MAYOBANEX, a regional chief in the Maguá region. He hid Guarionex from the Spanish until they were both eventually captured.
Portrait of Queen Anacaona painted by a contemporary artist.
Behechio, Anacaona’s brother and cacique of Xaraguá, painted by a contemporary artist.
Anacaona with her maidens.
A ceremonial throne, used by the Taínos, decorated with special carvings.
Woodcuts by an Italian man, Girolamo Benzoni, who visited Haiti in the mid-1500s, show the bananas and other fruit trees of Haiti.
Woodcuts by Girolamo Benzoni show the unique sailing vessels used by the native fisherman.
The Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda meets with a cacique of the West Indies.
Alonso de Ojeda and his men battle the natives during their expedition to the West Indies. The Spanish conquered and destroyed large percentages of the populations they encountered in the West Indian islands.
Chief Caonabó is captured by the Spanish in 1493.
A contemporary map of Haiti. Xaraguá was located in the southwestern part of modern-day Haiti.
Ana: flower
areito: a Taíno ceremony that includes narrative poems, ballads, music, dances, ball games, and mock battles
Atabey: goddess of freshwater fertility (Yúcahu’s mother)
ayiti: mountainous land, slippery land
Baba: father
bagua: sea
barbacoa: a stand for roasting meat; the original source of the current-day “barbecue”
batey: ceremonial ball court or plaza, also the name used for the Taíno ball game similar to today’s volleyball
Bibi: mother; the word toa is also used for “mother.”
bohío: a common Taíno residence
cacica: female supreme chief, or ruler
cacique: male supreme chief, or ruler
caney: the house of the chief or ruler; longhouse
canoa: canoe or boat
caona: yellow gold. Another word for gold is tuob.
casabi: cassava made from the yucca plant, a staple of the Taíno diet
cayo: island
ciba: a sharpened stone used as a tool or weapon
coa: a wooden stick used in conuco-style farming and also as a weapon in mock battles
cokí: frog
colibri: hummingbird
conuco: Taíno farming land; also refers to the Taíno method of farming
digo: plant used to wash the body
duho: a ceremonial chair or stool used by Taíno leaders
iguana: a large lizard
jamaca (hamaia): hammock
jurakan: storm, hurricane
Kalina: Island Carib; an enemy people
maraca: a gourd rattle; still used today in Caribbean music
Matunherí: Your Highness, Most Highest One
mayohaboa: a Taíno drum that the Taínos referred to as “the voice of the gods”
naboría: Taíno servant class
nagua: women’s skirt
nigua: a flealike insect that penetrates the skin to lay its eggs, causing itching and ulcers
nitaíno: Taíno “noble”
opia: spirit of ancestors or the dead
siani: married woman
tabacú: tobacco
tuna: something from the water
turey: sky
uicu: a fermented drink made from the juice of the yucca
yaque: river
yaya: spirit of the tree, supreme ancestor
zemi: a sculpture created for religious use; often made out of wood or stone
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:
Cover painting by Tim O’Brien
Portrait of Queen Anacaona painted by a contemporary artist, Ulrick Jean-Pierre, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Behechio, Anacaona’s brother and cacique of Xaraguá, painted by a contemporary artist, Ulrick Jean-Pierre, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Anacaona with her maidens, North Wind Picture Archives, Alfred, Maine.
A ceremonial throne, Musee de l’Homme, Paris, France/www.bridgeman.co.uk.
Fruit trees of Haiti, Woodcut by Girolamo Benzoni, North Wind Picture Archives, Alfred, Maine.
Haitian fishing vessels, Woodcut by Girolamo Benzoni, The Granger Collection, New York, New York.
Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda meets with a cacique of the West Indies, The Granger Collection, New York, New York.
Alonso de Ojeda and his men battle the natives in the West Indies, The Granger Collection, New York, New York.
Chief Caonabó’s capture, Index/Bridgeman Art Library, New York, New York.
A contemporary map of Haiti, Maps.com/Corbis, New York, New York.
Edwidge Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and is the author of two adult novels, Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Farming of Bones, and two collections of short stories, Krik? Krak! and The Dew Breaker. She has also written a young adult novel, Behind the Mountains, which appears in Orchard Books’ First Person Fiction series.
Ms. Danticat has always wanted to write about Anacaona, ever since she heard about her as a little girl.
“I was immediately fascinated by Anacaona,” she says, “because here was a woman who was not only a warrior, poet, and storyteller but also one of our first diplomats.”
Re-creating a diary for Anacaona was a challenge she was happy to take on, but a challenge nonetheless. First of all, the Taínos, by most accounts, did not read or write. So how, then, to create a diary, even a fictional one, for someone who did not write as we know it today?
“Even though the Taínos had no written language,” she explains, “they had images and symbols through which they told their stories. I see this diary as a series of images and symbols that could have been put away by a storyteller like Anacaona to be interpreted later. Taíno artifacts are being discovered all the time. With each piece found, the story of the Taíno people gets more and more specific, more and more defined.”
Although she did as much research as possible to recreate young Anacaona’s life, Ms. Danticat created many fictional characters, including Cuybio, Bayaci, Marahay, and Yeybona.
“There were probably lots of people like this in Anacaona’s life,” she says, “even though we don’t know their names.” The names she missed knowing most are those of Anacaona’s parents. “In terms of what we know of Taíno history, we mostly have accounts and names recorded for people who were around during the Taínos’ ‘encounter’ with Christopher Columbus and his men, but at least many Taíno words have made their way down to us, including Baba and Bibi (Mother and Father).”
Ms. Danticat was most thrilled to write this fictional diary of Anacaona for another very special reason.
“My mother was born in Léogâne,” she says, referring to a Haitian town that is generally thought to have been at the center of Xaraguá, where Anacaona ruled. “Thus in some very primal way, Anacaona has always been in my blood and I remain, in the deepest part of my soul, one of her most faithful subjects.”
ELIZABETH I
by Kathryn Lasky
CLEOPATRA VII
Daughter of the Nile
by Kristiana Gregory
MARIE ANTOINETTE
Princess of Versailles
by Kathryn Lasky
ISABEL
Jewel of Castilla
by Carolyn Meyer
ANASTASIA
The Last Grand Duchess
by Carolyn Meyer
NZINGHA
Warrior Queen of Matamba
by Patricia C. McKissack
KAIULANI
The People’s Princess
by Ellen Emerson White
LADY OF CH’IAO KUO
Warrior of the South
by Laurence Yep
VICTORIA
May Blossom of Britannia
by Anna Kirwan
; MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS
Queen Without a Country
by Kathryn Lasky
SONDOK
Princess of the Moon and Stars
by Sheri Holman
JAHANARA
Princess of Princesses
by Kathryn Lasky
ELEANOR
Crown Jewel of Aquitaine
by Kristiana Gregory
KRISTINA
The Girl King
by Carolyn Meyer
ELISABETH
The Princess Bride
by Barry Denenberg
WEETAMOO
Heart of the Pocassetts
by Patricia Clark Smith
LADY OF PALENQUE
Flower of Bacal
by Anna Kirwan
KAZUNOMIYA
Prisoner of Heaven
by Kathryn Lasky
While The Royal Diaries are based on real royal figures and actual historical events, some situations and people in this book are fictional, created by the author.
Copyright © 2005 by Edwidge Danticat
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
SCHOLASTIC, THE ROYAL DIARIES, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Danticat, Edwidge, 1969-
Anacaona, Golden Flower / by Edwidge Danticat. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (The royal diaries)
Summary: Beginning in 1490, Anacaona keeps a record of her life as a possible successor to the supreme chief of Xaragua, as wife of the chief of Maguana, and as a warrior battling the first white men to arrive in the West Indies, ravenous for gold.
ISBN 0-439-49906-2
1. Anacaona, d. 1504 — Juvenile fiction. [1. Anacaona, d. 1504 — Fiction. 2. Taino Indians — Fiction. 3. Indians of the West Indies — Fiction. 4. Kings, queens, rulers, etc. — Fiction. 5. Haiti — History — To 1791 — Fiction. 6. America — Discovery and exploration — Spanish — Fiction. 7. Diaries — Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.D2385An 2005
[Fic] — dc22
2004012560
Photo research by Amla Sanghvi
First edition, April 2005
e-ISBN 978-0-545-36988-6
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