Chapter Four: The Village of Metzabok - Continued

One morning, I sat on the perimeter of the caribal reflecting on the daily life of the Lacandones. I had just finished bathing in an open communal roof enclave hut. Washing water came from a nearby well, but drinking water was collected from gutters that run along the thatched palm leaf roofed huts into huge oilcans. This was the only engineered plumbing I had seen in the settlement. Amid the morning bird songs, the noisy static of a radio came from one of the huts.

Jorge, our guide, owned a small short wave radio charged by a hand generator. It was only good for listening as the microphone cord had been cut off. He liked to try and tune in some distant culture’s music in the morning to entertain the children. The radio was the only modern convenience in the settlement, though the men were eager to obtain more. I would try to tell them that these material things didn’t embellish life, but a sense of depravation. They would laugh with gapped tooth grins and puff on their huge hand-made cigars.

All the huts were made of log poles and cane, lashed together. Machetes, the only carpenter tool used by the men, formed all the furniture, beds and benches. Each household was complete with a well-organized kitchen. Cooking utensils were hung above a counter-type basin with a table top for grinding and preparing food. Within the hut was a round clay wood-burning fireplace about one meter in diameter. A black kettle sat atop this fireplace simmering with beans and rice all day.

There is an opening for the smoke to flow out in the roofs, and cracks in the walls to allow enough breeze to flow through to keep the air fresh. The floor of the huts was typically covered with hand woven mats. I was particularly surprised to find that the Lacandon don’t use mosquito nets while sleeping in their hammocks or upon their burlap beds. They rely on the fireplace smoke as a natural deterrent.

Clay pots, baskets, copal incense bowls and dried balche bark littered the hut’s porches. The space in one wall that acted as a swinging door, pivoted on either a clay or glass hinge. Strung on the inside walls of the hut were hunting bows, arrows and machetes along with brightly colored feathers of Macaws and Quetzal birds. The bows and arrows were similar to the ones housed in Anahuac’s museum, collected by the late Dr. Albrecht.

The shafts of the arrows were tipped with broken glass or obsidian flint. The brilliantly colored red and blue feathers of the Quetzal bird were embedded in the opposite end of the 4-meter long shafts. Sometimes these highly revered feathers were braided into their hair for ceremonial purposes.

The sum total of life here was far removed from the Western world. I had lost my sense of it as even existing. That is until Jorge started cranking the battery charger on his short-wave radio. But even the static radio signals seemed to fit in with the chorus of jungle life around us. Paradise? Perhaps, it was to some degree but not for long. The short-wave transmissions of military coded screeches and global news broadcasts in a dozen different languages were like a warning of hubris to come.

When I first arrived, I’d ask Jorge to tune in Radio Free whatever or the BBC for updates on world events. But my interest diminished in a few weeks. Hornsby said we had to cut the wires of our Western thinking. Listening to the BBC wasn’t helping me accomplish this. Immersing myself in the jungle life was my obligation.

The morning stirred with a slight breeze. A multitude of colorful mariposa’s flew about in the rays of the bright morning sunlight filtering through the tree canopy. Macaws and toucans sang out with songbird dawn chorus. There was an occasional rustle of howler monkeys leaping from one tree branch to another. The day felt drowsy and peaceful aside from my pang of hunger.

The Lacandon women, whose ages ranged from youngster to elderly, were going about cooking tortillas for the day. Mashing the cooked cornmeal into pliable dough on their stone piedra de molers, they sang an extraordinary song. I could observe the women moving in a slow measured pace, their voices rising in intonation and pitch, then pausing for a period of time, only to repeat the process again in fairly regular intervals.

The corn dough was formed into small balls and rolled out and flattened like a crepe. Then the tortillas would be cooked upon an open fire, toasted lightly. Soon we would be having a feast of rice, beans, eggs with hot peppers and salt. The Lacandones understood the first principle of nature, its aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.

The primitive appearance of these people causes one’s perception of them as being impoverished and meek. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Their gentle dignity displayed what is called in Mayan -- Yacunah -- an indisputable poignancy of being, which paradoxically causes them suffering when dealing with occidental society.

Living in the lavish beauty of the pluvisela obviates one’s concept of material depravations. The men lounge in their hammocks, smoking tobacco, taking rest from their intensely laborious hunts. The women go about the daily chores of the household. The children play. All of it is in harmony.

As I looked at each of the settlement’s chibrams’ log pole thatched roof huts, it was evident there were no constraints of occidental socialization for the Lacandones to abide by. They live harmoniously sequestered in the rainforest, poised with an austere countenance that was admirable. Impoverished? The wealth of their divine heart was a priceless treasure to behold, but you could not possess.

And the children, potbellied nakedness, played about on the dirt floors of their thatched roof huts, mature in their independence. I marveled at how they would use their imaginations using simple rocks and sticks. These children, surrounded by deadly insects, snakes, caimans, ocelots, and jaguars, go about their business with reckless abandonment.

Their parents appear to be casual with the children’s freedom to roam, but I sense their peripheral vision is always watchful and alert. And parental instruction teaches them at an early age about the potential dangers around them and how to use their instincts to protect themselves.

Chapter Four: The Village of Metzabok - Continued

When we entered Metzabok’s caribal we discovered amid the scattered huts four saddled horses idly standing near four men dressed like cowboys urgently talking with one of the older Lacandon men of the settlement. Dogs were barking incessantly as we came into their view.

The men were wearing high-laced shirts, boots with spars and straw hats. On their hips were holstered revolvers. Strapped to their saddles were large cubes of sapodilla sap, large coiled rope and machetes. Two saddles had rifles wedged in under the leather stirrup straps.

“Chicleroes,” Montero said, waving us to hold still.

There seemed to be a disagreement between them and the elder Lacandon man. They took little notice of us at first as we paused behind Montero. Then the barking dogs turned their attention on us. And that brought the gaze the Mexican cowboys that caught a glimpse of Cassarina.

Ignoring the elder Lacandon, they openly made malicious lewd sexual gestures toward Cassarina. Montero quickly walked over to them, muttering something under his breath, welding his machete with a tight grip. Jorge was right behind him. I imagine they were hoping to thwart an unpleasant scene.

The sun was lowering in the sky by now. Daylight was running out for us to set up our camp. I had been looking forward to getting things squared away before nightfall. But this inconvenience would have to be resolved. A hostile confrontation was not something I was up to, especially after the hike in the humid jungle. I saw Cassarina to be more delicate and fragile in stature, contrary to her attitude. Moreover, she was an unlikely warrior of her own birthright. But she proved me to be a bad judge of character.

“Of all the dangerous places I’ve been, I’ve yet to find a dangerous place,” Cassarina said to me. “You can write that on my heart.”

In the spirit of a godly world, she majestically moved with prowess, charging triumphantly to confront the rough looking Mexican cowboys. Dumping her backpack along the way, Cassarina marched crossed the settlement making it clear she wasn’t going to show any fear toward these armed chicleroes. If there was going to be a showdown she was going to meet it in full glory. All the men’s eyes were fixed upon her countenance fastened to her commanding voice.

“Que es problema?” she demanded, standing in warrior poise. Her sudden forcefulness perplexed them. Montero stood behind her and Jorge behind him. The elder Lacandon moved toward the horses, carefully gathering the reins. A crowd of villagers started to circle showing solidarity for Cassarina. Unwilling to make a scene with this feisty woman the chicleroes relented. In short haste, they silently mounted their horses and trotted off, disappearing into the surrounding jungle.

Cassarina made an impression on the Lacandones. From that moment on they carried a confidence and respect toward us that months of co-existing habitation couldn’t have accomplished.

We had entered the Lacandon’s life during a transitional period. Up till now the Lacandones had guarded themselves from the corruption and abuses of Western religion and industry. I don’t want to bother about the details of our first few months at Metzabok. You can find the documentation of our labors in the bibliotheca at Anahuac, if the documents have not already been seized by the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

As I mentioned before, these direct descendants of the Maya were now surrounded by the sordid selfishness of industrial consumerism, the violent passions of economic greed for the forest and land that had been their sanctuary for centuries. The Maya had predicted this industrial era as the last four hundred year Baktun cycle. The scourge of humanity was inevitable, marked by the arrival of the Spanish Conquest lead by Hernan Cortez on their shores in 1519.

Ironically, Cortez arrived exactly on the cyclic completion predicted for Quetzalcoatl’s return. This caused ruling Montezuma II so much distress and confusion he allowed Cortez to quickly gain dominance over the Aztec empire.

What followed was the annihilation of the Mayan cosmological knowledge, the grand temple monuments that became hidden to the jungle growth, and the flesh of their souls spent from bloodshed by vainglorious foreigners. History, biology and psychology can tell us why they were, but these things cannot keep them alive. The tropical forest has proven to be their sustaining life force and that was quickly being extinguished.