idyllic, pre-Colombian Haiti, or more specifically, at least a Haiti prior to the complete
destruction of the Taino culture and people. In this way, the description here is of the tranquility
which would precede the violence, the dream before reality. Not only does that initial scene
imply an impending loss, but additional meanings of various words coincide with such a reading:
“bercer” from the first stanza can also suggest trickery, just as “soulever” can suggest taking
away. Floranna is the most “ingénue,” meaning she is also the most free. Moreover, the idea of
death, first mentioned in the word “mourir” in the first stanzas reappears with “embaumer,”
“langueur,” and “succombe” in the last verses. Especially combined with the idea of sleep,
angels, and “la veille,” the ending implies more than the simplicity of dream. These ideas
especially ring true if we consider that Anacaona’s last days were spent organizing a welcome
ceremony for the Spanish (was the ceremony a wedding?). Hoping for peace, Anacaona is
instead deceived by the Spanish, captured, and hanged. In addition to all of this, it is difficult to
ignore the presence of warriors at the ceremony in these verses, poised for potential battle, and
the multiple descriptions of the girls and the scene as golden, given that the Spanish came to
Hispaniola in search for gold. Overall, the femininity and passivity of this scene will be
contrasted to the virility and military prowess of Haiti’s black revolutionaries. As will be more
apparent in a later section of this chapter, it is not so much that African slaves are not “natural,”
but that they are the modern inheritors of these pre-modern Taino. More than the European
colonizers and conquerors who destroyed them, the African slaves turned Haitian revolutionaries
are legitimized as the new people of this land..
The primary importance of such a poem, however, is less in a historical, mythical, orallegorical meaning than in its mere symbolic presence in Haitian poetry. Regardless of its
actual content, merely in naming Anacaona and Xaragua, the poet evokes the memory of these