Goulet.pdf

Duncan Earle

that, too, is another story. No, not ritual relations (God knows what
obligations those entail!); how about someone more powerful, from
another community, doesn’t know you, doesn’t know about me? Ah,
but it is expensive, and a waste of time and money, Lucas replies. Not
a problem, my treat. Surely this high-level shaman from a rival vil-
lage will expose the self-interest in this offer. Many of the locals don’t
ever get initiated. Me, because I have access to a car, resources, pow-
er. This will be my tactful escape, debunked by the meta-brujo, the
trance shaman, the aj meís, where cross meets the table. I decide to
bring a second gringo, one entirely hostile to religion, as my anchor,
in case things get too magical.

Left Crazy

A party assembles for the long sundown journey deep into Chiche’.
Father, two sons, two daughters, me, and the gringa, weaving among
the towering cornstalks, down and up shallow canyons of ancient
ash, finally to the holy house. A huge room, many other clients sit-
ting on benches along the walls, a whole affair at the far end, a cur-
tain, a table, a pair of crosses, and an altar facing the crosses along
with the rest of us. Pine needles for a floor, with an island of earth-
en floor sown in beeswax candles, before which kneel three wom-
en, all kin. More people, hours, offerings of flowers, finally, the man
slips in, sits behind the curtain. It is close to midnight, and the usu-
ally hypertense gringa has become unresponsive, deeply asleep, rub-
ber. Now they are chanting a prayer, now singing an eerie melody;
now the candles are extinguished, now the strange breathing starts,
like someone speaking through one of those masks they wear in the
Conquest dance, but more rasping, like my dead grandmother’s em-
physema, and a high-pitched voice inside this wind, ayeee miijo, ayy-
eee mihijo (oh my son, oh my child), and banging on the table. Some-
where near, a dog whimpers.

Strong Wind

By this time I’m seriously spooked, there is no visual locus in the thick
darkness, the copal fills my brain, the renewed chanting of the three