The Cockfight

     It has been said that chickens were first domesticated for cockfighting then for food. No other bird has affected the course of human history like the gallant, intrepid, and tasty chicken. 

      I don't know whether to call cockfighting a sport, a pass time, a bloody confrontation instigated by men between birds hopped up on steroids that is basically an excuse for drinking and gambling, or a tradition that honors male bavery. Cockfighting is very old. Some accounts hold it originated in the Indus Valley, some say China. Other accounts claim Themistocles was responsible for initiating the sport. Since the Greeks seem to have been responsible for everything why no go with that particular tale. 

     In the first decade of the fifth century B.C. The Athenian general Themistocles, on his way to confront the invading Persian forces, was said to have stopped to watch two cocks fighting and summoned his troops, saying: “Behold, these do not fight for their household gods, for the monuments of their ancestors, for glory, for liberty or the safety of their children, but only because one will not give way to the other.” In this manner he inspired his troops to courage. It is said that after his victorious return to Athens he initiated a cockfighting festival to pay homage to valor and courage. The cock became a political-religious symbol,, a patriotic call to arms. Sounds honorable enough, but many traditions can change over time. Now cockfighting does not seem to be tied to political or religious themes. Gambling,,,, cult of the macho, and I suspect male admiration for distilled virility,, in the form of the impossible,,, Deisel The Steel Teuton "Testosteronisized" Plexico, or if you will, Sylvester Stallone, Chris Hemsworth, or Arnold Schwartzenegger to name a few. 

     I want to be able to say that attendees at cockfights admire the valor of the rooster but their apparent indifference during the event towards these animals who fight to the death says something else. When I ask them why they enjoy cockfighting they answer evasively. Some, like the impresarios, enjoy the aspects of training,, but those that are truthful will state that really really it is all about gambling. The owners, or impresarios, those who actually present the cocks, like trainers in a boxing match show some stoic emotion but nothing like the more overt level in Bullfighting where the crowd urges on the risk taker with shouts of "Ole Ole". At the end of a bullfight they might throw flowers, sombreros, and even panties to be touched by the Matador then thrown back to the person who made the offer. Impresarios, who are involved in the match, will urge their wounded rooster to bolster himself by spraying spittle or tequila over their heads,, or literally put the rooster's head into their mouth as if it were an ice cream cone, in order to clean the blood. 

     Perhaps I am wrong but on the surface a cockfight is a social event. As long as tempers don't flare over a bet, then all hell can break loose. Spectator involvement in the outcome occurs when the "money lady makes her rounds to accept bets,, and also during the actual fight. In the longish hiatus between fights that can last from 20 seconds to 15 minutes. People socialize, eat tacos, drink, and bet while the roosters are prepared  for the match. Tied onto one of their own natural spurs is a "navaja" or razor sharp hooked blade. Then the roosters are "plaited" or animated to fight and finally presented to one another. The socializing stops when the two roosters are let at each other flopping and flapping in blurred movements, like quick brushstrokes, too fast for the eye to see,,, Japanese Samurai on speed.

    

     I took my brother to a cockfight when he was in Tenancingo. He studied the first two fights hardly speaking at all. I wondered what he was thinking. Soon, however, I was privy to his mind. He leaned in towards me between fights and said. "I've got it. I know what's going on here." He whispered to me in english as if he had unlocked the Da Vinci Code, and didn't want anyone else to hear,, in a large arena of only spanish speaking people,,,,,,, "The rooster that winks at me before the fight always wins." Wow I thought. He is taking this theory seriously. I didn't know what to say.  After just 60 minutes of keen observation he had invented a religion. Now all he needed was a parish.  My brother then used his secret information as he bet 20 dollars on the next "winker". The winker was vanquished in just ten bloody seconds.

     

      If one has ever kept chickens especially the bantam varieties used in cockfighting one knows that their "spurs" can grow long and pointed and that male chickens are naturally aggressive towards one another. My first chickens were a stout bantam rooster, El Presidente, and his wife Griselda. I gave him the name El Presidente for his regal air as he marched about the yard. I could picture him , his chest and shoulders adorned with medals. Griselda reminded me of my third grade teacher Mrs. Holland, because they both seemed to wear the same dress. He was what I would call a benevolent dictator. He took care to watch over Griselda all day as she scavenged, ushering her to the bushes when he sensed danger from hawks or humans. He, with all his colorful iridescent plumage, would wait in the open as fighter or brave sacrifice as Griselda cackled her way to safety. 

     At the time I was working out of desperation cleaning out large commercial chicken houses before new chickens arrived. In 13 weeks they went from chicks to wobbly legged chubby roasters. I was always called to work the day after the "processing plant guys" came in the night to round up 40,000 chickens and take them to the first step in their eventual destiny, ending up as parts arranged in a styrofoam boat in the supermarket's cooler. As was often the case two or three birds escaped the hands of the "processing plant guys". In the dark trying to grab 40,000 chickens three or four at a time by the feet is not always smooth. That morning when I went to begin my shoveling I saw a large white chicken wobbling about outside the chicken house. Commercially raised chickens are alotted less than one square foot per bird during their 13 week stay in the chicken house. By the time they are near market size they can hardly move for the crowding. They stay in their alotted space,,pecking at one another,  eating specialized energy food, and drinking water. Their legs are so weak they resemble wandering drunks if they find some space. I grabbed the wobbler and tied her in the back of my truck. I thought I could take her back to the barn, feed her something healthy, give her some space, then when she was cleaned up,, eat her. Chicken house chickens are good for meat not eggs.

     That evening I brought the white wobbler to my house and left her in the barn on a bed of hay. El Presidente and Griselda were perched  as always tightly together above the white wobbler on a thick dowel. I remember El Presidente giving the newcomer the eye as I left. The next morning when I entered the barn I found the commercial bird lying dead on the hay. Her head had been perforated like a drain pipe by El Presidente. I pictured him telling Griselda the night before,,, "She is not our kind", and in the early morning when light was as scarce as hen's teeth,,, and all was still,, he unsheathed his lethal swords.........

                                       

The Guys

The Money Lady

A Fighting Cock

Muchachos 

  Impresario


   Opposing Impresario


Plaiting, or using a bird, not in the fight, to excite one that is. 

  Presentation and The Money Lady

The Blur Like a Japanese Character

Trying to motivate the apparent loser

Brushstrokes

Blood and fury

  

  Exhausted

Someone has a sense of humor, a female scarecrow.

                                      

Arteaga and Saltillo

          Arteaga seems the Magic Pueblo for the masses.The architecture is pure Coahuilquense. Low adobe structures painted in pastels,, and consistent, like a loving aunt. Some are abandoned. This seems a common in the area of Saltillo. If you search Arteaga, Coahuila on the net,  most of the images that pop up are of Monte Real, a resort with skiing on an artificial slope, and the surrounding mountains,,,,, of an area presented as the Switzerland of Mexico. Images of Arteaga are scarce except for a few of the church San Isidro Salvador. The bulk of the fotos are of people from Monterrey among the snowy pines in the mountains more than an hour away from Arteaga. 

       In Arteaga there is a canal that runs down an island in the center of the main boulevard. It resembles more an irrigation ditch,, yet a human recreational ecosystem has evolved along it. The water rushes between the thick knarled roots of aged cottonwoods. Families come to dip their feet and their little ones into the rushing water. The aroma of barbacue from various braziers rides upon the air. People sit, half hidden by the leaning trunk of a cottonwood and kiss. Kids climb perpendicular trunks and perch as if they were on their mother or father's laps. Feet stick out from the branches here and there like fruit.

   
     
     If you follow this boulevard down eventually you will arrive at the zocalo.  The faces are different in the north as if one had traveled from Boston, where the celtic physiognomy is stippled by freckles,, to the German Fest in Milwaukee where big boned rosy complexioned Teutons slap dance in drndl dresses and lederhosen. In Saltillo and Arteaga there are more whites and "ruddys" than I am used to, but still plenty of indigenous shapes and colors, only rounder, not like the almond headed natives of Tenancingo. I am sure they see us as differently as we see them.  
     As we slowly wound through the thick slow moving sunday crowd I saw lots of visible tattoos on backs and arms. This generation and this place, so close to the border, seem to have divested themselves of subtlety. People, however are friendly. They will offer to help without being asked. We followed the perimeter of the zocalo lined with puestos ambling in and out of the shade. There seemed to be little or no local crafts. Perhaps that is due to the fact that 90 % of the original natives,, the Huauchichiles, Coahuiltecos, Tobosos, Irritilas and Rayados, were erased by European diseases. 
      My wife bought a "cure from the desert" pomade made of peyote and marijuana for her mother who suffers joint pain from diabetes. It was good they didn't show the ingredients on the jar or my mother-in-law would refuse to try the grease on her knuckles feeling like a drug addict. (By the way it worked). 
     When we had completed our tour, we sat down to taste the "pancita" at a puesto that Tia recommended. The shade was soothing because Arteaga is hot this time of the year. The pancita was delicious. It brought back memories of my youth even though the preparation of the dish that we enjoyed under a blue tarp in Arteaga was different. My grandmother, a great cook,  would occaisionally become animated and prepare tripe, a dish that can take from 2-2 1/2 hours to prepare. She would scrub and cut the tough tripe into pieces, then cook it in a deep pot until tender. This could take an hour and a half. Meanwhile she made a fresh tomato sauce with onions, garlic, and herbs. When the tripe was tender she added the tomato sauce, and black olives cooking it a while longer until it was well seasoned, when the tripe and the sauce had shared fluids like a couple making love. Pecorino Cheese was grated on a bowl of the concoction. Pancita estilo mexicana first elaborates a beef broth with water, the tripe, and beef bones until the stomach is tender. Meanwhile a sauce is made from chilaca chiles, onions, garlic, and herbs to arrive at a very different flavored darker slightly bitter red sauce. A bowl is not complete without oregano, fresh chopped onions, and lemon. It's delicious. I have made it several times but because I am a clumsy chef, I cannot maintain consistency. We were enjoying the pancita but Tia thought the cook shorted us on the meat. She charmed the owner into heaping on a more tripe. No problems, no arguments,, everyone was smiling. I think she could charm the skin off a rattlesnake. 

     During the meal music floated our way coming from an open space alongside the zocalo. Vera Cruzano style bailerinas were dancing their shoes clacking like a hundred nailers in unison. I relish the eye contact and smiles exchanged by the partners in folkloric dancing even if they barely know one another. There is an erotic element,,, socially accepted flirting. I was reminded of "bundling" that odd courting practice in the land of the puritans,, and of contra dancing in the Northeast where your partner, that means whomever you might wind up in the rotation, connects to you with not only with their body, but especially with their eyes, as if for the duration of the dance there are no rules and for these few moments you are not New England puritans but fleeting effervescent lovers spinning and concentrated,, outside the realm of sin,,, just two people creating a fantasy,,, all because it is accepted by all. 
     The women's dresses in Arteaga were wine colored with white trim, a large white flower planted in their dark hair. They held the dresses open, splayed like fans. The men were usually hidden by one half of the skirt decked out in their vercruzian hat, red panuelo, and white shirts. They had a simpler look. In the world of birds the male is vibrant and flashy and in the world of humans the peacock is a woman. Everyone in the troop looked ahead out over the gathered crowd when not looking at each other. Their posture is rigid and formal but their feet are animated. This is a foot fest,,feet slapping the stage floor sounding out an urgency in a rigorous frenzied tattoo.


  


                                                          Saltillo

       I had mixed feelings about Saltillo from the minute we left highway 57. One is greeted by elevated highways, and fields of malls planted with rows of chain stores. One cannot help but feel they are in the U.S.. 
     Facts about Saltillo and Coahuila:
     Saltillo was founded in 1577 and soon after its founding Indigenous people from Tlaxcala were installed by the spanish as part of the settlement process. Tlaxcalans have always been considered traitors by other Mexicans because of the alliance they made with Cortes against the Aztecs. 
     Saltillo used to be the capitol of Texas before the Texas War of Independence when Coahuila and Texas were one.  
     About 95% of Mexico's coal reserves are found in Coahuila, which is the country's top mining state.The city is the world's largest silver producer and Mexico's largest gold producer.  
     Lala, a dairy products company, which produces 40% of Mexico's milk consumption is located in Coahuila. 
    The town of Piedras Negras is where Chef Ignacio Nacho Anaya served the first-ever plate of nacho, when some some Military wives visited "The Victory Club" restaurant in 1943. The restaurant was closed but the chef Ignacio let them in and concocted something to eat from what was available. According to Anaya, there were four ladies, and they’d been drinking when they asked him for a snack. When they commented on how tasty it was, they also asked, “what do you call them?” Anaya (Nacho) took responsibility for his creation and replied, “Nacho’s especial”  (Nacho’s Special).  The popular appetizer of tortilla chips and melted cheese has become a Tex-Mex cuisine classic. In honor of this delectable invention, the town hosts an annual nacho competition during the second week of October.
      In the Cretaceous period, which lasted from 145 ago to 65 million years the number of dinosaurs reached their greatest diversity and large carnivores dominated all others. The best example of these is the Tyrannosaurus rex known by all, 'the king of the terrible lizards', who lived in the northern part of America. This last period, especially its final part, the Late Cretaceous, is the one that is particularly important in Coahuila, as the biggest and best fossil record of Mexico come from this state. Go see The Desert Museum in Coahuila.
     

      Saltillo is well positioned along the banks of a great river of enterprise that touches the rest of Mexico to the south and the United States just to the north.
      
     One cannot underestimate the influence of Coahuila in the Mexican Revolution. Coahuila was the home of Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza.The former, a bookish upper middleclass guy, who wrote the mexican version of "Common Sense" (The Presidential Succession in 1910), was naive and idealistic. He had a small stature and a high-pitched voice. Madero was a devout vegetarian and teetotaler, he followed homeopathy and spiritualism,, not that any of those characteristics should exclude you from Mexican politics,,, but being honest and decent certainly does. Francisco could not master the politics of plutocracy that had ruled Mexico since the War of Independence with the drastic changes of land reform and democracy. Madero was assasinated in 1913, two years after he became president by conspiritors led by Victoriano Huerta and the US ambassador Henry Lane Wilson. 
     Carranza, born in Parras, Coahuila  came from an upper class family, was a tall imposing figure much shrewder and more calculating than Madero. He was not a military man, he relied on his cleverness. Carranza positioned himself well enough in his early career to rise up in the political ranks and become along with Zapata, Villa and Obregón one of the four most important leaders during the Mexican civil war.
     Carranza, who had been ruling provisionally he was known by followers as "the First Chief", officially became president on March 11, 1917, in an election in which he won 797,305 votes against the 11,615 garnered by his closest rival. A month before, on February 5, the Constitution of 1917 was adopted. Although the 1917 Constitution also contained provisions to improve the lot of workers and peasant farmers, these were ignored by the Carranza government. Corruption was endemic and strikes were mercilessly broken.
Carranza opposed the sweeping changes called for during the revolution like land reform. Unlike Madero, he frowned on social justice. This alienated him from Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. In fact it has been suggested that he ordered the execution of Zapata in order to eliminate the last of the revolutionary idealists. He was intelligent in a crafty kind of way, stubborn, saw himself as the savior of Mexico, but unlike his counterparts he was a charismatic dud. His stubborness led to a power struggle among the big players which proved his downfall and the beginning of a the "succession",, The cycle of ruthless corrupt leaders who have plagued Mexico ever since.

Instituto Tecnologico Saltillo

  Stairway in the Tech

Escuela Ateneo Fuente Saltillo

Cathedral Saltillo

Josef Stalin represented in the historical mural in La Presidencia. He is placed behind Venustaiano Carranza,, perhaps an artist's bit of satire.

Franciso Madero in the same mural

The impossible to see mural. It is hung in a narrow hallway behind a forest of columns.

Possessions of Venustiano Carranza in the Museum in the Presidencia.

Statue, desk, and other possessions of Venustiano Carranza in the Museum within the Presidencia. 

                            

      That night I slept deeply even in the heat of Saltillo. Just one hour from Los Lirios, San Antonio, Escobedo, Monte Real and so different. In the morning I sat in the kitchen alone writing, enjoying a cup of coffee and listening to Tia's gardener, Ramon's methodic clipping. He might just be older than I. I am quiet. I think I understand the attraction of the ideology of communism,, for just a second,,, where all is equal and we share. I pause and catch myself wallowing in the fallacy of ideologies. What a joke,, sharing,, until the first person organizes a gang of followers and declares himself Secretary General Of Affairs Of State,,, because he wants to avoid the shovel. 

    

                 

Monte Real Coahuila

     My partner entered a three tiered ultra marathon in Monte Real. One could choose Twenty seven, Fifty, or One Hundred kilometers. My partner began her 27 kilometer run at 7:00 in the cold dark morning. Her route, the sissiest of the three choices, was formidable enough. The trail climbed for 13.5 kilometers then down for another 13 and a half through a garden cactus, wild flowers, and stubby pines. From the top, she ruled over the valley below her  that streched towards another mountain range. 
     In the same race as her, only in the 50 kilometer category were some of the famous Raramuri. At 7:00 AM they were there, two men in their sandals and trangular loincloths. The women looked like they were ready for the square dance in long dresses. They are doll- like short people,, equipped in cheap sandals. They run 50 and 100 kilometers with regularity. Everyone loves them and everyone wants their picture taken with them even those super equipped in the moment runners with specialized backpacks, grenade belts of water, armed with power bars, and tubes,, like martians,,, with 250 dollar sneakers, knee and thigh braces applied like fine decals, super socks, and space age fabrics that breathe and keep you warm at the same time. The Raramuris men run in fluffy colorful shirts and loin cloths. The women in pioneer dresses.  They are the antithesis of the modern runner yet admired by all of them. 

  

                                                    San Antonio de las Alazanas
          After my partner left to run Tia and I went for a coffee or three then wrangled our way,, really her way, for she's a charmer, onto a bus specifically to ferry runners from San Antonio de las Alazanas to Monte Real. We wanted to meet my partner at her finish line. In San Antonio, in order to kill some time,,, and it wasn't really killing time but exalting in it, we went to the beige brick church and there at the very entrance to the atrium we encountered a severely palsied lady with a walker escorted by two young girls. One of the girls held a basket of white flowers. Tia spoke to them commenting on what wonderful grandchildren they were to help their grandmother. They replied like saints in an aura of perfect purity,,,, as halos appeared over their heads,, no no we are just helping, meaning the palsied lady was not a relative. Tia kissed one and told them their kindness would be returned 100 fold. The innocence and heavily sifted purity of these two young girls expressed in their unfettered smiles, free of human stains was inspiring. Tia kissed the other one on the cheek, a kiss so clear, like a mountain spring, and I was weighted down drowning with my leaden ego. 
      We entered the church and Tia began to pray. I sat there in the rising heat lamed by the two girls but confronted with the church. To one side three nuns talked with who might have been the girl's parents. I thought,, it is difficult to pray to someone I do not know,, someone who is a stranger and I felt guilt for the thought. 
     This sleepy San Antonio, its zocalo populated by fallen crunchy detritus and truenos,, a dry looking tree that glowed in the rising heat. Its bark, like so many trees here, was thickly scaled. The tone of the leaf was dry gray green,, as if it was on the perpetual edge of drought. The  zocalo was bordered by low adobes,,, the low ceilings to help ward off the winter cold. The windows and door of one was outlined in bright colors,, like lipstick applied by a drunken date.Then checking myself, I thought of the colorful Sami in Finland. Many of the adobes were abandoned. The sun was bright and intense. Tia and I wandered and watched a girl make Helados Fritos,, bought sdome apple wine and waited for the race to end.

 

 

      

                           

Towards Saltillo

      Route 57

     On the way to Saltillo there is the desert that begins before Matehuala (Matehuala means don't come). Here there are broad flatlands, occaisional hills,, and the blue distant cordillera. Albarda cactus is the tallest plant around. It looks like a green coral that lost its ocean.

Albarda
    
     After Matehuala Joshua Trees, (Izotes or yucca), appear,, sparingly at first and then sometimes like a horde of people in the desert. My fotos cannot capture their movement, like an open air theatre of  dancers their trunks and unbalanced and crowns often bowed,,, their branches like arms,, flailing,,, trapped in awkward momentum. Some trees sport yellowish collars of dried penquas. Bunches of white flowers sprout like pom poms or elegant headdresses. On the small hills they might resemble jamaican carnival dancers. You can almost hear the drums beating out a ferocious symphony.  At other times they seem a spastic army thrusting their way down towards the highway.

    

         

     

     Eventually the Joshua trees give way to the mountains of Leon and Coahuila,, baldish

behemoths sometimes purple sometimes greenish gray. Where landslides have occurred silver plaques of pure stone have been uncovered like broad ice crystals, the plaques merging into deeply folded crew cut greenery. The mountains here border both sides of the highway. 

  Coahuilon

     Highway 57 is desolate except for truckers headed north to Monterrey and the States and Canada. It seems the roadside economy is divided into Vulkas (vulcanizadoras) and Cafes. Stunted buildings on the edge of the vast desert, that trails off like an infinite plate of spines, are sparse. Many seem closed.  

      We counted how many trucks passed us in the southbound lane in one minute. It varied from 15 to 20.  It's equal in the northbound lanes. Of course our velocity fudges the numbers. If we were sitting on a fixed point while counting it wouldhave been easier. I am not quite sure how to set up the math on this in order to calculate the quantity of trucks that pass in a 24 hour period. Instinctually it seems to add up to a heavy number. If each truck carried an average of $25,000 USD (that's a low estimate) then the money pile is substantial. Studies say 1,000,000,000 dollars cross the border daily.  No politician, however reactionary, could stop commerce on this scale.

     In Saltillo we picked up an aunt,, a gem. She's a talker, as if she has been locked up in a stainless steel closet for the last ten years. She has the face of a ceramic doll with cupid's bow lip lines. Her voice wavers and seems weak but she is sharp enough to know what time it is. The idea was to leave the city and head up to a cabin in Los Lirios much higher up in the hills and away from the infernal heat of Saltillo. This is a common weekend practice for people from Saltillo and Monterrey.

     The alpine forest near the cabin is flailed constantly with a wind sounding like waves ceaselessly caressing some fantastical ocean shore. It's an grieving wind combing the madroños, ocotes, and these bushes with lavender blue delicate flowers. Here the air is clean and aromatic.The trees are short perhaps new,, perhaps old or malnourished. All the stones (limestone it seems) possess a flat face sometimes three faces from which to choose,, a stonemason's candy store. The temperature is cool, unlike Saltillo which is very hot. At night it is cold,, a cold that lingers long into the morning until the sun is high enough for its light scale down the mountainsides and reach into the deep folds. The long ascending valley below the lofty cabin is given to growing apples and nectarines. Apple wine is very popular, not overly sweet like the fruit liquors of Tenancingo.

     The following morning I decided to take a walk. I followed the dirt road until it became a path. Up up with the wind as my companion like a god or a rapsody of memories. I crunched my way over pine needles and between bushes zig zagging to overcome the steep pitch until the trails ended at the very waistband of the mountain. From here the incline became almost insurmountable. Half the mountain was still before me its green face 

only broken by two sharp outcroppings. The valley below was sparsely dotted with cabins and apple orchards evidenced by black netting that protected the trees from birds. Just the wind, the wild flowers, and the stubby trees.