The Girl from Chimel Read online

  The Girl from Chimel

  Rigoberta Menchú

  with Dante Liano

  pictures by

  Domi

  translated by David Unger

  GROUNDWOOD BOOKS

  HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS

  TORONTO / BERKELEY

  A mis nietos:

  Alejandro, Diana, Ulisses, Aura,

  Leonardo, Ismael, Dalia y Cabiria

  — Domi

  Text copyright © 2000 by Rigoberta Menchú Tum and Dante Liano

  Text copyright © 2000 by Sperling & Kupfer Editori S.p.A. for La Bambina di Chimel

  Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Domi

  English translation copyright © 2005 by David Unger from Li Mi’n, una niña de Chimel, published by Alfaguara Infantil in 2003.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

  groundwoodbooks.com

  We gratefully acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: The girl from Chimel / Rigoberta Menchú with Dante Liano ; pictures by Domi ;

  translated by David Unger.

  Other titles: Li Mi’in, una niña de Chimel. English

  Names: Menchú, Rigoberta, author. | Liano, Dante, author. | Domi, illustrator. |

  Unger, David, translator.

  Description: Translation of: Li Mi’in, una nina de Chimel. | Translation originally published:

  Toronto : Groundwood Books, 2005.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200206168 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200243640 |

  ISBN 9781773064543

  (softcover) | ISBN 9781554982660 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781773065083 (Kindle)

  Subjects: LCSH: Menchú, Rigoberta—Childhood and youth—Juvenile literature. |

  LCSH: Quiché Indians—Biography—Juvenile literature.

  | LCSH: Maya authors—Guatemala—Biography—Juvenile literature.

  Classification: LCC F1465.2.Q2 M45 2020 | DDC j972.81004/974230092—dc23

  The illustrations are in oils.

  Table of Contents

  “Once upon a time there was a girl

  named Rigoberta…”

  My Grandfather

  My Grandfather’s Stories

  The Wandering Piglet

  The Plants and the Forest

  Grandfather and the Cornfield

  The Story Behind My Name

  The Story of My Birth

  When I Was a Little Girl in Chimel…

  The Curse of the Bees

  The Story of the River That Changed Its Course

  The Sacred Mountain

  When I Was a Girl

  Glossary

  The Girl from Chimel

  “Once upon a time there was a girl

  named Rigoberta…”

  I’d like to begin my story like this, the way our ancestors told their tales — sitting around a fire with the wood blazing, the flames lighting up their faces, sparks bursting in the air, spreading heat everywhere. Perhaps if I begin like this, I’ll become a little girl again and return to the village where I was born.

  I am Rigoberta. Chimel is the name of my village when it’s large, and Laj Chimel when it’s small, because sometimes the village is large and sometimes it’s small. During good times, when there’s honey and the corn is so heavy it bends its green stalks, when the yellow, green, purple, white and multicolored orchids bloom, displaying their beauty, then my village is big and it’s called Chimel. During bad times, when the river dries up and ponds can fit into the hollow of my hand, when evil men walk the earth and sadness can hardly be endured, the village becomes small and is called Laj Chimel.

  Right now, I’m remembering Chimel…

  Once Don Benjamín Aguaré, a wise elder from my village, said to me, “We look out for one another on Mother Earth.”

  Right now, I’m remembering Chimel…

  There were many wise elders in Chimel. I say were, because nowadays there are none. My grandfather was an elder. Let me tell you about him.

  My Grandfather

  My grandfather came to our village one hundred years ago. He came by foot from the far-off place where he had been born, but never lived.

  The people from his village were walkers. They loved to walk and walk and not stay in any one place. That’s why they had no land, only footpaths. They were truly walkers. They’d show up wherever there was a festival. They were early risers who preferred to walk the wide and narrow paths early in the morning. They always found time to stop on a hilltop, sit down and count the stars rushing to set behind the mountains or beginning to rise. The people from my grandfather’s village appeared everywhere. They were called the chiquimulas because they came from Chiquimula, which means “goldfinch.” The village got the name because goldfinches were everywhere. This is what Don Juan Us Chic, another Chimel elder, told me.

  My grandfather walked and walked. What was he looking for? No one knows. He would swallow trails and leave behind the remains of goldfinch songs. What was he looking for? A mountain that changed colors? Perhaps. Lands that sprouted flowers, strong trees and huge ears of corn? Maybe. But what was he really looking for? Some thick clouds wandering about with their own songs and whistles? Perhaps. A transparent air, a refreshing rain, a sky so blue it was nearly black?

  He found a treasure — not a pouch of gold coins or precious stones or a wad of bank notes. No. He found something far better. He found a delightful girl, a bit plump, with a little face, round as the full moon. He fell desperately in love with her. This happened very near Chimel. He hadn’t even reached Chimel because it had yet to exist.

  So he went to see the young girl’s parents to ask them for her hand in marriage. Her parents saw my grandfather in his wide-brimmed straw hat, wearing an Indian outfit consisting of a black jacket and a pair of red pants, lamb or goatskin sandals on his feet, a dark face and white teeth.

  “You’re from Chiquimula,” they said. “You’re like a goldfinch flying from branch to branch, never settling in one place.” This is what the young girl’s parents told him. “No, we won’t give you her hand in marriage. We don’t want her to become a wanderer like you, wearing a black coat, red pants, having a dark face and white teeth. We don’t want to see her wearing a red and black huipil, her hair braided with colorful ribbons. We don’t want her to become a goldfinch, dazzled by her own chirping and not wanting to work.”

  My grandfather became very sad when he was told he couldn’t marry her. But he was a chiquimula, a goldfinch, and soon he started chirping and the sadness passed.

  It definitely passed when he carried the young girl off. He went to the fields where she was picking corn. He was riding atop a beautiful brown stallion with a golden mane. He galloped across the field, opened a path through the stalks and scooped up my grandmother by the waist.

  “You’re coming with me!” he commanded, as he hoisted her into the air.

  She wanted to say yes, but couldn’t. Fear seized her throat.

  That’s how my grandmother and grandfather got married. They weren’t old as they are
now — toothless and walking with the help of a cane. They were two brave people, full of strength and energy. And so they escaped from a village of big trees and rode off on the back of a chestnut stallion, till they reached a place called Chimel.

  It had a crystal clear river, and you could see smooth, multicolored stones at the bottom. Fish swam in the transparent water of its pools. The frogs, the long-legged toads and the dazzling snakes enjoyed life together, eating crabs. You could see your face reflected in the smooth river mirror. To the sides you could see fields teeming with fruits, trees and nourishing medicinal herbs. And where the fields came to an end, a huge mountain rose up that was blue in the morning, green at noon, chestnut-colored in the afternoon and blue once again during the cold, star-studded night. And all the while crickets, toads and enormous frogs shook the night as they rehearsed their songs.

  “This is it,” Grandfather said. “This is the place where I’m going to build a village of one hundred houses and one hundred cornfields, for one hundred families from the four corners of the universe — the yellow, black, red and white.”

  The air filled with song, the wind with pollen, the trees with birds. The hills were transformed into temples covered with strong, vine-covered trees, and the stones became majestic altars. So many flowers sprouted and Ajaw, the Maker and Creator, blessed the trees, the stones and the multicolored flowers for generations to come.

  My grandfather founded this village, and in this village I was born. I, whose name is Rigoberta.

  My Grandfather’s Stories

  My grandfather built houses and planted fields with his strong hands. My grandmother helped him with everything in the fields and in the house. They had lots of children who grew up like ants — like fire ants marching up and down the hills, working at their parents’ sides.

  When children are working, everything seems so big to them. A pickax was like the cross that Christ carried during the Holy Week processions. They had a hard time with the rakes, because the teeth got caught in roots and large rocks. And if they tried to turn over the earth with their shovels, they flipped over and landed on their faces, with chunks of dirt in their mouths. Still, they kept on working.

  My grandfather became an old man in a split second. Just yesterday he was the gallant young man who had carried off my grandmother. But the sun had hardly dropped behind the horizon and risen again with its rosy cheeks, and he had turned old and wrinkled, with calloused, badly scarred hands and white hair.

  That’s when he began telling stories to his grandchildren and their friends. Grandfather knew many stories because he had traveled around so much.

  We’d ask him, “Grandpa, why are there white, black, red and yellow people — people of so many different colors?”

  “Because Ajaw, our Maker and Creator, made some people out of white corn and others out of black corn. He made still others out of red corn and he made us out of yellow corn and that’s why our skin is yellow. Ajaw wanted us to be as different as the colors in the field.”

  Late in the afternoon, when the sun turned orange at the edge of the horizon, and the cold would make our noses run, Grandfather would sit at the front of the house and tell us old stories about our ancestors. I especially liked the story of the weasel and the hen. It went like this:

  “Once there was a weasel that stole chicks and ate them. The weasel scurried about, sniffing the forest ground, when suddenly his sharp eyes focused on a chicken coop full of hens and chicks. The weasel shot off like an arrow, full speed ahead, and leapt into the coop. He threw up a flutter of dust and feathers and cackling, terrifying the hens. He then seized a chick in his claws and rushed off with the loot, leaving the mother hen crying for her lost baby.

  “Since this often happened, one of the hens finally said, ‘This weasel isn’t going to get my chicks! But how will I stop him?’ She stayed up the whole night trying to find a way to teach the weasel a lesson. The following day, when the other hens woke up, she gathered them together to hear her plan. She told them about it and they approved enthusiastically.

  “That same day, the weasel was snooping about the chicken coop. He wasn’t surprised to see a handsome and delicious-looking yellow chick — the fattest chick he had ever seen. Without pausing, he leapt toward his target like a pebble flung from a slingshot. To his surprise the chick didn’t even try to escape. The weasel grabbed it in his claws and took off toward his den.

  “But the weasel didn’t get very far. The chick stuck to his paws and wouldn’t let him escape. The weasel was desperate. He tried everything, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t run away or shake off the chick. He tried and tried for a good while, until he fell to the ground exhausted.

  “What had happened? Well, the hens had constructed a fake chick. Very carefully they glued chicken feathers to a big rock, so that from a distance it looked real. And then they used vines to tie the rock to one of the chicken-coop posts. They smeared the chick with sticky pine sap and the weasel got stuck. When he fell on the ground, the hens drew near and formed a circle around him and began cackling. The roosters started crowing and even the little chicks began peeping together. Everyone joined in the singing. And they sang and sang and sang, running around the weasel, until they too were exhausted. The weasel couldn’t understand the language of the hens, the roosters and much less that of the baby chicks. He was so humiliated that when he finally got unstuck, he never ever returned to the coop.”

  Grandfather knew the tales of our ancestors, going back to the time when white temples rose up above the earth under a white sun. He knew of the Spaniards who had arrived and filled our green, mountain-rimmed valleys with their white, red-tiled houses.

  Since all people are alike, Maya tales are similar to those of the Spaniards. Since all people are different, the stories of the Spaniards are different from those of the Maya. For example, the Spaniards believe that there’s a place called hell where the devil lives. The Maya believe in Xib’ab’a, which is a place where the evil lords live. To combine these stories, my friend Luis says that “hell begins in Xib’ab’a.”

  One of the Maya stories that my grandfather liked to tell was the one about the rabbit without a tail. It goes like this:

  “Do you know why rabbits have little cotton balls instead of tails and why mice have bulging eyes and smooth tails?

  “Well, you should remember that long ago, when the world was bright and shiny and everything was new — oh, so new — there lived two boys. One was named Jun aj Pu and the other Ix B’alam Kej. When these boys became young men, they prevailed over the evil lords, the rulers of Xib’ab’a.

  “These two boys were sent by their grandparents to protect the first cornfields on the earth. Every night animals would come and eat all the corn, so someone would have to keep guard over the fields when the sun left and the moon came out in the sky. Their grandparents said to them, ‘You two keep an eye on the cornfields. Don’t doze against the trees, don’t hide under the stones. Just scare off the animals when they come near.’ This is why even today, in Chimel, the children watch over the cornfields.

  “So the two boys went into the fields and waited for night to come. The sun went down behind the mountains, and a little while later the round moon bathed the landscape in white. Jun aj Pu yawned. So did Ix B’alam Kej. Before an hour had passed, they were yawning the way caged circus lions roar. Then a lead blanket dropped over their eyelids and they fell into a deep sleep.

  “They had no idea when and how the animals drew near. Deer, rabbits, snakes, gophers, hogs, mice, hens, monkeys, peccaries, even alligators and crocodiles appeared. And all you could hear was the crunch, crunch, crunch and the chew, chew, chew of corn kernels while the boys snored to their hearts’ delight under a tree.

  “Let me tell you something. Back then rabbits had large, fluffy, white tails, almost as big as the tails of baby horses. And the mice were cute, nicely formed animals, with little, fluffy
tails, just like their buddies the rabbits.

  “The following day, when the boys woke up, they saw a devastated landscape before their eyes. There wasn’t a single cob left, not one kernel of corn. The animals had eaten everything up! The boys broke into tears.

  “‘What are our grandparents going to say now?’ they cried. Still, they decided to go home and tell the truth.

  “Their grandparents smiled as the boys described their failure.

  “‘Instead of punishing you,’ they said, ‘we’re going to give you another chance. Tonight you’ll go back into the cornfields and do a better job of scaring off the animals.’

  “That night, the boys went back into the fields. The sun set behind the mountain, which resembled a gloomy bull’s black hump, and soon the fields were lit up by the soft light of the moon’s white face. The boys hid themselves in the darkness.

  “A little after midnight, lions, monkeys, tigers, cows, snakes, birds, wild boars and other animals rushed into the cornfields making a racket. This time, however, the boys were wide awake. They pulled dead branches from a nearby tree and leapt into the middle of all of the animals, screaming and shouting, swinging the branches left and right.

  “Scared, the animals scampered away. A rabbit ran off to the left of Jun aj Pu, who grabbed it by its large, fluffy tail. It struggled mightily to escape, but its tail broke off in the boy’s hand. At the other end of the field, Ix B’alam Kej grabbed a mouse by the throat and squeezed tight. That’s why mice have bulging eyes. The mouse also tried to escape and almost slipped free, when Ix B’alam Kej grabbed it by the tail. Since a mouse’s tail is very slippery, it managed to get away, and Ix B’alam Kej was left with a handful of hairs. That is why mice have smooth tails and bulging eyes, and rabbits have little cotton balls instead of tails.”