0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Don Patricio’s Dream
of irreversible social change, on the other. That sensibility is better
expressed through a version of things presented to me by a Mazatec
elder, Don Agustín, while we stood together atop Nindo Chikon To-
koxo, also known as el Cerro de la Adoración, the “Mount of Ado-
ration,” abode of the supreme Earth Lord spirit and topographic cen-
ter of the Mazatec cosmos. At the summit from where we watched the
rising sun and enjoyed a view extending in every direction of much of
the landscape of the Sierra, Don Agustín said to me:
You know how the shaman sings in his prayers, ’Ngo kjoabinach-
jaón tjiná ’ngami, they say, that “there is a life that is in the sky.”
’Ngo kjoabinachjaón tjiná so’nde, that “there is a life that is on the
Earth.” ’Ngo kjoabinachjaón tjiná ndachikon, they say, “there is a
life that is in the ocean.”
Look around you: The earth is the flesh, the body of the world.
The trees, the great forests, the great jungles are the blankets of the
world. The cornfields are the clothes, the huipíl dress, of the world.
Its muscles are the mountaintops, the hillocks, and the small plains
and dells. Its bones: the rocks, the crags and stones... Its veins are
the rivers, streams, springs, the waterfalls and wells. Its heart is the
rain it receives, cast down from the sky above... And its blood is all
the water that flows over the ground, the oceans, the seas. Its lungs
are the caves and caverns, because by means of these it breathes.
The volcanoes are from where it smokes its cigars, the World. And
that which might be its bellybutton, although protruding, is the
Mount of Adoration, and here [where we are standing] is the most
sacred place...
But our elders say “Je kjimajchaya so’nde,” “Already the world is
becoming old”; “likui tik’oakjini jokji ngas’a, nga ch’indeyasakji,”
“Already it is not like before, like when it emerged, when it was
tender.”
Before, there was an abundance of wisdom. Enormous! And the peo-
ple knew how to live well together. But with the emergence of the do-
minion of man, well... There has come to be more and more of us.
Things go turning upside down. Already now there is always strife,
they are discontent, and already now they attack one another...
