PDF (Lo-Res) - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

94 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY NUMBER 23
If I was laggard in beginning the next round of
Comiteco, Xun would demand it. When I requested
one more tale, "One more tale, one more pint!"
Xun's accounts are sprinkled throughout with
both obscenities and ritual words and phrases; the
former a sign of his self-assured status in the community,
the latter a sign of his pride as a shaman, and an
avowal of his intimacy with the gods. Quite deliberately
he neglected to add the particle la which
indicates that the story was only hearsay, for he
wants you to know that he was there at the time of
the creation.
Unfortunately the silence of the printed page robs
Xun of his most dramatic effects while the obscurities
and gaps that were never apparent in the telling
become all too obvious in the reading. Even so,
Long ago ashes fell. Ooh, I was a teenager. It
certainly was long ago. First there was an explosion
to the south. It was after midnight. Then I felt the
shivers, bu—t it was like a mortar. The next morning
everybody was afraid. "Eh, but what fiesta could it
be?" they said. They came to ask here [in San
Cristobal],
"A mountain is exploding," they said.
"But you watch, ashes will fall! Who knows if it
will be midnight, who knows when," they said. "The
ash will fall later today," they said. "The ashes have
stopped. It won't erupt anymore. It's all right now."
But at sunset we fled. We went to the woods, to
my grandfather's house. That's where we went. It
was packed tight with people. "The mountain will
explode. The mountain will explode here!" they
said. But they were lying. But there wasn't anything.
It was far away where it erupted. The ashes came.
Ooh, bu—t when it grew light, Holy Mary! The ash
was nearly a handspan deep on the holy ground. The
horses, the sheep, Holy Mar—they couldn't eat, they
couldn't drink the water. It was just like that out
there, drizzling like that.
Dawn came over the holy earth. We reached
home. It stopped falling. Nothing stirred now. The
sun appeared. The dry season began. It was just
before All Souls' Day. Just like today. So the rocks
exploded at this time of year. The ashes erupted. It
was this long before, it was this long before the
fiesta, like today.
So then after it erupted, the horses and sheep got
diarrhea. Maybe the ashes were hot. They drank the
When the Ashes Fell
T120
during the tales of wars, natural calamities, and
supersexual Spooks, clearly the greatest hero of
these epics is Xun Vaskis himself!
On my last visit, Xun put down his hoe, sat me in
the sun by the front door and told me how it was in
the time of Don Porfirio. A week before, his wife,
almost totally blind, had told me with finality "Your
compadre is dying, he won't survive." Then he
called to his granddaughter to give him "the white
sack." From the sack Xun pulled a freshly woven
hat and, as I sat in bewilderment, handed it to me,
reminding me that over a year ago we had stood
together in front of the Church of St. Lawrence and
I had complained that my hat was so yellowed and
tattered that I was ashamed to be seen. "Put it on,
now you're a man!"
Vo7ne che7e 7iyal tan, jii, lek chex vinikon vo7ne
bi, ba7yi t'om ta xxokon vinajele, tz'epuj 7ox
7ak'ubal, ja7 7o chka7i k'ak'al sik perooo ko7ol
xchi7uk kamaro, 7isakub 7osil 7un, xi7 skotol i
krixchanoetike. "7Ee, pero k'usi nan k'in?" xiik 7un.
7Ital sjak' H7 toe.
"Jun vitz ta xt'om," xi.
Bweno, "Pero xak'el avi ta xyal jun tan jna7tik mi
ta 7ol 7ak'ubal jna7tik k'usi 7ora," xi 7un. "Tana
chtal tan," xi. "7A li tane 7ipaj xa, mu xa bu xt'om
lek xa 7oy."
Buy, ta 7oresyon 7un lijatavotikotik libatotikotik
ta te7tik k'al sna jmuk' tot ja7 te libatotikotik te tzinil
skotol krixchano. "Ta xt'om vitze, cht'om H7 toe!"
xi. Pero yech tznopik, pero mu k'usi nom to t'ome,
7a li tane tal, jii, pe—ro ti k'al sakube, Maria
Santisima, 7oy nan jutuk mu j-ch'ixuk i tan spimil ta
ch'ul-balamile, 7a ti ka7e ti chije Maria San ... mu
xu7 xve7 mu stak' xuch'ik vo7, ja7 yech chak Ie7 a7a,
k'inubale ja7 yech.
Bweno, 7isakub li ch'ul-7osile, 7ijta jnatikotik 7un,
7ik'ep mu xa k'usi xbak', 7ayan k'ak'al 7ipas ta
korixma 7un, tijil Santo 7un, ja7 yech chak lavile. Ja7
cht'om ton chak lavile t'om tan, ja7 yech tzk'an ja7
yech sjalil sk'an k'in chak lavile.
Bweno, 7iday, laj t'omuk 7un, 7a li ka7e li chije,
stam tza7nel, ja7 nan k'ok' i tane, chuch' i vo7e, tzlo7