by Barry Rachin
“It’s a diary of sorts,” Nadia replied obliquely. Even if the fellow, who was old enough to be her father, hadn’t been staring at her bosom, she wasn’t quite sure how she ought to answer the question.
“That’s nice.” His drink arrived, sparing Nadia from any additional small talk.
April 5th, 2010
The Tarahumara Indians here in the hill country of Northern Mexico are not well-liked by much of anyone outside their immediate clan. The mestizos - half-breeds with Indian and Spanish blood - view them as lazy, stupid, and totally unwilling to conform to conventional society. I’m not sure how the Mexicans define the term ‘conventional’. The Tarahumara regard the mestizos as evil and aggressive chavochis, or bearded ones, who have intruded on their land.
Yesterday I spotted a group of Tarahumara women sitting outside the community store in a tiny hamlet just south of Sisoguichic on the Rio Concho River. With few exceptions, they have no need for store-bought goods so they sat for hours on end - self-contained, impassive and perfectly at peace with the world around them, a world that views them as grossly inferior and unworthy.
As the civilized world encroaches on them, the Indians retreat deeper into the wilderness of the high plateau country of the Western Sierra Madre in the northern state of Chihuahua. At last count, seventy thousand remain. Clinging to their primitive culture, the Tarahumara want no part of progress as we define it. They exist in a parallel, non-contiguous universe, farming their rocky, inhospitable soil. They raise corn which is ground into meal and stored in small, water-tight sheds fashioned from rough-hewn logs which they harvest from nearby forests. Some Indians keep goats, sheep and cattle but eat little to no meat. They also grow squash and beans and collect oregano along with several other greens which they boil and eat as we do spinach. The dried corn can last upwards of a year. From the sheep, the woman weave elaborately designed blankets and cloth to protect themselves from the brutal winters.
Everything they need is supplied by Tata Dios, their animistic God. Many Tarahumara were converted to Catholicism by missionaries, but their Christian celebrations are quite bizarre and incomprehensible, even to the local, Christian clergy. By our twentieth-century standards, their aspirations are quite limited and circumspect. They have no need for money. Their agrarian lifestyle is Edenesque in its utter simplicity and disregard for modern convenience.
Nadia wasn’t being paranoid.
As soon as she lowered her head to the journal, her seatmate began undressing her with his eyes, but she was too engrossed in the narrative to make an issue of it. And, if she smart mouthed him, what good would that accomplish? For the duration of the flight, she would still be stuck sitting there next to the horny old fart and his endless parade of gin and tonics.
Reading on, Nadia learned that the diarist – she assumed he was male, although he never properly identified himself as such – was studying anthropology at Antioch College and had traveled to northern Mexico to live with the Indians for the summer. The author was hoping to write his doctoral thesis on the Tarahumara Indian culture, folkways, traditions and myths.
April 10th
I have learned two words today: Quiravi, which means ‘How are you?’ and Bearipache-va!, which translates ‘Until tomorrow!’ So now I can greet people both when coming and going. Not that it makes much difference. I understand no other Indian words and communicate in broken Spanish with the handful of Tarahumara who are bilingual and willing to accept me, the crazy white man, into their confidence.
“The Tarahumara in his native condition is better off, morally, mentally and economically than his civilized brother.”
The above quote, which I found in a moldy text squirreled away in the Antioch College library is from the Norwegian explorer, Carl Lumholtz, after he visited the region in the nineteen forties. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of his observation.
One of the locals fixed me up with a family who have agreed to let me live with them for a few weeks, and I will be trekking up into the mountains to their small farm toward the end of the week. The beginning of a wonderful adventure is at hand!
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom. The plane, which had banked out over Boston Harbor, was starting its final descent into Logan Airport. Nadia stowed the journal in the bottom of her bag and, closing her eyes, leaned back in the seat. A strategic maneuver, she could hear the fellow next to her shifting about. For sure, he was giving her a thorough once over. Cheap thrill! She wasn’t even remotely interested in his midlife crisis.
*****
Her first day back at the Brandenburg Public Library, Nadia waded through a listing of new titles recently published. The library had just received their budget for the new fiscal year. In September she was put in charge of new acquisitions. Like a child in a penny candy store, Nadia ultimately decided which hardcover books to buy among the multiple genres – romance, mystery, literary, detective, young adult as well as juvenile. And that didn’t even take into account nonfiction offerings.
“I’m doing a term paper on the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.” Nadia looked up from her desk on the second floor. A high school girl with blond hair tied back in French braids was leaning against the counter.
“Yes, I can find that for you.”
“CliffsNotes,” the girl interjected rather gruffly. “All I need are CliffsNotes.” The nasally voice was tinged with surly impatience.
“Yes, well, we have that, too.” Nadia led her to the section in the stacks where study materials were stored. “You’re a lucky girl.”
“How’s that?”
“There were only four copies available this morning. That’s the last one.” Clearly, Nadia mused, the churlish blonde had no intention of ever reading the poem in the original. When the girl was gone, Nadia returned to the stacks, pulled a slim book from a shelf and returned to the reference desk. She flipped through the pages randomly ignoring text until she found what she was looking for.
“Such a pretty flower!” Liam MacDonald, the library director, came up behind her and was squinting over her shoulder.
Nadia smiled faintly. The director, who was of Scottish background, reminded her of a medieval, Hassidic rabbi with his long, horse face, scraggily reddish-brown beard and prominent nose. The director's lanky body was soft and doughy. “It’s a flowering peyote,” Nadia explained. The cactus, she had just learned, grew in south Texas and Mexico in the high-elevation, desert thorn scrub. The flower pictured in the photo was sitting atop a diminutive, dark green cactus no larger than a bell pepper. A dozen or so delicate, purple petals shot out from the pastel golden nub.
“Peyote’s a hallucinogenic,” the director noted.
“Yes, but the local Indians also use the plant to treat toothaches, pain in childbirth, fever, breast discomfort, skin diseases, rheumatism, diabetes, colds, and even blindness.”
“As I recall,” the director added, “some of the New Age writers and ‘beat’ poets experimented with a peyote derivative, mescaline. Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Allen Ginsberg come to mind. But since the psychedelic sixties, the drug has fallen out of vogue.”
Ken Kesey. Allen Ginsberg. Liam had to be a few years shy of Medicare, which is to say, he was just coming of age when the flower power generation were experimenting with a smorgasbord of mind bending drugs. “The plant also has antibiotic properties,” Nadia said, shifting gears. “An extract from the peyote cactus has proven effective against eighteen strains of penicillin-resistant bacteria, and fungus.”
“Really!” The director went back downstairs to the circulation desk.
Nadia had no great interest in the plant’s medicinal properties. The nameless author of the leather-bound journal had chewed the disc-shaped peyote buttons, documenting in his journal that the plant was extremely bitter and nauseating. But he mentioned nothing of a personal nature in the text about his experience other than to report, in a rather dry, clinical reportage that, after ingesti
ng five grams of peyote (i.e. approximately five hundred milligrams of mescaline), he experienced heightened states of introspection and insights of a mystical nature.
*****
Later that night at supper Nadia asked, “Is our property still zoned agricultural?”
Mr. Rasmussen, who taught physics at the junior college, was spooning out a helping of mashed potatoes onto his plate. “From here west to the Seekonk line has always been considered farm country.” He passed the bowl to his wife. “This place was a working farm when you grandfather lived here, albeit they didn’t have that many animals. Why do you ask?”
“I was considering buying a few chickens to raise out in the back.”
Mrs. Rasmussen’s eyes narrowed. The big-boned woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat and compressed her lips in a tight line. “For what purpose?”
“I don’t know. So we could have fresh eggs whenever we wanted.”
“Eggs are still relatively cheap and when you consider upkeep, it may not be practical.”
Mr. Rasmussen smiled but when he spoke his tone was more inquisitive than argumentative. “You’d need a coop, not to mention both time and energy to manage the fowl. Have you considered the potential headaches?”
“The old shed could easily be converted into a coop,” Nadia parried the question, “and setting up a run for a half-dozen birds is no more difficult then fencing off a vegetable garden.”
“Chickens?” Nadia’s mother began fidgeting again, this time more aggressively, in her seat and looked to her husband for moral support. “I really don’t know that - ”
“What’s the problem?” Mr. Rasmussen interjected, waving a hand dismissively in the air. “You buy fully grown birds, some grain and basic supplies. If the scheme doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world.” Nadia’s father grabbed a warm roll from a basket, tore it in half and reached for the butter. “If memory serves me right, free-roaming fowl are inexpensive to maintain, their eggs fresher than anything you could buy at the local market and they manufacture the world’s best fertilizer.”
“You’re not quitting your job at the library, are you?” Mrs. Rasmussen asked frigidly.
“For God’s sake, of course not!” Nadia groaned. “It’s just a hobby …something to do in my spare time.”
“While you’re hunting around for chickens,” her mother added peevishly, “maybe you could scare up a husband or two.”
Since middle school, Nadia’s looks had been, at best, problematic. If the cheeks had been just a bit more sculpted, the features less dense, the effect might have proven modestly attractive. By her senior year in college Nadia Rasmussen had given up on the singles bars. A decade later, she pulled the plug on the internet dating services and lonely hearts section of the Brandenburg Gazette. By the age of thirty-five the woman had effectively thrown in the romantic towel – no mas! - resigning herself to a nether world of terminal spinsterhood. “Apparently nobody wants a homely wife.”
Mrs. Rasmussen’s bottom lip quivered and her eyes clouded over as though the remark was a malicious slight. “You’re not homely and don’t ever suggest such a thing!”
“Unfortunately,” Nadia countered, “nobody else shares your maternal bias.” A tense silence pervaded the room like a raw, early morning mist. “I found this weird journal at the airport in Seattle.” Nadia told her parents about the anonymous author and his experiences with the Indians of the Sierra Madre.
“So now you want to run off and join a tribe of God-forsaken, Stone Age heathens!” Mrs. Rasmussen, who was, by nature, both excitable and high-strung was becoming increasingly shrill.
“On the contrary,” Nadia replied. “I feel no great affinity to the Tarahumara, but reading about them does makes me want to connect in some small way with …” She didn’t quite know how to finish the sentence and, judging by the unforgiving expression in her mother’s eyes, didn’t see where a flurry of flowery speechifying would make a difference.
“My advice,” Mr. Rasmussen poured some iced tea from a carafe, “is that you check with the feed and grange store near the fire station in Rehoboth. They’re always advertising small critters of one sort or another and might be able to give you some practical advice if you’re serious about the venture.”
“You’re a reference librarian, not some hillbilly farmer’s daughter,” Mrs. Rasmussen sputtered under her breath.
As the matter had been resolved in a thoroughly democratic fashion, no one seemed to be paying much attention, and mercifully, Mr. Rasmussen began discussing plans for a late summer vacation on Lake Winnipesaukee. Her father, if not wildly enthusiastic, remained relatively neutral. Raising chickens was little more than a venial sin, the sort of psychological aberration that, if things didn't pan out, could be set right quickly and with minimal, collateral damage.
Nadia showered, washed her hair and was in bed with the lights out by ten o’clock. A short time later, her father shuffled into the room. Mr. Rasmussen stood mutely by the headboard, waiting patiently for her to acknowledge his presence.
“What?” Nadia murmured. She was dozing off.
“Why did you say what you did earlier?”
“About the chickens?”
“No, not that. You’re no movie star, but you’re plenty pretty enough to get a husband without groveling or settling for second best.” When there was no reply, he retreated from the room. A minute later Mr. Rasmussen was back again, thumping Nadia insistently between the shoulder blades.
“Jesus, I was sound asleep! You went off and I thought - ”
Her father lit the light and sat down on the side of the bed, cradling a textbook heavier than most doorstops in his lap. Nadia draped her forearm over her eyes to block the light. “Emergence theory,” her father spoke rather softly in a deliberate, unhurried manner, “describes how complex patterns arise from relatively simple interactions. The concept has been around since the time of Aristotle.”
Nadia let out a muffled groan. "First thing in the morning, Liam MacDonald's scheduled a staff meeting at the library after which I'm meeting with a group of prospective senior volunteers." Mr. Rasmussen positioned the book in front of his daughter who was now sitting up in bed. On the right-hand page was a picture of a rather elaborate termite mound – more like an orangey cathedral - somewhere in the grasslands of Africa. “Very impressive but I don’t understand why you’re showing me this.”
“The termites have no idea that an architectural masterpiece will emerge from their collective efforts. Generations of insects go to their mindless graves without even an appreciative glance at the end product of their labors.” Clearly, Mr. Rasmussen was just getting up a head of steam and had no intentions of condensing or abbreviating his remarks. Regardless of the late hour, there would be no CliffsNotes version.
“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
“The termites had no conscious knowledge of what they are creating when they start hauling debris years earlier.” He jabbed at the photo emphatically. “In Emergence Theory, systems can have qualities not directly traceable to the original components, but rather to how those components interact.” Nadia’s father lowered his eyes and began reading directly from the accompanying text:
Emergence theory is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible causal power arise, since by definition it can’t be due to the collection of things at a lesser level? It turns human reason and scientific methodology on its ear by giving you something for nothing. Nothing commands the system to form a pattern. Instead, the interaction of each part with its immediate surroundings causes a complex chain of processes leading to some order.
Flipping the page, Mr. Rasmussen pointed to several other examples: sand dunes in the Saharan Desert reconfigured and set in constant, undulating motion by a violent windstorm; a mosaic of kaleidoscopic crystals feathering across a pane of glass during a Siberian ice storm.
Mr. Rasmussen shut the light but showed no inclination to leave. “Emer
gence Theory would suggest that there’s a reason – most probably beyond our limited comprehension - why you stumbled across that abandoned journal. It’s all part of the grand design.” Mr. Rasmussen suddenly reached out and stroked her face with the palm of his hand. “One last thing,” he added hoarsely as an afterthought, “Everything about you is an unimpeachable work of art.” Leaning forward, he kissed her once on the forehead and silently left the room.
May 5th
The Tarahumara are essentially a ‘stone age’ culture. Even today they want nothing to do with money. Material possessions are of no importance. They are a very shy, sensitive, bashful and isolated people, even within their households. Family members only speak to each other when absolutely necessary and woman are not allowed to be seen naked unless in the act of lovemaking.
These unusual – unusual by our Western standards – traits are reflected quite graphically in the way they handle conflict. The Tarahumara practice a Gandhi-like passive resistance characterized by physical withdrawal and avoidance. In recent years, when the Mexican government has been encroaching on their traditional homelands in search of minerals and logging interests, the Indians simply stand quietly and let it happen. Then they retreat even further into the Barranca del Cobra (i.e. the remote Copper Canyon) and even harsher environmental conditions.
Saturday morning Nadia Rasmussen drove to Hoxie’s Feed and Grange Store in Rehoboth. “I need some chickens.”
“Dual purpose or layers?” the owner, a portly man in farmer jeans asked.
The question caught her off guard. “All I want are the eggs.”
‘Would that be for a commercial venture or just recreational, family farming?”