Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade.
But that suffers a sea-change.
Into something rich and strange.
And I alone am left to tell the tale.
Call me Ishmael.
In 1974 I went to Mexico to visit my brother who was working as an anthropologist with the Tzotzil Indians -- the last surviving Mayan tribe. The Tzotzil speak a lovely bird like language and are quite tiny physically. I towered over them. Mostly, I spent my days following the women around since my brother wasn't really allowed to do this. We got up at 3 am and began to separate the corn into three colors. Then we boiled it, ran to the mill and back and finally started to make the tortillas. All the other womens' tortillas were 360 degrees, perfectly toasted, perfectly round. Even after a lot of practice, mine were still lopsided and charred. When they thought I wasn't looking, they threw them to the dogs.
After breakfast we spent the rest of the day down at the river watching the goats and braiding and unbraiding each other's hair. So usually there wasn't that much to report. One day, the women decided to braid my hair Tzotzil style. After they did this, I saw my reflection in a puddle. I looked ridiculous but they said, "Before we did this, you were ugly. But now maybe you will find a husband."
I lived with them in a yurt, a thatched structure shaped like a cupcake. There is a central fireplace ringed by sleeping shelves, sort like a dry beaver dam. My Tzotzil name was "Loscha" which, loosely translated means "the-ugly-one-with-the-jewels." Now, ugly, OK. I was awfully tall by local standards. But what did they mean by the jewels? I didn't find out what this meant until one night when I was taking my contact lenses out and-since I'd lost the case-carefully placing them on the sleeping shelf. Suddenly I noticed that everyone was staring at me. I suddenly realized that none of the Tzotzil had ever seen glasses, much less contacts and that these were the jewels-the transparent, perfectly round jewels that I carefully hid on a shelf at night and then put, for safe-keeping, into my eyes every morning. So I may have been ugly but so what? I had the jewels.
Full fathom five thy father lies.
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade.
But that suffers a sea-change.
Into something rich and strange.
And I alone am left to tell the tale.
Call me Ishmael.