When a Woman Rises

by Christine Eber

  I began to wonder if He comes close to them while they work. I asked my daughter if she thought that God talked to them. And if he did, what he would say.

  “Oh, Mother. How could God talk to them?”

  “I like to think He could,” I said. “Maybe he tells them not to be afraid, that he will protect them while they paint. How do you think the painters might feel when they hear his voice? Maybe their feet become steadier. Maybe little wings sprout from their sides and push against the seams of their coats, ready to lift them up if they fall.”

  Verónica tugged on my arm and asked me, “What do you think happens to them when they finish their work each day? I bet you think they fly up to heaven to be with God! I think they climb back down and go home to eat supper.”

  My daughter was teasing me. I could have stayed all day watching the men paint and imagining what it feels like to be them, but Verónica was hungry, my neck was hurting, and we still had shopping to do. We crossed ourselves, genuflected, and walked out of the cathedral into the bright sun.

  On our way to the market, we bought elotes covered in chile. I savored each juicy kernel. All the while, I couldn’t get the painters in their white coats out of my mind. Then, to my surprise, Verónica said, “I think I’ll buy a white sweater instead of a pink one.” After yearning so long for a pink sweater, all of a sudden my daughter wanted a white one! Could the painters in their white coats have changed her mind?

  But Verónica had trouble finding a white sweater at the market. She had almost given up and started looking for a pink one, when I saw some black and grey sweaters hanging on a rack in the back of a store. In the middle of all these old women sweaters was a white one.

  I pulled the sweater off the rack. Had it been just waiting for Verónica? It gleamed in the light, especially around the neckline which was decorated with little roses in white and silver threads. I looked at the tag, and it wasn’t that expensive. I held it up for Verónica to see and a big smile came over her face as she walked toward me. “I love it, Mother!” She held it over her chest. It looked very pretty against her black braids.

  She paid for the sweater and put it on to go home. She stood out like a beacon of light as we made our way through the crowds in the market to a shoe store and then to a few stands to buy tomatoes and onions for our store.

  When we got back to Lokan that afternoon, I had to catch up on my weaving. I was making Victorio a new tunic for Carnival. Each year I made him a new one to wear to the celebration in Polhó, the center of the Zapatista autonomous township in Chenalhó.

  Although it had been a long day, I told Verónica that if she wanted to continue Lucia’s story, I could talk while I wove. I didn’t usually talk about Lucia while weaving because I have to concentrate on what I’m doing. But it doesn’t take much concentration to weave a man’s all-white tunic.

  As Verónica went to collect her tape recorder, I thought about how good it is that we have a piece of clothing that’s not complicated to make! At the same time, I wondered for the thousandth time why men’s clothes in Chenalhó don’t have any designs on them. In other townships, men have flowers on their tunics. But not the men in our township! The only thing they have to brighten them up are their hats with colored ribbons falling around the rim. While these thoughts were running through my mind, I realized that I hadn’t told Verónica why Lucia didn’t weave, only embroider. When she returned with the tape recorder I told her why.

  WE WEAVE, WE PRAY

  LUCIA DIDN’T KNOW how to weave because Carmela only taught her to embroider, but Lucia embroidered well. Her stitches were tight, and there were never stray threads hanging out of the designs. Sometimes people gave Lucia a little money when she prayed for them, and with that she bought cloth to make a skirt. She embroidered the seam of the skirt with flowers of many colors, and it looked very pretty. She earned money doing this for women who didn’t like to embroider.

  She had to buy her blouses from women who wove though. She never had more than two blouses because she didn’t have much money. I got into the habit of giving Lucia my blouse when I was tired of it, because that gave me an excuse to weave myself a new one!

  I remember that Lucia’s shawl was a simple one made of white cotton cloth. On the border she embroidered symbols of Holy Cross. The rest of the shawl was almost bare, except for a few of our people’s true designs that always look to me like the pawprint of a dog! I know your symbol book says that this design stands for the path of sun as it descends the veins of the ceiba tree. But it will always be a dog’s pawprint to me.

  Anyway, Lucia’s shawl only had a few of these designs, and it was really quite sad.

  Since Lucia didn’t weave, she couldn’t join the weaving group in Lokan that my mother and I formed soon after Hilario died. That was a big part of my life that Lucia and I didn’t share. By the time Lucia was back to stay in Lokan, my weavings were good enough to sell to the tourists who came to visit San Cristóbal and at the government store there.

  My mother was the representative of our local weavers’ group. Her cargo was to gather all the weavings together that the members of our group brought to our house and take them to the government handicraft store in San Cristóbal. She had to make a list of how much she owed each woman. When the weavings had sold, she would collect the money and bring it back to the women. It’s the same as today, except we don’t sell at the government store anymore. Now we sell at stores that respect us and our work.

  At the government store, the workers set the prices. Sometimes they didn’t set them high enough so in the end we received very little for many weeks of work. We wondered if they were stealing the money they made from selling our weavings.

  Whenever she would let me, I went with my mother to deliver weavings to the government store. That was most of the time, because my mother didn’t speak much castellano, and the worker at the store only spoke a little tsotsil, so I would often have to explain what my mother was saying. Mother didn’t like that I had to do that, but at least it wasn’t as bad as when she had to go alone to sell to the tourist stores in San Cristóbal.

  One time before the government store existed, my mother needed to sell a blouse because my little sister was very sick, and the doctor at the clinic said she needed medicine. I couldn’t go with her to San Cristóbal because I had to stay with my sister. The owner of the store where my mother went to sell the blouse didn’t speak bats’i k’op, and Mother only knew a little castellano. The señora took the blouse from my mother and held it in her hands for a long time, inspecting the work, as if she were looking for something wrong with it. Mother just stood behind the counter waiting patiently and trying not to feel insulted.

  Finally, the owner said, “I’m sorry, but I have several blouses like this one that I haven’t sold yet, and I have to sell them before I buy another. I can’t give you money for this blouse, but I have a bag of apples I can trade for it.”

  My mother just stood there in shock. In one hand the woman was holding onto the blouse that had taken several weeks to weave, and in the other hand she was holding out a bag of apples. What was my mother to do? Take the blouse back or take the bag of apples in exchange?

  It was late, and she would miss the bus to Lokan if she went to another store to try to sell the blouse. Plus, the doctor at the clinic had told my mother that my sister needed to eat fruit. So, with the doctor’s words in her head, my mother took the bag of apples and left the store without saying a word to the señora.

  After all her suffering, my mother didn’t have any money to buy medicine for my sister or even to take the bus back to Lokan. So she started walking. If it weren’t for the madres who picked her up on their way to Yabteclum, she would have had to walk in the dark through the mountains until the early hours of the morning before she arrived home.

  My mother told me that day was one of the saddest of her life.

  While I was busy weaving things to sell at the co-op store, Lucia was going to people’s houses to pra
y. She was becoming well-respected in our community. The Believers wanted her to pray for them because she didn’t use pox and knew the Catholic prayers as well as the traditional ones.

  Hilario had told Lucia that it wasn’t good to use pox when praying because she was still a young woman. He said that she should use sodas, which were becoming an acceptable substitute for pox among the Catholic and Protestant Believers.

  Mol Miguel, who led Hilario’s procession to the cemetery, always used pox in his healings. After Hilario died, he recommended Lucia to people who didn’t drink pox and needed someone to pray for them. People told Lucia that Miguel had recommended her, and that gave her the idea to ask his help with something else.

  Before he died, Hilario had begun to teach Lucia about plants to cure different sicknesses. Lucia knew a few things about plants from watching Hilario make teas for his patients, but she didn’t always know which plants were used for which illnesses. She wanted Mol Miguel to show her where to find the plants, what their names were, and how to use them for cures. It was a big favor she was asking, so she came to his house early one morning with a bottle of pox. When Mol Miguel told her to come in, she went over to where he was seated and knelt in front of him and bowed her head. Then in the bik’it snuk’, the high voice we used in the past to show respect to elders, she asked Miguel’s pardon for coming to ask a favor. She told him that Hilario hadn’t finished his work teaching her about plants and that she wanted Miguel to finish teaching her.

  “Now, daughter, I need to tell you about the high voice in the past. It was very important, especially in joyol, when a boy’s parents petition a girl he wants to marry. But we didn’t use it only in joyol. No, we used it every day.

  “I once had a cousin who knew how to use the high voice very well. Sadly, he died at a place near Comitan when he was still a young man. He needed money to petition for a bride, so he went to this place because they were looking for workers to build a road. When they brought his body back, they said that a machine had crushed him. I’m sure that if he had been able to do the joyol, he would have convinced the girl’s parents to let her marry him, because he spoke in the high voice so beautifully.

  “Once, not long before my own joyol, I went to buy something at my uncle’s store, and as I was walking up the path to the store I thought I heard a strange and wonderful bird singing on a branch nearby. But then I looked inside the store and realized that the sound was my cousin Mateo talking to our uncle while he wrapped the candles that Mateo had just bought. Mateo’s voice was high and sweet like a bird song. When I walked inside, Mateo was still talking, and my uncle had a big smile on his face as he handled the candles to Mateo. He was so happy that one of his nephews knew the bik’it snuk’ well.

  “When Mateo left, I tried to imitate his high voice, but I couldn’t come close. I wanted to make my uncle smile, but the only thing I had to make him happy were a few pesos for some sugar.

  “Now, let me finish telling you about how Lucia learned to use plants. It’s getting late and we need to put the corn on the fire and get ready for bed.”

  Lucia’s visit to Mol Miguel was successful. He agreed to teach her about herbs so she could not only be an j’ilol—one who sees—but also a j’ak’vomol—one who uses herbs to heal. From then on, Lucia was always collecting the leaves and flowers of plants. When I’d see her at the waterhole, we’d go off together and look for plants. Since not all the plants Lucia needed to heal grow in Lokan, we’d take advantage of our walks to the classes in Yabteclum to search for the plants along the way.

  I learned a lot by accompanying Lucia. With what I learned, I was able to treat the many sicknesses you and your brothers had. Your father and I didn’t need to bring an j’ilol to our house often, because I knew a lot about making teas with plants. Your father had become a prayer leader in the chapel in our community so he could pray for you too. When it was something more serious, we would ask Lucia to come to our house. When one of you was gravely ill or when Abolino’s appendix almost burst, we took you to the clinic.

  ABOUT LOVE

  VERÓNICA AND I were sitting on the patio embroidering the seams of our new skirts when we talked about Lucia again. We covered our heads with our shawls because the sun was strong that day. The sun warmed my arms and legs and made the silver threads sparkle in the flowers I was embroidering. I had told Verónica that I would talk about Lucia while I was embroidering. Verónica asked me to talk about whether Lucia felt any conflict about being a healer and being a member of our religious group Word of God. I thought it best to start with the special course that Madre Ester invited us to attend outside of San Cristóbal.

  The center where we gathered was outside the city at the base of a mountain. We thought about trying to visit Doña Dolores, but all our free time was spent with the madres and the other young women in the different buildings or on the patio and garden outside.

  During the daytime, we sang hymns, read and discussed Bible verses, had coffee and cookie breaks, and ate delicious meals of rice with a chicken wing on top. At night we slept on beds stacked on top of each other. I remember the first night Lucia slept on top and after that we traded places. The room where we slept had a window with a view of the mountainside with densely-packed trees that seemed to go on forever. I felt a long way from home, but safe with Lucia and the madres and other young women.

  In the afternoon of the first day, Madre Ester asked us to read a Bible verse and act out what it meant without speaking. She said that since we spoke different languages, it could help us understand each other. She divided us into groups of five or six and told us to talk about how to present our Bible verse so the other participants could figure it out. At first everyone—even Lucia!—was embarrassed to do this. But little by little we liked how it helped us understand the Bible.

  I remember some verses that our group received gave us a lot of trouble, but after we acted them out, we had one of the most interesting discussions that week. Our verses were from 1 Corinthians 13.

  “Give me the Bible over there on the table, daughter. I want to read this very important part to you.”

  Verónica handed the Bible to me , open to 1 Corinthians 13:

  “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

  “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

  “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

  Even though 1 Corinthians 13 had a simple message—love is above all things—it was very hard to show this! Marcela, one of the members of our group, finally came up with an idea. She said we could make a pyramid of our bodies. At the top would be love shown by two of us embracing each other. Under that would be Lucia praying to heal another member of our group. This showed how sacrificing for others isn’t as important as loving them. Then at the bottom would be someone scolding another with their face full of anger and pointing their finger at the person to show how love does not get angry easily.

  Because we couldn’t actually stand on top of each other, Marcela and I asked permission to stand on a table hugging each other. Another group member lay down on a bench next to the table while Lucia prayed over her, and the last two members of our group knelt on the floor in anger. We hoped that this would show what the verse said, but no one figured it out. Except Madre Ester. She congratulated us and asked us to explain to the other members what we tried t
o show with our bodies. Marcela explained and then the other women clapped.

  That evening Lucia and I sat on the patio between the buildings and talked with Madre Ester about love. Since we don’t have a word for it in our language, we wanted to talk about how we thought about it in our hearts and how that was different from the way Jesus and the first Christians thought about it.

  It was getting cold and Madre Ester buttoned her sweater up to the top, while Lucia and I pulled our shawls tightly around us. Then Madre Ester asked why we thought tsotsil doesn’t have a separate word for “love.”

  We were quiet for a while thinking about the question. I didn’t want to speak until I had a good idea of what my heart felt. I thought about how my heart is happy when I’m with my parents and Lucia and also how my parents are happy when they’re talking with others in the Word of God meetings.

  Then I said, “I think we don’t have a word for love because it’s how we live our lives. It’s not something we need to say or explain. We look after each other every day. When we have problems we help each other. In Word of God meetings, my parents and the other adults listen a long time to each other, waiting until the person has finished speaking before they say anything. They don’t raise their voices. They always go to the meetings and don’t give up trying to solve problems, trying to make everyone’s hearts equal.

  “I think that’s what love means, not giving up on each other, listening to each other, helping each other, respecting each other. We can’t say I love you, but we can say kux ta ko’onton jme’: my heart hurts for my mother. Or for someone else. When we love someone, we feel their pain.”

  Lucia looked at me with surprise. I don’t think she knew that I had thought about love deeply. After I finished, Madre Ester told me that I had just described kanum bail, Christian love, a love that never ends, that just keeps growing as people accompany each other in their daily lives and struggle together for a better life, a life in which no one is oppressed or left out. I had never heard this word, but I was still learning many important words in our language and still am, for that matter.