Duncan Earle
Netted BurdenBefore I could put my head in order, she is escorted away, and the cap-
itan of the Earthlords is called forth, to consider my case. The chant-
ing builds, peaks, then ceases. My sweat glands have lost control. The
Mundo greets me. Shuíaqíaí, “good night,” is all I muster, shakily.
The room is without any sound, one of those instants that temporar-
ily seems eternal. Then the raspy voice cackles out something sharply
in Kíicheí, too quick and complex for me to grasp, except the word
for dog, tzíií, and in response there is a murmur of laughter, the first
exhale of humor since sundown. The gringa groans, yawning, and
we wash out of the room into the icy brilliance of a moonless night, a
mile high without a light, and catch a pace along the roof beam of the
Milky Way, surfing the joke of the Mundo. The gringa wants to know
what she missed, I want to know what the shaman said, and every-
one else can’t speak, only more laughter with every try. I console my-
self with the idea that this is probably a tactful negative, or why yuk
it up? I’m asustado (alarmed) but content at my escape.
Snake BiteFinally, back across the line into Chinique township, the son Man-
uel manages to translate. “If you have a dog [laughter] in the house
[more laughter] who does not know who your friends are, he could
just bite anybody.” Another round of laughter, giggles, shawls over
faces. I am used to being laughed at; it is part of my rapport. Now I
am in the dark as to what this cryptic message means, except to see
that likening me to a dog constitutes a good example of local humor.
Not until later do I find out that this meant that I must be taught: dogs
are considered “natural” shamans, but, like a dog, I was sort of so-
cialized but not entirely (recall what dogs do in the street) and a po-
tential loose cannon on the spiritual plane, if left untutored. Don’t let
it swell your head, cranky ass. Carrying the whole thing further, they
named a dog after me, one that had one blue and one brown eye. I was
stuck now. And no, unlike so many of my own generation raised on
Carlos Castaneda, unlike my elder colleagues over in Momostenan-
go, I was not at the time in the least interested in becoming a calendar