Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,131
his log when Guacanagari's people worked long and hard to help him load all his equipment and supplies off the wrecked Santa Maria: "They love their neighbor as themselves." He was capable of thinking of them as having exemplary Christian virtues -- and then turn right around and assume that he had the right to take from them anything they owned. Gold mines, food, even their freedom and their lives -- he was incapable of thinking of them as having rights. After all, they were strangers. Dark of skin. Unable to speak any recognizable language. And therefore not people.
It was one of the hardest things for novices in Pastwatch to get used to, in studying the past -- the way that most people in most times were able to speak to people of other nations, treat with them, make promises to them, and then go off and act as if those very people were beasts. What were promises made to beasts? What respect did you owe to property claimed by animals? But Diko had learned, as most did in Pastwatch, that for most of human history, the virtue of empathy was confined to one's kinship group or tribe.
People who were not members of the tribe were not people. Instead they were animals -- either dangerous predators, useful prey, or beasts of burden. It was only now and then that a few great prophets declared people of other tribes, even of other languages or races, to be human. Guest- and host-rights gradually evolved. Even in modern times, when such attractive notions as the fundamental equality and fraternity of humankind were preached in every corner of the world, the idea that the stranger is not a person still remained just under the surface.
What am I expecting of Cristoforo, really? Diko wondered. I am asking him to learn a degree of empathy for other races that would not become a serious force in human life until nearly five hundred years after his great voyage, and did not prevail worldwide until many bloody wars and famines and plagues after that. I am asking him to rise out of his own time and become something new.
And this girl, Chipa, will be his first lesson and his ftrst test. How will he treat her? Will he even listen to her?
"You are right to be afraid," said Diko in Spanish. "The white men are dangerous and treacherous. Their promises mean nothing. If you don't want to go, I won't compel you."
"But why else did I learn Spanish?" she asked.
"So you and I could tell secrets." Diko grinned at her.
"I'll go," said Chipa. "I want to see them."
Diko nodded, accepting her decision. Chipa was too young and ignorant to understand the real danger that the Spanish would mistreat her; but then, most adults made most of their decisions without a clear understanding of the possible consequences. And Chipa. was both clever and good-hearted-the combination would probably serve her well enough.
An hour later, Chipa was out in the center of the village, plucking at the woven-grass shift that Diko had made for her. "It feels awful," said Chipa in Taino. "Why should I wear such a thing?"
"Because in the white men's country, it is a shameful thing for people to be naked."
Everybody laughed. "Why? Are they so ugly?"
"It's very cold there sometimes," said Diko, "but even in the summer they keep their bodies covered. Their God commanded them to wear things like this."
"It's better to sacrifice blood to the gods a few times a year, as the Taino do," said Baiku, "than for everybody to have to wear such ugly small houses on their bodies all the time."
"They say," said the boy Goala, "that the white men wear shells like a turtle."
"Those shells are strong, and spears don't go through them very easily," said Diko.
The villagers fell silent then, thinking about what this might mean if it ever came to battle.
"Why are you sending Chipa to these turtle men?" asked Nugkui.
"These turtle men are dangerous, but they're also powerful, and some of them have good hearts if we can only teach them how to be human. Chipa will bring the white men here, and when they're ready to learn from me, I'll teach them. And the rest of you will teach them, too."
"What can we teach to men who can build canoes as big as a hundred of ours?" asked Nugkui.
"They'll teach us, too. But not until they're ready."
Nugkui still looked skeptical.
"Nugkui," said Diko, "I know what you're thinking."