Song of the Hummingbird » (1st Edition)

Father Benito questions the forces that brought him to Huitzitzilin. She seems intent on chronicling her life. And hers is a tale that both intrigues and repels him. Distracted from his mission to confess and absolve Huitzitzilin, the priest presses her to tell her compelling story. He has heard the tales of the conquest: the accounts of atrocities, of barbarism, of despair suffered by the conquistadors in the quest for glory. Huitzitzilin speaks of the same death and destruction, but in her tale the roles are reversed. The natives are the victims. Her words are a revelation. The priest accepts Huitzitzilin's account because she was a witness to the events he learned of only second hand. As he listens to the song of Hummingbird, the priest beings to question his firmly-held convictions. Against his will, he is imbued with unexpected empathy for Hummingbird and all the Mexica people. A novel idea take hold of his consciousness: he begins to share Huitzitzilin's nostalgia for what is irrevocably gone.

Library Journal

Like Limn's two previous novels, In Search of Bernabe (LJ 8/93) and The Memories of Ana Calderon (LJ 8/94), this work explores the endurance of the human spirit in a world of political, social, and emotional violence. HummingbirdHuitzitzilin in her native Nahuatl languagerecounts her life story, 82 years that transcend the Spanish conquest of Mexico, "because I will soon die, and someone must know how it was that I and my people came to what we are now." Born an Aztec princess in the court of Montezuma, she ends her life in a convent. A bewildered young priest expects to hear her final confession but instead becomes engrossed in her tale, and, in so doing, is himself converted to some acceptance and sensibility of the freedom and passion of her indigenous culture. For public and academic libraries with an interest in Hispanic culture.Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., Mcminnville, Ore.