Van Gerry

Long Memory 1: Myths and Legends Van Gerry

Long Memory 1 is a novel tracing the history of a multiracial family from 1492 to 1900. The romantic story is set against the backgrounds of Mexico, the Bahamas, America and England; and it chronicles the four hundred year emotional commitment of the main characters to a love partnership, a place and a people. An Arawak Indian tribe of South America pursued by its hereditary enemies, the Caribs migrates to Bagwynatoo, an island of the Shallow Sea (baja mar: Bahamas). This event is some two hundred years before the Columbus voyages of discovery. Circa 1520, Coatlicue, an Aztec priestess also takes refuge on Bagwynatoo. She has fled south from the Spanish invasion of Mexico; whilst her lover, the Emperor Moctezuma after feigning his own death, escapes to the north. Both Coatlicue and Moctezuma share a unique genetic facility ? they have total ancestral recall: Long Memory. Their true-line descendants have the same ability. Coatlicue?s ancestral female line remains in the Bahamas on the island that was Arawak Bagwynatoo became Spanish Cigatoo and is finally British Eleuthera. The aim of Coatlicue?s descendants is to create an influential and financially secure base for the Aztec Empire to re-establish itself. Moctezuma?s ancestral male line becomes nomadic and over the years, its members travel through North America to England. They gather experience but very little moss. Throughout the period 1520 to 1900, Long Memories sustain both the female and male branches of the Family with the hope that at some future time the two ancestral lines will be re-united.