus peace.The ushers opened the doors of the hall and the delegates plunged towardthe exits, shoving and pushing while excitedly engaged in feverish talk.Orlando, still seated, waited for the hall to empty. He did not want to bedragged by the crush, but most of all he sat quietly as he wrestled with histhoughts, which were in turmoil. The idea of armed resistance was not newto him; he had pondered it many times, but especially when he becameimpatient with incessant talk and little action. More recently, the reality ofbeing hunted by the Mayorga people had incited him to think of ways inwhich to fight back, to defend himself. Somehow, negotiation andbargaining did not provide the answer to his own dilemma.At last, the auditorium had emptied but Orlando remained seated, lost inthought until he was interrupted by a voice that startled him.“Amigo, are you thinking about what I said?”Orlando turned in his seat to see the man who had almost thrown themeeting into a riot. At close range he saw that he was in his mid-twenties,of medium height, and that his eyes were shrewd.“Yes. I’m thinking that maybe you’re right. That maybe we’re stuck inthe mud of injustice, and that the only way to free ourselves is to raise the

machete and cut off the head of the beast that keeps us down.”Orlando stopped abruptly, surprised at the intensity of his words, whichhad come straight from his heart. As he spoke, he relived having cut off ElBrujo’s head, he relived the mud he had wiped from Aquiles’ face, herelived the feeling of having placed the machete in his friend’s dead hand.The other man nodded, seemingly reading Orlando’s thoughts.“Come. Join us.”“Where?”“In the Lacandona, where we’ve been gathering for years.”“What do I have to do?”“Recruit for us.”“I’ll think about it.”“We’ll be waiting for you.”The man walked away from Orlando, but before he exited, he lookedback at him and said, “You’re a good recruiter. I’ve seen how you work.Instead of people from towns and streets, you can help us gather men andwomen from the villages and canyons. They’re the ones who are sufferingmost.”“How can we stand up to the power of the patrones?”“With an army of men and women.”Orlando gazed at the man, doubt stamped on his face. But his racingmind was already beginning to accept the man’s proposal as the way to self-defense and survival, his people’s as well as his own.“When you’ve made up your mind, go to our camp in the Lacandona.Tell them El Bombardero sent you. That’s me.”

Chapter 21 He wondered if he would ever see her again.Orlando did not join the guerrilla forces right away, as The Bomberwould have liked. Instead, he took time to consider what path he wouldtake. Four years passed before he became disenchanted with the directionthe activists had taken. He had finally concluded that their words and advicewould not change anything, much less transform the misery of his people.Everywhere Orlando looked, he saw hunger, sickness, ignorance. Men sankdeeper into debt and drunkenness; women became more oppressed byconstant pregnancies and battering. And no one did anything. To speak ofliberation and not provide a way seemed to him cruel and futile.During the four years of his discernment, Orlando taught himself to readand write. He mastered those skills to the point of being able to understandnewspaper articles as well as to compose simple pages expressing hisviews. This made it possible for him to follow the guerrilla movement thathad sprung from the ranks of university students, mainly in the city ofMonterrey in the state of Nuevo León, and had spread to other parts of thecountry. By reading newspapers, he learned of reports damning those menas traitors and insurgents—enemies of the state.Orlando discovered that the movement was not new, that it had begunsometime in 1971, had grown and spread from city to city. He learned thatpolice had recently arrested culprits in a clandestine cell somewhere on theoutskirts of Mexico City, then in Veracruz, and also in Tabasco. One of theaccounts asserted that other centers were suspected as far south as theLacandona Jungle in Chiapas, and that it was only a matter of time beforethose, too, would be discovered and eradicated by the army.One of those newspaper articles in particular attracted Orlando’sattention because it was accompanied by photographs of two men suspectedas leaders of the Puebla cell. When Orlando took the paper in his hands, hestopped what he was doing to concentrate on those pictures. One displayedthe corpses, mutilated beyond recognition by multiple gunshot wounds. Ashe held the page to the light, he made out dangling arms, ruptured

stomachs, protruding intestines, shattered and bloodied faces. To the side ofthat grim scene, the photos of the same two men, still students, wereprinted.The culprits, stated the article, were university-trained, one in biologyand the other in political science. One of them stirred Orlando’s memory.He did not recognize the man’s name, but despite the passing of four years,his face riveted Orlando. It was El Bombardero, the same man who hadconfronted the Indian Congress and declared that war was the only way tochange. Orlando stared at the picture, whispering the man’s fictitious name:The Bomber.Instead of being frightened, Orlando felt that what he was reading andseeing was a message indicating which direction he should take. He sawthat there were people already fighting a war, already dying for what theybelieved, and that it was a national movement with a name, with leaders,and that those people were ensconced somewhere in the Lacandona Jungle.At that moment he decided to abandon the organizers’ mission and join theguerrillas. He did not know where to find them in the vastness of theLacandona, but he had no doubt that he would encounter them. He wasdetermined to become part of the force, so he journeyed to the Lacandonain search of his insurgent compañeros.He returned to wearing the white tunic of his people and left behind thekhaki trousers and cotton shirts typical of the organizers. After months, hishair was finally long enough to dangle from his forehead to his eyes and theback of it reached toward his shoulders. He wandered, sometimes visitingvillages where he exchanged fish or small game for tortillas or a bowl ofbeans, but Orlando mostly stayed hidden in the jungle. Whenever he askedvillagers about the camp, his questions were answered with blank looks orshrugged shoulders. He did not know if those people were uninformed orunwilling to give him directions, but after a while, he stopped asking.It occurred to him that he was not looking in the right places, nor was heasking in the right way. He remembered that The Bomber had singled himout as a recruiter. This led Orlando to believe that others would be doing thesame thing, and that those recruiters would be concentrating on the villagesand canyon settlement most likely to respond to their message. He thenbegan going into those places that he judged to be ripe to listen and respondto the insurgents’ message. When he found such a settlement, he stayed to

mingle with the people for days, hoping that a recruiter would appear andlead him to the guerrilla compound.It was in El Caribal that Orlando noticed a group of women and menclustered around a man dressed in the Lacandon way. His plan had finallyworked. As he approached the gathering, Orlando caught snippets of theman’s speech.“I tell you, compañeros, we have to band together and fight back!There’s no other way.”Orlando looked at the villagers and saw that the recruiter’s words werenot having the effect he expected. The men and women barely looked at theman, and most of them fidgeted distractedly.“Do you want to go on living like burros?”One or two in the group walked away; others began to talk amongthemselves, losing interest in what the recruiter had to say. The manappeared frustrated to the point of following those who were leaving thecircle. He neared one man and put a hand on his shoulder.“¡Compañero! Aren’t you at least going to ask a question? Why aren’tyou interested in what I’m saying?”The man, annoyed at having been stopped, pushed the recruiter’s handaway. He glared at him, hostility stamped on his face.“Do you think we’re fools? It’s easy for you to tell us to fight back, buthow can we overthrow the patrones? They’re the ones with the power.They have the catxules, too. Those jackals are ready to kill all of us andtake what little we have.”Orlando saw that the recruiter had lost his audience because he was notdelivering his message in a manner that might be understood. He sensedthat his time had come, that he had at last found his way into the insurgents’group. He stepped forward as he raised his voice.“Amigos, I have heard what this man is saying and I believe in hismessage. We must fight if we are to free ourselves from the burden that thepatrones laid on our ancestors. It will not be an easy task; many of us willdie, but we must fight and not give up.”Although Orlando had spoken almost the same words as the recruiter,something in Orlando’s voice captured the group’s attention. Those whowere about to leave turned to look at him and listened to what he had to say.

Others, men and women, seemed to come out from the shadows of the treesand from behind huts. The recruiter, at first taken by surprise, soon regainedhis composure, recognizing an ally in Orlando. He walked up to him,reached out his hand and shook it warmly.“Compañero, I’m Rodrigo Vázquez. Who are you?”“Orlando Flores. The Bomber sent me.”Orlando saw Rodrigo’s eyes narrow suspiciously and he realized that theman was backing away from him even while his hand was still in Orlando’sgrip. Orlando tightened his grasp.“I know that The Bomber is dead. Don’t think I don’t know, but I saythat he sent me because it’s the truth. I’ve come because of him. We met atthe Indian Congress in San Cristóbal de las Casas four years ago.”Rodrigo relaxed with that, backed away and allowed his new compañeroto take over. The task came effortlessly to Orlando as he applied thetechnique and style that had won him so much approval when he wasorganizing. He spoke to the villagers and they responded, wanting to knowmore, asking questions, speaking among themselves. There were somequestions that Rodrigo had to answer, but Orlando’s listeners neither lostinterest nor confidence.The day was turning to evening, but Orlando and Rodrigo were still inconversation with men and women who were now so interested in joiningthe ranks of the insurgents that they had forgotten about time. When theyrealized that it was nearly night, the women ran off to put togethercampfires, to heat comales, to knead masa for tortillas. The men, in turn,headed for their palapas, where they would sit by the fireside waiting forthe food that was being prepared.Orlando and Rodrigo accepted the villagers’ invitation to stay for onemore night so that their conversations could continue. After eating, they sataround the center campfire, shoulder to shoulder with the others—men inthe inner circle, women in the outer one. The talk went from expressions ofgrievances to tales told by elders, remembered and passed down fromgeneration to generation.Orlando told of his work with the Las Casas Congress, of hisdisappointments but also of the many things he had learned. Rodrigo spokeof how he had joined the insurgents, who were still so new that they hardlyhad a dozen guns to go around, and he told of their plans to expand as they

organized for an uprising. His honesty finally won him the people’sconfidence.When the talking ended, both men were given a petate on which to sleepby the smoldering fire, but Orlando stayed awake for a long time, listeningto the jungle, staring at the sky, which was intensely black and studded withglittering stars. He knew that his life had taken yet another turn, and that itwas the right one. Knowing that, he was content. Finally, he rolled onto hisside and drifted into a dreamless sleep.At dawn, Orlando was awakened by the comings and goings of womencarting water and snapping twigs to set fires, men moving silently aroundthe camp and babies crying. He rose, rolled up the petate and headed to theriver, where he took off his clothes and bathed. As he was drying himselfoff, he saw a man nearing the center of the village; a few paces behind himfollowed a woman.Orlando dressed quickly and followed them, his curiosity aroused by thewoman’s dejected appearance. As he walked, he saw that she held her headerect despite the villagers, mostly the women, glaring at her and pointing.He was able to overhear whispering and mumbling as he moved along,trying to keep up with the couple.“Evil woman.”“She deserves to be punished.”When Orlando saw the man and woman disappear into a palapa, heturned to someone standing next to him. He feared it was rude to pry, but aninexplicable feeling of compassion for the dejected woman urged him toask.“Who are they?”“That’s Cruz Ochoa and his wife, Juana Galván. She ran away some timeago, but there you see—he’s found her.”After, as Rodrigo led the way into the jungle toward the insurgents’camp, Orlando thought of the woman and others like her. Years later whenworking side by side with Juana Galván and Adriana Mora, Orlando wouldremember this encounter, knowing that it was then that his mind had turnedto the possibility of recruiting such women as part of the insurgent force. Itwas at that moment that he realized that women were more oppressed thanthe men. As he marched behind Rodrigo, Orlando reserved his idea for

another time, but he remained curious about Juana Galván, wondering if hewould ever see her again.

Chapter 22 It was quick. It was merciful.After leaving the military academy, Rufino returned to Las Estrellas.Don Absolón welcomed his arrival with days of fiestas filled with displaysof horsemanship and bull riding, as well as dancing and music. His othersons had not surprised him in turning out to be failures; he had expectedthat since their youth. When each one chose to drift away, the old man didnot object nor resist; he was relieved. Hidden in his heart was the hope thatyoung Rufino would return to take his place. When that happened, DonAbsolón ordered every man and woman on his vast properties to celebratewith him.Rufino adjusted easily to the life of his class in Chiapas. He mingledwith the best families of San Cristóbal de las Casas and even with thoseacross the southern border, whose daughters were prime for marriage. Hedid not miss the military life; on the contrary, he was grateful that he hadreceived the wisdom to see his way of life as necessary. In a short time,Rufino married and began his family, never leaving the company of DonAbsolón.As years drifted by, the old man’s trust in his son deepened, seeing hiscapacities and eagerness not only to maintain the Mayorga properties buthis evident ambition to expand and modernize them. Don Absolón nowinvited Rufino to join him daily during his evening drink. It was duringthose moments of comradeship that both men exchanged views and plans.One night, Don Absolón abruptly brought up Rufino’s nearly forgottenboyhood friend.“Hijo, have you ever again heard from Quintín Osuna?”The question was so unexpected by Rufino, so out of context of theirconversation, that the younger man gawked at his father, trying to recallwho it was that his father was mentioning. When Rufino finally focused, hegot to his feet and went over to the record player to lower the volume, thenhe returned to the armchair facing his father.

“No, padre, I haven’t heard from him. Not ever. Why do you ask?”Don Absolón puckered his bulbous lips, savoring the tangy sherry tastecoating his tongue. He leaned his head against the back of the chair, eyeshalf closed, evidently weighing his thoughts.“You probably are unaware that he murdered our best overseer, El Brujo.It happened during a day of work in the caoba fields.”Surprised and shaken, Rufino put down the glass he had been holdingand shifted his weight forward to the edge of the chair. His father’s wordswere so blunt and hard that he had difficulty dealing with their power.“Quintín? He murdered an overseer? How long ago?”“Not only an overseer, but the best overseer Las Estrellas has everclaimed, and it happened years ago, shortly before you returned home.”Rufino retreated into silence for a few moments in an attempt to processwhat he was hearing. Quintín’s boyish face flashed in his mind as did theirpranks, their games, their swimming, their competitions. But as he allowedthese thoughts to fill his memory, other considerations pushed them aside: Amurder had been committed. A great loss and affront had been dealt toMayorga family integrity. A common Indian had defied their authority.Rufino leaned back and crossed his legs.“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”“To be honest with you, it’s not something that preoccupies me.”“Then why are you telling me now?”“Because I believe that these people, these indios, are rancorous,vengeful creatures. I would not want you to be caught unaware.”Rufino again took the drink in his hand. This time he drained its content,then he stood up to go refill his glass. When he returned to his place, hecleared his throat.“What did you do about it, padre?”“When I mounted a search for the murderer, it proved futile. We came upwith empty hands. When I offered a reward, we received only blank staresin return. When I threatened reprisals, there was only silence. The murdererslipped through our fingers into the vastness of the jungle, where I’mcertain he still survives.”“After that, what did you do?”

“I did the only thing left for a man in our position. If a son must pay forhis father’s sins, then the contrary is also true. In this case, Quintín’s motherand father paid for their son’s vile act.”“How did you punish them?”“I was kinder to them than Quintín was to our overseer.”“Were you a witness?”“No! I don’t like seeing such things.”“Then, how can you be certain?”“Oh, I’m certain. You know that I put only those whom I can trust incharge of important matters.”“Were the Osunas shot to death?”“Hijo, why are you asking for details?”“Because I must know how Quintín’s mother and father died. I can’texplain it, padre.”“Very well. They were executed as their son would have been had hebeen apprehended. They were marched to the mud fields of the caoba campand drowned. It was quick. It was merciful.”“What about their palapa?”“It was burned, the earth dug up and turned over until no sign of thedwelling was left.”“Are there other family members?”“None that we could find.”“Someone must have helped Quintín; someone must have fed him, givenhim clothing. Did you investigate thoroughly?”“Yes. But you know these people. They’re silent, just like burros andmules. They’re stubborn and too stupid to understand what is right andwrong.”“Have you thought that Quintín more than likely will be looking for youto take revenge?”“The thought has crossed my mind.”“He’s my age. He’s a man now, no longer a boy.”“Hijo, if he returns, it will be to join his mother and father’s bonesburied deep in the mud pit.”

Chopin’s piano concerto was ending; its poignant last notes combined toexpress deep romanticism and sentimentality as the two men paused tolisten. When the long-playing record came to an end, a scratching soundfilled the empty air that bonded father and son. Neither paid attention to thenoise; instead, they sat in silence, looking at each other, weighing thesignificance of their words and deeds. Finally, it was Rufino who got to hisfeet, approached the record player and turned it off. He did this in silence,without emotion. Then he went to Don Absolón, put his hand on the oldman’s shoulder, and nodded in affirmation.“I’ll see to it that Quintín Osuna is caught. I promise you.”“Gracias, hijo.”Rufino began to leave the room, then paused to look at his father. “Fromnow on, let me be in charge of these duties.”“Ah, yes. I like that very much. However, the boyeros are still myresponsibility. Remember that.”“Sí, padre. Buenas noches.”“Buenas noches, hijo.”

Chapter 23 In these parts the only thing that matters is asignature.Orlando had recently experienced an encounter that had left himnervous, and his thoughts returned to it time and again, no matter how muchhe tried to concentrate on other things. Orlando had overheard gossip aboutDon Absolón Mayorga’s death after being gored by an ox.“I’m telling you it was the old patrón of Las Estrellas.”“No!”“Yes, I tell you!”“Don Absolón Mayorga?”“That’s the one. I heard that the beast penetrated him first in thestomach, then down there, right through the big ones.”Orlando, attracted by the name Mayorga as well as the mention of LasEstrellas, edged discreetly closer to the two men exchanging news from theterritory they had recently covered. He listened carefully, hungry for details.“I heard that he was out in the field, overlooking a team of boyeros.”“Oh, that’s bullshit! Why would he do that? That’s what overseers arefor.”“That’s how I heard it! People were saying that ever since someonecalled El Brujo was murdered, the old man never trusted anyone else in hisplace. But maybe this is all gossip. What matters is that he was where heshouldn’t have been. He was old, fat, and he could hardly move. I mean,what’s an old iguana like him doing out in the field, anyway?”Orlando’s mind raced as the image of powerful hooves and sharp hornsappeared in his mind. He remembered Aquiles’ false step and how he hadplunged into the deep mud churned by those beasts. He could see the hairymonsters slashing into Don Absolón’s obese gut, plunging once, twice, untilfinally ripping open and mangling his vulnerable groin. Orlando could notrestrain himself. He moved closer to the men.

“Amigos, forgive my intrusion but I used to work on that finca. Are yousure it was Don Absolón who died?”“I’m positive. In fact, everyone was talking about the new patrón, DonAbsolón’s son, Rufino.”This news surprised Orlando for several reasons. For one, Rufino wasnot the oldest of the Mayorga brothers. For another, Rufino had always saidthat he wanted to be a general in the army, not a landowner.“What about the other sons? There were three boys who were older thanRufino Mayorga.”“Well, compañero, of that I’m not sure, but everyone knows how it iswith those rich families. Who knows? Maybe the old patrón disinheritedone or two of them. Or maybe someone drank himself to death. But I’mcertain about this: Don Rufino Mayorga is now the owner and new patrónof the Mayorga estates. And that means nearly all of the Lacanjá region.”That conversation had turned Orlando’s mind again to thoughts ofreturning to his village. After that he began to move closer to Lacanjá. Hemade his way to the town of San Quintín, which was as close to LasEstrellas as he dared to go. He kept his ears and eyes open for news ofRufino Mayorga, but especially hoped to find out something about hisparents.Orlando’s reputation as a recruiter had preceded him, gaining him thetrust of the local cacique and other native leaders. At the eveninggatherings, he spoke of preparation for the uprising, but he also took time toask questions regarding Las Estrellas and its new owner. Orlando receivedmore information than he had expected. He was given photographs, writtendocuments and newspaper clippings. But when he asked about Domingoand Ysidra Osuna, no one could tell him anything. This made him uneasy,but for the time being, he decided to concentrate his efforts on Rufino.Orlando discovered that Rufino Mayorga had indeed stepped into hisfather’s role as the patriarch of the family, and that he had done so with anenergy and a ruthlessness that even the old patrón had not possessed. Hefound out that he had been absent from his family as a youth; some of thearticles explained that he had been sent to the United States. One newspaperstated that Rufino had been studying in Mexico City at the militaryacademy.

Rumors abounded regarding the fate of the three older Mayorga brothers.One tale claimed that the oldest one was poisoned. Another brother waskilled in an airplane crash, and since he was the pilot, tongues speculatedthat he had been a victim of foul play. Gossip had it that the engine hadbeen damaged intentionally. The last of the Mayorga boys had turned out tobe a drunkard who mysteriously disappeared from Las Estrellas. Onceagain, gossip had it that someone had murdered him. Orlando discovereddifferent versions of these stories, but all had one element in common:Rufino’s unspoken name was at the root of the explanation for the deathsand disappearances of his brothers.Soon after Orlando’s arrival in San Quintín, the city clerk was calledaway on business, but he told Orlando that he was welcome in his office touse any files that he needed. He accepted the offer one evening, when hetook time to go through files looking for photographs. When he stumbledupon a thick dossier filled with pictures of the Mayorgas, he took the topsheets and slipped them into his knapsack. After that, he focused onpictures of the Mayorga family.Orlando thumbed through black-and-white prints, most of themyellowed and fly-speckled. He recognized the one of Don Absolón with hiswife and children, all of them seated on the vast lawn in front of the mainhouse. Orlando narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on the image ofRufino, guessing that he was fourteen or fifteen years old at the time.Orlando wondered if the photo had been taken before or after his exile intothe jungle.He sifted through the pile of pictures until he came across a more recentone of Rufino. In it, he appeared tall, dressed in white casual but eleganttrousers, and a loose-fitting shirt, and he had his head to one side asOrlando remembered he used to do. By Rufino’s side was an aristocratic-looking woman with blond hair, also elegantly dressed, and between thetwo of them was a child dressed in white knee pants.“¡Mierda!”Orlando snorted the disdaining word through his nose as he experienceda deluge of disgust for Rufino, for his wife, and for the child with the round,overfed face that stared at him from the picture. Feeling overcome by theintense heat and flickering dingy light of the office, Orlando pushed aside

the pile of photographs, got to his feet, and headed for the door, where heclicked off the naked bulb and left the place.Once outside, Orlando stepped down off the uneven curb and beganwalking at a brisk pace. He turned the corner, crossed the cobblestone streetand headed for a small room with a light glowing in the window. Heknocked.“¿Quién?”“Orlando Flores.”The heavy wooden door creaked open to let him in. His eyes squinted asthey adjusted to the light of the small room that was shared by otherrecruiters. He nodded to two women and a man that were bent overdocuments; one was reading out loud and another was transcribing notes.Not trusting his own interpretation of the papers he had gathered, Orlandoturned to one of the recruiters.“Amiga, I have some papers here that I would like you to read to me.”“Now? We’re almost finished with this project. Can you wait?”“Of course.”Orlando plopped down on a chair as he extracted the sheets from his bag.He waited patiently, still thinking of the images he had just seen. After awhile, one of the women approached him, sat on the floor and extended anopen hand. Orlando handed her the short stack of papers.“Let me see. This one says that a certain Bonifacio Zaragosa owes theMayorga finca ten sacks of coffee beans. This other declaration states thatthe son of a Berta Espinoza was caught trying to steal food from thepatrón’s kitchen. And this one… hmm… this one is more serious.”“What does it say?”“It’s a warrant for the arrest of a certain Quintín Osuna. He’s chargedwith murder. It doesn’t state the name of the victim, only the date of thecrime. 1968.”Orlando stared at the woman. She looked up at him, startled by theexpression on his face. His pupils dilated, and she thought she saw darkrings forming around his sunken eyes.“1968. Is that the date of that paper?”“No, compañero. This document is recent. It’s dated only three monthsago.”

“But if it doesn’t name the person who was killed, or any witnesses, orother details—doesn’t that make the paper invalid?”“Maybe somewhere else, compañero. In these parts, however, the onlything that matters is a signature. And here it is: Rufino Mayorga.”“What if this paper disappears?”“Another copy will surface. Tell me, why are you so interested in thisdocument?”Orlando shrugged and rolled his eyes without saying a word. He got tohis feet, and without retrieving the reports, he excused himself.“Buenas noches, amigos.”“Adiós, compañero Orlando.”Orlando walked out of the tiny room into the darkness of the night. Thevillage was quiet, and its only light came from the small yellow bulbs thathung from spindly posts located at each street corner. His sandaled feetsometimes tripped on the cobblestones as he walked aimlessly. Finding thatpaper had triggered new emotions and thoughts in him. Orlando realizedthat, despite the passing of the old Mayorga, he was still a hunted man.Rufino would not allow his father’s hatred to disappear; he had inherited therage and vengefulness from El Viejo.Orlando asked why this had to be: Why did a son take on the hates of afather? To understand this, he knew, would explain why families repeatedwhat their ancestors had done before them. It was the same with his people;they followed in the steps of their fathers and mothers.This thought evoked the images of his own mother and father, and fearfor them filled him. The idea that they might come to harm because of himwas more intolerable than ever for Orlando, and he did not know how todeal with what he was feeling. He finally stopped pacing and took refugefrom his anxiety under the yellowish circle cast by one of the street lights.

Chapter 24 They were innocent!Orlando went on with the work of recruiting for the insurgents. Duringthat time he enrolled men and women, from regions covering the length andbreadth of the Lacandona. When he finished his east-west trek, he began acampaign taking him from north to south and back again. When this wascompleted, he crisscrossed the paths leading him to untouched areas of thejungle. As the months turned into years, Orlando grew to know the floor ofthe jungle by heart; he could recognize trees and distinguish one from theother.His work yielded a profit as the insurgents’ ranks grew almost dailywhen men, as well as women, trekked into the camp and pledged to follow.The unique quality of Orlando’s work, compared to that of the otherrecruiters, was that the people who followed him stayed. Rarely did theyexperience a change of heart, no matter how difficult they found the life ofa guerrilla. Not one of Orlando’s recruits wavered in the conviction that oneday they would rise, weapons in hands, to shatter the yoke that hadoppressed them from birth and even before that time.Most of Orlando’s anguish during his first years as an insurgent wasrooted in the disgust he felt because he had not had the courage to return toLacanjá to his mother and father after his escape from the caoba fields. Hismoment came, however, when he was in Yaxchilán, a village close toLacanjá. It happened when he was recruiting a group of Lacandones andone of them approached him.“Compañero Flores, you must be careful.”At the moment, Orlando thought that the man was warning him becauseof his message to rise against the patrones, but he was struck by the look inthe recruit’s eyes; it was different from that of all the others who hadcautioned him. Instinctively, Orlando stepped closer to the man. When hespoke, his voice was a whisper.“What do you mean, amigo? Of what should I be careful?”

“Are you not the son of Domingo and Ysidra Osuna?”Orlando was startled to hear his parents’ names. He had not identifiedhimself as being an Osuna since the days when he was an organizer and hehad changed his name.“Why do you ask?”“Because my father remembers you. He was a boyero with you in thecaoba fields of the Mayorga family. Are you not Quintín Osuna?”Stunned into silence, Orlando took hold of the man’s arm and nudgedhim over to a place far removed from anyone who might overhear theirconversation. He was silent for a while as he wrestled with a decision: to behonest with this stranger and risk capture, or to be false and save himself,yet miss the opportunity to discover news for which he had spent years ofhis life waiting. Orlando’s desire to know at least something about hismother and father compelled him to decide on a middle road.“I once knew a Quintín Osuna, of these parts I believe. What I don’tknow is why he should be careful.”The man nodded, and with an understanding smile, played along withOrlando. Now it was his turn to walk toward an even more secluded fringeof the village so that both men might be able to speak openly.“I understand the caution you show for that man. My father was awitness to the murder of the Mayorga overseer, a sorcerer often called ElBrujo. My father has told me this story from the time when I was just a boy.He swears that the sorcerer received justice on that day when QuintínOsuna cut off his head, and he also swears that El Brujo’s blood was white,like the milk of the yuca.”Orlando had turned partially to one side so that all the man could see washis profile, chin jutting out, eyes clamped into slits. He held one hand,fingers outstretched and palm flat against his throat; he did this to disguisethe wild beating of his heart, which was making the thick vein in his neckthrob visibly.“Amigo, what does this have to do with me?”“Since you know Quintín Osuna, it might be a good idea to tell him whatold Don Absolón did to Quintín’s mother and father, when, after searching,he was unable to find him and punish him.”

The mention of his parents made Orlando flinch. He turned to face theman. He wanted to speak, but he felt heat racing up from his stomach. Hefeared being sick in front of the stranger, so Orlando chose to keep silent.His silence, however, signaled the man to continue talking.“The villagers of Lacanjá were witnesses to el patrón’s rage when heburned the Osuna palapa to the ground. Then he sentenced Domingo andYsidra to death.”Orlando felt that his knees were buckling, but reminding himself that hehad long feared what he was hearing, that it was really not unexpected,revived his strength. He spoke despite an overwhelming urge to vomit.“How did they die?”“They were dragged to the site of a caoba camp by overseers. There theboyeros were forced to witness the fulfillment of the sentence.”“I asked you, how did they die?”“They were drowned in a mud pit.”Orlando kept silent, weeping inwardly as he remembered the last day hesaw his mother and father. He knew the cruelty and pain of dying in a mudpit, and the thought of their torment was intolerable. He waited until heregained his composure.“How long ago did this happen?”“Only a few months had passed since the death of El Brujo.”Shortly after finding this out, Orlando returned to Yaxchilán, and fromthere he made his way to Lacanjá. Keeping cover in the jungle, he traveledsecretly day and night. He was clear as to what he intended to do, and heunderstood the risk involved. The worst that could happen, he remindedhimself, was death by execution, an end that was certainly his destinyanyway. Memories of Don Absolón, of his son Rufino, of El Brujo, andeven of his friend Aquiles, filled him with an insatiable desire forvengeance, making him forget his commitment to justice, to freedom—allthe ideals that had led him to join the insurgents. He was accosted by regret,knowing that years earlier, when he had been so close to Lacanjá, when hehad discovered that he was a wanted man, his mother and father, unknownto him, were already dead and he had done nothing. Above all, he was filledwith disgust, knowing that old Don Absolón was now dead, ripped apart by

an ox, and that he, Orlando, had been cheated of the pleasure of executingthe old man.It was dusk when he arrived at Lacanjá. As he skirted the village, he feltsome comfort in seeing women stoking campfires, men and children cartingwater from the river; the fragrance of fresh tortillas made his mouth water.But, he could not stop to visit; it was too dangerous. He pushed on towardthe fringe of the village, heading for Finca Las Estrellas.It was past the family’s dinner time when Orlando quietly made his wayonto the property. He moved stealthily over the darkened parts of neat,manicured lawns, gingerly stepping over plush flower beds, avoiding theareas where he remembered watch dogs were kept. He moved cautiously,slowly, crouching, as if walking on brittle telltale twigs. He halted everyfew steps, eyes peeled wide open, ears tense and vigilant for any noise thatwould alert him to his being discovered. Nothing. The dogs, bellies filledand asleep, ignored him as he stole closer and closer to the room with theglittering chandeliers.The entrance used by house servants was open. There was no one insight. Orlando paused to remove his huaraches and made his way barefootthrough the kitchen, heading for the parlor. He still remembered the way.The house was wrapped in silence; Rufino’s wife and children were alreadyasleep or elsewhere on the finca.He rounded a corner and entered the dining room, now shrouded inshadows. From there he caught a full view of Rufino Mayorga sipping froma tiny goblet. Seeing how much his boyhood friend now looked like oldDon Absolón, Orlando’s memory zoomed back in time. In the samebrocaded armchair, he sat dressed in similar white linen trousers and shirt.Orlando took his time to observe his prey, savoring the moment, taking inthe details: graying blond hair that had begun to thin, well-fed paunch notyet as pronounced as the old man’s, polished fingernails, white leatherslippers, one of them dangling from a leg elegantly crossed at the knee.Orlando then moved his gaze away from Rufino to scan thesurroundings, remembering the elegance and rich security each piece offurniture and ornament conveyed. He saw himself, still a boy of fourteenyears, dusting, rubbing, carting. He envisioned that boy courteouslybending to offer the small tumbler of sherry carefully placed on a silvertray.

Orlando had time, and so he looked and remembered. Rufino waslistening to music as did his father, and there was yet plenty of time beforehe would begin to make his way toward his bedroom. As the minutespassed, Orlando looked down at himself: his overgrown bare feet werecallused and mutilated; his legs were bowed; his belly was flat, emaciated,as was his chest; his tunic was frayed and threadbare. He put his hand to hisface and felt the scars he had received during his years as a boyero, laborerand insurgent. He took a hard look and saw the difference between himselfand Rufino. He reflected on how both of them had been born close to oneanother in date and place, yet how the similarity ended there. He now sawwhy the old man and his kind forbade intermingling; the differences wereso vast that only the blind could ignore the gap. Someone might get ideaswhen the truth was realized. With this thought, Orlando moved toward thearmchair, the music covering the sound of his naked feet treading themarble floor.“Rufino!”Orlando’s voice was drowned out by the music, which had reached aloud crescendo of shrill piano notes backed by even louder violin chordsfilling the room, floating upward to linger on the vaulted ceiling. Suddenly,the concert ended and only the repeated scratching of the needle on the diskcould be heard. Rufino stood and headed for the record player.“Rufino!”The man’s body jerked, turning abruptly. He was so startled that hishand, midway to lifting the arm of the record player, froze. A scratching,hissing sound filled the space separating the two men as the record spun,the needle yawing from one edge to the other. Paralyzed, Rufino gawked,confusion and fear dilating his eyes.“Who are you? What are you doing here?”Orlando had now taken the pistol from his waist and he held it, notpointed at Rufino, but hanging from his hand. He moved toward the frozenman slowly, putting one foot in front of the other, knees slightly bent. Hisslanted eyes narrowed, allowing Rufino to see only the flint of their pupils.“Who are you?”Rufino’s voice had grown thick with apprehension, intensified evenmore by Orlando’s silence and constant motion toward him. He began to

back away, knocking a vase to the floor and almost losing his balance.When his back touched a wall, Rufino knew he had nowhere to go.“Don’t you recognize me, amigo? Is it because we all look alike? Doyou see the same miserable face on all of us?”Rufino’s skin had paled to nearly match his white shirt. His lips began toturn blue as his breathing became more and more irregular. Orlando’s wordsseemed to confuse him even more because he could not remember; he couldnot identify the angry-looking native who stood confronting him with somuch hostility.“Domingo and Ysidra Osuna. Do these names remind you of anything,Don Rufino?”Rufino’s face crinkled like a mask, aging him, nearly transforming himinto his father’s image. Now he knew who it was he was facing. He knewwhat awaited him. He followed the unspoken order when Orlando jerkedhis head toward the back, to the kitchen, where the servants had entered andexited the mansion for decades.Orlando was calm as he followed Rufino out the door. He took time toslip into the huaraches he had left at the entrance. With the pistol in onehand, he nudged Rufino with the other until they were standing under amoonless sky.“Move!”Rufino moved as if in a trance, mechanically putting one foot in front ofthe other. He kept silent, his breathing thickening as they headed toward thedarkness of the jungle. Feeling Orlando’s prodding hand, Rufino marchedin the direction of the caoba camp, but as they approached it, Orlandograbbed Rufino’s shoulder.“Turn! Go in that direction!”“There’s nothing there.”“There’s mud. Go!”Rufino, knowing what was coming, could not contain himself. Hecoughed time and again, evidently trying to suck air into his paralyzinglungs. Once, he halted and emptied his stomach; his vomit glistened whiteagainst the blackness of the moist earth. Submitting to Orlando’s thrustinghand, he tried to speak as he moved forward.“It was justice!”

“This is justice!”“You murdered a man!”“Your father murdered a man and a woman!”“Why me?”“Why my mother and father?”“You’re guilty!”“They were innocent!”The two men exchanged angry accusations as they moved until theycame to muddy ground; a few paces more and both of them sunk to theirthighs unexpectedly. Rufino looked at Orlando but saw only the glint of hiseyes and a portion of his large white teeth. Orlando pushed the barrel of thepistol brusquely against Rufino’s stomach, shoving it in and out, causing theman to retch again. Orlando then waded to one side as he spoke.“Taste the food eaten by so many of your boyeros! Know what mymother and father were given to breathe!”“You’ll pay for this!”“¡Muévete!”With unexpected swiftness, Orlando stretched and lifted his arm,bringing down the weapon squarely on Rufino’s neck. Rufino yelped withpain and began to back into the center of the quagmire. He was shaking soviolently that his hair stood on end with horror. Orlando lifted the pistol andaimed it at el patrón’s face.“¡Muévete! ¡Más!”Rufino was up to his neck in mud and sinking inch by inch. His chin wasnow grazing the surface of the slime that nearly reached his mouth. Then,without uttering a sound, he closed his eyes and disappeared into the ooze,followed only by the slapping sound of mud closing in on mud.

Chapter 25 Why is the day moving in reverse?The Lacandona Jungle, 1993.Orlando Flores stood facing the firing squad; he was afraid but calm. Hewanted to etch those faces into his memory. But no matter how much hesquinted and focused his eyes, all he could see were blurs in the place ofeyes, noses, mouths, chins. He tried to see, realizing that soon a blindfoldwould be wrapped over his eyes, and then it would be impossible for him toidentify his executioners.He struggled against the growing mist that interfered with his vision, butday’s end was approaching and everything was growing darker. Suddenlyhe became confused, remembering that it was dawn, not night. He mumbledto himself, despite his having been instructed not to say a word: Why is theday moving in reverse?Orlando swiveled his head to one side when he perceived that thecommanding officer had approached to give the final order. This timeOrlando’s vision was clear, focused, precise, and he saw that it was RufinoMayorga, dressed in a captain’s uniform, who was to give the word. Hetwisted his neck to one side to look, blinking over and again because hethought that his eyes were deceiving him.At that moment, he realized that Rufino was still a boy, and that theuniform he wore was that of a man; it was too large, giving him a comicalappearance. He saw that the adult-sized cap on his head had slipped to hisears, almost covering his eyes. The tunic hung nearly to his knees, as if itsmedals were weighing it down, and his trousers were rolled up tocompensate for the boy’s short legs. When Orlando looked at Rufino’sshoes, he burst out laughing because their oversized toes curved upward.“¡Epa, Rufino! ¿Qué pasó, amigo? ¿Eres ahora payaso?”Clown! The word became the order to fire and Orlando’s eyes bulged ashe saw the bullets flying toward him; they were missiles from an unknownworld. They wiggled, pirouetted, shimmied, as they traced their course

toward him. Suddenly, everything stood still, and he had time to jerk hishead to the side to take one final look. The last thing Orlando saw beforehis chest was blasted open by the torrent of bullets was that it was notRufino after all. In his place stood the bloated figure of Don AbsolónMayorga, covered in gleaming medals, baggy eyes concealed behind green-shaded dark glasses, mouth twisted in a grin. The ugly visage smirked athim.Orlando awoke, panting and covered in perspiration; it took secondsbefore he realized that his hands were desperately massaging his chest.When he saw what he was doing, he clenched his fists, forcing himself tostretch his arms rigidly into the darkness. Slowly, he allowed himself to rolloff the hammock onto the earthen floor, where he remained for severalminutes, trying to separate the nightmare from reality. He sat, legs sprawledout in front of him, while his breath stabilized. All the while, he pressed thepalms of his hands against his chest, still feeling the intense pain caused bythe nightmare bullets.Trying to anchor himself to what was real, Orlando blinked and rubbedhis eyes. Then he looked to the sides, downward and upward, but it was stillso dark that he was barely able to make out the supporting beams of thepalapa he shared with the other compañeros. As he ran his fingers throughthe sandy dirt, he wondered if anyone had awakened, but he saw thateveryone was asleep and that some of the men were even snoring.Orlando needed more assurance of where he was. He forced his eyes toadapt to the gloom. He took in the stand where a gourd was placed next to atin basin; that was where he washed. His eyes shifted along the side of thepalapa, concentrating on the sleeping forms of his fellow insurgents, thenstopping at the narrow, low-cut entrance; through it, he could make out apiece of the jungle, still bathed in moonlight.As soon as he was able to get a grip on his surroundings, Orlando rolledto the side where he could rest his back. He concentrated on the present, onthe palapa, and beyond it to the jungle. Still inundated by the fear causedby the nightmare, his thoughts shifted from the past to the present, thenback. He again looked out through the palapa’s opening and saw that it was

still deep night. He was grateful because he needed time to think, todecipher the bad dream that had just accosted him.His mind drifted back to the time of his childhood, to the village wherehe lived with his mother and father. Orlando remembered that before fallingasleep, instead of saying buenas noches, his mother or father would say: Becareful of what you dream tonight. He thought now of those words and oftheir meaning, and he longed to speak to someone who knew how toexplain dreams. But there was no one. That he would be executed sooner orlater was clear, but the other parts of his nightmare, what did they mean?Orlando closed his eyes and meditated, listening for a voice that mightexplain what he had experienced. His mind drifted, neither awake norasleep, as words formed.Why were the faces of my executioners blurred?Because evil has no face.Why was the day moving in reverse?Because time is round and curls in on itself.Then time stood still.No. It only appeared to do so as it repeated itself.Why was Rufino still a boy?Because he died unchanged.Why was he wearing clothes that were not his?Because he clothed himself in the identity imposed on him.Orlando opened his eyes and sucked in a large breath; he held it for afew moments as his mind settled. He exhaled slowly, thinking that now thedream was clear. The one question that continued to haunt him was whetherhe would always feel like an animal, constantly tracked by a predator.Still sitting on the ground and leaning against the side of the palapa,Orlando finally dispelled the fearful feelings caused by the nightmare. Helooked toward the entrance and saw that daylight was beginning to seepthrough the mesh of palm fronds and treetops. He got to his feet, wiped hishands on his shirt and looked for his sandals as he prepared to go down tothe river. He did this silently, although he knew that his compañeros wouldsoon be milling around the campfire, getting ready for a day of maneuversand tactical planning.

Orlando made his way toward the water, listening to its cascadingrhythm as it crashed against muddy banks. He breathed in deeply, smellingthe river’s dampness mixed with the pungent fragrance of decaying flowers.When he was not away from the camp on recruitment, this was where heliked to rest and spend time.At river’s edge, he pulled off the tunic in which he had slept. He sniffedit, taking in the sharp odor of his sweat, and the nightmare unexpectedlyreturned with its phantom firing squad. He shook his head to erase thoseimages, and he plunged into the warm water, where he abandoned himselfto its current and to thoughts of the winding path that had brought him tothat place and time. He had begun as a servant on the finca of Don Absolón.He had been condemned to the life of a boyero. He had killed a man andexperienced the life of a fugitive. He had organized and recruited. He hadbecome an insurgent. He had settled the score with Rufino Mayorga.Wanting to dispel this last thought, he shut his eyes and conjured theimage of Juana Galván, who, he thought, had grown more beautiful over theyears. Nothing in her life as a soldier had hardened her spirit, he mused. Herface had changed; this he acknowledged, but on the inside, she was tenderand joyful. There was a time, in the beginning, when he had desired her ashis companion, even loved her, but the hope that she would ever return hisfeelings had vanished years before when he realized that her heart, trampledby Cruz Ochoa, would never belong to any man.Orlando then concentrated on the day’s order of business as planned bythe general command. There would be discussion and decision regardingthe crisis that had arisen from the murder of two military policemen;discussion and drafting of a declaration of the insurgents’ position;discussion and decision regarding the bishop’s proposed massdemonstration. The list was short, and when his mind came to its end,Orlando’s thoughts drifted to the previous day, when Juana had returned tocamp, bringing with her the photographer named Adriana Mora.He thought of the photographer for whom he had felt some distrust. Hehad voiced this sentiment when the general command had initiallydiscussed recruiting her. He feared that she would betray them if she werecaptured, and now that he had seen her, his apprehension was even stronger.She was frail and foreign, but that alone was not what bothered Orlando.There was something else. He shook his head, gave up thinking about

Adriana Mora and climbed to where he had left his clothes. It was time tojoin the compañeros for breakfast and to prepare for the meeting.

Chapter 26 What about me?Insurgent Training Camp, Lacandona Jungle, August, 1993.Adriana Mora concentrated on the faces of the members of the generalcommand as they drafted the declaration of war that would be read to townsand cities, once the offensive began. Her camera clicked time and again,capturing the expression of El Subcomandante; his large nose dominated hisface. The lens moved from Major Ramona over to Colonel Orlando, then onto the other officers.Click! Click! Click! The repeated sound merged with muffled words,paper scraping against the rough table top, someone sneezing. Adrianacircled the table to focus on the opposite side of the panel. When shepointed her camera toward Juana, she felt her heart beat faster, and shestopped what she was doing. Still aiming the camera, she saw that Juanahad tilted her head; her eyes were looking at her. Adriana lowered thecamera and returned the intensity of her gaze.Suddenly, a deafening explosion tore the air, nearly rocking the shed offits foundation. Seconds of stunned surprise followed the blast, but beforeanyone could make a move, more detonations shook the ground. Adrianahit the floor on her rump, the camera still gripped in both hands. As shetumbled backward, she saw others dive under the table and benches,weapons already in hand.El Subcomandante signaled everyone to leave the building and go on thedefensive. Orlando was the first to crawl out; the others made their waythrough a panel in the floor boards. The room had filled with dust andsmoke, and Adriana lost sight of Juana. She rolled over, slithered on herbelly, and tried to escape the asphyxiating fumes. All the while she feltpanic gripping her heart as her lungs constricted.Without letting go of the camera, Adriana thrashed around, flinging herfree arm in space, inching her way on her hands and knees until shediscovered the exit. Throughout, she was aware of a torrent of bullets,

signaling that the camp was under siege. When she emerged, she stretchedout on her back, mouth agape gulping air, hoping to regulate her breathing.She could hear the searing noise of bullets cutting through bark and leaves,then she was shaken by another blast that she could not identify.Voices clamored. Orders were shouted. Muffled groans were beginningto emerge. Adriana finally regained composure, realizing that she wasmissing the moment for which she had joined the insurgents. She scrambledbehind a tree, breathing through her mouth, trying to forget her asthma anddeflating lungs. She moved her head slowly to catch a glimpse of what washappening and she saw that she was positioned at a vantage point.Adriana felt her hands and fingers trembling as she raised the camera,pointed and focused. In the center of the lens were two men garbed ingovernment army fatigues; their arms blurred as they jerked back and forth,piston-like, while their weapons repeatedly blasted flames from reddenedcylinders. Click! Zoom! Click! Zoom! Adriana twisted her head and bodyto pan the camera from one angle to another, capturing images ofinsurgents, who returned fire with as much ferocity.The air was polluted with the stench of burnt gunpowder as well as withan ear-shattering din. Snap! The camera recorded the picture of a bodyslammed against a tree. Click! That frame captured Major Ramona, sawed-off shotgun held against her small frame, blasting fire with both barrels.Everywhere Adriana turned to focus her camera, it snapped weapons firing,smoke streaming toward treetops, palapas engulfed in flames, soldiersfalling, running, insurgents firing their weapons at will, ripping bodies.Gaining courage, Adriana ventured more and more into open space, fearreceding from her mind with each second. She focused, clicked andrefocused, oblivious to the danger of being shot. She turned in differentdirections, pointing upward, sideways. Her body became a blur of motion.Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was already processing thepictures, already sending them to journals and newspapers; names andaddresses of publishers surfaced clearly in her mind.Suddenly, she caught sight of forms, shady figures running through thetrees. She looked around, camera held mid-air and ready to shoot, buteverything had become silent; everyone was gone except the apparitionsshe had just glimpsed. Confused, Adriana turned in circles, her eyes wide

open, her mind trying to decipher the sudden silence as well as thetransparent shadows.Without knowing from where it came, she heard the racket of three loudblasts; she felt hot, searing pain ripping open her stomach. The camera fellfrom her hands as she looked down at her abdomen. It was bloody, and hershirt was ripped to shreds. Her legs lost all strength as she crumpled to theground.Knowing that she was about to die, Adriana closed her eyes and waited,but nothing happened; there was only stillness. When she sensed thatsomeone was beside her, she opened her eyes and she found herself cradledin Juana’s arms. Adriana raised her head and saw that the camp was serene,orderly; there were no signs of battle, except that she knew that she wasdying. The sun was setting when she felt the pressure of Juana’s lips onhers. She opened her mouth, matching Juana’s passion.Adriana’s head swirled and she began to lose consciousness as she rolledher knees up to her bloodied stomach, but she was startled back to alertnesswhen she realized that she was sitting cross-legged facing Chan K’in; hewas seated and listening to her. Adriana saw that they were no longer in thecamp but in the jungle; its shade and sounds wrapped itself around them.Dumbfounded, she stared at him, waiting for him to speak. Instead, hesignaled with his eyes for her to look to her side. Adriana did as he asked.When she turned, she saw her mother seated next to her. She, too, was onthe ground, cross-legged, and she looked at Adriana with sad eyes.“Adrianita, I’ve been looking for you. Have you not seen me?”Adriana stared at her mother, not understanding what was happening.She was confused. She felt strange emotions seeping through her heart,sentiments that she could not identify, but she did not feel fear—of that shewas certain.“No, Mamá, I haven’t seen you.”“I’ve been with you many times, because I know that there is somethingyou want to know.”This time Adriana turned to Chan K’in, yearning for direction, wantinghim to explain to her what was happening. The old man, however, onlylooked down at the earth in front of him as he etched a design.“What happened that night, Mamá?”

“Don’t you remember anything?”“Only the noise.”“I killed your father.”“I know, Mamá. What I don’t know is why.”“He betrayed me.”“Why did you kill yourself?”“I had no reason to live.”“What about me?”Adriana’s question was filled with longing and pain that turned intoanger. When she saw her words seep out of her mouth, she saw that theywere enraged. They left her lips and furiously crept upward, leaping likemonkeys from branch to branch, tree to tree, climbing higher as they madetheir way to the highest parts of the jungle. Up there her words reverberatedas they elongated, widened, deepened, finally bursting into an echo thatfloated away, out of Adriana’s hearing.Adriana awoke. Her eyes snapped open to see pale light coming throughthe palapa’s entrance. She had been dreaming again. Adriana forced herbody to be still while her brain raced, trying to understand the meaning ofthe dream. She concentrated on the fleeting shadows, the same ones thathad inhabited her other dreams, but this time one of them had been hermother. What about me? Adriana put her hands to her ears, trying toretrieve the echo of her words, but instead her eardrums vibrated with theblasts of gunfire and bomb explosions.She wiggled her nose, feeling it scorched and plugged up with the odorof gunpowder. Then her head jerked downward because the pain of thewound was still on her mind. She examined her stomach, rubbed it, heavedit up and down, testing its strength, but she saw that it was intact. It had allbeen a dream. The violence of men and women slaughtering one another,the conversation with her mother, her own unflinching determination—ithad all been a dream.Adriana stretched, then rolled off the hammock exasperated andmumbling under her breath. She felt shaken and near tears, aware that herdreams were becoming an inexplicable obsession. She longed to speak to

Chan K’in; he would know what to make of her dream. Unanswerablequestions swirled in her head: Had she already experienced such violence?Was it a portent of what was yet to come? Did Juana kiss her? Was hermother one of those shadowy figures always tracking her? Why had hermother abandoned her?Adriana’s head ached, but she put her pain and nervousness aside,hoping to anchor herself in reality by reminding herself that a council hadbeen called for seven that morning. She had been commissioned to record iton film as well as in her notes. While she bathed, and later on as she atebreakfast, her mind could not erase the images of her dream; they wereetched on her brain as clearly as those she captured on film.When Adriana entered the room, the members of the general commandwere already at their places. Loaded down with camera, film and note pads,she made her way to an empty seat, trying not to disrupt the discussion. Shenoticed, however, that all eyes were on her. She smiled sheepishly as sheput her gear in a corner and then greeted the committee.“¡Buenos días!”“¡Buenos días!”The response was simultaneous but uneven, male voices outweighing thefemale. She looked around, taking in faces and other details, marveling athow her dream had constructed such a different scenario. In her dream, theroom had been large, with smooth plastered walls, its ceiling high andvaulted. In reality, the room was small, its ceiling low, and its walls nothingmore than rough poles lashed together. In the dream, there were only ahandful of insurgents: El Subcomandante, Major Ramona, Colonel Orlando,and Juana. Now, as Adriana scanned the room, she saw that the committeewas much larger. When she looked toward Juana, she saw that she waslooking at her, just as she had in the dream; Adriana got the impression ofwarmth in Juana’s gaze. Before she could give it any more thought,however, her attention was taken away from Juana by the murmuring ofvoices, low-pitched but intense. Some of the officers seemed agitated,others restless.The whispering stopped when El Subcomandante spoke. As he did henodded his head in Adriana’s direction, signaling his permission for her tobegin her work. She stepped to the rear of the room and began shooting as

she moved to take in different angles: first, individual faces, then in twosand threes. As she worked, the committee went on with its discussion.The camera’s shutter clicked so frequently that it soon became inaudibleto everyone in the room: El Subcomandante, one hand bracing his jaw, theother holding an unlit pipe; Colonel Orlando, head leaned to one side, adrooping mustache emphasizing the slits of his eyes; Captain Juana, profileturned toward the camera at such an angle that the half-moon scar over hereyebrow appeared to glow; Major Ramona, unconsciously holding thefringe of her huipil to her mouth and nose. Click! The shutter opened andshut, capturing faces, profiles, hands, furrowed foreheads, blinking eyes,pinched lips.Adriana lowered her camera. The film had run out and she needed toreload. As she did this, she was aware of the heated discussion that wasgoing on. It was agitated but orderly; no one shouted nor argued. Opposingpoints of view were listened to and then responded to as necessary.The demonstration by the bishop’s priests and missionaries.Military policemen captured, murdered, mutilated.Compañeros accused and arrested.The review of insurgent troops by El Subcomandante.Hours passed and the committee continued its work, allowinginterruptions only when the officers needed to go out to relieve themselves.Other than that, no one left or took time out to eat. Adriana decided that shewould follow that example, using the time to take notes and to snap morephotographs.Her headache persisted, growing worse as the day passed. Although shetried to resist, she continued thinking of her dreams.Chan K’in’s words, vividly clear, came back to her. The heat of the junglebecame oppressive, and she felt stifled inside the room. Adriana left hergear behind and walked out onto the compound. Suddenly, she felt a littlelightheaded and she began to ache. Without warning, nausea overcame her.She ran to the edge of the jungle and emptied her stomach. Fatigued andsweaty, she sat on a fallen tree while she tried to gather her thoughts.“Compañera.”Adriana whipped her head toward the voice and discovered Juanastanding beside her. She could not help herself. She stared at her without

inhibition, scanning her face, then down to her uniform shirt, her trousersand boots.“I’m sick, Juana.”“It’s the heat.”“No!”“Then what is it?”“It’s dreams that hound me and don’t let me sleep.”Juana sat by Adriana’s side and they remained in silence. The heat hadby that time saturated the jungle. The animals were also silent, as ifsleeping, only the faraway murmur of cascading water breaking theafternoon languor. In that quiet, Adriana felt an inner door opening, lettingout a flood that had been trapped there, and tears rolled down her cheeks.Embarrassed, she tried to turn her face from Juana, but before she couldturn completely, Juana took hold of her shoulder and placed her arm aroundher.“Talk to me.”“This morning I woke up from a dream in which my mother came to me.She spoke to me.”Juana released Adriana’s shoulder and put her clasped hands in her lap.Her face tilted to one side so as to look fully at Adriana. She lifted hereyebrows inquisitively.“She died when I was a child, and I was left alone. I’ve always felt thatshe abandoned me.”“But she died, Adriana. She didn’t abandon you.”Adriana looked at Juana but feared revealing what she had never beforedared to tell. She had never told anyone of her memories of being locked inan apartment with her dead mother and father, of her childhoodrootlessness, of her fear of abandonment.“She didn’t just die, Juana. She killed my father, then she killed herself.”Juana again put her arm around Adriana’s shoulders to communicate herunderstanding of what she had heard, and remained silent. Adriana turnedher head toward Juana, thinking that perhaps Juana had somehowexperienced similar feelings and truly understood her pain.

“Last night she came to me for the first time. I think that she was tryingto explain why she did what she did, but because I felt anger at her, shedisappeared. I awoke before she could speak.”Juana listened to Adriana’s words, apparently understanding heremotions. She tightened the grasp on her friend’s shoulders.“My people know that dreams say something to us; their words andactions are explanations. We take them seriously. Your anger has meaning;maybe it’s a discovery.”Now it was Adriana’s turn to look at Juana. She stared at her, againunabashedly. She was thinking that, until the dream, she had never feltanger at her mother. At least, she could not remember experiencing thatsentiment.“Discovery?”“Maybe it will lead you to understand, to forgive your mother for killingyour father.”Adriana pulled away from Juana. She needed to explain to her the realreason for her anger.“It was not her killing my father that filled me with anger in the dream. Itwas that she killed herself, abandoning me, leaving me alone.”“Adriana, no one knows what was in your mother’s heart. Perhaps that iswhat she’s trying to tell you. Maybe that is why she cannot rest until youaccept that she had a reason for what she did.”“But to accept it, I must first know the reason.”“You’ll know. Your mother will reveal it to you.”Adriana thought of Juana’s words. She closed her eyes, returning to theembrace that had given her strength and pulled her away from the gloom ofabandonment. She was not yet ready to accept what Juana had said; sheneeded time to ponder those words, to understand their meaning. Buried inthose sentiments was the explanation for what her dreams held.That evening, while mingling with the women, Adriana was finally ableto dispel the shakiness caused by her dream. There was tension in the campcaused by a sense of approaching conflict. People talked of nothing else,and no one doubted that war was close. They wondered what day would bedetermined by the general command for its beginning. In the meantime,

orders were given for some insurgents to leave the camp to gatherintelligence.

Chapter 27 Emboldened, Juana mingled with the crowd.As far as Juana’s eyes could see, a multitude of people covered the sidesof the canyon. The beaten paths that marked the hillsides had disappearedunder the throngs which had come and were still arriving, responding to thebishop’s call for dialogue and prayer. From where she stood, she was notable to see where the mass of people ended; she could only focus below, onthe floor of the canyon, where an altar had been erected.Adriana stood beside Juana. She spotted Orlando Flores nearby, whenshe occasionally glanced back. They had been assigned to join thedemonstration, mingle with the crowd and get a sense of the people’s mood.With that instruction, Juana, Adriana and Orlando had trekked from thejungle campsite to the highlands, blending in with the pilgrims as they madetheir way to the convocation.Juana scanned the swarm of people, identifying tribes by their dress: theblack woolen skirts of the Tzeltal women; the white cotton tunic of theLacandón men. There were other groups represented; even city people hadcome. The cut of their dress and shoes gave them away.Juana had replaced her uniform with her native dress. She inwardlyadmitted that she was happy to kick off the heavy boots and replace themwith huaraches. It was not so easy, however, when the time came totransform Adriana. Her hair was too curly and short, her legs were toostraight and unblemished, and she was so gangly that Juana had a difficulttime finding a skirt long enough for her. The other compañeras had giggledwhen they first caught sight of Adriana dressed like a native, but when theysaw her sincerity, they patted her on the back and said she looked fine.Sharing in their humor, Adriana laughed with them as she made sure thatshe had a camera tucked under her huipil.Looking down on the color-speckled sea of people, Juana felt herself inturmoil, mainly because she, like the other insurgents, knew that war wasnow inevitable. There had been too many tortures and killings, too many

breaches of agreement. Fear of war was the reason for the bishop’s call tothe people; he hoped to prevent through dialogue a bloody explosion.It’s too late, Tatic, too late. Five hundred years have passed and nowwe’re armed and angry. Nothing can stop the torrent that is about to fall onus all.Juana’s thoughts were so intense that her lips mouthed what was goingthrough her mind. But there was another reason why she was so inwardlystressed: her conversation with Adriana of the previous day. From thebeginning, she had felt deeply moved by affection for her, and now hersentiments were drenched in sympathy because she, too, had been uprootedand alone during her life. Juana longed to tell Adriana about herself, abouther life with Cruz Ochoa, about her father and how she had returned to himlooking for an explanation, but she was not used to speaking about herselfor such personal things.She glanced sideways to look at Adriana and saw that she was takingfurtive shots with her camera. She felt apprehensive, but sensed that thiswas a special moment and that Adriana should capture whatever she could.Juana again turned to examine the growing crowd, guessing that there werethousands of men, women and children, and that the massive convocationmight be critical to the insurgents’ war. She knew in her heart that no matterwhat the bishop preached, his words would not halt the momentum ofinsurgency. It was too late.Led by seminarians standing in a circle around the altar, each with aportable microphone in hand, the people began to sing hymns. At first, thesinging was thin, tinny, but as the swell of voices joined in, the chantingrose and flowed, at times becoming thunderous as the petitions of thepeople elevated beyond the mist, soared up to the mountain heights.¡Alabaré! ¡Alabaré! ¡Alabaremos al Señor!Juana stretched her back, and stood on tiptoe in order to see more. Shewas moved by the faces of her people, especially the women. In the crowdwas a girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, who reverently helda bunch of wildflowers. Next to her stood an old woman, perhaps the girl’sgreat-grandmother; both of them were singing piously, offering their voicesin prayer.Everywhere Juana looked she saw faces worn out before their time bymisery and overwork, bodies covered with threadbare cotton and frayed

woolens, feet shod in raggedy sandals or even bare and callused. Shelooked at children’s bloated bellies, ill-fed and ruined by parasites, and herown stomach sickened as she relived her childhood when she was weigheddown by burdens meant to be carried only by burros. Juana wanted to pray,but she could not because her guts were on fire with anger and rancor.“The poverty of our people and their deplorable living conditions, whichare even more serious in the indigenous areas of our diocese, are explainedby the structures that have been formed over the length and breadth of fivehundred years of history.”A deacon, making time for the bishop’s arrival, had begun to read fromthe prelate’s pastoral letter. The words, nasalized by the sound system,mixed with the continued praying and chanting of “¡Paz! ¡No Violencia!”The shouting swelled as lines of people crowded down the sides of theravines, snaking their way across the mountainsides, closer to the altar.“For the Indian peoples, the conquest meant that the colonizers broughtsubjugation and exploitation, as well as varying degrees of brutality and theviolation of the dignity of the indigenous.”Juana turned to Adriana and saw that she was riveted by theoverwhelming sight and sounds. Again, she turned to look at the girl withthe flowers, wondering if she might have looked like her that day when herfather had exchanged her to Cruz Ochoa. She returned her attention to thebishop’s letter and the people’s response to his words. She wanted todiscover the real mood of the congregation, wondering if their shouts infavor of peace were sincere.“Our communities have discovered that, united, they have the capacity tosolve the problems that affect them. In the end, they will be the ones todecide their own history.”Juana listened carefully, puzzled as to why, despite the meaning of thebishop’s words regarding her people’s unity and their obligation to forgetheir own future, he still advocated peace. Her mind filled with questions.Is he not recognizing the enormity of grief suffered by our people for somany centuries? Is he not acknowledging that we are the ones to ultimatelytake control of our own lives? Why can he not admit that war is the onlyway to solve the grievous problems afflicting our people? War is the onlyway that will lead to defining our own history.

She was nearly talking to herself when the deacon abruptly stopped thereading and joined the other seminarians as they moved toward a mass ofpeople churning in expectation. The bishop, vested to celebrate Holy Mass,had arrived. He had been transported by car from San Cristóbal de lasCasas, but had chosen to walk the last miles down the mountain into thecanyon. As he penetrated the crowd, uproarious cheering arose.“¡Tatic! ¡Tatic! ¡Tatic!”The bishop was jostled back and forth, and countless hands, hungry totouch even the hem of his vestment, reached out to him. He was patted onthe back and his hands were kissed or shaken. As he inched his way throughthe multitude, making the sign of the cross in every direction, hymns wereagain entoned and led by the seminarians, and the people sang with theirhearts. Now, their chant rose yet higher than the ravines and mountainpeaks. Behind the sad-looking prelate a long line of priests, also vested forthe service, followed smiling, waving, nodding, blessing.When he finally arrived at the podium, a hush fell over the multitude.The only sound to be heard was the hum of the wind as it snaked its wayfrom the mist-covered peaks down through the ravines. Juana surveyed theright and left sides of the canyon and again was struck by the upturnedbrown faces, all of them filled with hope.“¡Viva Tatic!”“¡Viva!”A massive response followed the lone voice that had shouted out itstribute to the Little Father. Minutes passed while the crowd opened its heart,cheering and shouting support for the man most of them believed had livedamong their ancestors and who had returned to defend them.Juana squinted, trying to focus on the tiny figure clad in white vestments.The day was ending; the northern wall of the canyon was now shrouded in apurple mantle. Torches were being lighted around the altar and beyond it.She saw that the breeze was ruffling the bishop’s thinning hair and that hepatted it down with his right hand from time to time. She waited as dideveryone for his words as he adjusted the microphone that had been pinnedon his shoulder. Then he cleared his voice.“I am your shepherd and I say to you that dialogue is one of theconditions for fraternal relationships. Let us speak to one another, not killone another.”

A thunderous roar of applause and shouting ripped through the earlyevening. Here and there small groups sang; others prayed Hail Marys andOur Fathers. Juana shook her head in disagreement. She wanted to reach fora microphone and bring her people to their senses, but she saw that most ofthem were nearly hysterical in their approval of what he was saying.“En nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo.”“¡Amén!”The bishop turned to face the altar and began the prayers of the mass.When Juana heard the response from the crowd, she turned away, nearlyconvinced that her people saw the resolution to their misery through theeyes of the bishop. As she began to move toward the fringe of the throng,she thought she heard voices speaking. Curious to know why they were notpraying, she edged closer to the mumbling.“I tell you, the time for praying has passed.”“What do you mean?”“I intend to arm myself and fight.”“¡Estás loco!”“The overseer of my patrón took my last pesos a year ago. I had nothing,and my two little sons died of hunger. You say I’m crazy because I want tokill that overseer. Well, then, I’m crazy!”“¡Shsss!”“¡Cállense! ¡Tatic está rezando!”Juana neared the knot of men and women who were whispering despitethe ongoing prayers. Behind her was Adriana, and Orlando was another fewsteps away. Taking a chance of being put off, she tapped the man who hadbeen speaking on the shoulder.“Amigo, you’re right. Praying will do no good. It’s time to fight. Are youready to leave your palapa and follow us into the mountains?”“¡Shsss! ¡Qué vergüenza!”“¡Respeto para Tatic!”Juana, undaunted by the complaints, looked at the man who returned hergaze. He was surprised but not put off. He looked around at hiscompanions, then back to face Juana.“What’s in the mountains?”

“Others who think like you. Women and men preparing to fight thepatrones. Come! Follow us! It’s time.”She moved slowly, knowing that the man would follow her as sheheaded toward more voices. This time Juana did not look, she merely stoodstill and listened.“What did you think of the demonstration in Tuxla the other day?”“How should I know?”“Because you were there. I saw you.”“No, I wasn’t.”“I saw you!”“How could you? There were more than a thousand compañeros andcompañeras there.”“Ha! So you were there!”“So I was there! So what?”Juana aimed an ear toward the two men who were nearly arguing, andshe approached them close enough to whisper. As she did this, she lookedover to Orlando, then to Adriana and yanked her head in her direction.“Why are you afraid to admit that you were at Tuxla, when so many ofyour own people were there?”“Afraid? Yes, I’m afraid. The patrones are filled with anger and they willbe unleashing the catxul on us. That’s why I’m afraid!”“Join us up in the mountains and fight back. The catxul are afraid of us.”“Who are you?”“We’re insurgents, but first we are the natives of this land. Don’t forgetthat our ancestors—yours and mine—have inhabited this land since beforethe catxul had memory.”“Memory is not as important as power. The catxul have power.”“They have power because you give it to them. Without that they arecowards! They fear the insurgents because we will take away that power.Follow me!”Emboldened, Juana mingled with the crowd as prayers were chanted andhymns entoned, realizing that she was in the midst of a sea of discontented,lost people who had nowhere to go and who were longing for direction. Shelistened to whispering men who bitterly cursed their burden but who were

disoriented as to what to do about it. She knew that she had been mistaken;nonviolence was not what her people wanted.Juana moved toward women speaking about laws needed for theirdefense. She looked at them, knowing that despite the prayers that swirledabove their heads, they whispered about change. They were now gesturingenergetically, head to head, obviously agitated by their own words.“They say that we can take part in the revolution, even if we arewomen.”“What about our children?”“Those same laws say that we have the right to have others care forthem.”“¡Dios mío!”“I hear that there’s even a law against anyone beating us.”“Even a husband? A father?”“Even they will be punished.”“¡Santa María! Is that possible?”While this was happening, Orlando nervously kept Juana and Adrianawithin sight. He listened to the words of the pastoral letter, along with thesinging and other muttering that was going on, while his eyes focused onJuana, who moved from group to group, cautiously at first, then with moreease, saying words that apparently encouraged people. He saw thatsometimes she held Adriana’s hand when she changed direction.Orlando frowned, understanding that Juana was developing a specialfeeling for the foreign reporter. He had never seen Juana so interested inanyone. He thought of Adriana, and his earlier reservations about herreturned. When the council had discussed bringing a photographer to jointhe insurgents, he had objected because he believed that no one except oneof their own, someone who had suffered the blows of a patrón, couldunderstand their cause. In spite of his disapproval, he had been overruled,and she had been brought to the insurgents by Juana.On the other hand, Orlando was now experiencing mixed feelingsbecause he saw Adriana’s willingness to risk danger for their cause; hercommitment was becoming clear to him. Also, the thought that peoplesuffered in different ways—patrones and their world were not the onlyoppressors—pushed him toward accepting her because, although he did not

know her story, he sensed that she had already undergone her ownunhappiness.Still, he worried, believing her too frail, too unused to their ways in thejungle. Adriana appeared to have difficulty speaking, even in Spanish.Despite all of this, Orlando had already begun to accept Adriana, especiallysince his mind had changed regarding the need to compile a photographichistory of the events they were facing. He only wished that someone elsehad been chosen to do the work.He was thinking about this as he watched her and Juana moving in andout of small groups, speaking and listening, while the mass was proceeding.Then, something drew his attention away from the women, and he focusedon two men who seemed intent on following the prayers. Something aboutthem caught his eye, and he watched them as they made the sign of thecross, mumbled responses, knelt and stood at the right times; they evenjoined in the singing of hymns. Something about them was not right, butOrlando could not decipher what it was.When he saw one of them looking at him out of the corner of his eye,Orlando cautiously slid behind a group of women. He forced himself tolook in another direction while mentally reviewing the men’s appearance.They were dressed like laborers, yet there were details that did not fit in.Orlando took another furtive glance, just enough to gather new impressions.The shirt on one was new; the creases where it had been folded were stillevident. The other wore boots with pointed toes and elevated heels; thosewere not the shoes of a laborer. Orlando, pretending to participate in thereligious service, considered the discrepancies. When he glanced in theirdirection again, he was startled to find them gone. He spun around andscanned the crowd; this time he spotted them behind him. Convinced thatthey were stalking him, Orlando plunged toward Juana and Adriana.“Juana! Adriana! Some of these people are spies. We must leaveimmediately.”With Orlando at the head, Juana, Adriana, and several men and womenrecruits followed as they pushed their way through the crowd, heading uptoward the ridge of the mountain. Orlando kept his eye on the rear, but thespies had disappeared. He continued to move at a steady pace. By the timethe group reached the highest point, the blaring voice of the microphonehad receded, becoming almost inaudible, as had the prayers and singing.

When Orlando glanced back for a final look, he saw a squirming mass ofpeople, and he imagined that the canyon was a bowl filled with ants; thecountless torches were sweets that had attracted them.No one spoke as they made their way deeper into the jungle; only oncedid they stop long enough for Orlando to pull out the pistol he hadconcealed under his tunic and adjust it around his waist. Juana did the samewith the weapon she had hidden under her huipil. The new insurgentslooked on, amazement and apprehension pasted on their faces, whileAdriana jotted down notes with only the light of the moon to make out herwriting.“¡Vámonos! Juana, I’ll bring up the rear.”Orlando looked at Juana and Adriana, then at the recruits; he was stillfeeling jittery because of the encounter at the rally. He did not want to admitit, but he was shaken because of the spies, who were most certainly on histrail. He hated this apprehension because it recurred frequently, to the pointthat sometimes he wondered if it was his imagination playing tricks on him.He also detested feeling weak and vulnerable; his concentration shattered,distracting it from the plans of the insurgents.These experiences had been going on since the day he had killed ElBrujo, forcing him to become a fugitive. The nightmare he had experiencedrecently only confirmed his feeling of being stalked and one day beingcaptured and executed. Now, following the small troop through the jungle,Orlando plodded in the dark. His breathing was heavy as he walked,nervously looking back to assure himself that no one was following. Nearlyimpenetrable darkness, hissing insects and screeching monkeys intensifiedOrlando’s apprehension, forcing him to clench his jaw painfully.Trying to shake off his agitation, Orlando turned his thoughts to the dayhe had faced Rufino and watched as he died. He remembered thegratification it had given him, how it had relieved him of the burden of guiltfor having abandoned his mother and father. But his satisfaction was short-lived. Each time he remembered, he was forced to admit that even whilestill elated, he had realized that something inside of him had drownedalongside Rufino, that the death of his parents had not been vindicated afterall, that a hollow would always remain inside him, like a wound refusing toheal. Orlando understood that taking vengeance had transformed him intothe image of Rufino and Absolón Mayorga; he had become like them. As

always when remembering this period in his life, he became saddened andisolated. The memory filled him with hatred for the way of life that createdsuch wickedness.It was dawn when Orlando, Juana, Adriana and the new recruits made itto camp. The women went in one direction, the men in another. The campwas still poised for war.

Chapter 28 You are my blessing.Ocosingo, January 1, 1994.The day came. Juana, with an M-1 carbine held in the assault position,crouched behind a corner facing the plaza of Ocosingo. Next to her stoodAdriana, a camera in her grip, and across the street from them stoodOrlando, a weapon also in his hands. It was nearly two in the morning onthe first day of 1994, and the insurgents had been placed to cover strategicpoints by their commander, Insurgent Captain Irma. They were waiting forword from Insurgent Major Ramona, commander of the column taking SanCristóbal de las Casas; the plan of attack pivoted on the successful captureof that city. The insurgents, males and females, waited with apprehension.They were eager to fight, and although the night was frozen, perspirationslid down their spines, and minutes felt like hours.“We have recovered the flag.”That was the signal. Juana, Orlando and Adriana, along with their squad,followed their commander as she moved to execute the double-prongedattack on Ocosingo’s central radio station, as well as its main garrison,which was located inside the municipal palace.With the element of surprise on the insurgents’ side, everythingproceeded smoothly. The federal soldiers guarding the radio stationsurrendered their weapons without resisting, and the same happened at thegarrison. By the time sunlight flooded through the cobblestone streets of thetown, Captain Irma had reported full command of Ocosingo. LasMargaritas, Altamirano, Chanal, Huixtán and Oxchuc had also fallen intothe command of the insurgents before daylight awakened their inhabitants.In Ocosingo, it took only a few minutes before the federal soldiers wereherded into the central patio of the building. There, surrounded by ornatebalconies and columns, Captain Irma faced the commander of the garrison.Juana stood behind, watching her take command, observing how she turneda full circle, assuring herself that her troops were with her. She was backed

by her force, all holding their weapons, all masked. Stunned and frightenedby the covered faces, the commander handed the rebel leader his weapon.“¡Feliz Año Nuevo, cabrón!”Juana saw that the officer was sickening. She knew that it was becausethe insult of that moment would haunt him for the rest of his life. Howwould he explain that it had been a woman who had disarmed him, revilinghim, calling him a son of a bitch? Even more humiliating, how would headmit that she was an indigenous woman? Juana discerned the turmoilstamped on the man’s face and felt pride that her compañera had been theone chosen to disarm him.The man cleared his voice, apparently wanting to say something, and theinsurgents, whose attention had been riveted on the scene, moved in closer,not wanting to miss what he was about to say.“How old are you?”Someone sucked on his teeth, others muttered, showing that they hadexpected words regarding the officer’s loss of power. Instead, they heard aquestion they considered stupid. Captain Irma, known for her humor andboldness, looked at the officer. She stood with her feet spread apart,showing disdain for his question.“I’m five hundred and two years old, cabrón!”Her voice was strong, filled with mockery, and her troops chuckled whenthey saw that she was playing with the man’s fear. Embarrassed, the officerfrowned as he lowered his eyes.“We all know our positions. Let’s take them. We’ll wait until we get neworders.”Captain Irma spoke concisely as she moved toward the central office ofthe garrison, while the commander was whisked away and the insurgentcolumn was ordered to wait. Adriana, left to move at will through the vastpatio and its porticos, took shots continuously, stopping only to reload thecamera. She concentrated on the faces of the federal officers, capturingexpressions of disbelief and disdain, but mostly fear. She also took portraitsof the insurgents, men and women who demonstrated by the way theystood, looked, moved, that this was the moment for which they hadprepared.

Several hours passed, during which Orlando and others left the garrisonto gather people in the main plaza. There, they read the “Declaración de laSelva.” When they returned, they reported that the townspeople had fled;word had come to them that federal troops were on the way.Adriana, in the meantime, realizing that everything had suddenlybecome quiet, stopped what she was doing. Concerned, she made her waytoward Juana, who was sitting on a stone bench.“What’s happening, Juana? It’s too quiet.”“Yes.”Juana tensed, holding her weapon as if she were about to fire. Adrianalooked around and saw that the other rebels were also taut, expectingsomething. Captain Irma reappeared and fixed her eyes upward, lookingthrough the open roof of the palace. Without warning, the sudden whirringof helicopters canvassed Ocosingo, growing louder each second. Soon thesky was speckled with the flying scorpions that descended lower and lowerover the rooftops.Irma did not have to give an order; the insurgents dove for coveranywhere possible: under heavy office tables, behind ornate corners.Knowing that the open roof provided targets for the helicopters, Juana andAdriana had time to slide under the stone bench.The choppers hovered over Ocosingo, their mounted guns launchingrounds of ammunition and even rockets at whatever target came into theirrange. Plaza, cathedral, marketplace, municipal buildings, every structureconsidered a shelter for the insurgents was strafed and bombed, and theattack went on for hours. The blasts and detonations shook the ground,sending civilians and insurgents alike scurrying for cover. The air was filledwith an impenetrable stench of sulfur and burning; everywhere peoplescreeched, and children cried out in terror. But the assault would not cease,as one helicopter wave followed the next one.The patio was by now littered with chunks of stucco and fragments ofsculptured angels and animals. Shards of colored glass were strewneverywhere. Suddenly, the terror stopped, and there was only silence,shattered by whimpering and weeping. Still under the shelter of the stonebench, Juana and Adriana looked at one another, wondering what washappening. They were startled when Orlando appeared by their side; he hadcrawled from the other side of the patio.

“More than likely, government soldiers are on the way into town.”“What about our installations?”“We’ve lost communication. We’re isolated. Irma has passed the wordthat each one of us should head for the mountains on our own.”Juana and Orlando whispered, as if spies were already prying close tothem. Orlando removed his mask from his sweat-and-dirt smeared face.Adriana’s face had traces of smoke around the eyes and nose. Juanaunmasked and put her hand to her forehead, trying to imagine what shelooked like, but all she could feel was the scar over her eye.“Orlando, I think we should find a place to hide until night, when escapemight be easier. Adriana, what do you think?”“The same thing!”Orlando rolled over on his back, thinking of the countless times he hadbeen in Ocosingo for meetings and rallies. He knew the place, its sidestreets and alleys, as well as the different school rooms and assembly hallsthat could provide safe hiding places. He looked around and saw that mostof the column had already abandoned the building.“I think that’s a good idea. There’s a church, not far from here. We canhold out there till things calm down. Follow me.”The three got to their feet. Juana and Orlando put their masks on again,despite this marking them for the enemy. They were still in uniform, whichwas just as much a telltale sign. If they were spotted, nothing could hidetheir identity, anyway. Adriana, in the meantime, strapped her gear to herback. Orlando led them down to the cellar of the ancient building, wherethey would make their way out of one of the countless doors. The womenfollowed him in single file.Adriana, while filled with apprehension, was not so frightened that shedid not see the antiquity of the halls and floors through which they weremaking their way. At one point, the ceiling was so low that Orlando and shehad to crouch. Juana was the only one who could walk upright. Small cellslined one corridor; tiny windows with wrought-iron grates told her that theyhad been holding pens for prisoners at one time or another. The odor ofmildewed stone permeated the air.Orlando chose one of the exits, a small door with a rounded top. Whenhe tried to open it, however, he discovered that it was padlocked with an

antiquated, rusty lock. He reached into his belt for a knife and pried itspoint into the lock, pressing until the iron snapped. The three pulled at thedoor several times until it creaked open. From there they made their waythrough deserted streets covered with rubble.The two women followed Orlando on the trek that took them throughcurving streets that intersected with alleys. They encountered no one;houses were shuttered and doors were bolted shut. There were signs of theattack everywhere: walls pocked from strafing, chunks of concrete blownaway and scattered in every direction, windows shattered, burning carsreduced to frames of molten iron. Once they saw a goat skitter by,frantically trying to find its way out of the violence that had terrorized it.There were no humans. Silence hung over Ocosingo in a mournful pall.It was dusk by the time Orlando had led Juana and Adriana down a flightof narrow stone steps that ended at another tiny door. Once again Adrianasaw that it would open into an ancient stone building. She looked up andmade out a cupola housing giant bells. They had arrived at one ofOcosingo’s many churches, all dating back to the early days of Spanishrule.“We’ll be safe here until later in the night.”Orlando stepped forward to enter the dimly lit chamber, which wasmostly underground. Juana and Adriana followed close behind him.Showing them that he had been in that place before, he gestured for them tofollow him into the cavernous chamber, leading them to a corner where awindow showed high above them.“Let’s rest here. We’ll know when to leave.”Adriana unstrapped her backpack, placed it against the wall and squattedwith her back pressed to the wall. Orlando and Juana yanked off theirmasks, showing heavy perspiration coursing down their foreheads andcheeks. They followed Adriana by also leaning against the stone wall.Orlando closed his eyes, appearing to doze off to sleep, but Juana, restingher head on the wall, looked at Adriana, who returned her gaze. Their eyesshared their secret. They had become lovers. It had happened months beforeon a trip from the campsite to Pichucalco. They looked at one another,wondering if they would survive this day of war. They closed their eyesremembering.

Juana and Adriana clung to the seat as the dilapidated bus made its wayover potholes in the road. The passengers, those seated but especially thosecrowding the center aisle, were jostled back and forth, up and down, roundand round. The two women were picked up on the road heading towardPalenque after having trekked through the jungle on foot. From there, thebus would stop at Pichucalco, where Adriana planned to drop off film andnotes.They traveled in silence, each woman focused on the events of the pastweeks and months. Juana and Adriana had become inseparable during therecent weeks. They were drawn to one another by preparations for theimpending war, but also by the powerful attraction one had for the other.The only times they separated was when Juana journeyed to meet with freshsupplies, but other than that, the two women always worked together.When Juana led practice maneuvers, Adriana followed her, takingphotographs, talking to the insurgents, jotting down notes. She wasfascinated by the presence of women among the ranks; they made up nearlyhalf the force. She admired their confidence in what they did, whether itwas practice shooting or exchanging ideas. She frequently thought of themany village women she had met during the past months, of their reticenceand passivity, and she wondered how it was that the women of the force hadtransformed themselves, how they had built the bridge necessary to crosssuch a huge separation. It seemed to Adriana that she was seeing twospecies of women, each one from a different people, from a different land,from a different time. These were the thoughts that filled her note padduring that time and that became part of her conversations with Juana.Now on the bus, Adriana, thinking of these things, turned to Juana. Shesaw that her compañera had her eyes closed, but she knew that Juana wasnot asleep; she was lost in thought. Adriana edged even closer to Juanabefore she spoke, taking care that no one would overhear what she wassaying.“Juana.”“Yes?”“I’m thinking of you and the other women of the force. How is it thatyou’ve made such a change in yourselves?”Juana smiled wryly as she gazed at Adriana, her expression lingering fora while as the swaying of the bus forced her head to wobble comically.

“It’s difficult to answer your question. I think every woman might have adifferent answer.”“How was it for you?”Juana moved slightly, giving a little space between herself and Adriana.She was no longer smiling; her face had taken an expression that reflectedseriousness as well as recollection. Despite the closeness of their everydayactivities, Juana and Adriana had not yet exchanged the stories of theirlives. Now, as she looked at Adriana, she felt a powerful desire to bring herinto her confidence, to take her back to her girlhood, to her years with CruzOchoa, when she had felt betrayed by her father, and to her later encounterwith him. She looked around, suddenly becoming aware of the cluttered busand the countless ears that were undoubtedly tuned in, eager to catchwhatever gossip might be floating in the air.“I want to tell you that, and even more, but let it wait until later, whenwe’re alone.”Adriana nodded, leaned back in the seat and stared out the crackedwindow. She looked at the sights that whizzed past as the bus picked upspeed: here and there a cluster of palapas; chickens, ducks and sometimeseven a stray pig rummaging in the undergrowth skirting the road; smallgroups of laborers, hoes and shovels propped on shoulders, silently walkingin single file; kneeling women scrubbing clothes as the bus turned the bendoverlooking the river.“Pichucalco!”The cranky voice of the bus driver shouted out their arrival. Juana got toher feet and waited while Adriana reached to retrieve her bag from the rackabove the seat. Then, both women made their way towards the exit of thebus.“Gracias, señor.”“No hay de qué.”They waited until the bus had disappeared, followed by billows of dust,before making their way toward the path leading to the village. Juana tookthe lead as they walked in silence, each woman aware that they wereexchanging thoughts. In a few minutes, signs of the village began to filterthrough the growth: children shouting and laughing, women’s voices,aromas and sounds. All of a sudden, Adriana and Juana walked into aclearing and encountered Pichucalco, where Adriana felt at home.

As they walked, people became aware of them, smiled and gatheredaround them. The women, especially those who had been photographed byAdriana, expressed excitement at her return. They brought out gourds filledwith water and invited the visiting women into their palapas to sit andrefresh themselves with a serving of beans and yuca. With each invitation,Adriana explained that they were heading for Chan K’in’s hut.Adriana and Juana finally arrived at the palapa, but found that ChanK’in was not there. It was Juana’s idea to go to the river’s edge to find him;and that is where he was, sitting on a large rock as he whittled a branch.When he saw the women, he unsteadily got to his feet to greet them.“¡Hola, viejo! I’ve returned.”“¡Buenas tardes, niña! ¿Cómo estás?”She accepted his hands outstretched in greeting. At the same time, helooked at Juana and nodded his welcome.“¡Buenas tardes te dé Dios, niña!”“¡Buenas tardes, abuelo!”Chan K’in sat down again on the rock as he gestured to the women to sitby his side. They kept silent for minutes, listening to the rushing current ofthe river, which mingled with village sounds and jungle murmurs. He spokefirst.“Niña, you’ve returned from the mountain. You’re different, I see.”Adriana was taken by his words. It had only been a few months since shehad left the village with Juana on her way to join the insurgents, and shereally had not detected a change in herself.“In what way have I changed, viejo?”“You are close to finding that which you lost. Your spirit knows it even ifyour mind does not.”Still baffled and a bit embarrassed, Adriana looked at the old man, thenat Juana, who was looking at her; her expression was a mix of curiosity andaffection. Not knowing what next to say, Adriana turned to Chan K’in andchanged the subject.“I’ve come with these things, which I want to leave with you. Will youtake care of them along with the others I left you?”Chan K’in smiled wryly, letting Adriana know that he noticed the changein conversation. He nodded in affirmation as he pointed a bony finger in the

direction of his palapa, indicating that she should deliver her bundles there.After that, he returned to his task of whittling.The women got to their feet and headed toward the palapa, whereAdriana stacked the bag containing film and notes next to her other bag.From there they joined other women, who shared food and water with them.At nightfall, Juana and Adriana went to the fringe of the village, where theymade a place to sleep under a grove of young ceiba trees. The night wasilluminated by a full moon. Its light cast fragile shadows and shapes thatdanced on the women’s faces and arms as they reclined on the petates theyhad spread on the ground.They spoke to one another in soft tones. Juana talked first about why somany of the women of her people had chosen to be part of the insurgency,even at the risk of their lives, even at the cost of leaving families. Adriana,entranced by Juana’s voice and words, listened carefully, admiring herviews. In light of what Juana was saying, Adriana felt she had little to sayabout her own experiences, so she opened herself to what she was hearing.Juana’s words suddenly shifted from speaking of other women to herlife. She spoke of her girlhood; of how her father had contracted her tomarry a man whom she came to hate, the one who had inflicted the scarover her eye; her failed pregnancies; the confrontation with her father,which she considered also a failure; her joining the insurgents. She sighed,then edged her body closer to Adriana, who was now on her side, recliningher head on her hand.“Tell me about yourself. You see how I’ve told you about myself. You’rethe only person I have ever spoken to in this manner.”And so Adriana opened her heart to Juana, telling her about beingwitness to the death of her father at the hands of her mother, of herentrapment in the apartment for days until being rescued by a neighbor, ofher life with one family after the other, of being scarred with boiling water;of the dreams in which she felt pursued by fearful dogs; of her search forwhat she had lost; of Chan K’in’s wisdom. She paused for a moment beforegoing on with her thoughts.“Have we lived together before?”Juana appeared perplexed by Adriana’s abrupt question, and shewrinkled her brow inquisitively. She looked at Adriana, thinking that herbeauty was such that even the moonlight diminished as it bathed her face.

At this point, Juana recalled Orlando’s words regarding the sister of DonAbsolón Mayorga and how she was brutally beaten and shamed by himbecause she was the lover of another woman. Juana remembered this,causing her to fear her own intense attraction to Adriana.“Perhaps. My people believe that we repeat ourselves, but I’m curious.Why do you ask?”“Because I feel deeply for you. I can’t explain it. It’s as if we haveknown one another from another time, another place.”Still trying to appear unperturbed, Juana stretched out her legs andfolded her arms behind her head as she looked up at the moon, its lightdancing on the tallest branches. She was still listening.“Just before you came to Pichucalco, Chan K’in told me the tale of awoman of your people who lived centuries ago, when the Spaniards firstarrived. In that story, the woman witnessed events of great importance, andlater on, in her wanderings, she even attempted to join others in taking theirlives. That happened nearby, in the valley of Ixtapa.”“Yes, I know that story. We all know it.”Adriana, captivated by the thought that Juana also knew of the woman ofwhom Chan K’in had spoken, went on with what she was saying.“The woman in Chan K’in’s story had a scar on her arm caused byboiling water. Like me.”“We repeat ourselves, Adriana. Listen to me. When I was a girl, mymother often told me the story of one of our sisters who lived in the earlyyears of the Spanish masters. She, along with countless other women, totedstones that went into the construction of the Church of Santo Domingo.That woman, the story says, had a moon-shaped scar over her eye, like me.At the time my mother told this tale, I didn’t have this scar; that came later.“After that, when I was a woman and fled to the mountains to join theinsurgents, Orlando Flores continued the story of that same woman, the onewith the scar on her forehead, but this time she appeared as the leader of aninsurrection. That happened generations later, when the Spanish mastersthought they were secure. When the masters overcame our people, thatwoman fled to the jungle, where she was pursued by ravenous dogs.”Adriana tensed at the mention of the woman running through the jungle.Flashes of her dream returned. She was the one desperately running, trying

to escape the baying dogs, conscious of other women fleeing alongside her.“Even Orlando tells of a time when he was an organizer. One of thecompañeras told the story of a woman with a scar on her arm. That womansaved the old bishop, Bartolomé de las Casas, from being torn to pieces bygreedy Spanish masters. Orlando describes how that woman plunged into acrowd of bearded white men in defense of Tatic, and how she was followedby others of our people.”Adriana was now completely taken by what Juana was saying. Sheconcentrated, trying to tie the threads together in a way that would explainthe possibility that she and Juana had inhabited the world together in othertimes.“That woman had a scar on her arm?”“Yes.”“Juana, my head is spinning.”Adriana flopped onto her back as she pressed her head between thepalms of her hands. Her eyes were closed and her forehead was furrowed asshe concentrated on what Juana was saying.“Why can’t it be true that we have been together before, Adriana, andthat we’re now living repeated lives… and that I was by your side whenyou tried to take your life but went on to live as a slave? Now, as I think ofit, I can tell you that I believe it. You were by my side when I was bentunder the weight of stones, and when I led the insurrection. You were withme, I know, when I ran through the jungle pursued by dogs. Even you havefelt this. You have dreamed it, haven’t you? I believe that you and I togetherscratched and pulled and bit at the hairy skins of the masters in futiledefense of the bishop. I believe this to be true!”Almost out of breath, Juana again stretched out on the petate. They bothfell into a long silence, listening to their thoughts and to the cacophony ofjungle sounds. They were experiencing an inexplicable emotion thatelevated them as it shed light on the dark moments of their lives.“Tell me about this.”Adriana broke their silence as she put her finger on a bracelet Juanaalways wore. It was a narrow strip of woven wool colored in hues of blueand purple.

“This is a gift from a young Tzeltal woman who was standing at theentrance of the Church of Santo Domingo in San Cristóbal one day as Ipassed. She looked impoverished, and since I had a few extra coins in mypurse, I gave her half of what I had. As I walked away, I heard the soles ofher feet treading against the stones as she ran after me. When I turned tolook, she took my arm and tied this bracelet around my wrist. She said,‘This is a blessing!’ I have never taken it off.”Adriana looked at Juana, feeling a surge of emotion. She admired howJuana shared whatever she had with those who had less, even when she,too, faced need. She was not surprised that the other woman had blessedher, and secretly she wished that it had been she who had given Juana thatbracelet. Adriana was thinking this when Juana touched her.“You are my blessing.”Adriana slowly moved her hand close to Juana’s face, grazing the scarover her eyebrow, now knowing how it was inflicted. The two women drewcloser, softly touching each other’s face, breasts, until Juana raised hermouth to Adriana’s, who responded with the same passion, and sheembraced her, clung to her, feeling that she had finally found her losttreasure. Adriana knew that never would she allow that richness to dripthrough her fingers, that never again would she lose what she loved.That night, Juana and Adriana made love to one another, exploring theirnaked bodies, wrapping themselves around one another. The junglecelebrated their love with the murmurs of cicadas and cascading water,while the moon spilled its light on them as it climbed towards its pinnacleand from there to its descent. The passing hours intensified their passion,making them understand that neither had ever experienced such happiness.A sweet joy flooded their spirits, shedding light on their loneliness,expelling it forever.Metallic rattling followed by the blast of an explosion shook thefoundations of the church where Orlando, Juana and Adriana waited. Theyhad been resting, eyes closed, expecting the night to give them cover asthey escaped the city. The new round of explosion now told them thatOcosingo was under siege and that a battle for the streets was in progress.

Orlando scrambled to the window, where the women saw flashes ofexplosions and fire reflected on his taut face. The night was ripped apart byblasts of grenades, blaring sirens and staccato of machine guns. The din wasintolerable, forcing them to cover their ears with their hands. They knewthat government forces had returned to regain their tarnished honor. Noweveryone would pay for the affront that had embarrassed the government inthe eyes of the world. Orlando muttered as he adjusted the weapon on hiswaist. Juana silently slipped her mask back on her face.They went out into the night, realizing that they were targets, but alsoknowing that others of their own were battling to save their lives. Juana,Adriana and Orlando crept through streets, dodging and returning fireaimed at them from machine-gun nests perched on rooftops. No one spoke,but each one was appalled at seeing bodies slumped against walls, otherstrapped in doorways, some still moving. At one point, they crouched underthe cover of a low archway, unsure of what to do. They spoke briefly, thendecided that they needed to first make contact with the insurgents’ position,then double back to Ocosingo to assist the living. After that, they moved onuntil they made it to the outskirts of town, and from there they strucktoward the Lacandona.

Chapter 29 The leash snapped!The muttering and undertone of rage lifted toward the opaque sky as thethrong walked nearly shoulder to shoulder, seemingly locked in step, feetpounding dust high into the air, still polluted by the stench of spentammunition and the unmistakable foulness of decaying human flesh.Frightened, but forced to return to look for fallen relatives, the men andwomen of Ocosingo revisited the devastation. Planted among them werecountless insurgents, indistinguishable to government troops because oftheir garb and brown faces.Juana, Orlando and Adriana joined the stream of men and women whowere returning to Ocosingo only hours after the firing and blasting hadceased. They were dressed ordinarily, he in the white tunic of dozens ofother Lacandón men, Juana in the Tzeltal woolen skirt and huipil, andAdriana, walking separately, in fatigues that distinguished foreign reporters,journalists and photographers. Their mission, and that of other disguisedinsurgents, was to rescue their own, those left behind, the dead as well asthe living. Orlando, Juana and Adriana had agreed that if separated, theywould meet in the crypt of the same church where they had taken shelterduring the battle.As a foreigner, Adriana had more freedom than anyone. The governmentwas anxious to prove that it was the insurgents who had caused such chaosand was inviting foreigners to the scene to record the mayhem. Her camerawas welcomed; her photos were supposed to show to what extent the rebelshad punished their own people.As she walked, she looked up to see walls crumbling from bombings,strafing and fires. Streets were empty of civilian cars; only military vehiclesclogged the intersections and plazas. Her nose filled with the stench thathad polluted everything, putting her on the verge of retching. People’sfaces, she saw, were stiffened by fear and rage. No one spoke or looked up,and there were hardly any children to be seen.

Adriana, nevertheless, was not entirely free to wander the streets of thetown because she and the other foreigners were closely watched. Once,when she neared Juana to exchange a quick word, an officer appeared fromseemingly nowhere, making her freeze and turn away from what she wasabout to do. The man’s glare was intimidating, full of suspicion.“There’s no need to speak to the natives, señorita. Let me assist you.”She struggled to normalize her pounding heart by pointing her camera ata small statue that had been reduced to rubble. After several shots, she feltin control of her voice.“¡Gracias! I would like to take photographs of the town and perhapseven of people.”Taking her bag in hand, the man steered her in the direction of the centerof town. Adriana, knowing that Orlando and Juana watched her everymove, felt confident, not fearful.“Teniente Palomón Cisneros at your service. May I ask your name?”“Adriana Mora.”“A good name, but you’re not Mexican, are you?”“No, I was born in the United States. It was my mother and father whowere from Mexico.”“Ah, yes. There are many like you. Even I have family up there. Let meshow you the way, so you can take as many pictures and ask as manyquestions as you wish. You’ll see for yourself the atrocities the rebels havecommitted, even against their own people. Do you have a strong stomach?”Adriana paused to study the man’s face before responding. It was that ofa native: dark, leathery skin, oblique eyes, high cheekbones, a stringymustache that shadowed a wide mouth with thick lips. She wondered whyhe allowed himself to be instrumental to the misery of his own people. Sheturned away before responding to his question, knowing that she wouldnever forget his face.“Yes. I’ve seen terrible things. I’m ready.”Over and again Adriana glanced back furtively whenever the lieutenantwas not looking; she wanted to assure herself that Juana and Orlando werenot far off. But the last time she had a chance to check, they were out ofsight, and she realized they were separated. As they moved, she saw that the

place was teeming with other foreign reporters, each of them with an escort,and this returned her confidence.The officer guided Adriana past the central plaza, through streets leadingto the marketplace. As they approached the open square, she became awareof the rank odor of decaying flesh saturating the air. She abruptly stoppedwalking, as if riveted to the cobblestones. A flashback had pushed her mindback to a locked apartment.A little girl is standing on a chair, feeling overcome by the vile smellclogging her nose. She pounds on the door, but no one hears the thumpingof her small fists.Adriana reached in her pocket for a handkerchief to hold against hernose and mouth. Despite the handkerchief’s protection, she was forced toopen her mouth to take in air.“Señorita, I told you that you had to have a strong stomach. Do you wantto return to the palace, where there’s more calm and where you may takewhatever shots you need?”The little girl runs to hide under the bed, trying to escape the foulnessthat follows her with its sickly fingers, creeping into her nose and tricklingdown to her throat.Adriana’s eyes had begun to water as she struggled to suppress hernausea and the painful image of herself as a child. Saliva gathered in hermouth, forcing her to gulp it down until she knew that she could no longerhold it. She turned away from the lieutenant and spit gobs of it onto thecurb.“Are you sure you want to go on?”“Yes. I’ll be okay in a minute.”She realized that they were approaching a killing field and no matterhow horrific it was, she could not turn away. Adriana pressed herself toclose down her memories and take control of her sickening stomach. Theofficer took the lead as they turned the corner onto the main marketplace,where she saw a ring of photographers, people jotting notes in pads, armedmen in uniforms, all of them staring at something under a canvas canopy.The lieutenant stopped and glanced sideways at Adriana.“Look for yourself! This is what the liberators have done!”

Adriana nudged her way through the onlookers until she came upon ascene so terrible that she felt her breath catch in her throat and animpending asthma attack. As she tried to regulate her breathing, shestruggled with the horror brought on by images of her dead mother andfather.Stretched out side by side on the ground were fourteen cadavers, femalesas well as males. Their hands, fingers painfully gnarled, were bound at thewrists, and each victim had a gaping wound in the forehead. The heat of theday had already brought on advanced stages of decomposition so that fliesand insects buzzed around the bodies, some feeding on distorted, stiffenedmouths, wide-open or clamped-shut eyes. The bodies looked hard, limbsrigidly twisted in grotesque ways.The little girl looks at her mother’s puffy face. Its mouth is purple andhard, and she has a big red hole in the side of her head. The girl runs to thekitchen and sees her father’s dangling arm.Adriana turned away from the scene she found intolerable. Then, on theverge of running away, she forced herself to stop and waited for the strengthto get a grip on her crumbling nerves. She thought of Juana, of Orlando, ofher mission to record the events of the war. These thoughts gave her ameasure of control, and she returned to the site, feeling more in control.When Adriana focused, she saw that an attempt had been made to putitems on each body that could be construed as an insurgent’s uniform: a cap,a gun belt, a hastily slipped on shirt. Despite this artifice, it was obvious tothe onlookers that the dead had been civilians and that they had beenexecuted, one by one, with a shot through the head. She pulled her eyesaway from the grim sight and saw countless spent casings littering theground. She bent down and picked one up and held it in a fist.“These bodies are not insurgents.”“No. They are the victims of the insurgents.”“Then why has someone tried to make it look as if they are rebels?”Momentarily taken by surprise, the officer remained silent. He rubbed hiseyes in an effort to gain time to come up with an answer, so as to explainthe blunder, but chose instead to side-step the issue. He sucked his teeth,letting Adriana know that he was irritated by her question.“Señorita, this is war. Strange things happen. I guarantee that these poorsouls were murdered by the insurgents.”

“Are these not army casings?”Adriana held the spent bullet up to the officer’s face who, withoutanswering, took Adriana by the elbow and began maneuvering her awayfrom the site. She resisted, and as she pulled away from him, she took holdof her camera and began snapping photographs of the murdered men. Shehad taken several shots despite the officer’s displeasure. There were toomany witnesses present for him to force Adriana to stop.“I’m finished. I’ll return now to the municipal palace. I know my way,thank you.”Adriana left the man standing as she walked away at a brisk pace. Sheturned back to look at him several times and she saw that he was standing,feet planted apart, in a posture of indecision. Before he could make up hismind to follow her, she sped around several corners, picked up speed untilshe was jogging, heading for the church where Orlando and Juana would bewaiting for her.Adriana took some wrong turns, but finally she found the church andwent down to the door leading into the crypt. She tried the latch; it wasopen, and she cautiously entered the darkened room. Adriana stood with herback to a wall, so still that she hardly breathed while her eyes became usedto the gloom.Pale light filtered through the window, cutting through the darkness, andforms slowly began to take shape: a table with a broken leg in the farcorner, two mismatched chairs to its side, other broken things strewn aboutthe floor. When her vision finally adjusted, she made out a bulky object.She realized that it was a sarcophagus. The stone coffin sent a chill throughher. She forced herself to look elsewhere. Her eyes scanned the room,stopping at the wall where Juana, Orlando and she had waited out theattack. The objects she was now making out had been in the chamber whenthey were there, but she had not even noticed them.After a few moments, Adriana was certain that neither Juana norOrlando was in the room. She went to the far wall and sat down on thefloor, relaxing her back against the stone wall. She had to be patient, shetold herself. Fatigue began to overcome her and she closed her eyes, just torest them, but the dreadful scene she had just witnessed replayed behind hereyelids. Distorted faces grimaced; split, purple lips opened in silentscreams; gnarled fingers clasped and unclasped as they appeared to reach

out from the stone coffin. These forms were pushed aside by the inalterablememory of her dead mother and father, of herself as a child trapped andterrified. One by one, the images paraded behind her closed eyes, andthough she did not want to look at them, their invasion would not stop.Horrified, Adriana curled her body, in defense against the grim formsthat floated above and around her. She prayed that Juana and Orlandowould soon come. She needed to be with them, to weep with them for theloss of those innocent women and men, for the memory of her dead motherand father. When her eyes snapped open, she looked up to the window andrealized that it was dark outside. She looked at her watch and confirmedthat the evening had moved toward night and her compañeros still had notappeared! Suddenly cold and numb from sitting on the stone floor, sheshifted her body, bringing her knees up against her breasts, where shereclined her head to think of what to do next.Adriana was folded in on herself when she heard the creak of the door.She quietly rose to her feet, alert and waiting to see who had come into thechamber. Her eyes were adjusted to the dark, so she was able to make outJuana’s form as she moved forward.“Juana?”“Yes.”The women embraced for a long time, feeling each other’s heartpounding, until Juana abruptly separated herself from Adriana. She gesturedfor them to sit down. When she spoke, her voice was husky.“Orlando has been captured.”“Are you certain?”“Yes. I saw it happen.”“How?”“He was betrayed.”“One of our own?”“No. Someone else. I don’t know who, but not one of our own. We wereheading in this direction; he was a few paces in front of me when three menapproached him. They were dressed like civilians, but I could tell they werespies. After they stopped him, I heard one of them say, ‘Aha! We finallyfound you. Did you think you could murder Don Rufino and live to be anold man? ¡Indio desgraciado!’”

“When did it happen?”“Hours ago. I followed to see where they put him. A long time haspassed.”Adriana sucked air through her teeth. She looked at Juana and saw fearetched on her dark face. It was the first time Adriana had detected dread inJuana, and that, in turn, frightened her.“What are we going to do?”“We have to stay close to him.”“Where is he?”“In the garrison. In the municipal palace.”“Let’s return for weapons so we can free him.”“No. We’re better off looking like ordinary women. Besides, there’s notime. We know how to get into that place from the bottom chamber, sothat’s what we’ll do. There’s a chance we can get to him.”The women got to their feet and embraced, trying to inspire courage ineach other. Then they left the crypt to retrace the path they had taken thenight of the battle. It was past midnight when the women finally reached theside of the municipal palace. It was dark, but they saw at a glance that itwas thick with guards and military police. When they crept around to theother side, they found the same fortifications, so they decided to approachthe front of the palace. They sped around the corner only to bump into athrong of people milling in fear and confusion. Towering neon lights hadbeen erected to flood the plaza so that people appeared to multiply as theirshadows darted back and forth, churning like agitated insects.Juana, no longer caring about her own identity, took hold of Adriana’shand and led her into the crowd. The situation was chaotic; neither womancould make out the babbling and gesturing that was going on all aroundthem. Juana, still holding her partner’s hand, moved close to a Chol manand tugged at his sleeve.“Amigo, what’s happening? Why are there so many people here?”“Haven’t you heard? The chingones captured a prisoner.”“A rebel?”“I’m not sure. All I know is that they’re calling him a traitor, and he’sgoing to be executed.”

“A traitor to whom?”“To them. Who else?”Juana backed away from the man and turned to look at Adriana. Thewomen knew that they were too late, that nothing could save Orlando.Caught up by the press of the crowd, they allowed themselves to be sweptto the inner fringe of the square, where a squad of shooters was alreadylined up, waiting to execute their task. Adriana and Juana looked, trapped inthe horror of knowing that their compañero was about to die. They stared,helpless to do anything except to stand by him.A drum roll silenced the mob, which gawked in shock as they sawOrlando Flores appear between two soldiers. They were pushing himforward, but his body demonstrated his disdain and hatred for them. By theway he walked and held himself, he showed that he was not frightened,even when the same soldiers ordered him to stand against a wall. Heshrugged off the blindfold that was offered him.The presiding officer came on the scene and stood to the side of thefiring squad. He was a short, malformed man whose uniform was oversized,and he wore green-shaded glasses even though it was night. It was apparentby the way he held out his chin and sucked in his belly that he desired toappear taller. As he was adjusting his posture, Orlando’s voice rang out; itwas so powerful that it silenced the murmur that had begun to sweep overthe horde. So compelling were Orlando’s words that the presiding officerstopped in the middle of straightening his jacket, and the shooters slackenedthe hold on their weapons.“¡La cuerda se reventó, cabrones!”A shocked silence floated over the onlookers because Orlando’s wordshad said it all, all that was burning in their hearts. The leash snapped, yousons of bitches! It’s over! Your grip has been broken!In an attempt to silence the prisoner, the officer raised his hand to getattention. He held a sheet of paper in his other hand, from which he beganto read.“Orlando Flores, because you are a communist intruder from anothercountry…”“Cabrón, since you’re going to murder me, call me by my true name:Quintín Osuna!”

Nearly unnerved, the officer looked around, first toward the shooters,then toward the crowd, then straight at the prisoner. He frowned, confusedabout the name, and not knowing what to do next. He brought the documentcloser to his face and removed the shaded glasses, squinting his myopiceyes. He chose to ignore the prisoner’s name and continue reading.“You have been found guilty of instigating…”“¡Pendejo! Don’t you know anything? If you’re going to assassinate me,do it for the right reason. I am Quintín Osuna, the executioner of one ofyour masters, Rufino Mayorga!”Mention of the death of the Mayorga patriarch stunned the officer, whofinally demonstrated that he understood that the prisoner was the huntedmurderer of Rufino Mayorga. Within seconds, the man squared hisshoulders, drew his pistol, aimed it at Orlando, and shouted his order.“¡Fuego!”Orlando’s riddled body reeled backward against the wall, where itremained propped up for a few seconds while spots, like black roses,blotched his white tunic. The body teetered, then plummeted face forwardonto the stones of the plaza floor.“¡No! ¡No!”Before his face crashed against the ground, Juana’s voice rang out,emitting a grief-filled howl that so rattled the throng it momentarily froze infear, then suddenly snapped, panicking, screaming, pushing, tugging,running in every direction. The pandemonium became huge, frightening themilitary police, who knew they were outnumbered and that control was outof their hands.Juana and Adriana pushed blindly through the frenzy, through legs,torsos, arms, everything moving and churning. They shoved, using theconfusion that had gripped the soldiers, trying to reach Orlando’s body.When they did, they took hold of him by the underarms and dragged him,inch by inch, along the wall of the building, aiming for its corner, searchingfor cover.The chaos escalated, and the thrust of the crowd overturned the towerssupporting the neon lights on one side of the square. The structures crashedto the ground, wounding and frightening the swarm of people even more.That side of the plaza became darkened and it was into that blackness thatJuana and Adriana dragged Orlando’s corpse.

The women pulled at the body of their compañero, but its dead weightbecame increasingly unmanageable. Suddenly, the burden became lighter,easier to carry and Juana looked back to see the same Chol man to whomshe had spoken; he had plucked up the body’s legs and was helping thewomen. Neither Adriana nor Juana paused to speak, or to thank the man.They knew only one thing: that they had to remove the body as far away aspossible from the streets of Ocosingo. They halted when the man suddenlyspoke.“Hermanas, wait! I have a wagon nearby. We can use it to take ourcompañero from here.”The women looked at him, relief and gratefulness stamped on theirfaces. They did not know his name, nor did they ask. Juana and Adrianaagreed and followed his lead to the cart, which was stationed behind a smallchapel at the edge of town. Between the three of them, Orlando’s body wasplaced on the flatbed of the wagon, which was hitched to an emaciatedmule. With a jerk, they began their journey.Hours passed as Juana, Adriana and the Chol man walked beside thecreaky cart in silence. So much grief filled them that they found itimpossible to speak. Adriana grieved because there was so much deatharound them. She mourned for Orlando and for all the innocents who weresuffering and dying, and for all those who had lost and searched for a fallenloved one. Juana relived the years in which she had walked in Orlando’spath, the early days when he spoke of the people of maize and the womanwho had led the first insurrection against the patrones. She thought abouthis feelings for her, and she knew that, although he had never said it, he hadunderstood her love for Adriana.The blackness of the night slowly turned into the milky light that awaitsthe first rays of the sun; by that time, the cortege had entered the fringe ofthe Lacandona Jungle. They moved steadily without stopping for anyreason, not even their own bodily needs. Neither thirst nor hunger nor theurge to relieve themselves halted the sad journey that was leading them towhere they would stop to mourn and say their final farewell to the man theyhad loved and respected.Without knowing when, Adriana and Juana realized that others, men andwomen, had joined the funeral march. No one spoke nor asked questions,yet they knew whose body it was and where it was being taken. They

walked the distance in silence. Morning turned to afternoon, then toevening, and it was not until they reached the edge of a river, when thesliver of a new moon appeared over the treetops, that Juana signaled a haltto their journey. Without question or murmur, the cortege stopped.Juana, Adriana and several other men and women assisted in takingOrlando’s body from the wagon to lay it on the damp earth, near the water’sedge. There the women disrobed the body and anointed it with watercupped in palm fronds. Juana and Adriana wept silently, their tears bathingOrlando’s wounded body. Many of the mourners murmured prayers thatwould accompany him on his journey to the other side. Then, with freshbranches cut from giant ferns, the body was wrapped and fastened withvines until it was shrouded against insects and other predatory creatures.Together, men and women carried the body to the river and waded to itscenter, where the current was strongest. They held on to Orlando Flores fora few minutes, cherishing the feel of his weight against their bodies as theyprayed in their native languages: Chol, Chamula, and Lacandón. Juanachanted in Tzeltal. Adriana did not grasp the words of that soft prayer, butshe understood their meaning. Then the mourners released their grip andallowed the current to take possession of Orlando’s body, leading itdownstream towards the land of his birth.

Chapter 30 In lak’ech. You are my other self.The insurgents went into negotiations with the government after ten daysof war. Countless agreements and accords were devised only to bediscarded. Promises were made only to be broken. Documents weredeveloped, then rendered obsolete. The insurgents’ ranks diminished asmen and women returned to their settlements, attempting to halt thecollapse of what was left of their lives.Juana contemplated returning to Lago Nahá, but she knew that her fatherwas still alive and she did not want to live under his shelter. It would havebeen her obligation as would have been the tasks of weaving and plantingand selling goods in the marketplace. She could no longer do this; she wasdifferent. The years of fighting and leading others had transformed her.Most important of all other considerations was the presence of Adriana inher life. Juana knew that she could no longer live without her.After much reflection, Juana saw that the struggle for Chiapas was notover. People were still living in misery; in many ways they were worse off,because multitudes were now uprooted and lost. Juana realized that the onlything that had changed was the place of battle, that it had shifted from theshootings and bombings of the streets to the mountain peaks that shelteredthose fleeing for their lives. She decided to ask Adriana to join her as shewent on fighting against the misery that was devouring her people.Adriana could not conceive of a life without Juana, either. She followedher compañera wherever she went, working with volunteers and agenciesthat had swarmed into Chiapas to assist the victims of the conflict. Sheknew that with her photography she had a special way to be part of thestruggle. Hers was a unique way of alerting the world to the anguish thatwas tormenting Chiapas. She had no doubt that the portraits she broughtforth were a graphic and undeniable testimony of truth.Shortly after the war, Adriana submitted her work outside of Mexico,establishing connections with journals and newspapers hungry todisseminate her prints. She wired and mailed her work from San Cristóbal

de las Casas to publishers in New York, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles.Her portfolios included action pictures of the war, the insurgents, theembattled cities, the refugees as they clogged roads, hopelessly roaming thecountryside in search of sanctuary. The publication of her work spread,opening promising doors for her work beyond the United States, extendingto Europe, Canada and Australia, all of which resulted in stipends on whichshe and Juana were able to live.After 1994, the two women migrated from one refugee camp to theother, staying mainly in the highlands north of San Cristóbal de las Casas.They focused on Chenalhó and Acteal, where they ministered to peoplewho were living under deplorable conditions. There, famine had led todisease, which in turn caused plagues. The extreme cold and fog of themountains exacerbated the refugees’ misery, leading to the deaths of infantsand children and to widespread anguish among adults.Juana and Adriana traveled back and forth between San Cristóbal de lasCasas and the camps, bringing food, blankets and medicines. The trek wasnot easy. Sometimes they walked, other times they were taken aboarddilapidated vehicles slowly meandering from one village to the other. Oncein the city, they searched for sources of supplies. The luxury hotels thatsurrounded the main plaza and connecting streets of the city were Adriana’starget, as she had established connections with cooks and room managerswho put aside sacks of beans, rice, potatoes, and blankets that could nolonger be used for hotel guests. Often, she would pass on a portion of herlatest stipend as compensation.Juana, in turn, had tight contact with groups that worked for the samecause. One of these was known as “Las Abejas,” the Bees, and they wereunmatched in their success in bringing assistance from foreign donors.Working with Las Abejas, Juana soon became known for her efficiency, andshe was always given supplies to transport north. But those donations,however generous and constant, were just drops in the deluge of povertythat had escalated in the camps day by day. During those months, neitherJuana nor Adriana was discouraged; they worked openly, publicly, withoutthinking what the consequences might be for them. It was then that word oftheir personal relationship began to seep out. The refugees saw andunderstood the love Adriana and Juana shared, but unsuspected by the twowomen, rumors mounted, making their way to hateful ears.

On December 22, 1997, Adriana and Juana were based in Acteal.Adriana had not accompanied Juana on the trip to the city, but had stayedbehind to take pictures of the refugees. She worked during the morning,making use of the early hours of sunlight before the fog rolled in. When shefinished the shoot, she decided to venture out to the surroundingmountainside to take shots of the impressive panoramas. Some of thechildren followed her on the trek, romping and playfully posing for her. Shewas touched as she snapped frame after frame, seeing that hardly any ofthem were glum, that they had not forgotten how to play, despite their beingill and emaciated.“¡Allí viene Juana! ¡Allí viene Juana!”Juana had arrived, leading a convoy of two run-down vans filled withsupplies. The clamor and cheering that signaled her return reached Adriana,who gathered her equipment and made her way up to the road to meet her.By the time she reached the village, Juana had already climbed out of thevan and was surrounded by children and adults, who embraced her,squeezing her hand, patting her shoulders. Her arrival was always a causefor celebration because of the food and other supplies that she brought.Adriana stood at the fringe of the crowd snapping pictures: Juana’sradiant face with strands of her coarse black hair fluttering in the mountainbreeze; a child holding her, his head buried between her breasts; a womannestling her head on Juana’s back.Once the vans were unloaded and their contents distributed, most of thewomen and children went down to one of the shelters to pray. Juana andAdriana, with a camera still hanging around her neck, decided to go on awalk in the forest, where they found a spot covered by heavy overhangingbranches. They sat there in silence for a few minutes.Juana, nearly whispering, got very close to Adriana. “A woman came towarn that we take care. She said our enemies often speak of you and me, ofour connection.”Feeling bewildered and afraid, Adriana stared at Juana, but Juana smiled.“In lak’ech.”Adriana felt a pang of intense joy at hearing Juana utter words telling herthat she was her other self. But her happiness suddenly melted away whenshe felt inexplicable alarm, as if a shadow standing behind her hadwhispered, ¡Ten cuidado! Be careful! She was so shaken by the feeling that

she looked around, expecting to find someone, but there was no one,nothing. She had imagined it. Was it nerves? She put aside her apprehensionand smiled at Juana.Suddenly, a ricocheting blast shattered the mountain tranquillity. It was aquick volley that echoed down the ravines and bounced off peaks, returningin distorted, rebounding sounds. Juana’s eyes rounded as she stared atAdriana; she knew what had caused that rapid, violent noise.Ratt-tatt-tatt!The women got to their feet and they ran toward the firing guns. Theypassed a pickup truck that had been hastily parked, its doors still swingingopen, its engine running.Ratt-tatt-tatt!Juana outran Adriana and was the first to come onto the killing scene.Adriana, rushing behind her, had a clear view of the carnage that was goingon. She saw bodies piled one on top of the other, limbs entangled butstruggling to escape. She heard the screaming of women and the wailing ofchildren. She smelled the rank stench of sulfurous ammunition. She saw thebacks of the shooters, men dressed in civilian clothes. In a fraction of asecond, she caught a glimpse of one face. His sombrero was pulled downover his brow, his nose, mouth and chin masked by a bandanna. Then, in anightmarish flash, she saw that all of the assassins were dressed alike.The machine guns would not stop vomiting lead and fire, although therewas no longer any movement or sound. Behind the assassins stood Juana,who had witnessed the crime. Behind her stood Adriana, whose eyes hadalso captured the unspeakable deed. Suddenly, one of the faces snapped intheir direction; its bandanna had slipped off, revealing the shooter’s identity.Adriana saw the yellow eyes of evil glaring at Juana, but she saw more; itwas a face she had seen before.Adriana recognized Palomón Cisneros, the soldier who had lied aboutthe murdered civilians in Ocosingo. Without thinking, she lunged towardJuana, who was planted on the ground motionless, paralyzed by the horrorshe had just witnessed. Adriana was able to reach her but not before thevicious barrel was lifted, aimed and fired. Ratttatt! Two bullets hit Juana,but the weapon jammed and could not spit out more of its deadlyprojectiles.“¡Manflora! ¡Come mierda!”

Cisneros spat out the hateful word manflora, lover of women. Now itwas Adriana who froze. Fear seized her for a second, but Juana was stillmoving when Adriana finally reached her to put her arm around her waist.With a strength she did not know she possessed, she lifted Juana anddragged her toward the forest, leaving the assassin cursing his weapon forfailing him.Terrified, Adriana carried Juana, oblivious of the ruts and holes in theground, aware only that Juana was weightless in her arms, that she wassomething fragile and light. Adriana ran, sensing with each moment thatothers were running with her, and that they were also being pursued. Theshouting of the assassins became barking, snarling. Dogs were chasing afterher and Juana.Suddenly she stopped; her feet dug deep into the jungle slime as shehalted abruptly, running in circles, arms rigidly outstretched. She had lostsomething, but she could not remember what it was that had slippedthrough her fingers. She dropped to her knees, groveling in the mud,digging, trying to find what it was that she had lost. Her fingers began tobleed when her nails ripped from her flesh, and her desperation grew,looming larger than even her pain, greater even than the terror of beingovercome by the dogs.The dream flashed through Adriana’s mind. Her thoughts were clear asnever before, and she knew now the meaning of that distant dream. Adrianasaw her life clearly for the first time. She knew now that Juana was whathad once slipped through her fingers and who had returned to her.She laid her compañera at the foot of a tree and took her in her arms,holding and rocking her, wiping her forehead and face, which was streakedwith mud and sweat. Her left side was saturated in blood. Her eyes wereshut but she was still alive.“No me dejes, Juana.”Unable to speak, Juana moved her head, letting Adriana know that shewould never leave her. Then stillness overcame her, and Adriana knew thatJuana had passed on to the other side of the rivers and mountain peaks, thather spirit had returned to the Lacandona Jungle.Adriana, still swaying to and fro, pressed Juana’s inert body to herbreast, struggling to cope with the dry ache that had gripped her heart. Herbody, convulsed by the uneven rhythm of her breathing, shivered

uncontrollably, and anguished sounds from deep inside gripped her throat.Adriana wanted to cry out, to let the pain escape from where it was trapped,but she was mute; only short moans slipped through her lips.She had no sense of how much time had passed before three villagersfound her. When she first became aware of their presence, she panicked,thinking that they were the assassins, but when she recognized them, shefinally began to weep, trying to describe what had happened.“Cálmese, Adriana, sabemos lo que pasó.”They attempted to calm her, telling her they knew what had happened,and that she had no need to explain. They had come, they said, to help herwith Juana. As they spoke, one of them disappeared for a while and laterreturned with a shovel. Taking turns, they dug a hole under the tree.Adriana, although wasted by grief and the fear of an asthma attack, insistedon helping to dig down through the rugged, rocky soil. After hours ofexcavating, the grave was deep enough.Adriana wanted a part of herself to remain with Juana forever. She alsodesired to keep something of hers to hold for the rest of her life, so she tookthe woven bracelet from Juana’s wrist. From her own wallet, Adriana pulleda photograph someone had taken of the two of them. She gazed at theirsmiling faces and their intertwined arms, then she put it to her lips andslipped it between Juana’s breasts, near her heart. On her knees, Adrianastooped down to press her cheek against Juana’s, where she stayed for atime, reliving the first time they had met.Juana’s body was lowered slowly into the ground until it rested on thebottom. Adriana was aware that her companions were murmuring prayers,but she was incapable of anything except feeling grief and rage. The soundof dirt and rocks striking Juana’s body crept into Adriana’s ears. It was asound that would rob her of sleep for the rest of her life.She returned to Acteal to find it swarming with strangers and soldiers.Word had leaked out about the massacre. There was weeping and moaningeverywhere because the bodies of the slaughtered had been stolen; they hadnow “disappeared.” Hysteria prevailed, but the military police insisted thatthey knew nothing, had seen nothing.Without speaking to anyone, Adriana gathered her things and began towalk the twenty miles towards San Cristóbal de las Casas. She did not stop,even when the day became night and then dawn. She kept moving, thinking

only of Juana, not caring about anything, not even the fear that, in her haste,she might succumb to a breathing attack. She hiked without precaution,hoping to be killed. When she reached the city, she went to the bus stationand from there she traveled until reaching Pichucalco and Chan K’in.Time blurred for Adriana. She lost track of what day it was, how long ithad taken to walk to San Cristóbal, how many days had passed before shereached Pichucalco. Her mind cleared only when she stepped off the busand images of other visits to the village returned.As she made her way toward Chan K’in, the aroma of maize andcooking beans reached her, reminding her that she had not eaten in days.With clarity came the awareness that she did not care about eating oranything else. All she desired was to face the only man who could decipherthe enigma of her loss.He was sitting under a ceiba tree, cross-legged as was his habit. Hehardly glanced at Adriana, but as she stood looking down at him, hegestured that she sit down. She struggled to unbuckle her backpack and putit on the ground. After a few moments, she was facing him, sitting as sheused to at the beginning of their encounters.“Niña, you have found what it was that you lost in your dream.”“Yes, but as in the dream, I have lost it again.”“When you and I first spoke, you searched your memory to see if itcould have been someone in your past life. At the time, you said that therewas no one, not even your mother or father, yet the loss inhabited yourdream. Do you remember what I said to you?”Adriana’s head was hanging, tears dripping from her chin. Her mind waschurning, and she found it impossible to speak.“I said that perhaps it could be someone whose path had crossed yours inanother time, another place, and who would again come to you in thefuture.”“She’s gone, viejo!”“But not forever. We repeat ourselves. She’s waiting for you in anotherlife, where your paths will cross again.”Adriana’s heart ached, wanting to believe Chan K’in, desiring with allthe strength of her being that she and Juana would again meet in a repeatedlife. Instead, all she felt was hurt for having their present time together cut

so short. She stared at the old man, hoping that his unshakable belief wouldpenetrate her. After awhile, she lowered her eyes to look at Juana’s braceletas it clung to her wrist. She understood that it would take time, that shecould do no more than wait.“You must be patient, niña. In the meantime, let me give you myblessing.”Adriana shuffled closer, head bent, longing to receive Chan K’in’sbenediction. When she felt the weight of his gnarled hands on her head, shewas impressed by their frail touch, and she prayed.“Viejo, I’m leaving now. I must go home.”“Yes, but you will return.”Adriana, perplexed by the old man’s words but comforted by hiswisdom, got to her feet, wiped her face and went in search of her things.After emptying bags and rearranging rolls of film, note pads, two shirts andsome underwear, she tucked it all into her backpack. Before leaving, shewent to the center of the village to take leave of the people who had beenpart of her beginnings in the Lacandona Jungle. Word spread quickly frompalapa to palapa. Soon, women, children and men came to wish her ahappy trip, inviting her to return and reminding her that she would alwayshave a home in Pichucalco. Adriana accepted hugs, hand clasps and smallgifts. One child brought her four eggs wrapped in a handkerchief. When sheturned toward the main road, she was crying again.

Chapter 31 The anguish, too, was the same.After Pichucalco, Adriana began her journey back to Los Angeles. Shestill had enough money to make her way by land to Palenque, where sheboarded the small craft that flew daily to Mérida, Yucatán. On arriving atthat airport, she discovered that she had missed that day’s only flight to LosAngeles. She was forced to stay over in the city.It was still early, and she would need a room for the night. She asked thetaxi driver to take her to a hotel. He nodded without saying a word, andafter a short drive from the airport, he left her at Hotel Casa de Balám.Adriana liked the place; its Mayan decorations and its location off the mainsquare and cathedral suited her. After checking in, a young man showed herto her room. While chatting amiably, he remarked on the weight of herbackpack. She smiled, knowing that his words were a hint.Once inside the room, Adriana gave the boy a tip and closed the door,grateful for the dark coolness of the room. She was even happier when shepeeled off her shirt, bra, trousers and panties, which had become saturatedwith sweat during her trip. Afterward, she stood in the middle of the room,naked and barefoot for several minutes, her head buzzing with thoughts andunanswered questions. Then she went to the shower, where she let thecalming spray wash over her for a long while. Splashing water on porcelaincreated a rhythm to which her memories swayed, thoughts dislodged andideas surfaced.As she abandoned her body to the chill of the water, dunking her headand face over and again, she realized that she had several hours on herhands and she could, during that time, look up a camera shop. There wererolls of undeveloped film in her pack, and she was anxious to see what shehad taken.Among those rolls were the photographs she had taken in Pichucalcoyears earlier, the day on which Juana had invited her to join the insurgents.Adriana remembered that afternoon so well that she could still see thewomen at work. She vividly remembered the young mother, the indigenous

madonna with a child at her breast. Adriana even recalled her thoughts ofwanting to be that child.Then there were the last of her photographs, taken on the day of Juana’sdeath. Those she wanted to see more than anything. Adriana yanked herhead from under the spray, wiped her eyes, nose and mouth. She got out ofthe shower, dried herself, put on clothes, and went down to the lobby to findthe address of the nearest photo lab.“Sí, señorita. Aquí a la vuelta está un laboratorio. Pero, ¿No deseaalmorzar antes?”Expressing gratefulness for the information regarding the lab, as well asfor the invitation to have lunch, Adriana sped around the corner, hoping tofind the shop open. It was, and the man at the counter was happy to assisther.“Vuelva en dos horas. Estarán listas sus fotografías.”With two hours to spend before the pictures would be ready, Adrianawalked to the plaza. It was not large, but it was beautiful. The cathedraltook up all of the space on one side of the rectangle, and the street in frontof it served as parking for horse-drawn buggies available for tourists. Thesquare itself was bustling with vendors, shoppers, children, and stray dogs.It was market day, and the place was filled with stalls and booths. Adrianaconsidered returning to the hotel for her camera, but decided against it. Shewould just take in the colors, sounds and smells with her mind’s eye andpreserve them in her memory.She walked up the steps elevating the square from the street, and ambledfrom stall to stall, looking, touching, listening, smelling. She admiredblouses, shawls, tablecloths, intricately laced doilies—all handmade, all forsale. She stopped to gaze at women sitting on their haunches in front ofsmall heaps of peppers, lemons, seeds, bunches of herbs, tempting cooks insearch of ingredients for the day’s meal.Adriana concentrated on the faces of those women: oval shapes withskin the color of cocoa beans, eyes shaped like almonds, braided hair thecolor of onyx. She was struck by the thought that although separated byhundreds of kilometers, these were the same people that inhabited theLacandona Jungle, the highlands and canyons of Chiapas.She looked up beyond the tops of the trees shading the square and slowlypivoted her body, studying the architecture of the stately buildings, once

mansions, now mostly banks, offices and small restaurants. When sheturned to look at a child sitting on the curb, Adriana’s attention wassuddenly jerked away from him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Juanaslipping behind one of the stalls. She caught only a glimpse of her roundedbody, and the long black braid that twisted with the sway of herunmistakable way of walking.Positive that it was Juana, Adriana felt her breath catch in her throat, andwithout thinking, she lunged toward the place where Juana had disappeared,moving so abruptly that she knocked over a small table piled high withlemons. She made an attempt to fix things but she could not waste time.Adriana sprinted over mounds of sarapes, heaps of shoes, bunches ofbananas, until she reached the rear of the last stall.Adriana turned the corner with such haste that two young women, sittingthere snapping green beans, were so startled that one of them spilled thevegetables she had gathered on her lap. They stared at her face, which hadthe expression of having seen someone gone from this world, and theybecame frightened. For her part, Adriana realized at once that she had madea mistake. Although one of the women did resemble Juana, it was clearlynot her.“¡Mil disculpas! ¡Perdónenme, por favor!”Adriana helped gather the vegetables as she mumbled apologies. Shewas embarrassed, but remained convinced that it had been Juana whom shehad seen. She must have gone somewhere else. The women, oncerecuperated from the initial fright, smiled, saying that everything was fine.Adriana walked away toward the opposite edge of the plaza and stoodthere for a while. She felt lightheaded, and her thoughts were unclear.Finally, she remembered she had not eaten for hours. Perhaps her emptystomach had caused Juana’s image to appear. Adriana was not reallyhungry, but she understood that she needed to eat something. She bought acone filled with fruit from a vendor and sat on the street’s curb.As she munched on chunks of mango, papaya and watermelon, Adrianabegan to stabilize; her mind was clearing. She was still shaken by Juana’sapparition, but she was profoundly happy as well, taking pleasure in thememory of that fast-moving figure that must have been Juana. Adrianastopped chewing for a moment, closed her eyes, and prayed that she would

never stop seeing her beloved compañera, if only for fleeting seconds at atime.Adriana looked at her watch. She still had a few minutes to wait and soshe concentrated on the structures facing her. Her eyes focused on thelargest, obviously the grandest of the mansions. She scanned the carvingsover the main entrance, where, chiseled deeply into the façade, she madeout helmeted, armored Spanish conquistadores, lances in hand, their feetcrushing the heads of indigenous men, who were depicted with stiffenedtongues crying out in anguish. Behind the Spanish masters, in miniaturecontour, were ravenous dogs, menacing horses, other war-like figuresintertwined with vines, classical sculptures, even some cherubs.She rose to her feet, stretched, and walked to a plaque on the wall, thatexplained the origins of the mansion. Casa de Montejo, primerconquistador del Yucatán. She tried to read more description but gave up;the script was too ornate, too intricate, and too old.She stood in front of the building, pondering why so little had changedfor the people of that land. Although there were no longer conquistadores,there were mestizos. Now, instead of lances, there were machine guns, andin place of horses and dogs, there were armored vehicles. The anguish, too,was the same.It was time. Adriana looked one last time toward the stall where she hadseen Juana, then she turned her back on the Casa de Montejo and headed forthe photo lab, where she found her package processed and ready. She paidthe bill, made her way to the hotel, and went directly to her room. She tooka few minutes to take off her clothes that had become sweaty again, and shetook another shower. In a bathrobe and with her hair still dripping wet,Adriana sat down on the bed, propped herself up on a pillow against themetal headboard, and opened the large envelope. Inside she found twosmaller ones.She ripped open one and emptied the pictures onto her lap, verifying thatthe photos were still good, although somewhat marred because the film hadaged. She looked at those pictures and saw that her camera had capturedfaces concentrated on weaving, on sewing. She held one showing a womanwith sticky masa smeared on her hands and arms up to the elbows as shesmiled broadly at the camera. Adriana looked at another photo showing apregnant girl whose face was sad.

Studying the glossies carefully, Adriana realized how her work and shehad matured. No longer doubtful of her skills, she compared those earlypictures to her later work taken during the war and its aftermath. She wasreflecting on the weaknesses of her earlier endeavors when she was forcedto interrupt her train of thought by the next photo. It was of the youngmother with the child at her breast. Adriana became transfixed, even elatedby the image. The luminous eyes of the young woman captivated her, as didthe child’s mouth sucking her breast, its eyes closed, its tiny hand limp andrelaxed. Adriana realized that, unlike the others, this take was not shallow.It was deep, mature; it had captured the spirit of the moment, of the woman,of the child.Adriana, with some hesitation, next turned to the pictures in the otherenvelope; they were the last taken at Acteal. Children’s faces looked out ather from the prints, some smiling, others bewildered. She became saddenedby the certainty that they had perished in the massacre. She moved on tothose of Juana’s welcome to the camp on that same day, remembering howthe people had converged on her, hugging and patting her back, touchingher face.Adriana felt the tears pushing at her eyes, pressing to be freed from theprison of her heart. She looked at one, two, three, four shots of Juana, someclose-up, others taken at more of a distance. A few of the photos showedher profile, her face turned first to one side, then to the other, smiling,looking at her. Other shots pictured her, arms lifted, giving out blankets, apackage, food. Juana became alive, eternal in the photographs taken byAdriana.Wiping tears from her face with the palms of her hands, Adriana closedher eyes and leaned back on the pillow, where she fell into a deep sleep thatlasted through the night. She awoke startled from a very real dream, but sheshook it off seconds later, remembering that she needed to be at the airportby ten to make her flight. When she focused her eyes on the clock by thebed, she was relieved; she still had time.

Chapter 32 She asked me to be the lips through which theirsilenced voices will speak.In flight. Merida/Los Angeles, January 2, 1998.The execution of Orlando Flores four years ago was an act of purehatred. He was not murdered only because he was a rebel, or because hebrought Rufino Mayorga to justice, despite what they claimed. Orlando wasassassinated for one reason only: He was a Lacandón, un indio whohappened to be captured, and he was put to death only because the mestizosfear and hate his kind.The massacre at Acteal was about hatred for women, for mujeres indiaswho had proven themselves as leaders, activists and movers of their people.Those killings were committed in revenge for the embarrassment thosemujeres brought down on the heads of the wealthy, the powerful, lospatrones, and their lackeys in the military and politics. Acteal was nothingbut payback for Comandante Insurgente Ramona, the Tzotzil woman, andthe way she and a hundred other women under her command took SanCristóbal de las Casas back in 1994. And there were the other cities, alsotaken by women in command. Acteal was a hateful response to a womaninsurgent being the one to break the army’s cordon around the LacandonaJungle in 1996. Those slayings were filled with loathing because la gente,the natives of that land, had dared to say ¡Basta! Enough! Acteal was aboutpure hatred.Juana’s murder was caused by hatred, but it was even more thanloathing because dangling from it, like poisonous snakes, was therepugnance and disgust for women like us. Her love for me was discovered;word had got around and Palomón Cisneros’ evil snout had picked up thescent of those rumors. She was erased because she had been strong,because she had been a leader, because she was una india, but most of allbecause she had committed the forbidden act: She had been in love withanother woman.

Moved and deeply shaken by her own words, Adriana stopped writingand put the pen down beside the journal propped on the vibrating table. Sheleaned her head on the headrest of the seat, then she stretched to look out ofthe cabin window. Her eyes were inflamed and swollen from sleeplessnessand crying, but she made out the cloud cover below; land was now beyondher vision. She craned her neck to look back toward the south, whereChiapas lay under its pall of hatred and fear, but all she saw was a milkyvoid. The engines of the craft hummed now that its intended altitude hadbeen reached. The flight was less than half-filled, so passengers settled infor the long trip to Los Angeles.She picked up the pen to go on with her latest entry. This would be theend of her writing, now that she was leaving Mexico. She took time to readwhat she had written and noticed how much Spanish had taken over herthoughts and expression. It had been five years since she made her way toMexico, a time when she had been nervous about speaking the language shehad left behind with her childhood. Now she rarely spoke English. She stillwrote it, but it was an English sprinkled with words and inflections fromher ancestor’s tongue. She thought of correcting what she had written, butdecided to let it go.December 22 was the day when those rabid dogs attacked Acteal. Theywere armed men, some of them not much than children, dressed in civilianclothes, faces covered by bandannas so that we could see only their eyes,yellow with hatred, as they came at us. They held weapons that spit fire, andthey did their evil deed knowing that the inocentes they targeted weremostly mujeres and niños who were defenseless. And they murdered JuanaGalván.Adriana’s fingers cramped, she had been holding the pen so tightly thatthey ached. She loosened her grip and stared at her hand, the pen danglingbetween her fingers inertly. Her chest was hurting, as it did when shesuffered asthma attacks, but she knew that it was the pain of trapped sorrowthat was now pressing her heart against her ribs.I felt that a limb had been torn from me. She was part of me. I felt that Icouldn’t breathe, that my lungs were collapsing. I had found what I hadsearched for only to lose it again.After writing those words, Adriana reclined her head against the back ofthe seat and did not resist the tears she felt wetting her face; she did not

even make an effort to dry them. She sat inertly, reliving the excruciatingpain of having lost the woman she had loved with her total being, with herheart and her mind. Adriana let the tears flow, emanating from the sea oftorment that was flooding her inwardly. If she did not cry and let them spillout, her heart would rupture.It had been only ten days since that dreadful moment, and the sensations,sounds, smells were still with Adriana. She stopped writing for a while,waiting for the surge of grief to pass. She closed her eyes, hoping to getsome sleep, but it was impossible. She had not truly slept since the Actealmassacre. Her eyes could not stop looking at the mangled bodies of thevictims. Her vision burned with the vile face of the murderer. Her mind’seye finally settled on the forest and on Juana’s body lying inertly in herarms. This parade of grim images played and replayed itself behind herclosed eyelids.Juana and the other women were on the frontlines of the war, leadingtalks in the cathedral and meetings with journalists and photographers fromall over the world. Those mujeres not only inspired other women, but menas well, and this was what ate at those other cabrones. Esas mujeres werebrave, bringing themselves together in congresses and dialogues, writingup documents that challenged all the laws that had oppressed them forcenturies. They met time after time—hundreds, thousands of mujeres—theirfaces erased by masks so that their sisters might find faces of their own.When Major Ramona traveled to Mexico City in 1996, her body alreadyhalf eaten by cancer, thousands of men and women were waiting for her;multitudes listened to her. But the snake eyes of los patrones were watchingher, Juana and all the other mujeres who, in the eyes of those vipers, wereworse than the male insurgents simply because they were women.The battles for the cities and prisons ended within ten days, but the war,la guerra, did not go away. La gente, uprooted and dislocated, shifted fromone side of the land to the other. Roads were clogged with lost people,begging for a tortilla to give their niñitos, taking refuge from rain and foganywhere they could. And los patrones never stopped hounding them. Theyunleashed their rabid dogs, the paramilitaries, to prowl the land, looting,raping, and burning palapas and whatever shelters could be found. Andtheir special targets were mujeres, because they were the ones who

recognized those dogs even after they disguised themselves like laborers,like campesinos.“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the seat belt light as webegin our descent into Los Angeles. Please be sure that your tray tables arestowed and that your seat backs are in their upright positions.” The flightattendant’s nasalized voice sounded out, alerting the passengers of theirarrival. Adriana sat up and was able to see the outskirts of the city, but shehad time, so she put her journal on her lap to make her last entry.Last night I had a dream. I dreamed that I was surrounded by mujereswhose faces were erased by masks. One of them was Juana, who came closeto me and whispered beautiful words. She reminded me of our lastconversation, when she told me that I was her other self. She spoke of whenwe had slept in the jungle, when we had recalled our other lives among thefirst patrones, our losses, our discoveries.In my dream, Juana and I sat apart from the others, rememberingOrlando Flores, Chan K’in, and all the other mujeres and hombres who arestill masked, still fighting, still dying. She told me that until she and I meetagain in our next life, she will always be with me when I show myphotographs, while I speak to others about la gente in Lacandona, aboutthe atrocities in Acteal and in all the other places of misery. She asked meto be the lips through which their silenced voices could speak.Then the dream unfolded into another dream, one that had been in mymemory. In it I ran, frightened and terrified because I was pursued by dogs.It was the jungle dream in which I felt that others surrounded me and I waspowerless to discern their identities. This time, when I stopped and begansearching for what I had lost, Juana appeared.My dream ended when she put her arms around me and told me never toforget her or the mujeres who have chosen to erase their faces with a mask—not out of fear, not out of shame, but inspired rather by dignity and thecourage to show the way to other mujeres.Adriana closed the journal and tucked it into the backpack placed underher seat. She felt serene; she understood her mission. She touched Juana’sbracelet as she looked out the window. This time the massive sprawl of LosAngeles met her gaze. To her left she made out the half-moon curve ofRedondo Beach and, stretching her neck to look out the window across theaisle, her eyes caught the eastern regions of the city.

The craft began its descent and landed smoothly, moving until it came toa halt. When they were given clearance, the passengers stood to deplane.Adriana had her bag ready when the door was opened. She and everyoneelse marched through the tunnel leading to the terminal. Still pensive, stillrerunning the details of her dream, she waited for immigration to clear her.“Hmm! You’ve been away a long time.”“Yes.”“Doing what?”“I’m a photographer. I’ve been on assignment in Mexico.”“I see. Welcome home.”“Thank you.”Adriana trudged along with the other passengers to clear customs. Thewait was long. Passengers from other flights had been put on the sameinspection line. While she waited, her mind returned to her dream. Shewondered why her mother had not come to her with the other women.Adriana would have liked that very much. She would have told her that therage was gone, that although she still did not understand why she hadchosen to leave, Adriana wanted her to know that she realized now that shemust have had a compelling reason.Someone tapped her on the shoulder; it was her turn to approach thecounter.“Anything to declare?”“No.”“Meat? Seeds? Food?”“No.”“Okay! Welcome home!”Adriana picked up her gear, placed it on her back, made her way up theramp, down the escalator, then out the door of Tom Bradley Terminal. Sheblinked at the unexpected sunlight, but her vision cleared as she looked upat the new Controllers’ Tower. To its side she saw the sky-high restaurant,now being remodeled. The street in front of the terminal was congestedwith shuttle buses and taxis. Cars streamed in and out of the parkingstructure, causing snarls, honking horns as they cut off and passed oneanother. Adriana looked around, feeling like a foreigner in her own town, a

stranger among her own people. She took a deep breath, adjusted the bag onher back, and disappeared into the crowd.

Books by Graciela LimónLa canción del colibríThe Day of the MoonEl Día de la LunaEn busca de BernabéErased FacesIn Search of BernabéLeft AliveThe Memories of Ana CalderónSong of the Hummingbird

About the AuthorGraciela Limón is the critically-acclaimed and award-winning author ofLeft Alive (2005), Erased Faces (2001), The Day of the Moon (1999), Songof the Hummingbird (1996), The Memories of Ana Calderón (1994), and InSearch of Bernabé (1993), the recipient of an American Book Award.Limón is Professor Emeritus of Loyola Mary-mount University in LosAngeles, where she served as a professor of U.S. Latina/o Literature.

 

 

Originally published in Great Britain under the title The Paradise Papers by Virago Limited in association with Quartet Books Limited.Copyright © 1976 by Merlin StoneAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews written specifically for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataStone, Merlin. When god was a woman.Bibliography: p. 1. Women in religion. I. Title. BL458.S76 291.1’7834’12 76-22544 eISBN: 978-0-307-81685-6v3.1

To Jenny and Cynthia with Love

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSGrateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the followingcopyrighted material.From They Wrote on Clay by Edward Chiera: Reprinted by permission ofThe University of Chicago Press. © 1938, 1966 by The University ofChicago. All rights reserved.From Ancient Israel by Roland De Vaux: Copyright © 1965 by Roland DeVaux. Used with permission of McGraw-Hill Book Company and Darton,Longman & Todd Ltd.From Archaic Egypt by W. B. Emery: Copyright © 1961 by Walter B.Emery. Used by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.From The Greek Myths by Robert Graves: Reprinted by permission ofCurtis Brown, Ltd. Copyright © 1955 by Robert Graves.From The Hittites by O. R. Guerney (2nd edition, 1954). Copyright © O. R.Gurney 1952, 1954. Used by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.From The Greatness That Was Babylon by H. W. F. Saggs: Used bypermission of Praeger Publishers, Inc.

MapsSome Neolithic and Chalcolithic SettlementsLocations of Areas Discussed in Chapter FourSome of the Major Waterways from Estonia to the Persian GulfSouthern Canaan (Palestine)—Old Testament Period

Illustrations1.1 Cast of Upper Paleolithic Venus figure1.2 Goddess with reptilian head1.3 Bronze statue of the Goddess astride two lions1.4 Goddess seated upon double feline throne1.5 The Little Goddess of the Serpents1.6 Ivory serpent Goddess1.7 Enthroned Sumerian Goddess1.8 Goddess holding serpents and flowers1.9 Clay sculpture of a couply lying on a woven bed1.10 Limestone statue of the Cobra Goddess Ua Zit1.11 Gold pectoral of winged Isis1.12 Statue of the Lady of Byblos1.13 Isis and Osiris1.14 Snake tube1.15 Aphrodite1.16 Aphrodite priestess1.17 The Greek Goddess Demeter1.18 Seal stone of Athena1.19 Athena in battle helmet1.20 Amazon frieze1.21 Votive relief of Artemis

ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationAcknowledgmentsMapsIllustrationsPrefaceIntroductionOne Tales with a Point of ViewTwo Who Was She?Three Women—Where Woman Was DeifiedFour The Northern InvadersFive One of Their Own RaceSix If the King Did Not WeepSeven The Sacred Sexual CustomsEight They Offered Incense to the Queen of HeavenNine And the Men of the City Shall Stone Her with StonesTen Unraveling the Myth of Adam and EveEleven The Daughters of EveDate ChartsBibliography

Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and sinceman exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that thisauthority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews, Mohammedansand Christians among others, man is master by divine right; the fear of God willtherefore repress any impulse towards revolt in the downtrodden female.Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex 1949

In his statement opposed to the ordination of women, Bishop C. L. Meyers said theEpiscopalian priesthood is a “masculine conception.”“A priest is a ‘God symbol’ whether he likes it or not. In the imagery of both the Oldand New Testament God is represented in masculine imagery,” he said in a statementthat was circulated among some 760 delegates at Grace Cathedral for the 2½ dayconvention.“Christ is the source of Priesthood. The Sexuality of Christ is no accident nor is hismasculinity incidental. This is the divine choice,” the statement said.San Francisco Chronicle 25 October 1971

In the beginning there was Isis: Oldest of the Old, She was the Goddess from whom allBecoming Arose. She was the Great Lady, Mistress of the two Lands of Egypt, Mistressof Shelter, Mistress of Heaven, Mistress of the House of Life, Mistress of the word ofGod. She was the Unique. In all Her great and wonderful works She was a wisermagician and more excellent than any other God.Thebes, Egypt, Fourteenth Century BCThou Sun Goddess of Arinna art an honored deity; Thy name is held high amongnames; Thy divinity is held high among the deities; Nay, among the deities, Thou aloneO Sun Goddess art honored; Great art Thou alone O Sun Goddess of Arinna; Naycompared to Thee no other deity is as honored or great …Boghazköy, Turkey, Fifteenth Century BCUnto Her who renders decision, Goddess of all things, Unto the Lady of Heaven andEarth who receives supplication; Unto Her who hears petition, who entertains prayer;Unto the compassionate Goddess who loves righteousness; Ishtar the Queen, whosuppresses all that is confused. To the Queen of Heaven, the Goddess of the Universe,the One who walked in terrible Chaos and brought life by the Law of Love; And out ofChaos brought us harmony, and from Chaos Thou has led us by the hand.Babylon, Eighteenth to Seventh Centuries BCHear O ye regions, the praise of Queen Nana; Magnify the Creatress; exalt thedignified; exalt the Glorious One; draw nigh to the Mighty Lady.Sumer, Nineteenth Century BC

PrefaceHow did it actually happen? How did men initially gain the control thatnow allows them to regulate the world in matters as vastly diverse asdeciding which wars will be fought when to what time dinner should beserved?This book is the result of my reactions to these and similar questionswhich many of us concerned about the status of women in our society havebeen asking ourselves and each other. As if in answer to our queries, yetanother question presented itself. What else might we expect in a societythat for centuries has taught young children, both female and male, that aMALE deity created the universe and all that is in it, produced MAN in hisown divine image—and then, as an afterthought, created woman, toobediently help man in his endeavors? The image of Eve, created for herhusband, from her husband, the woman who was supposed to have broughtabout the downfall of humankind, has in many ways become the image ofall women. How did this idea ever come into being?Few people who live in societies where Christianity, Judaism or Islam arefollowed remain unaware of the tale of Eve heeding the word of the serpentin the Garden of Eden, eating the forbidden fruit and then tempting Adamto do the same. Generally, during the most impressionable years ofchildhood, we are taught that it was this act of eating the tasty fruit of thetree of knowledge of good and evil that caused the loss of Paradise, theexpulsion of Adam and Eve, thus all humankind, from this first home ofbliss and contentment. We are also made to understand that, as a result ofthis act, it was decreed by God that woman must submit to the dominanceof man—who was at that time divinely presented with the right to rule overher—from that moment until now.The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden is not exactlythe latest news, but few contemporary happenings have affected women oftoday any more directly. In the struggle to achieve equal status for women,in a society still permeated by the values and moralities of Judeo-Christianbeliefs (which have penetrated deeply into even the most secular aspects of

our contemporary civilization) we soon realize that a thorough examinationof this creation legend, alongside its historical origins, provides us withvital information. It allows us to comprehend the role that contemporaryreligions have played in the initial and continual oppression and subjugationof women—and the reasons for this.In prehistoric and early historic periods of human development, religionsexisted in which people revered their supreme creator as female. The GreatGoddess—the Divine Ancestress—had been worshiped from the beginningsof the Neolithic periods of 7000 BC until the closing of the last Goddesstemples, about AD 500. Some authorities would extend Goddess worship asfar into the past as the Upper Paleolithic Age of about 25,000 BC. Yet eventsof the Bible, which we are generally taught to think of as taking place “inthe beginning of time,” actually occurred in historic periods. Abraham, firstprophet of the Hebrew-Christian god Yahweh, more familiarly known asJehovah, is believed by most Bible scholars to have lived no earlier than1800 BC and possibly as late as 1550 BC.Most significant is the realization that for thousands of years bothreligions existed simultaneously—among closely neighboring peoples.Archaeological, mythological and historical evidence all reveal that thefemale religion, far from naturally fading away, was the victim of centuriesof continual persecution and suppression by the advocates of the newerreligions which held male deities as supreme. And from these new religionscame the creation myth of Adam and Eve and the tale of the loss ofParadise.What had life been like for women who lived in a society that venerateda wise and valiant female Creator? Why had the members of the later malereligions fought so aggressively to suppress that earlier worship—even thevery memory of it? What did the legend of Adam and Eve really signify,and when and why was it written? The answers I discovered have formedthe contents of this book. When God Was a Woman, the story of thesuppression of women’s rites, has been written to explain the historicalevents and political attitudes that led to the writing of the Judeo-Christianmyth of the Fall, the loss of Paradise and, most important, why the blamefor that loss was attributed to the woman Eve, and has ever since beenplaced heavily upon all women.

IntroductionThough to many of us today religion appears to be an archaic relic of thepast (especially the writings of the Old Testament, which tell of times manycenturies before the birth of Christ), to many of our parents, grandparents orgreat-grandparents these writings were still regarded as the sacred gospel,the divine word. In turn, their religious beliefs, and subsequent behaviorand social patterns, have left their imprint on us in various ways. Indeed,the ancient past is not so far removed as we might imagine or prefer tobelieve.In fact, if we are ever to fully understand how and why man gained theimage of the one who accomplishes the greatest and most important deedswhile woman was relegated to the role of ever-patient helper, andsubsequently assured that this was the natural state of female-malerelationships, it is to these remote periods of human history that we musttravel. It is the ancient origins of human civilizations and the initialdevelopment of religious patterns we must explore. And this, as you willsee, is no easy task.It is shocking to realize how little has been written about the femaledeities who were worshiped in the most ancient periods of human existenceand exasperating to then confront the fact that even the material there is hasbeen almost totally ignored in popular literature and general education.Most of the information and artifacts concerning the vast female religion,which flourished for thousands of years before the advent of Judaism,Christianity and the Classical Age of Greece, have been dug out of theground only to be reburied in obscure archaeological texts, carefullyshelved away in the exclusively protected stacks of university and museumlibraries. Quite a few of these were accessible only with the proof ofuniversity affiliation or university degree.Many years ago I set out upon a quest. It eventually led me halfwayround the world—from San Francisco to Beirut. I wanted to know moreabout the ancient Goddess religion. Along the way were the libraries,museums, universities and excavation sites of the United States, Europe and

the Near East. Making my way from place to place, I compiled informationfrom a vast variety of sources, patiently gleaning each little phrase, prayeror fragment of a legend from a myriad of diverse information.As I gathered this material about the early female deities, I found thatmany ancient legends had been used as ritual dramas. These were enacted atreligious ceremonies of sacred festivals, coinciding with other ritualactivities. Statues, murals, inscriptions, clay tablets and papyri that recordedevents, legends and prayers revealed the form and attitudes of the religionand the nature of the deity. Comments were often found in the literature ofone country about the religion or divinities of another. Most interesting wasthe realization that the myths of each culture that explained their originswere not always the oldest. Newer versions often superseded and displacedprevious ones, while solemnly declaring that “this is as it was in thebeginning of time.”Professor Edward Chiera of the University of Chicago wrote of theBabylonian myth of the creation of heaven and earth by the god Mardukthat “Marduk, the new god of this rather new city, certainly had no right toappropriate to himself the glory of so great a deed … But in Hammurabi’stime Babylon was the center of the kingdom … Marduk, backed byHammurabi’s armies, could now claim to be the most important god in theland.” Professor Chiera also explained that in Assyria, where the god Ashureventually became the supreme deity, “The Assyrian priests gave the honorto Ashur simply by taking the old Babylonian tablets and recopying them,substituting the name of their own god for that of Marduk. The work wasnot very carefully done, and in some places the name of Marduk still creepsin.”In the difficulties I encountered gathering material, I could not helpthinking of the ancient writing and statuary that must have beenintentionally destroyed. Accounts of the antagonistic attitudes of Judaism,Christianity and Mohammedanism (Islam) toward the sacred artifacts of thereligions that preceded them revealed that this was so, especially in the caseof the Goddess worshiped in Canaan (Palestine). The bloody massacres, thedemolition of statues (i.e., pagan idols) and sanctuaries are recorded in thepages of the Bible following this command by Yahweh: “You mustcompletely destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess haveserved their gods, on high mountains, on hills, under any spreading tree;you must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred

poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods and wipe out their namefrom that place” (Deut. 12:2, 3). There can be little doubt that thecontinuous attacks, as recorded in the Old Testament, destroyed muchprecious and irretrievable information.In later periods Christians were known throughout the world for theirdestruction of sacred icons and literature belonging to the so-called “pagan”or “heathen” religions. Professor George Mylonas wrote that, during thereign of the early Christian Emperor Theodosius, “The Christians,especially in the large cities of Antioch and Alexandria became thepersecutors and the pagans the persecuted; temples and idols weredestroyed by fire and their devotees mistreated.” As the worship of theearlier deities was suppressed and the temples destroyed, closed orconverted into Christian churches, as so often happened, statues and historicrecords were obliterated by the missionary fathers of Christianity as well.Though the destruction was major, it was not total. Fortunately manyobjects had been overlooked, remnants that today tell their own version ofthe nature of those dread “pagan” rituals and beliefs. The enormous numberof Goddess figurines that have been unearthed in excavations of theNeolithic and early historic periods of the Near and Middle East suggestthat it may well have been the evident female attributes of nearly all ofthese statues that irked the advocates of the male deity. Most “pagan idols”had breasts.The writers of the Judeo-Christian Bible, as we know it, seem to havepurposely glossed over the sexual identity of the female deity who was heldsacred by the neighbors of the Hebrews in Canaan, Babylon and Egypt. TheOld Testament does not even have a word for “Goddess.” In the Bible theGoddess is referred to as Elohim, in the masculine gender, to be translatedas god. But the Koran of the Mohammedans was quite clear. In it we read,“Allah will not tolerate idolatry … the pagans pray to females.”Since a great deal of information was gleaned from university andmuseum libraries, another problem I encountered was the sexual andreligious bias of many of the erudite scholars of the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries. Most of the available information in both archaeologyand ancient religious history was compiled and discussed by male authors.The overwhelming prevalence of male scholars, and the fact that nearly allarchaeologists, historians and theologians of both sexes were raised insocieties that embrace the male-oriented religions of Judaism or

Christianity, appeared to influence heavily what was included and expandedupon and what was considered to be minor and hardly worth mentioning.Professor R. K. Harrison wrote of the Goddess religion, “One of its mostprominent features was the lewd, depraved, orgiastic character of its culticprocedures.” Despite the discovery of temples of the Goddess in nearlyevery Neolithic and historic excavation, Werner Keller writes that thefemale deity was worshiped primarily on “hills and knolls,” simply echoingthe words of the Old Testament. Professor W. F. Albright, one of the leadingauthorities on the archaeology of Palestine, wrote of the female religion as“orgiastic nature worship, sensuous nudity and gross mythology.” Hecontinued by saying that “It was replaced by Israel with its pastoralsimplicity and purity of life, its lofty monotheism and its severe code ofethics.” It is difficult to understand how these words can be academicallyjustified after reading of the massacres perpetrated by the Hebrews on theoriginal inhabitants of Canaan as portrayed in the Book of Joshua,especially chapters nine to eleven. Professor S. H. Hooke, in his collectionof essays Myth, Ritual and Kingship, openly admits, “I firmly believe thatGod chose Israel to be the vehicle of revelation.”Albright himself wrote, “It is frequently said that the scientific quality ofPalestinian archaeology has been seriously impaired by the religiouspreconceptions of scholars who have excavated in the Holy Land. It is truethat some archaeologists have been drawn to Palestine by their interest inthe Bible, and that some of them had received their previous training mainlyas biblical scholars.” But he then proceeded to reject this possibility ofimpairment, basing his conclusion primarily upon the fact that the datesassigned to the sites and artifacts of ancient Palestine, by the scholars whotook part in the earlier excavations, were subsequently proven to be toorecent, rather than too old, as might perhaps be expected. The question ofwhether or not the attitudes and beliefs inherent in those suggested“religious preconceptions” had perhaps subtly influenced analysis anddescriptions of the symbolism, rituals and general nature of the ancientreligion was not even raised for discussion.In most archaeological texts the female religion is referred to as a“fertility cult,” perhaps revealing the attitudes toward sexuality held by thevarious contemporary religions that may have influenced the writers. Butarchaeological and mythological evidence of the veneration of the femaledeity as creator and lawmaker of the universe, prophetess, provider of

human destinies, inventor, healer, hunter and valiant leader in battlesuggests that the title “fertility cult” may be a gross oversimplification of acomplex theological structure.Paying closer attention to semantics, subtle linguistic undertones andshades of meaning, I noticed that the word “cult,” which has the implicitconnotations of something less fine or civilized than “religion,” was nearlyalways applied to the worship of the female deities, not by ministers of theChurch but by presumably objective archaeologists and historians. Therituals associated with the Judeo-Christian Yahweh (Jehovah) were alwaysrespectfully described by these same scholars as “religion.” It was uponseeing the words “God,” and even “He,” each time carefully begun withcapital letters, while “queen of heaven,” “goddess” and “she” were mostoften written in lower case, that I decided to try it the other way about,observing how these seemingly minor changes subtly affected the meaningas well as the emotional impact.Within descriptions of long-buried cities and temples, academic authorswrote of the sexually active Goddess as “improper,” “unbearablyaggressive” or “embarrassingly void of morals,” while male deities whoraped or seduced legendary women or nymphs were described as “playful,”even admirably “virile.” The overt sexual nature of the Goddess, juxtaposedto Her sacred divinity, so confused one scholar that he finally settled for theperplexing title, the Virgin-Harlot. The women who followed the ancientsexual customs of the Goddess faith, known in their own language as sacredor holy women, were repeatedly referred to as “ritual prostitutes.” Thischoice of words once again reveals a rather ethnocentric ethic, probablybased on biblical attitudes. Yet, using the term “prostitute” as a translationfor the title of women who were actually known as qadesh, meaning holy,suggests a lack of comprehension of the very theological and socialstructure the writers were attempting to describe and explain.Descriptions of the female deity as creator of the universe, inventor orprovider of culture were often given only a line or two, if mentioned at all;scholars quickly disposed of these aspects of the female deity as hardlyworth discussing. And despite the fact that the title of the Goddess in mosthistorical documents of the Near East was the Queen of Heaven, somewriters were willing to know Her only as the eternal “Earth Mother.”The female divinity, revered as warrior or hunter, courageous soldier oragile markswoman, was sometimes described as possessing the most

“curiously masculine” attributes, the implication being that Her strengthand valor made Her something of a freak or physiological abnormality. J.Maringer, professor of prehistoric archaeology, rejected the idea thatreindeer skulls were the hunting trophies of a Paleolithic tribe. The reason?They were found in the grave of a woman. He writes, “Here the skeletonwas that of a woman, a circumstance that would seem to rule out thepossibility that reindeer skulls and antlers were hunting trophies.” Mightthese authors be judging the inherent physical nature of women by thefragile, willowy ideals of today’s western fashions?Priestesses of the Goddess, who provided the counsel and advice at Hershrines of prophetic wisdom, were described as being fit for this positionsince as women they were more “intuitive” or “emotional,” thus idealmediums for divine revelation. These same writers generally disregardedthe political importance of the advice given or the possibility that thesewomen might in fact have been respected as wise and knowledgeable,capable of holding vital, advisory positions. Strangely enough, emotionalqualities or intuitive powers were never mentioned in connection with themale prophets of Yahweh. Gerhard Von Rad commented, “… it has alwaysbeen the women who have shown an inclination for obscure astrologicalcults.”The word “gods,” in preference to the word “deities,” when both femaleand male deities were being discussed, was most often chosen by thecontemporary scribes of ancient religion. Conflicting translations, evensomething as simple as Driver’s “He did sweep from the fields the womengathering sticks” to Gray’s “To and fro in the fields plied the women cuttingwood” raise questions about the accuracy of the use of certain words chosenas translations. It is true that ancient languages are often quite difficult todecipher and to then translate into contemporary words and terms. In somecases a certain amount of educated guessing takes place, and this istemporarily useful, but it is here that preconceived attitudes may be likely tosurface.Unfortunately, instances of possibly inaccurate translation, biasedcomments, assumptions and speculations innocently blend into explanationsof attitudes and beliefs of ancient times. Male bias, together withpreconceived religious attitudes, which appears in both major and minormatters, raises some very pressing and pertinent questions concerning theobjectivity of the analysis of the archaeological and historical material

available at present. It suggests that long-accepted theories and conclusionsmust be re-examined, re-evaluated and where indicated by the actualevidence, revised.In 1961 a series of mistakes was described by Professor Walter Emery,who took part in the excavations of some of the earliest Egyptian tombs. Hetells us that “The chronological position and status of Meryet-Nit isuncertain, but there is reason to suppose that she might be the successor ofZer and the third sovereign of the First Dynasty.” Writing of the excavationof this tomb by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1900 he says, “At that time it wasbelieved that Meryet-Nit was a king, but later research has shown the nameto be that of a woman and, to judge by the richness of the burial, a queen.”He goes on to say, “In 1896 de Morgan, then Director of the Service ofAntiquities discovered at Nagadeh a gigantic tomb which, from the objectsfound in it, was identified as the burial place of Hor-Aha, first king of theFirst Dynasty. However later research has shown that it is more probablethat it was the sepulchre of Nit-Hotep, Hor-Aha’s mother.” And again hetells us that “On the mace of Narmer a seated figure in a canopiedpalanquin was once thought to be that of a man, but a comparison of similarfigures on a wooden label from Sakkara shows that this is improbable andthat it almost certainly represents a woman.” Yet, despite his own accountsof this series of assumptions that the richest burials and royal palanquins ofthe past were for men, rather than women, in describing the tomb of KingNarmer he then states, “This monument is almost insignificant incomparison with the tomb of Nit-Hotep at Nagadeh and we can onlyconclude that this was only the king’s southern tomb and that his real burialplace still awaits discovery …” (my italics). Though some pharaohs didbuild two tombs, one might expect a “possibly” or “probably” rather thansuch an absolute conclusion and the implied dismissal of the possibilitythat, in that period of earliest dynastic Egypt, a queen’s tomb just mighthave been larger and more richly decorated than a king’s.In Palestine Before the Hebrews, E. Anati described a group of Asiaticsarriving in Egypt. In this description he explains that it is the men who havearrived and with them they bring their goods and their donkeys, their wivesand children, tools, weapons and musical instruments, in that order. Anati’sdescription of the earliest appearance of the Goddess is no less male-oriented. He writes, “These Upper Paleolithic men also created a femininefigure apparently representing a goddess or being of fertility … the

psychological implications of the mother goddess are therefore oftremendous importance … Here undeniably is the picture of a thinkingman, of a man with intellectual as well as material achievements” (myitalics). Could it possibly have been the female ancestors of those womenwho are listed along with the donkeys and other goods who were thinkingwomen, women with intellectual as well as material achievements?Dr. Margaret Murray of the University of London, writing on ancientEgypt in 1949, suggested that the whole series of events surrounding the“romantic” relationships of Cleopatra, who actually held the legitimate rightto the Egyptian throne, was misunderstood as the result of male bias. Shepoints out that, “The classical historians, imbued as they were with thecustoms of patrilineal descent and monogamy, besides looking on womenas the chattels of their menfolk, completely misunderstood the situation andhave misinterpreted it to the world.”These are just a few examples of the sexual and religious biases that Iencountered. As Cyrus Gordon, Professor of Near Eastern Studies andformerly Chairman of the Department at Brandeis University inMassachusetts, writes, “We absorb attitudes as well as subject matter in thelearning process. Moreover, the attitudes tend to determine what we see,and what we fail to see, in the subject matter. This is why attitude is just asimportant as subject matter in the educational process.” Many questionscome to mind. How influenced by contemporary religions were many of thescholars who wrote the texts available today? How many scholars havesimply assumed that males have always played the dominant role inleadership and creative invention and projected this assumption into theiranalysis of ancient cultures? Why do so many people educated in thiscentury think of classical Greece as the first major culture when writtenlanguage was in use and great cities built at least twenty-five centuriesbefore that time? And perhaps most important, why is it continuallyinferred that the age of the “pagan” religions, the time of the worship offemale deities (if mentioned at all), was dark and chaotic, mysterious andevil, without the light of order and reason that supposedly accompanied thelater male religions, when it has been archaeologically confirmed that theearliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy,wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language were initiallydeveloped in societies that worshiped the Goddess? We may find ourselveswondering about the reasons for the lack of easily available information on

societies who, for thousands of years, worshiped the ancient Creatress ofthe Universe.Despite the many obstacles, I sought out and gathered the existinginformation and began to collate and correlate what I had collected. As Iundertook this process, the importance, the longevity and the complexity ofthis past religion began to take form before me. So often there was just themention of the Goddess, a part of a legend, an obscure reference, tuckedaway in some four or five hundred pages of scholarly erudition. A desertedtemple site on Crete or a statue in the museum at Istanbul, with little or noaccompanying information, began to find its place in the overall picture.Painstakingly bringing these together, I finally began to comprehend thetotal reality. It was more than an inscription of an ancient prayer, more thanan art relic sitting on a museum shelf behind glass, more than a grassy fieldstrewn with parts of broken columns or the foundation stones which hadonce supported an ancient temple. Placed side by side, the pieces of thisjigsaw puzzle revealed the overall structure of a geographically vast andmajor religion, one that had affected the lives of multitudes of people overthousands of years. Just like the religions of today, it was totally integratedinto the patterns and laws of society, the morals and attitudes associatedwith those theological beliefs probably reaching deep into even the mostagnostic or atheistic of minds.I am not suggesting a return or revival of the ancient female religion. AsSheila Collins writes, “As women our hope for fulfilment lies in the presentand future and not in some mythical golden past …” I do hold the hope,however, that a contemporary consciousness of the once-widespreadveneration of the female deity as the wise Creatress of the Universe and alllife and civilization may be used to cut through the many oppressive andfalsely founded patriarchal images, stereotypes, customs and laws that weredeveloped as direct reactions to Goddess worship by the leaders of the latermale-worshiping religions. For, as I shall explain, it was the ideologicalinventions of the advocates of the later male deities, imposed upon thatancient worship with the intention of destroying it and its customs, that arestill, through their subsequent absorption into education, law, literature,economics, philosophy, psychology, media and general social attitudes,imposed upon even the most non-religious people of today.This is not intended as an archaeological or historical text. It is rather aninvitation to all women to join in the search to find out who we really are,

by beginning to know our own past heritage as more than a broken andburied fragment of a male culture. We must begin to remove the exclusivemystique from the study of archaeology and ancient religion, to explore thepast for ourselves rather than remaining dependent upon the interests,interpretations, translations, opinions and pronouncements that have so farbeen produced. As we compile the information, we shall be better able tounderstand and explain the erroneous assumptions in the stereotypes thatwere initially created for women to accept and follow by the proclamationsin the male-oriented religions that, according to the divine word, aparticular trait was normal or natural and any deviation improper,unfeminine or even sinful. It is only as many of the tenets of the Judeo-Christian theologies are seen in the light of their political origins, and thesubsequent absorption of those tenets into secular life understood, that aswomen we will be able to view ourselves as mature, self-determininghuman beings. With this understanding we may be able to regard ourselvesnot as permanent helpers but as doers, not as decorative and convenientassistants to men but as responsible and competent individuals in our ownright. The image of Eve is not our image of woman.It is also an invitation to all men—those who have previously questionedthe reasons for the roles and images of females and males in contemporarysociety and those who had never considered the subject before. It is aninvitation extended in the hope that becoming aware of the historical andpolitical origins of the Bible, and the role played over the centuries by theJudeo-Christian theologies in formulating the attitudes toward women andmen today, may lead to a greater understanding, cooperation and mutualrespect between women and men than has heretofore been possible. Formen interested in achieving this goal, exploring the past offers a deeper andmore realistic understanding of today’s sexual stereotypes by placing themin the perspective of their historical evolution.As with every extensive work or study there are many people who havegraciously helped along the way, people to whom I owe much appreciation.First of all I want to thank my mother, my sister and my two daughters forthe emotional courage they have given me all through the years of research.I would also like to express my appreciation to Carmen Callil and UrsulaOwen of Virago Limited, the feminist division of Quartet Books Limited inLondon, who both put so much time, effort and personal concern into theoriginal editing and publication of the book in England; and to Joyce

Engelson, Debra Manette, Donna Schrader, Anne Knauerhase and all theothers at The Dial Press who have, in turn, each graciously contributed somuch to this edition. Next there are the museum directors, museum staff,museum and university librarians, archaeologists and workers at excavationsites, so many that I hesitate to mention their names for fear of leavingsomeone out, but nearly all extremely helpful. Then there are thearchaeologists and historians whose books I have used. (There were manywho included the most cursory fragments and even those who somehowmanaged to ignore the existence of the female deity altogether.) Thoughsome of the comments and conclusions caused me to flinch in astonisheddismay at their unquestioned and internalized belief in a natural maledominance, their work in unearthing and deciphering the artifacts of thepast has made this book possible. In fact, I cannot help but hope that what Ihave said, and will say throughout the rest of the book, may have someeffect upon their future perception of the Goddess-worshiping people.The works of the late Stephen Langdon, S. G. F. Brandon, EdwardChiera, Cyrus Gordon, Walther Hinz, E. O. James, James Mellaart, H. W. F.Saggs, J. B. Pritchard and R. E. Witt proved especially useful. But it isprimarily to the women scholars, such as the late Margaret Murray, the lateJane Harrison, E. Douglas Van Buren, Sybelle von Cles-Reden, FlorenceBennett, Rivkah Harris and Jacquetta Hawkes, to whom I am most indebtedfor having presented vital information with a unique perception, in turnproviding me with the courage to question the objectivity of so much elsethat had been written, to learn to carefully sift through material to separateopinion from fact and—perhaps most important—to begin to notice whathad been left out.Though archaeology and ancient religion may seem very isolated oresoteric fields, I hope that this book will encourage more people to explorethese subjects for themselves, so that some day we may better understandthe events of the past, bring what has been carelessly or intentionally hiddenout into the open and challenge the many unfounded assumptions that havetoo long passed for fact.

1 Tales with a Point of ViewThough we live amid high-rise steel buildings, formica countertops andelectronic television screens, there is something in all of us, women andmen alike, that makes us feel deeply connected with the past. Perhaps thesudden dampness of a beach cave or the lines of sunlight piercing throughthe intricate lace patterns of the leaves in a darkened grove of tall trees willawaken from the hidden recesses of our minds the distant echoes of aremote and ancient time, taking us back to the early stirrings of human lifeon the planet. For people raised and programmed on the patriarchalreligions of today, religions that affect us in even the most secular aspects ofour society, perhaps there remains a lingering, almost innate memory ofsacred shrines and temples tended by priestesses who served in the religionof the original supreme deity. In the beginning, people prayed to theCreatress of Life, the Mistress of Heaven. At the very dawn of religion,God was a woman. Do you remember?For years something has magnetically lured me into exploring thelegends, the temple sites, the statues and the ancient rituals of the femaledeities, drawing me back in time to an age when the Goddess wasomnipotent, and women acted as Her clergy, controlling the form and ritesof religion.Perhaps it was my training and work as a sculptor that first exposed meto the sculptures of the Goddess found in the ruins of prehistoric sanctuariesand the earliest dwellings of human beings. Perhaps it was a certainromantic mysticism, which once embarrassed me, but to which I nowhappily confess, that led me over the years into the habit of collectinginformation about the early female religions and the veneration of femaledeities. Occasionally I tried to dismiss my fascination with this subject asoverly fanciful and certainly disconnected from my work (I was buildingelectronic sculptural environments at the time). Nevertheless, I would find

myself continually perusing archaeology journals and poring over texts inmuseum or university library stacks.As I read, I recalled that somewhere along the pathway of my life I hadbeen told—and accepted the idea—that the sun, great and powerful, wasnaturally worshiped as male, while the moon, hazy, delicate symbol ofsentiment and love, had always been revered as female. Much to mysurprise I discovered accounts of Sun Goddesses in the lands of Canaan,Anatolia, Arabia and Australia, while Sun Goddesses among the Eskimos,the Japanese and the Khasis of India were accompanied by subordinatebrothers who were symbolized as the moon.I had somewhere assimilated the idea that the earth was invariablyidentified as female, Mother Earth, the one who passively accepts the seed,while heaven was naturally and inherently male, its intangibility symbolicof the supposedly exclusive male ability to think in abstract concepts. Thistoo I had accepted without question—until I learned that nearly all thefemale deities of the Near and Middle East were titled Queen of Heaven,and in Egypt not only was the ancient Goddess Nut known as the heavens,but her brother-husband Geb was symbolized as the earth.Most astonishing of all was the discovery of numerous accounts of thefemale Creators of all existence, divinities who were credited with bringingforth not only the first people but the entire earth and the heavens above.There were records of such Goddesses in Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Africa,Australia and China.In India the Goddess Sarasvati was honored as the inventor of theoriginal alphabet, while in Celtic Ireland the Goddess Brigit was esteemedas the patron deity of language. Texts revealed that it was the GoddessNidaba in Sumer who was paid honor as the one who initially invented claytablets and the art of writing. She appeared in that position earlier than anyof the male deities who later replaced Her. The official scribe of theSumerian heaven was a woman. But most significant was thearchaeological evidence of the earliest examples of written language so fardiscovered; these were also located in Sumer, at the temple of the Queen ofHeaven in Erech, written there over five thousand years ago. Thoughwriting is most often said to have been invented by man, however that maybe defined, the combination of the above factors presents a most convincingargument that it may have actually been woman who pressed those firstmeaningful marks into wet clay.

In agreement with the generally accepted theory that women wereresponsible for the development of agriculture, as an extension of theirfood-gathering activities, there were female deities everywhere who werecredited with this gift to civilization. In Mesopotamia, where some of theearliest evidences of agricultural development have been found, theGoddess Ninlil was revered for having provided Her people with anunderstanding of planting and harvesting methods. In nearly all areas of theworld, female deities were extolled as healers, dispensers of curative herbs,roots, plants and other medical aids, casting the priestesses who attendedthe shrines into the role of physicians of those who worshiped there.Some legends described the Goddess as a powerful, courageous warrior,a leader in battle. The worship of the Goddess as valiant warrior seems tohave been responsible for the numerous reports of female soldiers, laterreferred to by the classical Greeks as the Amazons. More thoroughlyexamining the accounts of the esteem the Amazons paid to the female deity,it became evident that women who worshiped a warrior Goddess huntedand fought in the lands of Libya, Anatolia, Bulgaria, Greece, Armenia andRussia and were far from the mythical fantasy so many writers of todaywould have us believe.I could not help noticing how far removed from contemporary imageswere the prehistoric and most ancient historic attitudes toward the thinkingcapacities and intellect of woman, for nearly everywhere the Goddess wasrevered as wise counselor and prophetess. The Celtic Cerridwen was theGoddess of Intelligence and Knowledge in the pre-Christian legends ofIreland, the priestesses of the Goddess Gaia provided the wisdom of divinerevelation at pre-Greek sanctuaries, while the Greek Demeter and theEgyptian Isis were both invoked as law-givers and sage dispensers ofrighteous wisdom, counsel and justice. The Egyptian Goddess Maatrepresented the very order, rhythm and truth of the Universe. Ishtar ofMesopotamia was referred to as the Directress of People, the Prophetess,the Lady of Vision, while the archaeological records of the city of Nimrud,where Ishtar was worshiped, revealed that women served as judges andmagistrates in the courts of law.The more I read, the more I discovered. The worship of female deitiesappeared in every area of the world, presenting an image of woman that Ihad never before encountered. As a result, I began to ponder upon thepower of myth and eventually to perceive these legends as more than the

innocent childlike fables they first appeared to be. They were tales with amost specific point of view.Myths present ideas that guide perception, conditioning us to think andeven perceive in a particular way, especially when we are young andimpressionable. Often they portray the actions of people who are rewardedor punished for their behavior, and we are encouraged to view these asexamples to emulate or avoid. So many of the stories told to us from thetime we are just old enough to understand deeply affect our attitudes andcomprehension of the world about us and ourselves. Our ethics, morals,conduct, values, sense of duty and even sense of humor are often developedfrom simple childhood parables and fables. From them we learn what issocially acceptable in the society from which they come. They define goodand bad, right and wrong, what is natural and what is unnatural among thepeople who hold the myths as meaningful. It was quite apparent that themyths and legends that grew from, and were propagated by, a religion inwhich the deity was female, and revered as wise, valiant, powerful and just,provided very different images of womanhood from those which we areoffered by the male-oriented religions of today.

“A FORTNIGHT AFTER THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE”As I considered the power of myth, it became increasingly difficult to avoidquestioning the influential effects that the myths accompanying thereligions that worship male deities had upon my own image of what itmeant to be born a female, another Eve, progenitress of my childhood faith.As a child, I was told that Eve had been made from Adam’s rib, broughtinto being to be his companion and helpmate, to keep him from beinglonely. As if this assignment of permanent second mate, never to be captain,was not oppressive enough to my future plans as a developing member ofsociety, I next learned that Eve was considered to be foolishly gullible. Myelders explained that she had been easily tricked by the promises of theperfidious serpent. She defied God and provoked Adam to do the same,thus ruining a good thing—the previously blissful life in the Garden ofEden. Why Adam himself was never thought to be equally as foolish wasapparently never worth discussing. But identifying with Eve, who waspresented as the symbol of all women, the blame was in some mysteriousway mine—and God, viewing the whole affair as my fault, chose to punishme by decreeing: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in painyou shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband andhe shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16).So even as a young girl I was taught that, because of Eve, when I grewup I was to bear my children in pain and suffering. As if this was not asufficient penalty, instead of receiving compassion, sympathy or admiringrespect for my courage, I was to experience this pain with guilt, the sin ofmy wrongdoing laid heavily upon me as punishment for simply being awoman, a daughter of Eve. To make matters worse, I was also supposed toaccept the idea that men, as symbolized by Adam, in order to prevent anyfurther foolishness on my part, were presented with the right to control me—to rule over me. According to the omnipotent male deity, whoserighteousness and wisdom I was expected to admire and respect with areverent awe, men were far wiser than women. Thus my penitent,submissive position as a female was firmly established by page three of thenearly one thousand pages of the Judeo-Christian Bible.But this original decree of male supremacy was only the beginning. Themyth describing Eve’s folly was not to be forgotten or ignored. We then

studied the words of the prophets of the New Testament, who repeatedlyutilized the legend of the loss of Paradise to explain and even prove thenatural inferiority of women. The lessons learned in the Garden of Edenwere impressed upon us over and over again. Man was created first. Womanwas made for man. Only man was made in God’s image. According to theBible, and those who accepted it as the divine word, the male god favoredmen and had indeed designed them as naturally superior. Even now I cannothelp wondering how many times those passages from the New Testamentwere read from the authoritative position of a Sunday pulpit or from thefamily Bible that had been pulled down from the shelf by father or husband—and a pious woman listened to:Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not awoman to teach or to usurp authority over the man, but to be insilence. For Adam was first formed and then Eve, and Adam was notdeceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.… (ITimothy 2:11–14)For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Let thewomen keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto themto speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, so saith thelaw. And if they learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home;for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. (I Corinthians 11:3,7, 9)Strangely enough, I never did become very religious, despite thecontinual efforts of Sunday School teachers. In fact, by the time I reachedadolescence I had rejected most of what the organized religions had to offer.But there was still something about the myth of Adam and Eve thatlingered, seeming to pervade the culture at some deeper level. It appearedand reappeared as the symbolic foundation of poems and novels. It wasvisually interpreted in oils by the great masters whose paintings glowedfrom the slide projectors in my art history courses. Products were advertisedin high fashion magazines suggesting that, if a woman wore the rightperfume, she might be able to pull the whole disaster off all over again. Itwas even the basis of dull jokes in the Sunday comics. It seemed thateverywhere woman was tempting man to do wrong. Our entire societyagreed; Adam and Eve defined the images of men and women. Women

were inherently conniving, contriving and dangerously sexy, while gullibleand somewhat simple-minded at the same time. They were in obvious needof a foreman to keep them in line—and thus divinely appointed, many menseemed quite willing.As I began to read other myths that explained the creation of life, storiesthat attributed the event to Nut or Hathor in Egypt, Nammu or Ninhursag inSumer, Mami, Tiamat or Aruru in other parts of Mesopotamia and Mawu inAfrica, I began to view the legend of Adam and Eve as just another fable,an innocent attempt to explain what happened at the very beginning ofexistence. But it was not long afterward that I began to understand howspecifically contrived the details of this particular myth were.In 1960, mythologist Joseph Campbell commented on the Adam and Evemyth, writing:This curious mythological idea, and the still more curious fact that fortwo thousand years it was accepted throughout the Western World asthe absolutely dependable account of an event that was supposed tohave taken place about a fortnight after the creation of the universe,poses forcefully the highly interesting question of the influence ofconspicuously contrived, counterfeit mythologies and the inflections ofmythology upon the structure of human belief and the consequentcourse of civilization.Professor Chiera points out that “The Bible does not give us one creationstory but several of them; the one which happens to be featured in chapterone of Genesis appears to be the one which had the least vogue among thecommon people … It was evidently produced in scholarly circles.” He thendiscusses the differences between the religions of today and the ancientworship, saying:Just a few years ago we succeeded in piecing together from a largenumber of tablets the complete story of an ancient Sumerian myth. Iused to call it the Darwinian theory of the Sumerians. The myth musthave been widely circulated for many copies of it have already cometo light. In common with the biblical story, a woman plays thedominant role, just as Eve did. But the resemblance ends there. PoorEve has been damned by all subsequent generations for her deed,

while the Babylonians thought so much of their woman ancestress thatthey deified her.Now as I read these other myths, it was apparent that the archetypalwoman in ancient religions, as represented by the Goddess, was quitedifferent, in many respects, from the woman Eve. I then observed that manyof these origin and creation legends came from the lands of Canaan, Egyptand Babylon, the very same lands in which the Adam and Eve myth hadbeen developed. The other legends of creation were from the mythicalreligious literature of the people who did not worship the Hebrew Yahweh(Jehovah), but were in fact the closest neighbors of those early Hebrews.

2 Who Was She?It was not long before the various pieces of evidence fell into place and theconnections began to take form. And then I understood. Ashtoreth, thedespised “pagan” deity of the Old Testament was (despite the efforts ofbiblical scribes to disguise her identity by repeatedly using the masculinegender) actually Astarte—the Great Goddess, as She was known in Canaan,the Near Eastern Queen of Heaven. Those heathen idol worshipers of theBible had been praying to a woman god—elsewhere known as Innin,Inanna, Nana, Nut, Anat, Anahita, Istar, Isis, Au Set, Ishara, Asherah,Ashtart, Attoret, Attar and Hathor—the many-named Divine Ancestress.Yet each name denoted, in the various languages and dialects of those whorevered Her, The Great Goddess. Was it merely coincidence that during allthose years of Sunday School I never learned that Ashtoreth was female?Even more astonishing was the archaeological evidence which provedthat Her religion had existed and flourished in the Near and Middle East forthousands of years before the arrival of the patriarchal Abraham, firstprophet of the male deity Yahweh. Archaeologists had traced the worship ofthe Goddess back to the Neolithic communities of about 7000 BC, some tothe Upper Paleolithic cultures of about 25,000 BC. From the time of itsNeolithic origins, its existence was repeatedly attested to until well intoRoman times. Yet Bible scholars agreed that it was as late as somewherebetween 1800 and 1550 BC that Abraham had lived in Canaan (Palestine).Who was this Goddess? Why had a female, rather than a male, beendesignated as the supreme deity? How influential and significant was Herworship, and when had it actually begun? As I asked myself thesequestions, I began to probe even deeper into Neolithic and Paleolithic times.Though goddesses have been worshiped in all areas of the world, I focusedon the religion as it evolved in the Near and Middle East, since these werethe lands where both Judaism, Christianity and Islam were born. I foundthat the development of the religion of the female deity in this area was

intertwined with the earliest beginnings of religion so far discoveredanywhere on earth.

DAWN IN THE GRAVETTIAN GARDEN OF EDENThe Upper Paleolithic period, though most of its sites have been found inEurope, is the conjectural foundation of the religion of the Goddess as itemerged in the later Neolithic Age of the Near East. Since it precedes thetime of written records and does not directly lead into an historical periodthat might have helped to explain it, the information on the Paleolithicexistence of Goddess worship must at this time remain speculative.Theories on the origins of the Goddess in this period are founded on thejuxtaposition of mother-kinship customs to ancestor worship. They arebased upon three separate lines of evidence.The first relies on anthropological analogy to explain the initialdevelopment of matrilineal (mother-kinship) societies. Studies of“primitive” tribes over the last few centuries have led to the realization thatsome isolated “primitive” peoples, even in our own century, did not yetpossess the conscious understanding of the relationship of sex toconception. The analogy is then drawn that Paleolithic people may havebeen at a similar level of biological awareness.Jacquetta Hawkes wrote in 1963 that “… Australian and a few otherprimitive peoples did not understand biological paternity or accept anecessary connection between sexual intercourse and conception.” In thatsame year, S. G. F. Brandon, Professor of Comparative Religion at theUniversity of Manchester in England, observed, “How the infant came to bein the womb was undoubtedly a mystery to primitive man … in view of theperiod that separates impregnation from birth, it seems probable that thesignificance of gestation and birth was appreciated long before it wasrealized that these phenomena were the result of conception followingcoition.”“James Frazer, Margaret Mead and other anthropologists,” writesLeonard Cottrell, “have established that in the very early stages of man’sdevelopment, before the secret of human fecundity was understood, beforecoitus was associated with childbirth, the female was revered as the giver oflife. Only women could produce their own kind, and man’s part in thisprocess was not as yet recognized.”According to these authors, as well as many authorities who have writtenon this subject, in the most ancient human societies people probably did not

yet possess the conscious understanding of the relationship of sex toreproduction. Thus the concepts of paternity and fatherhood would not yethave been understood. Though probably accompanied by various mythicalexplanations, babies were simply born from women.If this was the case, then the mother would have been seen as the singularparent of her family, the lone producer of the next generation. For thisreason it would be natural for children to take the name of their mother’stribe or clan. Accounts of descent in the family would be kept through thefemale line, going from mother to daughter, rather than from father to son,as is the custom practiced in western societies today. Such a social structureis generally referred to as matrilineal, that is, based upon mother-kinship. Insuch cultures (known among many “primitive” peoples even today, as wellas in historically attested societies at the time of classical Greece) not onlythe names, but titles, possessions and territorial rights are passed alongthrough the female line, so that they may be retained within the family clan.Hawkes points out that in Australia, in areas where the concept ofpaternity had not yet been understood, “… there is much to show thatmatrilineal descent and matrilocal marriage [the husband moving to thewife’s family home or village] were general and the status of women muchhigher.” She writes that these customs still prevail in parts of Africa andamong the Dravidians of India, and relics of them in Melanesia, Micronesiaand Indonesia.The second line of evidence concerns the beginnings of religious beliefsand rituals and their connection with matrilineal descent. There have beennumerous studies of Paleolithic cultures, explorations of sites occupied bythese people and the apparent rites connected with the disposal of theirdead. These suggest that, as the earliest concepts of religion developed, theyprobably took the form of ancestor worship. Again an analogy is drawnbetween the Paleolithic people and the religious concepts and ritualsobserved among many of the “primitive” tribes studied by anthropologistsover the last two centuries. Ancestor worship occurs among tribal peoplethe world over. Maringer states that even at the time of his writing, 1956,certain tribes in Asia were still making small statues known as dzuli.Explaining these he says, “The idols are female and represent the humanorigins of the whole tribe.”Thus as the religious concepts of the earliest homo sapiens* weredeveloping, the quest for the ultimate source of life (perhaps the core of all

theological thought) may have begun. In these Upper Paleolithic societies—in which the mother may have been regarded as the sole parent of thefamily, ancestor worship was apparently the basis of sacred ritual, andaccounts of ancestry were probably reckoned only through the matriline—the concept of the creator of all human life may have been formulated bythe clan’s image of the woman who had been their most ancient, theirprimal ancestor and that image thereby deified and revered as DivineAncestress.The third line of evidence, and the most tangible, derives from thenumerous sculptures of women found in the Gravettian-Aurignaciancultures of the Upper Paleolithic Age. Some of these date back as far as25,000 BC. These small female figurines, made of stone and bone and clayand often referred to as Venus figures, have been found in areas where smallsettled communities once lived. They were often discovered lying close tothe remains of the sunken walls of what were probably the earliest human-made dwellings on earth. Maringer claims that niches or depressions hadbeen made in the walls to hold the figures. These statues of women, someseemingly pregnant, have been found throughout the widespreadGravettian-Aurignacian sites in areas as far apart as Spain, France,Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Russia. These sites and figuresappear to span a period of at least ten thousand years.“It appears highly probable then,” says Maringer, “that the femalefigurines were idols of a ‘great mother’ cult, practised by the non-nomadicAurignacian mammoth hunters who inhabited the immense Eurasianterritories that extended from Southern France to Lake Baikal in Siberia.”(Incidentally, it is from this Lake Baikal area in Siberia that the tribes whichmigrated to North America, supposedly about this same period [theredeveloping into the American Indians], are believed to have originated.)Russian paleontologist Z. A. Abramova, quoted in Alexander Marshak’srecent book Roots of Civilization, offers a slightly different interpretation,writing that in the Paleolithic religion, “The image of the Woman-Mother … was a complex one, and it included diverse ideas related to thespecial significance of the women in early clan society. She was neither agod, an idol, nor the mother of a god; she was the Clan Mother … Theideology of the hunting tribes in this period of the matriarchal clan wasreflected in the female figurines.”

THE NEOLITHIC MORNINGThe connections between the Paleolithic female figurines and the lateremergence of the Goddess-worshiping societies in the Neolithic periods ofthe Near and Middle East are not definitive, but are suggested by manyauthorities. At the Gravettian site of Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, whereVenus figures were not only formed but hardened in an oven, the carefullyarranged grave of a woman was found. She was about forty years old. Shehad been supplied with tools, covered with mammoth shoulder blade bonesand strewn with red ochre. In a proto-Neolithic site at Shanidar, on thenorthern stretches of the Tigris River, another grave was found, this onedating from about 9000 BC. It was the burial of a slightly younger woman,once again strewn with red ochre.One of the most significant links between the two periods are the femalefigurines, understood in Neolithic societies, through their emergence intothe historic period of written records, to represent the Goddess. Thesculptures of the Paleolithic cultures and those of the Neolithic periods areremarkably similar in materials, size and, most astonishing, in style.Hawkes commented on the relationship between the two periods, notingthat the Paleolithic female figures “… are extraordinarily like the Mother orEarth Goddesses of the agricultural peoples of Eurasia in the Neolithic Ageand must be directly ancestral to them.” E. O. James also remarks on thesimilarity, saying of the Neolithic statues, “Many of them are quite clearlyallied to the Gravettian-Paleolithic prototypes.” But perhaps mostsignificant is the fact that Aurignacian sites have now been discovered nearAntalya, about sixty miles from the Neolithic Goddess-worshipingcommunity of Hacilar in Anatolia (Turkey), and at Musa Dag in northernSyria (once a part of Canaan).James Mellaart, formerly the assistant director of the British Institute ofArchaeology at Ankara, now teaching at the Institute of Archaeology inLondon, describes the proto-Neolithic cultures of the Near East, datingthem at about 9000 to 7000 BC. He writes that during that time, “Art makesits appearance in the form of animal carvings and statuettes of the supremedeity, the Mother Goddess.”These Neolithic communities emerge with the earliest evidences ofagricultural development (which is what defines them as Neolithic). They

appear in areas later known as Canaan (Palestine [Israel], Lebanon andSyria); in Anatolia (Turkey); and along the northern reaches of the Tigrisand Euphrates rivers (Iraq and Syria). It may be significant that all thesecultures possessed obsidian, which was probably acquired from the closestsite of availability—Anatolia. One of these sites, near Lake Van, would bedirectly on the route from the Russian steppes into the Near East.At the site that is now known as Jericho (in Canaan), by 7000 BC peoplewere living in plastered brick houses, some with clay ovens with chimneysand even sockets for doorposts. Rectangular plaster shrines had alreadyappeared. Sybelle von Cles-Reden writes of Jericho, “Various finds point toan active religious life. Female clay figures with their hands raised to theirbreast resemble idols of the mother goddess which were later so widelydisseminated in the Near East.” Mellaart too writes of Jericho: “Theycarefully made small clay figures of the mother-goddess type.”Another Neolithic community was centered in Jarmo in northern Iraqfrom about 6800 BC. H. W. F. Saggs, Professor of Semitic Languages, tellsus that in Jarmo, “There were figurines in clay of animals as well as of amother goddess: the mother goddess represented by such figurines seems tohave been the central figure in Neolithic religion.”Hacilar, some sixty miles from the Aurignacian site of Antalya, wasinhabited at about 6000 BC. Here, too, figures of the Goddess have beenfound. And at the excavations at Catal Hüyük, close to the Cilician plains ofAnatolia, near present day Konya, Mellaart discovered no less than fortyshrines, dating from 6500 BC onward. The culture of Catal Hüyük existedfor nearly one thousand years. Mellaart reveals, “The statues allow us torecognize the main deities worshiped by Neolithic people at Catal Hüyük.The principal deity was a goddess, who is shown in her three aspects, as ayoung woman, a mother giving birth or as an old woman.” Mellaartsuggests that there may have been a majority of women at Catal Hüyük, asevidenced by the number of female burials. At Catal Hüyük too red ochrewas strewn on the bodies; nearly all of the red ochre burials were ofwomen. He also suggests that the religion was primarily associated with therole of women in the initial development of agriculture, and adds, “It seemsextremely likely that the cult of the goddess was administered mainly bywomen …”

Map 1 Some Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements 7000–4000 BCBy about 5500 BC houses had been built with groups of rooms around acentral courtyard, a style used by many architects even today. These werefound in sites along the northern reaches of the Tigris River, in communitiesthat represent what is known as the Hassuna period. There, as in otherNeolithic communities, archaeologists found agricultural tools such as thehoe and sickle, storage jars for corn and clay ovens. And once again,Professor Saggs reports, “The religious ideas of the Hassuna period arereflected in clay figurines of the mother goddess.”

One of the most sophisticated prehistoric cultures of the ancient Near andMiddle East was situated along the banks of the northern Tigris andwestward as far as the Habur River. It is known as the Halaf culture andappeared in various places by 5000 BC. At these Halaf sites, small townswith cobbled streets have been discovered. Metal was in use, which wouldplace the Halaf cultures into a period labeled by archaeologists asChalcolithic.Saggs writes that, judging from a picture on a ceramic vase, “It isprobably from the Halaf period that the invention of wheeled vehiclesdate.” Goddess figurines have been found at all Halaf sites, but at theHalafian town of Arpachiyah these figures were associated with serpents,double axes and doves, all symbols connected with Goddess worship as itwas known in historical periods. Along with the intricately designedpolychromed ceramic ware, at Arpachiyah buildings known as tholoiappeared. These were circular shaped rooms up to thirty-three feet indiameter with well-engineered vaulted ceilings. The round structures wereconnected to long rectangular corridors up to sixty-three feet in length.Since it was close to these tholoi that most of the Goddess figurines werediscovered, it is likely that they were used as shrines.By 4000 BC Goddess figures appeared at Ur and Uruk, both situated onthe southern end of the Euphrates River, not far from the Persian Gulf. Atabout this same period the Neolithic Badarian and Amratian cultures ofEgypt first appeared. It is at these sites that agriculture first emerged inEgypt. And once again in these Neolithic communities of Egypt, Goddessfigurines were discovered.From this point on, with the invention of writing, history emerged in bothSumer (southern Iraq) and Egypt—about 3000 BC. In every area of the Nearand Middle East the Goddess was known in historic times. Though manycenturies of transformation had undoubtedly changed the religion in variousways, the worship of the female deity survived into the classical periods ofGreece and Rome. It was not totally suppressed until the time of theChristian emperors of Rome and Byzantium, who closed down the lastGoddess temples in about 500 AD.

GODDESS—AS PEOPLE TODAY THINK OF GODThe archaeological artifacts suggest that in all the Neolithic and earlyChalcolithic societies the Divine Ancestress, generally referred to by mostwriters as the Mother Goddess, was revered as the supreme deity. Now Sheprovided not only human life but a controllable food supply as well. C.Dawson, writing in 1928, surmised that “The earliest agriculture must havegrown up around the shrines of the Mother Goddess, which thus becamesocial and economic centres, as well as holy places and were the germs offuture cities.”W. Schmidt, quoted by Joseph Campbell in Primitive Mythology, says ofthese early cultures, “Here it was the women who showed themselvessupreme; they were not only the bearers of children but also the chiefproducers of food. By realizing that it was possible to cultivate, as well asto gather, they had made the earth valuable and they became, consequently,its possessors. Thus they won both economic and social power andprestige.” Hawkes in 1963 added that “There is every reason to suppose thatunder the conditions of the primary Neolithic way of life mother-right andthe clan system were still dominant, and the land would generally havedescended through the female line.”Though at first the Goddess appears to have reigned alone, at some yetunknown point in time She acquired a son or brother (depending upon thegeographic location), who was also Her lover and consort. He is knownthrough the symbolism of the earliest historic periods and is generallyassumed to have been a part of the female religion in much earlier times.Professor E. O. James writes, “Whether or not this reflects a primevalsystem of matriarchal social organization, as is by no means improbable,the fact remains that the Goddess at first had precedence over the Young-god with whom she was associated as her son or husband or lover.”It was this youth who was symbolized by the male role in the sacredannual sexual union with the Goddess. (This ritual is known from historictimes but is generally believed to have been known in the Neolithic periodof the religion.) Known in various languages as Damuzi, Tammuz, Attis,Adonis, Osiris or Baal, this consort died in his youth, causing an annualperiod of grief and lamentation among those who paid homage to theGoddess. The symbolism and rituals connected with him will be more fully

explained in the chapter on the male consort, but wherever this dying youngconsort appears as the male deity, we may recognize the presence of thereligion of the Goddess, the legends and lamentation rituals of which areextraordinarily similar in so many cultures. This relationship of the Goddessto Her son, or in certain places to a handsome youth who symbolized theson, was known in Egypt by 3000 BC; it occurred in the earliest literature ofSumer, emerged in later Babylon, Anatolia and Canaan, survived in theclassical Greek legend of Aphrodite and Adonis and was even known inpre-Christian Rome as the rituals of Cybele and Attis, possibly thereinfluencing the symbolism and rituals of early Christianity. It is one of themajor aspects of the religion which bridges the vast expanses covered bothgeographically and chronologically.But just as the people of the early Neolithic cultures may have comedown from Europe, as the possible descendants of the Gravettian-Aurignacian cultures, so later waves of even more northern peoplesdescended into the Near East. There has been some conjecture that thesewere the descendants of the Mesolithic (about 15,000–8000 BC),Maglemosian and Kunda cultures of northern Europe. As I shall explainmore fully later, their arrival was not a gradual assimilation into the area, asthe Goddess peoples’ seems to have been, but rather a series of aggressiveinvasions, resulting in the conquest, area by area, of the Goddess people.These northern invaders, generally known as Indo-Europeans, broughttheir own religion with them, the worship of a young warrior god and/or asupreme father god. Their arrival is archaeologically and historicallyattested by 2400 BC, but several invasions may have occurred even earlier.The nature of the northern invaders, their religion and its affect upon theGoddess-worshiping people will be more thoroughly described anddiscussed in Chapters Four and Five. But the pattern that emerged after theinvasions was an amalgamation of the two theologies, the strength of one orthe other often noticeably different from city to city. As the invaders gainedmore territories and continued to grow more powerful over the next twothousand years, this synthesized religion often juxtaposed the female andmale deities not as equals but with the male as the dominant husband oreven as Her murderer. Yet myths, statues and documentary evidence revealthe continual presence of the Goddess and the survival of the customs andrituals connected to the religion, despite the efforts of the conquerors todestroy or belittle the ancient worship.

Although the earliest examples of written language yet discoveredanywhere on earth appeared at the temple of the Queen of Heaven in Erechin Sumer, just before 3000 BC, writing at that time seems to have been usedprimarily for the business accounts of the temple. The arriving northerngroups adopted this manner of writing, known as cuneiform (small wedgesigns pressed into damp clay) and used it for their own records andliterature. Professor Chiera comments, “It is strange to notice thatpractically all the existing literature was put down in written form a centuryor two after 2000 BC.” Whether this suggests that written language wasnever considered as a medium for myths and legends before that time orthat existing tablets were destroyed and rewritten at that time remains anopen question. But unfortunately it means that we must rely on literaturethat was written after the start of the northern invasions and conquests. Yetthe survival and revival of the Goddess as supreme in certain areas, thecustoms, the rituals, the prayers, the symbolism of the myths as well as theevidence of temple sites and statues, provide us with a great deal ofinformation on the worship of the Goddess even at that time. And to acertain extent, they allow us, by observing the progression of transitionsthat took place over the next two thousand years, to extrapolate backward tobetter understand the nature of the religion as it may have existed in earlierhistoric and Neolithic times.As I mentioned previously, the worship of the female deity has for themost part been included as a minor addition to the study of the patterns ofreligious beliefs in ancient cultures, most writers apparently preferring todiscuss periods when male deities had already gained prominence. In manybooks a cursory mention of the Goddess often precedes lengthydissertations about the male deities who replaced Her. Most misleading arethe vague inferences that the veneration of a female deity was a separate,minor, unusual or curious occurrence. Since most books are concerned withone specific geographic area, this is partially the result of the fact that theGoddess was identified by a specific name or names which were native tothat location and the overall connections are simply never mentioned.Upon closer scrutiny, however, it becomes clear that so many of thenames used in diverse areas were simply various titles of the GreatGoddess, epithets such as Queen of Heaven, Lady of the High Place,Celestial Ruler, Lady of the Universe, Sovereign of the Heavens, Lioness ofthe Sacred Assembly or simply Her Holiness. Often the name of the town

or city was added, which made the name even more specific. We are not,however, confronting a confusing myriad of deities, but a variety of titlesresulting from diverse languages and dialects, yet each referring to a mostsimilar female divinity. Once gaining this broader and more overall view, itbecomes evident that the female deity in the Near and Middle East wasrevered as Goddess—much as people today think of God.In Strong and Garstang’s Syrian Goddess of 1913, some of theconnections are explained. “Among the Babylonians and northern SemitesShe was Ishtar; She is Ashtoreth of the Bible and the Astarte of Phoenicia.In Syria Her name was Athar and in Cilicia it had the form Ate (Atheh).”In Robert Graves’s translation of The Golden Ass by the Roman writerApuleius of the second century AD, the Goddess Herself appears andexplains:I am Nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all elements, primordialchild of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queenalso of the immortals, the single manifestation of all gods andgoddesses that are. My nod governs the shining heights of Heaven, thewholesome sea breezes, the lamentable silences of the world below.Though I am worshipped in many aspects, known by countless names,and propitiated with all manner of different rites, yet the whole roundearth venerates me.The primeval Phrygians call me Pessinuntica, Mother of the gods;the Athenians sprung from their own soil, call me Cecropian Artemis;for the islanders of Cyprus I am Paphian Aphrodite, for the archers ofCrete I am Dictynna; for the tri-lingual Silicians, Stygian Prosperine;and for the Eleusinians their ancient Mother of Corn. Some know meas Juno, some as Bellona of the Battles; others as Hecate, others againas Rhamnubia, but both races of Aethiopians, whose lands the morningsun first shines upon, and the Egyptians who excel in ancient learningand worship me with ceremonies proper to my godhead, call me by mytrue name, namely Queen Isis.Ironically, Isis was the Greek translation for the Egyptian Goddess Au Set.The similarities of statues, titles, symbols such as the serpent, the cow,the dove and the double axe, the relationship of the son/lover who dies andis mourned annually, eunuch priests, the sacred annual sexual union and the

sexual customs of the temple, each reveal the overlapping and underlyingconnections between the worship of the female deity in areas as far apart inspace and time as the earliest records of Sumer to classical Greece andRome.The deification and worship of the female divinity in so many parts of theancient world were variations on a theme, slightly differing versions of thesame basic theological beliefs, those that originated in the earliest periodsof human civilization. It is difficult to grasp the immensity and significanceof the extreme reverence paid to the Goddess over a period of either twenty-five thousand (as the Upper Paleolithic evidence suggests) or even seventhousand years and over miles of land, cutting across national boundariesand vast expanses of sea. Yet it is vital to do just that to fully comprehendthe longevity as well as the widespread power and influence this religiononce held.According to poet and mythologist Robert Graves, “The whole ofNeolithic Europe, to judge from surviving artifacts and myths, had aremarkably homogenous system of religious ideas based on the many titledMother Goddess, who was also known in Syria and Libya … The GreatGoddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, omnipotent; and theconcept of fatherhood had not yet been introduced into religious thought.”Much the same religion that Graves discusses existed even earlier in theareas known today as Iraq, Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan,Israel (Palestine), Egypt, Sinai, Libya, Syria, Turkey, Greece and Italy aswell as on the large island cultures of Crete, Cyprus, Malta, Sicily andSardinia. There were instances of much the same worship in the Neolithicperiods of Europe, which began at about 3000 BC. The Tuatha de Danaantraced their origins back to a Goddess they brought with them to Ireland,long before the arrival of Roman culture. The Celts, who now comprise amajor part of the populations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany, wereknown to the Romans as the Gauls. They are known to have sent priests to asacred festival for the Goddess Cybele in Pessinus, Anatolia, in the secondcentury BC. And evidence of carvings at Carnac and the Gallic shrines ofChartres and Mont St. Michel in France suggests that these places wereonce sites of the Great Goddess.

“FROM INDIA TO THE MEDITERRANEAN … SHE REIGNED SUPREME”The status and origins of the Great Goddess have been discussed in severalstudies of ancient worship. The primary interest of most of these scholarswas in the son/lover and the transition from the female to the malereligions, but each of their statements reveal that the original status of theGoddess was as supreme deity.In 1962 James Mellaart described the cultures of 9000 to 7000 BC in hisEarliest Civilizations of the Near East. As I mentioned previously, hepointed out that at that time, “Art makes its appearance in the form ofanimal carvings and statuettes of the supreme deity, the Mother Goddess.”He writes that at Catal Hüyük of the seventh millenium, “The principaldeity was a goddess …” In describing the site of ancient Hacilar, aNeolithic community by 5800 BC, he directs our attention to the fact that“The statuettes portray the goddess and the male occurs only in a subsidiaryrole as child or paramour.”One figure of the Goddess from Hacilar is now in the museum in Ankara,which houses most of the pieces found at Hacilar and Catal Hüyük byMellaart’s excavations, their antiquity contrasting strangely with itscontemporary architecture and decor. This particular sculpture of theGoddess appears to depict Her in the act of making love, though the malefigure is broken and represented only by a small fragment of his waist,thighs and one leg. There is the possibility that this is an older child beingheld close, but it appears more likely to be an adolescent youth, perhapsintended to portray the son/lover of the female deity some eight thousandyears ago.In The Lost World of Elam, published in 1973, Dr. Walther Hinz, Directorof the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Goettingen inGermany, also discusses the worship of the Goddess in the Near and MiddleEast. The nation of Elam was just east of Sumer and in early historicperiods the two cultures were in close contact. Dr. Hinz writes that “Pride ofplace in this world was taken by a goddess—and this is typical ofElam … She was clearly the ‘great mother of the gods’ to the Elamites. Thevery fact that precedence was given to a goddess, who stood above andapart from the other Elamite gods, indicates a matriarchal approach in thedevotees of this religion.”

Dr. Hinz describes the Goddess as She was known in various centers ofthe Elamite territories and then tells us, “In the third millenium these ‘greatmothers of the gods’ still held undisputed sway at the head of the Elamitepantheon but a change came during the course of the second. Just as the ageold matriarchy of Elam had once yielded in the face of a gradual rise in theposition of men, so corresponding arrangement took place among thegods … During the third millenium he [Humban, the consort of theGoddess] still occupied the third place, but from the middle of the secondmillenium he stood at the head of the pantheon.”Explaining the precedence of the female deity among the Semites, whichinclude both the Arab and Hebrew peoples, Robertson Smith, in hisprophetic work of 1894, Religion of the Semites, asserted that the femaledivinity in Semitic religion was deified as a direct result of the juxtapositionof ancestor worship and a female kinship system. At that time he wrote:Recent researches into the history of the family render it in the highestdegree improbable that the physical kinship between the god and hisworshippers, of which traces are found all over the Semitic area, wasoriginally conceived as fatherhood. It was the mother’s, not thefather’s blood which formed the original bond of kinship among theSemites as among other early people and in this stage of society, if thetribal deity was thought of as the parent of the stock, a goddess, not agod, would necessarily have been the object of worship.“In Mesopotamia, the goddess is supreme,” wrote Professor HenriFrankfort in his 1948 publication of Kingship and the Gods, “because thesource of all life is seen as female. Hence the god too descends from herand is called her son, though he is also her husband. In the ritual of thesacred marriage, the goddess holds the initiative throughout. Even in thecondition of chaos, the female Tiamat is the leader and Apsu merely hermale complement.”Within his twelve extensive volumes of research on ancient and“primitive” religion, published in 1907, Sir James Frazer wrote of theEgyptian Goddess Isis (Au Set) and Her brother/husband Osiris (Au Sar). Inaddition to the volumes of The Golden Bough, he published a separatebook, Attis, Adonis and Osiris, a title also used for several of the sections ofThe Golden Bough. In both works he asserted that, according to Egyptian

mythology, Isis was the stronger divinity of the pair. He related this to thesystem of property and descent practiced in Egypt, which he described as“mother-kinship.” He referred to the young lover of the Goddess as “themythical personification of nature” and explained that it was required thatthis figure should be sexually coupled with the supreme female divinity. Ofthe lad’s status and position within the religion, he commented, “In eachcase [Attis, Adonis and Osiris] it appears that originally the goddess was amore powerful and important personage than the god.”In his 1928 Handbook of Greek Mythology, H. J. Rose discussed the roleof the young male in the sacred sexual union and described him as “herinferior male partner,” observing, “So far we have been dealing withlegends which represent the goddess, not as married but as forming more orless temporary unions with someone much inferior to herself, a proceedingquite characteristic of Oriental goddesses who are essentially mothers butnot wives and besides whom their lovers sink into comparativeinsignificance.”A description of the relationship between the Goddess and Her son/loverwas included by Professor E. O. James in his 1960 publication, The AncientGods. He explained Her supremacy in this way.It was She who was responsible for his recovery and his resuscitationon which the renewal of nature depended. So that in the last analysisInanna/Ishtar, not Damuzi/Tammuz was the ultimate source of life andregeneration, though the young god as her agent was instrumental inthe process … With the establishment of husbandry and domestication,however, the function of the male in the process of generation becamemore apparent and vital and the Mother Goddess was then assigned toa spouse to play his role as the begetter, even though as inMesopotamia for example he was her youthful son/lover or herservant. From India to the Mediterranean, in fact, she reigned supreme,often appearing as the unmarried goddess.Arthur Evans, eminent Oxford scholar and noted archaeologist, wholocated, unearthed and even partially reconstructed the royal complex atKnossos on the island of Crete, commented in 1936, “It is certain that,however much the male element had asserted itself in the domain ofgovernment, by the great days of the Minoan civilization, the religion still

continued to reflect the older matriarchal stage of social development.Clearly the goddess was supreme …”Discussing Anatolia, which was closely related to Minoan Crete throughcolonization and trade, Evans wrote, “Throughout a large part of Anatolia,again we recognize the cult of the same great mother with her male-satellitehusband, lover or child, as the case may be.” Another Oxford scholar of thelate nineteenth century, L. R. Farnell, wrote about Crete as early as 1896. Inhis series of volumes The Cults of the Greek States he commented that “Wemay then safely conclude from the evidence so far available that the earliestreligion of civilized Crete was mainly devoted to a great goddess, while themale deity, always inevitable in goddess cult, was subordinate and kept inthe background.”Robertson Smith wrote of the position of the Goddess in Arabia, who hehad previously suggested was originally deified as the parent of the stock.He described the transition of power that then took place: “In Arabianreligion a goddess and a god were paired, the goddess being supreme, thegod, her son, a lesser deity. Gradually there was a change whereby theattributes of the goddess were presented to the god, thus lowering theposition of the female below the male.”Smith pointed out that the Goddess was still known in later patriarchalreligion and claimed that Her worship was attached to “cults” which foundtheir origins in the “ages of mother-kinship.” He then discussed the timewhen: … the change in the law of kinship deprived the mother of her oldpre-eminence in the family and transferred to the father the greater partof her authority and dignity … women lost the right to choose theirown partners at will, the wife became subject to her husband’slordship … at the same time her children became, for all purposes ofinheritance and all duties of blood, members of his and not her kin. Sofar as the religion kept pace with the new laws of social morality dueto this development, the independent divine mother necessarilybecame the subordinate partner of a male deity … or if the supremacyof the goddess was too well established to be thus undermined, shemight change her sex as in Southern Arabia where Ishtar wastransformed into the masculine Athtar.

Summing up, he observed that, upon the acceptance of male kinship, thewoman was placed in a subordinate status and the principal position in thereligion was no longer held by the Goddess, but by a god. Though Smithpresented the change as taking place rather naturally, as I have alreadymentioned and will describe in greater detail later, the transition wasactually accomplished by violent aggression, brutal massacres andterritorial conquests throughout the Near and Middle East.After reading these and numerous other studies on the subject, there wasno longer any doubt in my mind of the existence of the ancient femalereligion, nor that in the earliest of theological systems woman was deifiedas the principal and supreme divine being. It is this religion, once sowidespread throughout the ancient world, its similarities and its localdifferences, that will be described throughout the rest of the book. It willonce more be divided by specific names and locations, since that is how theavailable material is most comprehensible, but we can hardly avoidperceiving the numerous resemblances and similarities of the religion as itwas known and practiced in one culture with its forms and rituals inanother. That this religion preceded the male religions by thousands ofyears was also quite evident. But this information, rather than satisfying mycuriosity, simply aroused it further. Most directly meaningful to me were amultitude of questions concerning the position and status of women whohad actually lived in the societies in which the Divine Ancestress had beenrevered.* The term homo sapiens (literally “knowing or knowledgeable man”) illustrates once again thescholarly assumption of the prime importance of the male, in this case to the point of the totalnegation of the female population of the species so defined. If all “homo sapiens” had literally beenjust that, no sooner than the species had developed would it have died out for lack of the capability toreproduce its own kind.

3 Women—Where Woman Was DeifiedThe question most pressing—perhaps the one that has most insistentlycaused this book to come into being—is this: What effect did the worship ofthe female deity actually have upon the status of women in the cultures inwhich She was extolled? Hinz, Evans, Langdon and many others havereferred to the ancient Goddess-worshiping societies as matriarchal. Exactlywhat does this imply?It would be easy to enter into a see-saw type of reasoning here; that is tosay, they worshiped a Goddess, therefore women must have held a highstatus, or because women held a high status, therefore a Goddess wasworshiped; though these two factors, if we judge by the attitudes of thesocieties that worship the male deities of today, may have been closelyrelated. Yet various views on the subject should be considered, even thosein which cause and effect appear to be confused or simultaneous events areperceived as linear. What we want to achieve is as comprehensive anunderstanding as possible of the relationship of the female religion to theposition of women.In The Dominant Sex, M. and M. Vaerting, writing in Germany in 1923,asserted that the sex of the deity was determined by the sex of those whowere in power:The ruling sex, having the power to diffuse its own outlooks, tends togeneralize its specific ideology. Should the trends of the subordinatesex run counter, they are likely to be suppressed all the more forciblyin proportion as the dominant sex is more overwhelming. The result isthat the hegemony of male deities is usually associated with thedominance of men and the hegemony of female deities with thedominance of women.Sir James Frazer believed that the high status of women was initiallyresponsible for the veneration and esteem of the female deity. He cited the

Pelew clan of Micronesia, where the women were considered to be sociallyand politically superior to the men. “This preference for goddesses overgods,” he wrote, “in the clan of the Pelew Islanders has been explained, nodoubt rightly, by the high importance of women in the social system of thepeople.”Robertson Smith connected the choice of the sex of the supreme deity tothe position of dominance of the male or female within the family. Hesuggested that, as a result of the kinship system, the sexual identity of thehead of the family formulated the sexual identity of the supreme deity.Each of these is an example of the theory that the sex of the deity isdetermined by a previously existing dominance of one sex over the other—in the case of the Goddess, the higher position of women in the family andin society. Alongside these theories there have been reams of pseudo-poeticmaterial about the deification of the female as the symbol of fertility—bythe male—the awe of the magic of her ability to produce a child supposedlymaking her the object of his worship.As I just mentioned, Frazer suggested that the high status of women ledto the worship of the Goddess as supreme being, basing his conclusions onyears of study of “primitive” and classical societies. But as a result of thisresearch, he also connected the worship of the female deity to a mother-kinship system and ancestor worship, explaining that, “Wherever thegoddess is superior to the god, and ancestresses more reverently worshippedthan ancestors, there is nearly always a mother-kin structure.” RobertsonSmith also related the sexual identity of the supreme deity to the kinshipsystem prevalent in each society.Whatever the suggested order of cause and effect, one of the majorfactors which continually appears in the material concerned with the statusand role of women in the ancient female religion in historic times is itsclose connection to female kinship, matrilineality, perhaps the very originsof its development. In examining the position of women, this mother orfemale kin structure, leading to matrilineal descent of name and property,should be carefully studied.Matrilineality is generally defined as that societal structure in whichinheritance takes place through the female line, sons, husbands or brothersgaining access to title and property only as the result of their relationship tothe woman who is the legal owner. Matrilineal descent does not meanmatriarchy, which is defined as women in power, or more specifically the

mother, as the head of the family, taking this position in community or stategovernment as well. In some matrilineal societies, the brother of the womanwho holds the rights to the name and property plays an important role. Yetwe cannot ignore the probability that matrilineal and matrilocal customswould affect the status and position of women in various ways. Thesubtleties of the power and bargaining position that come with theownership of house, property or title, or as in matrilocal societies, womenresiding in the village or home of their own parents rather than their in-laws’, should be considered.The economics of the Neolithic and early historic agricultural societieswere discussed by sociologist V. Klein in 1946. She suggested that, “Inearly society women wielded the main sources of wealth; they were theowners of the house, the producers of food, they provided shelter andsecurity. Economically, therefore, man was dependent upon woman.”Societies that followed female or mother kinship customs have beenknown in the past and still appear in many areas of the world. The theorythat most societies were originally matrilineal, matriarchal and evenpolyandrous (one woman with several husbands) was the subject of severalextensive studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Scholars such as Johann Bachofen, Robert Briffault and Edward Hartlandaccepted the idea of ancient matriarchy and polyandry, substantiating theirtheories with a great deal of evidence, but they regarded these systems as aspecific stage in evolutionary development. They suggested that allsocieties had to pass through a matriarchal stage before becomingpatriarchal and monogamous, which they appear to have regarded as asuperior stage of civilization. But as Jacquetta Hawkes observes, “Today itis unfashionable to talk about former more matriarchal orders of society.Nevertheless, there is evidence from many parts of the world that the role ofwomen has weakened since earlier times in several sections of socialstructure.”Most of the studies of matriarchy were based upon anthropologicalanalogy and the classical literature of Greece and Rome. Since most ofthese works were researched in the nineteenth and earliest part of thetwentieth centuries, these writers did not have access to much of thearchaeological evidence that is available today. Despite specificmisunderstandings, or biased value judgments, we may yet find that thesewriters were prophetically ahead of their time.

Today we have the use of a much greater body of material, produced byextensive archaeological excavation of the Near and Middle Eastthroughout this century, as well as the material available to those earlierwriters. It is true that the chance fortunes of archaeological finds—whatremains undiscovered, what is found too damaged to read, what cannot bedeciphered and what has perished as the result of the nature of the originalmaterial—present limitations.Hammurabi’s law code of Babylon (about 1790 BC), long regarded as theoldest ever compiled, is now known to have been preceded by severalothers, more recently discovered. Still, only one of these dates back to about2300 BC and the others to about 2000 BC or slightly later. So we must stillrely on material that appears in written form only after the beginnings of thenorthern invasions. But carefully sifting through the available evidence andcommentary, which differ according to location and era, we may gain someinsight into the status of women in Goddess-worshiping societies. TheGoddess religion, though slowly declining, still existed.

ETHIOPIA AND LIBYA—“ALL AUTHORITY WAS VESTED IN THE WOMAN …”Forty-nine years before the birth of Christ, a man from Roman Sicily wroteof his travels in northern Africa and some of the Near Eastern countries,recording his observations of people along the way. He was keenlyinterested in cultural patterns and was certainly one of the forerunners ofthe fields of anthropology and sociology. This man was known as DiodorusSiculus, Diodorus of Sicily. Many statements reporting the high or evendominant status of women were included in his writings. We may questionwhy he, more than any other classical writer, recorded so much informationabout women warriors and matriarchy in the nations all about him. He didnot belittle the men who lived in such social systems; that did not appear tobe his aim. Indeed, he seemed to be rather admiring and respectful of thewomen who wielded such power.It was Diodorus who reported that the women of Ethiopia carried arms,practiced communal marriage and raised their children so communally thatthey often confused even themselves as to who the natural mother had been.In parts of Libya, where the Goddess Neith was highly esteemed, accountsof Amazon women still lingered even in Roman times. Diodorus describeda nation in Libya as follows:All authority was vested in the woman, who discharged every kind ofpublic duty. The men looked after domestic affairs just as the womendo among ourselves and did as they were told by their wives. Theywere not allowed to undertake war service or to exercise any functionsof government, or to fill any public office, such as might have giventhem more spirit to set themselves up against the women. The childrenwere handed over immediately after birth to the men, who reared themon milk and other foods suitable to their age.Diodorus wrote of warrior women existing in Libya, reporting that thesewomen had formed into armies which had invaded other lands. Accordingto him, they revered the Goddess as their major deity and set up sanctuariesfor Her worship. Though he gives no specific name, the accounts probablyrefer to the Libyan warrior-Goddess known as Neith, who was also reveredunder that name in Egypt.

EGYPT—“WHILE THE HUSBANDS STAY HOME AND WEAVE”In prehistoric Egypt, the Goddess held supremacy in Upper Egypt (thesouth) as Nekhebt, symbolized as a vulture. The people of Lower Egypt,which includes the northern delta region, worshiped their supreme Goddessas a cobra, using the name Ua Zit (Great Serpent). From about 3000 BConward the Goddess, known as Nut, Net or Nit, probably derived fromNekhebt, was said to have existed when nothing else had yet been created.She then created all that had come into being. According to Egyptianmythology, it was She who first placed Ra, the sun god, in the sky. Othertexts of Egypt tell of the Goddess as Hathor in this role of creator ofexistence, explaining that She took the form of a serpent at that time.In Egypt the concept of the Goddess always remained vital. Theintroduction of male deities, just as the dynastic periods begin (about 3000BC) will be more thoroughly discussed in Chapter Four. This probablylessened Her original supremacy as it was known in Neolithic societies. ButGoddess worship continued and in conjunction with this, the women ofEgypt appear to have benefited in many ways.Diodorus wrote at great length of the worship of the Goddess Isis (theGreek translation for Au Set), who had incorporated the aspects of both UaZit and Hathor. Isis was also closely associated with the Goddess as Nut,who was mythologically recorded as Her mother; in paintings Isis wore thewings of Nekhebt. Diodorus explained that, according to Egyptian religion,Isis was revered as the inventor of agriculture, as a great healer andphysician and as the one who first established the laws of justice in the land.He then recorded what we today may find a most startling description ofthe laws of Egypt, explaining that they were the result of the reverence paidto this mighty Goddess. He wrote, “It is for these reasons, in fact, that it wasordained that the queen should have greater power and honour than the kingand that among private persons the wife should enjoy authority over thehusband, husbands agreeing in the marriage contract that they will beobedient in all things to their wives.”Frazer commented on the relationship between the veneration of Isis andthe customs of female kinship and stated that “In Egypt, the archaic systemof mother-kin, with its preference for women over men in matters ofproperty and inheritance, lasted down to Roman times …”

There is further evidence that Egypt was a land where women had greatfreedom and control of their own lives, and perhaps of their husbands’ aswell. Herodotus of Greece, several centuries before Diodorus, wrote that inEgypt, “Women go in the marketplace, transact affairs and occupythemselves with business, while the husbands stay home and weave.” Hiscontemporary, Sophocles, stated that “Their thoughts and actions all aremodelled on Egyptian ways, for there the men sit at the loom indoors whilethe wives work abroad for their daily bread.”Professor Cyrus Gordon wrote in 1953 of life in ancient Egypt. He tellsus that “In family life, women had a peculiarly important position forinheritance passed through the mother rather than through the father … Thissystem may well hark back to prehistoric times when only the obviousrelationship between mother and child was recognized, but not the lessapparent relationship between father and child.”Dr. Murray suggested that “Woman’s condition was high, due perhaps totheir economic independence.” S. W. Baron writes that in Egyptian papyri,“many women appear as parties in civil litigations and independentbusiness transactions even with their own husbands and fathers.” One of theearliest archaeologists of the pyramids of Egypt, Sir William FlindersPetrie, wrote in 1925 that “In Egypt all property went in the female line, thewoman was the mistress of the house; and in early tales she is representedas having entire control of herself and the place.”Discussing the position of women in ancient Egypt, theologian andarchaeologist Roland de Vaux wrote in 1965 that “In Egypt the wife wasoften the head of the family, with all the rights such a position entailed.”Obedience was urged upon husbands in the maxims of Ptah-Hotep.Marriage contracts of all periods attest the extremely independent socialand economic position of women. According to E. Meyer, who is quoted inthe Vaertings’ study, “Among the Egyptians the women were remarkablyfree … as late as the fourth century BC there existed side by side withpatriarchal marriage, a form of marriage in which the wife chose thehusband and could divorce him on payment of compensation.”Love poems, discovered in Egyptian tombs, strongly hint that it was theEgyptian women who did the courting, oftimes wooing the male by plyinghim with intoxicants to weaken his protestations. Robert Briffault wrote ofan Egyptian woman clerk who later became a governor and eventually thecommander-in-chief of an army.

A most enlightening and significant study on the social structure andposition of women in Egypt was done in 1949 by Dr. Margaret Murray.Painstakingly tracing the lineage of royal families in Egypt, she eventuallyproved that, at the level of royalty, the Egyptian culture at most periods wasmatrilineal. Royalty was studied because records for these people weremost available. According to Murray it was the daughters, not the sons, whowere the actual inheritors of the royal throne. She suggests that the customof brother/sister marriage then developed, allowing a son to gain access tothe royal privilege in this way. She writes that the matrilineal right to thethrone was the reason that Egyptian princesses for so many centuries weremarried within the family and were not available for international marriagealliances. This may clarify why the Goddess Isis, who Frazer stated was amore important deity than Her brother/husband Osiris, and whom Diodoruscited as the origin of the generally high position of women in Egypt, wasknown as The Throne.But even in Egypt women were slowly losing their prestigious position.Sir Flinders Petrie, incidentally a deeply respected colleague of Dr.Murray’s at the University of London, discussed the role of priestesses inancient Egypt. He pointed out how their position had changed between thetime of the earliest dynasties (3000 BC onward) to the Eighteenth Dynasty(1570–1300 BC). According to the available records, the Goddess known asHathor, much the same deity as Isis, was in earliest times served by sixty-one priestesses and eighteen priests, while the Goddess known as Neith wasattended solely by priestesses. By the time of the Eighteenth Dynastywomen were no longer even part of the religious clergy, but served only astemple musicians. It is in the Eighteenth Dynasty that Egypt was made tofeel the greatest influence of the Indo-Europeans, a factor again discussed atgreater length in Chapters Four and Five. Incidentally, the use of the word“pharaon,” generally summoning up images even more powerful than theword “king,” actually comes from the term par-o, which literally means“great house.” It was only from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty that theword was used to signify the royal male of that household.

SUMER—“THE WOMEN OF FORMER DAYS USED TO TAKE TWO HUSBANDS …”Professor Saggs wrote in 1962 of the societies of Mesopotamia, whichincluded both Sumer and Babylon. Mesopotamia generally refers to theareas of Iraq along and between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, starting atthe Persian Gulf and reaching up to Anatolia. He examined the relationshipof the reverence for Goddesses to the status of women in Sumer (about3000 BC–1800 BC, in southern Iraq), concluding that in the earliest periodswomen were much better off than in the later periods, and that theygradually lost ground over the years. Professor Saggs reports thatThe status of women was certainly much higher in the earlySumerian city state than it subsequently became … There are hints thatin the very beginning of Sumerian society, women had a much higherstatus than in the hey-day of Sumerian culture: this chiefly rests on thefact that in early Sumerian religion a prominent position is occupied bygoddesses who afterwards virtually disappeared, save—with the oneexception of Ishtar—as consorts to particular gods. The Underworlditself was under the sole rule of a goddess, for a myth explains how shecame to take a consort; and goddesses played a part in the divinedecision making assembly in the myths. There is even one strongsuggestion that polyandry may have at one time been practised, for thereforms of Urukagina refer to women who had taken more than onehusband; some scholars shied away from this conclusion suggestingthat the reference might be only to the remarriage of a widow but thewording of the Sumerian text does not really support this.I may add that the Goddess of the Underworld does not merely take aconsort but has Her hair pulled, is dragged from the throne and is threatenedwith death until She agrees to marry Her assailant, the god Nergal, whothen kisses away Her tears, becomes Her husband and rules beside Her.The Urukagina reform is dated at about 2300 BC. It reads, “The women offormer days used to take two husbands but the women of today would bestoned with stones if they did this.” Polyandry has been reported in theDravidian Goddess-worshiping areas of India even in this century.

The laws of the Sumerian state of Eshnunna, written about 2000 BC, werefound in a small town, thus possibly reflecting older attitudes. In them weread that “If a man rejects his wife after she bears a child, and takes anotherwife, he shall be driven from the house and from whatever he owns and ifany accept him they may follow him.” These same laws also state that if awoman is married but has a child with another man while her husband isaway at war, she is still legally regarded as the wife of the first man. Thereis no mention of punishment for adultery. Permission for marriage had to bereceived from both mother and father.The position and activities of a group of Sumerian women known as thenaditu were studied in depth by Rivkah Harris in 1962. Carefullyexamining Sumerian texts, she found that the naditu women were engagedin the business activities of the temple, held real estate in their own names,lent money and generally engaged in various economic activities. She alsofound accounts at this same period of many women scribes. Yet we read inProfessor Sidney Smith’s chapter in Hooke’s Myth, Ritual and Kingship thatthe word naditu “probably means woman thrown down, that is surrenderedto the god.”In the Sumerian hymns the female precedes the male. The epic ofGilgamish reveals that the official scribe of the Sumerian heaven was awoman, while the initial invention of writing was credited to a Goddess. AsI mentioned previously, it may well have been the priestesses, possibly thenaditu who kept the temple business accounts, who first developed the artof writing. The earliest examples of writing (from about 3200 BC),discovered in the temple of the Goddess Inanna of Erech, where many ofthe naditu women lived, turned out to be the temple’s accounts of paymentfor land rental.Stephen Langdon, eminent Oxford scholar, writing in 1930, observed thatthe legends associated with the Sumerian Queen of Heaven, Inanna, hadprobably been worked out under a “matriarchal system” of society. This isalso suggested by the changes in the image and role of the Goddess Inanna,when we find Her centuries later as the Babylonian Ishtar. In the Sumerianmyth, Inanna exhibited Her power and omnipotent wrath at Her son/loverDamuzi’s refusal to show proper respect to Her by turning him over to thedemons of the Land of the Dead, while thirteen centuries later, in theBabylonian myth of Ishtar, a newer version of much the same story, theGoddess grieved at the accidental death of the youth.

In general, the records of the Sumerian reforms of Urukagina of about2300 BC were strongly communally oriented. They referred to the fruit treesand food of the temple lands, which were to be used for those in need ratherthan by priests, which was apparently fast becoming the custom at thattime. The fact that on these tablets it was repeatedly mentioned that thesereforms harked back to the way things were done in earlier periods suggeststhat the earliest societies of Sumer were more communal. Most interestingis the word used to label these reforms, amargi, which has received thedouble translation of “freedom” and “return to the mother.”

ELAM—NAKED BEFORE THE HIGH PRIESTESSIn 1973 Dr. Walther Hinz suggested that the original supremacy of theGoddess in Elam (slightly east of Sumer and in close contact by 3000 BC),indicated a “matriarchal approach” in the devotees of Her religion. Heexplained that, though She was supreme in the third millenium, She laterbecame secondary to Her consort Humban; She was then known as theGreat Wife. In Susa, at the northern end of the Elamite territories, the maleconsort was known as In Shushinak. In earliest times he was known asFather of the Weak, by mid-second millenium he was called King of theGods and in the eighth century BC he was invoked as Protector of the Godsof Heaven and Earth.In the early periods of Elam the deities appear to have been served byfemale and male clergy, the men appearing naked before the high priestess,as was the custom in early Sumer. Hinz explains that in Elam, much like thenaditu women of Sumer, “One special group among the priestesses wasformed by those women or maidens who had dedicated their lives to theGreat Goddess.” These women were primarily involved in the buying,selling and renting of land.Legal documents from Elam, primarily from after 2000 BC, reveal thatwomen were often the sole heirs. One married woman refused to make herinheritance joint with her husband and intended to pass the inheritancealong to her daughter. Another tablet stated that a son and a daughter wereto share equally; the daughter was mentioned first. Several tablets describedsituations where the husband was leaving everything he owned to his wifeand insisted that their children would inherit only if they cared for theirmother with the greatest respect.

BABYLON—“TO HOLD AND MANAGE THEIR OWN ESTATES”In Mesopotamia, the Akkadians, after a rise in position under Sargon in2300 BC, eventually gained supremacy in about 1900 BC, graduallysuperseding the Sumerians as the cultural and political leaders of the area.They formed the nation known as Babylonia, installing their capital in thecity of Babylon on the central Euphrates. The Akkadian language of theBabylonians became the international language of the Near East, but thereligion of the Sumerians was incorporated into the Babylonian culture andthe Sumerian language was used much as Latin was employed in themasses of the Roman Catholic Church all over the world. By 1600 BC theKassites gained control of Babylon. Linguistic evidence suggests that theKassites were ruled by the northern invaders, the Indo-Europeans, who hadgradually infiltrated into Babylon and Assyria.Despite a loss of status in the position of women in Babylon, comparedwith their predecessors of Sumer—a loss that was accompanied by thegaining ascendancy of male deities such as Marduk, who mythicallymurdered the Creator Goddess Tiamat to gain and secure his position—thewomen of Babylon still continued to hold certain rights of independence.The following quote is based upon the law code of Hammurabi, whichpreceded total Kassite control, but which may have been somewhat affectedby continual Indo-European incursions from the north from at least 2000 BConward. W. Boscawen, writing in 1894, reported thatThe freedom granted to the women in Babylonia allowed them to holdand manage their own estates and this was especially the case withpriestesses of the temple, who traded extensively … One of the mostinteresting and characteristic features of this early civilization of theBabylonians was the high position of women. The mother here isalways represented by a sign which means “goddess of the house.”Any sin against the mother, any repudiation against the mother waspunished by banishment from the community. These are the factswhich are evidently indicative of a people who at one time held thelaw of matriarchal descent.

According to de Vaux, writing in 1965, “In Babylonian law, the fathergave the young bride certain possessions, which belonged to her in her ownright, the husband having only the use of them. They reverted to the wife ifshe was widowed or divorced without fault on her part. In Babylon shecould acquire property, take legal action, be a party to contracts and she hada certain share in her husband’s inheritance.”In Hammurabi’s time women were free to request divorce, and oneBabylonian law declared that if a wife did not intend to be responsible forher husband’s premarital debts she had to obtain a document from himstating that he had agreed. This assumption of the financial responsibility inmarriage suggests that most women may have taken part in business andfinancial affairs (as they did in Egypt) and perhaps at one time had beeneconomically responsible for the family. Seven of Hammurabi’s laws wereconcerned with the priestesses of the temple, their rights to inherit and whatthey might or might not pass along to offspring, suggesting that theeconomic position of these women was a matter of concern and probablywas quickly changing.Ishtar was revered as “majestic queen whose decrees are preeminent.” Inone text Ishtar Herself says, “When at a trial of judgement I am present, awoman understanding the matter, I am.” At Nimrud, in northernMesopotamia, records of women judges and magistrates have beenunearthed, testifying to the vital and respected position women held thereeven in the eighth century BC. In several cities there were accounts ofBabylonian priestesses who acted as oracular prophetesses, providingmilitary and political advice to kings and leaders, revealing their powerfulinfluence upon the affairs of state. Accounts of women scribes occur in allBabylonian periods, though there were more males in this field thanwomen.We find in the laws of later Babylonia, which belong to some time at theend of the second millenium, that a married woman might no longer engagein business, unless it was directed by her husband, son or brother-in-law. Ifanyone engaged in business with her, even if he insisted that he did notknow she was married, he was to be prosecuted as a criminal.

ANATOLIA—“FROM OF OLD THEY HAVE BEEN RULED BY THE WOMEN”Just north of Babylon, and in very close political contact, was the areaknown as Anatolia, present-day Turkey, sometimes known as Asia Minor.In Neolithic periods in Anatolia, the Great Goddess was extolled. Herworship appeared in the shrines of Catal Hüyük of 6500 BC. Little is yetknown of Anatolia directly after the Catal Hüyük period, but sometimebefore 2000 BC Anatolia was invaded by the Indo-Europeans.The areas where the northern peoples made the heaviest settlements werein the central and south-central sections of Anatolia. Some of themconquered the land known as Hatti. The invaders as well as the originalinhabitants thus came to be known as the Hittites. Most of the Goddesseswho appear in the literature and texts of this area, written after the Hittitearrival, were actually the older Hattian deities. One of the most importantfemale deities to survive was the Sun Goddess of Arinna. Upon the Hittiteconquests She was assigned a husband who was symbolized as a storm god.Although this storm god gained supremacy in most of the cities where thenorthern peoples ruled, in Arinna he remained in second place. Butcuriously enough, Hittite queens appear in several texts in a very closerelationship to this Hattian Sun Goddess; they acted as Her high priestess.Though there is no conclusive evidence to substantiate it, the existence ofthese texts suggests the possibility that the invaders, once martiallyconquering the land, may then have married Hattian priestesses to gain amore secure legitimate right to the throne in the eyes of the conqueredpopulation.In the western sections of Anatolia, matrilineal descent and Goddessworship continued into classical times. Strabo, shortly before the birth ofChrist, wrote of northern Anatolian towns, as far east as Armenia, wherechildren who were born to unmarried women were legitimate andrespectable. They simply took the name of their mothers, who, according toStrabo’s reports, were some of the most noble and aristocratic of citizens.It is possible that at the time of the Hittite invasions many of theGoddess-worshiping peoples may have fled to the west. The renownedtemple of the Goddess in the city of Ephesus was the target of the apostlePaul’s zealous missionary efforts (Acts 19:27). This temple, which legendand classical reports claim was founded by “Amazons,” was not completely

closed down until AD 380. All along this western section, which includedthe areas known as Lycia, Lydia and Caria, there were accounts in classicalGreek and Roman literature of the widespread veneration of “The Motherof all Deities,” along with reports of women warriors, the Amazons.Diodorus wrote of a nation in this area in which “women held the supremepower and royal authority.” According to his reports the queen of this landassigned the tasks of spinning wool and other domestic duties to the men,while law was established by the queen. He claimed that the rights to thethrone belonged to the queen’s daughter and succeeding women in thefamily line. It was in the land of Lydia that the legendary Indo-EuropeanGreek Hercules was said to have been kept as a servile lover to QueenOmphale. We may at this point question whether the numerous tales of“Amazon” women may not actually have been the later Indo-EuropeanGreek accounts of the women who tried to defend the ancient Goddessshrines and repel the patriarchal northern invaders. Yet we read in theEncyclopaedia Britannica, “The only plausible explanation of the story ofthe Amazons is that it is a variety of the familiar tale of a distant land whereeverything is done the wrong way about; thus women fight, which is man’sbusiness.”Throughout the classical Greek period, matrilineal descent andsuggestions of matriarchy in western Anatolia were repeatedly reportedamong the Lycians, where they appear to have lingered the longest or weremost noted. Herodotus wrote, “Ask a Lycian who he is and he answers bygiving his own name, that of his mother and so on in the female line.”Nicholas of Damascus reported, “They name themselves after their mothersand their possessions pass by inheritance to the daughters instead of thesons.” Heraclides Ponticus said of the Lycians, “From of old they have beenruled by the women.”

CRETE—“DOMINATED BY THE FEMALE PRINCIPLE”Many classical authors wrote that the Lycians and the Carians had strongaffinities with the island of Crete. Some claimed that Lycia had once been acolony of that thriving island culture. Upon Crete, Goddess figures havebeen found in various Neolithic sites, though none as old as those on themainland. On the Messara plain of Crete, the buildings known as tholoi,extremely similar to those of the Halaf site of Arpachiyah, have also beendiscovered. From Neolithic periods until the Dorian invasion, Crete was thesociety that is most repeatedly thought to have been matrilineal andpossibly matriarchal.The former director of the British School of Archaeology in Greece,Sinclair Hood, wrote in The Minoans, Crete in the Bronze Age:It seems likely enough that customs of the kind described asmatriarchy (mother rule) persisted in Crete. These arise in primitivesocieties where people do not comprehend when a baby is born who itsfather can be. The children are therefore named after the mothers andall inheritance is through the female line. Primeval traditions of thiskind survived in western Anatolia into classical times. Thus among theCarians on the west coast of Anatolia succession was still through themother in the fourth century BC and in Lycia, to the south-east of Caria,children were named after their mothers.Charles Seltman wrote in 1952 of this highly developed culture of Crete,whose beginnings preceded biblical times by many centuries. He statedthat, upon Crete, matriarchy had been the way of life. He discussed thesexual freedom of women, matrilineal descent and the role of the “king,”pointing out the high status of women in and around the land in which theGoddess appears to have been the very core of existence.“Among the Mediterraneans,” wrote Seltman, “as a general rule societywas built around the woman, even on the highest levels where descent wasin the female line. A man became king or chieftain only by a formalmarriage and his daughter, not his son, succeeded so that the next chieftainwas the youth who married his daughter … Until the northerners arrived,religion and custom were dominated by the female principle.”

In The Aegean Civilization, Gustave Glotz, writing in 1925, examined therole of woman on Crete and asserted that women initially controlled theform and rites of the religion. He explains thatThe priestesses long presided over religious practices. Woman was thenatural intermediary with divinities, the greatest of whom was womandeified. Hosts of objects represent the priestesses at their duties … theparticipation of men in the cult was, like the association of a god witha goddess, a late development. Their part in the religious ceremonieswas always a subordinate one, even when the king became the highpriest of the bull. As if to extenuate their encroachment and to bafflethe evil spirits to whose power this act had exposed them, theyassumed for divine services the priestly costume of women … whileprivate worship was performed in front of small idols, in publicworship the part of the goddess was played by a woman. It is the highpriestess who takes her place on the seat of the goddess, sits at the footof the sacred tree or stands on the mountain peak to receive worshipand offerings from her acolytes and from the faithful.Stylianos Alexiou, Director of the Archaeological Museum in Iraklion,writes in the chapter on the religion of Crete in Minoan Civilization, “Thealabaster throne at Knossos was intended, according to Helga Reusch, forthe Priestess-queen, who, flanked by the griffins painted on the wall,personified the goddess. In the Royal Villa the throne which is set apart likea kind of sacred altar, shows that an actual person sat there to receiveworship. According to Matz, when the queen descended the palace stairs tothe courts within the shrines, she represented an authentic epiphany of thedeity to the host of ecstatic worshippers.”In 1958 Jacquetta Hawkes presented some perceptive observations on thestatus of women on Crete, commenting that, although one may consider thepossibility that the Goddess may have been a masculine dream, “Cretanmen and women were everywhere accustomed to seeing a splendid goddessqueening it over a small and suppliant male god, and this concept mustsurely have expressed some attitude present in the human society thataccepted it.” She continued by pointing out that the self-confidence ofwomen and their secure place in society was perhaps made evident byanother characteristic. “This is the fearless and natural emphasis on sexual

life that ran through all religious expression and was made obvious in theprovocative dress of both sexes and their easy mingling—a spirit bestunderstood through its opposite: the total veiling and seclusion of Moslemwomen under a faith which even denied them a soul.”In viewing the artifacts and murals at Knossos, the Archaeological Museumat Iraklion and other museums on Crete there is little doubt that the femaledivinity was for several millenia the principal sacred being on Crete, withwomen acting as Her clergy. It is therefore interesting to follow themanifestations of the Cretan culture as they later appeared in early Greece,about one thousand years before the classical Golden Age (about 500–200BC), with which we are more familiar.

GREECE—“THE ATTACK UPON THE MATRILINEAL CLANS”The connections are made by the settlements on Crete and/or the mainlandof Greece that are attributed to people known as the Mycenaeans, so namedby archaeologists for one of the sites on the mainland—Mycenae. Clues tothe origins of the people who inhabited these sites have presented scholarswith some intriguing possibilities. Most believe that the Mycenaeans were agroup of Indo-Europeans, perhaps the same people as the Acheans, orpossibly those from an earlier migration of tribes from the north. Otherscholars assert that they were already residents of Crete and that theyoverthrew the previous government shortly before 1400 BC. Some relatethem to the group known as the Sea Peoples, while still others suggest thatthey were the Philistines or that the Philistines were a branch of theMycenaeans. There has even been the suggestion that the Mycenaeans wererelated to the Hyksos, the “shepherd kings” who used horse-drawn warchariots and had previously held Egypt under their rule for severalcenturies. The Hyksos were driven out of Egypt at much the same time asthe Mycenaeans first appeared.Whatever their initial origins, the reason that the Mycenaeans areimportant to us here is that their culture, as we best know it, was partiallyCretan and partially Greek. Most scholars believe that they carried theCretan culture from Crete to Greece. The Linear B tablets of theMycenaeans, which are inventory lists, found at the palace of Knossos andall dated to the same year, about 1400 BC, used a language that scholarsbelieve differed from those previously used on Crete. After many years ofdebate, most authorities accept that the language used on these tablets(written with many of the symbols and signs that had been used for anearlier language not yet acceptably deciphered, though Gordon has offereda body of evidence suggesting that it was closely related to the Canaanitelanguage used in Ugarit) is an early form of Greek. If the Mycenaeans ortheir leaders were originally Indo-European, as the tablets suggest, oncethey settled in Crete they soon adopted much of the subject matter and thestyle of the crafts techniques, the style of dress, the manner of writing, andthe religion of the previous inhabitants of the island.Cottrell tells us that, “Mycenaean art continued to reflect the “Minoan”*culture of the Mediterranean peoples … whose system of writing they had

adopted.” R. W. Hutchinson of the University of Cambridge writes that,“By the middle of the second millenium, probably, Greeks were alreadysettling in Crete, but only in comparatively small numbers, and theseMycenaean Greeks had already adopted many Cretan cults and religiouscustoms. Even on the mainland we find survivals from Minoan or at leastpre-Hellenic religion …”In the Catalog of Prehistoric Collections of the National ArchaeologicalMuseum in Athens the curators point out, “In Mycenaean religion, wherethe adoption of many Cretan features is obvious, we may note above all theappearance of the Cretan nature goddess.” In this vast museum is thecollection of artifacts discovered in the excavations of the Mycenaeansettlements on the mainland of Greece, a collection highlighted by theintricate craftsmanship of gold signet rings and seals that depict scenes ofthe Goddess and Her priestesses—scenes nearly identical with thoseproduced in “Minoan” Crete.Discussing the Linear B tablets, in which the names of several deitieslater known in classical Greece are briefly mentioned, Cottrell explains,“… there is also at Pylos [on the mainland] and at Knossos [on Crete] afrequent reference to Potnia—“Mistress” or “Our Lady”; these lastinscriptions confirm what archaeologists had long suspected from theevidence on seals discovered on the mainland—that the Mycenaeans alsoworshipped the Minoan mother goddess.”The Mycenaeans inhabited and ruled Crete at the Palace of Knossosshortly before a major holocaust, possibly caused by an invasion orearthquake. These same people also founded many pre-Greek cities on themainland—and with them they brought the worship of the Cretan Goddess.The Mycenaean Age is generally placed between about 1450 and 1100 BC.Its beginnings date just before the period generally assigned to Moses. Itthrived for centuries before the Greece of Homer and it is likely that it wasof events during or just after this period that Homer wrote. The quest forHelen may well have been the quest for the legal rights to the throne ofSparta. Although classical Greece is so often presented as the veryfoundation of our western culture and civilization, it is interesting to realizethat it actually came into being twenty-five centuries after the invention ofwriting and was itself formulated and deeply influenced by the Near Easterncultures that had preceded it by thousands of years.

Greece was invaded by northern peoples several times. Robert Graves, inhis introduction to The Greek Myths, wrote in 1955, “Achaean invasions ofthe thirteenth century BC seriously weakened the matrilinealtradition … when the Dorians arrived, towards the close of the secondmillenium, patrilineal succession became the rule.” With these northernpeople came the worship of the Indo-European Dyaus Pitar, literally GodFather, eventually known in Greece as Zeus and later in Rome as Jupiter.This transitional period of the change from the worship of the Goddess tothe male deity, the change most intensively brought about by the Dorianinvasions, was the subject of E. Butterworth’s Some Traces of the Pre-Olympian World, written in 1966.Butterworth managed to accomplish with Greece what Murray had donewith Egypt. By carefully tracing the lineage of the royal houses, heultimately showed that many of the greatest pre-Greek cities, which wereessentially small nations, were originally matrilineal. He pointed out thatArgos, Thebes, Tiryns and Athens, as well as other cities, at one timefollowed matrilineal customs of descent. He explains that this was the resultof the worship of the Goddess and Her Cretan origins, stating that Creteitself was matrilineal and possibly even matriarchal.His primary interest was in the patrilineal revolution, the time at whichthe patrilineal clans violently set about superimposing their customs uponall those around them:Matrilineality, though not universal in the Greek and Aegean world,was widely spread … the effect of the system of succession to thekingship and to the inheritance of property on the life of the times wasimmense. The majority of the clans were matrilineal by custom, andthe greatest revolution in the history of early Greece was that by whichthe custom was changed from matrilineal to patrilineal succession andthe loyalty to the clan destroyed.From 3000 BC onward, priestesses had been portrayed in sculptures andappeared in murals and other artifacts of Crete, strongly suggesting that itwas women who controlled the worship. Crete was later ruled by theMycenaeans, who then adopted their religion and many aspects of theirculture. Since the religious artifacts of the Mycenaeans depict the clergy ofthe Goddess as female, it is quite probable that the women in the

Mycenaean communities of Greece also held this privilege. Butterworthasserted that it was the women, especially the women of the royal houses,who were the protectors of the religion. He further explains thatThe attack upon the matrilineal clans destroyed the power of the clanworld itself and with it, its religion … the history of the times ispenetrated through and through with the clash of patrilineal andmatrilineal as the old religious dynasties were broken, swept away andre-established … The matrilineal world was brought to an end by anumber of murderous assaults upon the heart of that world, the PotniaMater [The Great Goddess] herself.I cannot help but recall the Greek legend of the Goddess known as Hera,whose worship appears to have survived from Mycenaean times, and Herthwarted rebellion against Her newly assigned husband Zeus, surely anallegorical reminder of those who struggled for the primacy of the Goddess—and lost. Yet, according to Hawkes, many of the attitudes about the lowlyposition of the women of classical Greece were greatly exaggerated by “thebias of nineteenth century scholarship.” She suggests that, even in theclassical period of Greece, women retained some of their Cretanpredecessors’ freedom:Just as in Crete, women shared the power of the Goddess bothpsychologically and socially; priestesses were of high standing andpriestly associations of women were formed round temples and holyplaces. There was an influential one for example associated with thefamous temple of Artemis (Diana) at Ephesus. At this city and indeedin Ionia generally, women and girls enjoyed much freedom. Whilewomen certainly won influence and responsibility by serving at thetemples and great state festivals of the goddesses, there was also theliberation of the ancient cults. Respectable matrons and girls in largecompanies would spend whole nights on the bare hills in dances whichstimulated ecstasy, and in intoxication, perhaps partly alcoholic, butmainly mystical. Husbands disapproved, but, it is said, did not like tointerfere in religious matters.In the classical age of Sparta, where the veneration of the Goddess asArtemis continued to thrive, women were extremely free and independent.

According to both Euripedes and Plutarch, young Spartan women were notto be found at home but in the gymnasia where they tossed off theirrestricting clothing and wrestled naked with their male contemporaries.Women of Sparta appear to have had total sexual freedom, and thoughmonogamy was said to be the official marriage rule, it was mentioned inseveral classical accounts that it was not taken very seriously. Plutarchreported that in Sparta the infidelity of women was even somewhatglorified, while Nicholas of Damascus, perhaps as the result of somepersonal experience, tells us that a Spartan woman was entitled to haveherself made pregnant by the handsomest man she could find, whethernative or foreigner.

CANAAN—“THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL POSITION OF AN ISRAELITE WIFE …”I have saved the examination of the women in the two Hebrew nations ofJudah and Israel for last, since we generally regard them as part of anisolated patriarchal society which worshiped the male deity alone. At thispoint it will be clarifying to compare the position of Hebrew women notonly with their contemporaries in Babylon and Egypt, cultures sointertwined with their own, but also with the other women of Canaan,where they finally settled.In the city of Ugarit in northern Canaan of the fourteenth century BC,which was not a Hebrew community, there are records of a woman whosetitle was translated as “Important Lady of the Royal House.” She wasknown as the Adath (meaning “Lady,” as the female counterpart of Adonmeaning “Lord”). The Goddess in this area was known as Anath, whichmay be much the same word. The texts of Ugarit (present-day Ras Shamrain Syria), where legends of Anath were also unearthed, revealed that this“Important Lady” took an active part in political affairs.Claude Schaeffer, co-director of the first excavation at Ugarit, wrote in1939, “The social status of women, and particularly the mother of thefamily, thus appears to have been a high one in Ugarit.” Ugaritandocuments of this same period reveal that upon divorce or widowhood awoman kept her own property. Legal records read much like those of Elam,stating that husbands left their possessions to their wives rather than theirchildren; these children are told not to quarrel but to respect and obey theirmother. As I shall explain in the following two chapters, at Ugarit there wasa curious combination of the southern and northern cultures, reflected intheir religious myths. There are accounts of many Indo-Europeans living inthat city by the fourteenth century, yet the status of women does not appearto have been greatly affected by it at that time.Among the Ammonites of Canaan, a people with whom the Hebrewswere in repeated conflict, women acted in official capacities. In 1961archaeologist G. Landes wrote of “the superior position of women being inagreement with nomadic practice.” He stated that queens, such as the Queenof Sheba (about 950 BC), at times led Arab states or tribes and that this wasalso attested in the eighth and seventh centuries BC.

In contrast to the economic, legal and social position of women all aboutthem, the position of the Israelite women exhibits the effects of the almosttotal acceptance of the male deity Yahweh, and the patriarchal society thataccompanied it. According to the Bible, though no archaeological evidencehas yet been found to confirm it, the Israelite laws date from the time ofMoses (about 1300–1250 BC). They continue as the law of the Hebrews ofCanaan until the fall of the northern kingdom known as Israel in 722 BC andthe fall of the southern kingdom known as Judah in 586 BC. These samelaws still appear in the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible to thisday.Through an intensive study of the Bible, archaeologist and priest Rolandde Vaux made these observations about Hebrew women in his study of1965, published as Ancient Israel:The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to theposition a wife occupied in the great countries round about … all thetexts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons, to perpetuate the familyline and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance … Ahusband could divorce his wife … women on the other hand could notask for divorce … the wife called her husband Ba’al or master; shealso called him adon or lord; she addressed him in fact as a slaveaddressed his master or a subject, his king. The Decalogue includes aman’s wife among his possessions … all her life she remains a minor.The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from theirfather, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl ormarried woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husbandand if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had theright to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession.De Vaux asserted that, unlike all the other cultures of the Near East, therewere no priestesses allowed in the Israelite faith. He explained that: … the suggestion that there were women among the clergy of thetemple clashes with an important linguistic fact: there were priestessesin Assyria, priestesses and high priestesses in Phoenicia, where theyare shown by the feminine of kohen; in the Minaean inscriptions therewas a feminine form of lw’ [priest] which some scholars would link

with the Hebrew lewy, but Hebrew has no corresponding noun tokohen or lewy, no women ever held a place among the Israelite clergy.I might add that according to Hebrew law a woman had no right tomoney or property upon divorce and since her vow was invalid, presumablyshe could not engage in business. Perhaps the most shocking laws of allwere those that declared that a woman was to be stoned or burned to deathfor losing her virginity before marriage, a factor never before mentioned inother law codes of the Near East, and that, upon being the victim of rape, asingle woman was forced to marry the rapist; if she was already betrothedor married she was to be stoned to death for having been raped.Perhaps the clearest explanation of the status of early Hebrew womenwas revealed by archaeologist D. Ussishkin in 1970. He described anancient Hebrew tomb recently unearthed in Israel in this way: “Thus itseems that one body, almost certainly that of the husband, was placedhigher than the body of the wife, so that the woman’s inferior status wasalso demonstrated after her death.”Despite the lowly position of women decreed by the Hebrew laws andcustoms, there were two incidents that reveal a possible revival of theancient Goddess religion, even within the royal house of Israel. Theirassociation with the ancient beliefs suggests that two queens may havegained power through the ancient matrilineal customs, which had perhapsslipped back into Israel along with other “pagan” patterns. Both incidentsinvolved women who were listed as Hebrew queens, one in Israel and theother in Judah.The first concerns a woman known as Queen Maacah, possibly adescendant of an Aramaean princess of the same name who was in theharem of Hebrew king David. This second Maacah was listed in the Bibleas the queen of Rehoboam, king of Israel from about 922 to 915 BC. Hisown mother was not Hebrew, but an Ammonite princess. This king isrecorded as having erected “pagan” golden calves. Murray suggests that thissame Queen Maacah was later the wife of the succeeding king, Abijam,who is listed as the son of Maacah and Rehoboam. Her suggestion is basedupon the fact that some versions of the Bible list Maacah as the mother ofAbijam’s son Asa. Other versions list Maacah as his grandmother, but placeher name where the name of the mother would ordinarily be listed andnever mention who his mother was, a pattern quite unlike all other

descriptions of royal Hebrew sons. Murray wrote, “The only way thatAbijam and Asa could have had the same mother, was by marriage ofAbijam with his own mother.”It was Asa who brought about many Hebrew reforms, suppressing thethen very prevalent “heathen” practices, and who finally had Maacahdethroned. In light of the curious discrepancies in Asa’s genealogy, thereason given in the Bible for the dethronement is all the more interesting. InI Kings 15:2–14 we read that Maacah had made an asherah, that is, a statueof the Goddess Asherah. Considering the repeated evidence of “paganism”during this period, it seems quite likely that Israel had taken up the religiouscustoms of old, at that time accepting the female religion and the femalekinship succession to the throne. If this was so, then Maacah would havebeen the royal heiress and held this position until Asa, possibly under theinfluence of Hebrew priests, once again established the religion of Yahweh.The second incident is dated at about 842 BC, when Athaliah, daughter ofQueen Jezebel, claimed the throne of Judah as her own. According toHebrew law, women were not allowed to reign alone. Yet it required aviolent revolution to dethrone her. Jezebel herself was closely identifiedwith the ancient religion. Jezebel’s parents, Athaliah’s grandparents, werethe high priestess and priest of Ashtoreth and Baal in the Canaanite city ofSidon, reigning there as queen and king. The murder of Jezebel, who hadreigned alongside Ahab as queen in the northern kingdom of Israel, wasactually a political assault upon the religion of the Goddess. This is madeclear in the events that followed her murder in the biblical account in KingsI and II. So it is worth noting that it was Jezebel’s daughter who ascended tothe royal throne of Judah, the only woman ever to rule the Hebrew nationalone. Most significant is the fact that, once Athaliah secured her rights tothe throne, she reigned for about six years, re-establishing the ancient“pagan” religion throughout the nation, much to the distress of the Hebrewpriests.

SUMMARYThough cause and effect between matrilineal descent, high female statusand the veneration of the Goddess are often confused, we cannot avoid thefact that repeated evidence attests that the religion of the Goddess and afemale kinship system were closely intertwined in many parts of the NearEast. Though much of the material pertains to royalty, there is enough tosuggest that matrilineal customs were practiced in many areas by thegeneral population as well. In examining the transition from the Goddessreligion to the worship of the male deity as supreme and the subsequenteffects upon the status of women, we find certain patterns emerging.From the beginning of the second millenium, the Assyrians were in closepolitical and commercial contact with the Indo-European Hittites. Indo-European Hurrian princes appeared in various cities of northern Syria fromthat same time on. By 1600 BC Babylon was controlled by the Indo-European-led Kassites. By 1500 BC Assyria was completely under thecontrol of the Hurrians who had formed the kingdom of Mitanni.Accompanying these conquests was the introduction of the myth ofMarduk, who, we are told, murdered the Goddess to gain his supremeposition in Babylon. In Assyria the same myth was told, the name of Ashursimply substituted for the name of Marduk. Throughout the secondmillenium, the Indo-Europeans made further inroads into the lands ofCanaan and Mesopotamia and, as I shall explain in the next two chapters,may have played an important role in the formation of the Hebrew religionand laws.It may be helpful at this point to summarize the changes in the laws asthey affected various aspects of the lives of women. In Eshnunna (inSumer) at about 2000 BC, if a man raped a woman he was put to death. Inthe Old Babylonian period of Hammurabi, before the major incursions ofthe Indo-Europeans, though many of the northerners were in Babyloniaeven at that time, the same punishment was given. In the laws of Assyria,which are dated between 1450 and 1250 BC (when Assyria was under Indo-European control), we read that if a man rapes a woman the husband orfather of that woman should then rape the rapist’s wife or daughter and/ormarry his own daughter to the rapist. The last part of the law was also thelaw of the Hebrews, who added that a raped woman must be put to death if

she was already married or betrothed. Assyrian laws appear to be the first tomention abortion, assigning the penalty as death.The reforms of Urukagina (about 2300 BC) refer to the fact that womenused to take two husbands, though at the time of his reign this was nolonger allowed. In the laws of Eshnunna a man who took a second wife,after his first had given birth to a child, was to be expelled from the housewithout any possessions. In Eshnunna, if a woman had a child by anotherman while her husband was away at war, her husband was expected to takeher back as his wife. No punishment for adultery was mentioned. InHammurabi’s laws, if a woman related to another man sexually she wasexpected to take an oath at the temple and return home to her husband. TheAssyrian and Hebrew laws give the husband the right to murder both thewife and lover.It is somewhat difficult to make comparisons between the various placesand periods since the laws seem to have been included to codify veryspecific incidents and refer to varying situations. The major changes in thelaws concerning women affected their right to engage in economicactivities, what they might or might not inherit, what they in turn wereallowed to pass on to their children, the attitude toward rape, abortion,infidelity on the part of the husband or wife and, among the Hebrews only,the penalty of death—for women—for the loss of virginity before marriage.These laws, since they primarily affected the economic and sexual activitiesof women, point to the likelihood that they were aimed at the matrilinealdescent customs. The very fact that so many of the laws concerned womensuggests that both the economic and sexual position of women wascontinually changing from the time of the first attested northern invasions(about 2300 BC) until the laws of the Hebrews, probably written downbetween 1250 and 1000 BC—though, as I mentioned, none of the originalHebrew texts have yet been discovered.In questioning to what extent the female kinship customs and thereverence of the female deity affected the status of women, we may perhapsbest judge by our observations of the women of the Hebrew tribes who hadaccepted the worship of the new male deity alone and the subsequent lawscontrolling their position and rights in the society in which they lived.We might also want to consider the possibility that, in an even morepersonal way, just as the Hebrews prayed for sons and rejoiced when maleheirs were born to carry on the family line (not so far removed from the

attitudes of many families even today), in matrilineal societies the birth ofdaughters was likely to have been considered a special blessing. Femalechildren may have been especially cherished for the same reasons.According to the curators of the Archaeological Museum of the Universityof Cambridge in England, even today, “Among the matrilineal Asanti inAfrica, female children are especially valued because of their power totransmit blood (mogya), to continue the matriline (abusua).” In ancienttimes the Sun Goddess of Arinna in Anatolia was worshiped along with Hertwo daughters and a granddaughter. The Khasis of Assam worshiped theirGoddess along with Her three daughters and a wayward son. Whatemotional effects this may have had upon the self-esteem and developmentof a young girl at that time we can only guess.A consciousness of the relationship of the veneration of the Goddess tothe matrilineal descent of name, property and the rights to the throne is vitalin understanding the suppression of the Goddess religion. As I shall explain,it was probably the underlying reason for the resentment of the worship ofthe Goddess (and all that it represented) by the patriarchal invaders whoarrived from the north.Judging by the continued presence of the Goddess as supreme deity inthe Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies of the Near and Middle East,Goddess worship, probably accompanied by the matrilineal customs,appears to have existed without challenge for thousands of years. It is uponthe appearance of the invading northerners, who from all accounts hadestablished patrilineal, patriarchal customs and the worship of a suprememale deity sometime before their arrival in the Goddess-worshiping areas,that the greatest changes in religious beliefs and social customs appear tohave taken place. Who were these northern people? And how were theyable to gradually suppress and eventually destroy the ancient Goddessreligion that had existed for so many thousands of years?* “Minoan” is the name given to the indigenous culture of Crete (pre-Mycenaean) by its excavator,Sir Arthur Evans. The name was based on a classical Greek account of a King Minos of Crete, who,it now appears, may actually have lived during the Mycenaean period.

4 The Northern InvadersWhy and when the more northern tribes came to choose a male deity is amoot question. In their earliest development they left neither tablets nortemples. It is only upon their arrival in the Goddess-worshipingcommunities of the Near and Middle East, which by that time haddeveloped into thriving urban centers, that they come to our attention.The lack of evidence for earlier cultural centers in their northernhomelands of Russia and the Caucasus region just previous to the invasionssuggests that up until their arrival in the Near and Middle East they maystill have been nomadic hunting and fishing groups, possibly shepherds justbeginning to practice agriculture. These northern peoples are referred to invarious contexts as Indo-Europeans, Indo-Iranians, Indo-Aryans or simplyAryans. Their existence, once it surfaced in historical periods, portraysthem as aggressive warriors riding two abreast in horse-drawn war chariots;their earlier more speculative appearances in prehistoric times, as big sailorswho navigated the rivers and coastlines of Europe and the Near East.Discussing their origins, Hawkes writes of the Mesolithic and Neolithicgroups known as the “battle axe cultures,” telling us that:On no subject have authorities differed so completely or with greaterlack of objectivity than on the origins of these cultures. The reason forthis partisanship lies in the one thing the authorities are agreed upon—that the battle axe cultures represent the roots of the Indo-Europeanspeaking peoples … What can be said with some certainty is that thebattle axe people had a large ethnic, social and cultural inheritancefrom the hunter-fishers of the forest cultures such as the Maglemosianand Kunda … Though it may not always or everywhere have been so,this character came in time to be dominantly pastoral, patriarchal,warlike and expansive.*

These Maglemosian and Kunda people of Mesolithic times (about15,000–8000 BC) were generally located in the forest and coastal areas ofnorthern Europe, most especially in Denmark. Their sites were generallyfurther north than those of the earlier Gravettian-Aurignacian groups wholeft us the heritage of the Venus figures.The invasion by the northern peoples was not a single major event butrather a series of migrations which took place in waves over a period of atleast one thousand and possibly three thousand years. The invasions of thehistorical period, which began at about 2400 BC, are attested by literatureand surviving artifacts and are agreed upon by most historians andarchaeologists. Those of prehistoric times are speculative, based uponsuggestive evidence and etymological connections. These earlier and lessextensive invasions would take us back to 4000–3000 BC, thus taking placebefore the time of written records. They are not generally associated withthe same invading tribes; yet on the basis of the evidence that does appear, Ifeel that they should be mentioned along with the more attested periods, sothat the reader may draw her or his own conclusions.What is most significant is that in historic times the northern invadersviewed themselves as a superior people. This attitude seems to have beenbased primarily upon their ability to conquer the more culturally developedearlier settlers, the people of the Goddess. The Indo-Europeans were incontinual conflict not only with the people whose lands they invaded butbetween themselves as well. The pattern that surfaces in each area in whichthey make an appearance is that of a group of aggressive warriors,accompanied by a priestly caste of high standing, who initially invaded,conquered and then ruled the indigenous population of each land theyentered.The dates given for their original appearance in the Near East vary.Professor James suggests that the Indo-Europeans were established on theIranian plateau by the fourth millenium. The curators of the FitzwilliamMuseum in Cambridge, England, date their entry into Anatolia at the latefourth millenium or early part of the third. Professor Albright suggests theirappearance in Anatolia at “not later than the early third millenium,” whileProfessor Seton Lloyd writes, “In about 2300 BC a great wave of Indo-European peoples, speaking a dialect known as Luvian, seem to have sweptover Anatolia.”

Professor Gordon tells us that “Indo-Europeans appear on the Near Eastscene shortly after 2000 BC. While their chief representatives are theHittites, the Mitannian kings and gods often bear Indo-Europeannames … The Iranian plateau was to become a great stamping ground of theAryans (as we may call the segment of the Indo-Europeans to which theIranians belong).” Gordon elaborates further, explaining that “The influx ofthe Indo-European immigrants into the Near East during the secondmillenium BC revolutionized the art of war. The newcomers introduced thehorse-drawn war chariot, which gave a swift striking power hithertounknown in the Near East … The elite charioteer officers, who bear theIndo-European name of maryannu, soon became a new aristocracythroughout the entire area including Egypt.”Map 2 Location of areas discussed in chapter 4

From Anatolia and Iran, these tribes continued to push southward intoMesopotamia and Canaan. According to Professor Albright,There is both archaeological and documentary evidence pointing to agreat migratory movement or movements from the northeast into Syriain the 18th century BC. As a result of this movement Hurrian and Indo-Iranian tribes flooded the country. By the 15th century we find most ofeastern and northern Syria occupied predominantly by Hurrians andIndo-Iranians … Megiddo, Jerusalem and Ascalon [all in Canaan] areruled by princes with Anatolian or Indo-Iranian names. The cranialtype at Megiddo, which was previously Mediterranean in character,now becomes brachycephalic Alpine.As the invasions were sporadic, they are difficult to follow and wouldprobably require a volume on each particular area over a long period oftime to be thoroughly explained. But historical, mythological andarchaeological evidence suggests that it was these northern people whobrought with them the concepts of light as good and dark as evil (verypossibly the symbolism of their racial attitudes toward the darker people ofthe southern areas) and of a supreme male deity. The emergence of the maledeity in their subsequent literature, which repeatedly described andexplained his supremacy, and the extremely high position of their priestlycaste may perhaps allow these invasions to be viewed as religious crusadewars as much as territorial conquests.The arrival of the Indo-Aryan tribes, the presentation of their male deitiesas superior to the female deities of the indigenous populations of the landsthey invaded and the subsequent intricate interlacing of the two theologicalconcepts are recorded mythologically in each culture. It is in these mythsthat we witness the attitudes that led to the suppression of Goddess worship.As Sheila Collins writes, “Theology is ultimately political. The wayhuman communities deify the transcendent and determine the categories ofgood and evil have more to do with the power dynamics of the socialsystems which create the theologies than with the spontaneous revelation oftruth from another quarter.”Judging from the production of religious mythology of the royal scribesand priests found in the archives of palaces of the Indo-European-rulednations of the historic periods, often in the language of the conquered

populations, we may surmise that political aims, rather than religious fervor,may well have been the motivation. The prevalence of myths that explainthe creation of the universe by the male deity or the institution of kingship,when none had existed previously, strongly hints at the possibility thatmany of these myths were written by priests of the invading tribes to justifythe supremacy of the new male deities and to justify the installation of aking as the result of the relationship of that king to the male deity.The Indo-European male deity, unlike the son/lover of the Goddessreligion, was most often portrayed as a storm god, high on a mountain,blazing with the light of fire or lightning. This recurrent symbolismsuggests that these northern people may once have worshiped volcanoes asmanifestations of their god, a factor I will discuss more thoroughly inChapter Five. In some areas this god was annexed to the Goddess as ahusband, such as the storm god Taru and the Sun Goddess of Arinna orZeus and Hera. In some legends he emerged as a rebellious young man,who heroically destroyed the older female deity, at times upon thepreviously assured promise of supremacy in the divine hierarchy.In many of these myths the female deity is symbolized as a serpent ordragon, most often associated with darkness and evil. At times the genderof the dragon seems to be neuter, or even a male (closely associated with hismother or wife who is the Goddess). But the plot and the underlyingsymbolic theme of the story is so similar in each myth that, judging fromthe stories that do use the name of the female deity, we may surmise that theallegorical identity of the dragon or serpent is that of the Goddess religion.The Goddess, the original supreme deity of the people conquered and ruledby the invading Indo-Europeans, was not ignored, but was symbolicallyincluded in such a manner that these supposedly religious myths allow us totrace Her eventual deposition.The male deity is invariably the powerful champion of light. With slightvariations we find the myth in Hittite Anatolia in the battle between thestorm god and the dragon Illuyankas; in India between Indra, Lord of theMountains, and the Goddess Danu and Her son Vrtra; in northern Canaanbetween Baal (who plays a dual role as the storm god of Mount Saphon aswell as the brother/consort of the Goddess Anath) and the serpent Lotan orLawtan (in the Canaanite language Lat means Goddess); in Babylon,probably in the Indo-European period of Kassite control, between Mardukand the Goddess Tiamat; in Indo-European Mitannian-controlled Assyria,

Ashur simply assumes the deeds of Marduk; in Indo-European Greecebetween Zeus and the serpent Typhon (son of the Goddess Gaia), betweenApollo and the serpent Python (also recorded as the son of Gaia) andbetween Hercules and the serpent Ladon who guards the sacred fruit tree ofthe Goddess Hera (said to be given to her by Gaia at the time of hermarriage to Zeus). The myth appears in the ancient Hebrew writings (whoseconnections to the Indo-Europeans shall also be thoroughly discussed inChapter Five) as the conquest by the Hebrew god Yahweh (Jehovah) of theserpent Leviathan (another Canaanite name for Lotan). It may even survivein the legends of St. George and the dragon and St. Patrick and the snakes.The female religion, especially after the earlier invasions, appears to haveassimilated the male deities into the older worship and the Goddesssurvived as the popular religion of the people for thousands of years afterthe initial invasions. By the time of Marduk and Ashur of the sixteenthcentury BC, Her position had been greatly lowered in Mesopotamia. But itwas upon the last assaults by the Hebrews and eventually by the Christiansof the first centuries after Christ that the religion was finally suppressed andnearly forgotten.It is in these accounts of the Indo-European people that we may find theorigins of many of the ideas of the early Hebrews. The concept of the godon the mountain top, blazing with light, the duality between light and darksymbolized as good and evil, the myth of the male deity’s defeat of theserpent as well as the leadership of a supreme ruling class, each soprevalent in Indo-European religion and society, are to be found in Hebrewreligious and political concepts as well. This influence or possibleconnection with the Indo-European peoples may provide the explanation forthe extreme patriarchal attitudes of the Hebrews which will be thoroughlydiscussed in Chapter Five. By first becoming aware of the Indo-Europeanpolitical patterns and religious imagery, Hebrew attitudes and ideas, thatwere later adopted into Christianity, may be better understood.

INDIA—“ORIGIN OF THE CASTES …”In India there is some of the clearest evidence of the Indo-Aryan invasionsand the conquest of the original Goddess-worshiping people. The languageof the Indo-Aryans of India was what we today refer to as Sanskrit. Upontheir arrival, the northern peoples did not yet possess a method of writing.They adopted two alphabets, possibly from the Akkadians. With thesescripts they wrote their hymns and other literature. Thus the mostcomprehensive records of the Indo-Aryans in India were in the booksknown as the Vedas, written sometime between 1500 and 1200 BC in theIndo-European Sanskrit language, using the borrowed scripts.In 1963 Professor E. O. James wrote:It appears that the sky gods in the ancient Vedic pantheon were alreadyestablished among the Aryan tribes when they began their migrationsin the second millenium BC … On their arrival in India they found,contrary to belief prior to the archaeological excavations in and aroundthe Indus Valley since 1922, not a primitive aboriginal population but ahighly developed urban civilization superior to their own relativelysimple way of life as depicted in the Rg Veda.Writing in 1965, Guiseppi Sormani also tells us that “The Aryans cameinto contact with highly civilized and already ancient forms of settledsociety, in comparison with which they were mere barbarians.” He alsoexplains that “They had long since abandoned matriarchy and had apatriarchal family system as well as a patriarchal form of government.”According to the hymns in the Indo-Aryan Rg Veda, in the verybeginning of time there was only asura—living power. The asura thenbroke down into two cosmic groups. One was the enemies of the Aryans,known as the Danavas or Dityas, whose mother was the Goddess Danu orDiti; the other group, clearly the heroes of the Aryans, were known to themas the A-Dityas. This title betrays the fact that this mythical structure wascreated in reaction to the presence of the worshipers of Diti, since A-Dityaliterally means “not Dityas,” not people of Diti. This strongly suggests thatthese mythical hymns were not only written down after the Aryans came

into contact with the Goddess people, but were conceived and composedafter that time as well.One of the major Indo-Aryan gods was known as Indra, Lord of theMountains, “he who overthrows cities.” Upon obtaining the promise ofsupremacy if he succeeded in killing Danu and Her son Vrtra, he doesaccomplish the act, thus achieving kingship among the A-Dityas. In a hymnto Indra in the Rg Veda which describes the event, Danu and Her son arefirst described as serpent demons; later, as they lie dead, they aresymbolized as cow and calf. Both images of cow and serpent are associatedwith the worship of the Goddess as it was known in the Near and MiddleEast. After the murders, “the cosmic waters flowed and were pregnant.”They in turn gave birth to the sun. This concept of the sun god emergingfrom the primeval waters appears in other Indo-European myths and alsooccurs in connection with two of the prehistoric invasions.The Indo-Aryan attitude toward women is made clear in two sentencesattributed to Indra in the Rg Veda. “The mind of woman brooks notdiscipline. Her intellect has little weight.” We may find this statement ratherironic in light of the level of the culture of the patriarchal male-worshipingIndo-Aryans compared with that of the more female-oriented Goddess-worshiping people they forcibly subdued.The Rg Veda also refers to an ancestral father god known both asPrajapati and Dyaus Pitar. He appears as an almost abstract idea in the RgVeda. Yet Dyaus Pitar is known in later Brahmanic writings as “supremefather of all.” Evidence of ancestor worship of the father occurs in severalhymns of the Rg Veda. The Indo-Aryans daily recited the Pitriyajna, theworship of the ancestral fathers. In this ritual the father of the family actedas high priest, later passing these rites on to his eldest son. In Sanskrit, pitarmeans father, but pati has various meanings. The connections assure us ofthe position of men in these northern tribes. Pati has the alternativetranslations of lord, ruler, master, owner and husband.The spread of the Indo-Aryan culture brought with it the origins of theHindu religion and the concept of light-colored skin being perceived asbetter than darker skins. The Brahmins, the priests of the lighter Indo-Aryans, were considered to be the epitome of the racial hierarchy. Sormanireports that:

Much study has been given to the real origin of the castes and the mostdependable theories trace these back to the invasions of ancient times.The white skinned Aryans did not wish to mingle with the darkskinned Dravidians who were the original inhabitants (the Sanskritword for caste, varna, means colour). The first measures towardsdividing the populations into castes were laws that forbade mixedmarriages between Aryans and Dravidians.In the later Bhagavad Gita, the Aryan hero Arjuna speaks of his fear ofundermining the “very structure of society.” His concern is that he mightproduce “lawlessness,” which is then described as meaning “the corruptionof women,” which in turn would lead to “caste mixture.”A figure who appears in the Indo-Aryan mythology of 400 BC, though hemay have been known in legend before that time, is Rama, who symbolizesthe Brahmanic tradition. Norman Brown, Professor of Sanskrit at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, describes him in this way:Rama is the mythic agent for spreading Aryan (that is Brahmanic orSanskrit) culture to the then un-Aryanized south of India, where evennow culture is primarily a possession of the Brahmins overlying asubstratum which is chiefly Dravidian … Rama’s conquest is by forceof arms … he is thus represented as having brought culture and light tothe aborigines, who when intransigent are called demons and whenwilling converts, monkeys and bears.Thus it may have been that the patriarchal invaders, who saw women asinferior, are responsible for the origins of racist attitudes as well.Light to the Aryans may have been the blinding light of volcaniceruptions, later symbolized by the light of their ever-present fire sacrifices,the light of the astral bodies, especially the sun, the lightning bolts of theirstorm god, perhaps the lightness of their own skin color as compared withthe Mediterranean people and the “realm of eternal light” where the spiritsof the Aryan dead were supposed to reside. The “gracious fathers dwell inglowing light, light primeval.” Brahma, whose name eventually came to bethat of the supreme god, is described as “he whose form is light.” Dev, theSanskrit word for god, literally means shining or bright. Mithra, stillanother god who appears in the Rg Veda, later to emerge in a more

important role in the Iranian Avesta, is continually associated with light,while Varuna, which seems to be another name of Dyaus Pitar, has the taskof performing daily sacrifices to bring the “shining sun” out of the “deepdark space under the earth.”Archaeological evidence, especially the work of Sir John Marshall,reveals that before the Aryan invasions the indigenous population of Indiarevered the Goddess. The earliest cultures of the Indus Valley seem to havebeen in contact with Sumer and Elam at about 3000 BC. Religious attitudesand beliefs are often firmly entrenched in family and social custom. If themajor part of the population once held the Goddess as sacred, it does notseem too surprising to find that these beliefs were revived at times when itwas safe to do so openly, though we may find the time span ratherastonishing.In later periods of Indian history, as in many other areas where theworship of the male deity was superimposed upon the female religion,many people, perhaps those who remained in more isolated areas, stillretained the worship of the Goddess. As late as AD 600 the worship of thefemale divinity once again surfaced in India. She appeared in the Puranasand Tantras under many names, but the name Devi, simply meaningGoddess, combined them all. Yet the name Devi was from the Sanskrit Dev;Her name as Danu or Diti had been forgotten.Professor Brown explains that:The reason why we do not hear of her sooner doubtless is that theGreat Mother is not Aryan in origin and was late in getting Brahmanicrecognition. She is quite different from any of the female deities in theRg Veda … The Great Mother Goddess is widely worshipped in Indiatoday in non-Aryan circles; in south India every village has itscollection of Ammas, or Mothers, and their worship is the chiefreligious exercise of the village … the priests of these deities [theyhave priestesses as well] are not Brahmins … but are members oflower castes, thus indicating the pre-Aryan or at least non-Aryanworship of these goddesses.Brown tells us that the Goddess was eventually incorporated intoBrahmanic literature but points out that “The Great Mother conception stillhas a dubious position in Brahmanic circles.”

IRAN—“… THE SEED OF THE ARYAN LANDS”Indo-Aryan beliefs are also found in the writings of Iran, though at a muchlater period. The oldest written material from Iran unfortunately dates backonly as far as 600 BC to the Zend Avesta of Zarathustra. But thismythological material is enlightening, for as James explains, “Indians andIranians alike were, as we have seen, Aryans derived from the same Indo-European ethnological stock established on the Iranian plateau since thefourth millenium BC and apparently spoke a Vedic Sanskrit dialect.”Professor M. J. Dresden also tells us that “A substantial body oflinguistic, religious and social evidence warrants the assumption that, at onetime, the bearers of the two cultures, which find their expression in theIndian Rg Veda on the one hand and in parts of the Iranian Avesta on theother, formed a unity.”Though there certainly must have been considerable change from thetime of the Rg Veda until the writing of the Avesta, we again find theconcept of a great father who represents light, now known as Ahura Mazda.He is generally referred to as the Lord of Light and his abode is on amountain top, glowing in golden light. This dwelling is said to be on MountHara, supposedly the first mountain ever created. In the language of theIndo-Iranians, hara actually meant mountain.The duality of light and dark as good and evil is everywhere evident inIranian religious thought. Ahura Mazda is on high in goodness, while adevil-like figure called Ahriman is “deep down in darkness.” In one accountAhriman dared to come up to the border between them, there to be blindedby the light of Ahura. Seeing valor and supremacy “superior to his own,” hefled back to the darkness. In the Iranian texts of AD 200 known asManichean, once again we find good and evil equated with light and dark.In these statements we are told that the “problems of humanity are causedby the mixture of the two.” Mithra, who appears in the Rg Veda, emergesmore significantly in Iranian thought: now it is Mithra who defeats the“demons of darkness.”Most interesting is the Iranian figure known as Gayo Mareta, the firstman created. Gayo Mareta may have once been much the same figure inIran as Indra was in India. Gauee or gavee in Sanskrit means cow. Mrityu inSanskrit means death or murder, surviving in the Indo-European German

language as mord, meaning murder, and in the Indo-European Englishlanguage as the word murder itself. Thus Gayo Mareta appears to be named“Cow Murderer.” Just as Danu was symbolized as the cow Goddess, whoseworship is best known from Egypt, and Indra Her murderer, so GayoMareta may once have held this position in Iran. In the Pahlavi books ofabout 400 BC it was written, “From Gayo Mareta, Ahura fashioned thefamily of the Aryan lands, the seed of the Aryan lands.”A later addition to Iranian mythology as we know it again appears to be arevival of the Goddess religion. According to Iranian texts of the fourthcentury AD, the Goddess Anahita was in charge of the universe. Curiouslyenough they tell us that “Ahura Mazda has given her the task of watchingover all creation.”

THE HURRIANS—“… A RULING CASTE OF INDO-ARYANS”An earlier group of people who further explain the identity and culturalpatterns of the invading northerners were known as the Hurrians. Thegreater percentage of Hurrian people were not Indo-European; at least theydid not use an Indo-European language. But they were from an area eithernorth of Anatolia or northern Iran and were a brachycephalic (Alpine)group, as were the Indo-Europeans. It was perhaps in that area that they toowere first conquered and then ruled by Indo-Europeans.“These people,” says Professor Saggs, “long known in the Old Testamentas the Horites or Horims spoke a language having no recognized affinitiesexcept in the later Urartian. They must have reached the mountains north ofAssyria, presumably from the Caucasus region, in the second half of thethird millenium BC.”By 2400 BC there was an isolated Hurrian settlement at Urkish, in theHabur Valley, west of Assyria. At this same time, at Nuzi and Tell Brak,later to become important centers of the Hurrian kingdom, Hurrian namesbegan to appear. Some were found as far south as Babylon, while by 2300BC Hurrian names appeared in the Sumerian city of Nippur, some fortymiles from Erech.Archaeologist O. R. Gurney wrote The Hittites in 1952. In this book hesuggested that the original homeland of the Hurrians was in northern Iran.He records that “The Hurrian people are known to have spread graduallysouthward and westward from their home in the mountainous region southof the Caspian Sea from about 2300 BC onwards, and to have becomeorganized during the second millennium into several powerfulkingdoms … situated near the upper waters of the Euphrates and theHabur.”Although most of the Hurrian people were not Indo-European, ourinterest in the Hurrians or Horites is based on the evidence that their kingsand leaders were. Saggs explains that “… the kings of Mitanni bore notHurrian but Indo-European names, whilst the old Indian gods, Mitra,Varuna and Indra were worshipped … All this points to the presence of anAryan warrior caste ruling over a largely non-Aryan population.” Gurneyagrees, stating that Mitanni “… was ruled by a dynasty of kings whosenames have an Aryan etymology, and Indian deities such as Indra and

Varuna, figure prominently in its pantheon. It is thus clear in Mitanni apopulation of Hurrians was dominated by a ruling caste of Indo-Aryans.”The legend of Indra may have been known, since he is mentioned in theHurrian tablets, but as yet no actual Hurrian accounts of the legend havebeen found. One Hurrian myth known through Hittite copies, though not atypical dragon story, revolves around the efforts to destroy Teshub, consortof the important Anatolian Goddess Hepat, whom Hittite queen Pudu-Hepaconsidered to be much the same deity as the Sun Goddess of Arinna. Themajor protagonist is the god known as Kumarbi, whose religious center islisted as the early Hurrian settlement of Urkish. In this myth he is called“father of all gods.” His Aryan connections are visible in his name;Rajkumar in Sanskrit means prince. Kumarbi gives birth to a child made ofstone named Ullikummi, which is the name of a mountain in theKizzuwatna territory of Cilcia in south-central Anatolia, possibly thedouble-peaked volcanic mountain known today as Hasan Dag. It isUllikummi’s job to destroy Teshub. The text is quite long and involved andbroken at many vital sections, but the major point is that Ullikummi is toldto “suppress the city of Kummiya,” to “hit Teshub,” “pound him like chaff”and “crush him with your foot like an ant.” It is not certain but the city ofKummiya in the legend may refer to the city of Kummani, which was amajor religious center of the Goddess Hepat.The origins of the meaning of the name Hurrian, Horite or Horim may beassociated with the meaning of the Iranian word hara, mountain. This wordmay survive in the German word for hill, höhe, and the word for higher,höher (possibly in the English word higher itself). This suggests that theHurrians may simply be designated by the word “mountains” or “hills,” adescription of their original homeland.It is also possible that the term was originally related to the Sanskrit wordhari, which means golden yellow. This word is generally associated withIndra, Lord of the Mountains, used to describe his bow, his horse, hissandals and other symbolic possessions. It may even refer to the possessionof gold which in Sanskrit is hiran, later becoming oro in Latin.But to go even further, both of these groups of words may derive from anearlier idea of a golden mountain, the realm of eternal light, where theancestors of the Aryans supposedly reside upon death. This image is mostclearly presented in the later image of Ahura in his glowing home on thetop of Mount Hara.

THE UBAID PERIOD—ERIDU, URARTU, ARARAT AND ARATTAAlong with these historically attested appearances of the Indo-Europeansfrom the middle of the third millenium onward, there is the speculativesuggestion that the Indo-Europeans, or closely related groups such as thepredecessors of the Hurrians, may have entered southern Iraq as early as thefourth millenium BC. A group generally known as the people of the Ubaidculture (so called by archaeologists for the modern name of the site atwhich they were first noticed, al’Ubaid) entered the Tigris-Euphrates area atthis time. It is most often suggested that the Ubaid people came from thehighlands of Iran, though some authorities are now beginning to believethat they moved down from the north of Iraq.Though it is uncertain, since there was no form of writing at that time,some writers suggest that the Ubaid people brought the Sumerian languagewith them. This language, neither Semitic nor Indo-European, has longpuzzled many language experts. Professor S. N. Kramer, who has doneextensive work deciphering Sumerian tablets, suggests that Sumerian is“reminiscent to some extent of the Ural Altaic languages.” Some of theareas in which these languages have been noted are just north and west ofthe Caspian Sea. It has been suggested that Aratta, a place name oftenmentioned in Sumerian texts, may be in that same area or just slightlysouth, in the northwestern stretches of Iran along the Caspian Sea.From whichever direction their entrance was made, the Ubaid peopleseemed to have established their major settlement in the town later knownas Eridu, quite close to the junction where the Tigris and Euphrates joinwith the Persian Gulf. These same people are known to have spread acrossthe Tigris and Euphrates area. Mellaart tells us that, as a result, the Halafculture “broke up” and “at Arpachiyah there was destruction and massacre.”The Ubaid people extended as far north as Lake Urmia and Lake Van, closeto the Iranian-Russian border, perhaps the area from which they originatedas a more nomadic group. This section was later known as Ararat or Urartu,a name which may have been derived from Aratta. It is possible that thename Eridu was once meant to remind its people of the name Aratta orUrartu (Urartu was known in later periods to have been inhabited by theHurrian people and at times is suggested as their original homeland).

In about 4000 BC the Ubaid people built a temple at Eridu. Thoughshrines to the Goddess had been built in many Neolithic and Chalcolithictowns along the Tigris and Euphrates from 7000 BC onward, this temple atEridu appears to be the first built on a high platform. Could this have beenan attempt to simulate a mountain where there was none? Curiouslyenough, the Sumerian word for mountain is hur or kur. Unlike the othercommunities present in Iraq at that time, at the Ubaidian temple of Eridunot a single Goddess figurine was found.The Maglemosian and Kunda people, who as mentioned previously seemto have been the cultural ancestors of the Indo-European peoples, used“dug-out” canoes, even in Mesolithic times. These boats were basically logswith holes burned out for the occupants. In earlier periods these peoplewere located in northern Europe and Denmark. Two canoes, one in theNetherlands and one on the coast of Scotland, have both been attributed tothe Maglemosian people. Maglemosian steering paddles, fish nets andfishing traps reveal that these boats were used for fishing activities,apparently a major aspect of Maglemosian life.*

Map 3 Some major waterways from Estonia to the Persian GulfWith rivers and streams that flow across Europe and the Near East morenumerous at a time closer to the melting of the Ice Age glaciers and pluvialrains that were still occurring in 10,000 BC, it may have been some of theseancient sailors, possibly over many generations, who eventually made theirway to the warmer climate of Eridu. Evidence of the Maglemosians has alsobeen found in Estonia, suggesting that they may have traveled down theVolga, which pours into the Caspian Sea. Many of them may havewandered into the numerous river inlets along the western edge of theCaspian into the Caucasus region. One of the major rivers, even today, thatjoins with the Caspian Sea is the Araks. Following the mainstream of theAraks would have led some of them into the Lake Urmia and Lake Vanareas, that is, the land of Urartu. Branches of the Tigris in Urartu join upwith the mainstream of that river, leading directly to the Persian Gulf,where the Tigris and Euphrates meet.

Hawkes tells us that “On the Euphrates the men of the al’Ubaid culturewere probably the first regular navigators of the river … A model found in alate al’Ubaid grave at Eridu represents the oldest sailing boat known in theworld.”The deity worshiped at Eridu in historic times was known as the godEnki. In prehistoric periods the god of this shrine appears to have been afish or water god; offerings of fish were burned on his altar. In historictimes Enki was thought of as a god of the waters, often described as ridingabout in his boat or simply called “he who rides.” This concept of the fishor water god is quite like one found in a fragment of an Indo-EuropeanHittite tablet which tells of a sun god who rose from the water with fish onhis head. It is also reminiscent of the sun god who was born from thecosmic waters supposedly released by Indra, upon the deaths of Danu andVrtra. Though Enki is not generally designated as a sun god, in the myth ofMarduk he is named as Marduk’s father, whereupon Marduk is called “theson of the sun.”The Ubaid people are credited with first developing irrigation canals inEridu. Though these later salted up from the Persian Gulf, we may see theconcept of irrigation canals as a natural idea for people who had lived theirlives on rivers and streams, later settling in dryer areas.Another possible clue to the identity of the people of the Ubaid period ofEridu is the institution of kingship and the mention of the name Alalu as thevery first king of Sumer in the king lists of the earliest part of the secondmillenium. His residence was listed as Eridu. According to these tablets,which appear to refer back to prehistoric periods, it was in the city of Eriduthat “kingship was first lowered from heaven.” The name Alalu also occursin the Hurrian myth of Kumarbi, which was previously mentioned. TheHurrian myth begins, “In former years when Alalu was king in heaven,when Alalu was sitting on the throne …” Though it is most often suggestedthat the Hurrian use of the name Alalu was based on the writings of Sumer,which are older, it is possible that this name remained in the memory ofthose Ubaidians who later sailed back to the area of Lake Urmia; theirpresence there is attested by sites later than that of earliest Eridu. It isperhaps in this way that the name survived in the Hurrian myths of thepeople who lived in that area.

SUMER AND BABYLON—NEW PEOPLE, NEW GODS AND A REVEALING ACCOUNTOF THE MURDER OF THE GODDESSSomewhere between 3400 and 3200 BC another group of people appear tohave entered Sumer. Professor Saggs writes of the manner of constructionof a temple in what is known as the Uruk Level Five period as “indicatingthe arrival of a mountain race familiar with the techniques of stoneworking.” At this same time the areas of Nippur and Kish began to developas populated centers.* At Nippur of historical periods, a god known as Enlilappears to have taken the limelight from Enki. In myths and inscriptions weread of Enlil as the “bright eyed great mountain,” his temple described asthe House of the Mountain, despite the fact that Nippur, in fact most ofSumer, is no higher than about 600 feet above sea level. His introductioninto the city of Nippur is associated mythologically with the rape of thedaughter of the Goddess in Nippur, Nunbarshegunu. The daughter’s name isthen given as Ninlil and later she is described as Enlil’s wife. Enlil was alsoknown as Lord Air, a title also associated with a deity in Egypt, where thesign for the word air is a sail. In Hurrian myths, Kumarbi is associated withthe town of Nippur; they claim that it is Kumarbi’s town.In Sumerian tablets we find the Goddess under many names. In earliertimes, each of these may have been revered as the Divine Ancestress of aparticular community or town. Ninsikil was the patron deity of Dilmun, theParadise of the Sumerians, but is also listed as an actual place in manyrecords. Nammu was known as “She who gives birth to heaven and earth,”as well as “the mother of all deities.” Nina was worshiped as the“Prophetess of Deities.” Nanshe of Lagash was “She who knows theorphan, knows the widow, seeks justice for the poor and shelter for theweak.” On New Year’s Day, She judged all of humankind. Nidaba of Erechwas known as the learned one of the holy chambers, She who teaches thedecrees, the great scribe of heaven. Shala, a title of Ininni, described Herselfas “Mighty queen Goddess who designs heaven and earth am I.”Ningal or Nikkal (“Great Lady”), who in historical times was known asthe wife of a moon god named Nannar (Sin in Akkadian), may at one timehave been worshiped as the sun. In Anatolia, several high priestess-queensof the Sun Goddess of Arinna had the name Nikkal as part of their names.In historical periods She was said to be the mother of Utu, the sun, which

may have been a later innovation. A shrine in Ur, which in the earliestperiods may have been just that of Ningal, was in most periods shared withHer husband. In the Kassite period of Ur She was totally removed from themain shrine and placed in a smaller annex. There is a long poem to Her asthe “mother and queen of Ur,” with Nannar mentioned as Her ishib priest.The Goddess Ninhursag, also known as Ninmah, seems to be closelyidentified with the worship of Enki, as his wife and sister, though in earliestlegends She plays a rather dominating role and Her name often precedesthose of Enki and Enlil. One legend explained that, with the help ofNammu, She created the first people. The Goddess, known as Ereshkigal,whom we later hear of as the Mistress of the Underworld, in one earlySumerian legend is carried off to the Underworld as a prize—at the timethat Enlil took possession of the earth. But as we just read, even in theUnderworld She was given no peace, eventually being forced to accept aconsort to rule beside Her, to whom She was made to present the Tablets ofDestiny.The name of the Goddess as Inanna appears to have been derived fromInnin, Innini or Nina. She may have become the daughter of Ningal at thesame time that Utu became the sun. By the time we meet Her in the periodof written legend (shortly after 2000 BC), though She still receives greatreverence, She has clearly lost what was previously Hers. Though Nammuhad created heaven and earth and Ninhursag, Nintu or Ninmah the firstpeople, one myth tells us that Enki established world order. In this myth weread that he created the irrigation canals, “making the Tigris and Euphrateseat together.” We next learn that he had appointed various deities to certainpositions and that Enki himself or the personage appointed in charge of thecanals “has carried off like fat the princely knee from the palace.” Thoughthis line is rather obscure, it may refer to the murder of a young prince atthat time. Shortly afterward we twice read that Inanna has given up Herroyal scepter, upon which She twice asks Enki, “Where are my royalpowers?” As if to console Her, he tells Her that She is still in charge of “thewords spoken by the young lad,” words which She had established, and thatthe crook, the staff and the “wand of shepherdship,” were still Hers. As if infurther explanation of Her loss of powers as a result of the canal building,he ends with, “Inanna, you who do not know the distant wells, the fasteningropes, the inundation has come, the land is restored, the inundation of Enlilhas come.”

In this legend we may be reading an explanation of the diminishedpowers and status of the Goddess upon the arrival of the Ubaidians of Eriduor by the advocates of Enlil at Nippur, to whom, according to Sumerianlegend, Enki presented many gifts. Since the myth was not written untilafter 2000 BC, it would be difficult to say whether these changes occurredduring the arrival of the Enki people or at the time of the settling of Nippur.Though the position of women and the supremacy of the Goddess certainlylost ground all through the historical period of Sumer, these changes mayhave been happening for centuries, even millenia. Yet throughout thehistorical period the Goddess, as Inanna, was still deeply revered, especiallyin Erech; She appears to have been regarded continually as the one whobestowed the rights of shepherdship or kingship, suggesting that thematrilineal rights to the royal throne continued to exist, a factor that will bemore thoroughly discussed in Chapter Six.There may even have been a revival of the religion of the Goddessbetween the two periods, since one myth is concerned with the transfer ofthe cultural center from Eridu to Erech, Enki claiming that Inanna hadstolen all the gifts of civilization from him. Alongside the archaeologicalevidence that many of these “gifts of civilization” had been developed inthe Goddess-worshiping communities of Neolithic times, it is alsointeresting to note that the words the Sumerians used for farmer, plow,furrow, smith, weaver, leatherworker, basketmaker, potter and mason werenot Sumerian words but apparently borrowed from another, perhaps earlier,language.A third male deity was introduced to Sumer probably shortly before thebeginning of the second millenium, a period when Hurrians are known tohave been entering the area. He is known as An or Anu, generally definedas the Sumerian word for sky. Yet the word an or ahn appears in severalIndo-European languages as “ancestor,” while in German, ür-ahn is definedas primeval ancestor. This title occurs in the Indo-European Greek nameUranus, a sky god. Professor Hooke tells us that “In the early Sumerianperiod the name Anu is relatively obscure, and his name does not appear onany of the eighteen lists belonging to this period …”Anu appears as the successor to Alalu in the Hurrian and Hittite Kumarbimyth previously discussed. But most interesting is his appearance in thelater myth of Marduk, “the son of the sun.” Here we learn that Enki wasfirst asked to subdue the Creatress-Goddess, whom they call Tiamat, and

was not able, though he did manage to kill Her husband Apsu, thusbecoming Lord of the Abzu (primeval waters) himself. Then Anu wasasked, but according to the legend when he confronted Her, he cringed infear and refused to complete his mission. Finally Marduk, son of Enki, waswilling, though only upon the promise of the supreme position among allother deities if he succeeded. This previously secured promise brings tomind the one Indra requested before murdering Danu and Her son Vrtra;both of these myths were probably written about the same period (1600–1400 BC).This legend, known as the Enuma Elish, which explains the supremacy ofMarduk, has long been designated as Babylonian and therefore Akkadianand Semitic. But latest research suggests that, though Marduk was known inthe Hammurabi period, the myth claiming his supremacy did not actuallyappear until after the Kassites had conquered Babylon. Professor Saggspoints out that “none of the extant texts belonging to it is earlier than thefirst millenium” and that “it has been suggested that in fact this work aroseonly in the Kassite period, a time now known to have been one of intenseliterary activity.” As I mentioned before, the Kassites were also ruled by theIndo-Europeans. Gurney tells us that “The names of Indian deities arefound to form an element in the names of the Kassite rulers of Babylonia,”though once again the greater part of the Kassite people were not Indo-European.In about 2100 BC a Sumerian king named Ur Nammu declared that hewould establish justice in the land, somewhat like the reforms of Urukagina,who preceded him. It was said that he did away with the heavy duties andtaxes that were burdening the people at that time and “rid the land of the bigsailors who seized oxen, sheep and donkeys” (my italics).In many of the legends and inscriptions of Sumer, the people of Sumerare often referred to as “the black-headed people.” This designation, whichwas probably a description of the hair coloring of most of the inhabitants ofSumer at that time, is interesting when one begins to question why thephrase first came into use. Usually people are identified by whatever isdifferent about them. We would not refer to a group as “the two-eyedpeople” unless there was also a group of people with only one eye, or withmore than two eyes. This description, so often applied to the people ofSumer in the writings of Sumer itself, may well be another indication thatthose who first coined the term and used it, were themselves, or were at

least familiar with others who were, not “black-headed people,” but peoplewith hair of a lighter color.Each of these connections, when viewed side by side, may suggest thatEnki, Enlil, Anu and Marduk were each introduced by Indo-European orclosely related northern groups entering the Goddess cultures ofMesopotamia. Enlil, Enki and Anu appear to have become graduallyassimilated into the vaster numbers of Goddess-worshiping people. But thelater figure of Marduk, and especially Ashur, who succeeded to his positionin Hurrian-controlled Assyria, were worshiped in societies where theposition of women had certainly lost ground.

EGYPT—A BOAT IN THE HEAVENS?The other possible, though also speculative, appearance of these samenorthern invaders may have occurred shortly before the earliest dynasticperiod of Egypt. Just before 3000 BC, there is evidence of an invasion inEgypt, shortly after which, just as in Eridu, kingship was first instituted.Upper and Lower Egypt were then joined together for the first time—underthat one king. Until the time of the invasion, the Neolithic cultures of Egyptappear to have held the Cobra Goddess of the north (Ua Zit) and the VultureGoddess of the south (Nekhebt) as the two supreme deities, though therewere many other local deities worshiped in each community. After theinvasion the two Goddesses were demoted, though they continued tosymbolize the royal crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, both of which werenow worn on the king’s head—one inside the other.M. E. L. Mallowan writes that “The inference that there was somecontact between Egypt and Sumer at the time is confirmed by the presenceof Jemdet Nasr type seals.” The Jemdet Nasr period of Sumer was the timeof the settling of Nippur and apparently the introduction of Enlil. Mallowan,judging from methods of construction and style, also suggested that theFirst Dynasty tombs may have been inspired by the temples ofMesopotamia.Discussing the Jemdet Nasr period, Saggs reports that “Abundantevidence of Mesopotamian cultural influence is found at this time in Egypt.Significant is the fact that cylinder seals (a specifically Mesopotamianinvention) occur there, together with methods of building in brick foreign toEgypt but typical of the Jemdet Nasr culture. In Egypt also at this timeMesopotamian motifs and objects are represented in art, a striking examplebeing a boat of Mesopotamian type found carved on a knifehandle … whilst the principle of writing (though not the technique) wascertainly taken over by the Egyptians from Mesopotamia.”It may be that the same people who were known as the Ubaid in Sumer,perhaps leaving during the Jemdet Nasr period when the newer groups wereentering Sumer, made their way into Egypt at that time. Paintings in earlydynastic tombs portray a conical basket type of fish trap, nearly identical tothose of the Ertebølle people of northern Europe who were descendeddirectly from the Maglemosians. In Egypt, the god who was assigned the

role of father to the ancient Goddess Nut was known as Shu, Lord Air. As Imentioned before, in Egypt the sign for air is a sail, while the sign for theword gods is a series of banners or pendants, which are otherwise seen atthe prow of boats. The male deity of Egypt, who arrived with the invaders,was portrayed as a sun god riding in his boat, much as Enki was known as“he who rides.”Professor Walter Emery spent some forty-five years excavating theancient tombs and pyramids of Egypt. Discussing the arrival of thesepeople, he writes:Whether this incursion took the form of gradual infiltration or hordeinvasion is uncertain but the balance of evidence, principally suppliedby the carving on an ivory knife handle from Gebel-el-Arak and bypaintings on the walls of a late predynastic tomb at Hieraconopolis,strongly suggests the latter. On the knife handle we see a style of artwhich some think may be Mesopotamian, or even Syrian in origin, anda scene which may represent a battle at sea against invaders, a themewhich is also crudely depicted in the Hieraconopolis tomb. In bothrepresentations we have typical native ships of Egypt and strangevessels with high prow and stem of unmistakable Mesopotamianorigin.At any rate, towards the close of the fourth millenium BC we find thepeople known traditionally as the “Followers of Horus” apparentlyforming an aristocracy or master race ruling over the whole of Egypt.The theory of the existence of this master race is supported by thediscovery that graves of the late predynastic period in the northern partof Upper Egypt were found to contain the anatomical remains of apeople whose skulls are of greater size and whose bodies were largerthan those of the natives, the difference being so marked that anysuggestion that these people derived from the earlier stock isimpossible.He also describes a scene on a mace head of one of the earliest kings whichportrays him building a canal, apparently amid great ceremonial activity,and adds that “There is strong evidence to show that the conqueror of theNorth attempted to legitimize his position by taking the Northern princessas his consort.”

The invaders of this period were known to the Egyptians as the ShemsuHor—people of Hor. The Hor tribes eventually made Memphis their capital.Upon their arrival the new male deity was introduced. He was called Hor-Wer—Great Hor. Writing of the origins of the Hor figure in Egyptianmythology. Rudolf Anthes, professor of Egyptology, explains, “The timewas the beginning and middle of the third millenium BC, starting with theearliest documentation of history, and the circumstances were prompted bythe establishment of the kingship in Egypt.”By 2900 BC pictures of the sun god Hor-Wer show him riding about in hisboat of heaven. We may find this conceptual imagery of the sun god ridingin his boat in the heavens not unlike the later Indo-European imagery ofIndia and Greece, where the sun god then rode across the heavens in ahorse-drawn chariot.According to Professor Emery, the name of the first king of the FirstDynasty, known as Narmer or Menes in Manetho’s history of 270 BC, wasactually Hor-Aha. But the name of Hor appears to then have beenincorporated into the more ancient religion of the Goddess as “the son whodies.” This has led to much confusion between the two Hors, one the eldergod of light of the invaders, the other the son of the Goddess Isis.Hor (later known as Horus to the Greeks) was described in various textsas fighting a ritual combat with another male deity known as Set. Set isgenerally identified as the uncle or brother of Hor. The fight symbolized theconquest of Hor over Set, Hor symbolizing light and good, Set standing fordarkness and evil. Dr. E. Wallis Budge wrote that “The fight which Horusthe sun god waged against night and darkness was also at a very earlyperiod identified with the combat between Horus, the son of Isis, and hisbrother Set … Originally Set or Sut represented the natural night and wasthe opposite of Horus.”In Sanskrit the word sat means to destroy by hewing into pieces. In themyth of Osiris, who is Horus after his death (though also known as thefather of Horus at the same time), it was Set who killed Osiris and cut hisbody into fourteen pieces. But it may be significant that the word set is alsodefined as “queen” or “princess” in Egyptian. Au Set, known as Isis by theGreeks, is defined as “exceeding queen.” In the myth of the combat Set triesto mate sexually with Horus; this is usually interpreted as being an insult.But the most primitive identity of the figure Set, who is also closely relatedto the serpent of darkness known as Zet, and often referred to by classical

Greek writers as Typhon, the serpent of the Goddess Gaia, may once havebeen female, or in some way symbolic of the Goddess religion, perhapsrelated to Ua Zit, Great Serpent, the Cobra Goddess of Neolithic times.The followers of Hor who invaded Neolithic Egypt established theinstitution of kingship. Hor was often symbolized as a hawk or falcon, theHorus name of the king always being designated by a hawk. In Indo-European Iran, the word xvarnah meant the legitimate royal authority. Inone Iranian myth this xvarnah left its owner and flew away from him—inthe form of a hawk.The Shemsu Hor occur in the remote periods of predynastic Egypt.Information on them is sparse. But may the Shemsu Hor at one time havebeen related to the people we later know as the Hurrians or Horites, firsthaving made their home in northern Iran, later in Sumer, eventually tobecome the Shemsu Hor of Egypt?Around the time of the Second Dynasty the town of Heliopolis (known tothe Egyptians as Annu), some ten miles north of Memphis, became thehome of a school of scribal priests who also worshiped a sun god who rodein a boat. In this town they used the name Ra. In Sanskrit, Ra means royalor exalted on high. This prefix is found in the Sanskrit word for king, rajaand queen, rani. It survives in the German word ragen, to reach up, inFrench as roi, meaning king, as well as in the English words royal, reignand regal.In the Pyramid Texts of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC) Horus wasequated with Ra. Both Horus and Ra were closely connected, at timescompetitively, with the right to kingship. As Ra-Harakhty, Ra is identicalwith Horus of the Horizon, both meaning the sun at rising. Ra too isportrayed as the sun who rides across the heavens sitting in his sacred boat.Why a boat in the heavens? Was it because the men who brought the idea ofa god of light actually did arrive in their boats? Ra’s boat was said toemerge out of the primeval waters, much as Enki was said to ride his boat inthe deep waters of the Abzu of Eridu, or as the Indo-Aryan sun god wassaid to have emerged from the cosmic waters. As in the Indo-EuropeanHittite myth of the sun god in the water who rises from the sea with fish onhis head, so too Ra rose from the waters each morning.As sun god, Ra was known as the “shining one,” the “forefather of light,”“the lord of light.” And once again we find the dragon myth, so suggestiveof the Aryan religion. Daily, Ra fought the serpent of darkness known as

Zet, later called Apophis. Why it should have been seen as such a difficulttask for the sun to rise, especially in the climate of Egypt, is puzzling. Onemight better understand this type of thought originating in northern Europe.But the darkness of night was seen as a power that had to be fought daily,just as the Indo-Aryan Varuna had to perform daily sacrifices to bring thesun out of the deep dark space under the earth.As the name of Horus was assimilated into the Goddess religion, as theson of Isis, the priests of Memphis proposed another concept of the greatfather god. This time his name was Ptah, curiously like the Sanskrit Pitar.The texts concerning him describe the creation of all existence, suggestingthat Ptah was there first. This time we are told that it was through an act ofmasturbation that Ptah caused all the other gods to come into being, thustotally eliminating the need for a divine ancestress.Yet, despite the inroads of male deities who replaced the Cobra andVulture Goddesses as the supreme deities of Egypt, we find the concept ofthe Goddess far from forgotten. The ancient Egyptians, so adept atincorporating new deities into their religion (at times to the point where themyriad names and interweaving of myths is overwhelming), seem to haveassimilated the male deities of the invaders, synthesizing the religion intovarious new forms. Judging from the retention of matrilineal descentpatterns well into historical periods, they probably assimilated the invadersas well, though many may have remained in the royal house.The nature of the Cobra Goddess, Ua Zit, was retained in several otherlater female deities. One is the Goddess known as Hat-Hor, literally definedas House of Hor. She is generally symbolized as a cow who wears the cobraupon her forehead. But She is described in one text as the primeval serpentwho first created the world. Au Set too, portrayed in human form, wore thecobra upon Her forehead. The name Au Set appears to have been takenfrom the name Ua Zit.Most interesting is the Egyptian Goddess known as Maat. Maatsymbolized the order of the universe, all that was righteous and good.Depending upon the location of the text, She came to be known as the Eyeof Horus, the Eye of Ra or the Eye of Ptah. Eye in Egyptian is uzait, again aword most similar to Ua Zit. But in Indo-European Greek the word for eyeis mati. Maat was the embodiment of the ancient uraeus cobra. She seems tohave been allowed to retain Her qualities and nature as long as She wasassigned to one of the male deities as his possession. Professor Anthes

writes, “As long as the king lived, the Uraeus was, as the Pyramid textsexpress it, magically guarded by the king. When the king died, however, thevenomous viper would escape unless it was taken into custody.”This suggests that law and order, as perceived by the followers of Hor,Ra or Ptah, was possible only as long as the Cobra Goddess was controlledby the king. The strange combination of qualities assigned to the uraeuscobra, then known as Maat—ultimate wisdom and dangerous, perhapsrebellious, chaos—suggests that the cobra symbolized to the kings of Egyptthe Goddess-worshiping society She originally represented.One reference in the Pyramid Texts of the Fifth Dynasty has long puzzledstudents of ancient Egyptian culture. This was the account that in earliertimes, men were sacrificed at the grave of Osiris—men with red hair. If theShemsu Hor were related to the people we later recognize as the Indo-Europeans or Horites, this reference becomes more understandable.The question of whether the people of the Ubaid period of Eridu, those ofthe Jemdet Nasr period of Nippur or the Shemsu Hor of Egypt were actuallygroups of early Indo-Europeans or closely related peoples from theCaucasus and Urartu areas, must at this time remain as hypotheticalspeculation, at least until further research is undertaken. What is certain isthat these groups brought the worship of the male deity with them as theyentered the lands of the people who held the Goddess as sacred, and boththe Ubaidians and Shemsu Hor appear to have first initiated the concept ofkingship, while the Jemdet Nasr people at Nippur and Kish revived it.

THE HITTITES “… THE CREATION OF AN EXCLUSIVE CASTE”Returning to the more historically attested periods of the Indo-Europeaninvasions, the Hittites are believed to have entered Anatolia from theCaucasus region at about 2200 BC, though there are instances of earlierarrivals of small numbers of these same people.According to Professor Gurney, “Examination of the skulls which havebeen found on several sites in Anatolia shows that in the third millenium BCthe population were preponderantly long-headed or doliocephalic[Mediterranean] with only a small admixture of brachycephalic [Alpine]types. In the second millenium the proportion of brachycephalic skullsincreases to about 50%.”It was these brachycephalic or Alpine people who eventually came to beknown as the ruling class of the Hittite Empire. Before their arrival, theinhabitants of the land were known as the people of Hatti. It was actuallythe name of Hatti that led to the name of these people as Hittites, so calledby early scholars who were still unaware that the Hittite kingdom wascomposed of two quite distinct groups of people. This was furthercomplicated by the fact that several Hittite kings took the name Hattusiliand the invaders named the capital Hattusas, perhaps thus identifyingthemselves as belonging to the people. Now better understood, it is clearthat the original inhabitants of the land became the subservient orconquered class, while the invading Indo-Europeans assumed the roles ofroyalty and leadership, much as the Shemsu Hor did in Egypt and thehistorically attested Aryans did in India, Human Mitanni, among theKassites and later in Greece and Rome.“The Hittite state,” says Gurney, “was the creation of an exclusive castesuperimposed upon the indigenous population of the country … a group ofIndo-European immigrants became dominant over an aboriginal race ofHattians.” Professor Saggs tells us that “After the period of confusionresulting from the incursion of Indo-European invaders into the region ofthe Halys, one of their princes, a certain Labarnas, carved out a kingdom forhimself, which according to Hittite tradition, he rapidly enlarged by militarysuccesses until he made the sea his frontiers.” Saggs agrees with Gurney,stating that “government in the Hittite kingdom was at this time essentiallyrestricted to a noble and closed caste ruling over the indigenous population

and alone concerned in military activities and the central administration ofthe state.”The Indo-Europeans, with their horse-drawn war chariots and ironweapons, as well as their greater physical size (even further emphasized byconical hats that appear to be about eighteen to twenty-four inches high)possessed a military supremacy never before encountered. The wheeledvehicle occurs in the Goddess-worshiping cultures of the Halaf period, butup until the arrival of the Hittites and Hurrians, wagons and chariots wereapparently hitched only to donkeys, primarily as a means of transportationof people and products. It was only upon the advent of the Indo-Europeanmaryannu warriors that the horse was used and horse-drawn war chariotswere introduced into the Near East. According to Rg Veda descriptions,these chariots were pulled by horses, two abreast, and driven by two riders.It is generally stated that sometime during the second millenium BC theHittites discovered the process of mining and smelting iron, though one irondagger was found in a grave dated about 2500 BC. Compared with thecopper, gold and bronze of the Goddess cultures, iron obviously providedmore “efficient” weaponry. The word iron may be related to the wordAryan, for it was closely associated with these people, who managed tokeep the process a secret for many centuries after its discovery. TheNeolithic Egyptians had used meteoric iron, which they referred to as“metal from heaven.” It was perhaps this association of iron, thoughscientifically attested terrestrial iron, with the Aryans that led to the legendsthat suggested their heavenly origins and the idea that kingship had beenlowered from heaven. Between the monopoly on iron weapons and thespeed and force (as well probably as the intimidating effects upon peacefulurban people) of the horse-drawn war chariots, the Indo-European invadersheld a military power unknown in the Near East until their arrival.The conquered Hattians must have been kept tightly in line through fearof this well-armed warrior caste that ruled their country. One Hittite lawstated, “If anyone opposes the judgement of the king, his household shallbecome a ruin; if anyone opposes the judgement of a dignitary, his headshall be cut off.”Before the invasions, the Hittites had not yet developed a writtenlanguage, at least not one that was used for recording myths and literature.(Hittite hieroglyphs do appear, which I shall discuss more fully later.) Upontheir arrival and contact with the Akkadian people, they began to use the

Akkadian cuneiform alphabet, which was based on the writing of theSumerians. Though in the writing of many of their myths the Hittitesactually used the Akkadian language, their own language was alsotransferred into the Akkadian manner of writing. It is this Hittite languagethat appears as one of the earliest forms of Indo-European speech. In earlyhistoric times this language is most closely associated with Sanskrit, Latinand Greek. At the present time we find it related to German, French,English, Danish and nearly all other European languages.Gurney reports that “The discovery that Hittite had affinities with theIndo-European languages was made by Czech scholar B. Hrozny andpublished in 1915. The suggestion that an Indo-European language wasspoken by the population of Asia Minor in the second millenium beforeChrist was so startling that it was first received with great scepticism.” Hegoes on to say that it has now been proven without a doubt.The original Hattians, who may have been related to the much earlierGoddess-worshiping people of Catal Hüyük, which is about 125 miles southof the Hittite capital of Hattusas, seem also to have held the Goddess astheir supreme deity. Goddesses such as HannaHanna, Hepat, Kupapa andthe Great Sun Goddess of Arinna all appear to have survived from theearlier Hattian religion. In several texts the Goddess was simply called TheThrone, the title associated with Isis in Egypt.Though there is evidence in their texts that the Hittites worshiped Indra,Mitra and Varuna, Hittite myths and accounts of these deities have not yetbeen unearthed. Mountain storm gods were introduced by the Hittites and inthe writings of Hittite Anatolia we are treated to some of the attitudestoward these new male deities. In the inscriptions of King Annita, one ofthe earliest Hittite kings, the storm god Taru is mentioned as the supremedeity. Yet centuries later in the city of Arinna, said to be a day’s journeyfrom Hattusas but not yet located, there is a different story. Gurney observesfrom the texts of Boghazkoy that “At Arinna the principal deity wasapparently the Sun Goddess, Wurusemu; her consort, the Weather-god Taru,takes second place, and there are daughters named Mezulla and Hulla andeven a granddaughter Zintuhi.”Some texts describe the rituals observed by a series of Hittite queens forthe Sun Goddess of Arinna, revealing that the queen also held the role ofhigh priestess to the Goddess. As I mentioned before, this close relationshipof the Hittite queens to the Sun Goddess suggests that at one time the

invading Indo-Europeans may have gained popular acceptance andlegitimacy upon the throne by marrying Hattian priestesses who may haveheld the rights to the throne through matrilineal descent. Gurney explainedthat the Aryan kings retained the old Hattian shrines “… while at the sametime assuming in their own person the office of supreme high priest of therealm.”Once more we find the myth of the defeat of the dragon. The Hittite kingMursilis II wrote of having to celebrate the festivals of the storm god inseveral cities. In this same letter he referred to the major festival of thisnature being celebrated at the capital at Hattusas, at the mausoleum of theGoddess known as Lilwanis. At these festivals a ritual combat was eitherrecited or enacted, perhaps much like the one between Hor and Set inEgypt. This combat was between the storm god and the dragon Illuyankas.It seems that Mursilis, as king, may even have played a role in the drama,possibly as the storm god. But the other figure involved in the story, that ofa young man named Hupisayas, who upon sleeping with the Goddessknown as Inara gained enough strength to help the storm god defeat thedragon, seems a more likely role. The story of Hupisayas gaining strengthby making love with the Goddess may have been enacted by an annualsacred sexual union, much like those described in the texts of Sumer andBabylon, which will be more thoroughly explained in Chapter Six. In thosecountries the king played the role of the son/lover to the high priestess ofthe Goddess, who then endowed him with the rights of kingship. If this isso, it again suggests that the early Indo-European kings may have playedthis role with Hattian priestesses to legitimatize their position. The name ofthe dragon Illuyankas may be related to the Goddess Lilwanis. In the endthe dragon was killed, just as the Goddess Tiamat, symbolized as a dragon,was killed by Marduk. Is it merely coincidence that the festival took placenot in the temple of Lilwanis but in Her mausoleum?The name of the Hittite god Taru is at times related to the Hittite wordtarh, to conquer. In Sanskrit the word tura means mighty, while in IndiaTura Shah was another name for Indra. This word may survive in the wordstaurus and toros meaning bull. But it may also be connected withmountains, as is the word Hor, Hur or Hara. Alongside the fact that one ofthe major mountain ranges in Anatolia is called the Toros Mountains andone of its highest peaks known as Mount Toros, we find that in the Indo-European Celtic language tor means rocky hill top, in German türm means

tower and in English we have the word tower itself. This name appears asthat of the Etruscan storm god Tarchon and may even in some way beassociated with the well-known Viking storm god Thor.The Hittites were often in conflict with Egyptian armies, both trying togain control of Canaan (the area today known as parts of Syria, Lebanonand Israel [Palestine]). Possibly as a result of these conflicts, in an effort tomake peace or perhaps to infiltrate, Hittite, Hurrian and Kassite princesseswere sent as wives to Egyptian kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty (1570–1300 BC) for several generations in succession. Both queens Tiy andNefertete, respectively mother and wife of the religious revolutionary kingIkhnaton, are thought by some authorities to have been of Hittite or Hurriandescent. If this is true, it may account for the religious revolution of about1350 BC, which made Ikhnaton move his capital to El Amarna, rejecting allother deities than Ra as the disc of the sun, which he called Aten. If thesemarriages were an attempt to infiltrate, the plan worked, for Ikhnaton,supposedly so interested in his religious activities, ignored his colonies andallies in Canaan, which in turn allowed the Hittite and Hurrian armies togain control.Still another curious event was the receipt of a letter by a Hittite kingshortly after the deaths of Ikhnaton and his son-in-law Tutenkhamon. Thereis some argument as to whether it was sent by Nefertete or her daughterAnches-en-Amun. In the letter the writer, identifying herself as the Queenof Egypt, asked the Hittite king to send her one of his sons, so that shemight make him her husband.The Hittites, as well as other Indo-European ruled nations, werecontinually involved in international wars and politics. Under KingMursilis, the Hittites raided Babylon in about 1610 BC, though whenMursilis was assassinated, the Kassites took over the reins of government.The Hurrian state of Mitanni from about this same time controlled Assyriafor several centuries, while the Kassites conquered the ancient Sumeriancities of Ur and Erech.From the twentieth to the sixteenth centuries BC, the archaeology of Canaanshows continual nomadic disruption. This is generally attributed to localnomadic warfare. But as Professor Albright, who describes the entrance ofthe Indo-Europeans into Canaan as a “migratory movement,” tells us, “bythe fifteenth century Indo-Aryan and Horite princes and nobles were

established almost everywhere.” It is seldom suggested that the “nomadicdisruption” may have been the result of the original invasions of these Indo-Aryan and Horite tribes entering the country and battling until they werefinally accepted as rulers. Describing letters found in the archives ofIkhnaton at El Amarna, Werner Keller writes, “Though it may soundextraordinary, a third of these princely correspondents from Canaan haveIndo-Aryan ancestry.”The name Baal, eventually used as the name of the male consort of theGoddess in Ugarit, Canaan, in the fourteenth century BC and the consort ofAshtoreth in the biblical period of southern Canaan after Moses (about1250–586 BC), may also find its origins in the Indo-European language. Bythe fourteenth century a large percentage of the population of Ugarit wasHurrian. Hittite and Hurrian texts used the same sign for Baal as theAkkadians did. In Sanskrit bala means much the same as tura, that is, bulland mighty or powerful. It is used especially in conjunction with armytroops. This may help to explain the dual role of Baal. As the possibly Indo-European storm god in Ugarit, he is lord of Mount Saphon, asking theGoddess Anath to have a proper temple built for him. Mount Saphon is alsomentioned in the Hurrian myth of Kumarbi. In classical times it was knownas Mount Casius and described as the location of the battle between Zeusand the serpent Typhon, who, according to Greek legend, was born in amountain cave in Cilicia, Anatolia, where Zeus first attacked him. It may besignificant that the volcanic mountain north of Lake Van is still known asMount Suphan, though the Mount Saphon of Baal is generally described asthe Saphon near Ugarit (today known as Jebel-el-Akra). Just as Hor becamethe name used for the son of the Goddess Isis in Egypt, the name Baalappears to have been used to replace the name of Tammuz as the consort ofthe Goddess, though the name Tammuz was still used as late as 620 BC inJerusalem.Another male deity of Ugarit, known as El, is considered to be theconsort of the Goddess known as Asherah and thought to have been a partof the Goddess religion from the most ancient times. Yet we may onceagain suspect the nature of El in Ugarit, for the texts there continually referto him as Thor-El, suggesting his ties with the Indo-European storm god aswell.

LUVIANS, LUVISCHEN OR LOUVITESClose by Hittite territory in Anatolia existed yet another group of Indo-Europeans, known as the Luvians or Luwians, depending upon thetranslation. Some of the Luvians lived directly south of the Hittites in thearea known as Cilicia, close to the Toros Mountains. This is much the samearea as the one in which the Goddess-worshiping culture of Catal Hüyükonce flourished. The Luvians have long been regarded as part of the Hittitenation and it is only in the past few decades that their existence as aseparate group has been clarified.Very little is known of these people except that they were the authors ofwhat have long been referred to as the Hittite hieroglyphs, picture wordsappearing most often on royal monuments and in a few texts. Thesehieroglyphs have been extremely difficult to decipher and even today manyremain a mystery.Varying dates for the Luvian entry into Anatolia are given. Albrightwrites that “The Luwians occupied most of southern Asia Minor not laterthan the early third millenium BC.” R. A. Crossland, in the CambridgeAncient History, suggests a later date, stating, “the deduction that Luwianswere current in western Anatolia from 2300 BC onwards is not improbablein itself.” Professor Lloyd agrees with Crossland, saying, “In about 2300 BCa great wave of Indo-European peoples, speaking a dialect known asLuvian, seems to have swept over Anatolia … Their progress was markedwith widespread destruction …”Some authorities claim that Luvian is archaic compared to Hittite. Thename Luvian comes to us through the Hittite texts which referred to theland in which these people lived as Luviya and their language as Luvili.Much as the people of Hatti were called Hittites and the Hurrians at timesknown as Horites, they may as likely have been called Luwites or Luvites.French archaeologists refer to them as Louvites. The Germans call themLuvischen. Their actual name may be a significant factor, as I shall explainin the following chapter.Experts in linguistics describe Luvili as an Indo-European language,closely related to Hittite. It is only as the hieroglyphs of these people aregradually translated that we have come to learn a little about them. HansGüterbock, professor of Hittitology, wrote in 1961, “We have to assume that

the Luwians too, superseded a population that spoke another language, butthis substrate still remains unknown and un-named. The language writtenwith the so called Hittite hieroglyphs is nothing else but a Luwian dialect.”Because of the problems in deciphering the hieroglyphs, the poor state ofwhat has so far been discovered and the limitations of the material itself,little is yet known of the Luvian religion. We do know that the major deitywas the storm god, whose name was much like the Hittite god Taru. InLuvian he was known as Tarhund, Tarhunta or Tarhuis. Güterbock tells usthat no mythological material has yet been found in the hieroglyphs and thatthey are for the most part of votive character. These are what he refers to asthe “magic type,” “spells and incantations inserted into ritual texts.” Thisprevalence of totally religious material in their own archaic hieroglyphs,while other means of writing were readily available, suggests that theLuvians, perhaps much like the Brahmins of India or the priestly scribes ofRa at Annu in Egypt, may also have been a priestly caste. Other indicationsthat seem to affirm this possibility include the fact that scribal schoolsproducing myths in Hurrian, Hittite and Akkadian appear to have beenlocated in the Luvian territory of Kizzuwatna.Güterbock observes that “Kizzuwatna, the region in south easternAnatolia, including the Cilician plain, was the one Hittite province in whichHurrian scribal schools must have flourished most prominently.” Hesuggests this on the basis of the fact that there are many Luvian loanwordsin texts written in the Hittite language but which deal with Hurrian myths.But it is equally as possible that it was the Luvians themselves who weremaking these translations.Little else can be stated about the Luvians until further interpretations ofthe hieroglyphs are made or more material is discovered. But their role inreligious history may have been extraordinary, as I will explain in thefollowing chapter, which continues our examination of the patriarchalcultures that eventually destroyed the religion of the Goddess.* Some authorities associate the Indo-European speaking people with the people of the NeolithicKurgan culture of Russia, who lived just north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus. There has been thesuggestion that the Kurgan people later dominated the peoples of Neolithic Europe, and one writerhas even speculated that it was they who introduced the Indo-European language to Europeanpeoples at that time. (Since we do not have evidence of the language of the Kurgan people in Russiaor of the European people at that time, the theory must at this time remain speculative.)

* The Maglemosians, who appear to have been exceptionally interested in mobility and means oftransportation, also developed skis and sleds.* The Sumerian king lists mention a great flood, stating that after the flood kingship was loweredfrom heaven a second time, this time in Kish.

5 One of Their Own RaceUnlikely as it may seem, the next group of people whose connections to theIndo-Europeans will be considered are the Hebrews. As George Mendenhallwrites, “Ancient Israel can no longer be treated as an isolated independentobject of study; its history is inseparably bound up with ancient orientalhistory, whether we are concerned with religion, political history orculture.”Mendenhall also comments that “Hypotheses are basic to sound researchand eminently practical; they are constructed not as a substitute for facts butto suggest possibilities and guide future investigation.” It is in the spirit ofthis attitude that I hope what I am about to say will be understood.Abraham, father of the Hebrew tribes, first prophet of the Hebrew godYahweh, may have either been related to, or deeply influenced by, theconclave of Indo-Europeans who lived in the town of his kinsmen, Harran.It is possible that the name of the Judeo-Christian God, known in the OldTestament as Yahweh, though perhaps more familiar to us as Jehovah, wasoriginally derived from the Sanskrit word yahveh, meaning everflowing.The name Abraham itself may be related to the name of the Aryan priestlycaste of India, the Brahmins, and the patriarchal attitudes of the Hebrewsmay have been formed, not in a cultural vacuum, as is generally assumed,but by their connections to the male-oriented northern invaders.Certainly the Hebrew people have never been thought of as Indo-European, and by the time they were settled in Canaan, after their stay inEgypt, the majority of them may have been Semitic. Yet there is one groupthat stands apart from the Hebrews and yet is counted as one of their tribes.These are the priestly Levites. This is surely the most controversialhypothesis yet suggested, but at the risk of overwhelming religious,emotional and academic reactions, I suggest that the Levites may have insome way been related to the Indo-Europeans, most especially the Luwians,Luvians, Luwites or Luvites as the various translations will have it. Despite

the almost universally accepted belief that the Hebrews were always atotally Semitic people, there are many curious pieces of evidence thatsuggest that their connections with the Indo-Europeans should at least beconsidered in this context.Before going any further it is important to realize that the oldest extanttexts of the Old Testament in Hebrew are the ones recently found atQumran, which date back to two or three centuries before Christ. The oldestversion before these discoveries was a Greek translation from about thissame period. The earliest Hebrew text available before the Qumrandiscoveries was from about the tenth century AD. Judging from thevocabulary, language structure, and the names of places and people, it isgenerally believed that part of the Old Testament, known as the Yahwistaccount, was written about 1000 BC, while the other sections, known as thePriestly, were written about 600 BC.We should also take into account that the Bible as we know it is the resultof many changes throughout the centuries, this factor made most evident inits contradictory passages. Professor Edward Chiera remarks thatIn the case of the Bible, besides this process of expansion that belongsto all literary products of antiquity, there was another and contrarytrend, namely, the jealous censorship on the part of the priest, who didnot want the book to contain episodes or explanations which might notagree with his own conception either of the god or what was fit to beincorporated into the history of the founders of the race, and whopiously but nonetheless ruthlessly eliminated what he did not approve.George Widengren, professor of Oriental languages at the University ofUppsala in Sweden, also writes that “We must not lose sight of the fact thatthe Old Testament, as it is handed down to us in the Jewish Canon, is onlyone part—we do not even know if the greater part—of Israel’s nationalliterature. And, moreover, this preserved part has in many passages quiteobviously been exposed to censorship and correspondingly purged.”

INDO-EUROPEANS IN THE BOOK OF GENESISBiblical scholars generally date Abraham at about 1800–1700 BC. But manyof these same scholars assign Moses to about 1300 or 1250 BC. If wecarefully trace the generations as listed in the Bible, however, we find thatthere ire only seven generations between and including these twopatriarchal figures. Five or even four hundred years seems a long time forseven generations. Since the dates on Moses are based on more historicalevidence and lead more directly into the more historical accounts of Saul,David and Solomon, I would place Abraham at about 1550 BC. PlacingMoses at 1300 BC, this would still allow more than forty years between eachgeneration, which is more likely than the sixty to seventy years the otherdates would suggest. Using these same biblical lists of generations, unlesswe assume that names were omitted, and allowing thirty-five to forty yearsfor each generation, we find that even the primeval figure of Noah, who isonly ten generations before Abraham, would be dated at about 2000–1900BC, well within the time of the arrival of the Indo-Europeans into the NearEast.The Old Testament tells us that Abraham had been living in Ur of theChaldees. This is generally considered to be the city of Ur in Sumer, somefive miles from Eridu. Yet after the first mention of Ur, Harran iscontinually referred to as Abraham’s country, the land of his kinsmen andhis father’s house. After leaving Ur, the Bible states that, “When theyreached Harran, they settled there” (Gen. 11:32). But once in Harran, “TheLord said to Abram, Leave your own country, your kinsmen and yourfather’s house …” (Gen. 12:1). Some Bible scholars have suggested thatsince there were towns at that time with names such as Urkish, Uruk, Ura,Urfa and others (“ur” meaning old or great), one of these others actuallymay have been the Ur of the Bible. Though Harran does seem to be hisactual homeland and the city of his kinsmen, this connection being furtherevident in the stories of Isaac and Jacob, we may even conjecture thatAbraham or his family moved from Harran to Ur at some earlier time. Weknow that there were Hurrians in Nippur by 2300 BC. In any case the Biblerelates that Abraham moved from Ur to Harran with his wife and family.The information on the Indo-European invasions has made it clear thateven by 1800 BC many Hurrian people had moved into the area eventually

known as Mitanni. Harran was located in the very center of that kingdom.The name of the city itself probably results from its position in the Hurrianterritories; it is not far from the early Hurrian settlement of Urkish, which isdated at about 2400 BC. Abraham’s relationship to this town may also beindicated in the names of his relatives. His grandfather and one brotherwere both named Na Hor. His other brother was named Haran.Throughout the Bible, but most especially in Genesis, there arereferences to the Hittite and Horite people, some very closely associatedwith the family of Abraham. We read in Gen. 23:6 that later, whenAbraham was in Canaan, he needed a place to bury his wife Sarah. Nowwhen people bury their dead, they generally try to find consecrated or atleast familiar ground. Therefore it is perhaps curious that the man Abrahamapproached to request the use of his land for Sarah’s burial was Ephron theHittite. Even more surprising was Ephron’s answer when Abraham offeredto pay for the land. “You are a mighty prince among us,” the Hittite said toAbraham. “Bury your dead in the best grave we have.” This same plot ofland on Hittite territory was used once again when Abraham died. Even hisgrandson Jacob, before he died in Egypt, requested that his sons carry hisbody all the way back to Canaan, to bury it in the land that Abraham boughtfrom Ephron the Hittite.Abraham’s son was Isaac. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. When itwas time to choose a wife for Isaac, Abraham sent his servant back toHarran to find the daughter of Abraham’s brother Na Hor. And once again,when Jacob married, it was the granddaughter of Na Hor who was chosen,also from Harran. Esau married two wives. One was the daughter of Elonthe Hittite, the other the daughter of Zibeon the Horite. Esau then movedwith his family to an area in Canaan known in the Bible as “the hill countryof Seir, the land of the Horites.” In the generation lists (genealogies), whichabound in biblical writings, we are given a list of Esau’s descendants, butoddly enough we are also treated to a list of the descendants of Seir theHorite, grandfather of Esau’s wife.Most of these connections to the Hittites and the Horites occur inGenesis, the first book of the Bible. Later, in the Book of Ezekiel, we twiceread a rebuke to the people of Israel as Ezekiel says, “Your father was anAmorite, your mother was a Hittite.” This might suggest that it was thenSarah who was Indo-European, or even Abraham’s mother, who is notableby her absence throughout the Book of Genesis. Certainly there is no

conclusive proof of the exact connections, but the repeated association ofAbraham’s family with people and places we know to be connected withIndo-European kingdoms, at the exact time of their existence, shouldcertainly be taken into account.

SOME OF THE LINKSAnother curious similarity is the Hebrew custom of levirate marriage, thatis, the law by which the widow of a man is assigned to her dead husband’sbrother or, if there is none, to her father-in-law. Professor Gordon writes,“Since it is well attested in ancient India, and crops up in the Near East onlyin the wake of the Indo-European invasions, it was apparently introduced,or at least popularized, by the Indo-Europeans.” Professor Gurney alsodiscusses this custom of levirate marriage among the Hittites andcomments. “The law is remarkably similar to the Hebrew law of leviratemarriage.” Something as close to home as the concept of levirate marriagewas not likely to be a lightly adopted custom but probably had deep originswithin the societies in which it was practiced.Professor Gordon has long pointed out the close relationship between theIndo-Europeans and the Hebrew peoples in terms of literature, linguisticsand custom. Though he does not present as close a relationship as the one Iam suggesting he does say, “We can now surmise why it was the Hebrewsand Greeks who first emerged as the historians of the west. Both of themstarted their historiographic careers on Hittite substratum.” Robert Gravesalso suggests a close relationship between Hebrew and Indo-EuropeanGreek concepts and literature, even defending his stand by commenting thathe is not a “British Israelite.”As I mentioned before, the Hebrews also retained the memory of a mythof a battle between Yahweh and the serpent Leviathan, though the majorportion may later have been removed, possibly at the time of the addition ofthe legend of Adam and Eve. In Job 26:13 and in Psalm 104 we may stillread that Yahweh destroyed the primeval serpent. In Psalm 74 we also find,“By Thy power Thou didst cleave the sea monster in two [just as Mardukdid] and break the sea serpent’s head above the waters. Thou didst crushLeviathan’s many heads.” Now this serpent Leviathan was also known inthe texts of Ugarit in northern Canaan as the foe of the storm god Baal.Though we do not yet know of them as Indo-European, the rulers of Ugarit,just a few miles south of Hittite and Luvian territory, were on extremelyfriendly terms with the kings of the Hittites. We do know that a greatnumber of Hurrians were in Ugarit at the time the texts were written, aboutthe fourteenth century BC. Baal’s father in Ugarit was Dagon. Dag is still

the word used in Turkey to mean mountain. Texts of Ugarit describe Baal’sconquest of the dragon Lotan, Lawtan or Leviathan. As I mentioned before,Lat or Elat in Canaanite meant goddess. The name emerged again in theIndo-European Greek myth of Hercules who kills the serpent Ladon, whowas said to be guarding the sacred fruit tree of the Goddess.The biblical descriptions of Yahweh’s conquest of the primeval serpentmay well have been simply another version of the by now familiar tale ofthe Indo-European male deity defeating the serpent of darkness, theGoddess. After the time of Moses until the fall of the two Hebrew states,the Hebrews despised the name of Baal, as the storm god’s name appears tohave been assimilated into the religion of the Goddess in the role ofTammuz, the son/lover. In Akkadian, Baal simply came to mean Lord, asBaalat came to mean Lady. By about 1000 BC the name Baal was closelyassociated with Ashtoreth, as Her consort. But in the times of the earliestintroduction of the name Baal into Ugarit (possibly originating in theSanskrit bala, meaning mighty), the time before he had a temple of his own,he and Yahweh may have been much the same deity. In Ugaritan texts weread, “Behold, thine enemies, O Baal; Behold thine enemies shalt thoucrush.” In biblical Psalm 92 we find, “For behold thine enemies, O Lord;for behold Thine enemies shall perish.” In Ugarit, Baal was referred to asRider of the Clouds. In Psalm 104:3 Yahweh is described as using theclouds for his chariot.Still another enigmatic passage in the Bible may reveal itself as areference to early Indo-European connections. Once one is aware that theAryans viewed themselves as a race superior to the people whom they hadconquered and ruled, the passage may perhaps be understood as a reflectionof this attitude. In the first part of the Bible (Gen. 6:2–4) it was written,“When mankind began to increase and spread all over the earth anddaughters were born to them, the sons of the gods saw that the daughters ofmen were beautiful; so they took for themselves such women as theychose … In those days when the sons of god had intercourse with thedaughters of men and got children by them, the Nephilim [giants] were onearth. They were heroes of old, men of renown.”This passage, which has figured so largely in the current spate of bookssuggesting that spacemen have been responsible for the development ofhuman culture, may actually refer to the Aryan image of themselves asphysically larger and at that time the lone worshipers of the god of light on

the mountain top, as compared to the smaller Mediterranean people whoworshiped the Goddess. This interbreeding, which we know was sodespised by the Aryan priests, seems to be the underlying reason for thegreat flood in which only Noah and his arkful of relatives survived.Iranian literature occurs four centuries after the period generally assignedto Yahwist portions of the Old Testament, though simultaneous with thePriestly sections. Similarities between Hebrew and Iranian myths may bethe result of connections at that period (about 600 BC), though it would bedifficult to decide which culture was the originator. But there is thepossibility that both were derived from the same Indo-European religiousthought. In the Pahlavi texts of 400 BC, based on the Avesta of 600 BC, thecreation of the universe is described as having taken place in seven acts.These correlate extraordinarily closely with the Hebrew account. First thesky; second, water; third, earth; fourth, plants; fifth, cattle; sixth, man; andon the seventh day was Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda) himself. The account iscertainly similar and yet in the ways that it differs one may have reason toassume that neither was a direct loan but more likely the result of two linesof development, originally stemming from the same earlier source.Another text in the Pahlavi books deals with the Indo-Iranian view of thefirst woman. She was known as Jeh, “queen of all whore demons.” Thestory takes on the characteristics of the legend of Adam and Eve in that itrelates that Jeh arrived at the Creation in the company of the devil(Ahriman). In this account she does not converse with him, but relates tohim sexually instead. It is then stated that she was joined with the devil sothat she might afterward defile all women, who in turn would defile allmen. We are then told, “Since women are subservient to the devil, they arethe cause of defilement in men.” Surely not the same story, but certainlymuch the same underlying thought and attitude. Moreover, we may questionwhy the Hebrews’ stories should have been so closely aligned to the Indo-European Iranians at all.Yet another story with a biblical counterpart is the Iranian tale of a mannamed Yima. Ahura warned him that destruction would come to the worldin the form of floods, because people had sinned. He instructed Yima tobuild a vara, generally translated as fortress. Into this vara he was told tobring fire, food and animals and humans—in pairs. The ancient legend of agreat flood not only occurs in Iranian and Hebrew literature but in earlySumerian legend as well. It is most often assumed that the Hebrews

borrowed the legend from the Sumerians. But the account of the flood mayhave been known among the “mountain race” that arrived shortly before theJemdet Nasr period in Sumer, perhaps once told as the mythical memory oftheir ancestors’ arrival in the mountain lands of Aratta. It may later havebeen associated with their own arrival in Sumer, perhaps describingextensive rainfall throughout that area at the time, leading to the line, “theInundation of Enlil has come, the land is restored.” Along with itsappearance in Sumerian myth, it may also have remained in the memoriesof those who stayed behind in Aratta (Ararat?), eventually being connectedwith Abraham’s ancestor Noah and the Iranian Yima as well.This appears all the more likely when we realize that Sumer has no highelevations, no mountain for the ark to land on (which the Sumerians alsoclaim that it did). The Hebrew account describes the landing of the ark inArarat or on Mount Ararat itself. Mount Ararat is known by that name eventoday. It towers over all the other mountains nearby, reaching a height ofnearly 17,000 feet. It is located at the easternmost tip of Turkey, close to theIranian and Russian borders, in the land once known as Urartu, which ismuch the same name as Ararat. It is, in fact, just alongside the Araks River,which joins with the Caspian Sea. We may also find it significant that theHebrews state that Noah, primeval ancestor of the Hebrews, started outafter the flood from the very same area from which the historically attestedIndo-Europeans are known to have entered Anatolia.Another similarity between the legends of the Bible and those of Sumerconcerns the irrigation canals. The Bible records that after Yahweh createdthe world, there was still no vegetation because there was no water. In Gen.2:6 we read, “A flood was used to rise out of the earth and water all thesurface of the ground.” In the legend of the Sumerian Paradise, Dilmun,water was also lacking, so that no vegetation grew. Enki, god of the Eridutemple, then ordered water to be brought up from the earth to water theground. In the myth of Enki establishing world order, we also read of Enki’scanal-building activities. Each of these stories is describing a land wherethere is little or no rainfall. Water must come from the ground. This wascertainly the situation in Ubaidian Eridu, where irrigation canals were firstdeveloped—accounts of this period were still being told two thousand yearslater, at the beginning of the second millenium in Sumer. Again we maysurmise that they found their way back to Aratta, considering the continualcontact between the two places.

The connections of Moses, Joseph and even Abraham with Egyptianroyalty should also be considered as a factor in the relationship between theHebrews and the Indo-Europeans. As I mentioned before, throughout theEighteenth Dynasty (about 1570–1300 BC) there were records of Hittite andHurrian princesses being sent to Egyptian kings as wives, certainly a breakin the matrilineal descent patterns. It was during this period that we find nopriestesses in the Egyptian temples and the word Par-O (pharaoh) appliedonly to the king rather than to the royal house. It is also during this periodthat the religious revolution of Ikhnaton took place, allowing Hittite andHuman armies to gain greater control in Canaan; a third of thecorrespondence found in Ikhnaton’s palace archives was received fromprinces with known Indo-Aryan names.Thus we may find it significant that, according to the Bible, Moses wasthe “adopted son” of the pharaoh’s daughter, said to have been found as aninfant. We read in Exod. 2:5–10 that he was first found by the pharaoh’sdaughter who gave him to a woman, supposedly his real mother, to betended as an infant. But then we read that, “when the child was old enoughshe brought him to pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him and called himMoses.” Many pharaohs of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and NineteenthDynasties had names such as Kamosis, Amosis, Tutmosis and Rameses. Itis perhaps somewhat curious that the pharaoh’s daughter gave this“foundling” child such a royal name.But even before Moses, Joseph, another son of Jacob, was also closelyconnected with Egyptian royalty. He was said to have gained his positionthrough his ability to interpret dreams. We read in Gen. 41:41, “Pharaohsaid to Joseph, ‘I hereby give you authority over the whole land of Egypt.’ ”Even Abraham, before them, seems to have had close contact withEgyptian royalty. In Gen. 12:10–20 Abraham and Sarah also findthemselves in Egypt, supposedly as the result of a famine in Canaan. Thistime we learn that Abraham has asked Sarah to pretend that she is his sister.Supposedly as a result of her great beauty, she is then taken into thehousehold of the pharaoh—as his wife.Again, we have no conclusive evidence, since the Bible does not mentionthe pharaohs by specific names. But both Abraham’s and Joseph’s periodsmay have occurred during the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, while theperiod of Moses would have taken place shortly afterward. Once again wemay ask if there was some possible connection, this time between the Indo-

European princesses and those who probably accompanied them and thebiblical accounts of Abraham, Joseph and Moses, each so closely related tothe pharaohs of Egypt at that particular period.

GODS AND GLOWING MOUNTAINSAnother puzzling, and perhaps the most significant and revealingconnection between the Indo-Europeans and the Hebrews is the symbolismof the mountain, most especially the great and shining light upon themountain. The Aryans of India worshiped their ancestral fathers “whosoared up to the realms of eternal light.” Indra was the Lord of theMountains, his possessions described as golden. The abode of the Indo-Iranian Ahura was said to be luminous and shining, set upon the top ofMount Hara. As I mentioned before, in Indo-European Iranian, haraactually meant mountain.In the Hebrew texts the story of Moses is most often associated withMount Sinai, located in the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula. But inmany biblical references to the mountain on which Moses spoke withYahweh, this mountain is referred to as Mount Horeb. Long before Mosesled the Hebrews out of Egypt he had found this mountain. We read in Exod.3:1 that when Moses was alone in the desert, before the time of the Exodus,he “came to Horeb, mountain of God.” After the Exodus and the morefamiliar ascent of Moses on Mount Sinai we again read, “You must neverforget that day when you stood before the Lord your God on Horeb (Deut.4:10). And in Deut. 4:15, “On the day when the Lord spoke to you out ofthe fire on Horeb …”The association of Yahweh with, or as, a mountain is evident throughoutthe Book of Psalms, certainly some of the oldest parts of the Bible. In Ps.31, 62, 71, 89 and 94 Yahweh is referred to as a “rock of refuge.” In Ps. 62he is the “rock of deliverance.” In Ps. 18 he is “my rock where I findsafety.” In Ps. 19 he is “my rock and my redeemer.” In Ps. 28 we read “Omy rock” and in Ps. 42, “God is my rock.” In Ps. 78 it was written, “Hebrought them to His holy mountain.” In Ps. 48 we learn that Yahweh is“upon His holy hill” and in Ps. 99 the writer tells the reader to “bow downto His holy hill.” In Ps. 92 it was simply written, “The Lord is my rock.” Ifthere were not so many other allusions to the mountain we might see theseas simply symbolic of stability, but we also read of the close connectionsand importance of the mountain itself.In Exod. 24:17 the appearance of Yahweh is not only described as beingon a mountain top but on a crest glowing with fire. “The glory of the Lord

looked to the Israelites like a devouring fire on the mountain top.” And inDeut. 5:4, “The Lord spoke with you face to face on the mountain out of thefire.” In Ps. 144 Yahweh is asked to “shoot forth Thy lightning flashes.” InPs. 104 Yahweh is simply described as “wrapped in a robe of light.”The Indo-European Zeus, with his fiery lightning and thunderbolts, wasto be found on the top of Mount Olympus. Baal, with this same lightningsymbol, resided upon Mount Saphon. The storm gods of the Hittites andHurrians are often portrayed with lightning bolts in one hand, standing uponone or even two mountains. Indra, glowing in gold, also holding hislightning bolt known as vajra, was known as Lord of the Mountains. Ahuradwelled in his glowing home on top of Mount Hara. Is the Hebrew Yahwehwho spoke out of the fire on Mount Horeb to be considered as an image andconcept much different from these Indo-European gods? Or may he also beregarded as the Indo-Aryan “father who dwells in glowing light” asportrayed in the Rg Veda? Strangely enough, the Hebrew word for hill ishar.

LOUVITES AND LEVITESThough we have observed the connections the Hebrews had with the Indo-European groups generally, it may well have been the Luvians who weremost closely connected to the emergence of the Hebrew religion. There isfurther evidence that suggests that the Luvians (or Luvites) may well havebeen the origins of the priestly Levites of the Hebrews.Luvian texts are still being deciphered. As I mentioned previously, theLuvians were very closely related to both the Hurrian and Hittite peoplesand had long been considered by archaeologists to be Hittites. Judging fromthe prevalence of votive, ritual and incantation texts so far attributed tothem, the Luvians may have been a separate priestly caste of the Indo-Europeans, much like the Brahmins of India. We may question why theycontinued to use the less flexible hieroglyphs when other scripts were soreadily available and used by the other Indo-Europeans, and why thehieroglyphs were used exclusively for votive rituals and inscriptions onroyal monuments. Many of the scribal schools appear to have been locatedin their territory, suggesting that it may have been the Luvians who used theHurrian, Hittite and Akkadian languages to disseminate their ideas whileretaining the ancient hieroglyphs as their own perhaps more sacred mannerof writing (as the Jewish people of later times have done with Hebrew).Among the Indo-Aryans, the priestly caste known as the Brahmins madefire sacrifices one of the most important aspects of the religion. ProfessorNorman Brown writes of the Brahmins in the fourth century BC, describing“… the overriding power of the elaborate Vedic sacrifice performed byBrahmins according to an ancient ritual of the greatest complexity andcarrying unrivalled authority.” He tells us that “The Brahmins arrogated tothemselves, as custodians and sole competent officiants of this all-importantritual, a position of moral and social superiority to both the old temporalmilitary and governing aristocracy …”Guiseppi Sormani writes that in the early Sanskrit Yajurveda, a collectionof Brahmin sacrificial and ritual prayer formulas dated shortly after the RgVeda, “The priests commanded society; they were the lords even over thegods, whom they bent to their own will by means of ritual. The priestlypower of the Brahmins was already evident in this Veda.”

These descriptions could as well be applied to the Hebrew Levites as tothe Brahmins. If the Luvians were a similar priestly caste, and a group ofthem was later known as the Levite priestly caste of the Hebrews, thisconnection would perhaps explain the extraordinary position that theLevites held among the other Hebrew tribes.According to the Books of the Bible known as Exodus, Leviticus,Numbers and Deuteronomy, that is, the last four of the first five books ofthe Old Testament, the Levites were to remain a very exclusive group.Moses is described as the son of a Levite mother and father, as is his brotherAaron. In Num. 8:14 we read Yahweh’s words, “You shall thus separate theLevites from the rest of the Israelites and they shall be mine.” In Num. 18:2Yahweh says to Aaron, “You and your sons alone shall be fully answerablefor your priestly office.”Only Levites were acceptable as members of the priesthood of Yahweh.Moses, Aaron and the sons of Aaron were the highest priests. A Levite highpriest was forbidden to marry not only a foreign woman but even a womanof any other Hebrew tribe. Even within his own tribe he was not to marry awidow, a divorced woman or in fact any woman who had ever had sexualrelations with another man.No one but a Levite was allowed to enter into the Tent of the Presence,where Yahweh was worshiped. It was implied that to do so was at the riskof life. When the Israelites marched across the deserts of Sinai the Levitesled them, keeping a “day’s journey ahead of them,” to decide upon the nextencampment. Though at first Moses is said to have acted as the sole judgein all disputes he eventually appointed officers in charge of distinct units.These were arranged in numbers of ten, fifty, one hundred and onethousand, much like an army, each with a watchful officer. The Leviteswere the judges of the law of the community. “Their voice shall be decisivein all cases of dispute” (Deut. 21:6).The Levites alone had the possession and use of two silver trumpetswhich were to be used for summoning the community and breaking camp.The blast of one trumpet was a summons to the chiefs of the other tribes toappear before the Tent of the Presence, clearly exhibiting their authorityover even the chiefs of the other tribes. The blast of two trumpets was tosummon the entire Israelite community. Only Aaronite priests were allowedto use the two trumpets, which were also to be sounded during battle to urge

the Israelites on, possibly to command all military strategy as the Qumranscrolls suggest.While in the desert, probably in preparation for the battle as they enteredCanaan, a counting or numbering of the tribes was ordered. At first this wasonly for the eleven other tribes. Every man aged twenty-one and over whowas fit for military service was to be included. Later, when the Levites werecounted, all males over one month were listed, and no military eligibilitywas required. In Num. 13:1–15 a spy party was formed to check out thesituation on the approach into Canaan: though every other tribe wasrepresented by one man, no Levite was listed.At times there was mention of rebellion among the other tribes whocomplained about lack of food and the loss of comforts they had known inEgypt, despite the fact that they were supposed to have been badly used asslaves. But the penalties for breaking the rules of the Levites were severe.Lev. 24:16 tells of one man being stoned to death for speakingblasphemously of Yahweh. Num. 15:32 gives the account of a man whowas found gathering sticks on the Levite-appointed Sabbath: “So they tookhim outside the camp and all stoned him to death as the Lord hadcommanded Moses.” When Joshua took over the command from Moses themen are said to have promised, “As we obeyed Moses, so we will obey you.Whoever rebels against your authority, and fails to carry out all your orders,shall be put to death” (Josh. 1:18).Fire sacrifices were an extremely important and major aspect of therituals of the Levites, much like those of the Brahmins of India. The firstten sections of Leviticus are totally concerned with fire sacrifices. In thesesections, as well as throughout Numbers and Deuteronomy, which alsodescribe the laws and rituals of the Levites, we learn that fire sacrifices areto be made twice daily, as well as on the sabbath, at seasonal changes, foruncleanliness, for guilt and for sin.The Levites were assigned the sole rights to eat the food offerings thatwere brought to the Tent of the Presence for the sacrifices listed above. Inthis way they were supplied by the other Israelites with cattle, sheep, rams,pigeons, corn, flour, bread, oil and wine. This right of the Levites and theirfamilies (though most often just the male members) was mentioned sorepeatedly that I hesitate to include these laws here. Perhaps one passageconcerning these rules will be sufficient to explain the situation.

For all the various fire sacrifices, referred to as “burnt offerings” theabove listed foods were to be brought to the priests at the Tent. The lawthen stated thatThe Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no holdings orpatrimony in Israel; they shall eat the food offerings of the Lord. Thisshall be the customary due of the priests from those of the people whooffer sacrifice whether a bull or a sheep: the shoulders, the cheeks andthe stomach shall be given to the priest. You shall give him also thefirst fruits of your corn and new wine and oil, and the first fleeces atthe shearing of your flocks. For it was he whom the Lord your Godchose from all your tribes to attend on the Lord. [Deut. 18:2–8]Gifts to the Levites of silver, gold and property were also repeatedlycommanded by Yahweh. Each man over twenty had to give half a shekel asransom for his life. In yet another ransom-for-life system, 1,365 shekels ofsilver were reported to be given to the Levites. “You shall give the moneywith which they are ransomed to Aaron and his sons” (Num. 3:48).Levites who sold their houses always had the right of redemption, and ifthey did not pay to redeem it, it would be returned automatically at theseven-year jubilee. If a man of another tribe chose to sell his house to aLevite, the Levite had the sole right to decide upon the price. If the manwanted to buy it back he was expected to pay another twenty percent of thevalue.Another command offering included six covered wagons and twelveoxen: “Assign them to the Levites” (Num. 7:5). In still another section weread that silver vessels worth 2,400 shekels, gold worth 120 shekels, 36bulls, 72 full-grown rams, 72 he-goats and 72 yearling rams were thededication offerings for the Tent (Num. 7: 84–88). And in Num. 18:8 it waswritten, “The Lord said to Aaron: I the Lord commit to your control thecontributions made to me, that is all the holy gifts of the Israelites. I givethem to you and your sons for your allotted portion due to you.” Num.18:20 states, “To the Levites I give every tithe in Israel.”As we read above, the Levites were not to have any patrimony, whichwas often given as the reason they should receive so much else. But inNum. 35:2–6 we read, “Tell the Israelites to set aside towns in their

patrimony as homes for the Levites and give them also the common landssurrounding the towns.” Forty-eight towns were given in all.Very specific instructions for the clothing of the Levites, made of violetand scarlet fabrics and fine linen, gold and precious gems, were describedin Exod. 28. Along with their robes, Aaron’s sons were also to be providedwith headdresses which would give them “dignity and grandeur,” perhapsreminiscent of the tall hats of the Hittites. Even perfume was to be providedfor Aaron and his sons. If anyone else dared to wear it, he would be “cut offfrom his father’s kin.”The other Israelite tribes were reminded, “You must not neglect theLevites who live in your settlements” (Deut. 14:27) and “Be careful not toneglect the Levites in your land as long as you live” (Deut. 12:19).In Deut. 31:24 we read, “When Moses had finished writing these laws ina book, from beginning to end, he gave this command to theLevites … Take this book of the law and put it beside the Ark of theCovenant of the Lord your God to be witness against you.” So it was thatthese laws, first written by the Levites, were then placed in the solepossession of the Levites, who were thus the only ones who had access tothem, to interpret, censor or change in any way they saw fit.The general picture rendered is not one of monastic priests or asceticgurus, but rather a well clothed, well fed, well housed, well transported,perfumed aristocracy, who ruled with supreme authority over the otherHebrew people.Reading through the laws concerning the Levites, we may find theirposition compared with the other Israelites somewhat extraordinary. TheLevites, according to the Bible as we know it, are said to be the descendantsof Levi, one of Jacob’s twelve sons. Again, tracing the genealogies, Moseswould have been Levi’s great-grandson. This doesn’t quite tally with thenumber of males that were counted shortly after leaving Egypt. Though thefigures may have been somewhat exaggerated, the Levites claimed thatthere were 22,000 males among them, quite a family in three generations.Their position as the ruling class of the Hebrew people, certainly an Indo-European pattern, suggests that they may have been assigned this heritageto justify their relationship to the other tribes. However, the stories ofAbraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau are the ones that most closely relate to theHittites and Horites, even more strongly suggesting that Jacob and Abrahammay actually have been the ancestors of Moses and his brother Aaron, who

were leaders of the Levites, while even other Levites, as well as members ofthe other eleven tribes, understood that this ancestry was symbolic ratherthan biological. Judging from their numbers, the other tribes may have beengathered together under this same symbolism, which in turn may explainwhy Jacob, supposedly the father of the twelve sons who spawned thetwelve tribes of the Hebrews, was actually called Israel, rather thanAbraham, who is generally considered as the first father of the Hebrewpeople.The suggestion that the original Hebrews were not all of one race isfurther made in the Psalms. In Ps. 107 we find, “So let them say who wereredeemed by the Lord, redeemed by him from the power of the enemy, andgathered out of every land, from east and west and north and south …” Wealso read in Ps. 87 that Zion, which is another name for the nation ofIsraelites, “shall be called a mother in whom men of every race are born.”This suggests that at the time of the writing of these psalms Israel saw itselfas a group of races, each gathered together under the emblem of Israel,perhaps including Semitic desert people, Egyptians, Canaanites and others,all possibly joined together under the direction of the Levites.Still another curious passage in our consideration of the Levites as anIndo-European group occurs in Deut. 18:14–22. Here we find an account ofYahweh speaking to Moses on the top of the mountain. Moses descends andexplains to the other Israelites that Yahweh has told him, “I will raise up forthem a prophet like you, one of their own race.”Lewi and Levi, the Hebrew name for their priests, are much the sameword, as is made evident in the English, German and French translations. Isuggest that both this name and that of the Luvians may derive from thematerial of volcanic eruptions, the glowing molten mass pouring from thepeak of a mountain.In Latin, lavo means to wash in a stream which flows, while lavit meansto pour. In Hittite, lahhu also means to pour. We find the word surviving inthe French laver, to wash. Now this would suggest that the word wasprimarily associated with liquids. But we also find lawine in German,meaning avalanche, and the word lavish in English, meaning overflowingabundance. Thus the words appear to be related to any movable or flowingmass.A most similar series of words occurs in connection with blazing light.Levo in Latin means lift and is especially associated with the sunrise. In

Sanskrit lauha is defined as glowing redness, while lightning is called lohla.In German we find the word löhe, meaning blaze or flame, while in Danishlue means to go up in flames. But it is perhaps in the English word lava, theGerman lava and the French lave, each meaning the blazing molten massthat pours from a volcanic mountain, that we may find the key to these twoconcepts, that which is light and flaming, while still pouring almost as aliquid at the same time.The image of the god on the glowing mountain, the Indo-European imageof their male deity, which also appears in the Hebrew imagery of theaccounts of Mount Horeb, perhaps points to their ultimate connection asone-time worshipers of volcanic mountains. In the Exodus account of the“mountain of God” we read these descriptions: “On the third day when themorning came, there were peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, densecloud on the mountain and a loud trumpet blast; the people in the campwere all terrified” (Exod. 19:16). And in Exod. 20:18–21: “When all thepeople saw how it thundered and the lightning flashed, when they heard thetrumpet sound and saw the mountain smoking, they trembled and stood at adistance. ‘Speak to us yourself,’ they said to Moses, ‘and we will listen; butif God speaks to us we shall die.’ Moses answered, ‘Do not be afraid. Godhas only come to test you, so that the fear of him may remain with you andkeep you from sin.’ So the people stood at a distance, while Mosesapproached the dark cloud where God was.” Later, in Deuteronomy, whenMoses was recounting the incidents that took place at “Horeb, mountain ofGod” he reminded the Hebrews, “Then you came near and stood at the footof the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with fire to the very skies: therewas darkness, cloud and thick mist. When the Lord spoke to you from thefire you heard a voice speaking, but you saw no figure; there was only avoice” (Deut. 4:11–13). Reminding them of the “pagan” calf that they hadmade during his absence, he recalls, “I took the calf, that sinful thing thatyou had made, and burnt it and pounded it, grinding it until it was as fine asdust; then I flung its dust into the torrent that flowed down the mountain”(Deut. 9:21, my italics).Again looking through the Hebrew Psalms we find, “He shall rain downred-hot coals upon the wicked” (Ps. 11); “consuming fire runs before andwreathes Him closely round” (Ps. 50); “How long must thy wrath blaze likefire?” (Ps. 89); “the world is lit up beneath his lightning flash … themountains melt like wax as the Lord approaches” (Ps. 97); “He spread a

cloud as a screen and a fire to light up the night” (Ps. 39). Surely the mostvivid description of Yahweh as a volcanic mountain occurs in Ps. 18. Herewe read, “The earth heaved and quaked, the foundations of the mountainshook; they heaved, because He was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils,devouring fire came out of His mouth, glowing coals and searingheat … Thick clouds came out of the radiance before Him, hailstones andglowing coals … He shot forth lightning shafts and sent them echoing.” Theimagery is difficult to ignore.We may also find it significant that the mountain north of Lake Van, inthe land once known as Urartu, known as Mount Suphan even today, is avolcanic mountain. In Cilicia, in the Kizzuwatna territory of the Luviansthere are two volcanic mountains.* In the Caucasus region and just to thesouth, once again in the land of Urartu, there are no less than thirteenvolcanic mountains, three still active today. One is located near Baku on theCaspian Sea, close to the mouth of the Araks River. It might also bepertinent that in the Greek legend of the battle between Zeus and the serpentTyphon, Typhon was born in a mountain cave in Cilicia where he was firstattacked by Zeus, later battled with Zeus on Mount Casius (Saphon) andwas finally killed by Zeus on the volcanic Mount Etna in Sicily. But it maybe most significant that just to the east of Sinai in Arabia we find a string ofvolcanic mountains, now extinct, all along the western coast facing Egyptand that Mount Ararat itself is volcanic.To gain a clearer picture of the times, it is important to realize thatvolcanic mountains often erupt many times over a relatively short period.Mount Kilauea on Hawaii has erupted over two dozen times during the lasttwenty years. (Incidentally, this volcano is worshiped as the Goddess Pele.)Even today the surviving Zoroastrians of Iran still pray to fire, while in theKurdish territories, partially in the land that was once Urartu, fires are lit onthe mountain tops at New Year’s celebrations.The worship of the Indo-European and Hebrew gods as volcanicmountains may explain the great importance of the fire rituals among boththe Brahmins and the Levites. It may also explain the name of Yahweh, solong a puzzle to Bible scholars who have hunted for the meaning in Semitictexts and cultures, for the word yahveh in Sanskrit means everflowing, sosuggestive of the lava of volcanic eruption; it may even be related to theword lava itself. It may also be significant that another group who spoke theLuvian language are thought to have lived in the area of another volcanic

mountain in Turkey; curiously enough these people were called theAhhiyawa.Connections between the Indo-Europeans and the Hebrews are toonumerous to be lightly dismissed, but it is only as the Luvian texts are betterunderstood, or new material in better condition is discovered, that we mayeventually be able to affirm or reject the more direct relationship of theLuvians and the Levites.

THE LEVITES AND THE SONS OF LIGHTThe association of the Hebrew people and the Indo-Europeans, bothworshiping a god of light, is even further suggested by the recentdiscoveries of old Hebrew texts, popularly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.These scrolls, discovered at Qumran in Palestine, are the oldest extantHebrew texts of the books of the Old Testament, dating from about the thirdcentury BC. Generally they are quite in keeping with the Greek version andeven the later Hebrew one, with some variations. But there was anadditional text which was completely new to Bible scholars. It is an accountknown as “The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons ofDarkness.” The scroll consists of the plans for a battle that was about to befought. The enemy was collectively known as the Sons of Darkness; theHebrews, still led by the Levite priests, were the Sons of Light. It begins bystating that “The first engagement of the Sons of Light shall be to attack thelot of the Sons of Darkness … The Sons of Light are the lot of God.”Many authorities have once again attributed this surprising find toinfluence from Iran, where the worship of Ahura still prevailed. But whenwe consider that so many of the other texts discovered at Qumran werefrom the Old Testament, we may question why this particular accountshould have been included among them. Also, there is no specific mentionof Ahura. As we have seen, the concept of the god of light was not a newone to the Hebrews. The Indo-European duality of light and dark may beseen underlying the earliest description of Yahweh’s creation of the world.For in Gen. 1:3 we read, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light;and God saw that the light was good and he separated light from darkness.”Another significant factor in the scroll is that it reveals that the priestlyLevites were still in control. The people at Qumran were from the tribes ofJudah and Benjamin, the southern survivors after the other tribes of Israel inthe north had been conquered and dispersed in 722 BC. Though the southernstate of Judah had been conquered in 586 BC, many of the people hadreturned to the area to live under foreign rule. It is from these two tribes thatthe Hebrew people of today descend; the others probably dispersed into thepopulations of Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, despite the aperiodicattempts to exhibit traces of them in Ireland or in the various Indian culturesof North America.

In the Qumran scroll, just as in the books of the Old Testament, the dress,the banners, the duties and the position of the Levites were separately andcarefully described. The banners were to be decorated with the names ofAaron and his sons. Even more interesting is the fact that the Levites wereonce again, or still, in charge of the battle trumpets. Trumpet signals wereas carefully explained in the scroll as in a war manual; various types oftrumpet blasts commanded “get ready for battle,” “advance,” “approach,”“start fighting” and “retreat.” This account of the leadership of the Levites,written some ten centuries after the Levites of the time of Moses, may giveus some idea of how strict the adherence to the old Mosaic position of theLevites must have been throughout those centuries.This warlike aspect of the Hebrews, described from the time of Mosesonward, will be further discussed in later chapters concerned with theHebrew suppression of the worship of the Goddess. For the moment, it mayexplain the name of the Hebrews as Yehudi (Judah). The Sanskrit word forwarrior is Yuddha.

SUMMARYOne comment must surely be made before I conclude this chapter. If thishypothesis bears up under further investigation, we must certainly view theevents of the Second World War, and the atrocities enacted upon theHebrew people of the twentieth century by the self-styled Aryans of NaziGermany, not only as tragic but ironic. The researches and excavations ofthe Hittite culture have been carried on primarily by German archaeologiststhroughout this century. It was sometime before and directly after the FirstWorld War that nasili was slowly beginning to be accepted as the real nameof the Hittite language and Nesa, or Nasa, their first capital. The originalname of the Hittite invaders may have been Nesians or Nasians. Nuzibecame the capital of the Indo-European nation of Mitanni. One cannothelp but wonder how much Adolf Hitler was affected by the reports of thesefinds, which may have found their way into the popular media of the times.Was it these accounts that caused him to change his name fromSchickelgrüber to Hitler, which in German would mean something like“teacher of Hit”? Strangely enough one more connection between theHittites and the Hebrews is the Hebrew use of the word nasi for prince.Over the last two centuries scholars of religion, archaeology, history andeven science have had to revise many of the ideas that were held as factprior to the advent of each archaeological discovery. We may yet findanother revision which explains the origins of the god Yahweh, the god ofthe fire on the top of Mount Horeb, as the Luvian culture is betterunderstood. If this occurs it may help to explain many of the patriarchallaws and attitudes of the Levite priests of the Hebrews in the Old Testamentand their insistence upon the destruction of the Goddess religion.With the knowledge that the worship of the Goddess was being affectedby invading Indo-Europeans from at least 2400 BC onward, possibly, thoughless extensively, in Egypt from 3000 BC and in Sumer perhaps at the veryearliest periods of Sumerian culture, 4000–3000 BC, we may betterunderstand the transitions that occur in the myths, rituals and customs of theGoddess religion throughout the historic periods. In turn, we begin tounderstand the confrontations that took place as the patriarchal northernersbegan to suppress the ancient worship and all it represented.

One of the most controversial issues seems to have been the concept ofdivine right to royal privilege and the institution of hereditary kingship. Theearliest laws and myths suggest that the people of the Goddess religionwere communally oriented, though perhaps organized through thecentralized shrines of the Goddess. We may then ask how the transitionfrom the Goddess religion to the right of divine kingship, provided by amale deity—kingship as we still know it today—came to take place.* One of these, today known as Hasan Dag, has two volcanic peaks, perhaps explaining why theHittite storm god and the Hittite king are often portrayed standing upon a double-crested mountain, afoot upon each summit.

6 If the King Did Not WeepEven in Neolithic and earliest historic periods, it seems that in many townsand settlements a person may have sat upon the throne by divine right,much as the remaining monarchies of the world claim to do even today. Themajor difference was that the divine right was probably provided originallynot by a male god, but by the Goddess. And documentary and mythologicalevidence suggest that this right, rather than being bestowed upon a male,was originally held by a woman, the high priestess of the Goddess, whomay have gained this position by the custom of matrilineal descent. In therole of high priestess of the Goddess, this woman may also have beenregarded as queen or tribal ruler. This was certainly the case in Khyrim,where, according to Frazer, the high priestess automatically became thehead of state.The juxtaposition of these two roles, that of high priestess and that ofqueen, is repeatedly attested to in early historic times in tablets and texts ofthe Near East. Many writers, perhaps using our own male-oriented societyas a pattern, reverse cause and effect, suggesting that when a womanbecame queen, she then also gained the title of high priestess, a positionsupposedly resulting from her marriage to the king. But, as I shall explain,evidence suggests that it was the other way around; that the highest andmost sacred attendant of the female deity in the very earliest times wasprobably the origin of the concept of royalty.As I mentioned earlier, the temples of the Goddess in Neolithic andChalcolithic periods appear to have been the core of the community,apparently owning the land, the herds of animals and most materialproperty. This was the situation even in the early historic times of E Anna,the House of Heaven, the temple of the Goddess Inanna in Erech.A. Moortgat writes that “At about 3000 BC in Uruk (Erech), modernWarka, the sacred place of Inanna, the Sumerian Lady of Heaven, therearose a complex of buildings which even today would be numbered among

the most splendid of architectural works, were they in a better state ofpreservation.” Professor Albright goes on to explain, “… the discoveries inErech in Babylonia have proved that the temple complex at Eanna wasalready, before 3000 BC the centre of an elaborate economic organization.”According to Sidney Smith, Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology, inSumer, “… the temple directed every essential activity, not only matters thatmight be considered religious business, but the urban activities of thecraftsmen, the traders and the rural employment of farmers, shepherds,poultry keepers, fishermen and fruit gardeners.”In Neolithic and earliest historic times, the Entu, the name of the highpriestess in Sumer, the Tawawannas, the name of the high priestess inAnatolia, and their counterparts in other areas would probably have beenthe nominal leaders of those temple communities. The priestly office of“Divine Lady,” one of the gifts Enki complained had been taken by Inannafrom Eridu to Erech, may have referred to just such a position.But nominal leader does not infer monarchy. In fact, several documentsand myths suggest that Neolithic and early historic Goddess-worshipingcommunities were governed by assemblies, probably composed of theelders of the community. One Mesopotamian tablet said that “Under theguidance of Inanna at Agade, its old women and its old men gave wisecounsel.” “Eldership” was another of the gifts of civilization that Inannagave to Erech. Gurney writes that, before the arrival of the Hittites, theHattians had “originally been loosely organized in a number of independenttownships, each governed by a body of elders.” Even in Hittite times, textsdescribe a group known as the Elderly Women, who held prophetic andadvisory positions and were also associated with mental and physicalhealing.Professor Thorkild Jacobsen of the University of Chicago has influencedmany other archaeologists and historians on this subject. His theory, basedon the fact that the earliest Sumerian myths included both female and maledeities in the decision-making assemblies of heaven, suggests that suchparticipation of women in leadership was very likely a reflection of thesocieties that wrote the legends, both women and men taking part incommunity government. We may even regard the concept of monotheism,so often presented as a more civilized or sophisticated type of religion, asreflecting the political ideology that places all power in a single dominantperson, while polytheism, especially as represented in the image of divine

assemblies, perhaps symbolized a more communal attitude in the societiesthat developed and followed this type of theological thought.There is no definitive evidence of the relationship between the role ofhigh priestess and these groups of elders, though “under the guidance ofInanna” may refer to the role played by Her high priestess. Judging fromthe mythological accounts of the Goddess (with the high priestessunderstood to be Her incarnation upon earth), we are presented with theimage not of a celibate woman, nor of one who took a permanent husband,as queens did in historic periods, but of a woman who chose annual loversor consorts, as she retained the more permanent position of highest rank forherself.The symbolism of her yearly, youthful consorts, the dying son/lover ofthe Goddess, occurs and recurs throughout the legends of the Goddessreligion, probably recording Neolithic and earliest historic periods. It isfound in the most ancient legends of both Sumer and Egypt and survives inall historic periods of the Near East until the first centuries of Christianity,in which it may have been retained in the annual mourning for the death ofJesus.Sir James Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, explored this subjectmore extensively and thoroughly than any other scholar of comparativereligion. Though some of his conclusions and theories have been questionedby later writers, the major body of material in his twelve extensive volumeseven today holds a great deal of valuable information—and perhaps morepertinent, still raises some interesting points. The subject of the annualdeath of the son/lover of the Goddess interests us here because it appears tobe a direct outgrowth of the original rituals and customs of the early femalereligion. It symbolizes one of the most ancient practices recorded—theritual sacrifice of an annual “king,” consort of the high priestess.Several accounts of tribes in Africa describe queens who remainedunmarried, while taking lovers of lesser rank. Records from Nigeria reportthat a male was the consort of the queen until she found herself pregnant, atwhich time he was strangled by a group of women—he had fulfilled hisearthly task.Numerous accounts, legends and fragments of texts and prayers suggestthat there were similar practices in most of the Goddess-worshiping culturesthroughout the Near East, slightly different adaptations depending on thelocation and the gradual transitions that took place over the years. It is

pointless to make any firm generalization on what was done or why, sincethe information in each specific culture would not support such an overallstatement. Yet there are pieces of evidence everywhere that suggest that inNeolithic and perhaps even in earliest historic periods the consort of thehigh priestess met a violent death, while she remained to grieve.The material is derived from three separate lines of evidence. The firstincludes the accounts of the actual ceremonies, which describe the marriageof the consort to the priestess, providing him with the position later definedas kingship; the second, the documents of rituals, which in historic timescame to be used as a substitute for the original sacrifice: human substitutes,assault, effigies and animal sacrifice. The third, the most detaileddescriptions, are provided by the legends, which probably accompaniedthese substitute rituals; these, at the proper ceremonial moment, offering thetheological explanation of the symbolic action taken.This material suggests that the high priestess, as the incarnation of theGoddess, chose a lover, probably much younger than herself, since he wasso often referred to as the son of the Goddess. Numerous accounts tell ofthe sexual union that took place between them, often referred to as thehieros gamos, the sacred marriage. This sacred marriage or sexual union isattested to in the historic periods of Sumer, Egypt, Babylon and even inclassical Greece. After the sexual ceremony the young man assumed therole as consort of the priestess. He was the “king.”“The inference that seems indisputable,” writes Professor S. Smith, “isthat the rite of the sacred marriage goes back to a remote antiquity, and thatis the reason why it was included in the cults of distinctly differentgods … Its annual nature seems to be connected with the annualreappointment of the king.” Describing the status of the male who related tothe high priestess in the Aegean, Butterworth tells us that “Access to thedivine was through the queen.”The sacred sexual union with the high priestess gave the male consort aprivileged position. According to Professor Saggs, in historic Sumer andBabylon, after the sacred marriage the Goddess “fixed the destiny” of theking for the coming year. But in earlier days this position of kingship wasfar from permanent. The male chosen held his royal rights for a specificperiod of time. At the end of this time (perhaps a year since the ceremonywas celebrated annually, but other records seem to suggest possibly a longerperiod in certain areas), this youth was then ritually sacrificed.

In 1914 Stephen Langdon wrote that “The divine figures of Tammuz,Adonis and Osiris represent a theological principle, the incarnation ofreligious ideas which were once illustrated in a more tangible form. Not thedivine son who perished in the waves, but a human king who was slain …”In 1952 Charles Seltman of the University of Cambridge described thesituation in this way. “The Great Goddess was always supreme and themany names by which she was called were but a variety of titles given toher in diverse places. She had no regular ‘husband’ but her mate, her younglover, died or was killed every autumn and was glorified in resurrectionevery spring, coming back to the goddess; even as a new gallant may havebeen taken into favour every year to mate with an earthly queen.”In 1957 Robert Graves wrote of the ritual regicide as it appeared in pre-Indo-European Greece, explaining it as follows: “The Tribal Nymph, itseems, chose an annual lover from her entourage of young men, a king tobe sacrificed when the year ended … the sacred king continued to hold hisposition only by the right of marriage to the Tribal Nymph …” In hisintroduction to The Greek Myths he explains his theories on how kingshipin the Aegean was made a permanent institution, as a gradual extension ofthe “year” into a “longer year” was introduced by the invading Indo-European Achaeans of the thirteenth century BC and later a permanentkingship instituted by the Indo-European Dorians at about 1100 BC.Both Frazer and James offer the Shilluk groups of the Upper Nile as apossible analogy. Professor James, writing in 1937, says, “It was the customin this tribe until recently to put the king to death whenever he showedsigns of failing health and virility. Therefore as soon as he was unable tosatisfy the sexual passions of his wives, it was their duty to acquaint theelders with the fact, and arrangements were made at once for his demiseand the appointment of a vigorous successor to reign in his stead.” Frazerlisted Canaan, Cyprus and Carthage as places where in earliest historictimes there was the most certain evidence of the slaying of the king. Frazer,Langdon, James, Seltman, Graves and many others agreed that the legendwas enacted and that the male who was slain was the temporary king of thecity, the youth who had previously played the role of the son/lover in thesacred sexual union.Most authors who discuss the sacrifice of the “king” describe it primarilyas a fertility rite, suggesting that his remains may even have been scatteredover the newly sown fields. Though this perhaps became the custom in later

periods, one of the earliest recorded legends (that of the Sumerian GoddessInanna, written shortly after 2000 BC), probably a written record of evenearlier myths and religious ideas, presented a different motive. In thislegend the sacrifice of the consort occurred when he was no longer willingto defer to the wishes, commands and power of the Goddess. This mostancient account perhaps reveals the earliest origins and reasons for thedeath of the male consort. Later ideas of fertility or expiation of sins mayhave eventually been embroidered about the custom to ensure or explain itscontinuation.The generally accepted explanation of the sacrifice of the king as afertility rite was probably a result of the fact that all legends available untilrecently told only of the grief of the Goddess over the death of Herson/lover. It was only upon the discovery and decipherment of the lastfragments of the Sumerian legend, which added the information that,although Inanna did grieve at the death, it had occurred as a result of Herown wrath at the youth’s arrogance, that we are now in a position toquestion the actual meaning and reasons for this ancient ritual and revisethose generally accepted explanations.It may be helpful to examine the numerous accounts of the sacredmarriage, or the son/lover as king and the position of the high priestess, inseveral of the cultures of the Near East; to gain a deeper comprehension ofthe custom as it may have originally been known by learning of its variousadaptations in the historical periods following the Indo-European invasions.

SUMER—“THE BELOVED HUSBANDS OF INANNA”In the Sumerian accounts of Inanna and Damuzi (defined as the true son)we learn that after he “proved himself” upon Her bed She then arranged hisfuture for him, making him “shepherd of the land.” Though this maysymbolically sound like a very important post, we should remember thatthere were huge herds of animals owned and kept by the staff of the templesand the title may originally have been a description of his actual role. Theson/lover as shepherd appears in many versions of the tale in various areasand epochs and once again suggests the relationship of the originalson/lover to the later worship of Jesus.But whatever the actual nature of the position, the Sumerian legend tellsus that, when Inanna was looking for a replacement for Herself in the Landof the Dead, She passed over Her own servant because he had been mostloyal and served Her well; She passed over a minor god because he hadbowed down to Her as She requested; but eventually She chose Her ownson, Her own lover, Damuzi, who had dared to climb joyfully upon Herthrone during Her absence and had behaved in a most arrogant mannerupon Her return. The death of the earliest Sumerian Damuzi was not anaccident. He died at Inanna’s command.Sumerian documents reveal that the origins of kingship in Sumer beganwith the position of En, defined as both priest and consort of the Goddess.Enship was later replaced by Ensiship, which appears to have providedgreater and more secular powers. The office of Ensi was then supplanted bythe title and position known as Lugal, which literally means “importantman” but is usually translated as king. Another most ancient word,Mukarrib, is also often translated as king, though it literally means “bringerof offerings.” Saggs explains that the Ensi was originally elected, probablyin time of war, but near the end of the third millenium this position becamehereditary. Professor Sidney Smith comments that the documents thatdescribe the extensive use of oracular divination and prophecy reveal that,even after the role of king became more permanent, “no king actedaccording to his own judgement alone.”The position of king as leader seems to have been instituted in a periodremembered by the time written records appear. In the early second-millenium legend of Etana we read, “At that time no tiara had been

worn … there was at first no royal direction of the people of the Goddess,kingship then came down from heaven.” But this kingship, as suggested bythe accounts of the arrival of the Ubaid and Shemsu-Hor peoples of Sumerand Egypt, more likely arrived by sailboat than by spaceship.Professor S. N. Kramer, eminent Sumeriologist, tells us that in thehistorical periods of Sumer,The most significant rite of the New Year was the hieros gamos, orholy marriage between the king, who represented the god Damuzi, andone of the priestesses, who represented the goddess Inanna … the ideaarose that the King of Sumer, no matter who he was or from what cityhe originated, must become the husband of the life-giving goddess oflove, that is, Inanna of Erech … the kings of Sumer are known as the“beloved husbands” of Inanna throughout the Sumerian documentsfrom the time of Enmerkar [about 2600 BC] down to post-Sumeriandays, since they seem to have been mystically identified with Damuzi.Professor Kramer describes the role of the priestess of Inanna as that ofthe “dominant partner,” explaining that She makes him king, not the otherway about, that She brings Her lover to Her own house and that She isasked as the Queen of Heaven to allow him to enjoy long days at Her holylap. Professor Henri Frankfort also pointed out that “In the sacred marriagethe dependence of the god upon the goddess is strongly emphasized. Textsfrom Isin leave no doubt that the initiative was ascribed to her.” All thekings of Isin, a city of Sumer that flourished between 2000 and 1800 BC,spoke of themselves as “the beloved consort of Nana.”Tablets from the reign of Shu Sin, about 1980 BC, also suggest the moreaggressive role of Inanna at the sacred marriage. Her part reads,“Bridegroom, let me caress you. My precious caress is more savoury thanhoney; in the bed chamber let us enjoy your goodly beauty” (my italics).When Enmerkar (an En in Erech) battled with the king of Aratta,Enmerkar won. The king of Aratta then said to him, “You are the beloved ofInanna, you alone are exalted. Inanna has truly chosen you for her holylap.” Another tablet tells us, “To Eannatum, the ensi of Lagash [about 2200BC], Inanna, because she loved him, gave the kingship of Kish in addition tothe Ensiship of Lagash.”

Texts of Shulgi, a king of the third dynasty of Ur (about 2040 BC) read,“Goddess, I will perform for you the rites which constitute my royalty. Iwill accomplish for you the divine pattern.” In these same tablets, whichappear to be the written dialogue for the roles for the sacred ceremonialdrama of the hieros gamos, the high priestess of Inanna then says of Shulgi,“When he has made love to me on the bed, then I in turn shall show mylove for the lord, I shall make for him a good destiny, I shall make himshepherd of the land.”Two other names of the Goddess in Sumer, each (in different locations)describing her as the mother of Inanna, were also mentioned in connectionwith this custom. One inscription tells of the Goddess Ninmah (LadyMother) “raising” Rim Sin to kingship, at about 1800 BC in Larsa. Theaccounts of four kings of Sumer recorded that the Goddess known as Ninlilbrought the new young king into Her bower each time—presumablymeaning that a sacred sexual union took place between the potential kingand the high priestess of the Goddess. Professor Sidney Smith writes, “Therecords of the Ninlil festivals show that the occasions when a king of Sumerand Akkad was brought into the bower, marked the establishment ofdifferent dynasties.”At the beginning of the reign of Lipit-Ishtar, about 1930 BC, his “sister”was high priestess at Ur. But when another group of people conquered thiscity, her name was then associated with their king. Clearly by this time, andeven from the time of Enmerkar, the ancient customs were being used tojustify the results of battles and military conquests; marriage to the highpriestess was being used to acquire legitimacy upon the throne in the eyesof the people. Sidney Smith writes of “the exceptional political position ofpriestesses.” He describes the situation of Lipit-Ishtar and the womanknown as his sister saying, “The whole incident illustrates the politicalsignificance of these appointments … The sporadic appointment ofprincesses at Ur, when that city was compelled to acknowledge the rule ofmen not of southern origin was obviously due to political motives.”As I explained in the previous chapter, it seems that, as the followers ofEnki and Enlil grew more powerful, the high priestess as representative ofthe Goddess lost a great deal of her earlier prerogatives, but was probablyleft with the role of bestowing kingship, matrilineal customs still beinghonored. The actual position of the high priestess at this period is open toquestion. We know from the records that many of them were daughters,

sisters or mothers of the kings who were in power. The records ofHammurabi’s time show that his sister was a naditu priestess, suggestingthat the high priestess may have been connected with this group who seemto have managed the business affairs of the temples and community land.

BABYLON—“SHE WHO HOLDS THE REINS OF KINGS”In Babylon of the eighteenth to the sixth centuries BC, which supersededSumer as the major power in Mesopotamia, the Goddess was known asIshtar. She was the Akkadian version of Inanna and revered as Ishtar evenin the temple in Erech. Her dying son/lover, once known in Sumer asDamuzi, was now called Tammuz. Professor James comments on therelationship of Ishtar and Tammuz, writing, “In this alliance she was thedominant partner, as has been demonstrated, for when he was brought intoclose connection with Ishtar, in the Tammuz myth, he was her son as wellas her husband and brother, and always subordinate to her as the Young-god.”The attributes and legends of Inanna and Ishtar are so similar that manywriters speak of the Goddess as Inanna/Ishtar. But there were certainvariations in the legends, transitions that perhaps reflect the change inattitudes over the centuries as the result of the more continual andsuccessful invasions of the Indo-Europeans. In hardly any Babylonianliterature do we learn that Ishtar actually caused the death of Tammuz,which is reported to have happened in a variety of accidental ways. Legendsgenerally explain that Tammuz died and Ishtar grieved.But in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamish, based on an earlier Sumeriansaga known only from small fragments, the name of Tammuz was includedin a long list of lovers whom Ishtar had in some way deeply injured.Gilgamish, historically listed as an early En of Erech, pointedly declined thehonor of becoming the husband of Ishtar and thus being added to the list.The story probably represents one of the earlier refusals of a consort/king tofollow the ancient customs and the attempt to institute a more permanentand powerful kingship. His quest for immortality in the same legend mayalso reveal this as its underlying message.The story of Gilgamish takes place in Sumer. But once again we maysuspect the influence or presence of the patrilineal northerners, perhapsfrom Aratta. The name Gilgamish may well be associated with the laterHurrian city of Carchemish, whose ancient name was Kar Garnish. Thestory of Gilgamish is found not only in Sumerian and Babylonian literaturebut in Hurrian and Hittite texts as well.

Gilgamish is listed as an En of Erech; therefore he gains the role of“king” as consort to the high priestess. His father is listed as Lugal Banda,who, though a previous En of Erech, is also described as a shepherd and anomad. In the very beginning of the story we learn that Gilgamish isoppressing Erech, “taking the son from the father, taking the maiden fromher lover.” We next read that he is about to attend a feast at which he will“fertilize the woman of destiny,” suggesting his role in the sacred marriage.Another figure appears at this time. He is known as Enkidu, a wild man ofthe woods. Enkidu is then treated to extravagant clothing, splendid food anddrink and the company of a qadishtu, a holy woman of the temple, withwhom he has his first sexual encounters.Shortly afterward, Ishtar proposes marriage to Gilgamish, telling him thatShe has longingly gazed upon his beauty. But Gilgamish, acting not inaccordance with the role he is supposed to play, spurns the proposal of theGoddess. In doing this, he lists all of Her past lovers who have met a tragicfate, ending with, “You would love me too and then make my fate liketheirs.” Among these past lovers, Tammuz is mentioned as a lover ofIshtar’s younger days. The name Damuzi actually appears twice on theSumerian king lists, once directly between Lugal Banda and Gilgamish, andonce in an even earlier period, just a few names after Alalu, first king ofSumer at Eridu. The second Damuzi, and Gilgamish himself, appear to befrom about 2500 BC.After the marriage rejection a fight then ensues between Ishtar, Enkiduand Gilgamish, in which the two men insult the Goddess, kill Her heavenlybull and throw its thigh bone or genitals (depending upon the translation) inHer face. Gilgamish calls out, “If I could, I would do the same to you.” As aresult of this incident Enkidu, who probably symbolizes the substitutesacrifice, is put to death. Gilgamish is spared and at this point goes off onhis search for immortality, which leads into the Sumerian account of theflood and its survivors.Apart from the possible connections of the name Gilgamish with the laterHuman city of Kar Garnish, the hints at the very beginning that Gilgamishis oppressing Erech, the general plot of the story and the existence ofHurrian and Hittite texts of the same epic, several other factors suggest thatthis epic may once again reflect northern attitudes. In it we may bewitnessing a confrontation of the two cultures. In the Sumerian king listsEnmerkar directly precedes Lugal Banda, the father of Gilgamish. Several

cuneiform tablets reveal that both Enmerkar and Lugal Banda were in closetouch with the land of Aratta (possibly Urartu). One myth tells of LugalBanda accompanying Enmerkar to that area, a trip brought to a halt by arather mystical event at a place named Mount Hurum. Enmerkar also hadvery close connections with the Enki temple at Eridu, demanding that thepeople of Aratta send tribute there. The king who preceded Enmerkarapparently founded the First Dynasty of Erech. The king lists tell us that he“entered the seas and climbed the mountains,” perhaps suggesting histravels before reaching Erech, possibly from the mountain lands of Aratta.The account of the rebellion against Ishtar (probably as represented by thehigh priestess) may well have actually occurred at the time of the institutionof kingship in Erech and the story later added to the Babylonian accounts ofGilgamish, who seems to have become something of a legendary hero inmany other tales as a result of his military exploits.Whenever it actually occurred, this account may symbolize an incidentmuch like the one Diodorus Siculus reported among the Nubians of theUpper Nile. He wrote that a king, who rebelled against being sacrificed,murdered all the presiding clergy, thus proclaiming a permanent kingshipfor himself.By Babylonian times the king was certainly no longer put to death. YetIshtar was still described as the one who appointed the king; “She whoendowed him with prestige.” In one inscription She was titled, “Counsellorof All Rulers, She Who Holds the Reins of Kings.” In another She wasknown as “She who gives the sceptre, the throne, the year of reign to allkings.” Sargon of Akkad, one of the earliest kings of central Mesopotamia(at about 2300 BC), wrote that his mother was a high priestess, his fatherwas unknown. Later, he says, Ishtar came to love him “… and then foryears I exercised kingship.”In The Childhood of Man, L. Frobenius, discussing the ritual of thesacrifice of the king, explained, “Already in ancient Babylon it had beenweakened, in as much as the king at the New Year Festival in the templewas only stripped of his garments, humiliated and struck, while in themarketplace a substitute, who had been ceremonially installed in all glory,was delivered to death by the noose.”Various accounts of the ceremonies that took place during Babylonianperiods tell of the king going to the temple to be struck in the face, hisclothing and royal insignia temporarily removed. Other texts tell us that his

hair was shorn, his girdle removed and in this state he was thrown into theriver. When he emerged he was made to walk about in sackcloth for severaldays as a symbol of mourning. Saggs observes that “There is someevidence, even from the first millenium that the king at his death may havebeen assimilated to the (supposedly) dying god Tammuz.”These were symbolic reminders of the days when the consort/king wouldhave met his death. But just as Gilgamish continued to live, while Enkidudied, the substitute lost his life as kingship in Sumer and Babylon became apermanent and hereditary institution. There are hints of expiation of sinsand atonement in these rituals—the king is being punished. But for what? Itseems that eventually the chastisement came to be for the sins of the people,but did this not originate from his earlier punishment for refusing to defer tothe priestess-queen? The fact that good fortune was predicted if tears cameto his eyes when he was struck perhaps reveals these origins. According tothe Babylonian tablets, “If the king does not weep when struck, the omen isbad for the year.”

EGYPT—ISIS MOURNS THE DEATH OF OSIRISSaggs, writing of the ritual regicide, states, “This latter practice certainlyoccurred in Egypt in prehistoric times, while some authorities argue that itsurvived into historical times.” In the earliest records of Egypt, shortly after3000 BC, men were sacrificed at the “grave of Osiris,” brother/husband ofthe Goddess Isis. The records tell us that the sacrificed men had red hair,perhaps, as I mentioned before, a result of the invasion of the Shemsu-Hor.In Egyptian theogyny Horus was the son of Isis. Upon his death hebecomes Osiris. Though it is the death of Osiris that is commemorated, it isactually Horus, the son, who has died. At the death of Osiris the new Horuswas then installed upon the throne. Thus in the cumulative myths of Egypt,where each new idea seems to have been added and little if anythingeliminated, both Horus and Osiris engaged in a battle against Set, but it isOsiris who is killed by Set. The stories of the death of Osiris were not onlyremembered and ceremonially re-enacted in Egypt but were also closelyconnected with Canaan, especially at the most ancient port of Byblos.Byblos, a city slightly north of Beirut in Lebanon, was an Egyptian colonyor commercial seaport as early as the Second Dynasty of Egypt, whichoccurs at about 2850–2600 BC. But even as late as about AD 150, Lucianspeaks of the death of the lover of the Goddess, then known as Adonis,taking place at Aphaca, near Byblos. Lucian then reveals that the secretrites of Adonis are actually those of Osiris. Some accounts claimed that thebody of Adonis was buried at Aphaca, just a few miles from Byblos, whileEgyptian myth tells us that Isis brought the body back to Egypt for burial,describing in detail all the various problems She encountered in doing this.

CRETE—“THE GOD (WHO USUALLY DIES SHORTLY AFTER HIS WEDDING)”Hawkes, describing the Goddess and the dying youth on the island of Crete,where worship of the female deity flourished from before 3000 BC until thearrival of the Indo-European Dorians in about 1100 BC, stated: “She isaccompanied by a youthful male deity, a Year Spirit who is her consort andoffspring, who dies and is born again—the Cretan version of Adonis. InMinoan Crete this young god was always subject to the goddess—he wasthe instrument of her fertility and is shown in humble and worshipfulattitudes.”Stylianos Alexiou suggests that in Crete “The sacred marriage, the unionof the goddess and the god (who usually dies shortly after his wedding)symbolizes the fertility of the earth.”Even in classical times the Indo-European Zeus was worshiped by thepeople of Crete as an infant and revered primarily as the son of his mother,Rhea. Greek theogyny tells us that the Goddess Rhea hid the infant Zeusfrom his father in a Cretan cave. In one legend Rhea was described as being“sexually attacked” by Her son Zeus, possibly a remnant of an earlieraccount of the sacred sexual union that took place between them. On Crete,Zeus was thought of as the dying son, a concept deeply resented by theIndo-European Greeks of the mainland, who insisted that Zeus wasimmortal.

NORTHERN CANAAN—“MISTRESS OF KINGSHIP”In the texts of Ugarit of the fourteenth century BC many of the accountsappear to be the result of the assimilation of the religion of the Goddesswith newer Indo-European concepts, possibly derived from the greatnumber of Hurrians living there at the time. The texts tell the story of thedeath of Baal, Lord of Mount Saphon. They record that Baal’s death was asa result of a battle with Mot, a name otherwise unknown, though thelegends reveal that Mot was an enemy greatly feared by Baal. After hisdeath the Goddess Anath carried Baal’s body on Her shoulders to find aburial place. As soon as this was done She avenged the death of Baal bykilling Mot, an event described in rather gruesome detail. But the revengekilling seems to be the reason that Baal was then allowed to reenter theworld of the living. According to the legend he then joined Anath in a field,fell down before Her in grateful appreciation, “admiring Her horns ofstrength.” She taking the form of the sacred heifer, he of a bull, they unitedin sacred sexual union. Even at this period, Anath was still known as the“Mistress of the Heavens, Mistress of Kingship.”

ANATOLIA—“SHE WHO CONTROLS KINGSHIP …”There are no records among the Hittite texts of Anatolia that suggest thatthe king was put to death, possibly because the earliest written material thathas so far been found seems to have been produced by the Indo-EuropeanHittites themselves. Yet the Sun Goddess of Arinna, the Hattian deity whoappears to have been adopted by the invading Hittites, was still known inprayer as “She who controls kingship in heaven and on earth.” Texts of theHittites describe a ritual that a queen performs in front of eight statues ofthe Sun Goddess, each bearing the name of a previous high priestess-queen.Gurney writes that “The great national deity of the Hittites was the sun-goddess of Arinna, ‘who directs kingship and queenship,’ and it is thereforeno surprise to find that her ‘regular festivals’ were among those for whichthe presence of the king was essential.” Though the evidence is scanty, itseems to point to much the same relationship between the priestess of theGoddess and the king in pre-Hittite days. Possibly adopted into Hittitecustom to ensure royal legitimacy, early Indo-European leaders may have atone time taken part in the sacred marriage with Hattian priestesses.After about 1000 BC stories of the Goddess, then known as Cybele, andthe youth, then known as the shepherd Attis, predominate in Anatolia,legends once again probably surviving from the earlier religion of theGoddess people. Various versions of the death of Attis, at times associatedwith his castration, retell the story of the dying son/lover. An interestingfactor in the accounts of Cybele and Attis is that this version of the religionof the Goddess was eventually brought from Anatolia to Rome. It wascelebrated there in great processions and festivals until AD 268 andembraced by such emperors as Claudius and Augustus. We can only guessat the influence this had upon the Christian religion that was developingthere at that time. Roman reports of the rituals of Cybele record that theson, this time as an effigy, was first tied to a tree and then buried. Threedays later a light was said to appear in the burial tomb, whereupon Attisrose from the dead, bringing salvation with him in his rebirth. Cybele wasalways closely identified with the Goddess Rhea, who was known as themother of Zeus, and it is quite possible in pre-Christian Rome that themother of the dying god was known as Ma Rhea.

CYPRUS AND GREECE—THE RITES FOR THE DEAD SHEPHERDOn the island of Cyprus the death of Adonis was recalled in the worship ofAphrodite. Greek tales explained that the Goddess had taken a shepherdyouth as a lover, having fallen in love with this youth when She first sawhim as an infant. After living with him for a year in the wooded hills ofCyprus, according to the legend She left to visit Corinth, one of the majorcenters of Aphrodite worship in classical Greece. Upon Her absence Adoniswas killed by a wild boar, a description of the death which also appeared insome of the legends of Osiris and Attis. Through the worship of Aphrodite,which on the island of Cyprus was closely associated with the CanaaniteAstarte, the rites for the dead shepherd youth Adonis survived in classicalGreece, though frowned upon by Indo-European government officials.

ISRAEL—A DYING GOD NAMED TAMMUZIn biblical accounts the rituals of the death of the son/lover were once againdescribed, this time taking place among the Hebrew women who prayed atthe temple in Jerusalem in about 620 BC. In the book of Ezekiel we read,“Then he brought me to the gateway of the Lord’s house which faces north;and there I saw the women sitting and wailing for Tammuz” (Ezek. 8:14).There they were at the temple wall, still performing the mourningceremonies, weeping for Tammuz.In 1933 Professor T. H. Robinson wrote of the ceremonial death ofTammuz occurring in Israel, claiming, “This subject has been closelystudied in recent years, and it is generally (although not universally) agreedthat a ritual involving a dying god, a divine marriage and a ceremonialprocession, was found in Israel.”In 1958 Professor Widengren stated that “We are thus able to assert thatthere was just such a ritual mourning in Israel as there was in Mesopotamiaafter the death of Tammuz, and that this lamentation festival was celebratedin connection with the Feast of Booths, after the jubilation ceremonies ofthe sacred marriage.”

CASTRATED GODS AND EUNUCH PRIESTSIt is possible that in certain areas one of the substitute rituals that initiallyreplaced the actual death of the temporary king was the act of castration,perhaps the actual origin of the Freudian fantasy fear. The severing of themale genitals appeared in several legends that announced the deposition ofthe ruling male. These accounts occur in the same general areas that alsoreport the death of the male consort; and in some, such as Osiris and Attis,castration and death are closely intertwined.Indo-European Hittite mythology related in the story of Kumarbi, whowrested the position of power from the previous reigning god Anu, thatKumarbi castrated Anu as Kumarbi ascended to the superior rank. Greekmythology, probably borrowing from these earlier Hittite stories, told ofCronus castrating his father Uranus and usurping his position at thesuggestion of his mother, the Goddess Gaia. Cronus then feared that his sonmight do the same to him, thus setting off a series of Greek mythologicalevents in which the son, Zeus, did eventually overthrow his father. Both theHittite and the Greek stories are Indo-European. Castration may have beenthe original Indo-European solution to the ritual regicide.The Anatolian myth of the Goddess Inara revealed that once a man sleptwith the Goddess (presumably the high priestess), he might never againsleep with another woman, for fear that he would transfer the sacred powersof the Goddess to her. One Attis legend explained his voluntary castrationas a reaction to his fear of being unfaithful to the Goddess. If the consortwas not allowed to have sexual relations with anyone after he had been withthe high priestess, castration may have been the solution that at first allowedhim to remain alive.When the body of Osiris was cut into fourteen pieces by Set, sometimesdepicted as a wild boar, Isis repaired it, patiently rejoining all the mutilatedsections. But according to the Egyptian myth the genitals were irrevocablylost, eaten by the fish of the River Nile. Uranus’s genitals were,incidentally, also “cast into the waters.” The Anatolian Attis appears to havecastrated himself in a feverish fit of love, religion, fear of infidelity, shameor self-punishment, depending upon the version of the story. The loyalhelpers and attendants in the legends of Ishtar and Inanna were described aseunuchs.

The element of castration appears in many ancient accounts of theGoddess religion. Repeated references were made to the presence of eunuchpriests in ancient Sumer, Babylon, Canaan and most especially in Anatolia,where classical texts report that the number of such men serving in thereligion of the Goddess at that time was as high as five thousand in certaincities. The eunuch priests in Anatolia of classical times actually calledthemselves Attis.Suggestions have been put forth to explain the evident willingness ofthese men to castrate themselves, a custom we may find somewhatastonishing today. These explanations are supported by the appearance allthrough the Near East of representations of priests in female clothing, thecostume eunuch priests are said to have worn.Stylianos Alexiou writes, “The priests and musicians wearing longfeminine robes fall into a special category. This practice has led to thesurmise that, perhaps owing to Syrian influence, there existed companies ofeunuch priests in the Cretan palaces. During a later period the eunuchpriests of Cybele and Attis in Asia Minor formed a similar class.”It seems quite possible that as men began to gain power, even within thereligion of the Goddess, they replaced priestesses. They may have initiallygained this right by identifying with and imitating the castrated state of theson/lover; or in an attempt to imitate the female clergy, which originallyheld the power, they may have tried to rid themselves of their maleness byadopting the ritual of castration and the wearing of women’s clothing.In Anatolia and even in Rome, after a young male devotee of theGoddess had taken the sacred knife to his own body he then ran through thestreets, still holding the severed parts. He eventually flung these into ahouse along the way, custom decreeing that the inhabitants of that houseshould provide him with women’s clothing, which he wore from that timeon.G. R. Taylor, in his abridgment of Briffault’s The Mothers, commentedon this custom. He observed that “The first step in the limitation of thestatus of women was to take over from them the monopoly of the religiousfunction.” Graves pointed out that the king was often privileged to deputizefor the queen, but only if he wore her robes. He suggested that this was thesystem in Sumerian Lagash.In some areas of Anatolia of classical times, eunuch priests appear tohave totally gained control of the Goddess religion. A large group of

eunuch priests accompanied the statue and rites of Cybele when these werefirst brought into Rome. We may only speculate as to the effect andinfluence this may have had upon the newly forming Christian religion andthe custom of celibacy among the priests, still existent in the canons of theCatholic Church.The laws of the early Hebrews stated that a man without a penis was notto be considered as a member of the congregation. “No man whose testicleshave been crushed or whose organ has been severed shall become a memberof the assembly of the Lord” (Deut. 23:1). It is perhaps significant that theBible claims that the original covenant that Yahweh made with Abrahamwas so explicit about the practice of circumcision. It required that it be doneto all Hebrew males shortly after birth. Though this has often beenexplained by writers in contemporary society as having been a preventivehealth measure against venereal diseases, could it actually have been ameans of emphasizing the “maleness” of the male-worshiping Hebrewsfrom the “femaleness” of those who had joined the Goddess?

SUMMARYThe castrated and/or dying youthful consort, a vestige of the times in whichthe high priestess held the divine right to the throne, is often ignored ormisunderstood by writers who concentrate on one geographical area or onechronological period and fail to examine the gradual transition from thesupremacy of the female deity and Her priestesses to the eventualsuppression and obliteration of those beliefs.At times the misunderstanding seems astonishingly disconnected from alldocumentary evidence. In 1964 A. Leo Oppenheim, who in less than twolines hastily whisked over the Goddess first worshiped in Sumer as thepatron deity of written language, then proceeded to spend five full pagesdiscussing his theory that the word istaru was simply a concept that impliedfate or life destiny, later personified by men as the Goddess Ishtar. Heasserted that this in turn explained why the Goddess was continuallydescribed as “the carrier, the fountainhead of the power and prestige of theking.” But the mass of evidence makes it clear that Ishtar, as well as otherversions of the Goddess throughout the Near and Middle East, wasdescribed as “the fountainhead of the power and prestige of the king”because it was actually required that the king become the sexual consort ofthe high priestess, incarnation of the Goddess on earth, who probably heldthe rights to the royal throne through matrilineal descent.The custom of ritual regicide disappeared as the patrilineal tribes gaineddominance. The numerous copies of the legend of Gilgamish, in variouslanguages, may have been used to further this purpose. Permanenthereditary kingship became the rule and as the male deity gainedsupremacy, the role of the benefactor of the divine right to the throne waseventually shifted over to him, a concept of the rights of royalty thatsurvives even today.There can be little doubt that the original customs of ritual regicide, andthe political position of the high priestess, presented a major obstacle to thedesire of the northern conquerors for a permanent kingship and more totalcontrol of government. But a second, and perhaps equally vital, point ofconfrontation leads us in the following chapter to a more thoroughexplanation of the attitudes and cultural patterns that surrounded sex and

reproduction in the religion of the Goddess, allowing and even encouraginga female kinship system to continue.

7 The Sacred Sexual CustomsThe Canaanites are known throughout the Old Testament as the majorelement in the population of Palestine dispossessed by Israel in heroccupation of the “land flowing with milk and honey.” With greatindignation and broad generalization “the abominations of theCanaanites” are stigmatized by Hebrew prophets, reformers andeditors of the Old Testament. They roundly condemn their people forgoing “a whoring after the Baalim” and Ashteroth, the localmanifestations of the deities of the Canaanite fertility-cult, which theycaricature by referring to one element in it, sexual license …So commented Professor John Gray in The Canaanites, written in 1964.This “sexual license” described among the Canaanites refers to the sacredsexual customs of the ancient religion, customs also found in many otherareas of the Near and Middle East.During biblical times it was still customary, as it had been for thousandsof years before in Sumer, Babylon and Canaan, for many women to livewithin the temple complex, in earliest times the very core of thecommunity. As we have seen, temples owned much of the arable land andherds of domesticated animals, kept the cultural and economic records andgenerally appear to have functioned as the central controlling offices of thesociety. Women who resided in the sacred precincts of the DivineAncestress took their lovers from among the men of the community,making love to those who came to the temple to pay honor to the Goddess.Among these people the act of sex was considered to be sacred, so holy andprecious that it was enacted within the house of the Creatress of heaven,earth and all life. As one of Her many aspects, the Goddess was revered asthe patron deity of sexual love.Some archaeologists assume that these sexual customs of the temples, sorepeatedly attested to in the religion of the female deity throughout the early

historic periods of the Near and Middle East, must have been viewed as atype of primitive symbolic magic to invoke fertility in cattle and vegetationas well as in humans. It is my opinion that they may have developed as aresult of the earliest consciousness and comprehension of the relationship ofsex to reproduction. Since this connection was probably initially observedby women, it may have been integrated into the religious structure as ameans of ensuring procreation among the women who chose to live andraise children within the shrine complex, as well, possibly, as a method ofregulating pregnancies.The concept of reproduction was pictorially explained in a gray stoneplaque discovered in the Neolithic shrine of the Goddess at Catal Hüyük,carved there some eight thousand years ago. One side of the relief depictsthe bodies of two lovers in a close embrace, the other side, a womanholding an infant.People today, raised and programmed on the “morality” of thecontemporary male religions, may find the ancient sexual attitudes andcustoms disturbing, shocking or even sacrilegious. Yet we should considerthe likelihood that such judgments or reactions are the result of the teachingand conditioning of religious attitudes present in our society, which arethemselves based on the ideologies of those who initially and repetitivelycondemned the sexual customs of the Goddess.In the worship of the female deity, sex was Her gift to humanity. It wassacred and holy. She was the Goddess of Sexual Love and Procreation. Butin the religions of today we find an almost totally reversed attitude. Sex,especially non-marital sex, is considered to be somewhat naughty, dirty,even sinful. Yet rather than calling the earliest religions, which embracedsuch an open acceptance of all human sexuality, “fertility-cults,” we mightconsider the religions of today as strange in that they seem to associateshame and even sin with the very process of conceiving new human life.Perhaps centuries from now scholars and historians will be classifying themas “sterility-cults.”Documentary evidence from Sumer, Babylon, Canaan, Anatolia, Cyprus,Greece and even the Bible reveals that, despite the fact that the concept ofmarriage was known in the earliest written records, married women, as wellas single, continued to live for periods of time within the temple complexand to follow the ancient sexual customs of the Goddess. The Bible itselfreveals that these women were free to come and go as they pleased. Women

of wealthy and royal families, as well as women of the community,participated in the sexual customs of the Goddess. These women were freeto marry at any time, and Strabo tells us that even as late as the first centuryBC they were considered to be exceptionally good wives. In earliest historictimes, never was the question or even the concept of respectability orpropriety raised—it was later invented as the new morality.The Mediterranean Old World Religions, all save the Hebraic,agreed in regarding the processes of the propagation of life as divine,at least as something not alien and abhorrent to the godhead. But theearly Christian propagandists, working here on Hebraic lines,intensified the isolation of God from the simple phenomena of birth,thereby engendering at times an anti-sexual bias, and preparing adiscord between any possible biological view and the current religion’sdogma, and modern ethical thought has not been wholly a gainerthereby.So commented historian L. R. Farnell at Oxford in 1896. He was one ofthe few authors of that era, and of most since that time, who managed todeal with the ancient religious attitude toward sex in an objective manner,rather than causing the black type of the page to blush beet red withembarrassment or commenting upon them with righteous indignation.In this chapter I intend to point out and try to explain the underlyingreasons for this “anti-sexual” stance of the Hebrews, and subsequently theChristian religions, and the confrontations that ensued. This anti-sexualattitude was not the result of a more inherent purity or lesser sex driveamong the adherents of the Judeo-Christian beliefs. As we shall see, it wasprobably developed and propagated for purely political motives, aiming atgoals that would allow the invading patrilineal Hebrews greater access toland and governmental control by destroying the ancient matrilineal system.From the time of the earliest Indo-European conquests, laws concerningthe sacred women of the temples, the qadishtu—laws dealing withinheritance rights, property rights, business rights and their legal andeconomic relationship to their children—continually appear in the codes.Yet the Indo-Europeans, as we know them, do not appear to have taken anopen position against the sexual customs themselves. At least none of theliterature discovered and translated up until now suggests this, though the

increasingly stricter laws concerning the infidelity of married women mayhave been aimed at them.But among the Levite-led Hebrews we may observe the connections. TheLevite laws of the Israelites, from the time of Moses onward, demandedvirginity until marriage for all women, upon threat of death by stoning orburning, and, once married, total fidelity, only upon the part of the wife,also upon threat of death. Perhaps the penalty of death for a married orbetrothed woman who had been raped most clearly exhibits the Leviteinsistence upon knowledge of paternity. Taking part in the sacred sexualcustoms of the temples would, of course, have broken these laws.Alongside the greater sexual restrictions for women, we find the Levitepriests and prophets repeatedly condemning the sexual customs of thetemple as well. I suggest that the point of the confrontation was as follows.If, as qadishtu, sacred women of the Goddess, women made love tovarious men rather than being faithful to one husband, the children born tothese women would be of questionable paternity. Sumerian and Babyloniandocuments reveal that these women, through their affiliations with thetemple complex, owned land and other properties and engaged in extensivebusiness activities. Various accounts report that they were often of wealthyfamilies, well accepted in the society. Following the original kinshipcustoms of the Goddess religion, children born to qadishtu would probablyhave inherited the names, titles and property of their mothers; matrilinealdescent would have continued to exist as the inherent social structure of thecommunity. Daughters may have become qadishtu themselves. Oneinscription from Tralles in western Anatolia, carved there as late as AD 200by a woman named Aurelia Aemilias, proudly announced that she hadserved in the temple by taking part in the sexual customs, as had her motherand all their female ancestors before them.The sacred sexual customs of the female religion offer us another of theapparent ties between the worship of the Divine Ancestress as it was knownin Sumer, Babylon, Anatolia, Greece, Carthage, Sicily, Cyprus and even inCanaan. Women who made love in the temples were known in their ownlanguage as “sacred women,” “the undefined.” Their Akkadian name ofqadishtu is literally translated as “sanctified women” or “holy women.” Yetthe sexual customs in even the most academic studies of the past twocenturies were nearly always described as “prostitution,” the sacred womenrepeatedly referred to as “temple prostitutes” or “ritual prostitutes.” The use

of the word “prostitute” as a translation for qadishtu not only negates thesanctity of that which was held sacred, but suggests, by the inferences andsocial implications of the word, an ethnocentric subjectivity on the part ofthe writer. It leads the reader to a misinterpretation of the religious beliefsand social structure of the period. It seems to me that the word “prostitute”entirely distorts the very meaning of the ancient customs which the writer issupposedly explaining.Professor Albright, who admired the lofty ideals of the Israelites, writes:Sacred prostitution was apparently an almost invariable concomitant ofthe cult of the Phoenician and Syrian goddess, whatever her personalname, as we know from many allusions in classical literature,especially in Herodotus, Strabo and Lucian. As sacred prostitute thegoddess was, strangely enough from our point of view, called “theHoly One” … the practice was firmly implanted among the Canaaniteaborigines of Palestine and was constantly being re-introduced fromthe countries which surrounded Israel as a “very sacred custom” toquote the words of Lucian, in discussing the same practice atHierapolis in Syria, about a thousand years after Asa.Professor James, somewhat less antagonistic, writes, “This is borne outby the practice of ritual prostitution in connection with Israelite shrines atShiloh, condemned by Amos … As Hosea makes it abundantly clear, thesepriestesses continued to exercise their functions with undiminished zeal inhis day (750–735 BC), in spite of the efforts of Amos and other reformerslike Asa to eliminate them.”

EVEN IN THE HEBREW LAND OF JUDAHYet despite the contemporary portrayals of the sexual customs,archaeologists have found accounts of the sacred women in the earliestrecords of Sumer. The legend of Inanna and Enki listed the sacred sexualcustoms as another of the great gifts that Inanna brought to civilize thepeople of Erech. The Queen of Heaven was most reverently esteemed bythe sacred women, who in turn were especially protected by Her. At Erechthe women of the temple were known as nu-gig, the pure or spotless. Oneinteresting Sumerian fragment recorded the name of Lilith, described as ayoung maiden, as the “hand of Inanna.” We read on this ancient tablet thatLilith was sent by Inanna to gather men from the street, to bring them to thetemple. This same name, Lilith, later appeared in Hebrew mythology as thefirst wife of Adam, who refused to be sexually submissive to him; and lateras the name of the demon who hovered about, waiting to find spilled sperm,of which to make her “illegitimate demon children.” Both these tales maywell have developed in reaction to the original Lilith, so closely associatedwith the sexual customs of the worship of the Goddess.In the eighteenth century BC in Babylonia, the Akkadian name of Ishtarbegan to replace the Sumerian name Inanna. One tablet referred to Erech,where Ishtar’s worship eventually superseded that of Inanna, as the city of“courtesans and prostitutes” (a contemporary translation of the words). Thissame tablet mentioned priestesses who made love with strangers, claimingthat they were incarnations of the holy spirit. The women of Ishtar werealso known by the Akkadian word qadishtu, while at the important templein Babylon they were known as ishtaritu, which simply means “women ofIshtar.”Remnants of these earlier sexual customs were described by Herodotus,who reported that in his era, about 450 BC, women of Babylon made love toa stranger only once in their life, as their initial sexual experience, latermarrying and having sex only with their husbands from that time on.Strabo, born in Anatolia shortly before the birth of Christ, recorded thatthe sexual customs were followed in the worship of the Goddess in manyareas of Anatolia at that time. These were in the names of either Cybele orAnaitis. He reported that these customs were an integral aspect of theworship at Comana and in Lydia as well, which the inscription from Tralles,

Lydia, certainly supports. He wrote that in his travels he had witnessed thatthe children who were born in this way were considered to be legitimateand respectable and simply given the name and social status of the mother.He added that the name and title were then proudly used in all officialinscriptions and commented that in Anatolia of his period, “the unmarriedmother seems to be worshipped.”Sacred women served at the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth during theclassical period of Greece. Lucian later spoke of the customs in his day, AD150. He explained that women of that time took strangers as lovers only onthe feast day of Adonis. Even when the worship of the Egyptian Isis wasbrought into Rome, sacred women followed the ancient sexual customsthere, at the temple of Isis.There are no records known at this time that suggest that the women ofancient Egypt followed the sexual customs, but in chapter 23 of the book ofthe reformer-priest Ezekiel, he angrily accused a group of Hebrew womenof debauchery and lewdness, insisting that they had learned their “evil”sexual ways from the Egyptians. In one passage he warned, “I will put anend to your lewdness and harlotry brought from the land of Egypt” (Ezek.23:27). In his allegorical tale of the two young girls, who symbolized thetwo separate nations of the Hebrew people, Judah and Israel, he complainedthat the girls, because they had been so sexually free in Egypt, were nowevil and fallen women in Canaan.The worship of the Goddess as Ashtoreth (Astarte) was widespreadthroughout the Mediterranean area. Canaanites from Tyre and Sidon(Phoenicians) founded temples of Ashtoreth at Carthage, Eryx in Sicily andat several sites on Cyprus; at each of these places the sacred sexual customswere followed. Sozomenos reported the sexual customs of the temples ofAshtoreth at Aphaca and Baalbec in the area now known as Lebanon.Farnell explained many of the connections in the Mediterranean area.In the religion of Ashtoreth, just as in the worship of the Goddesselsewhere in the Near and Middle East, women continued to follow thesacred sexual customs. The Bible relates that qadishtu in Jerusalem woveveils or cloths for the asherim (images of the Goddess Asherah) in whatRoland de Vaux referred to as the “house of the sacred prostitutes.” He tooasserted that the sexual customs were quite typical of Canaanite templesand that the women of Israel followed this practice despite thecondemnation of Hebrew leaders.

Most vital in achieving a total comprehension of the antagonism of theHebrews toward this custom is the realization that the sacred womencontinued to serve the female divinity in the ancient sexual ways—even inthe Hebrew land of Judah. The sexual customs had remained as an aspect ofthe religious worship at the temple in Jerusalem, the temple that had beenclaimed for Yahweh, the same temple where the women had been seenweeping for Tammuz.Professor James and several other scholars wrote of the worship ofAshtoreth existing side by side with that of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Jamesalso described the sexual customs in Jerusalem and at the Hebrew temple atShiloh.In the Old Testament book of Hosea we learn that a woman, in this caseGomer (Hosea’s wife), was free to marry, raise children and continue tomake love to other men at the temple, dressing in all her finery to do so.Even in these biblical accounts, which were obviously written to demeanand debase her actions, the description revealed that she took part in thesexual customs of her own free will and that she viewed them not as anobligatory or compulsory duty but as pleasant occasions, rather like festiveparties. This situation was clearly unacceptable to the men who espousedthe patrilineal Hebrew system, as Hosea did, but it does reveal that for thosewho belonged to other religious systems it was quite typical behavior.For thousands of years these sexual customs had been accepted as naturalamong the people of the Near and Middle East. They may have permittedand even encouraged matrilineal descent patterns to continue and a female-kinship system to survive. Inherent within the very practice of the sexualcustoms was the lack of concern for the paternity of children—and it is onlywith a certain knowledge of paternity that a patrilineal system can bemaintained.I suggest that it was upon the attempt to establish this certain knowledgeof paternity, which would then make patrilineal reckoning possible, thatthese ancient sexual customs were finally denounced as wicked anddepraved and that it was for this reason that the Levite priests devised theconcept of sexual “morality”: premarital virginity for women, maritalfidelity for women, in other words total control over the knowledge ofpaternity.Where you stand obviously determines what you see. From the point ofview of those who followed the religion of the Goddess, they were simply

carrying out the ancient ways. From the point of view of the invadingHebrew tribes, this older religion was now to be regarded as an orgiastic,evil, lustful, shameful, disgraceful, sinful, base fertility-cult. But may wesuspect that underlying this moral stance was the political maneuvering forpower over land and property accessible to them only upon the institutionof a patrilineal system, perhaps a system long known to them in thenorthern lands of the Indo-Europeans? Was it perhaps for these reasons thatthe Levite laws declared that any sexual activities of women that did nottake place within the confines of the marriage bed were to be considered assinful, i.e., against the decrees of Yahweh? According to the Bible theselaws were first instituted at the time of Moses, shortly before the Hebrewtribes invaded Canaan. The territorial and social confrontations took placeside by side. It was a long and ugly battle, starting with the arrival of theHebrews in Canaan and continuing well into the Roman and early Christianeras, much of it recorded in the Bible.To fully comprehend the extent of the “anti-sexual” stance of theHebrews and the attempt of the Levite priests to change the sexual behaviorand attitudes of the Hebrew women, we should examine to what extent thereligion of the Goddess directly affected the Hebrew people. Were thecustoms of the Goddess religion a rare diversion, encountered uponaperiodic occasions, or was the religion, despite the inroads of the Indo-Europeans and Levites, still a major factor in the life of those who lived inCanaan?

1 Cast of Upper Paleolithic Venus figure (about 25,000 B.C.) from Willendorf, Austria. This is one ofnumerous similar figures discovered in the Gravettian-Aurignacian sites that range across Europe andAsia, from Spain to Russia. Courtesy of the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.(illustration credit 1.1)

2 One of several small clay Goddess figures with reptile heads discovered in the city of Ur in Sumer(Iraq). Archaeologists date these figures to between 4000 and 3500 B.C. Courtesy of the Trustees ofthe British Museum.(illustration credit 1.2)

3 Small bronze statue of the Goddess astride two lions. This double lion symbolism was, in Greekand Roman periods, associated with the Goddess as Artemis, Cybele and Rhea. This figure wasdiscovered in southern Italy and is dated to about the fifth century B.C. Courtesy of the Trustees ofthe British Museum.(illustration credit 1.3)

4 Goddess seated upon double feline throne. Discovered in Level II (5750 B.C.) of Catal Hüyük,Anatolia (Turkey), by James Mellaart, who unearthed many other Goddess figures and ancientshrines at the same site. Courtesy of the Museum of Archaeology, Ankara.(illustration credit 1.4)

5 Still known to the Cretans as The Little Goddess of the Serpents, this portrait of the Goddess or oneof her priestesses was discovered in the Palace of Knossos on Crete. The figure is dated to the MiddleMinoan Period (2000–1800 B.C.). Courtesy of Stylianos Alexiou, director of the ArchaeologicalMuseum of Crete in Iraklion.(illustration credit 1.5)

6 A & B Two gold serpents coil about the arms and extend from the hands of this delicately carvedivory and gold Goddess or priestess from seventeenth-century B.C. Crete. Courtesy Museum of FineArts, Boston. Gift of Mrs. W. Scott Fitz.(illustration credit 1.6)

7 One of the many portrayals of the Sumerian Goddess seated upon her throne. This piece was foundin a level of the Early Dynastic Period (early third millennium) of the city of Ur in Sumer (Iraq).Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustration credit 1.7)

8 Serpents and flowers held in Her extended arms, the Goddess on this plaque combines thesymbolism of the Egyptian Goddess Hathor and the Canaanite Goddess Ashtoreth. Similar “Astarteplaques” have been discovered in Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Iraq. This one from Egypt isdated at about 1250 B.C. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustration credit 1.8)

9 Small clay sculpture of a couple lying on a woven bed, perhaps depicting the ancient sacred sexualrituals of the Goddess religion. One of many similar pieces from the Old Babylonian Period (1900–1700 B.C.) found in the city of Ur in Sumer (Iraq). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustration credit 1.9)

10 Limestone statue of the Cobra Goddess Ua Zit (named Buto by the Greeks). Patron deity of all ofLower Egypt in predynastic periods, protecting deity of the crown of the North in early dynastictimes, her central shrine was in Per Uto (Buto) on the Delta. This seventh-century B.C. statue is fromDessuk, Egypt, which is believed to be the site of ancient Buto. Courtesy of the University Museumof the University of Pennsylvania.(illustration credit 1.10)

11 A gold pectoral of the winged Isis wearing the Egyptian symbol of the throne upon her head.Discovered in a pyramid in Ethiopia, this piece is dated at about 600 B.C. Courtesy Museum of FineArts, Boston.(illustration credit 1.11)

12 Greek period statue of the Lady of Byblos (Baalat) from Byblos, Canaan (Lebanon). The worshipof the Goddess at the temple of Byblos dates back to at least 2800 B.C. and was closely associatedwith the worship of Isis and Hathor of Egypt as well as that of The Serpent Lady of the SinaiPeninsula. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustration credit 1.12)13 The protective wings of the Goddess Isis shield the smaller figure of Osiris, her brother andhusband. This stone carving from Egypt is dated at about 600 B.C. Courtesy of the Trustees of theBritish Museum.(illustration credit 1.13)

14 A snake tube discovered in Beth Shan, Israel (Canaan). Dated to about the thirteenth century B.C.,it is similar to the snake tubes unearthed at Kition, Cyprus, and at Knossos, Crete, from that sameperiod. Courtesy of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania.(illustration credit1.14)

15 Ritual cymbal in hand, Aphrodite, as she was known in Thapsus, Carthage, during the Romanperiod. Though generally designated as the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite was also revered as a battlegoddess and Mother of All Deities. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustrationcredit 1.15)

16 Statue of a priestess from the Aphrodite temple at Paphos, Cyprus. According to Greek legend,Cyprus, where the worship of the Goddess as Ashtoreth (Astarte) had been widespread since thesecond millennium B.C., was the site of the birth of the Goddess known as Aphrodite in classicalGreece. This statue is dated at about 700 B.C. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustration credit 1.16)

17 A larger-than-life-size statue of the Greek Goddess Demeter, worshiped as the provider of law andagriculture, whose most important center was at Eleusis. This portrayal of the Goddess of theEleusinian Mysteries comes from Cnidus, Turkey (ancient Caria). Courtesy of the Trustees of theBritish Museum.(illustration credit 1.17)

18 Seal stone of the Goddess Athena, whose major site of worship was the Acropolis of Athens,Greece. As in many other portrayals of Athena, she is depicted here with her sacred serpent. Thissmall carving in carnelian was found in Curium, Cyprus, and is dated to the fifth century B.C.Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustration credit 1.18)

19 Large bronze head of Athena in her battle helmet. Serpents adorn her shoulders and breastplate.Found in Piraeus, Greece, this portrayal of the patron deity of Athens is dated to the fourth centuryB.C. Courtesy of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.(illustration credit 1.19)20 Amazons, fact or fantasy? Greek and Roman records report that the Amazons worshiped aGoddess as the Mother of All Deities. This is one section of a massive relief depicting the Amazonson the tomb of Artemesia in Halicarnassus, Turkey (ancient Caria). The monument is one of the

numerous portrayals of Amazon women battling against Greek men. Courtesy of the Trustees of theBritish Museum.(illustration credit 1.20)21 This votive relief dedicated to the Goddess Artemis portrays the presentation to the Goddess ofthe torch passed in a race run in her honor at Piraeus, Greece. It is dated to the fourth century B.C.Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.(illustration credit 1.21)

8 They Offered Incense to the Queen of HeavenThough buried deep beneath the sands of what was once Canaan, statues ofthe female deity have been continually unearthed in archaeologicalexcavations. These images of the Goddess, some dating back as far as 7000BC, offer silent testimony to the most ancient worship of the Queen ofHeaven in the land that is today most often remembered as the birthplace ofboth Judaism and Christianity.Yigael Yadin, Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem and Director of the Institute of Archaeology there, recentlypublished his account of the excavation of the city of Hazor in biblicalCanaan. Somewhat evasively, he describes the evidence of the worship ofthe Goddess there in this way:Although the official religion of northern Israel was that of Yahweh—the god of Israel—we know from both biblical verses andarchaeological discoveries that the cult of Ba’al and Astarte stronglyinfluenced the local population in the form of folk or popular beliefs—for double insurance as it were. Indeed we discovered quite a numberof clay figurines representing Astarte, the fertility goddess, and ofwhat may be called the holy prostitutes connected with the Ba’al andAstarte cult.Discussing the Late Bronze Age in Canaan (about 1500–1300 BC)Professor Albright tells us thatOne of the commonest classes of religious objects found in LateBronze levels is constituted by the so-called “Astarte” plaques. Theseare pottery plaques, generally oval in shape, on which were impressed(from a pottery or metal mould) a figure of the nude goddess Asherah,en face with her arms upraised, grasping lily stalks or serpents, or both,in her hands. The goddess’s head is adorned with two long spiral

ringlets identical with the Egyptian Hathor ringlets. These plaqueswere borrowed from Mesopotamia, where they have a long prehistoryin the Early Bronze Age [about 3200–2100 BC].Kathleen Kenyon, former Director of the British School of Archaeologyat Jerusalem, discussing biblical Canaan, writes of: … the Astarte plaques which are the most common cult object onalmost all sites of the period [Late Bronze Age]. That such plaques,with their association with Phoenician religion, are found cannot,however, be taken on any particular site as evidence that it had not yetcome under Israelite control, for Tell Beit Mersim itself provides clearevidence for the occurrence of such plaques or similar figurines rightdown to the 7th century BC. The denunciations by the prophets areenough to show that Yahwehism had continuously to struggle with theancient religion of the land.In exploring the influence and importance of the worship of the Goddessin Canaan in biblical times, we find that as Ashtoreth, Asherah, Astarte,Attoret, Anath or simply Elat or Baalat (both defined as Goddess) She wasthe principal deity of such great Canaanite cities as Tyre, Sidon, Ascalon,Beth Anath, Aphaca, Byblos and Ashtoreth Karnaim.In 1894 Robertson Smith conjectured that Astarte had already becomethe less important wife of Baal by biblical times, yet we read inscriptions tothe Goddess in Canaan as Celestial Ruler, Mistress of Kingship, Mother ofall Deities. She is certainly associated with Baal, or a Baal or many Baalim,but upon careful observation we find that the ritual and form of the religiouspractices are those of the ancient Goddess religion.According to Seton Lloyd, Professor of Western Asiatic Archaeology, theword baal, which is usually translated as lord, originally implied atemporary position or temporary ownership of property. It may have beenused much like the Indo-European word pati, also used as lord, owner,master and husband, and as I mentioned before may even be related to theSanskrit word bala. In the legends of Ugarit in northern Canaan, Baal ofMount Saphon asked the Goddess, known there as Anath, to help secure atemple for him when he had none. In these same legends of the fourteenthcentury BC, Anath easily slew the enemy who had been powerful enough to

first frighten and then murder Baal. Though the name Baal may have beenintroduced centuries earlier as the storm god of Mount Saphon by theHurrians in Ugarit, by the time of the writing of these legends the name wasalso identified with the consort of the Goddess and in Ugarit, Baal held thedual role as storm god of the mountain and the dying consort, much likeDamuzi, Tammuz, Attis, Osiris and Adonis. Upon his death, we are told,Anath’s grief for him was like that of a cow for her calf.Even Thor-El, an older male deity, described by some writers as the headof the deities at Ugarit, was recorded to have hidden in the innermostsanctuary of his eight chambers, trembling in fear at the approach of themighty Anath. In these same texts, Anath was known as “Mistress ofKingship, Mistress of Dominion, Mistress of the High Heavens.” In light ofthe tablets of northern Canaan, one can hardly defend the idea that either ofthese male deities was portrayed as all powerful or omnipotent, unless onesimply insists upon assuming that all male deities always are. Though thisconclusion is left unspoken by most writers, it is the Goddess Anath whoemerges from these Canaanite legends as the deity of greatest valor andstrength.In his Dictionary of the Bible of 1900, J. Hastings asserted that Ashtorethwas supreme, saying of Her, “This Goddess was the chief divinity of theSemites in their primitive matriarchal stage of organization. She was theanalogue of the human matriarch, free in her love, the fruitful mother of theclan, and its leader in peace and war.”In the pages of the Old Testament however, Ashtoreth, the name usedmost often in southern Canaan where most of the Hebrew people hadsettled, seldom appears alone. Her name was nearly always joined withBaal, much as many of the serpent demons of the Indo-European legendswere the sons or husbands of the Goddess; at times the religion is evendesignated as Baalism. Though it is certainly possible that the Canaanitereligion in the south, where Aryan princes had by now made deep inroads,may have elevated Baal to a higher status by later biblical times, theworship, the rituals, the sexual customs, the eunuch priests, the grieving forTammuz or Baal as the dying consort, the abundance of the Astarte statuesand plaques, the symbolic pillars and poles (actually called asherah, thoughalways in lower case), all reveal that it was the symbolism and customs ofthe religion of the Goddess that were actually the target of Hebrewaggression. It appears more than likely that the Levite priests, just as they

purposely misspelled and mispronounced Her name (reciting it as boseth,meaning shame), and referring to Her only in the masculine gender, refusedto even recognize the position of the Goddess, doing this by continuallylinking Her name with that of Her male consort.As we read before, the Bible and other religious literature may well bepartially the result of intentional political aims as much as a record of somelongstanding belief or lore. In discussing the Paradise myth of the Bible,Joseph Campbell wrote of “conspicuously contrived, counterfeitmythologies.” Professor Chiera wrote that the Marduk myth was probablypropagated with the help of the Babylonian armies and pointed out that theAshur legend of supremacy was simply a reworked version of the Mardukmyth. He also wrote that the myth of Adam and Eve had been “evidentlyproduced in scholarly circles,” and further explained that the Bible wassubject to the censorship of priests who had the power of decision over“what was fit to be incorporated into the history of the founders of therace …” Professor Widengren also commented that the Bible as we know it“… has in many passages quite obviously been exposed to censorship andcorrespondingly purged.”Though many accounts of the Bible are probably based on actualhistorical events, confirmed in various ways by documents and evidenceproduced by archaeological excavation, it seems quite likely that thebiblical Levite reports of the “pagan” religion in Canaan were presentedfrom the point of view that was most advantageous and acceptable to theLevite theology, rather than as a totally objective historical record. Despitethe various methods used to confuse the identity and gender of the Goddessas Ashtoreth or Asherah, even in the Bible as we know it today, passagesand symbolism betray the influential and prevailing presence of the ancientworship of the female deity, while other Canaanite and Near Easternartifacts confirm it.In Egypt the Hebrews had known the worship of the Goddess as Isis orHathor. For four generations they had been living in a land where womenheld a very high status and the matrilineal descent system continued tofunction at most periods. Judging from the numbers of the Hebrews whoemerged from Egypt, as compared with the family of the twelve sons whosupposedly entered it four generations earlier, it seems likely that a greatnumber of those Hebrew people known as Israelites may actually have beenEgyptians, Canaanites, Semitic nomads and other Goddess-worshiping

people who had joined together in Egypt. Just to the east of Canaan, inBabylon, stood the temples of Ishtar. And in the land of Canaan, the landthat the Hebrews invaded and made their own after their departure fromEgypt, archaeological records and artifacts reveal that the religion of theGoddess as Ashtoreth, Astarte, Asherah, Anath, Elat or Baalat stillflourished in many of the great cities.

“YE SHALL DESTROY THEIR ALTARS, BREAK THEIR IMAGES”The Levite writers of the Old Testament claimed that their deity hadpresented them with the land of Canaan as the “promised land.” Yet it isclear, even in their own accounts, that Canaan was not an empty land, evenin the time of Abraham. In Num. 13:17–19 it was recorded that, upon thearrival of the Hebrew tribes, as they approached from the deserts of Sinai,they sent an advance envoy into the cities of Canaan. This was their reportof the situation at about 1300–1250 BC: “We went into the land to whichyou sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, this is its produce. Atthe same time its inhabitants are a very powerful people, the towns arefortified and very big” (Num. 13:28).The Bible account admits that Canaan was already inhabited and thatmany of the people lived in great fortified towns. Despite this, we read ofthe intention of the arriving Hebrews not only to continue into the land ofCanaan, but to purposely and violently destroy the existing religion andreplace it with their own. This intention was presented by the Levites as thecommand of Yahweh, supposedly ordered before the Israelites enteredCanaan:Observe thou that which I command thee this day: Behold I driveout before thee the Amorite, and the Hittite and the Perizite and theHivite and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself lest thou make a covenantwith the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snarein the midst of thee; But ye shall destroy their altars, break theirimages and cut down their groves, for thou shalt worship no other god,for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God [Exod. 34:11–16].With this order the Hebrew invasion of Canaan began. Though theHebrew entrance into the “promised land” of Canaan is often imagined tobe the arrival into a haven of peace after centuries of slavery in Egypt,according to the Bible its occupation took the form of a series of bloodysieges, perhaps much like those of the earlier Indo-European invasions.In Deut. 2:33 we read that, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, theIsraelites met a king named Sihon at the town of Jahaz. The Levite accountstell us, “The Lord our God delivered him into our hands; we killed him with

his sons and all his people. We captured all his cities at that time and put todeath every one in the cities, men, women and dependants; we left nosurvivor.” When they met Og, king of Bashan, we are told in Deut. 3:3–7that “So the Lord our God also delivered Og king of Bashan into our hands,with all his people. We slaughtered them and left no survivor … in all wetook sixty cities … Thus we put to death all the men, women anddependants in every city.”Both Aaron and Moses died in the desert. Joshua assumed command andthe Israelites entered Jericho. We learn in Josh. 6:21 that “Under the banthey destroyed everything in the city; they put everyone to the sword, menand women, young and old …” But in this same siege we are told that “Allthe silver and gold, all the vessels of copper and iron, shall be holy; theybelong to the Lord and they must go into the Lord’s treasury” (Josh. 6:19).And in Josh. 6:24 we learn that these orders were carried out as “They setfire to the city and everything in it, except that they deposited the silver andgold and the vessels of copper and iron in the treasury of the Lord’s house.”In the battle of Ai we are told “the number who were killed that day, menand women, was twelve thousand, the whole population of Ai” (Josh. 8:25).And in Josh. 8:29 it claims that Joshua “hanged the king of Ai on a tree andleft him there till sunset.” Since in an earlier passage Joshua was told byYahweh to do with the king of Ai as he had done with the king of Jericho,we may assume that this was the king of Jericho’s fate as well, though theaccount of the event is no longer recorded.We read in Joshua 10 that:Joshua captured Makkedah and put both king and people to the sword,destroying both them and every living thing in the city. He left nosurvivor, and he dealt with the king of Makkedah as he had dealt withthe king of Jericho. Then Joshua and all the Israelites marched on fromMakkedah to Libnah and attacked it. The Lord delivered its king andthe city to the Israelites, and they put its people and every living thingin it to the sword; they left no survivor there, and dealt with its king asthey had dealt with the king of Jericho. From Libnah, Joshua and allthe Israelites marched on Lachish, took up their positions and attackedit. The Lord delivered Lachish into their hands: they took it on thesecond day and put every living thing in it to the sword, as they haddone at Libnah.

Meanwhile Horam, king of Gezer had advanced to the relief ofLachish; but Joshua struck them down, both king and people, and not aman of them survived. Then Joshua and all the Israelites marched onfrom Lachish to Eglon, took up their positions and attacked it; thatsame day they captured it and put its inhabitants to the sword,destroying every living thing in it as they had done at Lachish. FromEglon, Joshua and all the Israelites advanced to Hebron and attacked it.They captured it and put its king to the sword with every living thingin it and in all its villages; as at Eglon, he left no survivor, destroying itand every living thing in it. Then Joshua and all the Israelites wheeledround towards Debir and attacked it. They captured the city with itsking, and all its villages, put them to the sword and destroyed everyliving thing; they left no survivor. They dealt with Debir and its kingas they had dealt with Hebron and with Libnah and its king.So Joshua massacred the population of the whole region—the hillcountry, the Negeb, the Shepelah, the watersheds—and all their kings.He left no survivor, destroying everything that drew breath, as the Lordthe God of Israel had commanded [Josh. 10: 28–40].

Map 4 Southern Canaan—Old TestamentIn similarly described sieges, Joshua and the Israelites destroyed thecities of Gibeon, Hazor and as far as Baal Gad in the Vale of the Lebanonunder Mount Hermon. At the risk of being repetitive, I cannot help thinkingof Professor Albright’s comment that the “orgiastic nature worship” ofCanaan “was replaced by Israel with its pastoral simplicity and purity oflife, its lofty monotheism and its severe code of ethics.” Rather than theimage of poor downtrodden slaves with lofty ideals, entering the “promisedland” to rest their weary bones and build a new and better life, we are more

likely to be reminded of the description Professor Lloyd gave of the Luvianentrance into Anatolia and the pathway that was made as “their progresswas marked by signs of widespread destruction.”As if in further refutation of this supposed “purity of life” or “severe codeof ethics” we read that, although all the accounts state that the Israelites leftno survivors, this may not have been the total truth. For in the book ofNumbers (31:17) we read that after a battle against the Midianites, whilestill under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, the Israelites were told: “Killevery male dependant, and kill every woman who has had intercourse witha man, but spare for yourselves every woman among them who has not hadintercourse.” In Num. 31:32–35, we read a list of the spoils and war bootytaken by the Israelites at this same battle. In this order, they list sheep,cattle, asses and “thirty-two thousand girls who had no intercourse with aman.”In the book of Deuteronomy, also preceding the command of Joshua, wefind:When you wage war against your enemy and the Lord your Goddelivers them into your hands and you take some of them captive, thenif you see a comely woman among the captives and take a liking toher, you may marry her. You shall bring her into your house, where sheshall shave her head, pare her nails, and discard the clothes she hadwhen she was captured. Then she shall stay in your house and mournher father and mother for a full month. After that you may haveintercourse with her; you shall be her husband and she your wife. Butif you no longer find her pleasing let her go free. You must not sell her,nor treat her harshly, since you have had your will with her [Deut.21:10–14].Though once again the numbers may have been somewhat exaggerated,these passages suggest that many of the women who were later known asthe wives of the Israelites may well have been the girls who witnessed themurders of all their families and friends and the destruction of their homesand towns. The combination of the fear and trauma they must have felt,having been taken into the Hebrew tribes in this way, along with theirmemories of their childhood customs and religions must have made theirattitude and position in Hebrew life a most difficult one. Though the

number of women in the Hebrew tribes is never listed, these passages alsosuggest that when the Hebrews first left Egypt there may have been a muchgreater percentage of men. Each of these factors may help to explain theHebrew women’s “acceptance” of the new patriarchal laws.

“AND THEY FORSOOK THE LORD AND WORSHIPED BAAL AND ASHTORETH”Though according to biblical records the entire population of many townsand cities had been massacred, several great cities had not been touched,cities where Ashtoreth was still worshiped with great reverence. Once inCanaan, the captured lands were divided among the tribes, the Levites tolive among each of them. From this point on we observe the lengthy andviolent attack the Hebrews launched upon the Queen of Heaven and HerBaal. Despite all the warnings, the religion of the Goddess was a greattemptation to the Hebrews who had invaded Canaan; to many of them itmay have been the religion of their ancestors. References to the Hebrewpeople worshiping in the ancient religion repeatedly appear in the pages ofthe Bible, once again the accounts of the Levite priests:Judges 2:13—“And they forsook the Lord and worshiped Baal andAshtoreth.”Judges 3:7—“And the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,forgetting the Lord their God, and served the Baals and the Ashtoreth.”Samuel 7:3, 4—“Samuel spake unto the house of Israel, saying, if ye doreturn unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange godsand Ashtoreth from among you and prepare your hearts unto the Lord andserve him only and he will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines.”The period of Samuel took place in the time of Saul, the first Hebrewking, about 1050 BC. Judges takes place before that time. According to theBible, King Solomon, at about 960–922 BC, worshiped Ashtoreth as well asother local deities. He was eventually threatened with the loss of hiskingdom for having forsaken Yahweh and revering the Queen of Heaven,Ashtoreth of the Sidonians. In I Kings 15:13 we find the report of thedethroning of Queen Maacah by her son (or grandson) Asa at about 910 BC—the crime, worshiping Asherah. The name Asherah was also used in thetexts of northern Canaan, at times alongside Anath. They may have beenworshiped as mother and daughter at that time. But Asherah is alsoidentified with Ashtoreth, who was deeply revered in Tyre and Sidon underthat name. One text of northern Canaan describes Asherah as follows: “Hearrived at the shrine of Asherah of the Tyrians, Yea, of the Goddess of theSidonians.” In the texts of Ugarit, Asherah was known as the “Creator of allDeities.”

The defection from Yahweh, as described above, continued throughoutthe biblical accounts, as we shall see. But a most revealing passage is in thebook of Jeremiah. This incident took place in a Hebrew colony in Egypt atabout 600 BC. Here the religion of the Goddess and the reverence paid toHer, even by the Hebrews of that time, was described not as a new religionthat they had recently adopted, but one that these Hebrews had followedbefore—in Jerusalem. It also strongly hints that this was a religion ofwomen, though the Levite writer carefully depicted the husbands as havingauthority and exhibits an obvious insistence upon male lineage in theanswer given even by the worshipers of the Queen of Heaven:At this time all the men who knew their wives offered incense toalien gods and all the women who were standing there, a largeassembly with all the people living in Pathros in the land of Egypt,answered Jeremiah as follows, we have no intention listening to thisword you have spoken to us in Yahweh’s name but intend to go ondoing all that we have vowed to do, offering incense to the queen ofheaven and pouring libations in her honor as we used to do, we and ourfathers, our kings and our leaders in the town of Judah and in thestreets of Jerusalem. We had plenty of food then, we lived well, wesuffered no disasters. But since we have given up offering incense tothe queen of heaven and pouring libations in her honor we have beendestitute and have perished either by sword or by famine. The womenadded, when we offer incense to the queen of heaven and pourlibations in her honor, do you think we make cakes for her with herfeatures on them and pour libations to her without our husband’sknowledge? [Jeremiah 44:15–19]Professor Hooke asked, “What are we to say when we find in the recordthe gardens of Adonis, Ezekiel’s chambers of imagery, women declaringthat since they ceased baking cakes for the Queen of heaven nothing hasgone well with them, the masseboth, the asheras, the divinations … and thenumerous other practices?” and answered, “It is surely impossible to denythat these are foreign elements, some Canaanite, some presumably Assyro-Babylonian, and some possibly Egyptian and that all these enter into thepicture of the religion of Israel as it appears in the Old Testament.”

Professor Widengren, as if in additional answer, observed, “Now thisQueen of Heaven(s) cannot possibly be any other goddess than Astart, whoaccordingly as late as c. 600 enjoyed official worship in the kingdom ofJudah.”Many Bible passages report that idols of the female deity, referred to asasherah (in lower case), were to be found on every high hill, under everygreen tree and alongside altars in the temples. They were a symbolidentified with the worship of the Goddess as Asherah and may have been apole or a living tree, perhaps carved as a statue. Arthur Evans wrote that“the biblical records again and again attest the cult of the asherah either as aliving tree or its substitute, the dead post or pole before which the Canaanitealtars were set.”I suspect that the asherim (plural) were actually fig trees, the sycamorefig, the tree that was in Egypt considered to be the “Body of the Goddess onEarth.” There are many reasons to believe that this is so, evidence that weshall examine more thoroughly in unraveling the myth of Adam and Eve—evidence that perhaps explains the symbolism of the tree in the Paradisemyth.Continuing our exploration of the presence of the Goddess in Canaan,biblical accounts tell us that the asherim, though their association withAsherah as the Goddess is never explained, were to be found everywhere.“And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things thatwere not right. They built high places, set up pillars and asherim on everyhigh hill and under every green tree, they served idols, made molten imagesof two calves, they made an asherah and sold themselves to do evil in thesight of the Lord” (II Kings 17:9).As the Levites declared that it was the Hebrew mission to destroy thesesymbols of the religion they so often refer to as “their gods,” wherever theywere found, this is exactly what they did. The Levite priests wrote that thedestruction had been commanded by Yahweh: “You shall surely destroy allthe places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods,upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree youshall tear down their pillars and burn their asherim with fire” (Deut. 12:2,3); “You shall not plant any tree as an asherah beside the altar of the Lord”(Deut. 16:21).But despite the warnings of the Levite priests, the asherim werecontinually erected and worshiped. In I Kings 16:13 we read that at about

850 BC the Hebrew king Ahab, husband of Jezebel, made an asherah.Isaiah, sometime in the eighth century BC, spoke of asherim in the city ofDamascus. Gideon, in the period of Judges, destroyed the asherah of onetemple, using its wood as a burnt offering to Yahweh.It was threatened that “The Lord will smite Israel because they havemade their asherim.” King Hezekiah, who reigned about 715–690 BC, “didwhat was right in the eyes of the Lord.” He broke the pillars and cut downthe asherah. It was this same Hezekiah who destroyed a bronze serpentwhich had been kept at the temple in Jerusalem from the time of the arrivalof the Hebrews in Canaan. After Hezekiah, his son Manassah, who ruled forfifty-five years, once again erected the asherim as did his son Amon whosucceeded him.In II Kings 23:4–15 the Levite priest Hilkiah, who served King Josiah atabout 630 BC, took the vessels made for Asherah and Baal out of this sametemple in Jerusalem. He removed the asherah. “He defiled the high placewhich Solomon had built for Ashtoreth.” “He broke in pieces the pillars andcut down the asherim and filled their places with the bones of men.”Though again the religion of the Goddess is never mentioned, furtherevidence of Her worship in Canaan during late biblical times was revealedby the presence of the mourners for Her son/lover Tammuz. In the book ofEzekiel we read of the women weeping for Tammuz at this same temple inJerusalem at about 620 BC, continuing to practice the mourning ceremoniesof the religion of the Goddess, known so well from the Babylonian accountsof Ishtar. As previously quoted, Professor Widengren asserted that a ritualmourning took place in Israel, commemorating the death of Tammuz, justas it did in Mesopotamia.I. Epstein, in his history of Judaism written in 1959, wrote of the influxof “pagan” ideas, especially at the time of Solomon, blaming Solomon’swives for his idolatrous ways. There is a strong possibility that Solomon’shabit of collecting foreign princesses for his harem (seven hundred of them,according to the Bible) may have been a politically motivated system ofsecuring the ultimate right to rule over the conquered lands by marrying theheiresses. The relationship of the rights to many a throne in the Near East tothe matrilineal descent pattern of the Goddess-worshiping people mayexplain the great number of royal foreign women—all listed as legal wivesof Solomon—and the accepted presence of the religions which they broughtwith them.

After Solomon’s reign, when the Hebrew tribes divided into two separatenations, the worship of the Goddess continually appeared. This is evident inSamaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, Israel, during the period ofAhab and Jezebel (about 869–850 BC); the worship of Ashtoreth and HerBaal was apparently flourishing there at that time. The marriage of theHebrew Ahab to Jezebel, the daughter of the queen and king of Sidon, whoalso served as high priestess and priest to Ashtoreth and Baal, may alsohave brought to him a more legitimate right to the throne. But even KingJeroboam, before that time (about 922–901 BC), had made golden calves,symbols of the Goddess religion.In Judah, the southern Hebrew kingdom whose capital was Jerusalem,Rehoboam, at about 922–915 BC, and his son Abijam, both perhaps reigningas husbands of Queen Maacah, were said to have practiced “paganidolatries.” As we know, Queen Maacah worshiped Asherah and waseventually dethroned for having made an idol of Her. At about 842 BCQueen Athaliah ruled in Jerusalem and with her reign the “pagan” religioncontinued to flourish. As Jezebel’s daughter, we may once again question if,in the eyes of many of the people of Canaan, Athaliah held the right to ruleas the granddaughter of the high priestess and priest of Ashtoreth in Sidon.At about 735–727 BC King Ahaz also followed the ancient religion,committing “evil in the eyes of the Lord.” At about 620 BC the women ofEzekiel’s time were seen weeping for Tammuz at the temple in Jerusalem,while in Jeremiah’s day, about 600 BC, rebellious women openly announcedtheir intention of continuing to revere the Queen of Heaven.

SUMMARYAs a result of archaeological evidence, which helps to explain many of theobscure references, despite the evasive wording and lack of explanation inthe Bible, there is no question that in biblical periods of Canaan the Levitepriests of the Hebrews were in continual contact with the religion of theGoddess. Though the commanded destruction of artifacts has probablyresulted in fewer archaeological finds in southern Canaan than the rest ofthe Near East, masses of evidence of the extensive worship of the Goddesshave been unearthed in all the other lands in which the Hebrews either livedor were in close contact, lands such as Egypt, Babylon, Sinai and northernCanaan. Surrounding the Hebrews in southern Canaan were the originalinhabitants of Canaan, people who lived in the cities that had not beendestroyed and who had revered the female divinity from the most ancienttimes.As revealed by the Bible itself, the adoration of the Goddess, even in theHebrew capitals of Samaria and Jerusalem, even by those who wereconsidered to be members of the tribes that followed the new religion ofYahweh (most especially their royalty and rulers, who do not seem to havebeen chosen from the Levite tribe), appears to be one of the majorinfluential factors in the development of the Judaic and later the Christianattitudes. The possibility that the Levites may originally have been relatedto the Indo-European Luvians, while the other tribes may have beendescendants of the Mediterranean Goddess-worshiping peoples, may help toexplain this division between the Levite priests and prophets and thecontinual “waywardness and defection” of the Israelite people who appearto have drifted toward the ancient religion time and again.The Levite priests declared, “There shall be no cult prostitutes of thedaughters of Israel.” Yet, as we have already seen, the ancient sexualcustoms continued. It seems to have been the very nature of the sexualcustoms, so inherent and integral a part of the female religion, allowing forand possibly encouraging matrilineal descent patterns to continue, thataroused the most violent reactions among the Levite patrilinealists.Once aware of the continual presence of the Goddess religion, a carefulreading of the accounts in the Old Testament (in which the Hebrew womanwas initially assigned to the secondary status of obedient assistant), reveals

extensive passages spent in continuous threat, at times veiled or hidden insymbolism, against the worship of the Goddess. But some of the threatswere more open. They were aimed at those who continued to practice theancient religion, revealing even within the records of the Bible accounts ofslaughter and massacre of those who dared to pray to “other gods.”As we shall see in the following chapter, the insistent and repetitioussexual imagery allows us to observe the Levite attitudes toward the sexualcustoms of the Goddess religion and the sexual autonomy of womengenerally, autonomy that had for thousands of years helped to allow womento retain their independence economically, socially and legally. Thus intothe laws of the Levites was written the destruction of the worship of theDivine Ancestress, and with it the final destruction of the matrilinealsystem.

9 And the Men of the City Shall Stone Her with StonesSo antagonistic were the Levite priests toward the religion of the Goddessin Canaan (though the term “other gods” is evasively used in each passage)that laws were written prohibiting the worship of these “other gods.” Thelaws were so severe that they commanded the members of the Hebrewreligion to murder even their own children if they did not worship Yahweh.The Levite laws of the Bible ordered: “If your brother or son or daughter orwife or friend suggest serving other gods, you must kill him, your handmust be the first raised in putting him to death and all the people shallfollow you” (Deut. 13:6).This order was obviously directed only toward men, for the one relative itdid not suggest killing was the husband. Not only relatives were to be keptunder watchful surveillance, for the Levites also wrote, “If the inhabitantsof a town that once served the Lord your God, now serve other gods, youmust kill all the inhabitants of that town” (Deut. 13:15).Once aware of the identity of the Queen of Heaven and the extent of Herworship as it existed in Canaan, even among the Hebrew royalty, we maygain a deeper insight into the political motivations of the Levites bybecoming more familiar with the imagery of women in the Bible and thespecific laws concerning them.The Hebrew prophets and priests, the Levites, wrote with open andscornful contempt of any woman who was neither virgin nor married. Theyinsisted that all women must be publicly designated as the private propertyof some man, father or husband. Thus they developed and instituted theconcept of sexual morality—for women.In a forword written by Bible historian I. Epstein in 1935, which prefacesa version of the Hebrew Talmud, he suggests that this was the major reasonfor the Hebrews being so threatened by the surrounding religions:

Experience soon proved how great was the temptation to imitate thereligious practices of surrounding nations, even at a time when theIsraelites inhabited a land of their own. The difficulty of resisting alieninfluence grew much more severe in periods of dispersion when Jewswere living in a heathen environment and the rabbis had to giveserious attention to the problem of how to counteract the forces ofassimilation which threatened to submerge the Jewish communitiessettled in countries where idol worship was the state religion.It is important to understand that the vehement opposition toidolatry which distinguishes the legislation of the Bible and later of theTalmud was not merely the antagonism of one theological system toanother. Fundamentally it was a conflict of ethical standards. Heathenpeople practised abominations against which the scriptures earnestlywarned Israel. Idolatry was identified with immoral conduct, anidentification which was too often verified by experience.This “conflict of ethical standards” and “immoral conduct” appears to beprimarily the Levite perception of the sexual customs, known to haveexisted at all periods of biblical history. The lack of concern for thepaternity of children among the Hebrew people who continued to revere theQueen of Heaven, thus allowing matrilineal descent patterns to continue asa result of the sexual customs, appears to have been the crux of thepersecution of the ancient beliefs by the priests of the Hebrew tribes. It wassurely apparent to Levite leaders that if a religion existed alongside theirown, a religion in which women owned their own property, were endowedwith a legal identity and were free to relate sexually to various men, itwould be much more difficult for the Hebrew men to convince their womenthat they must accept the position of being their husband’s property.Hebrew women had to be taught to accept the idea that for a woman tosleep with more than one man was evil. They had to be taught that it wouldbring disaster, wrath and shame from the almighty—while it wassimultaneously acceptable for their husbands to have sexual relationshipswith two, three or fifty women. Thus premarital virginity and maritalfidelity were proclaimed by Levite law as divinely essential for all Hebrewwomen, the antithesis of the attitudes toward female sexuality held in thereligion of the Goddess.

Yet the influence and prestige of the ancient religion was ever present. Aswe have seen, there are continual biblical reports of “paganism” in everyera; it loomed as a constant problem, described throughout the OldTestament. The prophet-priests of Yahweh threatened. They scolded. TheLevite writers labeled any sexually autonomous women, including thesacred women of the temple, as whores and harlots and demanded theenforcement of their own patriarchal attitudes concerning the sexualownership of women. Once having invented this concept of “morality,”they flung accusations of “immorality” at the women whose behavior andlives, in accordance with their own most ancient beliefs, were of the highestand most sacred nature.

“BUT THOU HAST PLAYED THE HARLOT WITH MANY LOVERS”Most revealing was the symbolic analogy they drew between any womenwho refused to abide by the laws of the new morality—continually referredto as harlots and adulteresses—and the waywardness and defection of theentire Hebrew people in their constant lack of fidelity to Yahweh. The useof female sexual infidelity as the ultimate sin—so serious that it wasregarded as analogous to the betrayal of Yahweh—affords us some insightinto the Levite attitude toward the sexually autonomous woman. The twoparts of the analogy are often tightly intertwined, sometimes in a ratherobscure fashion, but as the prophets of Yahweh railed at the Hebrews whodared to worship “other gods,” the attack upon any woman who refused tobe the property of a specific man was made simultaneously andautomatically. As we have seen, despite the constant threats, Hebrewwomen and men alike, even their royalty, did indeed continue to worshipthe Queen of Heaven. In doing this they were symbolized by the priests asthe “Daughter of Zion” and as this daughter denounced as an unfaithfulharlot.Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea and Nahum all used the sexual metaphorextensively. Jeremiah, a Levite priest, put it this way: “They say if a manput away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s shallhe return to her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hastplayed the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me saith the Lord.”In another passage he again compared the defection of the Hebrews to anunfaithful woman, saying, “Surely as a wife treacherously departeth fromher husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O House of Israel,saith the Lord.” In yet another tirade he accused the Hebrews of “playingthe harlot on every high mountain or under every green tree.”Angrily he spoke as Yahweh, asking, “How can I forgive you for all this?Your sons have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are no gods. I gavethem all they needed, yet they preferred adultery and haunted the brothels”(Jer. 5:7). And once again the analogy was used as in Jer. 3:6–10 we read,“In the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, Do you see what apostateIsrael did? She went up to every hill top and under every spreading tree andthere she played the whore. Even after she had done all this, I said to her,Come back to me, but she would not. That faithless woman, her sister

Judah, saw it all; she saw too that I had put apostate Israel away and givenher a note of divorce because she had committed adultery. Yet that faithlesswoman, her sister Judah, was not afraid; she too has gone and played thewhore. She defiled the land with her thoughtless harlotry and her adulterousworship of stone and wood.” (Jeremiah’s words were spoken about acentury after the defeat of the northern kingdom, Israel, by Sargon II ofAssyria in 722 BC.)The Levite priest-prophet Ezekiel told his congregation, “The word of theLord came to me: Man, he said, there were once two women, daughters ofthe same mother. They played the whore in Egypt, played the whore whilethey were still girls; for there they let their breasts be fondled and theirvirgin bosoms pressed. The elder was named Oholah, her sister Oholibah.They became mine and bore me sons and daughters. Oholah is Samaria;Oholibah is Jerusalem.” The entire section of Ezek. 23 describes the “lewd”sexual behavior of these two sisters, symbolizing the two Hebrew capitals,during which Ezekiel says, “So I will put a stop to your lewdness and theway in which you learnt to play the whore in Egypt.” He finallysummarizes with “Thus I will put an end to lewdness in the land, and otherwomen shall be taught not to be as lewd as they. You shall pay the penaltyfor your lewd conduct and shall be punished for your idolatries, and youwill know that I am the Lord God.” In still another passage Ezekiel warned,“And they shall burn thy houses with fire and execute judgments upon theeto cease from playing the harlot and thou shalt give no hire anymore.”Nahum, speaking of the city of Nineveh, a religious center of theBabylonian Goddess Ishtar, struck out against the Goddess and hersexuality in this way: “Because of the multitudes of the whoredom of thewell favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations throughher whoredoms and families through her witchcrafts; Behold I am againstthee, saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face,and I will show the nations thy nakedness and the kingdoms thy shame.”But the first few sections of the book of Hosea most clearly depict theoutrage of the Hebrew man with the wife who refused to be his privateproperty. First we read that Yahweh told Hosea, “Take yourself a wife ofharlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotryby forsaking the Lord.” Hosea then spoke to his daughter of the“whoredom” and “lewdness” of her mother Gomer, who was apparently asacred woman of the temple. Later Gomer was told to put away her harlotry

and adultery, to which she defiantly replied, “I will go after my lovers.” Inresponse to this rebellion the male deity threatened to thwart her activitiesuntil such time as she would finally say in desperation, “I will go and returnto my first husband.”It is not clear whether these were intended to be the words of Hosea orYahweh, for they are initially presented as the words of Hosea to his wife,but we read, “I will put an end to all her rejoicing, her feasts, her newmoons, her sabbaths and all her solemn festivals. I mean to make her payfor all the days when she offered burnt offerings to the baals and deckedherself with rings and necklaces to court her lovers, forgetting me. It isYahweh who is speaking.” Hosea then goes on to say: “Your daughters playthe harlot and your brides commit adultery for the men go aside with harlotsand sacrifice with cult prostitutes.

“AND THEY WENT FORTH AND THEY SLEW IN THE CITY”Not only were those women insulted, but violent threats were also made.In the book of Jeremiah, that prophet angrily threatened the “daughter ofEgypt, Tyre, Sidon and Ascalon,” a symbolic reference, judging by thecities mentioned, to the Goddess. In another passage he warned the womenwho openly announced their intention to continue their worship of theQueen of Heaven that they would meet with famine, violence and totaldestruction as a result of their religious beliefs.The prophet Isaiah, distraught with the situation, moaned, “As for mypeople, children are their oppressors and women rule over them.”Exploding with derisive accusations at “the daughter of Babylon,” again areference to Ishtar, he insulted Her for Her self-assurance and Her sexuality,as well as Her magical powers and spells. Over what appears to be theindependence of the Hebrew women, apparently influenced by the freedomof the women all about them, Isaiah listed all their jewelry and seductiveapparel with the greatest contempt and then threatened, “The men shall fallby the sword and thy mighty in war and she being desolate shall sit uponthe ground. And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man andsay, only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.”Thus the Hebrew prophet looked forward to the day of male glory whenall independent women would choose to be the property of a man, as theymay have been forced to be in the desert, or as their towns were burnt andtheir families killed and the earliest Israelite wives were taken as prisonersof war by the Hebrew tribes. In the struggle for male kinship, Isaiahdreamed of the day that women would say, “only let us be called by thyname.”In section eight of the book of Ezekiel we again find the religion of theGoddess under attack, as Ezekiel recalls this event: “Entering at the templegate, I broke through a wall, there was a door. A mysterious figure wasleading, apparently a messenger from the male deity. The figure said, ‘Go inand look at the filthy things they are doing inside.’ I went in and looked: allsorts of images and snakes and repulsive animals and all the idols of theHouse of Israel drawn on the walls all around.” According to Ezekiel, the“filthy” things the worshipers inside this temple were doing were facing tothe east, bowing to the sun and raising a branch to their nostrils. This was

probably a branch of the sacred tree known as the asherah. Ezekielcontinues, “He next took me to the north gate of the temple of Yahweh,where women were sitting, weeping for Tammuz.” This remark, moreclearly than any other, reveals that he was observing the religion ofAshtoreth/Ishtar—still in practice at the temple in Jerusalem.The mysterious figure then said, “Son of man, do you see that?” Thisappellation, “Son of man,” was used repeatedly throughout the book ofEzekiel, perhaps to remind its readers that Levite priests, such as Ezekiel,no longer considered themselves as the sons of women. Later, turning onthe women who prayed in this manner, the figure ordered, “And you, son ofman, turn to the daughters of your own people who make up prophecies outof their own head [unlike the Levite prophets of Yahweh, who apparentlyhad a direct line with the proper source], prophesy against them.”Threats and insults to the native inhabitants of Canaan and the Hebrewswho had joined in their customs were not all that was used to frighten anddiscourage people from following the religion of the Queen of Heaven. Fornext we read of accounts of cold-blooded massacres, merciless slaughters ofthose who still refused to accept Yahweh. The Bible itself records that anyHebrew who dared to worship in the ancient religion of the Queen ofHeaven and Her Baal were the victims of a violent religious persecution.The words and threats of Ezekiel, as well as the other prophets, weretranslated into murder and destruction, explained as having beencommanded by Yahweh. They are recorded in this way in the pages of theOld Testament:And the Lord said unto him, “Go through the midst of Jerusalemand set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry forall the abominations that are done in the midst thereof.” And to theothers he said in mine hearing, “go ye after him through the city andsmite. Slay utterly, both old and young, both maids and little childrenand women, but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; andbegin at my sanctuary.” Then they began at the ancient men who werebefore the house. And he said unto them, “defile the house and fill thecourts with the slain; go ye forth.” And they went forth and they slewin the city [Ezek. 9:4–7].

An earlier account of a callous slaughter in the name of Yahweh aimed atthe religion of the Goddess occurred during the reign of Ahab. Elijahexhibited the same self-righteous attitude that throughout history hasallowed the commission of mass murder in the name of a principle, whetherpolitical, religious or a combination of the two. Referring to four hundredpeople who worshiped in the ancient religion, the passage states, “AndElijah said unto them, take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape.And they took them and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon andslew them there.”This particular passage is the version given in the Revised StandardVersion of the Old Testament. But in the New English Bible, published in1970 by the Bible Societies of Scotland and England, which retranslatedmany of the old texts from the original Hebrew and Greek, we read thestory in a slightly different way. In fact, in this version of the OldTestament, many of the references to Asherah, Ashtoreth and the asherimare more explicitly explained. In the New English Bible we read that Elijahconfronts the ancient religion as that of Asherah. It tells us in I Kings 18:19that these four hundred people were “four hundred prophets of the goddessAsherah, who are Jezebel’s pensioners.”It is most evident in the story of Jezebel, who has long been presented asthe epitome and symbol of the treacherously evil woman, that her real crimewas her refusal to accept the worship of Yahweh, choosing instead thereligion of her own parents, that of the Queen of Heaven and Her Baal. Herparents, as queen and king of Sidon (some say Tyre), held high positions inthe ancient religion as high priestess and priest. Not only did Jezebel herselffollow the ancient religion, but according to the Bible, as a result of herinfluence her husband Ahab, a Hebrew king of Israel, adopted the paganways as well, erecting asherim in the temple. Jezebel’s supposed crime, thatof starting a rumor that resulted in the death of a man, becomesquestionable when we realize that it was her husband who actually desiredthe dead man’s property and it was with letters signed with Ahab’s namethat she was accused.Jezebel was murdered in the most gruesome manner, described in morbiddetail in the Bible, surely intended as a warning to all other “treacherous”women. The execution was carried out by the avenging Hebrew hero Jehu.But Jehu’s motives become frighteningly clear when, after the death of the

“pagan” queen, he arranged a massacre of those who “ate at her royal table”and then later claimed the throne of Israel as his own.Shortly after the murder of Jezebel, Jehu called for a solemn assembly ofthe people who paid homage to Ashtoreth and Baal, tricking them in thisway into gathering together at their own temple at an appointed time. Theholy shrine was described as being full from one end to the other. It wasthen reported in the Bible, “And when they went to offer sacrifices andburnt offerings, Jehu appointed four score men without and said, if any ofthe men that I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go,his life shall be for the life of him.” So it was recorded in the book of IIKings that Jehu and his men murdered every member of the congregationand then finally made a “latrine” of the building itself. And when themassacre and desecration was completed, Jehu is recorded to have heardYahweh say, “Thou hast done well that which is right in mine eyes” (IIKings 10:18–31).

“THEN LET HIM WRITE HER A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT”The evidence is abundant. The religion of Ashtoreth, Asherah or Anath andHer Baal—and the accompanying female sexual autonomy—were theenemies. No method was considered too violent to bring about the desiredgoals. To clarify even further the underlying goals of the Levites, alongsidethese massacres we confront the rules that the Levite priests declared for allHebrew women. Upon reading the Levite laws it becomes apparent that thesexual autonomy of women in the religion of the Goddess posed a continualthreat. It undermined the far-reaching goals of the men, perhaps led orinfluenced by Indo-European peoples, who viewed women as property andaimed at a society in which male kinship was the rule, as it had long been inthe Indo-European nations. This in turn required that each woman beretained as the possession of one man, leaving no doubt as to the identity ofthe father of the children she might bear, especially of her sons. But malekinship lines remained impossible as long as women were allowed tofunction as sexually independent people, continuing to bear children whosepaternity was not known or considered to be of any importance.Laws, speeches and even the divine word had apparently beeninsufficient when freedom had been known so long. Thus severepunishments were designed and meted out to bring about the total sexualcontrol of Hebrew women. Any deviation was sin, in many casespunishable by disgraceful and agonizing death. (Though these laws appearin the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, said to have been written at thetime of Moses, Bible scholars generally date their writings to between 1000and 600 BC.) According to the Levite laws, all women were to remainvirgins until marriage. Once legally married, a woman was to relatesexually only to the one man who was designated as her husband, probablya man chosen by her father. This husband may already have possessed, orcould acquire in the future, any number of other wives or concubines andwas free to add a new one at any time.In Lev. 20:10 we read that if a woman committed adultery, both she andher lover were to be put to death. In Deuteronomy the Levites wrote of theIsraelite bride: “But if this thing be true and tokens of virginity not foundfor the damsel: then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of herfather’s house and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that she

die because she hath wrought folly in Israel to play the whore in her father’shouse, so shall thou put away evil from among you” (Deut. 22:20–22). Thusa young Hebrew girl might be dragged from the house and brutally stonedto death—for having made love, or even for having lost her virginitythrough some other activity or accident, while her Canaanitecontemporaries would have been considered holy for taking part in thesacred sexual customs.So determined were the Levites that a reverent regard for the paternity ofchildren be developed that among them even violent rape was equated withmarriage, much as it was among the Indo-European-controlled Assyrians.In Levite law, the rape of a virgin was honored as a declaration ofownership and brought about a forced marriage. As the victim of rape, awoman automatically lost the right to continue her life as a single woman orto become a wife in a more carefully arranged and probably more desirablemarriage. The law reads, “If a man find a damsel that is a virgin which isnot betrothed and lay hold on her and they be found, then the man that laywith her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver and sheshall be his wife” (Deut. 22:28, 29).For Levite daughters it was decreed, “And the daughter of any priest, ifshe profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father and shallbe burnt with fire” (Lev. 21:9). Since it was the Levite priests who wrotethe laws, this willingness to burn their own daughters to death perhaps mostclearly reveals the intensity of the Levite attitude toward the sexualautonomy of women.Perhaps just as astonishing is the law that tells us that if the victim of arape was a married or betrothed woman she was to be killed—for havingbeen raped. The law states that, if a betrothed woman or a married womanwas sexually violated, she and the man were both to be stoned to death(Deut. 22:23–25). The rape was regarded as an affront to the male whoowned her. Only in the deserted countryside might a woman be “excused”for having been raped, since perhaps she had called for help and had notbeen heard.Though the Bible repeatedly announced that a woman who dared to makelove to a man other than her husband was a shameful and profanedegradation to the entire faith, Hebrew men went about honorablycollecting as many women as they could economically afford. The recordsof the Hebrew kings reveal that they kept large harems and most Hebrew

men appear to have taken several wives; yet each of these women wasexpected to be totally faithful to the fragment of the husband to whom shewas assigned. A lack of fidelity on the part of the male appears to have beentaken for granted, unless the other woman was already married or betrothed.This was regarded as sinful because it was a legal infringement upon theproperty of some other man. It was hardly a romantic fidelity for bothpartners of the marriage that was deemed as important or sacred, but onlyfor the woman that premarital virginity and sexual fidelity became “moral”issues, attitudes we see reflected even today.But the position of a married woman who had been faithful was alsoprecarious. In Deut. 24:1 the plight of the married woman was made clear.“When a man hath taken a wife and it come to pass that she find no favor inhis eyes because he hath found some uncleanness in her; then let him writeher a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of hishouse.” As we read previously, under the Levite law only the husband couldask for or demand divorce; in fact, all he had to do was write a note. Wemay see this as a very different society from that of the Sumerian Eshnunna,where if a man took a second woman after the first had borne children, hewas to be put out of the house without any possessions.Here the advantages of male kinship and male inheritance lines, not onlyfor royalty or the priesthood but even for the average male, become clear. Awoman who had lived in the house with her husband, probably given birthto children, performed domestic services, perhaps added to or enhanced thevalue of the house, property and land by her efforts, no matter what her ageor state of health, had no legal rights or claims to any of it. She couldsimply be handed a notice and sent on her way. The husband then assumedownership of all the products of her time and efforts, and if he had notalready done so, probably soon afterward replaced her with another wife ortwo. Having lost her virginity, she was probably nearly worthless asmarriage material.Such divorces may not have happened frequently, though we have norecords with which to judge, but the laws allowing such divorce probablyresulted in the woman, fearful at the possibility of being dismissed,becoming a submissive servant, the archetype of the “good wife” whoobediently, smilingly caters to her husband’s slightest whim or desire.

“I HAVE COME TO DESTROY THE WORKS OF THE FEMALE”Over the centuries the suppression and persecution of the religion of thefemale deity continued. In the Abodah Zarah, a book of the Hebrew Talmudcompiled in about the fifth century AD, directions were given to the piousworshiper so that he might understand how to destroy the powers of an“idol.” This could be done by knocking off the tip of its ear or nose (whichmay account for the missing noses of so many statues). The entire book wasfilled with specific laws and regulations describing the relationship theHebrews were to have with the “idolators.”The civilizations that worshiped the Goddess, which had flourished forthousands of years, bringing with them in earliest times inventions inmethods of agriculture, medicine, architecture, metallurgy, wheeledvehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language, were gradually stampedout. Though the Indo-Europeans had initiated a great many changes, it waslater the duty of every Hebrew and then of every Christian to suppress anddestroy the worship of the female deity wherever it still existed.If the Hebrews followed the commands in Deuteronomy, the massacresdescribed in the Old Testament may have been only a symbolic portion ofthe murder and destruction that was actually committed. As the literatureand tenets of the Levite-Hebrew religion were incorporated into the newfaith, which eventually developed as Christianity, the persecution of thereligion of the Goddess continued. The power and influence of the newChurch grew, Levite law now juxtaposed to a revised image of the familiarlegend of the mother and the dying son—and with it came the even moreextreme suppression of the female religion.In 1971 R. E. Witt wrote Isis in the Graeco-Roman World. In it he pointsout that the worship of the Goddess as Isis and Artemis, names that hadbecome widely used by the time of Christ, was the target of the apostlePaul. He explains thatBoth in Palestine and in Syria, as in Asia Minor on which so much ofPaul’s apostolic zeal was concentrated, the cult of the female deitieswas deep rooted and very old … the sermon attacking the idolatryshown by the Ephesians towards the Great Goddess Artemis has notsurvived in detail. We need not doubt that Paul had taken the measure

of the female deities of whose influence he had had long experience,especially Artemis and Isis … Paul could tell that here was adangerous rival … Clearly the Pauline view of Isiacism [the worshipof Isis] was penetratingly critical. Paul’s world was a patriarchy, hisreligion was Christological and monotheistic, and God was found infashion as a man. Isis was female … The obvious foe of the Church inits early ecumenical struggles was the cult of Isis and her templecompanions. This is made clear even before the death blow whichpaganism received from Theodosius.Witt also quotes perhaps the most revealing line in the story of thedestruction of the Goddess religion, telling us that “Clement of Alexandriareproduces a saying from The Gospel according to the Egyptians. Christ’swords are interesting and in such a context they are almost certainlydirected against the current worship of Isis: ‘I have come to destroy theworks of the female.’ ”In about AD 300 the Emperor Constantine brought an end to the ancientsanctuary of Ashtoreth at Aphaca and generally suppressed the worship ofAshtoreth throughout Canaan, claiming that it was “immoral.” He is said tohave seen a vision of Christ during a battle and to have heard the words. “Inthis sign, conquer.” Strange words for the Prince of Peace.In AD 380 the Emperor Theodosius closed down the temple of theGoddess at Eleusis, the temples of the Goddess in Rome and the “seventhwonder of the world,” the temple of the Goddess then known as Artemis orDiana at Ephesus in western Anatolia. It was said that he despised thereligion of women. This great Christian emperor may be better rememberedfor his massacre of seven thousand people in Thessalonica.In Athens, the Parthenon of the Acropolis, a sacred site of the Goddesssince the Mycenaean times of 1300 BC, was converted into a Christianchurch in AD 450. In the fifth century the Emperor Justinian converted theremaining temples of Isis into Christian churches.In Arabia of the seventh century, Mohammed brought an end to thenational worship of the Sun Goddess, Al Lat, and the Goddess known as AlUzza, whose name might have been related to the ancient Ua Zit. ProfessorJ. B. Pritchard writes that Al Lat was originally much the same deity asAsherah in Arabic religion. Mohammed brought about the worship of Allahas the supreme god. Allah actually means god, as Al Lat means Goddess.

Though it is not always realized in western society, Mohammedincorporated many of the legends and attitudes of the Old and NewTestaments into the Muslim Koran, the bible of Islam. In the Koran, Sura4:31 tells us, “Men have authority over women because God has made theone superior to the other and because they spend their wealth to maintainthem. So good women are obedient, guarding the unseen parts as God hasguarded them.”As late as the sixteenth century AD, Hebrew scholars compiled a textknown as the Kabbalah. The name of Lilith, once described in a Sumeriantablet as “the hand of Inanna” who brought men into the temple, a namealso found in some Hebrew literature as the first wife of Adam who refusedto lie beneath him and to obey his commands, appeared once again. In theHebrew Kabbalah, Lilith was presented as the symbol of evil, the femaledevil. G. Scholem wrote that in the Zohar, a part of the Kabbalah, it wasstated that “Lilith, Queen of the demons, or the demons of her retinue, dotheir best to provoke men to sexual acts without benefit of a woman, theiraim being to make themselves bodies from the lost seed.”It gave the warning that Lilith hovered about, just waiting for availablesperm from which she created demons and illegitimate children. TheKabbalah cautioned that, with the help of Lilith, the illegitimate childrencome. Was this a remote reference to the ancient qadishtu, their image nowembodied in the wicked demon Lilith? The major factor in avoiding thedangerous Lilith was once again a matter of inheritance. This is apparent inthe description of the actions of the illegitimate children, once their fatherhas died.Scholem tells us thatWishing along with the other children to have a part in the deceased astheir father, they tug and pluck at him, so that he feels the pain, andGod himself when he sees this noxious offspring by the corpse, isreminded of the dead man’s sins … All the illegitimate children that aman has begotten with demons in the course of his life appear after hisdeath to take part in the mourning for him and in his funeral … thedemons claim their inheritance on this occasion along with the othersons of the deceased and try to harm the legitimate children.

SUMMARYWe have seen that the orders for the destruction of the religion of theGoddess were built into the very canons and laws of the male religions thatreplaced it. It is clear that the ancient reverence for the female deity did notsimply cease to be but that its disappearance was gradually brought about,initially by the Indo-European invaders, later by the Hebrews, eventually bythe Christians and even further by the Mohammedans. Along with theultimate acceptance of the male religions throughout a large part of theworld, the precepts of sexual “morality,” that is, premarital virginity andmarital fidelity for women, were incorporated into the attitudes and laws ofthe societies which embraced them.There is no question about the antagonism expressed by the Levitepatriarchs toward the religion of the female deity. Accounts, perhapsoriginally remembered in oral form, taken from other Hebrew scripts oreven some other language, became part of the biblical texts which areassumed to have first been written as we know them in about 1000 BC.From the time of Moses onward, the Levites appear to have made thedecision to destroy the shrines and sanctuaries of the earlier worship. Fromthat time on until the fall of the two Hebrew nations in 722 and 586 BC, weread in the Bible of the actual massacres and desecrations, claimed to beexecuted at the command of the male deity. We cannot avoid observing thecontinual emphasis upon female sexuality as acceptable only when womenwere safely designated as the property of one specific male and that anydeviation from that rule was denounced as harlotry or adultery and subjectto punishment by death, making the sexual customs of the older religionrather difficult to follow.It is then, perhaps, not overly speculative to suggest that the myth ofAdam and Eve, the myth which Professor Chiera tells us shows evidence ofhaving been “produced in scholarly circles,” may have been intentionallywritten and included in the creation story of the Bible as yet another assaultupon the Goddess religion.Within the legend of the creation of all existence and life by Yahweh, thestory which supposedly explained what happened at the very beginning oftime, the image of woman as the dangerously seductive temptress, whobrought about the fall of all humanity, may have been inserted. Knowing all

that we do about the sacred sexual customs in the religion of the Goddess,the continual presence of these customs among the Hebrews even inJerusalem, the use of dragon or serpent myths, often in conjunction withcreation stories, by the Indo-Europeans and the vestiges of the Leviathanmyth in the Old Testament, we may gain a most clarifying and enlighteninginsight into the symbolism and message contained in the biblical myth ofAdam and Eve.The examination of the symbolic imagery of the Goddess religion andthat of the Genesis tale of creation in the following chapter provides somesurprising information. We may begin to understand what it means whenthe Bible tells us that Eve defied the male deity and instead accepted theword and advice of the serpent. We may indeed find that the seeminglyinnocent myth of Paradise and how the world began was actually carefullyconstructed and propagated to “keep women in their place,” the placeassigned to them by the Levite tribe of biblical Canaan.

10 Unraveling the Myth of Adam and EveWhen first I started upon my investigation of the worship of the femaledeity, it was to a great extent motivated by the image of woman presentedby Judaism and Christianity—the woman known as Eve. The further Iexplored the rites and symbolism of those who revered the DivineAncestress, the more convinced I became that the Adam and Eve myth,most certainly a tale with a point of view, and with a most biasedproclamation for its ending, had actually been designed to be used in thecontinuous Levite battle to suppress the female religion. It was, perhaps, amore updated version of the dragon or serpent myth whose vestiges arefound in the biblical Psalms and the book of Job.The female faith was a most complex theological structure, affectingmany aspects of the lives of those who paid Her homage. It had developedover thousands of years and its symbolism was rich and intricate. Symbolssuch as serpents, sacred fruit trees and sexually tempting women who tookadvice from serpents may once have been understood by people of biblicaltimes to symbolize the then familiar presence of the female deity. In theParadise myth, these images may have explained allegorically that listeningto women who revered the Goddess had once caused the expulsion of allhumankind from the original home of bliss in Eden.

SACRED SNAKES AND PROPHETIC VISIONLet’s begin with the serpent. It seems that in some lands all existence beganwith a serpent. Despite the insistent, perhaps hopeful, assumption that theserpent must have been regarded as a phallic symbol, it appears to havebeen primarily revered as a female in the Near and Middle East andgenerally linked to wisdom and prophetic counsel rather than fertility andgrowth as is so often suggested.The Goddess Nidaba, the scribe of the Sumerian heaven, the LearnedOne of the Holy Chambers, who was worshiped as the first patron deity ofwriting, was at times depicted as a serpent. At the Sumerian town of Dir theGoddess was referred to as the Divine Serpent Lady. The Goddess as Ninlil,who at times is said to have brought the gift of agriculture and thuscivilization to Her people, was said to have the tail of a serpent. In severalSumerian tablets the Goddess was simply called Great Mother Serpent ofHeaven.Stephen Langdon, the archaeologist who led some of the earliestexcavations of Sumer and later taught at Oxford, asserted that Inanna, thenknown as Ininni, was closely connected with serpent worship. He alsodescribed Her as the Divine Mother who Reveals the Laws. He wrote thatthe Goddess known as Nina, another form of the name Inanna, perhaps anearlier one, was a serpent goddess in the most ancient Sumerian periods. Heexplained that, as Nina, She was esteemed as an oracular deity and aninterpreter of dreams, recording this prayer from a Sumerian tablet: “ONina of priestly rites, Lady of precious decrees, Prophetess of Deities artThou,” and commenting that, “The evidence points to an original serpentgoddess as the interpreter of dreams of the unrevealed future.” Severalsculptures unearthed in Sumer, which date from about 4000 BC, portray afemale figure with the head of a snake.Writing of Elam, just east of Sumer, where in earliest times the Goddessreigned supreme, Dr. Walther Hinz tells us: “… part of this individuality [inElam] consists of an uncommon reverence and respect for eternalwomanhood and in a worship of snakes that has its roots in magic … Eventhe pottery of the third and fourth millenia swarms with snakes …”Ishtar of Babylon, successor to Inanna, was identified with the planetknown as Venus. In some Babylonian texts this planet was called Masat,

literally defined as prophetess. Ishtar was depicted sitting upon the royalthrone of heaven, holding a staff around which coiled two snakes. One sealfrom Babylon, which shows Ishtar holding the serpent-entwined scepter,was inscribed, “Lady of Vision of Kisurru.” Ishtar was elsewhere recordedas “She who Directs the Oracles” and “Prophetess of Kua.” Babyloniantablets offer numerous accounts of priestesses who offered prophetic adviceat the shrines of Ishtar, some of these very significant in the records ofpolitical events.Even in the Babylonian-Kassite myth, Tiamat was recorded as the firstdivine being. According to this legend, Tiamat originally possessed theTablets of Destiny, which, after Her murder, were claimed as the property ofMarduk. Tiamat was described in this myth as a dragon or serpent. Theactual association of the serpent with the female deity, all through the textsand inscriptions of Sumer and Babylon, was probably the very reason thissymbolism was used in the Indo-European myths.On the island of Crete the snake appears in the worship of the femaledeity more repeatedly than anywhere else in the Mediterranean area. Allover the island, artifacts have been unearthed that portray the Goddess orHer priestesses holding snakes in their hands or with them coiled abouttheir bodies, revealing that they were an integral part of the religious rituals.Along with the statues of serpent-entwined priestesses, cylindrical clayobjects, also wrapped about with serpents, have been discovered on Crete.Arthur Evans, the archaeologist who excavated the Cretan palace atKnossos, described them as “snake tubes” and suggested that they wereused to feed the sacred serpents that were kept at the sanctuaries of theCretan Goddess. The abundant evidence of the sacred nature of the serpent,along with the Goddess, has in fact appeared to such an extent on Crete thatmany archaeologists refer to the female deity there as the Serpent Goddess.Evans, offering supportive evidence, asserted that the Lady of theSerpents on Crete was originally derived from the worship of the CobraGoddess of the predynastic people of Egypt. He suggested that the worshipof the Serpent Lady may have been brought to Crete in about 3000 BC. Thisis much the same time that the First Dynasty of Egypt was forming, and hefurther suggested that Egyptian people may have fled to Crete as a result ofthe invasions at that time.The use of the cobra in the religion of the Goddess in Egypt was soancient that the sign that preceded the name of any Goddess was the cobra

(i.e., a picture of a cobra was the hieroglyphic sign for the word Goddess).In predynastic Egypt the female deity of Lower Egypt (north) was theCobra Goddess known as Ua Zit. Not a great deal is known about this mostancient Cobra Goddess, but we later see Her as the uraeus cobra worn uponthe foreheads of other deities and Egyptian royalty. The cobra was knownas the Eye, uzait, a symbol of mystic insight and wisdom. Later derivationsof the Cobra Goddess, such as Hathor and Maat, were both known as theEye. This term, in any context it is used, is always written in feminine form.The position of the Eye and its eventual association with male deities wasexplained in Chapter Four. The Goddess as Hathor was also associated withthe male deity Horus; Her name actually means House of Hor. But one textpreserved the story that Hathor had been the serpent who had existed beforeanything else had been created. She then made the heavens, the earth and alllife that existed on it. In this account She was angry, though the text is notclear about the reason; She threatened to destroy all of creation and oncemore resume Her original form as a serpent.A prophetic sanctuary stood in the Egyptian city of Buto, once theforemost religious center of the Cobra Goddess. The town was actuallyknown as Per Uto in Egyptian, but the Greeks called it Buto, also applyingthis name to the Cobra Goddess Herself. This shrine was credited inclassical Greek times to the Goddess known as Lato, but it is likely that thesame site had once been the shrine of oracular advice of the Goddess Ua ZitHerself. Herodotus reported that he saw enormous numbers of snakeskeletons lying in a pass in that city.In Greece, we are afforded the closest look at the derivatives of theEgyptian and Cretan Serpent Goddess. Though the nature of the religionhad undergone some major transformations after the invasions of theAchaeans and Dorians, who brought with them the worship of Zeus, manyvestiges of the earlier images and symbolism still survived. This wasespecially manifested in the heroic figure of Athena. Her serpentcontinually appeared in legends, drawings and sculptures. In some statues itpeered out from beneath Her great bronze shield or stood by Her side. Aspecial building known as the Erechtheum stood on the Acropolis alongsideHer temple, the Parthenon. This Erechtheum was considered to be the homeof Athena’s snake. But the snake of the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, whowas revered on the majestic heights of the Athenian Acropolis, was not acreation of the classical Greek period. Despite the Indo-European Greek

legend that suggests that Athena was born from the head of Zeus, theworship of the Goddess had arrived on the Acropolis long before—with theCretan Goddess of the Mycenaean settlements. The classical temples of theAcropolis, consecrated to the Greek Athena, were actually built onMycenaean foundations.The connections begin to take form. As we read before, the Mycenaeanswere the people who had lived on Crete at the palace of Knossos at about1400 BC. They had integrated the earlier Minoan-Cretan culture into theirown to such an extent that the worship is often described as the Minoan-Mycenaean religion. Clothing styles, signet rings, murals, seals and artifactsof all kinds reveal the great similarity of the Mycenaean religious beliefs tothose of the Cretans. Once understanding these connections, we realize thesignificance of the fact that, beneath the ruins of the classical Greek templesof Athens and Delphi, as well as many other Greek shrines where theGoddess was most reverently associated with Her serpent, lay these olderMycenaean remains.The shrine that perhaps offers the deepest insight into the connections ofthe female deity of Greece to the Serpent Goddess of Crete is Delphi. Underthe classical temple and buildings of Delphi, Mycenaean artifacts and ruinsof earlier shrines have been unearthed. In the earliest times, the Goddess atDelphi was held sacred as the one who supplied the divine revelationsspoken by the priestesses who served Her. The woman who brought forththe oracles of divine wisdom was called the Pythia. Coiled about the tripodstool upon which she sat was a snake known as Python. Though in laterGreek writings Python was male, in the earliest accounts Python wasdescribed as female. The serpent Python was of such importance that thiscity had once been known as Pytho. According to Pausanius the earliesttemple at this site had been built by women, while Aeschylus recorded thatat this holiest of shrines the Goddess was extolled as the PrimevalProphetess. In later times the priests of the male Apollo took over thisshrine, and Greek legend tells us of the murder of Python by Apollo. Themany sculptures and reliefs of women, generally described as “theAmazons,” fighting against men at this shrine may actually depict the initialseizure.Reports of Python, as well as the legend of Cassandra of Troy, reveal thatsnakes were familiar inhabitants of the oracular shrine at Delphi. Sacredsnakes were also kept at a temple of the Goddess known as Hera, who was

closely associated with Gaia of Delphi, the Primeval Prophetess. The sitesof divination at Delphi, Olympia and Dodona were initially identified withthe Goddess but were later confiscated by the priests of Zeus and Apollo(both of whom are described as having killed the serpent of the GoddessGaia). Yet, even under the name of the male deities, it was still priestesseswho most often supplied the respected counsel.So far we have seen that the female deity, as She was known in Babylon,Egypt, Crete and Greece, was identified as or with serpents and closelyassociated with wisdom and prophecy. But it was not only in these landsthat the Serpent Goddess was known. Again, when we look over to Canaan,which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea (as do Egypt, Crete and Greece),we discover evidence of the esteem paid to the Goddess as the SerpentLady.The manner in which the connections occur are intriguing. They arereally deserving of an entire book rather than the few paragraphs we haveroom for here. From Neolithic times onward, people were quite mobile,trading and warring in areas many miles from their original homes. Distantcolonies were founded and settled where timber, gold, spices and othervaluable materials were found. Phoenician ships traversed not only theentire Mediterranean Sea and the inland rivers but made their way wellaround the coast of Spain as far as Cadiz, and possibly even up to theBritish Isles, many centuries before the birth of Christ and the Romaninvasions. Even before the Phoenicians, who were actually the Canaanitesof Tyre and Sidon, there were groups of people who sailed theMediterranean waters freely and who were known simply as the SeaPeoples. They appear to have traveled widely, often leaving behind themthe evident remains of their visit or settlement.One such people were known as the Philistines. This name has beenmade familiar to us through the Bible, where they are continuouslydescribed as a treacherously evil people, obviously the archenemies of theHebrews. But as Professor R. K. Harrison wrote, “Archaeologicalexcavations in Philistine territory have shown that it is clearly a mistake toregard the Philistines as synonymous with barbarity or cultural deficiency,as is so frequently done in common speech.”The Philistine people present one of the most significant links betweenthe worship of the Serpent Goddess of Crete and the female deity as Shewas revered in Canaan. The Philistines are recorded in the Old Testament to

have come from the isle of Caphtor—which is generally believed to beCrete; the Egyptians called it Keftiu. The Bible described them as comingfrom Caphtor and Egypt. Though their major migrations to Canaan appearto have taken place about 1200 BC, Philistines are mentioned in Canaan inthe time of Abraham. Several writers have suggested that the Philistineswere actually a branch of the Mycenaeans, who were culturally active uponCrete and Greece at the same time. Some writers associate their name withthe Pelasgians, the people who lived in Greece before the Indo-Europeaninvasions. During the periods of the greatest Philistine migrations intoCanaan, they settled primarily in the southwest. This area came to beknown as Philistia, the origin of the name Palestine. Evidence suggests thatalong with the Philistine people came the religion of the Serpent Goddess.Some of the most revealing evidence of the connections of the worship ofthe Serpent Goddess of Crete to the female deity of Canaan, as well as thenearby island of Cyprus, has been the discovery in both places of “snaketubes”—nearly identical to those found on Crete. Of even greatersignificance is the fact that a snake tube was unearthed in a Philistinetemple devoted to the worship of Ashtoreth.Archaeologist R. W. Hutchinson pointed out some of the connections:The snake tubes of Gournia [a town on Crete] have interestingparallels outside Crete and Evans collated a convincing series ofexamples of clay tubes connected with the household snake cult, somewith modelled snakes crawling up them … Some of the moreinteresting examples of snake tubes, however, come not from Crete atall but from Late Bronze Age sites in Cyprus and Philistia. One tubefound at Kition on Cyprus shows the snake tube converted into a dovecot … Another tube found in the House of Ashtoreth on the Philistinesite of Beth Shan [Canaan] dated to the reign of Ramses II of Egypt (c.1292–1225 BC) shows two snakes crawling round and into the tube …Another piece found at Beth Shan portrayed the Goddess leaning fromthe window of a shrine, while a serpent emerged from a lower level. At thissame site quite a few “Astarte plaques” were found, along with the statue ofa woman, probably intended to represent a priestess—with a serpent coiledabout her neck. Another interesting discovery made in this temple was aterra cotta serpent with female breasts. According to the Bible it was this

House of Ashtoreth in Beth Shan where the armor of the defeated HebrewKing Saul was victoriously displayed by the Philistines (I Sam. 31:10).On the nearby island of Cyprus, at another temple of Ashtoreth located inthe town of Kition, near present-day Larnaca, not only a snake tube mostsimilar to those found on Crete was discovered but also a small clay figureholding a snake. Recent excavations at Kition have unearthed another figureof Ashtoreth. We may not be too surprised to learn that the Ashtorethtemple at Kition was built on what are thought to be Mycenaean or Cretanfoundations.Though the presence of the Philistines alone might be sufficient to attestand explain the appearance of the Serpent Goddess in Canaan, Her worshipgained entrance into the “promised land” through other channels as well.The Goddess Isis-Hathor, whose worship assimilated that of Ua Zit, theCobra Goddess of Egypt, was well known in certain sections of Sinai andCanaan. Even as early as the Second Dynasty, some of these places arebelieved to have been seaports or even colonies of Egypt.Some of the connections of the Goddess in Canaan with the female deityas She was known in Egypt are revealed through their names. In Egypt theCanaanite Ashtoreth was known as Asit, again much like Ua Zit and AuSet. The name Umm Attar, Mother Attar, was known in parts of Arabia,probably related to the name Hathor but also to another Canaanite name forAshtoreth—Attoret.Several ancient temples offer evidence of the connections between Isis-Hathor and the Goddess in Canaan. In both She appears as the SerpentGoddess. At the first, Serabit el Khadim, a shrine on the Sinai Peninsulaclose to the great Egyptian turquoise mines, bilingual Egyptian and Semiticinscriptions have been discovered. The inscriptions named the deity onceworshiped at the shrine as the Goddess Hathor. In these bilingualinscriptions Hathor was also referred to as Baalat, meaning Lady orGoddess, as the word was then known in Canaan. J. R. Harris wrote of thetemple on Sinai and discussed the relationship between the two names ofthe Goddess as She was known there. He explained, “Here she [Baalat] wasevidently identified with the Egyptian Goddess Hathor at whose temple allthe inscriptions were found.” But perhaps most significant is the fact that,on the walls of this shrine, two prayers had been carved into the stone. Inboth of these the Goddess was invoked—as the Serpent Lady.

Sir Flinders Petrie wrote of probable oracles at the enclosures of theSerabit complex. This shrine on the Sinai Peninsula, which lies betweenEgypt and Canaan, is particularly worth noting since many scholars havesuggested that it may have been on the route the Hebrew tribes took upontheir exodus from Egypt. The Bible records that it was during this period inthe desert that Moses came to possess the “brazen serpent,” which appearedseven hundred years later in the shrine in Jerusalem. It was eventuallydestroyed by the Hebrew reformer Hezekiah as a “pagan abomination,” butit is not inconceivable that it may have come into the possession of theHebrews at Serabit and even have been accepted temporarily by Moses as ameans of placating the Hebrew people.Yet this bronze serpent seems to have been identified with the Goddessreligion, for the Bible reveals that it was kept in the same temple inJerusalem where in 700 BC we find vessels for Ashtoreth and Baal, theasherah, the house of the sacred women and the women who wept forTammuz.The title of Baalat as another name for Hathor leads to yet another shrineof the Goddess, the one at the Canaanite port of Byblos, a site first settled aslong ago as 6000 BC. As late as the fourth century BC, writings from Berytus(Beirut) stated that the Baalat was still the principal deity of Byblos.Overlooking the Mediterranean waters, on this coastal site of what is nowLebanon in what had once been Canaan, temple foundations date back to atleast 2800 BC. Many records of Byblos tell us that it was, during mostperiods, closely aligned with Egypt.At this temple in Byblos the Goddess was revered both as Baalat and asIsis-Hathor. Many symbols of the Goddess and Her cobra were found amidthe ruins. One headband, adorned with the rising cobra, was constructed sothat the snake would emerge from the forehead of the person who wore it,as the Eye of Wisdom. At this same site two golden cobras and an offeringbowl decorated with snakes were also unearthed. According to Egyptianlegend, it was to this city of Byblos in Canaan that Isis had once traveled toretrieve the body of Her dead brother/husband Osiris.Elsewhere in Canaan evidence of snakes appears alongside the worshipof the Goddess. It seems likely that the majority of the sculptures andartifacts associated with the female deity and Her serpent in Canaan mayhave met destruction at the time of the occupation of the Levite-led

Hebrews; yet scattered remains offer silent testimony to Her one-timeexistence even in the cities of southern Canaan.At Taanach a number of serpent heads were discovered, as well as asmall figure holding a serpent. Here too was found a bronze figure ofAshtoreth along with an inscription that the Goddess gave the oracles by thepointing of Her finger.At Beth Shemesh, jugs with serpents and a figure of the Goddess with asnake falling over Her shoulder and into Her lap were unearthed inexcavations. At Tell Beit Mersim, another Philistine stronghold, there weremany “Astarte plaques,” as well as a plaque that Albright refers to as theGoddess, a serpent coiled about the lower half of the body. The piece isvery badly mutilated and I would hesitate to say who the figure actuallyrepresents, though the snake is certainly clear enough.Hutchinson draws a connection between this particular figure and theSerpent Goddess of Minoan Crete, writing, “A similar snake goddess seemsto have been worshipped during the Bronze Age in Palestine where a stelewas found at Tell Beit Mersim in a deposit dated about 1600 BC, carvedwith a representation of a goddess with her snake curling round her body.This stele was practically contemporary with the faience figure of the SnakeGoddess found in the temple repositories at Knossos.”Another bronze serpent was found at Shushan, while at Shechemarchaeologists unearthed a figure with a snake coiled about its body. At thetown of Gezer, eighteen miles northwest of Jerusalem, a bronze serpent wasfound near a cave which had been used as a religious sanctuary. There wasalso a plaque of the Goddess with a cobra. Serpents also appear to havebeen depicted in the margins of the plaque. It has been suggested that in Heroutstretched arms She once held serpents, as in so many of the otherplaques of this type which combine the aspects of both Ashtoreth andHathor, clay reliefs simply marked Qadesh—Holy. A bronze figure ofAshtoreth was also discovered at this same site.Archaeologist R. A. S. Macalister described the excavation at Gezer inthis way: “In an enclosure close to the standing stones was found a bronzemodel of a cobra which may have been a votive offering. It recalls the storyof the brazen serpent of Moses to whose worship Hezekiah put an end in IIKings. Possibly this object was similar in appearance. Another remarkablefind made within the precincts of the high place was the unique figure ofthe two horned Astarte.”

Gezer had two large underground caverns; the cobra was found at anearby circular structure. Again, several writers have suggested thatoracular divination may have been practiced in the underground chamberswhere libation bowls decorated with snakes were discovered.And in Jerusalem itself was the serpent of bronze, said to date back to thetime of Moses and treasured as a sacred idol in the temple there until about700 BC.The symbol of the serpent entwined about accounts of oracular revelationappears throughout the Near and Middle East. To summarize, connectionsare drawn between the Cobra Goddess of Egypt and the Serpent Goddess ofCrete. The Mycenaeans appear to have brought the oracular serpent withthem from Crete to the shrines of pre-Greece, observed most clearly at thesites of Athens and Delphi. Other people, known as the Philistines,probably from Crete, brought the Serpent Goddess to Cyprus and Canaan,while the Egyptians carried the worship of the Serpent Lady across theMediterranean Sea to Byblos and across the sands of Sinai to Serabit. Bothin Babylon and Sumer we find the Goddess associated with snakes and withoracular prophecy. There is hardly an area in the Near and Middle Eastwhere we do not find accounts of the serpent and/or the shrines of divinewisdom as separate elements; yet both of these occur together often enoughto suggest that the relationship between these two separate elements berecognized.In questioning the nature and purpose of the oracular shrines and thepriestesses who gave advice, historical records, especially in Babylon andGreece, explain that they were primarily utilized for vital political,governmental and military matters. It was not only the belief that thepriestesses could see into the future that made oracular divination sopopular but the idea that these women were understood to be in directcommunication with the deity who possessed the wisdom of the universe. Itis evident from the accounts of the people who believed in propheticrevelation that they did not view the future as totally predestined anddetermined by uncontrollable fates but rather as something that could beacted upon, as long as one knew the most advantageous action to take. Theoracular priestesses were not consulted for a firm prediction of the futurebut for counsel as to the best strategy, considering the situation. This advicewas available at shrines all the way from Greece to Mesopotamia.

Evidence of the Goddess in Sumer, under the names such as Nina, Ininnior Inanna, suggests that divine revelation was an aspect of the religion fromthe most ancient times. In later Babylon, records of Queens Sibtu and Nakiarevealed the importance and influence of the oracular priestesses in thepolitical affairs of Babylon and the city of Mari. Babylonian prophetesseswere known as appiltu or muhhtu. It is rather interesting that the Hebrewword zonah is at times defined as “prostitute” and at times as “prophetess.”J. Hastings wrote that in Egypt, “In the Old and Middle Kingdoms,women of important families often bear the title ‘prophetess.’ It was nearlyalways the goddesses Hathor and Neith that they served in this capacity.”D. S. Russell wrote of the prophetesses who came to be known as theSibyls. The Sibyls were often identified with a prophetess of Anatolia,named as Sybella, whom we may suspect has some connection with theGoddess known there as Cybele. It was, in fact, the Sibyls of Rome whowere responsible for having the worship of the Anatolian Cybele broughtinto Rome. According to Russell,These Sibylline oracles were written during the latter half of thesecond century BC in Alexandria. They are imitative of the GreekSibyls who exercised a considerable influence upon pagan thoughtboth before and after this time. The pagan Sibyl was a prophetess who,under the inspiration of the god, was able to impart wisdom to menand to reveal to them the divine will. There were many varieties ofsuch oracles in different countries and in Egypt in particular they cameto have an increasing interest and significance.At the temple in Jerusalem in about 620 BC, Ezekiel spoke of the womenwho dared to prophesy “out of their own heads.” Even the much latercanons of St. Patrick, who is said to have brought Christianity to “pagan”Ireland, warned against “pythonesses.” Pythoness is still defined in mostcontemporary English dictionaries as a prophetess or witch.

“MY MIND HAD EXTRAORDINARY POWERS”This continual appearance of the serpent with the Goddess, in associationwith prophecy and divine revelation, raises the question of the purpose andmeaning of its repeated presence. The manner in which the serpent wasused in oracular divination has never been made clear, but there are someclues hinting at the possible explanation.One of these is from the story of Cassandra, a tale that may have survivedfrom the period of the Achaeans and the Trojan War. The legend related thatCassandra was left overnight at the shrine of Delphi as a very young child.When her mother, the Trojan Queen Hecuba, arrived there in the morning,she is said to have found the child surrounded by the sacred snakes thatwere kept in the shrine. They were licking Cassandra’s ears. Thisexperience was offered as the explanation of how Cassandra gained the giftof prophecy.A Greek prophet named Melampus was also recorded to have had hisears licked clean by serpents, thus allowing him to understand the languageof birds. In the writings of Philostratus, he claimed that it was quitecommon for Arabians to understand divine revelations, especially thesounds of birds, explaining that they had acquired this ability by feedingthemselves the heart or liver of serpents. The sounds of birds were veryoften associated with the oracular shrines of Greece, while on Crete and inAscalon, Canaan, statues often included one or more doves perching on thehead of the Goddess or priestess.In both Hebrew and Arabic the terms for magic are derived from thewords meaning serpent. In Brittany supernatural powers were said to beacquired by drinking broth prepared from serpents. Among the SiouxIndians in North America the word wakan means both wizard and serpent.Indians in the southwest United States had an initiation ritual in which abrave who had been chosen as eligible for the honor performed a dance inwhich he allowed himself to be bitten several times by a snake. As a resultof this experience, provided he did not die, he was said to gain greatwisdom and insight into the workings of the universe and the meaning of allthings.In addition to these connections between serpents and oracularrevelation, contemporary science has perhaps provided the deepest insight

into the possible relationship between the two elements. Normally, when aperson receives a venomous snake bite, and subsequently the venom isintroduced into the system, there are various reactions, depending upon thespecies of snake, including swelling, internal bleeding, difficulty inbreathing and paralysis. These effects often prove fatal. But there are recentrecords of people who have been immunized, thus preventing the venom ofa snake bite from causing death. When bitten after the immunization,especially by krait, cobra or other elapids, the subject experiences anemotional and mental state that has been compared to the effects ofhallucinogenic drugs.In an account kept by his wife, William Haast of the FloridaSerpentarium (where venom is extracted for various medicinal uses)described his reaction to a krait bite, received after he had been repeatedlyimmunized for his work. The account was later recalled in H. Kursh’sCobras in the Garden. Kursh writes:Suddenly he began to feel pleasantly light and weirdly buoyant, almostgay, as though he were slightly intoxicated … he had developed anacute sense of hearing, almost painfully acute. The air about him was acharivari, a veritable jungle of discordant noises. It was as if he wasunder the influence of a strange narcotic … He had one inexplicablesensation. It was a peculiar emotional reaction which he could notcontrol. As he lay with his eyes involuntarily closed, he could “see”things. There were visions in front of him.In another report on this same incident, Marshall Smith of Life magazinequoted Haast as saying, “I found myself making up the most wonderfulverses. My mind had extraordinary powers.” It may or may not be related,but the oracles of the shrines in Greece were said to be given in verse.Much like mescaline (a product of the peyote cactus) or psilocybin(found in certain types of mushrooms), both used as sacraments in someNorth American Indian religions, the chemical makeup of certain types ofsnake venom, may have caused a person, especially someone in theexpectant frame of mind, to feel in touch with the very forces of existenceand a sensation of perceiving the events and meaning of the past, presentand future with great clarity and comprehension. This type of sensation iscertainly often reported by people using mescaline, psilocybin and lysergic

acid diethylamide (LSD). The sacred serpents, apparently kept and fed atthe oracular shrines of the Goddess, were perhaps not merely the symbolsbut actually the instruments through which the experiences of divinerevelation were reached. This may explain the title of the Egyptian CobraGoddess, who was at times known as the Lady of Spells.According to an old Talmudic tradition, the venom of the serpent, whichhad corrupted Eve and all humanity, lost its strength through the revelationof Mount Sinai but regained it when Israel began to worship the goldencalf.

THE FLESH AND FLUID OF THE GODDESSBut the serpent is not the only link between the story of Adam and Eve andthe worship of the Goddess. Another most important symbol in the story isthat of the tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, from which hungthe forbidden fruit. There are legends known from classical Greece aboutthe golden apple tree of the Goddess Hera, about which the serpent Ladoncoiled. The tree, incidentally, was said to be given to Hera by the GoddessGaia, the Primeval Prophetess of the shrine at Delphi. Though legends ofapple trees were known in classical Greece, I suggest that the tree ofknowledge of good and evil in earliest times was not an apple but a fig.A particular species of tree was continually mentioned as sacred invarious ancient records, but deceptively under three different names, so thatits singular identity has been overlooked. At times it was called thesycamore, at times the fig and sometimes the mulberry. This tree is actuallythe Near Eastern ficus sicomorus, the sycamore fig, sometimes denoted asthe black mulberry. It differs from the common fig tree in that its reddishcolored fruit grows in large clumps, something like a cluster of grapes.References to this sacred tree are found in the writings of Egypt, whilerepresentations of it appear on Egyptian murals. The Goddess Hathor ofEgypt, revered both as the Eye of Wisdom and the Serpent Lady, was alsoknown by another title—the Lady of the Sycamore. This tree was known asthe Living Body of Hathor on Earth. To eat of its fruit was to eat of the fleshand fluid of the Goddess. Some Egyptian murals depicted the Goddesswithin this tree, passing out its sacred fruit to the dead as the food ofeternity, immortality and continued life, even after death.The type of tree represented on the signet rings of Crete was perhaps thesame one, though depicted in a more symbolic form, simply showing theclusters of fruit. Evans suggested that the fig was sacred to the Cretans anddescribed a section of a mural at Knossos where the tree alongside the altarwas a fig. He also mentioned a group of sacred trees portrayed within thewalls of a Cretan sanctuary, whose foliage showed them to be fig trees.Cretan seals and rings repeatedly depicted the Goddess or Her attendantsalongside small fruit trees, caring for them, almost caressing them, as if insacred devotion. In India, where the fig is known as the “pipal tree,” it isstill considered sacred.

Some of the most explanatory evidence of the symbolic meaning of thistree is the knowledge we have of the memorial rituals celebrated at the“annual death” of Osiris, brother/husband of Isis, a death closely related tothe sacrifice of the annual king. According to Egyptian records, Osiris wasfirst buried in a mulberry coffin. This coffin was later placed inside a livingsycamore tree, symbolic of Isis-Hathor as his mother/wife. In this way Shewas to provide him with the food of eternity. This custom was closelylinked with the legend that Isis went to Canaan to retrieve the tree in whichOsiris had been buried, cut the coffin of Osiris from that tree and left theremainder of it as a sacred relic in Her temple at Byblos; this was theCanaanite shrine at which Isis-Hathor and Baalat were synonymous.The sacred symbolism of this coffin tree of Hathor makes it likely thatthis was the tree repeatedly referred to in the Bible as the asherah. Ezekielspoke harshly of the “idolators” in the temple at Jerusalem passing aroundthe sacred branch of a tree, as if it were a great sin. Passages in Ezekielthreaten, “Never again will they defile my name with their prostitutions andwith their funeral pillars of their kings,” and “The House of Israel shall nomore defile my holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their harlotry orby their dead bodies of their kings.” Isaiah referred to the planting of smalltrees for Adonis, warning that “the sprigs of foreign gods” would bring aharvest of grief and desperate sorrow.Evans mentioned gold fig leaves found at Mycenaean tombs inconnection with a “funeral cult” there. The fig tree was regarded as a giftgiven by the Goddess, as She was worshiped at the Greek shrine of Eleusis,a temple also built on Mycenaean foundations. It was against a tree thatAdonis and Attis both met their legendary deaths and on a tree that theannual effigy of Attis was displayed in Rome. Dionysus, a figure quitesimilar to Attis and Adonis, associated with the worship of the Goddessboth at Delphi and Eleusis, was symbolically associated with the fig tree.As I mentioned previously, the asherah or asherim of the Bible wereplanted or stood alongside the altar at the shrines of the Goddess. Theywere the despised pillars and poles which the Hebrews were continuallyordered to destroy. Though we have no certain proof that these weresycamore fig trees, the evidence suggests that this was so. The fruit of thistree, described in Egyptian texts as “the flesh and fluid of Hathor,” mayeven have been eaten as a type of “communion” with the Goddess, perhapsgiving rise to the custom of the communion of the “flesh and the blood” of

Jesus, taken in the form of wafers and wine even today. Most intriguing isthe line in the Bible that relates that, when Adam and Eve realized theirnakedness as a result of having eaten the forbidden fruit of the tree, theythen made aprons to cover their sexual parts—with fig leaves.

SERPENTS, SYCAMORES AND SEXUALITYIt is here that our understanding of the sacred sexual customs andmatrilineal descent patterns enters the matter, further clarifying thesymbolism of the forbidden fruit. In each area in which the Goddess wasknown and revered, She was extolled not only as the prophetess of greatwisdom, closely identified with the serpent, but as the original Creatress,and the patroness of sexual pleasures and reproduction as well. The DivineAncestress was identified as She who brought life as well as She whodecreed the destinies and directions of those lives, a not unnaturalcombination. Hathor was credited with having taught people how toprocreate. Ishtar, Ashtoreth and Inanna were each esteemed as the tutelarydeity of sexuality and new life. The sacred women celebrated this aspect ofHer being by making love in the temples.Considering the hatred the Hebrews felt toward the asherim, a majorsymbol of the female religion, it would not be too surprising if thesymbolism of the tree of forbidden fruit, said to offer the knowledge ofgood and evil, yet clearly represented in the myth as the provider of sexualconsciousness, was included in the creation story to warn that eating thefruit of this tree had caused the downfall of all humanity. Eating of the treeof the Goddess, which stood by each altar, was as dangerously “pagan” aswere Her sexual customs and Her oracular serpents.So into the myth of how the world began, the story that the Levitesoffered as the explanation of the creation of all existence, they place theadvisory serpent and the woman who accepted its counsel, eating of the treethat gave her the understanding of what “only the gods knew”—the secretof sex—how to create life.As the advocates of Yahweh destroyed the shrines of the female deitywherever they could, murdering when they could not convert, the Levitepriesthood wrote the tale of creation. They announced that male supremacywas not a new idea, but in fact had been divinely decreed by the male deityat the very dawn of existence. The domination of the male over the female,as Hebrew women found themselves without the rights of their neighbors,rights that they too may have once held, was not simply added as anotherHebrew law but written into the Bible as one of the first major acts andproclamations of the male creator. With blatant disregard for actual history,

the Levite leaders announced that woman must be ruled by man, declaringthat it was in agreement with the original decree of Yahweh, who, accordingto these new legends, had first created the world and people. The myth ofAdam and Eve, in which male domination was explained and justified,informed women and men alike that male ownership and control ofsubmissively obedient women was to be regarded as the divine and naturalstate of the human species.But in order to achieve their position, the priests of the male deity hadbeen forced to convince themselves and to try to convince theircongregations that sex, the very means of procreating new life, wasimmoral, the “original sin.” Thus, in the attempt to institute a male kinshipsystem, Judaism, and following it Christianity, developed as religions thatregarded the process of conception as somewhat shameful or sinful. Theyevolved a code of philosophical and theological ideas that inherentlyespoused discomfort or guilt about being human beings—who do, at least atthe present time, conceive new life by the act of sexual intercourse—whether it is considered immoral or not.This then was the unfortunate, unnatural and uncomfortable trap of itsown making into which the patriarchal religion fell. Even today we mayread in the Common Prayer Book of Westminster Abbey under theSolemnization of Matrimony, “Secondly it was ordained for a remedyagainst sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons that have not the giftof continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members ofChrist’s body” (my italics).The picture takes form before us, each tiny piece falling into place.Without virginity for the unmarried female and strict sexual restraints uponmarried women, male ownership of name and property and male control ofthe divine right to the throne could not exist. Wandering further into theGarden of Eden, where the oracular cobra curled about the sycamore fig,we soon discover that the various events of the Paradise myth, one by one,betray the political intentions of those who first invented the myth.

A LEVITE ACCOUNT OF CREATION—THEOLOGY OR POLITICS?Let us take a closer look at the tale of creation and the subsequent loss ofParadise as related by the Hebrew leaders and later adopted and cherishedby the advocates of Christianity. As we compare the Levite creation storywith accounts of the Goddess religion, we notice how at each turn, in eachsentence of the biblical myth, the original tenets of the Goddess religionwere attacked.Stephen Langdon wrote, “Thus beyond all doubt the Nippurian school ofSumerian theology originally regarded man as having been created fromclay by the great mother goddess.” Professor Kramer tells us, “In a tabletwhich gives a list of Sumerian gods the goddess Nammu, written with theideogram for ‘sea’ is described as ‘the mother who gave birth to heaven andearth.’ ” One Sumerian prayer goes as follows: “Hear O ye regions, thepraise of Queen Nana, Magnify the Creatress, exalt the dignified, Exalt theglorious One, draw nigh unto the Mighty Lady.” The Egyptians wrote, “Inthe beginning there was Isis, Oldest of the Old. She was the Goddess fromwhom all becoming arose.” Even in Babylonian periods there were prayersto Mami or Aruru as the creator of human life. Yet the worshipers ofYahweh, perhaps one thousand years later, asserted that it was a male whoinitially created the world. It was the first claim to male kinship—malenesswas primal.According to legends of Sumer and Babylon, women and men had beencreated simultaneously, in pairs—by the Goddess. But in the male religionit was of ultimate importance that the male was made first, and in the imageof his creator—the second and third claims to male kinship rights. We arenext told that from a small rather insignificant part of man, his rib, womanwas formed. Despite all that we know about the biological facts of birth,facts the Levites certainly knew as well, we are assured that the male doesnot come from the female, but the female from the male. We may bereminded of the Indo-European Greek story of Athena being born from thehead of Zeus.Any unpleasant remnant or reminder of being born of woman had to bedenied and changed. Just as in the myth of the creation through an act ofmasturbation by the Egyptian Ptah, the Divine Ancestress was written outof reality. We are then informed that the woman made in this manner was

presented as a gift to the man, declaring and assuring her status—amongthose who accepted the myth—as the property of the male. It tells us thatshe was given to him to keep him from being lonely, as “a helper fit forhim.” Thus we are expected to understand that the sole and divine purposeof women’s existence is to help or serve men in some way.The couple so designed was placed in the Garden of Eden—paradise—where the male deity warned them not to eat any of the fruit of the tree ofknowledge of good and evil. To the ancient Hebrews this tree was probablyunderstood to represent the sacred sycamore fig of the Goddess, the familiarasherah which stood beside the altars of the temples of the Goddess andHer Baal. The sacred branch being passed around in the temple, asdescribed by Ezekiel, may have been the manner in which the fruit wastaken as “communion.” According to Egyptian texts, to eat of this fruit wasto eat of the flesh and the fluid of the Goddess, the patroness of sexualpleasure and reproduction. According to the Bible story, the forbidden fruitcaused the couple’s conscious comprehension of sexuality. Upon eating thefruit, Adam and Eve became aware of the sexual nature of their own bodies,“And they knew that they were naked.” So it was that when the male deityfound them, they had modestly covered their genitals with aprons of figleaves.But it was vitally important to the construction of the Levite myth thatthey did not both decide to eat the forbidden fruit together, which wouldhave been a more logical turn for the tale to take since the fruit symbolizedsexual consciousness. No, the priestly scribes make it exceedingly clear thatthe woman Eve ate of the fruit first—upon the advice and counsel of theserpent.It can hardly have been chance or coincidence that it was a serpent whooffered Eve the advice. For people of that time knew that the serpent wasthe symbol, perhaps even the instrument, of divine counsel in the religion ofthe Goddess. It was surely intended in the Paradise myth, as in the Indo-European serpent and dragon myths, that the serpent, as the familiarcounselor of women, be seen as a source of evil and be placed in such amenacing and villainous role that to listen to the prophetesses of the femaledeity would be to violate the religion of the male deity in a most dangerousmanner.The relationship between the woman and the serpent is shown to be animportant factor, for the Old Testament related that the male deity spoke

directly to the serpent, saying, “I will put enmity between you and thewoman and between your seed and her seed.” In this way the oracularpriestesses, the prophetesses whose advice and counsel had been identifiedwith the symbolism and use of the serpent for several millenia, were now tobe regarded as the downfall of the whole human species. Woman, assagacious advisor or wise counselor, human interpreter of the divine will ofthe Goddess, was no longer to be respected, but to be hated, feared or atbest doubted or ignored. This demand for silence on the part of women,especially in the churches, is later reflected in the passages of Paul in theNew Testament. According to the Judaic and Christian theology, woman’sjudgment had led to disaster for the whole human species.We are told that, by eating the fruit first, woman possessed sexualconsciousness before man and in turn tempted man to partake of theforbidden fruit, that is, to join her sinfully in sexual pleasures. This imageof Eve as the sexually tempting but God-defying seductress was surelyintended as a warning to all Hebrew men to stay away from the sacredwomen of the temples, for if they succumbed to the temptations of thesewomen, they simultaneously accepted the female deity—Her fruit, Hersexuality and, perhaps most important, the resulting matrilineal identity forany children who might be conceived in this manner. It must also, perhapseven more pointedly, have been directed at Hebrew women, cautioningthem not to take part in the ancient religion and its sexual customs, as theyappear to have continued to do, despite the warnings and punishmentsmeted out by the Levite priests.The Hebrew creation myth, which blamed the female of the species forinitial sexual consciousness in order to suppress the worship of the Queenof Heaven, Her sacred women and matrilineal customs, from that time onassigned to women the role of sexual temptress. It cast her as the cunningand contriving arouser of the physical desires of men, she who offers theappealing but dangerous fruit. In the male religions, sexual drive was not tobe regarded as the natural biological desires of women and men thatencouraged the species to reproduce itself but was to be viewed as woman’sfault.Not only was the blame for having eaten the fruit of sexuality, and fortempting Adam to do the same, laid heavily upon women, but the proof oradmission of her guilt was supposedly made evident in the pain ofchildbirth, which women were assured was their eternal chastisement for

teaching men such bad habits. Eve was to be severely punished as the maledeity decreed: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain youshall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and heshall rule over you.”Making use of the natural occurrence of the pains of the pressure of ahuman child passing from the womb, through a narrow channel, into theoutside world, the Levite writer pretended to prove the omnipotent power ofhis deity. Not only was woman to bear the guilt for sexual consciousness,but according to the male deity her pain in bearing a child was to beregarded as punishment, so that all women giving birth would thus beforced to identify with Eve.But perhaps most significant was the fact that the story also stated that itwas the will of the male deity that Eve would henceforth desire only herhusband, redundantly reminding us that this whole fable was designed andpropagated to provide “divine” sanction for male supremacy and a malekinship system, possible only with a certain knowledge of paternity.We are perhaps all too familiar with the last line of the decree, whichannounced that from that time on, as a result of her sin and in eternalpayment for the defiant crime which she had committed against the maledeity, her husband was awarded the divine right to dominate her, to “ruleover” her, to totally assert his authority. And in guilt for what she hadsupposedly done in the very beginning of time, as if in confession of herpoor judgment, she was expected to submit obediently. We may considerhere the more practical reality that, once the economic security of womenhad been undermined by the institution of male kinship, women wereforced into the position of accepting this one stable male provider as the onewho “ruled the roost.”Once these edicts had been issued, the couple was expelled from theGarden of Eden, the original paradise where life had been so easy. Fromthat time on they were to labor for their livelihood, a most severe warningto any woman who might still have been tempted to defy the LeviteYahweh. For hadn’t it been just such a woman, listening to the advice of theserpent, eating the forbidden fruit, suggesting that men try it too and joinher in sexual consciousness, who had once caused the downfall and miseryof all humankind?

11 The Daughters of EveEven today Hebrew males are taught to offer the daily prayer, “Blessed ArtThou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me awoman.”Mohammed stated, “When Eve was created, Satan rejoiced.”As the Hebrew myth of the creation was later adopted into the sacredliterature of Christianity, along with all the other writings of the OldTestament, the writers and religious leaders who followed Christ assumedthe same pose of contempt for the female, continuing to use religion to lockwomen further into the role of passive and inferior beings, and thus themore easily controlled property of men. As the years went on and theposition and status of women continued to lose ground, the Church held fastto its goals of creating and maintaining a male-dominated society. Forhadn’t it been one of the first decrees of the god who made the world and alllife? Women were to be regarded as mindless, carnal creatures, bothattitudes justified and “proved” by the Paradise myth.In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we read, “Wives, submit yourselves untoyour own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of thewife even as Christ is the head of the Church and he is the savior of thebody. Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be totheir own husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:22–24).This brings to mind the quote from Hosea in which the husband so totallyidentified himself with the male deity that his words became the words ofYahweh. In the new religion not only the priests, but all men, were to beconsidered as direct messengers of the Lord, not merely in Church but inthe privacy of a woman’s kitchen or even in her bed.Using the now-familiar Eden myth, Paul asserted that this was the reasonthat women must be obedient, denying themselves even the faculty of theirvocal chords, not to mention their minds. We read in I Tim. 2:11–14, “Letthe woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to

teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adamwas first formed and then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the womanbeing deceived was in the transgression.”And in Corinthians the word of the creation legend was brought homeonce again. “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman isthe man; and the head of Christ is God. For a man indeed ought not to coverhis head for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman isthe glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman but the woman of theman. Neither was man created for the woman but the woman for the man”(I Cor. 11:3, 7, 9).Statements carefully designed to suppress the earlier social structurecontinually presented the myth of Adam and Eve as divine proof that manmust hold the ultimate authority. The status of the male deity was the statusof the male mortal, and it was surely no accident that the Levite priests ofYahweh had fought so bitterly for his position. So intent was Paul ondeclaring maleness to be first that he was willing to blind himself to thebiological truth of birth—“For the man is not of the woman but the womanof the man.” Woman bears the pain but man takes the credit.When the apostle Peter was in Anatolia, where the Goddess was stillrevered, he condemned the “pagans” for the “lust of defiling passion,”much like the prophets of the Old Testament, angrily deriding those who“reveled in the daytime.” He complained that these heathens still followedBaalim. Peter solemnly lectured, “Likewise ye wives, be in subjection toyour own husbands, for after this manner in the old time, the holy womenalso, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to theirown husbands” (I Pet. 3:1).St. Clement, father of the Roman Church, denied women—in the nameof the Lord—the pleasure and health and strength-building effects of suchphysical sports as wrestling and running, claiming that it was in greateraccord with the Bible that women’s activities be confined to spinning,weaving and cooking.St. John Chrysostom, a Christian teacher of the fifth century, warned,“The woman taught once and ruined everything. On this account … let hernot teach.”St. Augustine of the same period claimed that man, but not woman, wasmade in God’s image and woman therefore is not complete without man,while he is complete alone.

Taking his cue from these same biblical ideas, Martin Luther asserted inhis writings that it was quite natural for women to be secondary to men. Inhis “Vindication of Married Life” he wrote that men must continue tomaintain their power over women, since man is higher and better than she,“for the regiment and dominion belong to the man as the head and master ofthe house.”Sixteenth-century Swiss reformer John Calvin also spoke out againstpolitical equality for women, stating that it would be a “deviation from theoriginal and proper order of nature.” He even spoke favorably of polygamy,suggesting that it would help to keep women from being unwed andchildless.In 1527, in a treatise on the freedom of will, Christian theologian Hubmaierwrote:The reason that the fall of the soul is partially reparable, however, andnot fatal, even here on earth, but the fall of the flesh is to a certainextent irreparable and deadly, is that Adam as a type of the soul (as isEve, of the flesh) would have preferred not to eat of the forbidden tree.He was also not deceived by the serpent but Eve was (I Timothy 2:14).Adam knew very well that the words of the serpent were contrary tothe words of God. Yet he willed to eat the fruit against his ownconscience, so as not to vex or anger his rib, his flesh, Eve. He wouldhave preferred not to do it.Dr. Margaret Murray suggested in several of her books that witch huntsof the western world were actually a continuation of the suppression of theancient “pagan” religions. Since women were the primary target andvictims of those brutal massacres, and so many of the charges were in someway connected to sex, this is certainly a possibility. The Goddess Danu, theDivine Ancestress of the Tuatha de Danaan of Ireland, perhaps related tothe Goddess Diana of the Romans, Dione of the Greeks and even Danu ofIndia, may have been the basis of the worship labeled as the witch cult. Weknow that the worship of Isis was known in England during the Romanperiod; a Thames-side temple of Isis in London and an altar to Isis inChester both attest to the existence of Her religion in the British Isles at thattime.

Murray quoted a ninth-century statement concerning witches in whichDiana was mentioned as their leader. “Certain wicked women, reverting toSatan, and reduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe andprofess that they ride at night with Diana on certain beasts, with aninnumerable multitude of women, passing over immense distances, obeyingher commands as their mistress, and evoked by her on certain nights.”In A Cauldron of Witches, Clifford Alderman relates that the story of Evewas once again put to use, this time to justify the murder of the manywomen who defied the Church. In a sixteenth-century Church report weread, “Woman is more carnal than man: there was a defect in the formationof the first woman, since she was formed with a bent rib. She is imperfectand thus always deceives. Witchcraft comes from carnal lust. Women are tobe chaste and subservient to men.”Through the violent imposition and eventually forced acceptance of themale religions, women had finally been maneuvered into a role far removedfrom the ancient status they once held in the lands where the Queen ofHeaven reigned. Most alarming was the quality of the absolute in thedecrees credited to the omnipotent male deity. As time went on the long,powerful arm of the Church reached everywhere and with it came theunquestionable “moral” attitudes and the guilt-ridden, subservient roleassigned to women.Within the very structure of the contemporary male religions are the lawsand attitudes originally designed to annihilate the female religions, femalesexual autonomy and matrilineal descent. These are the precepts that manyof our own grandparents and parents accepted as the sacred and divine wordof God, making them such an inherent part of family life that they nowaffect even those of us who have lived far removed from the masses andsacraments of organized religions. It is surely time to examine and questionhow deeply these attitudes have been assimilated into even the most secularspheres of society today, insistently remaining as oppressive vestiges of aculture once thoroughly permeated and controlled by the word of theChurch.We may find ourselves wondering to what degree the suppression ofwomen’s rites has actually been the suppression of women’s rights.

THE COURAGEOUS CHALLENGE OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIESThe myth and the image of Eve penetrated far into that part of womenwhere her deepest feelings and ideas are stored, the presence of the story ofthe first woman in the Hebrew creation myth repeatedly rankling in thehearts, minds and spirits of women who resented being lorded over by men,despite the divine word of the omnipotent male deity.Many of the women who first dared to speak out about the ways in whichfemales were oppressed and the flagrant inequality of their position insociety still had to contend directly with the Bible story of the woman whohad listened to the word of the serpent and had initially brought about theproclamation of male rule. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thepower and influence of the Church was an even greater obstacle to the questfor female autonomy than it is today. Yet the pioneers of the struggle for theequality of women courageously spoke out against that power, defying theChurch and its teachings. The vindication of the rights of women was in asense a vindication of the woman Eve.Thoughts and memories of the unfair punishment of Eve stillsymbolically hovered over women who dared to demand equal rights. In thewriting of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792, the characters in the Garden ofEden once again became the topic of conversation. In one of the earliestattempts to expose the shameful treatment of half the people in the world, AVindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft wrote:Probably the prevailing opinion, that woman was created for man mayhave taken its rise from Moses’ poetical story; as very few it ispresumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the subject, eversupposed that Eve was, seriously speaking, one of Adam’s ribs, thededuction must be allowed to fall to the ground; or only be so faradmitted as it proves that man, from the remotest antiquity, found itconvenient to exert his strength to subjugate his companion, and hisinvention to show that she ought to have her neck bent under the yoke;because she as well as the brute creation was created to do hispleasure …

Bravely chancing accusations of atheism or even of being under theinfluence of “the devil,” still potentially dangerous charges in 1792, shecontinued by publicly stating, “… though the cry of irreligion, or evenatheism, be raised against me, I will simply declare, that were an angel fromheaven to tell me that Moses’ beautiful, poetical cosmogony, and theaccount of the fall of man, were literally true, I could not believe what myreason told me was derogatory to the character of the Supreme Being: and,having no fear of the devil before mine eyes, I venture to call this asuggestion of reason …”Also included in this same book was her critical analysis of Jean JacquesRousseau’s Emilius (Emile), the 1761 proposal for the education of childrenin a “free society.” This treatise, along with Rousseau’s Social Contract,played an extremely influential role in both the American and Frenchrevolutions. Along with many other male-oriented passages fromRousseau’s writings, she quoted his prescribed rules for the religiouseducations of females in that liberated Utopia of which he dreamed.Rousseau wrote:As the conduct of a woman is subservient to the public opinion, herfaith in matters of religion should, for that very reason, be subject toauthority. Every daughter ought to be of the same religion as hermother, and every wife to be of the same religion as her husband: for,though such religion should be false, that docility which induces themother and daughter to submit to the order of nature, takes away, inthe sight of God, the criminality of their error … they are not in acapacity to judge for themselves, they ought to abide by the decision oftheir fathers and husbands as confidently as that of the church.Mary Wollstonecraft commented, “The rights of humanity have been thusconfined to the male line from Adam downwards.”Though at the time of Rousseau’s writing the French and Americanrevolutions were yet to be fought, this man, who most ardently advocatedfreedom and independence and whose ideas deeply affected revolutionariesin both of these countries, proposed (presumably with clear conscience) thatwomen, even in a “free society,” should still “be subject to authority” and“abide by the decisions of their fathers and husbands,” especially in mattersof religion. A daughter was to follow her mother’s religion, but her

mother’s religious beliefs were to be determined by her mother’s husband.Other than in a family that had a long line of fatherless households, a ratherunlikely occurrence, women, supposedly devoid of the “capacity to judgefor themselves,” were to simply reflect the theological doctrines of men.Rousseau’s dramatic first line of his Social Contract, “Man is born free, yeteverywhere he is in chains,” a call for independence and freedom, still ringsin our ears, perhaps especially in 1976. Yet, according to this same author,the religious institutions and beliefs that insisted that the male dominationof the female was divinely ordained (religion being primarily Christian inFrance and the colonies of North America) were to continue to be acceptedby women without question.In 1838, sixty-two years after the American revolution, another staunchfighter, demanding equal rights for women, wrote once again of themythological mother of all Jewish and Christian women, as Eve’s sin andpunishment continued universally to explain the right of men to oppress andsubjugate women. Sarah Grimke, as if in a court of cosmic law, presentedthe argument that, even if the original account had been true, hadn’t womensurely served their time?Woman, I am aware, stands charged to the present day with havingbrought sin into the world. I shall not repel the charges by any counterassertions, although as was hinted, Adam’s ready acquiescence withhis wife’s proposal does not savour much of that superiority in strengthof mind that is arrogated by man. Even admitting that Eve was thegreater sinner, it seems to me that man might be satisfied with thedominion he has claimed and exercised for nearly six thousand years,and that more true nobility would be manifested by endeavouring toraise the fallen and invigorate the weak, than by keeping women insubjection. I ask no favours for my sex. I surrender not our claim toequality. All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet fromoff our necks.Lucy Komisar, former vice-president of the National Organization ofWomen (NOW) in America, in her informative study The New Feminism,described that early period of women’s struggle for liberation and theopposition. She explains that women first became aware of their ownproblems of oppression when they tried to speak out in favor of the

abolition of black slavery, relating that women’s attempt to take part inpolitics aroused the ire of the Church, the official representatives of theword of the male deity:When Sarah and Angelina Grimke toured New England to speakagainst slavery in 1836 the Council of Congregational Ministers ofMassachusetts issued a statement attacking them and pointing out that,“The power of a woman is her dependency flowing from theconsciousness of that weakness which God has given her for herprotection … when she assumes the place and tone of man as a publicreformer, she yields the power which God has given her for herprotection and her character becomes unnatural.”But Sarah Grimke was not afraid to fight back, even in times when theChurch had not long before emerged from its practice of burning women atthe stake for much less. In angry retort she explained the advantage of themale religions—for men—and the disadvantages for women by answering,“As they have determined that Jehovah has placed women on a lowerplatform than man, they of course wish to keep her there; and henceforththe noble faculties of our minds are crushed and the noble reasoning powersare almost wholly uncultivated.”Several women concerned with the abolition of slavery planned to attendan international conference in London that had been arranged to discuss theproblem, only to find that a group of American clergymen had taken it uponthemselves to precede them to London to warn the English clergymen thatthey were coming and even intended to speak. This set off a lengthy debateamong the men about the admission of women, which resulted in thedecision that the women who attended would be allowed to be present—butonly if they sat silently behind a curtained enclosure.It was the shock of this decision that eventually brought about the firstwomen’s rights conference at Seneca Falls, New York. At that meeting, in1848, a Women’s Declaration of Independence was drawn up, and onceagain women spoke out against the lowly position that the Church hadassigned them. Into that Declaration, some fifteen centuries after the majorobliteration of the worship of the Queen of Heaven and Her priestesses, itwas written: “He [man] allows her in Church, as well as State, but in asubordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from

the Ministry and with some exceptions, from any public participation in theaffairs of the Church … He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself,claiming as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongsto her conscience and her god.”Just as Hosea had once spoken as Jehovah himself, many men of 1848,making use of the authority of those same ideas, still identified themselveswith the male deity, and through this authority decided, proclaimed andenforced their decisions upon women, self-righteously informing them whatthey might and might not do. The Bible was brought out over and overagain to “prove” that their position was beyond question.In 1848, feminist Emily Collins told of a man who habitually whippedhis wife, the hard-working mother of his seven children. Not only did thiswoman care for all the children and her husband as well, but she milked thecows, spun and wove the cloth for all the family’s clothing which she thensewed, and did all the cooking, cleaning, washing and mending for theentire brood. According to the husband, her crime was that she “scolded,”that is, nagged, in other words spoke up and said what was on her mind.And this was accepted as reason enough for a Christian man to beat hiswife. Emily Collins asked with a bitter and angry sarcasm: “And pray whyshould he not have chastised her? The laws made it his privilege—and theBible, as interpreted, made it his duty. It is true, women repined at theirhard lot; but it was thought to be fixed by a divine decree for ‘The manshall rule over thee’ and ‘Wives submit yourselves unto your husbands asunto the Lord,’ caused them to consider their fate inevitable.”Male domination and control were once again justified by those ancientwords. The early feminists went so far as to compile their writings in a booktitled The Woman’s Bible, in which Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, “It israther remarkable that young Hebrews should be told to honour theirmothers when the whole drift of the teaching thus far has been to throwcontempt on the whole sex. In what way could they show their mothershonour? All the laws and customs forbid it.”Religion, as it was known in the western world in the nineteenth century,was male religion. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, though they may havediffered about what sacrament to take when or which day was actually theSabbath, were in complete agreement on one subject—the status of women.Females were to be regarded as inferior creatures who were divinelyintended to be obedient and silent vessels for the production of children and

the pleasure and convenience of men. These attitudes not only thrived in theChurch but found their way past those great arched doorways to installthemselves in a more personal way into the thoughts, feelings and values ofevery Jewish, Christian or Mohammedan family.In The Victorian Woman, Duncan Crow describes some of the laws ofthat time and their effects upon women. He explains that until 1857 awoman could not sue for divorce (except by an Act of Parliament, whichwas generally reserved for the aristocracy); that until 1881 the legal right ofa husband using physical force to restrain his wife from leaving home hadnever been questioned; and that until 1884 a wife could be imprisoned fordenying her husband “conjugal rights.” He writes that, along with theselaws, “The Christian religion, too, was a powerful force in proclaiming andmaintaining women’s inferior position. On its Judaic inheritance it haderected the myth that women’s subordinate place was a punishment for theoriginal sin of Eve. It worshipped the words of Paul that ‘man is not of thewoman but the woman of the man.’ ” Crow observes that during theVictorian period men and women were not only expected to attend churchevery Sunday but that Bible readings in the home, organized prayermeetings, listening to and reading sermons and very strict observance of theSabbath were quite typical in many homes, and adds that “… theimportance of religion can hardly be overstressed.”In 1876, when Annie Besant defended a pamphlet on the use ofcontraception, she met great resistance from the government and theChurch. Her biographer, Arthur Nethercot, explaining the situation at thattime, writes, “Physical preventives at any time were regarded as against thewill of God; few people seemed to see any inconsistency betweeninterfering with the course of nature by preventing or curing disease, orbuilding houses against the elements, and yet refusing to interfere with theprocess of procreation.” The courageous Annie Besant also wrote on thelaws concerning the custody of children, suggesting that many of theattitudes of the times were not far from the Hebrew attitudes “when womanwas still regarded as a chattel.” Crusading against the power of theChristian Church, from the point of view of secularism as well as feminism,she gave a great many speeches throughout England and wrote numerousarticles and pamphlets including one titled Woman’s Position According tothe Bible, exposing herself to a great deal of antagonism and resentment, attimes expressed by threats of physical violence.

In the collection of articles and quotes entitled Voices From Women’sLiberation, many excerpts of the speeches and writings of the earlywomen’s movement appear, many of which are found in a little-knownbook called The History of Woman Suffrage, published in 1881. Oneexcerpt of a speech given in 1853 by a woman named Abby Foster claimedthat the education and molding of young minds at that time were deeplyinfluenced by the Church. Much of this, she claimed, was done through thepower that the Church held over the mother, for in the long run it was theteachings and attitudes of the Church that the child received. She pointedout: “You may tell me that it is a woman who forms the mind of a child, butI charge it back again, that it is the minister, who forms the mind of thewoman. It is he who makes the mother what she is, therefore her teachingof the child is only conveying the instructions of the pulpit at second hand.”Despite the accusations, men of the organized Church had no intention ofre-examining or revising the lowly position that they had allotted to women.Clergymen continued to hold that males, according to the divine ancientword, were meant to rule over females, who were by nature spiritually weakand mentally somewhat deficient. So it was that in 1860, after some seventyyears of continuous accusations against the Church’s position on women,Susan B. Anthony was prompted to comment: “By law, public sentimentand religion, from the time of Moses down to the present day, woman hasnever been thought of as other than a piece of property, to be disposed of atthe will and pleasure of man.”

LOOKING BACK TO LOOK AHEAD—PARADISE IN PERSPECTIVEAs the struggle to obtain equal rights for women continued to gather force,the Church continued to exercise its power and influence with great zeal,carefully protecting the cherished and holy concept of male supremacy.Despite the arrogance of male comments, which were often little more thanapparent admissions of the discomfort of the ruling class in fear of beingdeposed, scantily clad in what they tried to pass off as easy jest or humor,the antagonism at times broke out as vicious physical violence when thehumor failed to work. Komisar explains that “the clergy were often in theforefront of the fight against suffrage, dredging up quotations from theBible to prove that the natural order of things was female obedience toman.”Though women did eventually gain the right to vote, actually only a partof their initial overall goals, they found themselves with this incrediblyhard-won vote still living in a totally male-controlled society in whichwomen had been well conditioned to believe that the male creator hadindeed actually made men wiser than women: women were now free to vote—for men.Those in political control often spoke of State and God in one breath. Theword of the Church was still powerful, and centuries of violence in thename of religion, fanatic and terrifying crusades, inquisitions andwitchhunts hovered in threatening memory for any who dared to defy theauthority of the Church.Fear and terror had forced the precepts of the male religions into allaspects of society. And the institution that had so persistently annihilatedthe worship of the Queen of Heaven now offered in Her stead the guilty,sinful, painful, obedient role of Eve. Pat Whiting in The Body Politic, arecent collection of writings from the current women’s liberation movementin Britain, observes that “our culture is impregnated with the mythology ofthe ancient Hebrews. The original sin of Eve is still with us.” BarbaraCartland, in her study of women in today’s society, refers to woman as “theeternal Eve.” And the name chosen for an English magazine concerned withthe position of women in contemporary society, is titled, with a humoroussarcasm, Spare Rib.

For thousands of years male supremacy has been suggested, declared,proven, explained, announced, proclaimed, affirmed, confirmed, andreaffirmed by the Bible and by those who believe in the Bible as the sacredword of the creator.As recently as 1965, Cartland commented on the ego-building, headyeffects of the Paradise story—for the male:In the concise record in the book of Genesis man can gain greatsatisfaction in learning that he is indeed, as of course he alwaysthought, the most splendid of all God’s creatures … It is comfortingtoo, it leaves man in no doubt about the exclusive, solitary position ofsupreme perfection that he has in the world … Over nine-tenths of theworld, the basis of the Genesis story, with its condemnation of thewickedness of woman, has found an echo in the hearts of men.Simone de Beauvoir, in her classic study of the oppression of women,The Second Sex, pointed out with a sensitive sarcasm the convenience of themale religion—for males. According to de Beauvoir, “Man enjoys the greatadvantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since manexercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate thatthis authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews,Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by divine right,the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards revolt in thedowntrodden female.”Eva Figes, in Patriarchal Attitudes, reported the not-too-surprisingreaction of an English archbishop in 1968, who observed with a blunthonesty, as he commented upon the ordination of women in the clergy ofthe English church, “If the church be thrown open to women, it will be thedeath knell of the appeal of the Church for men.”An Episcopalian bishop in San Francisco, when faced with the questionof the ordination of women in the Church in 1971, gave the answer withwhich this book begins: “The sexuality of Christ is no accident nor is hismasculinity incidental. This is the divine choice.”Komisar listed a series of events that have taken place since the women’smovement has been gathering momentum in recent times, events thatexhibit a serious questioning of the attitudes of the Church toward women.She included accounts of Catholic sisters who have openly accused the

Church of being a male church, stating that it places women in much thesame category as children, whom it then places in the same category asimbeciles.The Church may have weakened in its effects upon individuals andcommunities, especially for those who live in large cities, where there isless community life or community pressure. Yet within the Church theemphasis upon male supremacy continues to exist. It is written into the verycanons and sacred literature upon which the male religions were built. AsEva Figes so aptly comments, “The church may be dying on its feet, but itwill cling to the last to the male exclusiveness which was its raison d’être inthe first place.”Yet the memory of the ancient female religion—the Queen of Heaven,the priestesses, the sacred sexual customs—still lingers on in the memory ofsome of the men who control the Church even today. In The Times(London) on 23 May 1973, an article appeared, headed “Priestesses, a shiftto pagan creeds.” Once again the ordination of women in the male-controlled church set off the reaction. According to The Times religiousaffairs correspondent:A warning that the admission of women to the priesthood in theChurch of England would be a subtle shift towards the old paganreligions was given by the Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Mortimer, to theconvocation of Canturbury yesterday.In the old nature religions, he declared, priestesses were common—“and we all know the kinds of religions they were and are.” Thechurch has too often adapted to changing conditions in the past, andhad to be doubly careful “in a sex obsessed culture.”Whatever the condition of the Church at this point in history, we cannotafford to ignore or dismiss lightly the far-reaching effects that centuries ofChurch power continue to have on each of us today, no matter how farremoved we may be from the actual pulpit or altar. It is the rare family thatcan trace back beyond two or three generations and not find that theirpredecessors were deeply immersed in the attitudes and values of one of themale-oriented religions. It is for this reason that religious pressures are notas far from us as we might prefer to think.

For within the very structure of family life, in families that do or didembrace the male religions, are the almost invisibly accepted social customsand life patterns that reflect the one-time strict adherence to the biblicalscriptures. Attitudes toward double-standard premarital virginity, double-standard marital fidelity, the sexual autonomy of women, illegitimacy,abortion, contraception, rape, childbirth, the importance of marriage andchildren to women, the responsibilities and role of women in marriage,women as sex objects, the sexual identification of passivity andaggressiveness, the roles of women and men in work or social situations,women who express their ideas, female leadership, the intellectual activitiesof women, the economic activities and needs of women and the automaticassumption of the male as breadwinner and protector have all become sodeeply ingrained that feelings and values concerning these subjects areoften regarded, by both women and men, as natural tendencies or evenhuman instinct.Biblical attitudes may no longer be justified to many contemporarywomen or men as being vital or absolute because the Lord has decreed thatthey were so, but centuries of having followed these religiously basedprecepts have provided the next argument—people have “always” acceptedthem as right; therefore they must be the natural, normal way of being.The knowledge of the early female religions, so often revealing humanbehavior and attitudes that were the very antithesis of these so-called“natural” human tendencies, and which, as we have seen, were actually theunderlying cause of so many of these later religious reactions and attitudes,rests almost totally forgotten or misunderstood. The accidental orintentional censorship in general education and popular literature denies thevery reality of their importance or even their existence.As recently as 1971, one extremely knowledgeable and educated womanbegan a book on the political struggles of women today by covering theancient female religion in three lines. She wrote that pagan religionsoriginally worshiped women, but that in an era we know little about, godsreplaced goddesses and male supremacy in religion was established.Another recent book on the status of women in history starts with Greece,the introduction vaguely hinting that the culture of Crete was the only majorsociety to precede Greece, and that almost nothing is known of Crete or anyof the other early cultures.

A woman anthropology professor from a well-known university in theUnited States assured a group of women at a women’s studies conference in1971 that all goddesses were simply obese, naked fertility figures,developed and worshiped by men.It is time to bring the facts about the early female religions to light. Theyhave been hidden away too long. With these facts we will be able tounderstand the earliest development of Judaism, Christianity and Islam andtheir reactions to the female religions and customs that preceded them. Withthese facts we will be able to understand how these reactions led to thepolitical attitudes and historical events that occurred as these male-orientedreligions were forming—attitudes and events that played such a major partin formulating the image of women during and since those times. Withthese facts we will be able to clear away the centuries of confusion,misunderstanding and suppression of information, so that we may gain thevantage point necessary for examining the image, status and roles stillassigned to women today. With these facts we will gain the historical andpolitical perspective that will enable us to refute the ideas of “natural ordivinely ordained roles,” finally opening the way for a more realisticrecognition of the capabilities and potential of children and adults, whetherfemale or male, as individual human beings. When the ancient sources ofthe gender stereotyping of today are better understood, the myth of theGarden of Eden will no longer be able to haunt us.Killing off a defiant consort was not the answer, any more than silencingand debilitating women economically has been. Perhaps when women andmen bite that apple—or fig—at the same time, learn to consider eachother’s ideas and opinions with respect, and regard the world and its richesas a place that belongs to every living being on it, we can begin to say wehave become a truly civilized species.

Date ChartsIt is important to remember that these dates are continually being revisedas new evidence is discovered and that even with the present evidencearchaeologists differ in assigning these dates. The dates are given here toprovide a general idea of the various periods in each location, and theyshould be understood to be approximate rather than definitive.

GRAVETTIAN-AURIGNACIAN(Upper Paleolithic sites) 25,000–15,000 BC

CANAANEarly Bronze Age 3000–2000 BCMiddle Bronze Age 2000–1600 BCLate Bronze Age 1600–1200 BCEarly Iron Age I 1200–900 BCEarly Iron Age II 900–600 BCEarly Iron Age III 600–300 BCBiblical Figures in CanaanAbraham sometime between 1800 and 1550 BCMoses and Aaron 1300–1250 BCSaul 1020–1000 BC (Samuel slightly earlier)David 1000–960 BCSolomon 960–922 BCHosea 735 BCEzekiel 620 BCJeremiah 600 BC JUDAH (capital, Jerusalem)Rehoboam 922–915 BCAbijam 915–913 BCAsa 913–873 BCJehosophat 873–849 BCJehoram 849–842 BCAhaziah 842 BCAthaliah 842–837 BCHezekiah 715–687 BCFall of Jerusalem 586 BC (first conquered by Babylon, then Cyrus of Persia[Iran]) ISRAEL (capital, Samaria)

Jeroboam 922–901 BCZimri 876 BCOmri 876–869 BCJezebel and Ahab 869–850 BCAhaziah 850–849 BCJoram 849–842 BCJehu 842–815 BCFrom Joahaz to Hoshea 815–724 BCFall of Samaria 722 BC (conquered by Sargon of Assyria)

MESOPOTAMIAJarmo 6800 BCHassuna Period 5500 BCHalaf Period 5000 BCUbaid Period 4000–3500 BCUruk Period 3500–3200 BCJemdet Nasr Period 3200–2850 BCEarly Dynastic Period in Sumer 2850–2400 BCAgade Dynasty (Sargon) 2370–2320 BCGuti invasion 2250–2100 BCIII Dynasty of Ur (including Ur Nammu, Shulgi, Bur Sin, Shu Sin, Ibbi Sin)2060–1950 BCIsin Dynasty of Sumer 2000–1800 BCLarsa Dynasty of Sumer 2000–1800 BCI Dynasty of Babylon 1830–1600 BC (under Kassite control by 1600 BC)Hammurabi 1792–1750 BCBabylonia 1830–540 BCAssyria 1900–600 BC (under Human control 1500–1300 BC)

EGYPTNeolithic (Badarian, Amratian, Gerzean) 4000–3000 BCI-V Dynasties 2900–2300 BCVI-X Dynasties 2300–2000 BCXI-XVI Dynasties 2000–1600 BCXVII Dynasty 1600–1570 BC (Kamosis)XVIII Dynasty 1570–1304 BC (Amosis, Amenophis I, Tutmosis I, TutmosisII, Tutmosis III, Hatshepsut, Amenophis II, Tutmosis IV, Amenophis III,Amenophis IV (Ikhnaton), Semenkhere, Tutenkhamun, Ay, Haremhab)XIX Dynasty 1304–1200 BC (Rameses I, Seti I, Rameses II, Merneptah)XX Dynasty 1200–1065 BC (Rameses III, Rameses IV, Rameses XI)XXII Dynasty 935–769 BCXXIII-XXVII Dynasties 760–525 BCXXVIII-XXX Dynasties 431–404 BC

ANATOLIA (Turkey)Catal Hüyük 6500–5000 BCHacilar 6000–5000 BCEarly Bronze Age 3000–2000 BC(Alaca Hüyük 2500–2300 BC)Middle Bronze Age 2000–1700 BCLate Bronze Age 1700–1200 BC The Hittite Kings in AnatoliaPitkhanas and Anittas early twentieth century BCLabarnas 1700 BCHattusilis I 1650 BCMursilis I 1620 BCShuppiliuma 1375–1306 BC

CRETENeolithic Age 5000–3000 BCEarly Minoan 2900–2000 BCMiddle Minoan 2000–1500 BCLate Minoan 1500–1350 BCMycenaeans 1350–1100 BCDorians invade Crete 1100 BC550–525 BC Iranians (Persians) under Cyrus conquered most ofMesopotamia, Anatolia, Canaan, Northern Egypt and Northwestern Greece.By about 330 BC the Greeks (under Alexander) had conquered most of theterritories that had been under Persian control.

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