Let Their Spirits Dance by Stella Pope Duarte Read Free Book Online Page B

said. Sometimes Don Florencío threw sacred meal into the campfire, making purple-orange sparks appear that sputtered and danced before our eyes. And we danced too, Jesse and I, although we didn’t know actual Indian dances. Still, we jumped around the campfire while Don Florencío played his wooden flute. We were powerful, we were the visions people have in the night of ghosts and nahuals who throw their spirits into animals and walk in the woods at midnight.
    Don Florencío believed in Aztlán. He told us the history of Aztlán while he tended his small campfire in the evenings and smoked his ironwood pipe. We sat on burlap mats. Don Florencío’s legs were sturdy stumps under him. He sat stiffly on an old wooden chair with a seat made of straw, held together with twine. He lit his ironwood pipe and began.
    â€œIt was like this, mijos, oh, so many years ago, I can’t even think that far, but God knows. Our people were living peacefully in seven caves in Aztlán, somewhere north of Mexico. The Aztec they were called, the Heron people. Later, they became the Sun People. There was war among them, mijos, one god against another, but more than that, it was evil men trying to gain control of the tribe, frightening the people into slavery. Quetzalcoatl was cast out by the god of war, Huitzilopochtli. The priests of Huitzilopochtli were madmen who spoke for the god. They wrapped his body like a mummy and told the people they were now the voice of the god. What stupidity! The people might have questioned why they had to leave their beautiful homeland, but the priests by then had gained power over them. Go south, they told the people, south, until you see the sign, an eagle perched on a cactus, with a serpent in its beak, there build your city. Can you imagine how far they must have traveled? Pobre la gente de razon, with little food, huddling like sheep, listening to their god. When they saw an eagle sitting on a cactus with a serpent in its beak, they knew it was the place to build their city. This happened in the year 2-House. In our time, it was 1325. They named the city Tenochtitlán, and today we call it la capital de Mejico. Later the Mexicas tried finding Aztlán again and to this day they are still in search of it.
    â€œIt was at that time that Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of peace, Sky Serpent also called Ce Acatl Topiltzin, Our Lord I-Reed, was tricked by evil deities into committing incest, a terrible thing, and finally fled the shores of Mexico vowing to come back. In 1519, when Cortés arrivedon the shores of Yucatán, the Aztec emperor Moctezuma believed him to be Quetzalcoatl, the fair-skinned god who would return to take over his empire. Do you realize what that meant, mijos? Moctezuma thought Cortés was a god! If they had only seen clearly, ay, mi gente, they would have seen that he was a demon instead!
    â€œIt was time for the empire to be destroyed anyway, mijos. Huitzilopochtli was bloodthirsty. He consumed human hearts. Many of my ancestors had already fled the capital and settled in the mountains, joining other Indian tribes. Later, centuries later, I left to cross the border myself and search for Aztlán.”
    â€œDid you find it?” I asked him.
    â€œFind what?” he asked, as if he had just forgotten what he had said.
    â€œAztlán!”
    â€œNo, mija, I’m still searching for it. Maybe you and Jesse will be the ones to find it, you’re Mexicas, too. And look,” he said, pointing to Jesse, “Your brother has an Ixpetz, a polished eye, that can see through the nature of things and find their true meaning. In the old world, he would be celebrated for his bravery and fearlessness.”
    Jesse pounded his chest, “Aii! Aii! Does that sound like a warrior? What do you think?”
    â€œGood try,” I said.
    Don Florencío said he knew this about Jesse, because he had seen the spirit of a warrior rise in the fire when he fed