The wind carried whispers of pale men from the east, armed with thunder and mounted on giant beasts. In Tzintzuntzan, beneath Michoacán’s copper sky, Princess Eréndira listened to the murmurs of the lake. Her father, Timas, a warrior with a brow as rugged as pine bark, spoke of resistance. “We will not surrender the land granted by our gods,” he declared, sharpening his obsidian blade. Eréndira nodded, her black eyes mirroring the firelight.
Nanuma, a broad-chested warrior whose words dripped sweet as agave wine, shadowed her steps. “You will be my wife or my slave,” he whispered through the brush. She stood tall upon the council stone, answering with a light laugh: “First bring me the invader’s head, then we’ll speak of chains.”
When the Purépecha stole a Spanish horse during an ambush in Pátzcuaro, the priests clamored to sacrifice it to Curicaueri. Eréndira stepped forward, her slender frame silhouetted against the rearing beast. “Let me tame its fury,” she pleaded. For many moons in Capacuaro, she became the stallion’s shadow. She spoke to it in ancient tongues, offered maize from open palms. One dawn, she mounted. The horse galloped into the forest, carrying on its back the first woman to defy the weight of heaven.
Nanuma, gnawed by envy and fear, conspired with the bearded men. He attacked Timas’ home under a moonless sky. Eréndira, roused from dreams, heard her mother’s screams. She ran to the courtyard: her father lay with his chest split open, wives weeping on their knees. Nanuma advanced, stained crimson, arms outstretched with promises of captivity.
Then the white steed neighed. Eréndira leapt onto its back, naked as the new moon. Hooves struck the earth like war drums. Nanuma fell, bones shattered beneath the beast’s weight. The princess fled into the pines, her laughter trailing like a gale.
Years later, when the Cazonci—now called Francisco—allowed Fray Martín to burn the idols in the plaza, Eréndira emerged from the woods. Astride her horse, her hair a black banner, she cried: “Purépechas!” Her finger pointed at the trembling friar clutching his crucifix. “These men steal even our dreams. Where will we keep the memory of our ancestors?”
The friar gazed at her, not with hatred, but wonder. That night, he sought her hut in the hills. She offered him atole, spoke of gods dwelling in the waters. He stammered of one God, of love and forgiveness. When his fingers brushed her shawl, he fled to pray among the trees. She laughed bitterly, knowing even saints wear chains.
Nuño de Guzmán arrived with iron and hunger. He tortured the Cazonci, dragged him through dust until he became ash. Eréndira watched from a hilltop as smoke coiled skyward like a serpent. That night, she gathered her people in a cave adorned with ancestral handprints. “We will fight like foxes,” she vowed. “We will bite, then flee.”
The Spaniards never caught her. They claimed her horse flew over the lake, that her laughter sprang from mountain springs. When friars baptized children, mothers whispered her name into their ears. Eréndira, She Who Smiles in the Night, rode on in stories, as the wind bent the maize stalks.
In the echo of the mountains, the gallop still resounds. Not of fury, but of freedom.
