“Just as when upon first penetrating the Brazilian jungle he nearly shouted for joy…”— This sentence is grounded in the following haunting words of Maximilian’s, which do indeed refer to the Brazilian jungle (1860): “It was the moment when all we have read in books becomes imbued with life, when the rare insects and butterflies contained in our limited and laboriously formed collections suddenly take wing, when the pygmy growth of our confined glasshouses expand into giant plants and forests…. the moment in which the book gains life — the dream reality” (quoted in Haslip, p. 130).
Maximilian’s order for two thousand nightingales— Haslip, p. 361.
Second dream (based on the sacrificial incarnation of Tezatlipoca, whose name is also transliterated Teczatlipoca)— J. Eric Thompson, in charge of Central and South American Archaeology, Field Museum, Chicago, Mexico Before Cortez: An Account of the Daily Life, Religion, and Ritual of the Aztecs and Kindred Peoples (New York: Scribner’s, 1937), pp. 205–210. The victim was chosen from a pool of idle young men who were kept on reserve for the purpose. His enjoyments lasted for a year; he was not unlike one of our American range cattle, who wander freely under the sky, grazing and copulating until they pay our price (which at least spares them old age). Tezatlipoca’s four wives were Flower Goddess, Maize Goddess, Water [Goddess?] and Salt Goddess. On p. 212 the author remarks: “This ceremony signified that those who had had riches and pleasures during their life would in the end come to poverty and pain.”
Description of the quetzal-feather headdress— After an illustration in Brian M. Fagan, Kingdoms of Gold, Kingdoms of Jade: The Americas Before Columbus (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991), p. 12.
“amidst cool night winds”— One meaning of “Tezatlipoca” was “night wind.” Another was “youth.” He was “associated with human rulership,” all three of these details according to Joseph and Henderson, pp. 75–76 (Inga Clendinnen, “The Cost of Courage in Aztec Society”).
The obsidian mirror— This was another reified meaning of the name Tezatlipoca, who represented war, darkness and masculinity. The surrogate’s death facilitated the potency of other men. Zarur and Lovell, p. 104.
Description of the sacrificial stone basin— After an illustration in Fagan, p. 21.
“Never complain, for it is a sign of weakness.”— Ridley, p. 48 (one of Maximilian’s twenty-seven principles).
“God bless the Emperor!”— Haslip, p. 498.
Carlota: “One sees red…”— Smith, p. 291. [Ellipsis in original between “gay.” and “The frontier.”]
The incarnation of Teteoinan— Details from Thompson, p. 186.
The incarnation of Ilamatecuhtli— Ibid., p. 191.
“Well, you have your butterflies… the age of seventy.”— Altered and expanded from Haslip, p. 160.
THE CEMETERY OF THE WORLD
Epigraph: “Woe is me, Llorona!…”— Margit Frenk et al., comp. & ed., El Colegio de México, Cancionero Folklórico de México, tomo 2: Coplas del Amor Desdichado y Otras Coplas de Amor, p. 122 (3646, “La Llorona,” trans. by WTV).
The two possible origins of the plague— I have invented both of these. However, my description of the old volumes in the Archives of the Ayumiento de Veracruz (from which, thanks to translations by Teresa McFarland, I did garner a few rhetorical flourishes, together with the fact of the conversion of the municipal slaughterhouse into a barracks in 1648) is based on examination of them in January 2011, and in particular on the following: (1) Año 1608–1699, caja 01, vol. 1. (2) Caja 3, año de 1804; libro n 98 tomo 5. [As you can see, the cataloguing is inconsistent.]
Founding of Villarica, and the date of its removal to Veracruz; situation of the garrison, and a couple of other such details— Two Hearts, One Souclass="underline" The Correspondence of the Condesa de Galve, 1688–96, ed. & trans. Meredith D. Dodge and Rick Hendricks (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), p. 159n. In this place we are told that “lack of city walls made the [new] settlement vulnerable to strong north winds,” but in Veracruz I was informed that the city was “the cemetery of the world” for at least two centuries in part because of the fetor within its walls, so for this story I chose to follow local knowledge, or legend, and mention walls. Veracruz may or may not have been erected directly over an Indian town. A conquistador who was there locates it “a mile and a half from this fortress-like place called Quiahuitzlan” (Bernal Díaz [del Castillo], The Conquest of New Spain, trans. J. M. Cohen [New York: Penguin, 1963], p. 114).
Visual reckoning method when entering Veracruz Harbor— “In the old days navigators got into Vera Cruz by the picturesque means of steering so that the tower of the Church of San Francisco covered the tower of the cathedral… How the vast, shining wealth of Mexico poured into Europe through this port… [!]”— Edith O’Shaughnessy [Mrs. Nelson O’Shaughnessy], Diplomatic Days (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917), p. 12.
The Marqueses del Valle were Cortés’s descendants, and for some years they ran the port of Veracruz.
Miscellaneous descriptions of Cempoala, the Casa de Cortés and Veracruz generally, including of the “haunted” houses (which were in fact pointed out to me as such)— From notes taken during that same visit in 2011.
The life and goddess-avatars of Malinche— Information from Anna Lanyon, Malinche’s Conquest (Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999).
Doña Marina’s statement that “she would rather serve her husband and Cortés than anything else in the world”— Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico 1517–1521, ed. Genaro García, trans. A. P. Maudslay (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1956), p. 68. This is another translation of the Díaz text cited earlier.
Legends about La Llorona and other ghosts in Veracruz— From stories told to me by taxi drivers, etcetera, in 2011. Here is a fine one: A driver said that once he was driving to Cardel in his taxi and he saw a woman in a white dress standing at the edge of the road. She waved him down and asked him to give her a ride, all the while keeping her face hidden from him. La Llorona was frequently spoken of in these parts. She was said to wear a long white dress. She had long black hair down to her ankles and a horrible horse’s head. So the driver drove past the strange woman, who was likewise dressed in white, then made a U-turn in hopes of seeing her from the front. At once she disappeared. — “What would she do if you’d said: Oh, you’re so beautiful! and kissed her face?”— “The man would die at once,” he said, bored. “Did you ever see the ghost of Malinche or Cortés?”— “Not around here.”— “What about the old gods?”— “Not in this zone. But up at Cempoala, if you go into the ruins, there’s a big circle of stones, and if you stand at the middle of the circle and stare into the sun, the sun god’s energy will pour into you and cure all your problems.”
The castle— I asked a man about ghosts, and he said: “Oh, yes, La Llorona can be heard in the castle. At three or four in the morning, you can see swings moving in this playground, if no one is there. You can feel them coming out to follow you. There are other presences in other buildings, but the castle is the worst.”
Description of La Llorona after Ricardo feeds her the jade bead— After an illustration in Rubén Morante López, A Guided Tour: Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, trans. Irene Marquina (Xalapa: Gobierno del Estado de Veracuz de Ignacio de la Llave y Universidad Veracruzana, 2004), p. 147.