Catalina and I, using sign language and words in Quechua, went out to trade in the surrounding areas. From those trips we brought back fowl and guanacos, llama-like animals that give fine wool, in exchange for fripperies I pulled from the bottom of my trunks, or for our services as healers. We had good hands for setting broken bones, cauterizing wounds, and helping as midwives; those talents served us well. In the natives’ settlements we met two machis, or female healers, who exchanged herbs and enchantments with Catalina, and who taught us both the properties of Chilean plants that did not grow in Peru.
The rest of the “physicians” in the valley were witch doctors who would wave their hands and make a lot of noise, and then “extract” small reptiles and saurians from the bellies of the ill. They offered minor sacrifices and terrified their patients with their pantomimes, a method that sometimes gave excellent results, as I myself witnessed. Catalina, who had worked in Cuzco with one of these camascas, “operated” on Don Benito when all else had failed. Discreetly, helped by a pair of secretive Indian girls from Cecilia’s retinue, we carried the old man to the woods, where Catalina conducted the ceremony. We stupefied the man with a potion of herbs, smothered him with smoke, and proceeded to knead the wound in his thigh, which had not closed well. For the rest of his life, Don Benito would tell anyone who would listen how, with his own eyes, he saw the lizards and snakes that had poisoned his leg pulled from his wound, and how afterward it healed completely. He was lame, it is true, but he did not die of gangrene, as we had feared he would. I did not think it necessary to explain to him that Catalina had the dead reptiles hidden up her sleeves. “If you can cure with magic, you keep on doing it,” said Cecilia.
For her part, this princess who served as our bridge between the Quechua culture and our own established an information network through her serving girls. She even went to visit the curaca Vitacura, who fell to his knees and touched his forehead to the ground when he learned that she was the younger sister of the Inca Atahualpa. Cecilia discovered that things were very turbulent in Peru; there were even rumors that Pizarro had died. I hastened to inform Pedro, in the greatest secrecy.
“How do you know that’s true, Inés?”
“That’s what the chasquis report. I cannot be sure that it’s true, but wouldn’t it be best to take some precautions?”
“Fortunately, we are a long way from Peru.”
“Yes, but what happens to your title if Pizarro dies? You are his lieutenant.”
“If Pizarro dies, I am sure that Sancho de la Hoz and others of like mind will again question my legitimacy.”
“It would be different if you were gobernador, wouldn’t it?” I suggested.
“But I am not, Inés.”
The thought hung in the air, since Pedro knew very well that I would not be content to leave things there. I took advantage of my friendship with Rodrigo de Quiroga and Juan Gómez and asked them to circulate the idea that Valdivia should be named gobernador. After a few days, that was all that was being talked about in Santiago, exactly as I had calculated. That was the situation when the first winter rains were unleashed; the Mapocho rose, overflowed its banks, and our infant city was turned into a mud pit—but that did not prevent the town council from meeting, with great solemnity, in one of the more substantial huts. The mud came up to the ankles of the captains who met and proclaimed Valdivia gobernador. When they came to our house to announce the decision, he seemed so surprised that I was frightened. Perhaps I had overplayed my hand in my desire to read his thoughts.
“Caballeros, I am deeply moved by this show of confidence, but I fear that this resolution is premature. We are not sure whether or not the Marqués Pizarro, to whom I owe so much, is dead. I do not wish to overstep his authority in any way. I am truly sorry, my good friends, but I cannot accept the high honor you have bestowed upon me.”
As soon as the captains had left, Pedro explained to me that his refusal was an astute move to protect himself. Now no one could accuse him of having betrayed the marqués, and besides, he was sure that his friends would be back with their request. And in fact, the members of the council did return with a petition written and signed by all the townspeople of Santiago. Their argument was that we were a very long way from Peru, and still farther from Spain; we were isolated at the end of the world, with no communication, and for that reason they were imploring Valdivia to be our gobernador. Whether Pizarro was dead or not, they wanted Valdivia to serve in that capacity. They had to insist three times, until finally I put the bug in Pedro’s ear that there had been enough pleading; his friends might become frustrated and name someone else. I had learned from Cecilia’s servants that there were several honorable captains who would be happy to accept that charge. With that, Valdivia deigned to accept. Since the entire settlement had asked, he could not refuse; the voice of the people is the voice of God; he humbly accepted the will of the community that he serve his majesty in a higher capacity; and on and on. He accepted the pertinent document, which he put in safekeeping against any future accusation, and that was how he was named the first gobernador of Chile: by popular decision, and not royal appointment.
Valdivia designated Monroy to be his lieutenant, and I was elevated to the role of Gobernadora, written that way, with a capital G, and that is the position the people have given me for forty years. In practical terms, more than an honor, it has been a serious responsibility. I became mother to our small community; I had to look out for the well-being of each of its inhabitants, from Pedro de Valdivia down to the last hen in the henhouse. There was no rest for me. I spent my life tending to everyday details: food, clothing, planting, animals. Fortunately, I have never needed more than three or four hours of sleep, so that I had more time than others to do my work. I made it a point to know each soldier and each Yanacona by name, and I taught them that my door was always open to receive them and listen to their troubles. I kept an eye trained to see that there were no unjust or excessive punishments, especially in the case of the Indians. Pedro trusted my good judgment, and usually heard me out before deciding on a sentence. I believe that by that time most of the soldiers had forgiven me for the tragic episode of Escobar, and had come to respect me. I had healed many of their wounds and fevers; I had fed them at a communal table; and I had helped make their dwellings comfortable.
The news that Pizarro had died turned out not to be true, but it was prophetic. At that moment Peru was calm, but a month later a small group of the Chilean rotos, that is, former soldiers in Almagro’s expedition, burst into the palace of the marqués gobernador and stabbed him to death. A pair of servants rushed to his defense, as his courtiers and sentinels fled through the balconies. The inhabitants of Ciudad de los Reyes did not lament what had happened; they were fed up with the excesses of the Pizarro brothers, and in less than two hours the marqués gobernador was replaced by the son of Diego de Almagro, an inexperienced youth who only the day before did not have a maravedí to buy food, and the next morning was master of a fabled empire. When the news was confirmed in Chile, months later, Valdivia was already secure in his post as gobernador.
“In truth, Inés, you are a witch,” Pedro murmured, frightened, when he learned.
The hostility of the valley Indians was evident all through the winter months. Pedro gave the order that no one should leave the city without a justifiable cause and without protection. That ended my visits to the machis and the markets, but I think that Catalina kept in touch with the outlying villages, because her stealthy nocturnal disappearances continued. Cecilia learned that Michimalonko was preparing an attack, and that as an incentive to his warriors he was offering the horses and women of Santiago. His forces were swelling, and already he had six toquis, with their men, camped in one of his strongholds, or pukaras, waiting for a propitious moment to start the war.
Valdivia listened to the details from Cecilia’s lips, conferred with his captains, and decided to take the initiative. He left behind the major portion of his soldiers to protect Santia
go and set out with Alderete, Quiroga, and a detachment of his best men to engage Michimalonko on his own ground. The pukara was a construction of clay, stone, and wood encircled with a stockade of tree trunks. It gave the impression of having been hastily raised, as temporary protection. In addition, it had been erected in a vulnerable location and was badly defended, so that the Spanish soldiers encountered no great difficulty in approaching by night and setting fire to it. They waited as the warriors ran out, choking on the smoke, and massacred an impressive number of them. The rout of the natives was swift, and our men captured several caciques, among them Michimalonko himself. We saw them as they were led back to camp, on foot, tied to the captains’ saddles, bruised and disgruntled, but proud. They ran alongside the horses without any signs of fear or weariness. They were short in stature but muscular, with delicate hands and feet, husky shoulders and limbs, and large chests. They wore their long black hair braided with strips of cloth, and their faces were painted yellow and blue. I knew that the toqui Michimalonko was more than seventy years old, but it was difficult to believe; he had all his teeth and he was as spirited as a boy. The Mapuche who do not die in accidents or war can live in splendid condition until well past a hundred. They are strong, courageous, and bold, and they can endure mortal cold, hunger, and heat. The gobernador issued an order to leave the toquis chained in the hut built as a prison; his captains planned to torture them to find if the curaca Vitacura had lied and that there were in fact gold mines in the area.
“Cecilia says that it is futile to torture the Mapuche, you will never make them talk. The Incas tried many times, but not even the women or the children break under torture,” I explained to Pedro that night as he was removing his armor and bloodstained clothing.
“Then the toquis can be used as hostages.”
“They tell me that Michimalonko is very proud.”
“Little good that does him, now that he is in chains,” he replied.
“If you cannot force him to talk, perhaps his vanity will loosen his tongue,” I suggested. “You know how some men are.”
By the next morning, Pedro had decided to interrogate the toqui Michimalonko in a rather unusual way, so unusual that none of his captains could understand what the devil he was doing. He began by ordering a guard to remove Michimalonko’s chains, and then that he be taken to a hut a good distance from the other captives. There three of my most beautiful Indian serving girls bathed him and dressed him in clean clothing, after which they served him a fine meal and as much muday as he wished to drink. Valdivia had the toqui brought to him under escort of an honor guard, and received him in the office of the banner-lined town council, surrounded by his captains in gleaming armor and bright plumes. I was there in my amethyst velvet dress, the only one I had—the others having been strewn along the road from the north. Michimalonko gave me an appreciative glance, but I was not sure whether he recognized the ferocious woman who had confronted him with a sword.
Two chairs had been placed in positions of equal honor, one for Valdivia and the other for the toqui. We had the services of a tongue, but we knew that Mapudungu cannot really be translated because it is a poetic language created as it is spoken; words change, flow, combine, separate. It is pure movement, and cannot be written. If one tries to translate it word for word, no meaning emerges. At the most, the tongue can transmit a general idea of what is spoken. With the greatest respect and solemnity, Valdivia manifested his admiration for the courage of Michimalonko and his warriors. The toqui replied with similar courtesies, and so, flattery returned with flattery, Valdivia led the Indian along the path of negotiation as his perplexed captains looked on. The old man was proud to be speaking person to person with this mighty captain, one of the bearded ones who had defeated no less a power than the Inca empire. Soon he began to boast of his position, his lineage, his traditions, the number of his warriors, and his women—more than twenty, though there was room for more, including a Spanish chiñura. Valdivia told Michimalonko that Atahualpa had filled a room to the ceiling with gold to pay his ransom. The more important the hostage, he added, the higher the ransom. Michimalonko sat thinking for a while, wondering, I imagine, why the huincas had such a craving for that metal that had brought his people nothing but trouble. For years they had had to give their gold to the Inca as tribute. But now it suddenly was good for something: to pay his own ransom. If Atahualpa had filled a room with gold, he could do no less. He stood, straight and tall as a tower, beat his chest with his fists, and announced in a strong voice that in exchange for his liberty he was prepared to hand over the only mine in the region to the huincas, the Marga-Marga. And in addition, he offered fifteen hundred people to work it
Gold! There was jubilation in the city. At last the adventure of conquering Chile had meaning for the men. Pedro de Valdivia set out with a well-armed detachment, Michimalonko at his side on a handsome sorrel steed, Valdivia’s gift to the Indian. It was pouring rain; they were soaked and shivering but in very good spirits, while in Santiago we were listening to the howls of fury from toquis still chained to their posts, and worse, betrayed by Michimalonko. From the forest, the long cane trutruca flutes answered the chiefs’ Mapudungu curses.
A proud, boastful Michimalonko led the huincas through the hills to the mouth of a river near the coast, some thirty leagues from Santiago, and from there to the stream with the beds of gold his people had worked for many years to satisfy the greed of the Inca. As he had agreed, he put fifteen hundred souls at Valdivia’s disposition, more than half of whom turned out to be women, though that was little cause for complaint since it was women who did the work among these Chilean Indians. A man’s role was to make speeches and perform tasks that required muscle, such as war, swimming, and playing their ball games. The men Michimalonko had assigned were less than useful; they did not think it was worthy of a warrior to spend his day in the water washing sand through a small basket, but Valdivia expected that the blacks and their whips would make them more industrious.
Now that I have lived many years in Chile, I know that it is pointless to enslave a Mapuche; he dies or he escapes. They are not vassals, nor do they understand the concept of labor. They understand even less the reasons for washing gold from the river, only to turn around and give it to the huincas. They live from fish, game, some fruits, and nuts such as the piñon, their maize, and domestic animals. Their only possessions are what they can carry with them. What reason would they have to submit to the whip of the work bosses? Fear? They don’t know what fear is. They value courage above all else, then the justness of reciprocity: you give to me, I give to you. They do not have prisons, constables, or any law other than natural laws. Punishment also follows natural law; the person who does something wrong runs the risk of having the wrong returned. That is how it is in nature, and it can be no different among humans. They have been at war with us for forty years, and have learned to torture, steal, lie, and cheat, but I have been told that with one another they live in peace. The women maintain a network of relations that unite the clans, even those separated by hundreds of leagues. Before our war, they made frequent visits among themselves, and as the journeys were long, each stay lasted weeks and served to strengthen bonds and their common language, Mapudungu; it was a time to tell stories, dance, drink, and arrange new marriages. Once a year the tribes gathered in an open field for a Nguillatún, to invoke the Lord of the People, Ngenechén, and to honor the Earth, goddess of abundance, fertile and faithful mother of the Mapuche people. They consider it a lack of respect to bother God every Sunday, as we do; once a year is more than sufficient. Their toquis enjoy a certain authority, but there is no obligation to obey them; their responsibilities are greater than their privileges. This is how Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga describes the way they are selected:
Not by rank, or by inheritance,
nor for their wealth, or being better born,
but by virtue of the strength and excellence
that make them preferred among men,
r /> and that illustrate, qualify, perfect,
and assay a person’s worth.
When we came to Chile we knew nothing of the Mapuche. We believed that it would be easy to subdue them, as we had much more civilized peoples: the Aztecs and the Incas. It took us many years to understand how wrong we were. There is no end in sight to this war because when we execute a toqui, another immediately emerges, and when we exterminate a complete tribe, another issues from the forest to take its place. We want to found cities and prosper, live with decency and comfort, while they aspire only to be free.
Pedro was gone for several weeks, because in addition to organizing the operation of the mine, he decided to start building a brigantine that would provide a way to communicate with Peru. We could not continue to live in isolation at the ass end of the world, with no company but naked savages, as Francisco de Aguirre put it with his usual frankness. Valdivia found a well-situated bay, called Concón, with a wide, clean sand beach surrounded by a stand of good wood suitable for a ship. There he left the one man who had some vague notion of things maritime, aided by a handful of soldiers, several work bosses, his auxiliary Indians, and others provided by Michimalonko.
“Do you have a plan for the boat, Señor Gobernador?” the supposed expert asked.
“Don’t tell me you need a plan for something as simple as this!” Valdivia challenged.