"Si-riame," said my companion, "this is the Chichimecame named Mixtli who has come to visit our village. As you can see, he is of some age, but he is a poor runner even for one of his advanced years. He could not catch me when he tried. I thought the jipuri might enliven his old limbs, but he says he has never before sought the god-light, so..."
The chief-woman's eyes twinkled with amusement as she watched me wince during that unflattering recital. I muttered, "I am not of the Chichimeca," but she ignored me and said to the girclass="underline"
"Of course. You are eager that he have the ma-tuane initiation as soon as possible. I will be happy to do it." She looked me appraisingly up and down, and the amusement in her eyes gave place to something else. "Whatever his years, this Mixtli seems an estimable specimen, especially considering his base origins. And I will give you one bit of advice, my dear, which you would not hear from any of our males. However rightly you are expected to admire a man's racing competence, it is his middle leg, so to speak, which better demonstrates his manliness. That member may even dwindle from disuse when a man devotes all his attention to developing the muscles of his other appendages. Therefore be not too quick to disdain a mediocre runner until you have examined his other attributes."
"Yes, Si-riame," the girl said impatiently. "I intended something of the sort."
"You can do so after the ceremony. You may go now, my dear."
"Go?" the girl protested. "But there is nothing secret about the ma-tuane initiation! The whole village always looks on!"
"We will not interrupt the celebration of the tes-guinapuri. And this Mixtli is a stranger to our customs. He might be abashed by a horde of staring onlookers."
"I am not a horde! And it was I who brought him for the purification!"
"You will have him back when it is done. Then you can judge whether he was worth your trouble. I have said you may go, my dear." Throwing a furious look at both of us, the girl went, and the Si-riame said to me, "Sit down, guest Mixtli, while I mix you a brew of herbs to clear your brain. You should not be drunk when you chew the jipuri."
I sat down on the pounded-earth floor strewn with pine needles. She set the herbal drink to simmering on the hearth in a corner, and came to me bearing a small jar. "The juice of the sacred ura plant," she described it, and, using a small feather for a brush, she painted circles and whorls of bright yellow dots on my cheeks and forehead.
"Now," she said, when she had given me the hot beverage to drink and it was almost magically bringing me out of my fuddlement. "I do not know what the name Mixtli means, but, since you are a ma-tuane seeking the god-light for the first time, you must choose a new name."
I nearly laughed. I had long ago lost count of all the old and new names I had worn in my time. But I said only, "Mixtli means the sky-hung thing you Rarámuri call a kuri."
"It makes a good name, but it should have a descriptive addition. We will name you Su-kuru."
I did not laugh. Su-kuru means Dark Cloud, and there was no way she could have known that that already was my name. But I remembered that a Si-riame was reputedly a sorcerer, among other things, and I supposed that her god-light could show her truths hidden from other people.
"And now, Su-kuru," she said, "you must confess all the sins you have committed in your life."
"My lady Si-riame," I said, and without sarcasm, "I probably have not life enough left in which to recount them all."
"Indeed? So many?" She regarded me pensively, then said, "Well, since the true god-light resides exclusively in us Rarámuri, and is ours to share, we will count only your sins since you have been among us. Tell me of those."
"I have done none. Or none that I know of."
"Oh, you need not have done them. To want to do them is the same thing. To feel an anger or a hatred and a wish to avenge it. To entertain any unworthy thought or emotion. For example, you did not wreak your lust upon that girl, but you clearly chased her with lustful intent."
"Not so much lust, my lady, as curiosity."
She looked puzzled, so I explained about the ymáxtli, the body hair which I had seen on no other bodies, and the urges it had aroused in me. She burst into laughter.
"How like a barbarian, to be intrigued by what a civilized person takes for granted! I would wager it has been only a few years since you savages ceased to be mystified by fire!"
When she had done laughing and mocking me, she wiped tears from her eyes and said, more sympathetically:
"Know then, Su-kuru, that we Rarámuri are physically and morally superior to primitive peoples, and our bodies reflect our finer sensibilities, such as our high regard for modesty. So it became the nature of our bodies to grow that hair which you find so unusual. Our bodies thus insure that, even when we are unclothed, our private parts are discreetly covered."
I said, "I should think that such a growth in those parts would attract rather than distract notice. Not modest at all, but immodestly provocative."
Seated cross-legged on the ground as I was, I could not readily hide the evidence bulging my loincloth, and the Si-riame could hardly pretend not to see it. She shook her head in wonderment and murmured, not to me but to herself:
"Mere hair between the legs... as common and unremarkable as weeds between the rocks... yet it excites an outlander. And this talk of it makes me oddly conscious of my own..." Then she said eagerly, "We will accept your curiosity as your confessed sin. Now here, quickly, partake of the jipuri."
She produced a basket of the little cactuses, fresh and green, not dried. I selected one that had numerous lobes around its rim.
"No, take this five-petaled one," she said. "The many-scalloped jipuri is for everyday consumption, to be chewed by runners who must make a long run, or by idlers who merely wish to sit and bask in visions. But it is the five-petaled jipuri, the more rare and hard to find, that lifts one closest to the god-light."
So I bit a mouthful of the cactus she handed me—it had a slightly bitter and astringent flavor—and she selected another for herself, saying, "Do not chew as fast as I do, ma-tuane Su-kuru. You will feel the effect more quickly because it is your first time, and we should keep pace with each other."
She was right. I had swallowed very little of the juice when I was astounded to see the walls of the house dissolving from around me. They became transparent, then they were gone, and I saw all the villagers outside, variously engaged in the games and feasting of the tes-guinapuri. I could not believe that I was actually seeing through the walls, for the figures of the people were sharply defined, and I was not using my topaz; the too-clear vision had to be an illusion caused by the jipuri. But in the next moment I was not so sure. I seemed to float from where I sat, and I rose to and through the roof—or where the roof had been—and the people dropped away and became smaller as I soared toward the treetops. Involuntarily, I exclaimed, "Ayya!" The Si-riame, somewhere behind or below me, called, "Not too fast! Wait for me!"
I say she called, but in fact I did not hear her. I mean to say, her words came not into my ears but somehow into my own mouth, and I tasted them—smooth, delicious, like chocolate—yet in some manner I understood them by their flavor. Indeed, all my senses seemed suddenly to be exchanging their usual functions. I heard the aroma of the trees and the cook fires' smoke that drifted up among the trees as I was drifting. Instead of giving off a leafy smell, the trees' foliage made a metallic ringing; the smoke made a muffled sound like a drumhead being softly stroked. I did not see, I smelled the colors about me. The green of the trees seemed not a color to my eyes but a cool, moist scent in my nostrils; a red-petaled flower on a branch was not red but a spicy odor; the sky was not blue but a clean, fleshy fragrance like that of a woman's breasts.