Janferie StoneThe actual course that her life had taken could be juxtaposed to her
own presentation of what and where it was proper for a woman to
be. While this discrepancy posed a question of cognitive dissonance
for me, it did not seem to phase her, for (to work a weaving meta-
phor) the tension on the strands of her life was a tension that opened
the sheds of possibility. She carried through the border crossings the
interior calm and dignity of a woman of her family and society, sig-
nified by her outer dress. The choices she made as a young woman
within this space led her to a new design for the life of a Kaq chikel
woman, encompassing roles as a mother, weaver, artist, and trader.
While others in her community have begun the long migratory labor
circuit to North America, none have been able to achieve her balance
of cultural conservation, artistry, and service within the family. Al-
though physically distant from her loved ones, she insisted that she
was able to maintain spiritual contact. One night she dreamt that her
infant son was ill and close to death. She telephoned the next day to
ascertain the truth of her dream and immediately booked a flight to
return. She told me, “He grew well because he knew I was coming.”
As the granddaughter of dreamers, she lays claim to the power of pre-
science but also to the power to weave new patterns in life based on
traditional values.
I propose that the Nawal tale may be seen as a template for roles
and behavior within the span of a human life, a template that moves
through the generations, affecting behavior and perception in the
day to day, but also empowering its carriers to grasp opportunities
as they arise, thereby changing the courses of both family and com-
munity histories. A deep understanding of the tale involves a discus-
sion of traditional Maya spirituality, of the frame provided by the
particular historical moment of the telling and of the Maya approach
to oral history, in short, an undertaking of book-length proportions.
But one common thread in these explorations is the attention to the
immediate appearance of things against the background of alternate
and greater realities. I use the phrase “clothing the body in otherness”
to characterize the relationship of one of the most quotidian of prac-
tices in Maya society, the act of dressing, with Maya representations