2003
Before the Avenida Pino Suarez Cleanup
In Mexico City the corner of Pino Suarez
and Republica De El Salvador is alive with human traffic, a continuous ribbon of souls. The streets are
lined with people selling goods, and tourists edging to and from the Zocalo. However
all seem oblivious to a deteriorating plaque pegged to the wall on the side of a
Church part of the Hospital of Jesús Nazareno supposedly marking the spot on
the causeway where Hernán Cortés, cocooned in steel, and the feathered Moctezuma
II met for the first time in 1519. This plaque marks the most decisive event in
the history of the Americas.
It was Cortés who
ordered the hospital built to tend to soldiers wounded fighting with the Mexicas.
It is the oldest western hospital in this hemisphere. In fact Cortés' remains
were placed in the church section in 1774. At the same time a bust was created
of the conquistador. This was highly unusual for there are few memorials to the
man who brought the Spanish language, catholicism, social upheaval, and great
suffering to the Americas. One
time a plaque inside the church indicated the conquistatador’s tomb. However,
in August 1882, there was a proposal to move the remains and place them next to
those of some of the heroes of Mexican War of Independence, but this caused
great clamor. Some even attempted to desecrate the tomb. The remains were
discreetly removed to another site
within the church.
On the opposite side of this famous corner
stands El Museo De La Ciudad De Mexico. Originally the museum was a residence
constructed in the baroque style of the era for one of Hernán Cortés’s
supporters. One corner of the museum has incorporated into its construction the
large carved stone head of a serpent salvaged from the conquered city of
Tenochitlan . The architectural contrasts are remarkable. The euopean baroque
masonry of rectangular shapes, arches,
and walls faced in red lava tiles co-opted from the fallen city itself all now
tread upon the head of a wincing snake.
When Hernan Cortes, the conquistador, and his
men entered the city of Tenochitlan for the first time in 1519, it seemed to
float upon Lake Texcoco. They were dwarfed by its magnificence. The encounter
was recorded in the accounts of Bernal Diaz Del Castillo, a footsoldier in
Cortes’ army:
“Within the lake of Texcoco and all around its edges were
countless dwellings. Three causeways led from the mainland to the island center
of the city, and a grid of canals laced the Metropolis. The lake and the canals
were filled with canoes and the whole scene was alive with people. (Estimates
indicate that the full zone of the city embraced 60,000 dwellings and 300,000
persons. ) When we saw so many cities and villages built in the water
and other great towns on dry land we were amazed and said that it was enchanting
on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water,
and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the
things that we saw were not a dream? I do not know how to describe it, seeing
things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed
about.”
Cortes returned in1521 and with the help of his multi lingual concubine, Malinche. Alliances
had been formed with tribes that were enemies of the Aztecs, and perhaps because
of his most important unseen ally, small pox, he advanced on the sickened Empire.
Cortes prevailed.
During the final seige, Cortes’s army began
to systematically level the city in order to create a battlefield cleared of
any obstructions. The Spanish destroyed the
fresh water aqueduct and slowly advanced tumbling the buildings and filling the
canals with their debris as smallpox continued to devastate the population. The
defeat was nearly complete. The debris that
remained were used to rebuild a new city atop the ruins.
Chiapas
It is said the people
of Chiapas are a people without a history yet for at least two thousand years
the Mayan culture flourished in Central America. The conquest didn’t erase the
history of the people of Chiapas, it ignored it. All people, great and small,
create histories. A culture is imbedded in its history. History marks time.
Culture reflects a society’s imaginative rearrangement of its history. Nothing
lasts forever.
Luis
Marin, one of Cortez’s officers arrived in Chiapas 1523. After three years of
battle with the indigenous population Marin was not able to exert complete
control. The Indians of the highlands resisted ferociously. Cortez dispatched a new military expedition under the
command of Diego de Mazariegos who had more success. Faced with capture and
inevitable slavery, many indigenous warriors chose death over loss of freedom.
In the Battle of Tepetchia, many Indians jumped to their deaths into the deep
Cañon del Sumidero. After that indigenous resistance weakened. By the end of
1528, the conquest of Chiapas was complete, with both the Tzotzil and Tzeltal
Indians subjugated and repressed. On March 31, 1528, Captain Mazariegos established
Ciudad Real in the Valley of Jovel. Ciudad
Real was later renamed San Cristóbal de las Casas.
On
the afternoon of October 12, 1992, there was a protest march of indigenous
peoples in San Cristóbal de las Casas. In front of the intricately carved
sandstone façade of the temple of Santo Domingo stood the monument to Diego de
Mazariegos, founder of the city. One man attacked the statue with a
sledgehammer and then the crowd closed in reducing it to fragments, taken as
souvenirs. One noted symbol of the conquest was erased, five hundred years
after the bloody conquest and its subsequent oppressions. Chiapas, the
forgotten State, had begun its resistance.
Prologue
It
was said once in a book that people who dwell in the mountains theoretically
live just a little longer than those below. They spin faster relative to those
that live at lower altitudes because they are perched upon the margins of the
planet,,, just as a bicycle wheel rim spins faster than its axel in order to
cover the greater distance of its perimeter at the same time that the axel
makes one revolution. The climate is different in the high sierra,, usually more
temperate. The sunlight is more intense in the thinner air. The atmosphere is
compressed as it flows over the peaks and increases in velocity, distorting and
stretching the shapes of the clouds it bears making them seem as if they were
high jumpers leaping over a bar. Mountains have figured prominently in human
mythology, as the lofty place where Gods roam. They are gateways to heaven,, and
sometimes portals to hell. Spirits are said to haunt the peaks of these disturbances
in the earth’s skin. People living in the mountains are like those living on an
island, isolated,, sequestered. Their home, an atoll pierces an ocean of clouds
and sky.
It is also said that people who undertake
a journey without destination make the very journey sacred. The act of just
rising up and displacing yourself a long distance is a spiritual act. When you
travel without the intention to conquer it’s even better because your ambitions
are unclear. You live within the conditional tense. Your aim however becomes
the present tense. All that one encounters can be revered.
To
Bobby who said Pete doesn’t know much but he tries hard. I think that sums me
up.
Telemachus
She often climbed Monte De Plata to
collect plants. Monte de Plata was an an ancient volcano, elongated and flat
topped, its sides deeply furrowed and blanketed in a quilt of pine and oak. It
was called Monte De Plata not because there were deposits of silver but because
of its color in the afternoons when the afternoon sun struck needles of ocote.
Then the trees resembled a sheep’s cauliflor fleece glistening argentine. On
the way up the ,mountain, along the path, she passed a small deep stagnant pool,
edged in thicket and viney arabesques, just a saturated pocket in the
mountainside that reliably yielded special plants, not suited to the higher
richer well drained forest. The mountain was an agreeable place.The summit’s
deep friable soil supported an old growth woodland, moist all of the year, which
provided a good habitat for gathering. Where a broad crowned oak or a towering
ocote had long ago crashed to the earth having perished from old age or strikes
by lightning, there were vast holes torn in the thick forest canopy which
allowed wide shafts of light to enter illuminating portions of the rich woodland
floor. The now prostrate rotting trunks were smoothed and bound by deep carpets
of moss, ferns, treelets, and a diverse assortment of plants. It was early yet,
perhaps 11:30, and the day was growing hot. Her bags of ixtle were almost
filled with many small sheaves each neatly tied with a sedge leaf. Cloak fern, woodbine,
mosquito flower, deer’s tongue, gorse, and many more had been taken from the wetter
areas. From the forest she gleaned pokeweed, wild geranium, pimpernel, burr
cucumber, verbena, heliotrope, nightshade, and much more.
“The foraging has been fruitful by God’s
good grace”, she said to herself.
A fresh breeze aroused the trees from
their apathy and they began to whisper, verbalizing their presence.
“Listen to them, They are gossiping about their neighbors”,,,,
she thought, a little amused.
She began to move towards the path taking
a few steps when a sound rent the air. Chi,,,, Chi,,, Chi,, Chi, ta
chiiiiiiiii. A rattle, like a vigorously
shaken cup of hard dried peas penetrated the air. She knew immediately what it
was but could not locate the source of the sound. It seemed to be coming from
everywhere. The rattle grew in intensity accompanied by a hiss. She remained
still and scanned the terrain before her,, then her eyes caught the slightest
of movements. She had surprised a large albino cascabel, coiled in the sunlight a few feet to her left on a
large flat stone. Its long rattle stood erect vibrating rapidly. She startled and a chill came over her but
soon she recuperated her poise. Her mother had taught her composure in the face
of any change in the landscape.
She studied the snake with her eyes,
asessing his behavior, then spoke aloud and deliberately with a courtesy backed
by generations of reverence .
“Ahh, Q’uq’umatz, it is You, feathered
prince of the creation, Knowledgeable One, good day Master,, You who are the
Lord of change,, I honor Thee,, always,, and I ask pardon for this
trespass.” She began to move cautiously
to her right away from the snake while still speaking, now a little more
submissively. “I have not come to do harm, for You can see I am only a lowly
collector of plants, a healer of Your progeny,,, those You have created. I
humbly ask Your permission to allow me my work. Let me say that I for one do
not believe all that is said of Your fierceness, but even if what they say is
true, You are the great transformer, powerful, yet always capable of a change
of heart,, and You know me, as I am Thy respectful servant. If You will allow
me to pass, when I return I will make offerings unto You of zapote, cane
liquor, and squash.” She saw that the snake followed her movements with its
large diamond head as if he were listening to her plea. His tongue slithered in
and out as it probed the air tasting her benign phrasing. The rattle ceased.
When she had edged herself 10 feet away from the snake, she bowed to him and
said in gratitude, “Thank You, lordly One, we have each made our promises. I
will honor my vow. For seven days I will make offerings unto You.”
When she reached the path she made her way
angling down along a route that ran below an exposed sheer rock face to a familiar
spring that emanated near the ground beneath a large square smooth expanse of
stone on the edge of a wide path. Water collected in a small clear pool flecked
with light grayish pieces of limestone that stood out against the dark bottom. On
the other side of the path where the runlet exited down the hillside, the
constant trickle disappeared into the soil and tangled roots, however the water
that was perpetually seeping into the earth had left a wide trail of green for a
great distance on either side and there sustained columbine, mint, stinging
nettle, and horsetail.
The pool was like a tiny lake whose shoreline
was populated with feather foil and fairy moss. Here, in the shade she would rest,
eat, and quench her thirst before returning to her pueblo. She emancipated her
hair from her tight braids and let it loosely fall onto her shoulders as she
bent over the pool regarding her reflection for a long moment. The spring
marked the time dripping haphazardly from a large patch of spongy saturated
plants pegged to the stone. Cupping her hands she dipped them into the pool
disturbing the surface, creating wavelets upon which floated her distorted
image. She applied cool water to her face and neck, filled her gourd, and drank deeply. The water
was fresh and delightfully tasteless like water at its best. All was perfect
and tranquil. The sound of a primavera calling his mate gilded the forest air with
golden depth. She sat in silence. She crouched before water and woods for a
moment awash in satisfaction.
“These pauses
make peace. I am suspended like a dragonfly. The sound of the proud bird, and the wind, the
air, the faces of God“, she thought.
She
sighed and thought of her meal but before she could reach for her cache of food,
a sharp sound trespassed upon the lush moment. She heard the scrape and clop of a horse’s hooves
on the stony path. She stiffened abruptly awakened from her repose feeling like
someone caught talking to themselves. She quickly scuffled to her feet and
haphazardly tried to arrange her ixtle bags. A horse snorted and sniggered as
he and his rider rounded the curve and into view. It was a high stepping large chestnut
and white paint. The rider ducked to avoid some limbs. The movement drew her
attention away from the paint and towards him. "He wore high black leather
boots, a long loose sleeved flaxen shirt, and coffee colored riding breeches. His
saddle and stirrups were studded with silver conchos. The spurs of silver and
colored rhythm beads adorned with small silver bells jingled, sending out a
bright metallic sound. The walnut butt of a rifle protruded from a scabbard
tied to the saddle.
She had been surprised by his jingling presence
and stared, yet at once sensed her gaze was indelicate, perhaps even indolent
and quickly returned her eyes to the the ground before her. The horse’s mouth
was lathered in spittle and his nose, which was tightly reined almost touched
his arched neck, while his head swayed from side to side with the rider’s
restraint. As it came to a stop the horse moved slightly sideways while high
trotting in place. She faced them, silent, eyes almost imperceptibly downward,
intimidated by the size of horse and horseman. The rider raised his head
slightly surveying the woman before him her hair freely flowing down as if he
had caught her at some mischief.
“Well, well, well”, he repeated resting on
the horn of his saddle. “What have we here,,,,, a dark one,, and, unbraided.”
She did not understand his words for she
spoke only Tzotzil. The saddle creaked like a new fire as he slowly dismounted.
He led the horse to the water. The thirsty animal bent and immediately began to
satisfy its thirst. It immersed its nose up to its nostrils, sucking loudly as
little islands of lathery spittle, separated from its mouth and floated upon
the pool. The rider then loosely tied the horse to a nearby bush.
“This is a beautiful place, is it not? All
stop here for the water.” The phrase was spoken in a friendly tone. He strutted
towards her and squatted before the spring in front of her. His tall leather
boots stretched and creaked. He began to tap his goad upon his palm slowly shaking
his head as if agreeing with his own words, and repeated in a low primeval
voice “yes hija, the water here is the best in all my countryside,,, cool,,
clean,, refreshing. He stopped speaking, turned his head, revising her meager
possessions, then began again while indicating her bags of ixtle with his goad.
“I see you are collecting herbs. From where do you come?”
She was silent, still, with a cold
abstracted look which bolstered his social bearing. Five hundred years of
domination had bestowed upon him indignancy and unalienable rights, now
practically a genetically altered state. The same five hundred had relegated
her to a submissive role that imprisoned even the slightest movements of her
face. She must remain blank, she thought, not to incite his rage.
“You are mute”,, he said his voice rising
with a slight chuckle. “No I think not,, you cannot understand a word of what I
am saying,,,,,, another ignorant indio,,,
but a fine specimen, handsome even,,,, that is true. You indios are a different
breed of human.” He eyed her smooth bronze skin then
continued
his dissertation feeling free to express himself for they were alone. He was
masked by this remote place and her dumbness to his words. She stood motionless
assessing the menacing sound of his phrases and even though she could not understand
she recognized the domination in their tone.
“What plants have you gathered little one?
You and your kind know. Once we called on one of your curas when our son was
ill with an unbreakable fever. He gave him a mixture of herbs and teas and
warbled many unfamiliar sounds. The boy’s fever however did finally break.”
There
was a pause as he seemed pensive.
“Perhaps we could live side by side can
we not, or no? Not like dogs who argue over a scrap of fat but like animals
that know their belonging. There is a social contract written by man yet signed
by God.”
He looked up, his eyes squinting in an
inebriated philosophical haze.
“Forgive me and my intemperance little
one, for I am afflicted with years of neglect and need help for to heal. I for
one do not believe you are all bestial and it is after all we who have given you
life. We landed here by God’s will,,,”
There was a pause in the parody, then he
resumed with renewed vigor, “It
is a clear case of a civilized society entering a primeval realm”. He paused
and then added, “Look, I have seen you give yourselves to anyone for a mirror
or a handful of beads,,, coram populo,,, originally Jews I have read,,, dark and dirty
and smooth skinned.”
He paused then took note of the
smoothness of the flesh of her exposed upper arms. He stared at her midsection.
She cautiously bent stiffly while physically imploding slightly then awkwardly began
to gather her things.
“Wait hija, don’t leave just yet”, and as
he said this he brought his goad around and touched her ankle like a doorstop. He
seemed to enjoy his own discursive soliloquy and wanted her audience and to
keep her in his gaze. He rose and she slowly stood more upright her things amassed
haphazardly in her arms. Her gourd fell to the ground. The horse whinnied and
snorted.
She
slowly bent down again to recover the gourd but he quickly spun on the balls of
his feet and arrived first. They both slowly stood while facing one another.
The scent of leather plugged her nostrils. The tarter self indulgent sound of
his words and his ultimate actions triggered fear. He held the gourd not really
offering it. She managed to extend two fingers into the mouth of the gourd and
gently took it from his unwilling hands having to bow slightly towards him in
order to maintain hold of her possessions..
“You are handsome morena even with your
age”, He touched her left calf with the goad. She reacted a little defensively yet
cautiously closed her legs more tightly at the same time moving her calf out of
reach. He pushed forward again touching her calf another time toying with her,
edging her sarong up matter of factly as if inspecting goods, then letting it
fall back into place once again. They stood, two distinct birds, not moving for
some time. Then he brought the goad upwards barely touching her clothing, up across
her belly and stopping just beneath her breasts. She trembled slightly, and
recoiled. He pressed the goad harder to her body focusing his gaze trying to
penetrate her husk and eviscerate her essence.
“Be still”, he blared, and she stilled
from the tone of his voice.
He arrived at her breasts lifting them a
little with the goad and gently held their weight balanced upon the shaft. He
slid it slowly up over their roundness catching her nipples which, for an
instant retsrained the goad’s upward progress. He advanced stopping just beneath
her chin forcing her to raise her head slightly. His head was bent sideways as
if he were evaluating a horse. Her eyes looked down at the goad with a mixture
of defiance and fear but she withdrew the former submerging an assertive
attitude as fast as it had arrived. It was then she knew. It was at that moment
that she began to disengage from her feelings, to seek another place where she could
bear whatever was to come.
He
snorted, “This is My spring, morena, it is part of my family for more than 100
years and all who come to drink here must pay me for its use.” He was close now
and the odor of sweat and alcohol coldly unfastened her. He changed his tone
and feigned softnesss and brushed her hair with the back of his left hand as he
let the goad drop to his side. She detected smell of tobacco on his hand. She
thought at that instant she might break and run but she knew better. He might
run her down with his horse, and he had the rifle. He was filled with tyranny
and high station and kindled with desire. He deliberately pressed himself to
her so she could feel his manhood. “Mira nada mas con esto
caloron y su pulgero que traen de vestido”, speaking now in a kind of denigrating
growl. The goad spun about with
lightning speed and struck her on the upper thigh with a resounding thwack. She
was abruptly roused from her distance and reeled back to reality. She took a
step back and dropped her possessions. They fell helter skelter in a heap
between the two of them. Surprised, he retreated slightly, and like a man in a
duel, instinctively offered more of his side than his front. She slowly and cautiously
raised her hands, took another step back, then resolutely reached for the waist
of her huipil with crossed arms and quickly pulled it up over her head baring
her upper torso. He relaxed a little then regained his former poise, staring
intently at her breasts excited even more now by her willing subjugation. He had
been reaffirmed as man,, of all men, owner of a great hacienda, de gente y
tierra, rico y todo abajo de su voluntad,, como un Rey. He
thought of the broad wallowing whores with whom he had romped in Ciudad Real, who
gave themselves to him for a peso. He grew consumed with lust and distended. She
released the waistband of her sarong and stood before him completely naked now staring
out with hollow emptied eyes, and then placed her sarong and huipil reverently on
the ground as if making her bed. She lay down upon her clothes on her back and
raised her knees and spread her legs slightly with her arms at her side,
motionless, like stilled paddles. She had made her decision, desecration would
be a better than violence. She prayed silently that it would end quickly, and
then for the second time since the arrival of horse and man she whisked herself
away, to a another place without feeling, or mercy. She closed her eyes and
disinherited herself from all senses, falling into a chasm where she seemed
untouchable replacing reality with desolation. She plunged into a blankness,,, her
eyes paralysed, peering out at an endless sky patterned with amorphous descending
clouds, although now she was blind to their beauty, only an almost
imperceptible movement, an expanse, and she could hear her voice speaking a
prayer but there was no sound. She saw the face of Q’uq’umatz, his tongue
flicking,,,, you have broken your promise,,, and she felt a surge,, a pulsating wetness,,, and then the wind arose,
a simmering raspy whisper, scraping at the husk of her consciousness.
