Main character puts labels on everything including himself

Rebeca brings an insomnia plague to the village‹a plague that causes everyone to live painlessly without sleep and to lose their memory. It gets so bad that Aureliano has to label everything in the house and, eventually with Jose Arcadio Buendia's help, the town. The plague does not end until Melquiades the gypsy returns. Old, decrepit, and apparently risen from the dead‹he claimed being dead was too lonely‹he brings not only an antidote to the plague but also a miraculous new invention, the daguerreotype. The Buendias have their first and only family photograph taken and Jose Arcadio Buendia becomes obsessed with making a daguerreotype of God, in order to prove His existence.