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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781891270079 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Latin American Literary Review Press |
| Publication date: | 01/15/2000 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.62(h) x 0.32(d) |
About the Author
Francisco Rojas González was a Mexican author, screenwriter, diplomat, and ethnographer. He was the recipient of a National Prize for Literature and is known for having a significant impact on mid-20th-century Mexican literature and cinema. Robert S. Rudder is an editor and translator of several noteworthy Latin American novels. Gloria Arjona is the translator of numerous Spanish-language books. They are the cotranslators of The City of Kings and Nazarín.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
The Medicine Man
Seated before me, Kai-Lan, lord of the Caribe Indian huts of Puná, assumes a graceful, ape-like posture and offers me a friendly smile; his stubby, restless hands fiddle with a reed. We are under the roof of his palm leaf hut, erected in a clearing in the jungle, a clearing that is a barren island, lost in an ocean of vegetation that threatens to overflow in rustling, black waves. As Kai-Lan listens, his eyes remain steady on my face; he appears to read my expression better than he understands my words. At times, when my meaning seems to penetrate the mind or heart of the Indian, he laughs, he laughs loudly ... But at other times, when my narration turns serious, the Lacandón becomes somber and is apparently interested in the conversation, participating in it with a few monosyllables or with some simple phrase or other that he utters with difficulty.
Kai-Lan's three women are near us, his three kikas. Jacinta, nearly a child herself, and already the mother of an Indian baby—a little girl with round face and fat cheeks, still nursing; Jova, a reserved old woman, ugly and distant; and Nachak'in, a woman in full bloom: her profile arrogant, like a stone mask from Chichén-Itzá, her eyes sensuous and coquettish, her body shapely, desirable in spite of her short stature and gestures so loose that they become licentious alongside the dullness of the other two.
Kneeling next to the metate, the stone for grinding corn, Jova slaps out large circles of corn-dough; Jacinta, holding her daughter with herleftarm, turns a pheasant, cut open from top to bottom, over the hot coals of a brazier, as it gives off an agreeable smell. Nachak'in, standing, dressed in her long, loose woolen shirt, looks boldly at her bustling companions.
"And that one," I asked Kai-Lan, pointing to Nachak'in, "why isn't she working?"
The Lacandón smiles, he is silent for a few seconds; in this way he gives the impression that he's searching for the proper words to use in his reply:
"She does not work during the day," he says finally, "at night she does ... It is her turn to climb into Kai-Lan's hammock."
The beautiful kika, as though she understood the words that her husband has spoken to me in Spanish, lowers her eyes in response to my curious gaze, and peals back her lips in a terribly picaresque smile. From her short, robust neck hangs a necklace of alligator teeth.
Outside the hut, the jungle, the stage where the drama of the Lacandones unfolds. Opposite the house of Kai-Lan rises the temple of which he is High Priest and at the same time acolyte and parishioner. The temple is a hut, roofed with palm-leaves; it has only one wall, facing west; inside, rustic looking benches, and upon them incensories or braziers made of crude clay, the deities that control the passions, that temper the natural phenomena which unleash themselves in the jungle with diabolical fury, tamers of beasts, sanctuary against serpents and other reptiles, and shelter from wicked men who live beyond the forests.
Next to the temple, the patch of corn, carefully cultivated; between the sides of the furrows dug with a hoe, vigorous plants rise from the ground more than a foot high; a blanket of thorny sticks protects the field from the incursion of wild boars and tapirs, and down below, among vines and roots, the river Jataté. The weather is warm and humid.
The voice of the jungle, with its unchanging tone and its stubborn will—like the sea—this tumult that has enervating effects on anyone who hears it for the first time, and that eventually becomes a pleasant flurry during the day and a soft lullaby at night, this voice borne from the beaks of birds, the throats of beasts, from brittle branches, from the song of the leaves of silk-cotton trees, from the foliage and the murderous strangler-fig that stretches its tentacles tightly around the corpulent trunks of the mahogany tree, of the sapodilla, as it climbs, to extract their last drop of sap for itself, from the intermittent whistling of the nauyaca-snake that lives in the bark of the chacalté, and from the wailing cry of the sarahuato, a grotesque and cynical little monkey that romps about with its incessant screeching, hanging from vines or clambering unbelievably in the highest bowers ... In such a din one can scarcely hear a word of the Lacandón who is lord of the jungle and at the same time the weakest and most dispossessed of all that gives life to this world of frond and light, noise and silence.
In the hut of Kai-Lan, chief of Puná, I await the dish that his exquisite hospitality has offered to me, so that after this treat I may go on my way, through breaches and quagmires into the green vastness and the marsh, toward the huts of Pancho Viejo, that silent, solitary, languid, Lacandón gentleman whose hut, bereft of kikas, rises down the Jataté river, a few kilometers from the lands of my present host. I figure that I'll be there by nightfall.
As I'm finishing off the breast of pheasant, Kai-Lan shows signs of uneasiness. He turns toward the jungle, he crinkles up his nose like a carnivorous animal catching the scent of something; he gets to his feet, and slowly walks outside. I watch as he questions the clouds; then, from the ground, he picks up a small stick and holds it between his thumb and first-finger; through the arch formed by his fingers, the sun can be seen, nearly at its zenith.
Kai-Lan has turned around, and he tells me the result of his observation.
"You will not go far ... Water is coming, much water."
I insist that I must reach the huts of Pancho Viejo that very evening, but Kai-Lan hammers on cordially.
"Look, water comes soon," and he shows me the stick through which he has observed the clouds.
"Pancho Viejo is expecting me."
Kai-Lan no longer speaks.
I have risen to my feet. I stroke the cheek of the tiny one who has fallen asleep in her mother's arms, and as I prepare to leave, enormous drops of water stop me; the storm has unleashed itself. Kai-Lan smiles as he sees his prediction carried out: "Water ... much water."
Immediately, beneath a ceiling the color of steel that has thrust itself between the jungle and the sun, a thunderbolt roars; the storm descends upon the profusion of tree branches scraping against the crusts of clouds. The voice of the jungle becomes hushed so that the clamor of the downpour of rain may be heard. The hut shudders violently; Kai-Lan sits down again, next to me; I am caught up by the spectacle that I'm witnessing for the first time.
The water rises visibly. Jacinta has left her child lying on Kai-Lan's hammock, and followed by Jova, with innocent lewdness they lift their shirts above the waist and begin to set up a dike inside the hut to stop the water from running in. Nachak'in, the kika this time, passes the time squatting in a corner of the hut. Kai-Lan, with chin in his hands, watches as the storm increases in intensity and rumbling.
"What do you want at Pancho Viejo's?" he suddenly asks me.
Without much desire to draw out the conversation, I answer somewhat sharply:
"He's going to tell me things about the life of you Caribe Indians."
"And what do you care? There is no reason to meddle in the lives of neighbors!" says the Lacandón without trying to wound me.
I do not reply.
Jacinta has taken her little daughter in her arms and holds her close to her breast; now there are shadows of worry on the young woman's face. Stoically, Jova begins cutting apart an enormous sarahuato. The animal's pelt, pierced by one of Kai-Lan's arrows, comes falling off the reddish flesh until a naked body is left, very similar in volume and close in form to that of the chubby-cheeked little Indian girl crying in Jacinta's arms.
Kai-Lan has asked me for a cigarette and from it he puffs great clouds of smoke that, as soon as they leave his mouth, are swept away by the storm.
In the meantime the sky has never ceased to spill its water-pouch out over the jungle. The clouds become a blur with the tops of the chacalté and the sapota-tree. A bolt of lightning has split apart the trunk of a centenary silk-cotton tree like a common piece of bamboo. The crash stuns us, and for a few seconds the livid light leaves us blinded.
In the hut no one speaks. The superstitious fear of the Indians is less than my fright as a civilized man.
"Water, much water ..." Kai-Lan finally remarks.
Suddenly a drawn-out noise puts the finishing touch on our uneasiness. It is rotund like the sound of rocks wrenching apart. It is absolute, like the thunder of one hundred mahogany tree-trunks shattering in unison.
Kai-Lan stands up, he peers outside through the thick curtain unfurled by the storm. He speaks to the women in Lacandón, and they look out to the place where the man is pointing. I do the same.
"The river, it is the river," Kai-Lan says to me in Spanish.
In fact, the Jataté has become swollen; its waters hurl along tree-trunks, branches, stones as though they were straw.
The Lacandón speaks once more to his wives; they listen without a word. Jova goes to the rear of the hut and mixes together a pile of dry earth with her hands, while Kai-Lan, carrying a large gourd, walks out into the storm and immediately returns, his hair, soaking-wet, dangling down past his shoulders. The shirt sticks to his body, making him appear ridiculous ... Now, over the earth he pours the water from the gourd that he has brought inside. The women watch him, filled with devotion. Kai-Lan repeats the process again and again. The water and earth have become clay that the small man kneads. When he has come to the point where the clay is doughy and malleable, he sets out once again into the center of the storm. We watch him go into the temple and break apart the brazier-deities with mystical fury. As soon as he has finished with the last one, he comes back to the hut.
"The gods are old ... they are useless now," he tells me. "I will make another one, strong and brave, who will put an end to the water."
... And, stretched out before the mound of clay, Kai-Lan, with unexpected mastery, begins to mold a new incensory, a magnificent and powerful god, capable of exorcising the clouds that now unleash themselves upon the huts and the river.
Discreetly, the kikas have turned their backs to the man. They speak to one another in hushed tones. Suddenly Nachak'in risks a glance that Kai-Lan catches sight of. The small man has risen to his feet, he shouts harshly, he claps his hands in the air, overcome with rage. Nachak'in, facing the wall again, her head down, humbly endures the reprimand ... Convulsed with anger, Kai-Lan has torn apart the work that is nearly finished. God has succumbed once more to the hands of man.
After the Lacandón has made certain that the impure eye of the females will not defile the divine work, he tries to construct it once again.
... And there it is, a beautiful incensory of zoomorphic appearance. A potbellied bird, its back sunken in the shape of a saucepan, the tiny figure holds itself erect on three feet that end in cleft hoofs like those of a boar. Two chips of flint gleam from deep within their cavities. Kai-Lan shows that he is well satisfied with his work. He looks it up and down. He touches it again, he smooths its surface ... He studies it at a distance, from every angle. And finally he conceals it under the flounce of his tunic, and goes out with it, into the storm, toward the temple ... Now he is there. I see him through the dim crystal of the squall. He enthrones the resplendent god, still fresh, upon the stand. On its back he throws grains of copal and some live coals that he picks up with two sticks from the perpetual flame burning in the center of the room. Kai-Lan remains standing, motionless, hieratic, his arms folded, his head held high.
Meanwhile, Jova stirs the fire and it crackles, the flames slightly illuminating the hut where darkness has begun to take form. The wind continues amid the groans of trees being torn apart and the thunder of torrents. The Jataté has become arrogant, its waters are rising to an alarming height ... Now they threaten to overflow. Already they are lapping at the banks that protect the cornfield. Kai-Lan has seen the danger. Beneath the roof of the temple he uneasily observes the threatening attitude of the river. He turns toward the brazier, he fills it again with resin, and he waits. But the storm does not yield. The heavy clouds sway in the summits and their shadows fall over the Caribe huts. Night rushes in ... I see the silhouette of Kai-Lan as he goes to the altar. He takes the god in his hands. He destroys it and then, in a rage, hurls the fragments of clay into the pools of water that have formed in front of his hut ... Useless god, unworthy god, stupid god ...!
But Kai-Lan has left the temple and he is going to the cornfield. It is a struggle to move through the waters. Now he gets down on all fours next to the river. He looks like a tapir wallowing in the mire. He drags over large tree-trunks and branches, rocks and foliage. With all of it, he shores up the planted field. His work is agonizing and ineffectual. As I start out to help him, he returns to the hut, convinced that his efforts are useless. Then, violently, he harangues the women, and they turn their faces once again toward the wall of palm-leaves. The child sleeps peacefully on the hammock, her fat, little body lying among filthy, wet rags.
Kai-Lan sets himself to the task once more.
And now, before us, we have the new god that has sprung forth from his magical hands. This one is more massive than the previous one, but less beautiful. The Lacandón raises it to the level of his eyes and contemplates it for a few seconds. He seems very proud of his creation. Behind him we hear the wailing of the child who has perhaps been awakened by the sting of an insect. When Kai-Lan turns he finds the little one staring at the incensory. The Lacandón has a look of impatience that, with the baby's laughter, soon turns to a benevolent smile. He throws the incensory, now blemished by the eyes of a female, onto the floor and begins to smash it with his bare feet. When he has finally destroyed it, he cries out. Not daring to raise her head, Jacinta picks up her daughter and carries her in her arms over to the wall. Through the sleeve of her shirt she pulls out an enormous, dark teat that the child grasps. Jacinta, like the other kikas, has turned her face away from Kai-Lan who does not lose faith. Now he begins again.
The Indian puts so much energy into his work that he forgets about me, and I freely watch the steps in the manufacture of the god as they take place ... Kai-Lan's small hands take pieces of clay, they nervously roll around balls, they mold cylinders or smooth out flat shapes; they dance over the incipient form, intent, agile, lively. Jova and Jacinta, the latter rocking the child in her arms, remain standing, their backs to us. Nachak'in, melancholy perhaps because of the frustration of her seduction, is sitting, cross-legged, facing the wall. Her head slumps, she is fast asleep. In the center of the hut the fire crackles. It is nighttime.
This time the making of the god has been more laborious. One could say that, confronted by the failures, the maker puts all his art, all his mastery to the task. He sculpts a fabulous quadruped: snout of a nauyaca-snake, body of a tapir and the enormous, graceful tail of a quetzal-bird. Now, silently, he looks at the fruit of his efforts. There it is, a magnificent beast, strong, dark, brutal ... The Lacandón has risen to his feet; the incensory rests on the floor. Kai-Lan takes a few steps backward to look at it from a distance. He has noticed some imperfection that he hastens to correct with his fingers moistened with saliva ... Finally, he is completely satisfied. He lifts the incensory in his arms, and when he is certain that it has not been profaned by the look of females, he smiles and prepares to take it to his altars. He brushes against my legs as he goes past; I am certain that at this instant he does not notice my presence at all.
The shadows of the rain-soaked night do not allow me to see the handiwork of Kai-Lan in his function as High Priest. My eyes can barely make out the tiny, intermittent light that burns on the back of the newly-sculpted deity, and the anguished flickering of the fire, fed perpetually with wet wood.
In the meantime, Jova has built a marvelous structure of sticks next to the hearth. From it the sarahuato hangs, to be cooked over the embers. The appearance of the quadruped is awful. Its head, slumped over its chest seems to be grimacing; its twisted limbs remind me of figures of martyrs, of male martyrs being subjected to torture because of their saintliness or ... their heresy. The grains of salt that spatter the flesh burst with a small, enervating crackle, while fat drips down to leave the little, anthropomorphic body black and dried-out.
Jacinta, kneeling before a potbellied piece of earthenware, takes out the corn and places it on the grinding stone. The child is sleeping on a mat spread out within the mother's reach.
Nachak'in, who is seeing her night of love pass by fruitlessly, has thrown herself upon the hammock where she frets anxiously. Her legs, shapely and small, hang down and swing back and forth restlessly.
Suddenly we hear shouts coming from the cornfield. It is Kai-Lan. Jacinta and Jova respond immediately to the call; the two kikas go out into the storm, to where their husband is summoning them. Nachak'in barely sits up to watch them go. She yawns, she folds her arms over the head of the hammock and stretches her body like a small beast in heat.
I look out toward the field. Kai-Lan under a lush silk-cotton tree holds up a stick of candlewood whose flame, surprisingly, challenges the violent wind. The women struggle in the midst of the mud in furious battle against the water that has already risen above the small ledge that had held it back. Now the first stalks of corn are under water. I run to help the women. Immediately I find myself sunk to the waist in mud and engaged in the Lacandones' fight. While Jacinta and I bring up stones and mud, Jova builds a barrier that, more swiftly than it can be raised, is torn away by the current. Kai-Lan cries out stinging words in Lacandón; they redouble their efforts. The man comes and goes under the enormous umbrella of the silk-cotton trees; the torch, held aloft, sends out its weak light to us. A moment arrives when Kai-Lan's agitation is irrepressible. He leaves the stick of candlewood propped up between two stones and goes toward the temple-hut. He enters and leaves us engaged in our useless efforts ... Jacinta has slipped and fallen. The water drags her a distance. Jova is able to grab her by the hair and with my help we pull her out of danger. An enormous tree trunk floating in the water completely sweeps away our work ... The flood overflows now into rivulets that make pools of water at the feet of the maize-plants. Nothing can be done. And yet, the women keep up their earnest fight. When I am at the point of leaving, absolutely exhausted, I notice that the storm is over ... It has gone just as it came, without spectacular circumstances, suddenly, just the way everything in the jungle appears or leaves: the predators, lightning, the wind, vegetation, death ...
Kai-Lan emerges from the temple, he cries out jubilantly. Nachak'in peers out from the hut and celebrates her husband's happiness with laughter. We go back to the hut.
Nachak'in sees how the monkey's body is becoming scorched, is turning to char, and does nothing to stop it. A black, fetid cloud makes the air unbreathable. The child sobs, exhausted from its wailing.
The women laugh when they see how ridiculous I look: we are smeared with mud from head to foot.
I try to clean the mud from my boots. Kai-Lan offers me a gourd full of balché, the fermented drink that is a ritual for great occasions. I take one drink, then another and another ... When I bend my elbow for the third time I notice that dawn is breaking.
Kai-Lan is at my side, he is looking at me amiably. Nachak'in comes up and tries to wrap her arm around the small man's neck, lewdly and provocatively. He pushes her back delicately and at the same time says to me:
"Not Nachak'in now, because today is tomorrow."
Then, softly, he calls to Jova. The old woman comes to the man submissively. He puts his arm around her waist and leaves it there.
"Today Jova will not work ... She will at night, because it is her turn to climb into Kai-Lan's hammock."
Then he says a few brief, terse words to Nachak'in who has distanced herself slightly from the group. The beautiful, imperious woman, now docile and humble, goes to the hearth to take the place that Jova, whose turn it is to be kika, has left.
I make ready to go. I give some red combs and a mirror to the women. They show their gratitude with wide, white smiles.
Kai-Lan presents me with a ham of monkey that escaped the scorching. I repay him with a handful of cigarettes.
I start out in the direction of the huts of the gentleman, Pancho Viejo. Kai-Lan accompanies me to the rough ground. When we pass by the temple, the Lacandón stops and, pointing to the altar, he remarks:
"There is no one, in all the jungle, like Kai-Lan for making gods ... It turned out well, did it not? It killed the storm... Look, in the struggle it lost its beautiful tail of the quetzal-bird and left it in the sky."
In fact, caught on the bower of a tree, a rainbow appears, resplendent ...
Table of Contents
| The Medicine Man | 11 |
| The Tona | 21 |
| The Betrothed | 29 |
| The Cows of Quiviquinta | 35 |
| Hículi Hualula | 42 |
| The Mocking Bird and the Footpath | 52 |
| The Parable of the One-Eyed Boy | 59 |
| The Revenge of Charles Le Mange | 65 |
| Our Lady of Nequetejé | 74 |
| The Goat on Two Hooves | 81 |
| The Ten Responsories | 90 |
| The Plaza of Xoxocotla | 96 |
| The Sad Story of Pascola Cenobio | 102 |
| Glossary | 112 |