deck and I moistened my dry lips. ‘So now we will go to Jeddah,’ he said, and the change in his voice suited his recall to duty.
‘What is it like?’ I asked.
‘Well, it is still Arabia,’ the captain said. ‘At least we may say it is better than this.’
‘That is certainly to be hoped.’
The captain said, ‘In Hodeidah at this time there are three foreigners and all the Arab people are poor. Jeddah has many foreign people who are coming for a better climate, also because they may smoke, drink and maybe even fornicate with women in hotels. The Lord is everywhere in Hodeidah to punish men who do these things. In Jeddah, Almighty God is remaining in the mosque when the cruising ship is in port. That is important for Jeddah. That is why Jeddah is one rich city while Hodeidah is very poor.’
He turned away, then remembered our patient. ‘So Mr Farago will be travelling to Jeddah with us?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘When he next takes his temperature I’m sure it will be normal. He will travel with us as arranged.’
2001
THE SURVIVORS
T HE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA by the Spanish initiated one of the most calamitous series of events and the most protracted human tragedy the world has ever known. Within a generation, all that remained of the grandiose civilizations of Central and South America were ruins and a wretched collection of plantation slaves, while to the north the impetus of conquest and extermination was only delayed. All the European newcomers were destroyers. The French demolished the nations of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. In Canada the British invented germ warfare by distributing blankets from a smallpox hospital among the tribes (a method favoured in Brazil to this day), while the freed American colonists pushed westwards behind a shield of treachery and massacre. The appalling fact is that most of the aboriginal inhabitants have been cleared from what amounts to one third of the world’s surface, and it is perhaps even more depressing that the remnants should have been reduced, by and large, to destitution and cultural nothingness.
These processes of annihilation have been so thorough that it comes as a surprise to learn that in this continent, north of the Amazon, a major aboriginal group—the Huichols of western Mexico—can have survived with their tribal structure, religion, traditions and art intact. Behind the bastion of the high sierra they were beyond the invaders’ easy reach. Had there been gold or silver in the mountains, greed would have found a way to conquer them; but there was nothing in Huichol territory worth stealing, and there is no finer guerrilla country anywhere. The Huichols evaded the large military forces sent against them and defeated the small ones. Only in 1721, through a policy of blockade which cut them off from the sea and deprived them of salt, could they be induced to sign a treaty of peace. By the terms of this, five missions were to be established in tribal territory, but after a few years the missionaries gave up the struggle and went away. They had discovered that the Huichols were unsuitable material for conversion to Christianity.
Ten thousand Huichols have survived, and they have doubled their numbers since the turn of the twentieth century. One would expect this single exception to the rule of dwindling populations, apathy and degradation to be exceptional in every way—and exceptional the Huichols are. They live by hunting deer and growing a little maize—neither of them time-consuming occupations—and the huge surplus of leisure is devoted to the pursuit of the arts. They cover their clothing with elaborate embroidery and produce exquisite pre-Columbian objects in feathers, beads and coloured wools. All Huichol art is devotional. ‘Everything we do in life,’ the Huichol shaman-priest instructs the child, ‘is for the glory of God. We praise him in the well-swept floor, the weeded field, the polished machete, the brilliant colours of
‘What is it like?’ I asked.
‘Well, it is still Arabia,’ the captain said. ‘At least we may say it is better than this.’
‘That is certainly to be hoped.’
The captain said, ‘In Hodeidah at this time there are three foreigners and all the Arab people are poor. Jeddah has many foreign people who are coming for a better climate, also because they may smoke, drink and maybe even fornicate with women in hotels. The Lord is everywhere in Hodeidah to punish men who do these things. In Jeddah, Almighty God is remaining in the mosque when the cruising ship is in port. That is important for Jeddah. That is why Jeddah is one rich city while Hodeidah is very poor.’
He turned away, then remembered our patient. ‘So Mr Farago will be travelling to Jeddah with us?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘When he next takes his temperature I’m sure it will be normal. He will travel with us as arranged.’
2001
THE SURVIVORS
T HE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA by the Spanish initiated one of the most calamitous series of events and the most protracted human tragedy the world has ever known. Within a generation, all that remained of the grandiose civilizations of Central and South America were ruins and a wretched collection of plantation slaves, while to the north the impetus of conquest and extermination was only delayed. All the European newcomers were destroyers. The French demolished the nations of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. In Canada the British invented germ warfare by distributing blankets from a smallpox hospital among the tribes (a method favoured in Brazil to this day), while the freed American colonists pushed westwards behind a shield of treachery and massacre. The appalling fact is that most of the aboriginal inhabitants have been cleared from what amounts to one third of the world’s surface, and it is perhaps even more depressing that the remnants should have been reduced, by and large, to destitution and cultural nothingness.
These processes of annihilation have been so thorough that it comes as a surprise to learn that in this continent, north of the Amazon, a major aboriginal group—the Huichols of western Mexico—can have survived with their tribal structure, religion, traditions and art intact. Behind the bastion of the high sierra they were beyond the invaders’ easy reach. Had there been gold or silver in the mountains, greed would have found a way to conquer them; but there was nothing in Huichol territory worth stealing, and there is no finer guerrilla country anywhere. The Huichols evaded the large military forces sent against them and defeated the small ones. Only in 1721, through a policy of blockade which cut them off from the sea and deprived them of salt, could they be induced to sign a treaty of peace. By the terms of this, five missions were to be established in tribal territory, but after a few years the missionaries gave up the struggle and went away. They had discovered that the Huichols were unsuitable material for conversion to Christianity.
Ten thousand Huichols have survived, and they have doubled their numbers since the turn of the twentieth century. One would expect this single exception to the rule of dwindling populations, apathy and degradation to be exceptional in every way—and exceptional the Huichols are. They live by hunting deer and growing a little maize—neither of them time-consuming occupations—and the huge surplus of leisure is devoted to the pursuit of the arts. They cover their clothing with elaborate embroidery and produce exquisite pre-Columbian objects in feathers, beads and coloured wools. All Huichol art is devotional. ‘Everything we do in life,’ the Huichol shaman-priest instructs the child, ‘is for the glory of God. We praise him in the well-swept floor, the weeded field, the polished machete, the brilliant colours of
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