four jumped up and hugged Montezinos. Two of the men started reciting the
Shema, from Deuteronomy ( 6 : 4 ), which calls upon all Israel to affirm that the
Lord God is their one God and is recited by Jews worldwide
The men and the woman were ten tribers, “Children of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob.” They gave several signs showing that they were Israelites, but did
not volunteer much information about how they got to their location, telling
Montezinos that Francisco would tell him the rest of their story later. They also
averred, cryptically, that “soon enough” they would make contact with the
outside world, but before that, they asked him to send them “twelve men, all
bearded and literate.” They refused to let Montezinos cross the river. When he
tried to cross on his own, they became very angry.^5 After some time, Montezi-
nos and Francisco headed back to Honda. After some pleading, Montezinos
convinced Francisco to tell the rest of the story. “Know that your brothers the
Children of Israel, God brought them to this land, he did miracles and wonders
for them.... When we Indians came to this land we fought with them and we
treated them poorly, more than the Spaniards treated us.” After a series of
massacres and bloody exchanges between the Israelites and the Indians,
eventually the Israelites disappeared, losing contact with the outside world.
Only a limited number ofcasiqueswas allowed to see them once every seventy
months. Outside this rule, acasiquewas allowed to come see the Israelites only
under unusual circumstances—such as the coming of Montezinos. Francisco
finished with a prophecy to which they held: “One day the Israelites will take
over this country as before and will rule the world.”^6
It was after this episode that Montezinos set out to spread the word about
the future return of the ten tribes, ending up in Amsterdam where Manasseh
Ben-Israel ( 1604 – 1657 ) would eventually put it into writing, producing the
famous 1650 Miqveh IsraelorHope of Israel.
At first blush, Montezinos reminds us of David Reuveni, but his story is
more complex. Whereas the Yemeni Jew was working with an older narrative
that placed an intact collective of the ten tribes at the southern boundaries of
the world, Montezinos’s story was embedded within the significant changes
and transformations of a dramatically short period. The tribes were relocated
from the world’s eastern and southern edges to its northern and western ones;
theologically, there was a new emphasis on the meaning of the restoration
of the tribes to humanity. The book of Esdras’s presence in Montezinos’s
story is much felt. It tells of the tribes’ further wandering into another land,
led by a God who performs miracles and quarrels with gentiles; it tells of
the huge river that none can cross. Most important of all is the prophecy of
their triumphant return and reuniting with the rest of Israel, also prominent
in Montezinos’s story.
lu
(lu)
#1