Tip Marugg - The Roar of Morning

There was another odd custom in Chimbarí, a very special way of settling disputes between neighbours. I did not see it myself, but was told about it in graphic detail by three youths whom I met on one of my walks near the little river at the edge of the village. All the women in the village, even the poorest, had two dresses that were worn on special occasions only: a green one that they put on to attend mass on Palm Sunday and kept on for the rest of the day, and a brilliant red one they wore when they argued with another woman. Whenever two women had a dispute, they would begin by giving each other a good tongue-lashing, exchanging the vilest insults for about half an hour. The woman who felt most offended would suddenly stop cursing and close all her doors and windows tight. This was a gross insult to the other party, as it meant the woman inside was no longer listening to what she was saying and could not be bothered to reply. In a rage, the woman left outside would put on her bright red dress, and usually a red headscarf too, and hurry to the riverbank. There she would reel of a litany of obscenities into the wind. She did this to attract the attention of the small boys who were usually playing by the river. Once she had their attention, she would let slip the name of her rival and tell them something awful about her. For example, that she played around with other men, that her mother had died of grief because her daughter had not looked after her, or that she had been caught in the market trying to slip a few bananas into her bag without paying. The boys would rush to the village to tell the woman in question what they had heard. Each boy knew it was his duty to do this — and there was reward attached to it too. When the defamed woman had listened to what the boys told her, she would start to complain loudly about the shame being heaped on her. She called on San Marco and his faithful lion to avenge her and gave each of the boys a cassava cake and sometimes a glass of syrup. The boys wolfed down their treats and hurried back to the river, anxious not to miss any of the fireworks to come. The second woman also put on her red dress and went to the river. When she arrived, she crossed the wooden bridge — this was nothing more than a plank with a railing, appropriately known as Me-First-Then-You — and took up her position on the far bank opposite her adversary. It was now her turn to do some insulting. She would claim that the whole village knew her opponent had lost her virginity long before her wedding day, that the priest had refused her communion on Easter Sunday two years previously, or that she had an illegitimate child who was being brought up by relatives in another village. These were mere preliminaries: the real slanging match now got under way. You can’t imagine the things those boys told me! One woman said that her rival had an uncle behind bars in the Castillo, to which the rival replied that the woman had an aunt locked up in a lunatic asylum. Another woman said that her opponent’s trip to Epifanía the previous year had not been to visit her son, but to have her rotting womb removed by a town doctor; in reply, the opponent accused her of having hard, unsightly lumps on her left breast. When it was her turn again, woman number one said that the woman on the opposite bank was frigid in bed, which is why her husband took the bus to Asunción every Saturday evening and did not come back until Sunday afternoon. To which number two retorted that, although she went around playing the grande dame , her husband was impotent, which is why her nerves were always on edge and she was so easily offended. Then they heard how the cousin of number two had been thrown out of the seminary in Crispo because of his filthy behaviour; a fine thing it would have been if that fellow had become a priest! Next, number one was informed that her niece was wandering around with VD at the age of thirteen. Meanwhile, half the population, most of them women and children, had turned out to watch the show. Everyone who came to the river had to take sides. Not surprisingly, relatives and friends of the women eagerly joined in the abuse. At dusk, groups of men came down to the river too, but they took no part in the dispute. They stayed in the background and passed the rum bottle from hand to hand. When darkness fell, the mudslinging began: balls of mud flew back and forth. The children made the projectiles at the water’s edge and took them to the women, who hurled them across the river. Now the boys joined in too. In the darkness most of the mud balls missed their target, but every so often there was a direct hit and a new voice would launch into a new string of obscenities. The boys who told me the story were particularly keen on this mud warfare. One of them said that his own mother had once been a protagonist. “Did I throw some mud that night! I was walking around with a stiff arm for three days!” When it got really late, the performance came to an end. All the women had become hoarse by now and could produce only an incomprehensible rattle. One camp would withdraw, followed a quarter of an hour later by their opponents. But sometimes when it got late, stones and slivers of glass were put in the mud balls, and if one of these nonstandard models hit the mark, the supporters of the injured person would rush across the bridge and there would be a general free-for-all. At this point the men would get involved and the party would end with a knife fight.

It was another day before Sandoval’s cow gave birth. It was one-thirty in the morning when the little farmer came to wake me. “It’s about to happen, but you don’t have to come — you can stay in bed if you like.” I quickly pulled on some trousers and followed him to the maternity ward. He had two oil lamps with him; one he hung on the wall, the other he placed on the ground next to the cow, which lay against the wall, clearly in labour. It would soon be calving, Sandoval said. Time passed, but the contractions still had no effect and the panting cow was becoming exhausted, so that Sandoval concluded that something was wrong. From that moment on he talked nonstop, explaining to me in the minutest detail what he was doing and why. He knelt down by the animal’s hindquarters and, plunging two strong arms into the fleshy mass of its genitalia, pulled the lips apart. He could not see anything. He inserted a clenched fist into the orifice and slid his arm along the warm, slimy tunnel, deeper and deeper, until he could feel the head of the unborn calf. Slowly but powerfully he pushed against the wall of the tunnel with the back of his hand. At first he felt resistance, but then the wall of flesh gave way and his hand slid back over the calf’s head. At that moment Sandoval grunted that he had a terrible pain in his back; his own stupid fault, he said, he shouldn’t have started in a kneeling position, but should have lain full length on the floor before putting his arm in. But there was nothing to be done about it now, and with a great effort he shoved his arm even deeper into the cow. When his hand had found the folded front leg, which was protruding into the wall of the tunnel, he knew he had reached the right spot. Taking great care, so as not to break the fragile bones, he straightened the leg. As soon as the leg was in the correct position he felt the head of the calf slide forward a little way past his arm. He withdrew his arm until his hand was resting behind the head and waited. Then he felt the tunnel begin to contract again and as soon as the movement started, he carefully pulled the calf forward. After two more contractions Sandoval withdrew his arm completely from the cow. Nature would take its own course. It was not long before the animal’s head appeared at the now gaping orifice and was thrust out. A little later the body of the calf slid onto the shed floor.

Relieved of her burden, the cow turned her head and licked Sandoval’s bloody hand. The creature realised its mistake — perhaps it wasn’t a mistake at all, but a token of gratitude? — and began licking the newborn calf clean. The calf dragged itself forward and the mother ran her tongue along its entire body. She then gave it a few prods, which made it slide even further forward; another shove and the calf was up on its feet. It was trembling all over. It slumped down, received another prod, got to its feet once more, but then collapsed again. Finally the calf stood up under its own power, wobbled, took a few uncertain steps backwards and fell against its mother’s belly, its snout searching eagerly for the udder.