Warrior Princess

Their enemies came in the still of the night.

Hunters under the cover of darkness, they crept into the town like shadows, overwhelming the guards while the rest of the tribe slept.

It had been a well-planned attack and the invaders had the advantage of surprise on their side. No one had expected that the sons of the sea would penetrate Aiti’s forests so far north to engage in battle on land. It was one of the main reasons why Anacaona’s people had set down roots in the mountains and forests of the island, hoping for refuge from their violent and bloodthirsty enemies who ruled the sea.

For several years, the people of Aiti had been able to settle and grow in peace. But then came the signs that all would not be well: The crops were not as bountiful, entire cotton fields were exposed to blight, and the weather was unpredictable and unkind. The gods were not happy.

In this environment of growing uncertainty, the priests administered repeated cohoba ceremonies, hoping to intercede with the spirits, but their fevered efforts were futile. Only one god answered- Jurakán, the god of storms- and, in response, he brought even more devastation, viciously tearing down settlements as he swept repeatedly across the island.

The people knew that all was not well, but still, no one had anticipated the arrival of the savages who came ashore at the town of Yaguana in the wake of a storm- shifting shapes and silent ghosts covered by the darkness of dawn, their swift arrows dispatching the guards before they could raise an alarm.

When the war-cries eventually went up, they were the whoops and catcalls of the enemy who crowed a song of triumph as they descended on the settlement, affording the men of the town little time to grab their weapons before they met their deaths.

Anacaona was 14 when the warriors came.

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She had spent the earlier part of the evening sneaking around her father’s caney to eavesdrop on a cohoba ceremony, shivering with delicious fear at the sight of her father, body covered in tattoos, eyes turned inward, as he communicated with the gods.

Her father, as the Great Chief, had conducted quite a few ceremonies of late, but Anacaona had been banned from participating in or witnessing any. It was a male-only event and she had stewed with envy and resentment whenever her elder brothers, Bohechio and Bahuroco, joined the men’s circle.

She had been itching for some excitement, so when her friends dared her to eavesdrop on her father’s cohoba, she willingly accepted the dare even though she knew that she would be severely punished if her mother caught her hanging around during the ceremony.

As she peered at her father and the male leaders of Yaguana gathered for the ceremony, Anacaona had been startled when her father, stirred from the stupor induced from inhaling the cohoba dust and turned to face her.

The hairs standing up on the back of her neck, she had pressed her body against the wall and prayed for invisibility.

He had spoken then in an eerie voice unlike anything she had heard before. “First you transgress, then you come for mercy,” he had said. “But what’s done is done.”

Not wanting to hear the rest of her father’s words, Anacaona had turned tail then, and sped away as fast as her legs could carry her.

That night she had been eager to go to bed, gulping down her gourd of guanabana tea and praying for a dreamless sleep.

She did sleep, but it was a sleep filled with nightmares and later, when was startled awake by screams and the crackle of flames, she had thought that she was still dreaming.

Bleary-eyed, Anacaona had stumbled groggily from her caney in search of her mother, only to be brought up short by the battle being waged outside.

She stood then, in the doorway of the caney, at once fascinated and horrified by the strange, wild-eyed men who fought with a maniacal savageness, shredding Yaguana’s defence and torching the village.

It was not real, she told herself. It was only a dream, and so she had the luxury to just stand by and look at it all clinically.

“Ana!” The panic in her mother’s voice had cut through the fogginess. “Ana run!”

It was only then, as her mother dragged her stumbling towards the shelter of the circular naboria huts on the outskirts of their settlement, that Anacaona awoke to feel the heat of the raging fires searing her skin.

In the darkness, amongst the cowering huts, her mother hugged her close and tried to tell her that everything would be okay, but Anacaona had heard the wavering in her voice and the chattering of her teeth as she drew in short, shallow breaths like soft puffs in an attempt to stave off the panic she seemed unable to contain as the monsters of the night drew closer.

“Bohechio will come with help,” she had said, brushing Anacaona’s hair from her face with trembling hands.

Bohechio and Bahuroco, Anacaona's elder brothers, had gone on a hunt with some of the village’s finest men leaving their defenses weakened in the hurricane’s wake.

Their excursion had been the source of yet another grudge held by Anacaona who had cried with resentment when the men left, swearing never to speak to her brothers again and calling them the filthiest of names in one of her more spectacular tantrums.

It was this anger and determination to prove that she was as good as her brothers that had prompted her to take her friends’ dare to sneak up on her father’s cohoba later that day, but now she regretted it all for she felt that her actions, defiling the sacred and time-honoured tradition that explicitly banned the presence of women, had brought curses down on Yaguana.

“They should be here already, mama,” Anacaona shivered, though the night was warm. Her mother’s hand stilled briefly, her eyes widening as though the thought had only just occurred to her.

“Mama?”

The smile returned. It was weaker than before, but the chieftain’s wife was determined to hold on to the façade of self-assurance.

“Bohechio will bring help,” she insisted. “Soon our allies will be here.”

But Bohechio did not return quickly enough and the Caniba men destroyed the town, scouring for slaves after they had dispatched the tribe’s remaining fighters.

When the warriors saw her mother, the chief’s wife, distinguished by her clothes and jewelry, they grabbed her.

She tried to resist, but she was old and weak, Anacaona saw, as she struggled against her attackers, fingers clawing the dirt floor and screaming for mercy.

Anacaona, in desperation, had rushed blindly at one of the men, leaping onto his back and clawing at his eyes, but he threw her off and laughed, muttering in amusement in a sharp and guttural tongue and eyeing her appraisingly as she circled to leap a second time.

“Ana, no!” her mother had screamed, cutting her off just as she prepared for a second mad dash. And Anacaona had stopped in the midst of the dust and disarray, chest heaving as she looked at her mother.

In that moment, a swift and silent message passed between the woman and the girl- Anacaona’s eyes were defiant and full of challenge, in her stare there was a bold promise; but her mother’s eyes were sad and resigned, already drawing into herself. In her stare, there lingered only farewell.

“Run,” her mother had said. And Anacaona ran.

Plunging blindly into the forests, she raced, abandoning all fear for the dead roaming at night and caring little for the sharp stones and twigs that ripped into the flesh of her bare feet.

She ran blindly, with little thought for direction. She ran until the flames that had coated the roofs of the huts threatened to burst from her lungs every time she drew breath. Even then she would have kept on moving, but for the springs that ran through the forests less than a mile out from her village.

In calmer days, Anacaona had spent many mornings playing on the edge of the springs, pretending to fish with her brothers and their friends as they caught only the black conch and guabine fish in the mud near the water’s edge. And while her brothers ventured further, the other side of the springs had always been off limits to her. To her, it represented another land.

Now, even as the remnants of her village were being put to the torch, Anacaona hesitated on the water’s edge. It would have been fine if she were part of the hunting party, but she felt that crossing while her people were at war meant that she had given up and given in. And as much as she wanted to obey her mother, Anacaona could not let the Caniba chase her away from the only home she knew.

With the heat of the fires gone, the cold forest wind caressed her naked body as she curled up amongst the roots of a ceiba tree that grew alongside the stream, resolving to double back home when it was safe.

She returned to the settlement the following morning, at dawn to find death awaiting her shrouded in ash and smoke.

A few buildings remained standing, incongruous in their completeness among the charred remains of their neighbors. Those buildings stood like broken teeth in a bleeding mouth, Anacaona thought, as she approached cautiously.

All around her, bodies were strewn like broken dolls- warriors she once knew. She refused to look at their faces contorted in defeat and death.

Her father’s caney was one of the few buildings to remain standing, and she walked purposely towards it, holding on to the dim hope that he had somehow survived. After all, her father was invincible.

As she walked, her feet crunched on broken weapons, but she did not look down. She kept her eyes focused on the great building in the heart of Yaguana.

Her father was in his hammock. In the shadows of his room, the cacique appeared, at first, to be lying at rest and Anacaona had pushed down an initial twinge of annoyance at the thought that he should rest when his people were at war.

Then she saw the signs- the hut was in shambles, potizas smashed, his ceremonial seat- the duho- lay upended, and his headdress was thrown carelessly on the floor. A hand that initially appeared to hang purposelessly over the hammock’s edge now seemed to be twisted at an odd angle and there was a dark liquid seeping through the belly of the hammock, huge drops plopping to form a puddle in the soil beneath.

Panic turning the corners of her vision to red, Anacaona rushed to her father’s side.

“Pa pa,” she mouthed the word, but found that she could make no sound as she turned him over.

Voom! The wind was knocked out of her and she sat right there, in the puddle, as her brain struggled to process what she had seen- her father, the Great Chief of Yaguana, had been left behind- beheaded and disgraced.

Drums beating in her chest, Anacaona could find no emotion that was equal to the scene before her, and so she just sat there, dry-eyed, holding vigil as her father’s blood stained her clothes and seeped through the cracks in the dirt floor.

When her brothers, Bohechio and Bahuroco, finally arrived with help from the other tribes, their enemies were long gone, but Anacaona had still been sitting there.

Days after, when she finally spoke, it was to make a promise.

Swearing vengeance before the gods and man, Anacaona promised to return to her enemies ten times the pain they had brought. Or die trying.

Hi friends,

There's another great creative writing community, Scholar and Scribe, which is very flexible and encourages all forms of creative writing. Pretty cool, right?

Even better, there's a dual token reward system in this community which is offered to readers and writers, and as I've read it, the main requirements are to be creative and to engage with your fellow posters, so it's win, win. Please remember to check the guidelines to the right of the main page to be sure you follow them.

This is my first post to this community. It's a creative piece I've written about Haiti's female Amerindian chieftain of the Taino people, Anacaona who lived on the island in 1492 and whose beauty is said to have been legendary.

Prior to European arrival, there were many tribal battles among the Amerindian tribes and on the island of Haiti there were a number of tribes, some of them more warlike than others. Sometimes they fought amongst themselves.

Now, I love history, always have, and growing up in the Caribbean, I heard of Anacaona and imagined maybe what her childhood as a young princess could have been like, born as she was into a family of caciques. In this piece, I tried to think of Anacaona as a young girl, waking up one night to war. I tried to incorporate, as far as my knowledge would allow- and I hope I was able to capture it well enough- bits of the Taino culture and beliefs. I truly hope you appreciated it.

Thanks for reading.