Ana Maurine Lara
Ana-Maurine Lara, Ph.D., is a national award-winning poet and fiction writer. She is author of Erzulie's Skirt (RedBone Press, 2006), When the Sun Once Again Sang to the People (KRK Ediciones, 2011), and Watermarks and Tree Rings (Tanama Press). In 2015, she completed the first of her decade-long projects, Cantos, including her original poetry, with music composition by Martin Perna and original artwork by Youmna Chlala. She is an assistant professor at the University of Oregon.
“When the Sun Once Again Sang to the People”
Comment
In “When the Sun
Once Again Sang to the People”, Lara presents Iris, the young protagonist of
the story, in the fictional
town of Guadarraya in present time Dominican Republic. The work portrays various
episodes in the life of Iris, and her gradual transformation into the
spiritual leader of her community. The story is divided in three
parts
Each of them refers to an event
that marks the spiritual development of Iris and that of the
Guadarraya community. The first
part shows the arrival of padre Michael, a Catholic priest, to Guadarraya
and his first
encounter with the mysterious Iris.The presence of padre Miguel reminds us of the
European colonial legacy and the imposition of the Catholic religion to indigenous
peoples.
The narrative voice changes to the
first person in the
second part of the story as Iris starts her first contact with
Taino spirituality on the day of its sixteen birthday. The initiation
ceremony in the cave of Jaboruco represents Iris’ rite
of passage from childhood to adulthood, and also the first step in her
steady transformation into a Taino cacique. In a way, this also represents the
beginning of a journey to free from the colonizer’s oppression. She starts her
journey back into her indigenous culture, which is quite symbolic.
Iris’ visions, however, function as
an anticipation of the conflict
that will be clear in the last part of the story with challenge she poses to
the religious authority of the Catholic priest. In this last part, Iris has
become the curandera, embracing totally her indigenous culture and by defying
the authority of the priest, she is also challenging the powers of the church,
the colonizers, and patriarchy.
There are many elements
of syncretism with the Christian tradition, as it is reflected in the mix
of liturgical elements from both religious systems in the ceremony, which
is an indigenous one although Tenacio leads the procession with the Bible in
his hand as if he were a Catholic priest, and there are also crosses and
images of the Virgin Mary's life. The rituals are, however, indigenous,
like Iris drinking the stock made by cooking the bones of the dead. The author
also uses hybrid language with plenty of Spanish lexicon, which is a characteristic
of Chicana feminist writing she is in line with.
All in all, as I see it, “When the
Sun Once Again Sung to the People” criticizes the colonization experienced by
Native American communities by claiming for the recovery of the figures of the
female caciques in Taino societies. Thus, Ana-Maurine calls for a decolonized and
feminized society, free of oppression and patriarchy.
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