Travelers to the Other World: A Maya View of North America

Part II: Journey to the American East

Part II Journey to the American East • • • 167 Journey to the American East compadre Lol sent me a request in the year 1967 that he wanted me and Antzelmo to come to his country. The government did us a favor here; they issued our documents for us. When they were ready, my compadre Lol came all the way to Zinacantán to pick us up. But the trouble was that he came just before my fifth child was born. The day he arrived, the twenty-sixth of August, my wife, Matal, went out to gather firewood with my children and my next-door neighbor . I stayed home to work on a translation from Tzotzil into Spanish. It was raining. When my wife came home, she was soaking wet. I made a good fire for her and my children to warm themselves by. It was around five-thirty when her stomach started hurting. “Hurry up and bring the lady while it’s still light,” she said. “Wait a minute, I still have to finish this page,” I said. I filled the page. Then I poured some kerosene into my lantern. I took a pint of cane liquor and went to bring the midwife, Mother Petu’.1 168 Part II When Compadre Lol arrived at my house, I had just come back with the midwife. It was already dark and I was standing at the gate with my lantern. We went into the house quickly, because it was raining hard. Mother Petu’ sat down and my wife fixed a meal for her and Compadre Lol. My wife was enduring the pain in her stomach. “Eat!” she said. “Soon I won’t be able to feed you.” But she hardly sat down at all. Standing there she did what had to be done. She prepared her children’s meal. When her pain kept coming , she knelt and leaned on a chair. The midwife kneaded her back but the midwife wasn’t strong enough. So I myself kneaded her back and in a minute or two the baby came. We could hear its voice beneath my wife’s skirt. Mother Petu’ had me knot the baby’s umbilical cord so that cold wouldn’t pass into the baby’s stomach. I cut the umbilical cord with a razor blade. I put my old machete into the fire and burned the cord with it. The midwife bathed the baby in a big gourd. She bathed it in laurel water. While it was being bathed, I offered three rounds of cane liquor in a large shot glass.2 When Mother Petu’ finished bathing the baby, she wrapped the umbilicus in cotton. Then my wife spoke. “Is it a boy or girl?” The midwife dressed him in its little clothes. She wrapped him carefully in blankets. I gave the baby three chilis to hold so that he would receive their soul, so that he would know to buy chili when he grew up. Then I gave him a billhook, a digging stick, and an axe, so 169 Journey to the American East that he would know how to plant, and I gave him a strip of palm so that he would learn to weave palm hats. Mother Petu’ put a bit of pine in his hand, so he would light the way home for his father when he got drunk. The midwife censed the baby. She prayed to the ancestral gods so they would gather up his little soul at the meeting place at Calvary.3 Then she gave him to his mother to cuddle. At dawn we buried the afterbirth far from the house, to lengthen the time before the birth of the next baby. The hole in which it was buried was more than three hand spans deep. I offered a round of cane liquor in a small shot glass. When we came back to the house, Antzelmo was there. We offered a liter of cane liquor in appreciation for Compadre Lol coming to visit us. Then we went to San Cristóbal to get everything that I needed to entertain the midwife. I bought four kilos of meat, two pesos of shrimp for my wife to eat, one kilo of rice, and three liters of cane liquor. I invited Old Professor John and his wife to join us. When the meal was ready, we lined up at the table. First we washed...