La esperanza no engorda, pero mantiene.
Hope doesn’t fatten you, but it maintains you.
It’s a bleak, cool spring day, and it hasn’t snowed in a long time. The bare trees are already desperate for water, and the long, dry months of May and June lie ahead for the battered and gray land. The light is washed out, and the wind has been blowing incessantly for weeks. Smoke puffs from the stovepipes of all the houses. Spring is a season of little promise here; the greening won’t come until the rains arrive in July.
I’m taking my daughter, Jennifer, with me today to visit Narciso and María. I have pictures to drop off for them, and Jennifer has to complete an assignment in her photography class. As we arrive, Betty comes out of her house to greet us, and then Tom emerges from María’s house, followed by another sister, Cruzita, whom I have not met before. They all greet us with smiles, and Cruzita steps up and gives Jennifer a huge hug. I can tell Jennifer feels at home already. The three siblings gather around the photos of Narciso and María I’ve brought, then Betty steps aside and leans against an abandoned washing machine, grinning at a small puppy wagging down the dirt driveway toward her. The dog is irresistible as only puppies can be, with fluffed-out fur and a tiny black nose. Everyone in the family is taken with the new pet, but none so much as Betty. She beams from ear to ear. The puppy makes the rounds, dashing from one adoring fan to the next. Jennifer has found the subject for her photos—and for all of her attention.
As I’m chatting with Tom, I learn he used to dance with the Matachines under Esequiel’s direction. In fact, he and the group danced in the Plaza del Cerro once. Tom kneels in the dirt to draw a map of where they danced.
“Yeah, we danced there in the plaza in . . . I think it was ’98, and we even brought Tía Grabielita. We went for her in Ranchitos.”
“Wait,” I butt in, “Grabielita is your tía?”
“Yes, through my wife. My wife is a Vigil from Cundiyó.”
“You mean she’s related to all those Vigils up there, like Esquipulas, Noberto—all those?”
“Of course, those are her primos. Her name is Valeria.”
“¡No me digas!—Don’t tell me!” I say. “They’re parientes of mine, too.”
“Yes, and I have a cabin there, right by the river, you know by the bridge? That’s ours. Oh, I love it up there in Cundiyó.”
The puppy runs over to Jennifer, and she bends to pet him.
“That’s Wolfie,” Tom says. “The mother is supposed to be a wolf. From the mountains. He’s part wolf and part husky.”
Getting back to the Matachines, I ask Tom if they are dancing in Chimayó anymore.
“No, not here,” he says. “We don’t have any more dancers in the group. Some became druggies—and it’s too bad, because the whole reason to do the dances was to keep people away from drugs. We even had a speaker come to the group to talk about drugs.
“But before, when we were together, Esequiel was the leader, and he was a good dancer. Oh, he would jump!” he continues. “And I mean . . . at his age? To jump like that? He was about seventy-five then, maybe older, and he would jump about five feet in the air! And he would go like this, ‘Ooo, ooo!’ at the Abuelos.” Tom crouches down, then leaps up, waving his arms in imitation of Esequiel. “He would make us all laugh. Oh, he was a character!
“And I knew Esequiel’s father, Don Benigno. He was my uncle, my grandpa’s brother. He was a chiropractor, but he told me never to be a chiropractor because it was too hard of a life.”
Telesfor approaches me and hands me a can of Coke.
“When people would go to Don Benigno’s house, he would not charge them,” Tom continues. “He would tell them, ‘Just throw whatever you want in the cup.’ And that’s how he would make his living.”
I tell the joke about Benigno reaching high up on the old ladies’ knees, and Tom convulses with laughter, saying, “That would be my Tío Benigno!
“But who is your father?” Tom asks me.
“My father was a gabacho,” I tell him, using the New Mexican Spanish word for a person of foreign origin—basically a kinder, gentler synonym for gringo. “His name was Arthur Usner.”
“Well, how did you come to . . . what is your last name?”
“Usner, but my mom is Chávez.”
“Are you related to . . . he’s gone now, Tony Chávez? Or Nestor Chávez?”
“Yes, Nestor was a cousin to my grandma.”
“OK, and what about Leví?”
“También. All those Chávezes from Potrero are cousins.”
“Then who is your uncle from Potrero?” Tom presses me.
“Well . . . my grandma’s name was Ortega, but she married a Chávez, Abedón, and he was an only child of—”
Lawrence Medina walks up and Tom points to him and says, “His father and mother were from Potrero, like the Chávezes. He’s a Medina. But what I want to know is how the Abeytas came to build the santuario in Potrero.” I start to tell Tom what I know about the santuario, but Lawrence turns the conversation to the photos of Narciso and María I brought, telling me he likes them in color much better than the black-and-white versions I gave him earlier this spring.
Tom jumps back in to talk about the Matachines dances, telling me the history of the dances and the symbolism of the various accoutrements of the dance.
“The guaje or gourd rattle symbolizes peace, and the palma trident means trade between the Spanish and the Indians—things like corn. They say they had the corn first, but we brought the corn, we brought the gold, we brought the silver. There was none of that here. They had the turquoise, yes. And so we became friends through trade, and then our dance, we passed it on to them. We gave them our dance, the Matachines.”
“And what’s the story in the dance?” I ask.
“It’s about good versus evil,” he explains. “Like, in the dance I’m trying to protect the Malinche, which is the Virgin Mary. And my warriors, they’re going to help me, because evil is going to come, the Beast, which we call the Torito. And the Torito is at the hand of the Beast, the Torito. Until we—”
Lawrence walks up and puts his arm around Tom, saying, “This here is my cuñado [brother-in-law]—or will be some day, when Betty and I get married. But we’re not going to make no wedding party.”
“So, the Abuelo kills the Beast,” Tom continues, “the little Beast that’s after the Virgin Mary. And the warriors all jump to finish killing the—”
Lawrence walks over again, holding up a picture of María I gave to Tom. Tom struggles to continue.
“See, the Monarca, he’s the captain of the whole dance. He’s like Cortés. That was Esequiel, when he was still dancing.”
“And who’s Malinche?” I ask.
“The Malinche, she was Betty when she was small,” he responds. “She represents the little Virgin Mary. Like mi Señora de Guadalupe, that’s what we use the capes for.”
Lawrence holds up another of the prints I made, of Betty, Cruzita, and Tom with María on her bed, and he says something about how much he likes it. Tom keeps talking.
“And the Monarca, he directs the warriors to show them how they’re going to fight. In one hand he holds the palma, the three-pointed thing, to ward off the evil, and in the other hand he holds the guaje, which means peace. That thing is so old—it was passed on to me by the Romeros from La Cuchilla. Let me go bring it so you can see.”
Tom walks off to fetch the guaje and the palma.
“Lawrence, did you ever dance with the Matachines?” I inquire.
“No, I wouldn’t know how,” he says, farcically imitating a dancer. “But maybe Tele knows,” he adds, pointing to Telesfor.
“No, I never danced with the Matachines, but Betty knows how.”
Betty, sitting on an old washing machine behind me, brightens into a bashful grin.
“Did you dance with the Matachines?” I ask her.
She nods, blushing, and Telesfor calls out, “Show us a few steps.”
“I know how, but I don’t want to,” she demurs.
Narciso emerges from the house, smiling at me.
“¿Cómo está su hermana?—How is your sister?” I ask.
“Está bien.—She’s fine,” he says, nodding.
“¿Y ya se bañó usted?—And you just took a bath?” I ask him, noticing his hair is still damp. He laughs heartily.
“Ya.”
Narciso wears his usual plaid shirt, suspenders, and beat-up cowboy hat, but today he’s also sporting what appears to be a necklace of round wooden beads.
“Oiga, yo quería saber quiénes eran sus papás.—By the way, I wanted to know who your parents were,” I say, wanting to fill in a blank in my knowledge of the family genealogy.
“O, Pulita se llamaba, y Valentín.—Oh, my mother was Pulita and my father was Valentín.”
“¿Y de dónde vino la Pulita?—And where did Pulita come from?” I ask.
“Yo no sé dónde sería.—I don’t know where that would be.”
“Y el apellido de ella?—And her maiden name?”
“Vigil.”
“De Cundiyó?—From Cundiyó?” I ask, knowing Cundiyó is the source of many Vigils in Chimayó.
“No. De aquí, de Chimayó.—No. From here, from Chimayó.”
“Y su papá era hermano a don Benigno, ¿qué no?—And your father was brother to Don Benigno, right?”
“Sí. Hermano a Benigno y Calletano.—Yes, brother to Benigno and Calletano.”
“¿Y por qué trae usted un collar hoy?—And how come you’re wearing a necklace today?”
Betty, Telesfor, and Tom break out in raucous laughter.
“That’s his rosary, man!” Tom says. “We just started Lent yesterday, Ash Wednesday, and he always wears it this time of year. He was a Penitente, you know.”
At this juncture, I return to genealogy and inform Narciso that I found out his grandfather’s name by calling my friend Aaron, who has tracked the genealogy of many families in Chimayó, and by reviewing my notes from a conversation with Esequiel. Narciso seems pleased to recall the name, Guadalupe Trujillo.
Betty calls me over to a table out beside the apricot tree, where she’s placed a small black-and-white photo of three people standing in front of an old Chevy truck.
“This is the picture I want you to copy.”
“Oh, who is it?” I query.
“Mi padrino.—My godfather,” she answers, pointing to a figure on the left. “Lupe Trujillo. And my brother, Rudy.”
“And who’s that?” I ask, half-jokingly because obviously it’s Betty when she was younger.
“With glasses? I’ve never seen you with glasses.”
Betty lays out another photo, much older. In this picture, two children pose in front of a black backdrop, the smaller child seated in a wooden chair and the taller standing alongside.
“That’s my mom,” Betty says, pointing to the smaller child, now the woman grown old and lying in bed in the house beside us.
Tom returns, holding up the palma, and says, “Look—just imagine how old this is.” He also holds out a gourd rattle (the guaje) and a colorful corona, similar to the one Esequiel showed me. Tom’s is decorated with a row of bangles that, when I look closely, I realize are made of pop tops from beer cans.
“I have another one, too,” Tom says. “And my daughters have the other ones at home. And I have the story of the Matachines right here.”
Tom opens a spiral notebook and begins to read from several pages of cursive writing describing the Matachines dance and its history. He used these notes, he explains, to introduce the dance when he performed in it.
“The Matachines dance, considered a sacred dance offering praise, honor, homage to our creator . . . this dance is known to originate from Spain, on or before 1598,” he reads while Lawrence, Betty, Narciso, and Telesfor listen attentively. “The dance became multicultural when Cortés married a Mayan Indian . . .”
I contemplate correcting Tom by pointing out that La Malinche was actually Nahua, and not Mayan, but I want to hear the story as he understands it.
Tom puts down the notebook and dons the corona, announcing, “I’m going to show you a little bit of the dance. Quita el perro.—Move the dog away,” he says to Betty, who scoops up the puppy to get him off the patio. He begins to shake the rattle and dance in the driveway, explaining his movements as he goes.
“You step, step, cross the palma and the guaje like this, then turn . . .” He demonstrates the choreography, dancing and twirling past Narciso’s easy chair, the washing machine, the emerald-green Chevy. Jennifer, wide-eyed, watches with the others while a couple of dogs snooze, unimpressed, and Wolfie yaps incessantly from the cage where they’ve placed him.
“And that’s the way it goes. It’s a beautiful dance. I wish I had the music, to really show you.”
Breathing hard from the exertion of dancing, Tom talks about how the dance group fell apart. A major blow to the group was the death of one of the main dancers, who died of a heroin overdose.
“Esequiel wasn’t happy about that,” he remarks. “But we kept on dancing, for Tío Esequiel. And then, now just before he died, he wanted one dance, one more dance, but his wishes weren’t granted.”
“Well, I was talking to Esequiel,” I related to him, “and he said he wanted his niece to organize the dance and make it happen last Christmas before he died, when she came to visit. But for some reason it never happened.”
“Well, maybe you could talk to Esequiel’s daughter and find out when the niece is coming next, and we could dance. I don’t know where, maybe even here,” Tom says, gesturing to the driveway where he just demonstrated for me. “You talk to her.”
Tom changes the topic abruptly to Los Hermanos. Pointing to Narciso, who is leaning against the washing machine, Tom says, “Este hombre y mi daddy eran Penitentes. ¿Era hermano, no?—This guy and my daddy were Penitentes. You were a brother, weren’t you?”
Narciso nods.
“Usted es Penitente. ¿Hermano de la morada?—You’re a Penitente? A brother in the morada?” I repeat.
Narciso nods again.
“¿De cuál morada?—From which morada?” I inquire.
“De aquel abajo.—From that one, below,” he answers, pointing northwest.
“¿De la morada de Pedro Fresquis?—You mean Pedro Fresquis’s morada?”
“No, no, no. Aquí. De aquí del Llano.—No, here, here in El Llano.”
“It’s all graffitied already,” Tom adds. Then he asks Narciso, “¿Hay tres Penitentes allí ’hora, no?—There are three Penitentes there now, right?”
“No, dos no más. Remigio y Mañuel.—No, only two, Remigio and Manuel,” Narciso responds.
“O, sí, ya murió el Deagüero, y el Jerry también.—Oh, that’s right. That Deagüero died, and Jerry, too,” Tom remembers. “¿Pero con usted son tres, ¿no?—But with you, there’s three, right?”
“They seal themselves in the morada, and they don’t come out during Holy Week,” Tom says to me, “except they’re allowed maybe five hours to come visit the family. And they eat only bread and fish during that whole time.”
“¿Entonces usan la morada esa todavía?—So they’re still using that morada?” I ask Narciso.
“Si, todavía.—Yes, still,” he replies.
“¿Y mañana van ir a rezar, cantar, y todo?—And tomorrow they’ll go in to pray and sing and all that?” I ask.
“Sí, mañana,” Narciso answers.
“It’s very sacred,” Tom adds. “They won’t even let me in there.”
“Yo quisiera tomar fotos de los Penitentes, pero no me dejan.—I’d love to take pictures of the Penitentes, but they won’t let me,” I say jokingly, for I know full well that Los Hermanos are very protective of their privacy, so much so that some call them a secret brotherhood.
“¡No, no le dejan!—No, they won’t let you,” Narciso says, bursting into laughter.
“¿Y cómo es ser Penitente?—And what’s it like to be a Penitente?” I ask. “¿Es muy duro?—Is it pretty tough?”
“O, sí,” Narciso replies.
“You have to learn all the alabados,” Tom interjects, referring to the hymns of praise practiced by Los Hermanos, especially during Easter.
“¿Y conoce usted a los alabados?—And you know the alabados?” I ask of Narciso.
“Sí.”
“Pues, cánteme uno.—Well, sing me one,” I suggest.
Narciso looks at Tom and back at me and laughs energetically at the suggestion.
“Cántele ese de las horas de la noche.—Sing him the one about the hours of the night,” Lawrence says, joining the conversation.
“Tío. Dile el Padre Nuestro.—Uncle, say the Our Father for him,” Betty says.
“Cántele un alabado.—Sing him an alabado,” Tom insists.
“O, échale un tequila por cantarla.—Oh, give him a shot of tequila to sing it,” Lawrence chimes in.
“Haga un rezo no más.—Just say a prayer,” Tom says. By this point I regret suggesting he say anything at all about Los Hermanos, and I certainly hope a bottle of tequila doesn’t emerge. Nars seems confused and unsure of what to do. But at the same time, he’s tickled to have the limelight. Tom tries to jump-start him by beginning to intone the Our Father in a droning voice. Narciso laughs nervously and then begins to recite the prayer himself. As he finishes and launches into a Hail Mary, Tom interjects, “Ándale, pues.—Go for it,” and he continues to insert short comments into Narciso’s recitation of the prayer, like rap fans encouraging a rapper’s spontaneous lyric.
When he’s done, Tom says, “I was in the Penitentes for three years, but I was a punk. Three years.” Then turning to Narciso, he continues, “De veras, ¿no? Yo, David, Rudy y Tony, nomás tres años juntamos, ¿te acuerdas?—It’s true, isn’t it? Me, David, Rudy, and Tony, we just met for three years, remember?”
“Sí.”
“It was something you had to be there for, but we were party guys. So we couldn’t last. We were young. Eleventh, twelfth graders. We wanted what was out there in the streets: party. We weren’t faithful to the morada. You have to be very faithful.”
“¿Ya no hay jóvenes en la morada?—There are no young men in the morada now?” I ask Narciso.
“No, no hay. Puros viejitos.—No, none. Just old men.”
“Quizás es la única morada que queda en Chimayó, ¿no? Porque la de abajo, del Pedro Fresquis, ya no se usa.—I guess that’s the only morada left in Chimayó, because the one down there, Pedro Fresquis’s morada, is no longer in use,” I comment.
“Ya no.—No longer,” Narciso affirms.
“Since Vicente died—he was the president,” Tom adds, “and Leroy, he lives right over here, he was the vice president, but he goes to the morada in Los Ranchos now; and then Román, well, he died, too. So then they closed it, and now they graffitied it.”
“Lástima.—Too bad,” I say, and Narciso nods his head in affirmation: “Lástima.”
Donde no hay amor no hay fuerza.
Where there is no love there is no will. (Love motivates everything.)
El amor se va a donde quiere, no donde su amo lo envía.
Love goes where it wants to, not where its master sends it. (Love has its own will.)
Él que quiere al col quiere las hojas de alrededor.
One who likes the cabbage likes the leaves around it. (Once married, you must love not only your spouse, but also your spouse’s family.)
Duele más dedo que uña.
A finger hurts more than a fingernail. (Said when someone takes the side of an immediate family member in a fight among relatives.)
La primera es escoba y la segunda, señora.
The first woman is a broom and the second, a lady. (The first wife is treated like a servant and the second, as royalty.)
La sangre sin fuego hierve.
Blood boils without fire. (Blood is thicker than water.)
No hay cuña más mala como la del propio palo.
There is no wedge worse than that which comes from your own tree. (Said of one who makes trouble within the family.)
Si la vaca es ligera, la ternera va adelante.
If the cow is fast, the heifer is faster. (If the mother sets a bad example, the daughter is even worse.)
Vale más un yerno del infierno que una nuera de la gloria.
It’s better to have a son-in-law from hell than a daughter-in-law from heaven.
Ya es harina de otro costal.
She’s now flour from another sack. (Said when a young woman gets married and leaves home.)
Vale más viejo conocido que muchacho por conocer.
Better an older man you already know than a young man you have yet to meet.