Into the Hearts of the Amazons: In Search of a Modern Matriarchy

The Apologist

h The Apologist When he was still a teenager, the insider who would be the first to rise and defend the reputation of Isthmus women stood with his horse at Juchitán’s train station, weeping into its neck. His name was Andrés Henestrosa, and his mother, Tina Man, had been urging him to leave home for months. “Better yourself, go see the world, study, be somebody .” And though Henestrosa had begun learning Spanish the year before, he followed orders, selling his beloved horse to pay for his train trip to Mexico City. When the deal was done, he was left with 30 pesos and two sets of clothes that he carried in a pillowcase. On his arrival in Mexico City, Henestrosa arranged a meeting with José Vasconcelos , then dean of Mexico’s National University. Fearing Vasconcelos wouldn’t understand his Spanish, Henestrosa brought a translator to the meeting. “I’m here on account of you,” Henestrosa told Vasconcelos . “Because you said in the newspapers that when the revolution triumphed , there would be education for the poor, the orphaned and the Indians. I believed you, so I hope you don’t turn out to be a liar.” Vasconcelos kept his word and enrolled Henestrosa in the Escuela Normal de Profesores. Eight years later, when Henestrosa was twenty-four and his Spanish had improved, he began his defense of Isthmus women with his essay “The Forms of Sexual Life in Juchitán.” At the opening of the essay, Henestrosa lists the assertions made by what he terms foreigners, tourists , and superficial men. The two most important assertions are sexual promiscuity and free union, the latter referring to common-law marriage . With a tone of indignation, Henestrosa denies both: “There is no 34 sexual looseness of any kind, nor can there be in a town that scrupulously follows ancestral custom.” Given the kind of stories spread by Vasconcelos and followers, Henestrosa’s indignation is understandable. Nonetheless , the position of “no sexual looseness” in Juchitán is as untenable as the claim of widespread free love. Here—as would happen with many who followed—Henestrosa had been drawn into the illogic of the controversy . Later in the essay, he fields other claims by foreigners more evenhandedly. He acknowledges nude bathing but explains convincingly that it does not stem from a lack of modesty. All Isthmus life obeys customs rooted in ancient tradition, he writes, and bathing naked in the river is one of those traditions. At the same time, another custom running just as deep dictates that a man should avoid passing by the river when a woman is bathing, but if he must pass by, he should never stay and watch. Midway through the essay, Henestrosa describes the unusual custom of Isthmus matrimony called rapto, or rapture. The nonviolent form of rapto takes place when the groom asks for the woman’s hand in marriage, but her parents deny it. If this is the case, and the woman is willing, they elope. The violent form of rapto occurs when the woman is not willing. In this case, Henestrosa writes, “the man may take her by force, literally ‘dragging her away.’” As scandalous as this sounds, the many scandalmongers who visited the Isthmus during this period never reported rapto to the world. To further convince us that the rules he outlines in the essay are followed scrupulously, Henestrosa tells us how they are enforced. Throughout the year, anyone who transgresses the rules faces public satire. But during the Christmas season, especially a day or two before the celebration of the birth of Christ, a pagan enforcement takes a bolder form when Isthmus men stand in front of the home of the transgressor. Rather than singing carols, the men speak at the top of their voices about the violator’s sexual improprieties. “They finish by saying that the flower— the woman—which is the most pure, should know these things and so should the townspeople.” At the end of the essay, Henestrosa backpedals about the supposed sexual looseness: “I recognize that [in Juchitán] there may be a degree of moral or sexual perversion as is natural in all cities,” he writes. Still, The Apologist 35 h labeling the least egregious forms of sexuality as perversion sounds puritanical to the modern ear, and one must keep in mind that “The Forms of Sexual life in Juchitán” was written over...