CubaPLUS Magazine

It is considered possibly the oldest Cuban legend related to a historical event. The myth of the light of Yara was very possibly born at the beginning of the Spanish colonization, as a result of the burning at the stake of the Quisqueyan aboriginal chief named Hatuey.

He came to Cuba together with other natives of his land to warn the natives of the largest of the Antilles about the excesses and cruelties of the conquest and to raise his spirits for the fight against the invader. He never believed they were gods. That early and brave attitude of rebellion gave the remarkable aboriginal a place forever in our history, although not as prominent as he deserves.

Captured by the Spanish, he was sentenced to die by the barbaric method used in the metropolis so many times during the Inquisition, but not before refusing to be baptized, since he denied the heaven of the hated occupants of his land.

The legend of the light of Yara, closely related to the fact, part of the animist and spiritual tradition probably inherited from the aborigines who had a Taíno chiefdom in the area where Hatuey was burned, later known as Yara,  today a rural town and municipality in the southeastern province of Granma, and there a simple monument commemorates the death of the legendary aboriginal chief.

The aforementioned legend refers to the appearance on very dark nights and in the middle of the field of a light in the form of a sphere, which rotates incessantly. For many years, so many that the count has been lost, after Hatuey's death, many inhabitants of the surroundings of Yara, Manzanillo, Bayamo and the Bartolomé Masó municipality have reported seeing it.

It produces a kind of enchantment, because it totally disorients the traveler or walker for a while and loses his way in the middle of the lonely place. Science explains the origin of these real lights as will-o'-the-wisps or light beams due to the decomposition of animal bones exposed to the elements in the fields.

Nothing mysterious, but natural. But the legend remains and thus Hatuey and his imprint continue to live on in that region. Everyone says that the light is his tireless spirit, that he still perseveres and does not die, there, where he was immolated.  (Photo taken from the Yara Citizen Portal)