When Hilven was serving in Parral as District president
Brother Flores called me and asked me to go with him and Hilven down
to Guachochic to meet a Governer of the Tarahumaras that was a member
of the church. And come prepared to camp out and feed the group. Naoma
was in school so I asked Chris Bowman to go with me so as not to
travel alone. We traveled to Guachochic where we met President Flores
and President Cluff at the Hotel where we found Brother Morales the
Tarahumara Governor waiting to take us to his home in Pahuirachic.
Brother Morales got in with President Flores and Hilven in the
president's Suburban and we started on a narrow dirt road through the
mountains. As we went through a small town brother Morales stopped to
buy some little presents for his children and grandchildren. After a
couple of hours on a very rough road we came to the Town of La
Cieneguita. We passed the little town and went on for about a mile. We
turned off the road and went through a fence and through a field to
stop at the edge of a Canyon. Here we parked the vehicles and prepared
to descend to the home below in the canyon. I took my video camera and
we all went down the steep trail to the canyon we crossed a nice steam
of water jumping from rock to rock that had been placed in the stream
for that purpose.
We beheld a very peaceful domestic scene. A Young lady
dressed in typical Tarahumara colorful clothes was washing clothes on
a rock in the river. Two little boys were driving the goats along the
edge of the field. Suddenly one of the goats ran over into the field
and bit into a small squash and carried it back to the herd with a
little angry boy driving her with his long willow switch. Two little
girls that were miniature Tarahumara ladies came running to meet their
father and grandfather. An older girl with her bright colored dress
and long, shiny braids was sitting shelling corn by the pile of corn
in the front dooryard.
I was busy with my Video Camera filming all of the
action and the interesting scene. Brother Morales picked up the little
girls and gave them each a hug and a little play truck. They went
immediately to the square of logs place around the corn to form a crib
and hold it in place. The little girls talking excitedly in Tarahumara
began to push their little trucks along the logs making a humming
sound for the sound of the motor. I listened intently to their musical
talk but could not understand a word of what they were excitedly
talking about. I thought that the language sounded like Chinese a
little but then probably that is because I can't understand Chinese
either.
Soon we met all of the family and found out that only
the two oldest Girls that were married could speak a little Spanish
the rest of the family spoke only Tarahumara. Bother Morales explained
that he went to school in Norogachic at the Catholic school and
Nunnery. He said that he saw so much evil going on between the priests
and the Nuns that he decided that he was going to marry a Tarahumara
girl and not teach his family Spanish.
Brother Morales showed us a special room he had built
for the missionaries to stay in when they came to visit. We talked
about the possibility of planting an orchard in one of his fields near
the river. Brother Morales was excited at the prospect and Chris
promised to send him enough trees to plant the whole field.
Bother Morales told his wife to get ready to take all
of the family up to the vehicles to carry down all of the clothes that
President Flores had brought for them. They busied themselves
preparing talking in Tarahumara. I noticed that every once in a while
a word in Spanish would slip into their flow of talk. I realized that
these words were modern words that they did not have in Tarahumara
like galon for a plastic gallon bottle.
We all climbed up the hill to the vehicles. The family
seemed to scamper up faster than we could. President Flores opened up
the back of the suburban and brought out four of five big black
plastic garbage sacks full of clothes that had been sent to the
mission from the Unites States for the Tarahumaras. I was curious as
to know what they were going to do with them especially the women's
dresses since the Tarahumara women make their own clothes and will not
wear anything else. Brother Morales said simply that they would sell
them to buy cloth for the women. Soon they had all made their packs of
clothes and were ready to go back down the hill into the canyon. I
told Brother Morales to tell them that they were all invited up to our
camp for supper that night. Also that I would show them some
videos.
Mom and I had bought an AC DC TV and also a Video
Player that was AC DC so we could hook them up the battery of
the Van and show Church videos to the little branches we visited. I
got everything set up and hooked up the video camera to the TV to show
the Video that I had taken. I prepared a big supper of a big kettle of
soup with plenty of meat and vegetables in it. I also made up two big
pots of Herb Tea sweetened with honey with powdered milk in it. I had
a bunch of doughnuts and sweet bread to go with the Herb Tea.
Soon they all arrived including the husbands of the two
married sisters and their children. They came quietly and sat down
around on the ground. After the blessing on the food I asked them to
serve themselves. The mother got up and proceeded to serve each one
beginning with the father and grandfather. After they were all served
the rest of us served ourselves and ate hungrily for we had not eaten
since very early morning. When it came to serving the Herb Tea the
mother was questioning brother Morales as to what it was. I explained
that it was Herb Tea then he asked what made lt white? I
explained that I had put powdered milk in it to make it taste better.
Only then did the mother begin to pass out the cups of tea to her
family. I watched carefully for their reaction and as each one
tasted it I saw them nod and smile so I gathered that they liked my
Herb Tea. By the time we all finished the doughnuts and sweet breads
were all gone and the herb pots were empty and there was just a little
soup left in the kettle.
President Flores asked me to conduct a meeting in which
to present Brother Morales to the congregation for approval to be
ordained a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. The only way I could do
this was to have brother Morales stand by me and interpret each
sentence that I said. I explained, I thought, that brother
Morales was a member of the church and that he needed to receive the
priesthood to be able to prepare himself to bless hi family. When it
came time for him to be sustained I asked for a show of hands for
approval. Most of the hands went up but the mother and the little ones
did not raise their hands. I asked brother Morales to explain that we
needed the approval of his wife and ask her why she did not approve.
After explaining carefully the wife giggled and raised her hand. Then
the Aaronic Priesthood was conferred upon him and he was ordained to
the office of a Priest.
I turned on the TV and my Camera and began to show them
the video that I had taken of them that afternoon. All was quiet until
the girl in the video picked up her basket of clothes and began to
walk to the house. They all began to point and laugh and talk
excitedly as each one appeared on the screen. All too soon the video
ended and I put on a church film. All was quiet and I realized that
the video was in Spanish and most of them could not understand a word
of it. When it was finished some of them talked to Brother Morales and
he said they wanted to see the video again. I turned on the
camera again and showed them the video and got the same reaction as at
first.
When they left the mother had the girls gather up
the dishes to take them down to the river to be washed. In the
morning. Early the next morning one of the married daughters came
bringing the washed dishes. I invited her to stay for breakfast but
she declined and said that she had to go home and prepare food for her
family. She said that the little girl playing with the truck was hers
and that she lived about a kilometer down the river from her parents
house. Her Spanish was pretty good and she said that her husband spoke
it very well. They spoke only Tarahumara around the family so as not
to embarrass them.
While we were at the ranch I noticed that the girls and
the mother were wearing beautiful, wide, woven belts. I asked who had
woven them and they answered that the mother was the weaver. I asked
bother Morales if they would sell me one. After consulting with his
wife she took off her beautiful belt and went down to the river and
washed it 0 thoroughly with soap and hung to dry on a tree near by.
After it was dry she brought it to me. I asked her in Spanish how much
she wanted for it but she just shrugged and didn't say anything. I
handed her what I thought was a fair price and she smiled and turned
and went into the house.
Brother Morales told us some of his experiences. He
said that when his wife came into labor with their last little boy
that she was in great pain but nothing was happening. Finally his wife
and companion went into unconsciousness, He said that he was very
worried and picked her up and carried her on his back to the little
town of Cieneguita and from there took a taxi to Gruachochic to the
Hospital. Everything turned out all right and his wife and baby were
saved. He added that his only little boy was saved and that he was now
out in the mountains herding the goats.
After breakfast we loaded up and said goodbye to
President Flores and President Cluff and Chris and I came back to
Creel through the mountains in a more direct route rather than to go
back to Guachochic.
Chris sent Brother Morales the Trees he had promised.
About a year later we saw some of the trees doing well around his
house. He said that he had planted them around the house so the goats
would not eat them all off.
Mom and I went down to Pahuirachic to deliver some
money that the Williams brothers sent for the Tarahumaras. We left
Tuesday morning, stopping along the way, we arrived in Creel that
evening. The next morning we traveled through beautiful mountains and
canyons over rough roads first to Norogachi then on to Pahuirachic,
arriving after five hours of enjoyable travel. The Volkswagon van can
really take that mountain terrain. We found brother Morales at home
and proceeded to take pictures and carry out our errand. We had to
walk down to the main house and field in the canyon which is about a
kilometer of steep rugged hill. Moms back was really hurting so she
had a hard time getting down and up. I wanted her to see where they
lived and their fields and meet the family. Brother Morales wrote a
thank you letter to the Williams brothers and stamped it with his
official Governor's stamp and thanked us. After saying goodbye we
traveled back to Creel arriving twelve hours after leaving that
morning. The forests were beautiful but the fields of corn were dried
up without producing much corn and the rivers and streams were very
low. The people of Chihuahua face a very grim winter. The people here
in Casas Grandes are gathering aid for the Tarahumaras.
Brother Flake and Brother McCormick called me on the
phone and wanted me to take them down into the Tarahumara country.
They said they represented the church welfare committee and they were
looking for a project to help the Tarahumara People and open a way for
missionary work. They said they had done many project in different
parts of the world like drilling wells in africa etc. They said that
projects of this kind were good ways to oppen the way for missionary
work. We set a date for them to come down for me to take them wherever
they wanted to go.
When they came we got in the van that was all ready and
packed with food and camp equipment in case we would have to camp. We
first went to Chihuahua to talk to the Tarahumara commision of the
State. First we went to Jeff Jones' office in Chihuahua to meet him
and have him take us to the Tarahumara office. Jeff was a Diputado at
that time now he is a well respected Senator. We met Jeff and he took
us to talk with the head of the Tarahumara commision. In their office
they explained the Government programs that they had going for the
Tarahumara people. When Jeff presented the plan of the brotheren from
Salt Lake and asked for permission to find a project to help the
Tarahumara people they said that they could have permission as long as
the project was appoved by the State Office.
We left Chihuahua and traveled to Creel where we spent
the night. The Bortheren were interested in the Catholic schools and
their curio store established to help the Tarahumara's to sell their
artefacts. I aslo showed them the big Baptist boarding school up on
the hill in Bocoyna.
Early the next morning we traveled down to Guachochic.
There we went to talk to the Branch President of the little Branch of
the church. He told us that he knew the men in charge of the
Tarahumara projects and would take us to meet them. As we talked to
them I noticed that they were rather surley and uncoopertive. I guess
they thought that we were there top investigate their projects or
something. Finally after explaining why we were there they told us
that they were in charge of a project to put tin roofs on some of the
Tarahumara homes. The brotheren asked if they would suggest a worthy
project for the church to undertake but they did not have any
suggestions.
i suggested that we go out to see brother morales who
was a Governor of about 300 hundred Tarahumara families. We went
out and found brother Morales at his home up in the corn field on the
mesa above the canyon. This home was typical of many Tarahumara homes
away from home. Many of the people live high in the mountains in the
summer and go down into the canyons where it is warm in
the winter. This home was a small room built of of Adobe. about twelve
feet square. it was roofed with log shingles that extended in front
and back of the adobe to protect the adobe walls. The log shingles
were made of pine logs that had been hollowed out into a trough placed
side by side with similar logs placed over the cracks makeing a wooden
roof of about two feet thick and would take care of all of the rain
water that might fall. I noticed this ingenious way of roofing and
thought at the time that the roof was not only water proof but cool in
the summer and warm in the winter. Inside the room was a bed that took
up most of the room. There was a small mud stove with a Comal over it
for making tortillas in one corner. There was one chair but no table.
We talked with Brother Morales for a while asking him if he had any
ideas of what the people here would need as a good comunity project.
All he could think of was to urge the Government to increase their
alotment of beans and corn because they had not recieved ehough to
last the winter.
I took the brotheren over to the edge of the canyon and
let them see the home and cornfields down in the Canyon. I also showed
them the stream and suggested that a possible project would be to
build fish tanks using the cold mountain stream to raise trout, since
the Government had a big fiish hatchery in Guachochic and they
supplied the Ejidos with all of the fingerling trout that they could
use in their Trout raising projects free of charge. I suggested that
it might be necessary to buy the fish food since the people had no
money to buy with.
We left Guachochic and drove through Norogachic. I
showed them the big Catholic boarding school there. We went on to
Creel throug the mountains without going back to Guachochic. We
arrived back at Creel late that night. The next morning we drove on
home to Dublan after a long trip through the Tarahumara country. The
brethren were awed by the vast canyons and long mesas of the country.
They also wondered at the way of life of the Tarahumaras since they
did not live in towns but were scattered in little ranches through the
mountains only coming together for meetings or Holiday dances etc.
When brother Flake and borther McCormick left they
asked me to come into their office and consult with them when I went
to Salt Lake. I told tem that I would be going next month to take my
Patriarchal Blessings and that I would go in and visit with them.
When we went to take the Blessings in we went up to
brother Flake's office and he welcomed us warmly. He invited me into
his office and Naoma waited in the foyer lounge. Brother Flake
explained that they had decided on the project to put tin roofing on
some of the Tarahumara's houses. I protested that it would be a great
disservice and a feeble gesture to try to do that for them. I
explained that the tin roof would be very hot in summer and very cold
in winter since they get lots of snow there. I told them of the roofs
of log shingles and how their little Adobe rooms were well insulated
with the logs. I also said that if they would put an insulating layer
of mud between the ceiling and the tin roof that it might be a
feasable project. We visited a while and he invited us to go to dinner
with him and brother McCormick. They took us to the Lion House for
lunch and we had a nice visit.
We expected to hear something about the Tarahumara
project but we never did hear a thing about it. I suppose that they
just gave it up and forgot about the Tarahumaras which was just a
well. It is not the way of the Church to just give people things
without letting them work for them or pay it back in some way. If you
give a man a fish you can feed him for a day but if you teach him to
fish he can earn his own way. The Tarahumaras have been spoiled by the
government hand outs. It has taught them to beg and feel that the
Government owes them a living. The only way to help a people is to
teach them to help themselves and keep their self respect.
To help you understand the situation of the Tarahumara
people I will tell this little incident. The Tarahumara once lived in
the big fertil valleys of Sierra Madres but as the Chabochi (White
People) moved in more and more the Tarahumara was crowded slowly
farther and farther into deep canyons and the rough hillsides where no
one but them could exist.
On one occasion the presidente Minicipal of a little
town invited the Tarahumara Governor that they had been having some
trouble with, to a big Barbacoa. The Tarahumara came and sat next to
the presidente at the head table. After the great speech and the feast
was going well the Tarahumara Governor would gradually move a little
closer to the Presidente.Each time the Presidente would inch his way
away from the Governors black bare legs on the bench. near the
end of the feast the Presidente came to the very end of the bench and
was about to fall off when he stood up and exclaimed. You have have
finally pushed me clear off the bench. The Governor smiled and said,
"That is exactly what you have done to us". That mild and loving
people have been gradually pushed into rugged canyons and less
desirable places of the Sierra Madre.
People who are baptized and live away from a branch or
the programs of the church very seldom progress in their knowledge of
the Gospel and soon loose their Testimony. We should be grateful that
we live where we can be raised in the programs of the church and take
advantage of the opportunities to serve and be taught the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. Brother Morales is an example of a good man that
accepted the Gospel when he felt the spirit but has not had the
opportunity to attend any meetings or classes.or take advantage of the
programs of the church. Maybe someday he will learn through experience
what the Gospel is and learn of the teachings of Christ He is
trying to protect his family from the sins and evil of the world. The
best way to do that is not by isloation but by teaching them correct
principle of the Gospel and letting them choose for themselves. Maybe
someday soon the Gospel will spread into the country of the
Tarahumaras and form branches where people can progress and learn
about the Savior and His teachings.
Let us be grateful for the Gospel and for the
opportunity to serve in the church and raise our children in the
Programs of the Church.