I worked for Flor all through my teenage years. She paid me well too, for the mundane errands, like delivering groceries, but also for the Santeria work that I had come to admire and respect; not for its sound reason or logic, but for its rejection of societal norms. The imagery and the lore behind it all fascinated me. The hymns and chants she would hum while chipping away at house work were enthralling, almost hypnotic. For twenty dollars a day, I would polish the army of saintly statues she stored, and categorize the countless candles meticulously by color, in whatever order she would dictate daily. It was as if she improvised at life sometimes, without any real rhyme or reason, only acting on animal instinct, primal whim and passing fancies.
Some days she would dress up and apply heavy makeup, only to dance around the apartment to inaudible melodies playing in her head. Other days she was sullen, ornery and simply slouched around in sweats. Either way, she was always able to switch on the charm for clients. I would help her set up for sessions with locals from all walks of life. Some sought solace in the vast unknown, wishing to communicate with those they’d lost. Some wished curses on those who had wronged them, while others begged for blessings, whether in love or finances, but usually limited to one or the other. A subtle change occurred around the time I turned sixteen. Flor suddenly became more vocal with me. She would reminisce on her youth, fondly and often. She shared quips and jokes. She had a quick wit and a wicked sarcastic streak. At times she would share parables and lore from the old country. She’d obtained an intimate knowledge about the island of Hispaniola and its rich history, from the B.C. era, to the present. To Flor, it was always ONE mass of land, not the two separate nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In her mind there could be no borders dividing a single sacred land.
She spoke of the soil there as if it were alive, almost spiritual in nature and stained with the blood, sweat and tears of the ancient Tainos who were once the sole inhabitants. She enlightened me on history that no Providence school was teaching me at the time. She detailed for me how the present day Dominican demographic reflected a diaspora of French colonizers, Spanish conquistadors, African slaves and the Indigenous Tainos. She loved smoking cigars and sipping Brugal rum straight while waxing philosophical on ancient history. The more she drank, the more animated and expressive she got; she was an encyclopedia of ideas, facts, opinions, in equal parts. Because of her, I understood my mother’s birthplace on a deeper level, without ever having been there. The Tainos were peace-loving tribes, passive enough to allow the Spaniards to dominate them with ease, Flor explained. Warfare was foreign to them. Those who weren’t exterminated by crushing violence, crippling disease, famine, or slave labor were broken in spirit by enforced beliefs, weaponized mass rape and malicious manipulation. Before all of that, the Tainos lived in harmony, with each other, nature and the many gods they called zemis. Atabey was one; she ruled over the moon, fresh waters and fertility. Her son, Yucahu, was the spirit of the sea and cassava, the Tainos main crop. On the opposite end of the spectrum was the goddess Guabancex who controlled natural disasters, hurricanes and storms. She had twin sons, Guatauba and Coatrisquie, who created high winds and flood waters respectively. They spoke an Indigenous “Arawaken” dialect but never seemed to have developed it into written form. They had a matrilineal form of succession and hierarchy, tracing back lineage through birth mothers. Only married women wore any form of clothing, simply a small cotton apron called a nagua.
The women often wore bangs, with the hair longer in the back. Some adorned their bodies with jewelry, paint and sea shells. They mostly focused on farming while the men fished and hunted. Their villages were called yucayeques where huts were situated around a central plaza. This common area would host games, ceremonies and rituals. They would play a game called batey with a solid rubber ball and a rectangular court where opposing teams could have 10-30 players each, depending on the variant. This game would even double as conflict resolution between communities. These tribes were each ruled by a chief/shaman known as a cacique. Below them society was split into two classes, naborias (commoners) and nitainos (nobles). Again, it would be the mother’s bloodline that would determine what category each fell into. Men, and even a few select women, practiced polygamy, having up to two or three spouses. High ranking caciques could have as many as twenty or thirty. By the time Flor had shared this with me, I was seventeen, extremely cynical and starting to question some of it. “What kind of utopia is that? There are still haves and have nots,” I posed to her politely. She simply smiled. “All of them had equally, Toby, but class distinction has always been humanity’s greatest flaw, and it always will be.” Even after my family moved out of the neighborhood, I’d meet Flor for weekly lunches.
Over the years, she had trained me in all things Santeria. By then I had even seen some of her clients alone, on her recommendation. I oversaw readings and audited auras. She taught me about astrology, the constellations and how to read the stars like a roadmap to enlightenment. She showed me meditation techniques, breathing exercises and basic yoga poses. Because of her, I was well-versed in literature as varied as Pablo Neruda, Anais Nin and Kurt Vonnegut. I loved her like family and she’d grown to love me. Flor Santana exited the physical world in early ‘20 as an early casualty to COVID. She’d taught me better than to be sad about this; it was only a new beginning for her. She was free finally, free like rolling waves, wispy winds or a blowing breeze. Even in absence, I felt her everywhere. Several years later I would finally visit the Dominican Republic for the first time. I would make it a point to stop in Flor’s hometown. I walked where she walked as a young girl and I stopped to pick up a handful of the soil at my feet. It was alive with the spirit of the Tainos. •
