Zinacantan, Mexico

Zinacantan is the physical center of the universe. Or so the Zinacantecos believe people, eight thousand strong, scattered over a mountainous section state of Chiapas, Mexico, near the Guatamalian border--an area that seems quite insignificant on any map of the world. But Zinacantecos do not care how they appear to the rest of the world. They do not even think of themselves primarily as Indians, despite the fact (unrecognized by them) that descendants of the great Mayan race. What a Zinacanteco? He speaks a language known as "Tzotzil." He has developed over centuries a way of life strongly resistant to any inroads of Mexican or Western civilization. Even Catholicism has failed to do more than lay a slight gloss of saints and churches over his old, basic Indian religion. Moreover, a Zinacanteco manages his own local government and possesses his own lands. He has his own community.

Just to make sure he always knows who he is, the Zinacanteco dresses in his own distinctive, unique, and (to Western eyes) out-fashion. All the men wear short pants, even in the coldest weather. They all wear the red and white striped shirts and pink tasseled scarves their wives weave for them. And to top it off, they all wear flat- brimmed straw sombreros dangling hosts of long multi-colored ribbons behind them.

Zinacantan, hilly and forested, does not have enough arable land to produce all the corn needed. So the Zinacantecos often rent fields a days walk from their homes, in a tropical part of Chiapas called "hot country." For weeks at a time the men are gone from home, tending their fields. During the summer, I worked with them, in return for my shelter, but especially for their friendship.

We before dawn. By the time I was Zinacanteco would already have the fire heating an earthenware pot of dark beans which had been simmering all night, while we slept under our open, cane-thatched shelter. For breakfast we ate the beans, all of us sitting around the same pot, each scooping out his beans with a toasted tortilla.

When the sun was barely breaking over the land, we went out to the milpas (the cornfield) to begin the day's work. The men usually work together for company, even though they want to own or rent their fields separately. If it was hoeing season, the time for weeding the fields, we began at the edge of the field, working across it in a straight line, a man to a row. And it was good manners to work along at a fairly equal pace, no one hurrying too much, so the younger boys and myself could keep up with the older men.

Most of the milpas are very rocky, with white stones everywhere in the black earth. The Indians hoe around the rocks and around the corn, deft and sure in upturning the green, prolific weeds within a fraction of an inch of the corn shoots--never uprooting the corn, never cutting through the bean plants or squash vines they grow with the corn.

They all work smoothly, bending forward from the hips, pulling and not chopping, in long easy strokes. They like best to work up hills, the steeper the better, for it means less back-bending work. And from some immemorial, ingrained habit, we always worked from left to right across the field.

THE group would eventually stop work at mid-morning for a custom as necessary as the coffee break or English four-o'clock tea: Zinacanteco nine-o'clock pozol. Sitting at the edge of the cornfield under the shade of an oak, the Indians wash their hands meticulously and rinse out their mouths with water. The men would then take out their pozol, a yellow ball of corn mash the shape of a pineapple, wrapped in green cornhusks. Each of us took a handful of the cold pozol and put it in our bowls, adding water and stirring it with the brown water. If it was not too many days old, it was not too sour. The Indians carefully cleaned out their bowls, picking up the last wet crumbs with a swish of their dark fingers around the inside of the bowls.

Back to work. We leaned for a while on our hoes, then began again, working as the sun rose higher, slowly hoeing down the mountains of Middle America. We stopped at high noon, to eat again: cold beans, perhaps, and koshosh--toasted and hardened tortillas, corn hardtack, the unspoilable staple the Indians take on all trips.

We began again in the afternoon, talking as we worked, but not stopping. Once in a while one of the men paused to spit on his hands, or to push the black mud off his hoe with his bare foot. We never wore our leather sandals while working. Sometimes we would hoe over an ant hill, and the small black ants would nibble at our feet.

Despite the tropical heat, the Zinacantecos drink little water while working. If the men found small purple flowers growing, they might pick one and suck its bitter stem. The juice of the flower helps to allay thirst. But otherwise, the walapoho suffers the fate of any other weed, tumbled over by the hoes into the black earth. Work ended around four in the afternoon: water had to be hauled, and the mules taken care of. One of the men might go hunting with an old muzzle-loading shotgun while others looked for mushrooms.

In the evening there was more koshosh, warmed by leaning pieces against the fire, beans, stewed squash, or some other stewable kind of weed. Or perhaps chilis crushed in a bowl, with water and bits of onion added, into which to dip the koshosh. As darkness fell, the Indians sat over the oak fire and talked of Zinacantan politics, of weather and witchcraft, sickness and crops. At the center of the world things are fairly simple, after all; and it gave me a good feeling. There were only the elements, the earth, the corn, the fire, the night; and out of them a few men, asking few questions, trying to take a living, their old way of life. Will the Lord of the Earth send rain? they ask. If not, people will starve, even the people in the cities. Then they lie down on their straw mats in the warm summer night, and smoke their only and last cigarette of the day.