Tarahumara: Indigenous People of Chihuahua, México

I am only strewing crumbs here, but a great deal of this web page will be an account of my fieldwork in the Barrancas de Cobre, or Copper Canyon, in the state of Chihuahua where it is transversed by the Sierra Madre Occidental. I’ll explain as we go, but my purpose there was to learn what I could about what has been called a “society of violinists,” the Tarahumara, or Rarámuri. I invite you to learn about this population from experts on the culture as a whole. That’s beyond my ambition and beyond my capacity. Three for openers:

1. For now, the Milwaukee Public Museum can help you out with their own website for general information.

2. Since art, music, cultural survival, and ecology are interrelated, you might see what The United Nations Environment Programme has on offer.

3. And finally, when push comes to shove—c’mon, we’re all friends here—one can see what Wikipedia has to say. Promise, I won’t tell a soul.

Just a few lines from my notebooks at the start of my path into the Sierra Madre, then:

October 28, 1980. Estacion Creel Chih.

By train from Ciudad Chihuahua, arrived around noon. Telegrapher hammering out Morse code, passengers sorting themselves out. Drowsy town with unpaved streets. Booked room in the Hotel Chavez. Signed in on ancient desk register w/dip pen and inkwell. Cheap enough.

October 29
Serious cough and cold. Met a friendly man named Calistro . . .cotton loincloth . . . greasy blazer. He says he can help me. Fishing in his clothing he withdraws a plastic bag containing a few spoonsful of white powder. (!) No worries, though—he explains that it is polvo de cascabel which I take to mean powder of dried rattlesnake bones. His instructions: ¡Deja de fumar en seguida y para siempre! (Quit smoking right now and forever!) “Also, take a pinch of this powder and mix it with te de laurel (tea from mountain laurel, like our laurel here) and drink it.” He gives me the bag of powder. I offer to pay him. He says no. I offer him my pack of Faro cigarettes. This he accepts.

Bought two very good violins, one from the shop that benefits the hospital, one from a “curio” store.

October 30

Still in Creel. Restaurant Chavez for caldo de pollo to complete my cold cure. (The snake powder helped!) Delicious soup w/a huge stewing hen’s leg. Señor Calistro—who gave me the snake powder—comes in quite drunk. He sits, is ignored, and falls off his chair. A Mexican man (owner?) takes in the scene and slugs my ethnopharmacist brutally over the eye, then throws him out onto the street. Didn’t quite catch his curse about “indios.” There is real racismo here, and I am going to get an eye and earful of it.

Back to the hotel for sleep. Awakened by Calistro, sobered up by now. He wants me to change an Ulster Bank note so that he can take the train down to the coast. I have no use for the note but I give him cash anyway and keep the note for luck. After all, he did give me his snake powder.

November 1
Into the canyon today by Forest Service truck to Basihuare. That will be my base. My hosts tell me there is a fine fiddler who lives nearby.

A short trip from Creel to the village of Basihuare, where my guide, Peter Kapp has friends. Stop in Cusárare. Restaurant with flower garden. Remarkable scenery along the way. Hike over a sandstone saddle between two cliffs, and then down to a log house w/ concrete floors and adobe side rooms. Here I am introduced to Juán Manuel Pérez and his wife Norberta. (See following entries.) Welcomed in, seated at a table covered with oilcloth. Invited to eat, shown how to wash hands at a basin on a stand. First lesson (as in most fieldwork): table manners.

In the evening I am introduced to Navarro Moreno, who works for—and is looked after by—Sr. and Sra. Pérez. He is told that I am interested in violin music. He leaves and returns with his violin. Navarro proves to be a fine musician. I learn my first Tarahumara composition from him. “El Pajaro Paseandose,” the sense of which I take to mean “a strolling bird, out for his diversion.” Many tunes follow, one to raise the sick, one to dedicate corn beer (tesgüino) for a fiesta, a farewell tune after fiestas, and more. Navarro is gracious, shy, keenly interested in me and my fiddle.

Over the next few days I’m shown a path upstream to a hot spring. Warned about corallios (coral snakes). Sure enough there are the cast skins of a couple 2–3 footers.

Juán Manuel’s home doubles as a country store. He sells kerosene, soap, staple foods, cooking oil, sodas, cigarettes. Navarro publicly offers to trade me his violin for my RayBans. I decline this. Another Indian comes in and says he has a fiddle he’ll sell me for 150 pesos; I’m noncommittal. On his way out he bumps it to 250 pesos. Juán Manuel nixes this: “Somos puros amigos aqui.”

I have learned a few tunes, quickly enough. I gather that my efforts are remarked upon. I play for the Indians who come to the store, make friends. Juán Manuel’s brother Alfonso is a good fiddler for Mexican tunes. We know a few in common: Las Gaviotas, La Carcel de Cananea. I tell my hosts (through Peter and as modestly as possible) that I once had the honor of performing with Lydia Mendoza. ¿Ella sigue viva? (She’s still alive?!)

It’s Sunday. People assemble in front of the church. Maybe 20 or 30. It’s been sparse during the week. Juán Manuel sends word that Elirio Martinez (himself!) is at the store and wants to see my violin. Sr. Martinez has been an elected official here. Conservative, formal, even grave in bearing. Doesn’t care to speak Spanish. Leads the orchestra at fiestas. A person of high status. He takes little enough notice of me, but evaluates and handles my violin and bow carefully. An arm’s-length, brief contact with him, but in no way a cold one. I hope to pursue it. He plays a couple of fine tunes with unselfconscious authority. We shake hands as I have learned to do here: a light brush of the fingertips, no contest of strength, no thumb-grabbing.

In front of the church the village council continues at length. In the background young boys and girls drive flocks of sheep and goats across the hill and rocks. Two women are presenting a legal case to three elders who hold staffs of office. The women claim to have been robbed. Also present, the accused denies any knowledge of the crime. Witnesses give testimony. A priest from Creel (the late Fr. Luis verPlancken, S.J. of whom more later) visits and weighs in. I am watching an ancient cultural universal here: the enactment of lex non scripta, unwritten folk law. It’s the curia pedis puliversati, a.k.a. the court of the dusty footed, the court pie poudre, the “pie powder court.” In the end, the accused stands guilty and is ordered to pay the women.

I ask Navarro if he can make me a violin. He agrees, but he must get the wood and dry it. We walk to the hot springs and he points out the various trees that are used to make violins. Back at the store, Navarro bugs Peter for an English lesson. Peter becomes impatient with him; I fill in and we sit in the sun. Navarro invites me to his home. We walk over.

He lives in a spare building upstream of Juán Manuel’s store. One room. No stove. The place is littered with sardine cans and the caps of soda pop bottles. A wooden framed bed strung with ropes does for a mattress.

Navarro’s only cover apart from his clothing is what the wood rats have left him of a gnawed synthetic-fiber blanket. There’s a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the wall and a kerosene lantern without any fuel in it. The beautiful violin that he made himself hangs over the bed. I go back for my violin, and we have a fine session there in his house. He plays tunes from pueblos around Basihuare, naming the tunes after the pueblos. Pascoles y matachines, tunes for sacred and secular use.

I have come to love this man very quickly, with his gapped tooth Alfred E .Newman grin that changes so quickly into an expression of immense gravity. We sit for an hour and play duets in his dark house. He asks only for a soda by way of payment. I get that for him, along with a little food, some matches, some kerosene for his lamp. There will be more later.

I learn that Navarro was orphaned in infancy, suspect some developmental barriers from childhood malnutrition Juán Manuel and Norberta affirm this, respectfully and affectionately.

Back in Creel I’m invited on a 3–4 day hiking excursion “to catch fish.” The capture, I learn later, will be facilitated by the use of nitroglycerine blasting caps.

AFTERWORD: I’ll see Navarro Moreno many more times over the years. My indelible memory of him is from one August evening in 1985. Returning to Basihuare I was told that no one had seen him. ¿Áun está vivo? Creo que sí.

I was sitting on Juán Manuel’s porch I heard Navarro’s violin and his laughter. Looking up I saw him walking through the twilight in his sandals and ragged clothes, surrounded, as he approached, by a luminescent cloud of fireflies.

Journal Ciudad Chihuahua, December 17, 1981

CELUSTRIANO AGUILAR Y ORTIZ INTRODUCTION: I wrote this after spending an afternoon with a street musician in Chihuahua city. I had gone there from the mountains to rest up after a bout of illness.

Still holed up here and recovering in my hotel. Many street musicians around the post office, all strong players and singers. Fine antique marimba with three players. Introduced myself as a street musician and had the sort of conversation street musicians would have anywhere—the police, store owners, other work, the possibilities of work across the border. Two mallets in the right hand, one in the left. The kind of music one hears in Chiapas and also a fine version of Quatro Milpas.

Lunch at the Cafeteria Ideal. Superb chile colorado, made with chile de la tierra. Must look that up.

4 p.m. Shook myself awake from my siesta on a hunch that there must be more street musicians down on the mall. Walked around the corner and saw a man in rags, striding quickly toward the cathedral, black violin case over his shoulder. I stopped him and told him I played violin also. Fine, he just had something to do then he’d be playing in front of the Salinas y Rocha department store. He walks into the cathedral through the side door, exchanges greetings with the beggar there, to whom he gives a coin.

This, then, is Celustriano Aguilar y Oritz. Right arm amputated at the wrist. 71 years old. His preparations are a sort of ceremony unto themselves. He slows his pace and picks his spot and sets out the coffee can. Then he puts down his sacks and fiddle. Next, he produces a small plastic squirt-jar which I take to contain holy water, sprays some down the back or his neck and then on the sidewalk in front of him and into his coffee can as well. He’s creating a protected, blessed place. Finally, he opens his case, and takes out his bow. Since his right hand is not only missing but unlikely to return, he takes a strip of cloth out of his pocket and binds the bow to the stump of his arm. In order to secure it well he threads the strip of cloth in between the hair and the shaft of the bow. When he has arranged it to his satisfaction he bends over and ties a knot using his left hand and his teeth. Almost ready now. Nothing remains but to rosin the bow, take out and tune the fiddle, and squirt some water on the pegs to make them hold fast. Tunes the strings by holding the fiddle upside down between his knees and using his left hand. All of this takes about three minutes and one feels that if any of the steps were left out the entire effort would avail nothing. Primes the pot with a few coins. Makes the sign of the cross over his begging bowl.

Expressive face: foxy, quick-eyed. His entire aspect is one of confidence; he’s in command of his place, his music, and his audience, confident in his movements, light on his feet. No appearance of haste or pressure. Hadn’t he already given the beggar by the Cathedral a coin for luck, probably said a prayer and lit a candle?

He can shift from an insinuating manner, beseeching alms with a smile, rolling his eyes if no alms are forthcoming. Maybe one passerby in ten drops a coin; these get a nod of thanks. He is reverent to his violin and his Merino coffee can that receives coins with a clunk.

Celustriano Aguilar y Ortiz, then, is a street fiddler who makes his living as a street fiddler by playing the part of a street fiddler. It’s worth remembering as his first strains cut the crisp air that many people find violin playing difficult who have both arms and hands.

On the way over he told me that he used to play with another man, but since that man’s death he has played alone.

He calls his tunes montañesas, mountain music, I guess. There are polkas, waltzes, marches. I don’t know any of the tunes. Decent violin, no label. Rattlesnake rattles inside. I ask him why the rattles? “Pues, así hacemos.” Impossible situation for tape recording. Too much traffic. No one actually stops to listen but the coins come in. At one point, he takes a huge ring of antique keys out of his pocket. I can’t imagine what it is for unless it is to keep his money anchored. The most deft pickpocket would have a hard time getting past that! He has made a sort of funnel out of a plastic bottle which fits in his pocket. When several coins have accumulated in the coffee can he looks around keenly and tips the contents into his coat via the funnel. He supposes that there are people who would in desperation steal coins from a ragged one-armed fiddler in the street. From where I stand and what I’ve seen of poverty in Chihuahua it’s a reasonable guess. He has one plastic bag for coins, one for paper currency.

On a break, he shows me a yellowed newspaper clipping w/ a story about him and a picture. He had been stung by a scorpion and infection set in, so the hand had to go. He strikes me as a kind man doing his best in a tight place. Later I see him packed up and walking down the mall where a Christmas fair of some kind it set up. I catch him to say goodbye.

He touches my shoulder affectionately with what’s left of his right arm and says, “Estoy aquí todos los días. Dame una de esas fotos si salen.” Then he’s gone—with his the day’s take kept close, walking into evening, into the night street, the neon, the lanterns, the loudspeakers, the stalls and hawkers, the tourists, the other beggars, the pickpockets, the fire eaters, the pimps, the windshield cleaners.

AFTERWORD: I did, in fact, take some photos for him the next time I went to Ciudad Chihuahua, but it was some time later and he hadn’t been at his “pitch” for while. ¿Quién sabe? Hace mucho que no lo vemos por aquí.

November 3 to November 7, 1980 (A-Fishing we will go.) Back to Creel to meet with Ignacio, Juán Manuel’s brother-in-law. He owns a flatbed lumber truck. The plan is for me, Ignacio, Peter, and a school administrator named Adán to hike into the canyon of the Rio Urique and catch fish. Unknown to me, the fish are small 3 to 4-inch creatures, pupfish, chubs, and shiners. We take off from Creel in Ignacio’s truck and cross the Continental Divide. Along the way Adán insists on demonstrating the sound system that runs off of the battery in his truck. The public address system gets wired to the battery, and radio broadcasts fill the air. A Tarahumara couple appears out of nowhere in full traditional dress. Peter hooks up the sound system so that I can play a couple of the Tarahumara tunes that I have learned over the amplifier. This embarrasses me. When I am through playing, I notice that the Tarahumara man who came in to see what was going on has recorded me on a boom box. We reach Choguita in the late afternoon. We call upon a beautifully-kept log house with an enclosed garden and flowers. Nearby, Indians are picking sheaves of corn for the oncoming festival. We join them, moving through the rows, stripping the silken husks off the bright ears. The kernels, yellow, red, black, purple, look like beads made of crimson, jet, and ochre. It’s we men who pick the corn. As the women herd goats and sheep behind the milpa, the women’s colored blouses echo back the colors of the corn. Next morning, we move along. Truck stays put. We hit trails that lead through cornfields interplanted with beans and chiles. The trails dead end at a cliff face. We lower down our packs and gear by ropes, then follow one-by-one to the cliff bottom where we hit another trail. This leads us to a camp site next to a sandstone outcropping some 80 to 100 feet high. It’s nicknamed la verga, or “the prick,” and it indeed looks like one, foreskin and all. We build two fires; a very large one to keep warm, and a small one to cook our dinner. We roll in and sleep. Next morning our bedrolls are covered with frost.

We head out in the morning and reach the Rio Urique at the bottom of the canyon by noon. Ignacio shows us the bait: blasting caps of nitro bartered from the road gangs. This, BTW, is narco cartel country. There are clandestine airstrips near the marijuana and opium poppy fields.  Too weak to continue hiking, I beg off from the next lap. Adán leaves a lever-action 30.30 with me: “si pasa un venado, mátolo.” (If a deer comes along, kill it.) Is he leaving the rifle with me for hunting or for protection? I rest by the rio. Whomp! Whomp! After an hour or two I hear the explosions of the detonating nitro caps thrown into the deeper pools upstream. Later, Adán, Ignacio, Peter, and the rest come down the riverbanks with two feedsacks full of tiny fish, about the size of medium sardines. I’m told the stunned fish are gathered up by straining them through baskets. God knows what other fauna got blasted in those few minutes. Otters, salamanders, name it. We gear up and hike out with our bounty. At twilight we find a family of Indians under a lean-to. They’ve been guarding a milpa to keep the birds and animals off the corn. Adán speaks to them in Rarámuri as we all string up the little fishes on wire to dry in the campfire smoke.