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9 The Power and Potency of the Cemís The cemí artifacts are social agents of causality as much as living human beings are. Each cemí icon has specific, definable powers that were either highly beneficial or extremely dangerous for human society. Some examples follow: a cemí icon named Baibrama had the power to cause illness to human beings (Pané 1990:27). Another , a stone idol named Guabancex, had the power to order and unleash violent wind- and rainstorms.This feminine stone cemí idol had two assistants, also made of stone. One was named Coatriquie, who, on Guabancex’s orders, “command[ed] all the other cemís from that province to assist in causing a great deal of wind and rain,” while the other, Guataubá, gathered all the rainfall “and [let] it run to ravage the country” (Pané 1990:29). Other cemí idols had benign powers, such as the unnamed but explicitly described by Pané as “three-pointed stone” cemís that cause yuca (Manihot esculenta) to grow (Pané 1990:26). Pané (1974:34–35, 43), writing on the different kinds of cemís, noted that some made of stone or wood “contained the bones of his father, and his mother, and relatives”; some others “could speak”; and others could “make the things to eat grow, others that make rain, others that make winds . . . others that are the best for aiding pregnant women give birth” (see also Colón 1985:202–205). One also learns of other kinds of powers possessed by cemís from what caciques, shamans, and others wished to obtain from them: [The caciques kept] these diabolical images in their houses [caneyes], in selected dark places and locations that were reserved for prayer.There they entered to pray and ask for what they wished: be it water for their fields and cultivated gardens, for a good harvest, or for victory against their enemies; in sum, in there was the old Indian who answered [what the cemí told him] to his taste [or liking] . . . and he would enter and speak with it, and since he [the shaman] was an ancient astrologer [diviner], he would tell them [the other people present] what day it would rain and other things . . . and when war should be carried or delayed, and without [consultations with] the presence of the Devil [cemí idol], they neither embarked nor did anything that was of importance [Oviedo 1944 (1):251–252]. If one reads carefully the legends (all are quite fragmentary) attached to each of these twelve cemí idols recorded by Pané, several important characteristics of per- 74 Chapter 9 sonal identity and personhood emerge. The first is that most, though not all, of these cemí icons are differentiated according to gender principles (masculine, feminine , asexual). Second, each idol has a set of personal names or titles that are indicative of status and rank differences between the known cemís—the more names and titles, the higher the status. Third, they had genealogical ties to other cemí entities or to living human descendants. Fourth, all had specific capabilities and powers to alter or cause future events, some of which were related to weather control .The power of cemís is thus not a generalized or abstract force, but one that had specific immediacy among the living and in nature. Fifth, all cemí idols were entrusted to a living human being. Sixth, in most instances, Pané records that a given cemí idol would circulate through successive human trustees. This was the case of the cemí Corocote, who was first in cacique Guamarete’s house, then passed on to another unnamed cacique, and finally ended up with cacique Guatabanex of the Jaraguá region in Hispaniola (Pané 1999:28). Seventh, and finally, in several of the recorded legends, the cemí had the capacity to escape from or abandon its human trustee.This comes very close to free will (see Pink 2004) or volition, a capacity for autonomous decision making and action that is independent of its human trustees . Human “ownership” was not guaranteed; hence, my frequent use of the word “trustee” rather than “owner.”This capacity to flee and abandon plays a key role in the making or breaking of caciques.Those leaders who were perceived to be inept, who were unable to control or negotiate the cemís entrusted to them, could potentially be “abandoned” by their cemí idol, temporarily or forever, as happened in the legend of cemí Opiyelguobirán.Thus, one might say that the human and...

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