I C A R C H

 A HOUSE FOR ANACAONA

 

Please design a "house" for this revered, almost mythical "founder" of Ayiti ("Haiti" in Creole). The others will offer money, hospitals, roads, houses, schools, administrative buildings. We will offer a shrine for an Ayitian / Taino Queen.

Please read below the beautiful poem ANACAONA by Alfred Tennyson. You can learn more about Anacaona on the web, starting, as always lately, with Wikipedia.

We will send all the projects received to Haiti, to various cultural and religious organizations, and who knows, maybe they will build one of them, or several!

 

ANACAONA

A dark Indian [Taino] maiden,

Warbling in the bloom'd liana,

Stepping lightly flower-laden,

By the crimson-eyed anana,

 

Wantoning in orange groves

Naked, and dark-limb'd, and gay,

 

Bathing in the slumbrous coves,

In the cocoa-shadow'd coves,

 

Of sunbright Xaraguay,

Who was so happy as Anacaona,

 

The beauty of Espagnola,

The golden flower of Hayti ?

 

In the purple island,

Crown'd with garlands of cinchona,

 

Lady over wood and highland,

The Indian queen, Anacaona.

 

Dancing on Uic blossomy plain

To a woodland melody :

 

Playing with the scarlet crane,

The dragon-fly and scarlet crane,

 

Beneath the papao tree !

Happy, happy was Anacaona,

 

The beauty of Espagnola,

The golden flower of Hayti!

 

Naked, without fear, moving

To her Areyto's mellow ditty,

 

Waving a palm branch, wondering, loving,

Carolling "Happy, happy Hayti !"

 

She gave the white men welcome all,

With her damsels by the bay;

 

For they were fair-faced and tall,

They were more fair-faced and tall,

 

Than the men of Xaraguay,

And they smiled on Anacaona,

 

The beauty of Espagnola,

The golden flower of Hayti !

 

Following her wild carol

She led them down the pleasant places,

 

For they were kingly in apparel,

Loftily stepping with fair faces.

 

But never more upon the shore

Dancing at the break of day,

 

In the deep wood no more,

By the deep sea no more,

 

No more in Xaraguay

Wander'd happy Anacaona,

 

The beauty of Espagnola,

The golden flower of Hayti !

 

Alfred Tennyson

edited by Hallam Tennyson