Teo’s Storytelling Gift

I don’t know. It’s like I’ve a gift from God that whenever I think something, I see it happen. Such as my mind gives to me something, and, like that,...... it just comes, and click I remember things that passed. Because, many years I worked with the Boss from 1984 to 1994, there are many things that I never saw in my youth. With the same project working with the Boss, where I’ve been turning around in the whole of San Ignacio and here at Pilar. I see everything and always, every project we have something new to see.

The Community was Small and Quiet

Well, in Bullet Tree, right now, there are many people living there. It’s not like twenty years ago, when I reached Bullet Tree from Corozal. There were only about twenty houses. Ten more over the river, which is the Manzaneros, and we have about next .... nine houses over a next little village we call Camalote. We have the next little place, we call Paslow Fall, where the witch doctor lives.
 
 

And in those days the houses have only thatch roof,.... only little thatch houses. You never have no toilet, those days they never have no latrines, and things like those. People used to go to the bush. It’s just one or two people that used latrines-toilet , in those days. Ahaa,.... they never have electricity. Bullet Tree was dark. And Bullet Tree was very quiet, calm, nice, a pleasant little place, in 1968. They know what is here, everybody they know which is good from bad.

Shy People with Horses

When I come, they were kind of uncivilized people, when I come here in Bullet Tree. The big people, they are watching through the holes, and they run. The old people hide from you when you are a stranger here, in 1968. People hide from you. A little baby sees you, they run straight under the bed. Maybe you see somebody grinding corn, and when you get close, no one is in the kitchen! The girls hide, everybody dodging. You go there, nobody in there. They don’t like to see strangers, they just like see their neighbors, in those days, in Bullet Tree.

Because the people, .... see other people starting to come in the village, and there is more transportation. When I got there, only one little taxi, running people to and from the village. The narrow road runs people from San Ignacio to Bullet Tree, and very rocky. And it’s an old red car the one aiding the people. This is mostly by horses, that traveled in that road, to go to town.
 
 

They Were Farmers

The people did mostly milpa farming, milpa work. And they sell a little corn, sell their little cohune oil. A pint, or a gill. You know in those days they used gill. Pint, quart, it’s not like now. The teacher, they taught you about gill ,pint, quart, and little spoon full, or thing like that. They don’t learn about that in these days. Everything is different now, from the 60’s. People like .... just change in Bullet Tree. From the 80’s, the 90’s, Bullet Tree has changed. But while growing youths, they grow up, they coming up, Bullet Tree has change. Every year you see a little different change, in Bullet Tree, with the people. It’s not like the days before, there were people seeing you. And it’s getting more lively than the years back.
 
 

In the Beginning

I was in Bullet Tree in nineteen eighty-three. The Boss, she went to my house one day, about ten o’clock, and she told me, "Teo you want to work with me, on my project?" I told her okay. We are opening a transect, a survey line from El Pilar to Bullet Tree bridge. And my field director was Tom [crew chief of transit work], and we had about sixteen students working with us. The workman, helped building that trail straight over to El Pilar. And right there they get to know me, that I’m a good worker, obedient and whatever they told me I did.

I started working for the BRASS project [on the survey]. From that, we went back-filling here in Pilar. And from here, we went right back to doing Bacab Na, in Santa Familia, and we did some excavating over there. We went back to Yaxox [minor Maya center near Branch Mouth]. We did some work over there in nineteen eighty-eight, eight-nine. Those are the times we were working over there. We worked in Spanish Lookout in nineteen eighty-eight. We also excavated in, Bacab Na, one pyramid, and we got the next field Director, Scott. Another field Director... ahm.... what is the girl’s name again? Andrea! Those are the field directors that taught me a lot. And taught me what I know about archaeology. So while working in the project, while I get more experience , and I listen to the field directors many times when they tell me things, my boss [the Field Director], and I do what they say.
 
 

Working for the Boss, Field Director, and Students

From my working with her, the Boss, she holds a party after the project, and she would like me to say something concerning what we learnt in the three month project with her. And me, I’m interested to talk on anything from the project, because we saw something in the three, four months we work.

We can say something with the students, that came here. Say something that you learnt, and say something that interests you where you came you don’t see it. They read it in books, see it in pictures, but seeing it natural, the students don’t always see it. So many years I’ve worked, there are many students that come, young and old, I work with. They tell me, and I tell them - and so it comes that I get to learn more. I get to open my mind more, and also I fell like themselves, they fell very more happy. At lunch some days, we lunch on the survey, when I started to work. Then they ask me things, and I tell them things.

They, the students, asking me things, They want to know, "Teo?" how I cook. How your tortilla is nice, your meat is like that. I tell all the students how I cook these things, And all the students they like our ways, they like our speech we give them. And they learn. Sometimes they tell me Teo, where do you get all these things? I tell them, well I just sit doing sometimes and studying them on the project. I go home, but I don’t go straight home. Walking around and down, thinking about tomorrow. There is the next student that can come new. And, well, my Boss would say it, "Teo, you can take this , this student on a tour, or you take him and show him something." My Boss, you know why she told him that? Because she already has a little bit of confidence in Teo, my interest in her project in the field.
 
 

Ergonomics of the Field Toilet

Also, every project here I build a new toilet. Now, this toilet that I build here.... behind the champa It’s one day I told Clark, my field director, " what happen Clark, we not build a toilet?" He told me, "Sure, Teo. You ready to build a toilet?" I tell him, well if the Boss say, I know every year I put a toilet for the boss, a new toilet. So, I put a new toilet. I told you bring a Q-bar for me, a shovel, and ah.... and some nails, and a hammer. And I going up, I dig that toilet, which takes me three days, almost, to dig that toilet.

Then I look for a nice little spot, before I open that toilet. I find the spot on a slope where a cohune hole was, a palm tree. And I dig it right down until I meet the white marl, and it was very soft. It looked like the Maya they started the site from, because it was on the level of the soil, on the flat, where I built the toilet. That toilet was not built on a slope, but on the commencement of the site. That toilet on the flat, where the Maya, they commence their work, like what we find over the big plaza, Plaza Copan.

And after I finish that toilet, I put nice pieces of stick, which is trumpet [small fast growing tree common in second growth]. I made a nice surrounding with it, with sticks, And... and mostly I peel the sticks them for the sorrounds, and get it set on everything. Everybody, every person that goes there, the tourist they told me, "That’s a nice toilet, Teo. I, ... I feel very comfortable when I sit there. Ahaan, it’s you, make it?" I say "it’s me, make that toilet," " And who gave you the idea to make a little cabana-toilet like that?" I say that little cabana toilet, it’s just a temporary toilet for our project which is a four month project. After a four month project, I’ll build a nice toilet, next ninety four, ninety-five, I’ll be building the next toilet. I don’t know, but if you say that one is good, well it’s okay.
 
 

El Pilar’s First Caretaker

I work with her and I told the boss that I would like a perminant job with her, a steady job. She told me [spoke Softly], "Okay Teo, I’ll try for YOU." Nineteen ninety three, she give me a full time job to be a caretaker here in EL Pilar. And, I come here in the second of July, nineteen ninety-three, to be a caretaker here. To do some tour guiding, and to walk the site and see what happens on the site... And every time the people they come in the site, they told me that they want a tour, and I take them for a tour.

Every day as a caretaker, I give Pilar a very good check and see. I get up, early in the morning, sweeping out my ....well, the champa. Cleaning up the place for when, ... for in the morning for whatever time what-so-ever the people come into the site, it is clean. I go and visit the site. I go over to the North side first, plaza Lec, give my turn. I go all around. I come over my champa in Plaza Duende. And go over Plaza Faisan here. Going all way at the last site in the south, Plaza Axcanan, turning around.
 
 

Fending off Looters at El Pilar

Last year, while walking around the site one day, one morning, I found here noise, way down at the chert site [LDF chert-tool production site west of El Pilar’s Plaza Faisan]. When I look down at the chert site , there was, ahm, LOOTERs, looting a chultun. And when I hail to them, I tell them, "Who is it?" I say like that. Then I say, "Bring my gun, bring my SHOT GUN! My shot gun going to bring them! Come with that rest of four men! Bring,...bring the shot gun!" When....the looters heard that, they decided to throw away their bucket, and they ran over, over the border.

Oh, when I went in there to see, I never make a trail. I just give my turn between the trees there. Just NOT knowing if I’m going inside to see it. So I just make some rough trails going in the same time when I see what they were doing there. And I find some little bits of bones, ceramic, lithic artifacts, and these things, find inside. Out of where they were looting. That’s what I find. So I look inside the chultun and I see it has, .... almost clean, a meter down ... in soil. The rest of the chultun is untouched, it wasn’t touched as yet.

When I get there, it was chultun they were looting out. And discovered it their OWN SELF. Well, they find that chultun, I thought, was their hunting games, Maybe they were just looking for things that, as you say, like the Maya they had been stored down there inside there. And they try to see what the Maya, .... have buried down in that black soil of that chultun. While the soil don’t have no rock, you can find anything inside. And so I did a little bit of hunting with my finger through the small pile the looters had removed from the chultun, and I found some bones, and some Maya things. I have that much experience that I saw what they were taking out of this, chultun.

Then, I decided to see where they put the chultun cover. I found the cover about five meters away. The chultun was round and has almost three meters deep from surface. And I got the cover and I sealed that chultun again. Then I stand up there about an hour, .... or two. Sitting down to see if they were coming back. And no one came back. And from then I visited that site at the chultun, until the project started. And the looters they went, and never come back.
 
 

How to Identify a Chultun

Well, whenever time I verify a chultun - that one the looters they found, it’s because I take my own hand, or a piece of stick, or a machete, and I clean around the mouth, that jar, that chultun head. And the mouth I get clean. And see for myself whether it’s going down, or it’s just a rabbit hole, because you have some big animals, they make some big holes, such as the pacary. Or the tree was rooted some many years ago, or that hole is out of a rock. Because where the rock is loose they all time find some impossible chultun. Maybe we see that out , and we say ...."it’s a chultun." But it must be verified. So that’s when these things, we must clean one. Two years ago. I remember we clean one in Aguacate, at Mr. Martinez". And I saw that a chultun only has four meters, three meters and a half at most when you get it clean. I take that bar and I measure it, and I put it down, my own self to get my own experiences.
 
 

Copal Incense

When I stay here in Pilar in ninety-three as watchman, I see a lot of different trees .... herb trees, medicine trees, water vines, a lot of copal.... And they [the Maya] use it as fire with the copal. They catch their fire with copal, with the chert, the flint stone, you see, they use the flint stone, with carbon. See they put the carbon in the jar, and when they drop copal inside, flint that and that, the light goes straight to that jar, and he start to smoke.
 
 

Cohune Palms and Allspice Trees in the Jungle

We have a lot of several trees of cohune ridge, [cohune palm stand or grove] that I show the tourists. They ask me what kind of tree is this? I tell them name of the tree, which is like gumbo limbo-chaka [tree used to soothe rashes], poison wood [tree with sap that produces rashes], and ahm, .... allspice tree, and like cohune palms. The Cohune, the Maya, they used the cohune nut for making fat. They hit it with their hatchet. they have their own special hatchet that they made, to bust these cohune. So they made their own oil out of that. Like the old days in Bullet Tree. Well, the oil, they boiled it, with water. And that oil come up and the water stay down. So, when you go in that jar, you’re going to find all the oil on top, and the water to the bottom.

The allspice, we take the allspice and make tea out of it. And that tea is good for medicine, for your body, for cold, to clean you. You can drink spice tea. Well you boil it, you boil the spice leaves. Boil five of the leaves, and then you make your tea. And then you can put a little, like I told the tourists, they can put a little canella [Sp. cinnamon] inside, or something to build up the water, and they have a blended tea.
 
 

Medicine from the Bush

I’m not going to tell you a bad medicine to drink, and I know when it’s a medicine that is going to harm your insides. I will tell you a medicine that is good for you, like I told many of the tourists, that come up. But some day, when you return, and work with me, and you can say, "But Teo, remember you told me this..?" I will not neglect that word, because I told you it. "These things are things that Teo told me."

Teo told me, this bush is for insect bits, this is for snake bites, this bush is a bush poison to your skin,. This bush is something that can heal that poison, that’s on my skin. But Teo already showed me all these things, and I already take it in notes, that so what-so-ever time I take out my guide I can tell him something. If you come with Teo, and Teo take you one-by-one and reveals all to you. If it’s ten of you, ten days, each day I take out one. I take out one, and each one of you have your pocket book, and each thing you have it written , like you with me while we working.

These things are when a person has cold inside in their system; this ... jackass bitters which is this here, over here. This is jackass bitters over here, you boil this leaf and you drink that leaf for cold. That’s why some of the people .... the people when they go to the doctor and say, " Doctor, I can’t have a baby, or I can’t have this, I FEEL sick," The doctor check them and say, " Oh you drink a lot of ice, you full of a lot of cold you can’t multiply. You have to go and take a clean check, and take out all of that cold. Then, so you maybe have a choice to have a kid. But so long as you have that cold on you not going to have no kid. You are going to say [soft voice]" I wonder what happen," but it’s your own system is dark up with cold. And as long your system is locked up with cold, you can’t get contact..... just like a live wire, a wire that you don’t scrape. You know, sometimes, you don’t scrape a wire to make it get contact, well it’s just like that, like the human inside, understand?

And other plants you have, you have between, you have, aahm .... balsam to drink. Those call them, aahm, talawala [Bear Paw Fern]. That’s what Abel took which is for pressure, when you have high blood pressure. That you can drink. You scrape off all that red it has, and you soak that in cold water. You clean it, and you soak it in a jar. Then you drink that; they call it the talawala. That’s the name, talawala. That water you drink like your tea. You have many things here, many different medicine herbs, here at Pilar.

You know about the chicoloro which is a herb [to stop bleeding]. The tourists they ask me about gingweyo [medicinal root]. Such as many herbs that they .... the Maya,... and people used it. They used the breadnut. I told them of the breadnut [Ramon Nut]. The Maya used the breadnut for food. They, parched the seed, and they ground it on the metate [grinding stone], on the rock. They ground it, and they boiled it, and they cooked it for their porridge.
 
 

Forest Weather Signals

And knows the dry season. And the cricket, those cricket they give sign, when it’s time of weather. Depend on the time, make you say, it’s a short time we hear them only in the year. From the first of April, they start to make their noise. They have almost one month and a half making noise. All depending on the temperature and the climate they get. If they get a weather climate, a cool climate, they can’t make noise. They make noise whatever time they get sun. Whatever time the sun comes out, they feel happy. They want we call dry- weather cricket - cicada. Those are the, .... what you call chicerine. So we call it dry- weather- cricket in Creole, as you say that’s Creole.

And the dryer, whenever we get a little squall of weather, is only on the time when the moon is full. When the moon is young, we get a little rain, for as you say, whenever the moon is eight days young, we get a little squall of rain. Whenever the moon getting a shifting to three- quarter, we get a next little squall. Whenever time it goes, eight days after .... after fueling, we get the next one. Almost get three squall of rain in the time when the moon is young, to when it gets full. It’s the same moon that brings that rain. It’s for the earth, as you say, for the hog plums for the fruits, to get water. So we get the type of rain, with the hog plum and the mango, because they are the times in April, May, June when we no get the rain.

The Pleasant Bees of the Chicozapote Log

You see the little bees? These bees right here. There’s A LOT of bees inside, thousands of bees! You can sit here whole day and they will not bother you. They are nice, pleasant bees. Ahan, and some people they are afraid of the bees. I come see, right back here sitting down. Studying from here and I watch the place. And I don’t want any one to come and disturb it, that’s why I show everybody that come in this little piece of sapodilla.

The sapodilla is the strong tree that these bees made their hive on. They are not looking for a log that will rot in ten, fifteen years. This would take very long; this is the sap I told you the chiclero, put in these cut. But now it’s cut for fence posts. Then, like this stick they come and cut it. When they find this animal is living in here, when they see cut here, look. And they decide to leave this piece of wood because this part, is the heart of the sapodilla. These bees in Plaza Copal, here. Past several years ago, working here with the Boss, that I saw bees here. Now I show all the people that I guide around the site. They like to see and take snaps when they come out. Some of them take photos of it. They say, "Teo, we don’t have these type of bees", and "We never see this types of bees". They are quiet. And they, ... they look so tender and are beautiful little bees.
 
 

A Clear Spice Honey

The bee, the Maya, they used that honey. And this honey contains a lot of good things for babies to heal them. Little scar and things that you have on your face. Eating this honey is very good this clear honey. This tastes like, how do you say, like cinamint, like cinnamon. Like a spice tea. This type of honey has a good smell. It’s white honey; it’s not the yellow honey.

To get to that honey, you don’t destroy, because you take it out from the back. And when you open the back here, you see, well, you hear the bees. Before you burst the wood, you going to hear the bees. So whenever, time you take off that little square piece, that going right back inside like a cover. You have to take out all. And then they will build back new honey for new honey for next year. See the honey take out here every twelve months. And next year the same time you going to come there will be honey again.
 
 

Entering the Hive through the Wax Funnel

Touch the bottom of it, all the bottom - wax. this little point, this take to build up with wax, They have this part of the funnel here, is hard, but very flexible. You have these little wax here good for where you have prickle sliver on your finger that can’t come out, you put that there, and that’s going to haul it up.

Now, when it rain, this little hole on top on this wax funnel, when it’s rains this have like a, .... like a wind coming out of this hole. When they carving out, working inside, this kind like wind come out of this little tunnel here. So the rain only comes in the side no rain goes in the center there. Whenever time the rain comes now, no rain goes inside, no water, see cause it’s before,  that comes out.
 
 

The Bees Work Hard Night and Day

So, whatever time the rainy season, you see them working hard. They same one fixing it and they building it, they building this up from the time I see it was only a little hole, now this one be a big one, a stout one. See they protect it outside, they minding. They start to work that, and they find these flying out, it has honey. OH, there’s many more than this inside! Ahaa, those little yellow flowers we see like those little things there, go there and they suck the juice water [nectar] that drops, and they come in their hive and make honey.
 
 

Noise at Night

Last year there was not so much noise, you never know where we were working in the day. But the night is different. Sometimes, in the night, one or two people pass down here on the road. I’m up there, I don’t know, and I’m over the champa. Sometime I hear a little noise, but its just like birds in the night, like the bush animals. Like passing, those gibnut [Agouti paca], and armadillo. Those are the ones that are feeding in the night. Those are the noise I hear around the camp at night.
 
 

Evidence of Deer and Peccary

I tell you, last year I was at my champa, I come straight my champa there, and one walked right outside my champa, I never chased him, he walked and going down, over west side. A big huge mule deer. Then the next time I come tie Niña [Teo’s horse] in the evening to change him over there. We see one, two antelope, and different types of brocket deer. They look that small one brown and white. Those sharp little horns they have, and they sharpen their horns on the trees that I know. The deer horns, those antelope sharpen their pegs there.

And Peccary. We have wary [Peccary]. Ahaam ,the wary don’t have horns, they have teeth. And they eat the sap from the tree, so you can know where the wary pass, where the peccary pass. You know where the armadillo pass, but the armadillo doesn’t cut trees, he doesn’t have teeth. And the gibnut, those are the ones that cut trees.
 
 

A Gibnut in the Hole

Oh, over the Chorro, ... . this place they call Chorro, where contains the same mound of El Pilar. A guy over there found, he, .... He have little puppy, a hunting dog. And the little puppy, he went hunting by himself. And when these people hear this little dog barking, they run behind the dog. When they found the little dog gone right in a little hole for the animal. And the hole, it almost show like it’s an impossible chultun. When they get there on their own, they see this hole, and they went inside. Inside the chultun-hole, there was a gibnut! But this gibnut was sitting right in a big jar! .... in a big basin [ceramic basin]. While they were taking out the gibnut, they found the small jar, a little plate. And they found, many more things; they found, how do you say, in the corner of the chultun. They have to chase the animal out and they didn’t get this animal. Because if they shoot, they going to shoot the plate. So they decided to chase the animal, and to take out whatever they see where the animal was and where the animal was, there were many little artifacts they took out from the chultun.
 
 

The Damage left behind by the Tapir

We have mountain cows. Those are wild, and like a sort of short cattle with a big snout. See, the mountain cow doesn’t have horns. Like the pig, but some short, have big head, like cattle, big snout. Ahaa, he has feet just like the cattle. And if he lick your hand, he going to take off all the skin it is left raw.

Well it’s no joke, he can damage, and cow is as true as cattle. If they see a champa at night with light. they just close their eyes and come in straight to the champa. And knock you down, and your nets, and everything you have, and God! they not looking back!! Ahah, one time I remember, .... in my chicle time. A man say, I never know about high wilderness and bush. I was young and the guy say, "Teo," he was telling me about the mountain cow, what damage it does to things, and if I saw it already? And I tell him "No, I never see a mountain cow yet; I’m from Corozal!" He wasn’t lying to me or trying to get me frightened, you know? Because I’m new to the jungle. So I say, ahm, "Okay, maybe one day we be lucky to see one.

So, it’s the next day we going to see that animal now, that mountain cow in the night! And everybody has a flash light. So our camp nearby, we know every chiclero has a camp here, a camp there. So all at once, we hear over the last camp, a man baling! It was on account of the mountain cow! See the champa got a little light, and he bore right into that champa. That poor man. That man had his raw chicle, he never cooked that day.. He had, I tell you, a deposit, a hundred pounds! So he has his chicle tied in that house- raw milk - the sap that he was going to cook the next morning. He was going to cook chicle, and not come out to bleed any trees the next morning. And that same night, that cow picked him up off his hammock. And there were four men in one camp. And he picked up those four men in camp, and everything, and kicked that away and destroyed that camp. Ahaa, just tell it like the mountain cow.
 
 

Snake at Night

And here at Pilar, .... how them animals and everything moving! One night I was sleeping, and when I woke up about twelve o’clock ..... I see a snake wriggling between the champa where I stay, going across. When I take my flashlight, and put it on him, I see he’s a big huge snake, he’s going across! I leave him and he goes over where I have my chaya trees, where I have my mango trees. I have an avocado tree there. So that goes between those trees...that snake gone that night.
 
 

And in the Time of Rain

So as we were talking about the snakes, them. I come back to this story about snakes. And, I’ve been a kind of concerned about snakes. I ask a little question, a while a go, last night. I found that the more you ask, the more you can learn. So I was on the same thinking last night, when a guy come by me and I told him what was taking place. He asked me what I was doing and I tell him my job. So he told me, "Teo, the snakes, in the dry, they don’t eat. In time of rain, that’s the time the snakes start to come out and eat. And whatever time lighting and the thunder strikes, they kill all the bad snakes. When the thunder strikes, that is going to kill all the evil animals that harm the humans beings in the world that are walking. And those are the things that condemn all of the snakes in the time of rain".

Because that is time they coming out, the biggest of snakes are out. And God strike them with that lightening and get them shock. If they are in a hole, and that snake is inside the hole will be dead too. He will not come out to be a serpent, or to be any bad animal on the face of the earth to go on eating people or destroying the animals, like the deer, or the jaguars, you know. Well, these are the things that when it’s raining it is beautiful because some whole days, it’s ... ahm ... cloudy, and a little glaze of sun. Sometimes for hours, you don’t see sun,. Sometimes for the whole day, you don’t see the sun, till in the evening, five o’clock, when you see the sun it’s just set, it’s setting. That’s the hour you see the sun.
 
 

Some Snakes are Poisonous and Some Are Not

Also, the snakes. The poison snakes them, they can get that poison from a poisonous frog!!! They catch that frog, and they suck the poison from the frog. There are some green frogs you know, and some brown ones. Those are the ones that the snakes they catch. And they create that poison, so that when it bites you, that poison hits you very fast.

And there are snakes that don’t have poison here, .... which is the boa. The boa snakes, those don’t have poison. And the one that have the poison ... is... the pit viper and the rattle snake but here in Pilar we don’t have rattle snakes. We only have Tommy Gaff, black tail, whipping snake, here it is whistle snake. And we have Coral snake, we have ... ahm .... those green snakes, Oh, ... there was that day when I was guiding the people that came to the site. The tourist were touring them, and the same time I met a snake, crawling down the pyramid. And then Clark [Field Director] told me" See the snake there!" And I never get to hit the snake when it was going down the pyramid. That was a big Coral, and so those are dangerous snakes we have, the Coral, and the Tommy gaff. Those are the poisonous snake we have. And that green snake we call Ishta Bai.
 
 

Be Aware of your Thumbs

They have a green snake with a red eye, and every time he sees you he can dazzle your eye. And that, snake can come and hurt you because, those are the snake we call the Ishta Bai. He turn into a person. Aahaa well, that’s the same duende! That’s the same green snake, you see! That’s the duende! He whistles, that green snake whistles. And when he whistles, he wants to sight you already, and his eyes big! He then, then when you see that, duende form, he ask you "Make I see you" ….But he make sign, …. He’s dumb! He only do these fingers like that, in front of you [holding up hands, thumbs Hidden]. And, …. And if you do you four [no thumbs], you’re safe. But if you do ten [showing thumbs], they going to break one off each side. They are going to twist the thumbs off. So whenever you show a duende your hand, always show them back on, …. This way [thumbs hidden].

They take the horse them, in the night when the moonlight, …. The duende they come and play with the pony. They plait their hair. They plait their hair, they really like horses a lot. They play with the horse, my horse, Niña. And sometimes they loose your horse. Yes, and sometimes they loose them. Sometimes ….mine tie [small vine] they rocking. They tie a vine, then they tie the next one in, …. Make you say, about …. Three meters, …. How the three, they separated. And they tie their vines, and they do their swinging. To and fro.
 
 

Don’t be fooled or You’re lost!

We see one already in Corozal. I sight one in Corozal. Well, we stay off from far. And he has a big hat, make out of palm. And he put on that big hat. And is very small, how do you say, just has a meter tall. The Duende is not big. And the baby duende just about that high, which is about, how do you say, …. A …. Half a meter, the young duendes. Oh, the duendes eyes are gray. You can see him, its gray. And he turn, sometimes he turn into your own little brother, or your own classmate, "Teo, come here." And Teo will look around and say," Oh, it’s ….It’s Jane." And I will follow ‘Jane.’ And when he all appear to you he all appear in the evening, …. Six o’clock in the evening, and early, twelve o’clock in the day. And you must see that animal on Good Friday. On the Easter time, those duende are out during Easter time.

Well, if you follow the duende, he will get you lost. He has a, a heavy power. He sees you and he can get you lost. And … that’s why, he steals your mind. And then you going to follow him …. And when he get about, make you say, out of sight of people, he come and he hold you, because then he already has you lost. You don’t know where you are. And sometimes, maybe, you there just about ten meters from off the main road! But you are,…. You are lost., and you don’t know where you are now. Then, and then, I tell my children when they go to the bush (jungle), they must all time listen and watch, and see their feeling when they get in the bush, and when their feeling change. Because when that animal is close you, you feel all the hair from your pores … THEY STAND UP. And so you feel that you are close of something, and so you decide to turn back.
 
 

How to Come Back , Carefully

And again, when the duende take a life, like that, from a family, that family has to … know a …. A …. Witch doctor, that knows some prayers to bring the kid back OUT. That he can turn the kid back to his own sense, because the duende has already stolen their senses. And whenever time they come back, they use the same, the same copal. The witch doctor use the same copal to smoke that evil spirit that take that child. And that child going to come back. Because that smoke going to catch that duende, where ever he is.

And his own self — that duende- he is going to give back that baby at the same place he took him from, the same place he will return him. Make his family see him, and when his family see him, he’s not good in his feeling. He’s still frightened, because then it’s just a prayer. When after they bring him back, they will take him to the witch doctor and the witch doctor will give him a bath. He will take a bath to come full back with his five senses that he has. He going to take about, maybe, you say, about three weeks then he can come back. To know truely he’s at home BACK. But he will take attendance from that witch doctor, about three weeks. That before he comes completely-back.
 
 

Looking for work

Well, I was born in Corozal and I grew up in town. All that I learnt in Corozal was to operate trucks. And I started operating trucks and I decided one day when a man has family, he has to know many different types of job to defend him in life. And so I made up my mind to come in San Ignacio, to learn this chicle work. And those days in 1968 the chicle was just the price of twenty-five cents a pound. In 1968.

And then I come here. And it’s a new place that I reach in San Ignacio, I never know any one. And I come in Bullet Tree because I know a little of Spanish from Corozal. I learn my little bit of Spanish and that take me to here in San Ignacio, in those times. So I meet a little old man name Mai, who is my daughters’ father-in-law right now, and he’s the one that taught me about the people, how it goes in the village, and how the work goes. And if you are a working guy, you can live here. But if you are a guy that DON’T work, you can’t live here in San Ignacio, because things here in San Ignacio are very poor. There are no jobs. Only the job that’s here in San Ignacio is to cut the sapodilla, which is the chicle. So one day I went, and he told me that he was going to help me with a spur and a rope. And he give me my food, and I came and learnt about the chicle. So he brought me up here to Pilar.
 
 

Chicle North of Bullet Tree Falls

In those days Pilar road is just a little small trail opening in the bush. Where the Mr. Balam is right now we call Champon Bajo. That’s the name where that pasture is, Champon Bajo. I drank water there out of the track where the horse walked, and after I got tired, I decided to see the next camp of chicleros. They collect their drinking water with those broom leaves, that I show you. Those leaves, they double them, and they put them in the trail, the horse tracks, and they dive out that water, and they drink that water out of the horse track because water is very hard to get, while coming to Bullet Tree cutting chicle. We were just depending on water where we see the horse walk. In the trail, well, those are water we drink, till we reach camp here in Pilar. Then, we slept here in Pilar one night and we walked up the next day to Tutu, and from Tutu we go to Camaron, going close the border. Camaron is close to the border, and Tutu is close the border.
 
 

Learning to be a chiclero

I came to learn this chicle work, as I say before. You have to go to the tree and watch the tree, what type of tree you cutting. Oh, and my teacher who taught me named, …. Ham, …. Leopold Heinz. That’s the man that taught me to cut the chicle, and to sharpen my machete. Ahaa, you can go from tree to tree. And if you know, you already learn this job, because it’s only like a new chiclero. And old chiclero can go and cut a tree and give some nice, pretty cores. It’s not like you, you learning the job. You have take very good time, and keenly know that what is down, and clean under the tree very clean, in case you fell from that chicle tree, you will NOT get hurt on these pegs [stakes]. You have to cut all these pegs, and you have to watch underneath because you have a lot of sap. You have to be on the watch for snakes, because the snakes, they like to live under the sap, the dry sap that fall from the tree. They like to go underneath and hide themselves. And right there, when you go to put your bag to receive that chicle, you can get bitten by that snake.

Well, if the trees are close, they are, how do you say, about five meters from the next, six meters two meter it all depend on how you meet the ridge [grove] of sapodilla. And so that’s the way the chicleros walking, and do their little cutting, where they walk, they test their trees before they bleed a tree that isn’t good. They bleed a tree first on the root, and they see if the milk run through the sap. That’s a good tree. They will cut that tree. But if the milk don’t run when they test the root of that sapodilla, they will not cut that tree. They will leave it for the next season to go and cut that tree. And for the true trees side on side, you have to come down of one and hook on the next tree. So that’s way this chicle work.
 
 

Bleeding the chicle Sap

And you have to have your machete razor sharp, like a guillotine, that it could burst the cut. Because the cut you put on this chicle tree, we always make the cut like a cross, going forward right, left, right left until it go almost, how do you say, if in the tree in full height. And we use the same machete, that the old people know that we use machete to build these chicle. And we have them razor sharp. And the man, he cutting, as I say while going: right, left, forward till he get to the first limb upstairs. You get to the first limb, you have your bag, your chicle bag sticking into the root of the tree with a nail, or with a stick plug, hooking up with the string you have tying your chicle bag.

And when they get there, sometimes they have to tighten their spur, and the spur has to be very sharp, to be very sure in the sap of the tree. Because it can skid off, and then you can cut your own rope. So you would be very careful when you climbing this sapodilla trees, because this chicle tree is a tree that has a lot of sap. If you don’t pay attention what you’re doing, you can get hurt. Because your spur can slide, and you have to secure your spur. And if you don’t have padding for your feet, you have to go and cut those escoba leaf and put for your padding on your knees and on your ankle, down below you feet. So that’s the way this chicle work have been set up, in the time of rainy season.
 
 

Collecting the Chicle Sap in the Bags

Our chicle bag we made out of cotton. And after that we cut that cotton, we melt the candle. We go to the rubber tree, we bleed the rubber tree almost as we bleed the chicle tree. And we take that rubber from the tree, and cook it with some kerosene, that we use for catching fire. That kerosene. So we mix about two quarts of rubber milk about a quart of kerosene. Oil. Cooking that, just like how we turn the …. The chicle in a little small jar. And start to take a broom palm leaf that we use for tying the spur. We take that, and we cut the paint of it, and we paint the chicle bag with the rubber. We get it painted and we leave it in the sun for about three days. And then after this time it gets hard on the bag, so that whenever we cut that chicle milk it doesn’t bleed out of the bag. It holds all of that chicle, it holds it very tenderly.

We make those bags, we have them there measuring about eight pounds, ten pounds. All depending on the size of the bags we make, to hang on different size of trees. Those chicle bags, we call them deposits because that ‘s what we put in them. From trees that have a foot, and trees that have two foot, three foot, give ten pounds of chicle, fifteen pounds of raw milk. The next one that carry, it’s about a foot and a half size. It’s big, it carries about fifteen pounds of chicle, because the trees are big. So whatever time you start to cut that chicle tree, that bag is going to receive all that milk you have, because it’s a big tree so you have to put a big bag. - a big deposit, we call it.

Then we take out of that little bag — the deposit- that we put on the tree, we have big one that carry one hundred pounds of chicle. Those are the big bags, the flour bag that we use. Those days, the bags they bring flour was not nylon bag like now. But those days the bags them, the people, the poor people take them to make shirt. We make shirt out of them to go to the chicle bush. So the chicle whenever time it drop on the shirt will do it nothing, because it’s flour bag. It’s very thick, and so that’s what the chicleros used to wear to go to the chicle. And those old type of pajama pants which is jeans pants, those are the type of pants they used to put on to go to the chicle. And when we receive that chicle, they put it in that big deposit bag that have a hundred pounds. In three days we have a big pile of it. Those old time people, they have some big iron pots, big jars that have four pegs. So, those are the things we use in chicle work.
 
 

Cooking the Chicle Sap

Whenever time it get in a grade that it’s getting like, it get water. And get cooked, get brown, because the milk is white, from the rubber, tree it’s white. And whatever time you cook that milk, that rubber is brown. So that brown rubber it give you, take a long stick, and you put it forward in the bag and get it stretch.

Now, stirring this chicle in the pot, you have to stir this chicle till it turns to gum. And when it turns to gum, you going to turn chicle, almost go for three hours, with a lot of sapodilla wood, heavy wood. And after that, this chicle has to continue working. To add some pounds to that chicle, you have to put about six pounds of water to add that chicle to bring it more weight than it should of have. They turn that chicle till the water turn out of that chicle. And after all of that water turn out of that chicle, they throw it out.

And they turn that chicle almost, I say, three hours, they turn it up to see the grade of the chicle, if it’s raw, or the milk is cooked. Because if the milk is raw, whenever time that chicle come out, that chicle to is broken up. It will not stick together like a real gum that is cooked, and get the real grade. And so, that's why the chicleros come to find out that when the chicle is raw they can know by how the chicle is molded.
 
 

Molding the Cooked Chicle Gum

And then they start to do this job that I say, molding this chicle. So that when you feel this one that has the water, on the same form that we have mold. This mold going to read about thirty pounds, the one with the water going to weigh thirty-five pounds, that’s the difference between the water and the straight chicle. And so, that is the way the chicleros they have gain a little bit on their labor.

Ahaan, we make the mold, and we stuff all the mold. And we soak the back of the crate before. Then we put the chicle inside. And when we turn over that mold, the chicle will just slide right out and not stick on the mold. You see, that’s the way we do the chicle.

And when the chicle get dry, they can see where the chicle is white and the next chicle is brown. Because that chicle, that milk is raw, it didn’t cook, it’s white. So that’s when they got to the company, the company return back these chicle, and they pay a cheap price because they have to return that chicle over. And pay workman to re-cook that block of chicle, to get down like this next block that is completely cooked. That is the way the chicle work, each season (the rainy season), and each is in the month of August right up till the month of January. That’s the ending of the chicle season.

Looking Back

Oh, whatever time. And then when we get in the bush, we just watch. We just looking for sapodilla, too, that they build, to mix with that chicle, to give him some more weight. And so all these things that I get to learn from the old chicleros. Ahaan ……. I get to like the bush.
 
 

And from those chicle times, until now. I’m STILL here in Pilar, working. In everything while sleeping, it’s very cool and pleasant, here in Pilar. There is nothing to disturb you to see, like it’s a worldly spirit, or something disturbing you from raising. No, here in Pilar you rest very nice,….good as you any where else.

And when the sun is downing over there, and I see the toucan, they come in. It’s …it’s beautiful back here. If you stay back here, ….quiet. You see different birds come in the site. Maybe if they come way from Guatemala. I don’t know where they come from, birds come up to the site, and in the site, and fly and go back.