8 April 2006
"Keep your head up." Remi, my grandson, was learning to ride his bicycle, and it wasn't going well. It wasn't so much the mechanics of it that were giving him trouble. Instead, it was the fact that he was watching his feet, making sure they were doing the thing they were supposed to do. It was still a new experience, and he just wanted to make sure.
Because he was looking down at the place where he was, he was weaving all over the place and falling down. A lot. As a result, he was angry and frustrated and hurt.
My mom, in her wisdom, did not try to address the symptom of weaving on the bicycle, but went right to diagnose the problem. "Remi, keep your head up. Look at where you are going."
Sure enough, when he tore his eyes off of his feet, he saw his ride in a different perspective. By keeping his eyes on the place he wanted to go, he achieved a sense of balance that he couldn't get when he was focusing on the mechanics of pedaling. And, instead of seeing the act of riding a bike with embarrassment, pain and frustration, it was suddenly a source of joy.
I wish I were more like my mom. Instead, I am much more like Remi. For so long now I have been pedaling through this dissertation research, focusing only on what my feet are doing. I was unwilling to look up, afraid that my current step would be wrong.
And, honestly, some of what I do is a lot more like rock climbing than riding a bicycle. Having your eye only on the prize is going to get you killed – you have to look where you are putting your feet. But I have also spent way too much time looking at my feet, and it has made me weave from one part of my dissertation to the other. And I was not enjoying it much. The intense fieldwork you do as part of the dissertation is supposed to memorable and something you look back on with fondness, and it has mostly been a source of stress and pain.
But after a week of doing the experimental archaeology, I am jazzed about the research and looking around at the work I have done, seeing it in a larger perspective. And now that I have looked up, I have more balance, and I don't wobble so much. And I can actually enjoy the process a little.
It is not without its stresses. I have been taking video of what we are doing, and invariably, the axe head that Arturo is using falls out of the haft in the video. The hafting of the axes has been a sore point all along. And I had hoped that my forest-wise assistants would help me find the way to haft them successfully. Instead, they offer suggestions as to how to modify the shape of the tool to make it more easily hafted. Like notches.
Great idea, except that the form I am copying does not have a notch.
So we tighten up the rawhide and the leather and give the wood another 50 whacks before the axe head falls off. Again. And we retrieve it, and rebind it, and go back to work. Again. And we laugh about it a little. It is all about perspective. And keeping your head up.
One perspective was pretty funny this week. One of the experiments I am doing is digging with what looks like a really small hoe; you can dig with it like you would a one-handed pick or hoe. Paco is digging beside the house, when he says "Another axe!
As soon as I finish the hide hair scraping experiment, I walk over, thinking that he needs another axe because his has broken. But no, he has found another axe in the place he was digging. Not a total shock, considering that we are very close to the edge of the site of La Estrella, but amusing, nonetheless. Use an axe to find an axe…
The other funny thing that happened with the axes was that, because they kept falling out of the haft when bound with leather, we bound them with pieces of the rawhide from the goat. The thing about rawhide is that it is pliable when wet, but shrinks when it dries. So anything tied with wet rawhide becomes much tighter as it dries. Perfect. We left two of them in the sun to dry.
And drove down the road to find fish for the next experiment. When we came back, there was a chert axe lying on the ground next to the haft. No rawhide. The second axe was nowhere to be found. A dog had apparently found a rawhide chew toy, eaten it, and started on the second one when somebody came by, and the dog decided to eat his prize somewhere else.
We never found it. I never would have considered dogs to be part of the lithic tool formation process, but somewhere in the village is an axe that I worked hard to make, a haft that Arturo worked harder on, and a strip of rawhide in the belly of a very self-satisfied dog. That dog definitely keeps his head up…
Dog troubles continued until the last day. I had set up one of the experiments to carve art into the surface of long bones. And, since I happened to have a ready supply of goat leg bones, I figured, what the heck. I gave each of my main three informants one leg bone each, with the instruction to carve something into it. One took the site guide for Motul and carved a pretty elaborate, if somewhat crude rendering of a figure from a polychrome vessel represented on the cover. Another carved pseudoglyphs from the same brochure. Ticho was not interested in doing art, so I suggested he make a bone rasp, where you cut a series of v-shaped grooves into the bone, and rub another stick along the length of the diaphysis.
As was the case with so many of the other experiments, the guys really got into the process. Especially Ticho, charged with carving the bone rasp. At the end of the day on Tuesday, he lacked an hour's work to finish his musical instrument.
And so we put them away, inside the house. Away from anything that looked like it might be dog-accessible.
Wednesday morning they were gone.
At some point during the night a (very brave) neighborhood dog walked into the house, right past my hammock, and carried off all three bones, located in three different spots around the house.
And all day Wednesday, random dogs, having communicated by d-mail, came by and stood at the entrance to the house, sniffed, and cast a glance my way. You could totally see them weighing the opportunity cost. Getting hit with a rock versus eating a bone. Maybe getting hit with a rock, versus the possibility of eating a bone. Not getting hit with the rock, no possibility of getting a bone. And, one at a time, they would check the ready accessibility of pretty sharp rocks to the gringo on the porch and decide to look for easier meat elsewhere.
Fortunately, I only lost the art, and not the flakes associated with the art. Fortunately, since that is what I was after. And I have a couple of photos (although not of the rasp), so all is not lost. But dang it, that was one of the coolest parts of the project. And what is the point of consigning art if you don't get to keep it?
We did finish the drum, and it worked like a charm. Really nice to hear the marimba player in the group tap out a tattoo on a three-toned instrument. It was a nice way to end the experiments. Although it is far too large for me to ship back, so I am giving it to Arturo, along with the other unfinished one.
So I spent a lot of money and a week and a half of my life chipping, cutting, scraping, butchering, carving, drilling, digging and planting. And it was quite possibly the best money I have spent yet for the research. Certainly the most enjoyable.
In other news, I failed to sell my car this week. Yes, that is right. The guys at the used car dealership didn't even ask what the price was – it was a simple case of not being interested. Carlos and I tried a couple of places that take stolen cars across the border from the US, drive them down here, and then sell them after sanitizing them and faking some paperwork. And they simply did not want the car.
I suspect that the truth is that they cannot find that model of Chevy Blazer in a junkyard, and would have a hard time finding an appropriate VIN to solder off of the old vehicle to place on the new one. Easier to do with a local model like a Toyota. And the fact that the sale is legit means that they would have to pay the taxes like any other car importer, something they want to avoid at all costs.
So I will take it to the border shortly after I arrive in Antigua, and will take a friend with me, to whom I will be donating the car when I leave. Minimally, he can sell it to a junkyard for parts, and make a small profit off of it. And maybe, just maybe, he will find a loophole that will let him own the car. And since it was a gift to me from my loving sister-in-law (thanks again, Patty!), I feel pretty good about spreading the love around. It has been a good car; I hope it will continue to be so for a new owner.
In the meantime, I have some things to straighten out. I have the inventory of tools and flakes that I want to export to the US so that I can do my use-wear experiments. I have the letter written, asking permission to export them. And I have a letter, asking permission to move the items to the capital.
What I don't have is permission to remove the artifacts from the lab.
So I went to talk to Miguelito, who had gone with me to do the work at La Estrella. He said, "Sure! We'll take care of that for you. But one question: When are you going to finish the work at La Estrella?"
I babbled. I am done with the site, and don't want to undertake more excavations there, especially not in the final week. I hemmed. I hawed. I obfuscated. I prattled.
He continued, "The reason I ask is that the owner is looking to sell the land, and wants us to complete the excavations before he sells it."
BS. The bastard wants us to loot his site and turn over the stuff to him before he turns the keys over to the next owner.
After a brief discussion with Antonia, I called Miguel back. "Look," I said. I don't have any real problems with him stating who gets to work. That is fine. I don't like that the police are not allowed to back me up, but that is fine, too. It really chaps some very tender parts of my anatomy to see in print that he is not responsible for the looting on the site, but I can even swallow that. But," I finished, "to turn over artifacts to the owner of the site is not only dumb and irresponsible, it is also illegal, and I cannot do that. Until that paper is changed, I can't do the work."
Whew. Two present progressives, three subjunctives, five additional multiple verb constructions, and I am pretty sure that there was a split ergative and a genitive or dative in there somewhere. I was proud of the oration, especially that part where I start with "Mira."
I am stealing from a friend when I talk about this. Conard Hamilton explained to me that all negotiations in Salvador go through three phases. There is the "fíjese" phase, roughly equivalent to the phrase "see here". It commands attention, and the subsequent discourse expounds on the nature of the problem we are facing. It is countered with the next phase of negotiations, the "si, pero" (or "yes, but") phase. During this phase, additional options are explored in response to the original problems. The final stage is the end game. The "Mira" phase ends negotiations. So you could imagine a bureaucratic interaction:
"Here are my signed forms in triplicate, with the seal and signature of the governor on each one."
Bureaucrat shuffles through the papers, squints at each in turn, and then looks up, preparing for the fíjese. "See here," he says. "We have a problem because the law requires that each page also be initialed by the governor, so that we can be sure he has read each page."
But you are ready with the si, pero. "Yes, but," you counter, "I have a signed statement from you, dated last week, that states specifically that the governor only need sign. There is no mention of initialing."
"See, here," the bureaucrat says, with the temerity that goes with his position, "the new rules have been in place for months now. The governor has to initial each page."
"Yes, but there is no way to do that. The governor is on a junket to Paris for the next three months, and I need this now. Besides, if that is the rule, why is there no paperwork posted to that effect?"
His hand falls on the only surviving copy of a document prominently displayed underneath a teetering stack of papers on the edge of his desk. He pulls it out. Sure enough, the paper states very clearly that, effective immediately, the governor must not only sign the document, but also initial each page of the document, as well. "Mira," he says. Look. "There is nothing I can do. Next in line, please."
The only trump over a Mira, according to Conard, is to play the "my brother-in-law is the ambassador" card. I maintain that the brother-in-law to the ambassador does not have to meet with mid-level bureaucrats, cut his point is well taken. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law, although a swell guy, holds no particular sway here.
When talking to Miguel, however, I found out that the gringo impression of this game is amazingly shallow. I thought that by jumping to the endgame card, Miguel's turn was over. How little I know about the game. "Amateur," he must have thought.
"The letter has already been changed."
Huhn?
"The letter that says that I have to turn over to the landowner any artifacts other than chert or ceramics that I find – you had that changed?"
"Yep."
I wonder when they were going to tell me.
I went over to the office, at the end of a very stressful Friday, to get a copy of the letter. Miguelito gave me the letter (a two-sentence internal memo outlining that the original document was incorrect, and that it should have read thus:...) and introduced me to the guy in charge of archaeology in all of Guatemala, Lic. Salvador. So we started talking about when I can start.
Now, friends, my timetable had just shifted a little. I was originally planning on waiting to help Matt move the artifacts to Nueva San José after the middle of the month. It is a miserable task, doubly so if you are organizing it all by yourself. But it turns out that he is going to get the guys from NSJ to do it for him after he is gone. So I do not have to stick around, and I can head to Antigua as soon as I get the permit to move the artifacts. I was thinking about next Thursday, which would put me in Antigua for the last couple of days of Holy Week, something not to be missed.
And somehow, that went badly agley. I am now doing rescate work (and paying for it) at La Estrella on Wednesday. All so that the landowner can get his loot before the sale.
"Does Don Diablo know about this paper?" I ask Miguelito, all innocence and light.
Of course not (this is the equivalent of the bureaucrat pulling the document out of the pile to show the new law) . DD still thinks he has hoodwinked us, and that he will be the, ahem, caretaker of all important finds we come across. There will be a huge fight (and me without police backing) when I remove the jade head from his property and give it to the Guatemalan government. Thanks, Salvador, for all your help. Can you sign my export permit?
Mira.
"Keep your head up." Remi, my grandson, was learning to ride his bicycle, and it wasn't going well. It wasn't so much the mechanics of it that were giving him trouble. Instead, it was the fact that he was watching his feet, making sure they were doing the thing they were supposed to do. It was still a new experience, and he just wanted to make sure.
Because he was looking down at the place where he was, he was weaving all over the place and falling down. A lot. As a result, he was angry and frustrated and hurt.
My mom, in her wisdom, did not try to address the symptom of weaving on the bicycle, but went right to diagnose the problem. "Remi, keep your head up. Look at where you are going."
Sure enough, when he tore his eyes off of his feet, he saw his ride in a different perspective. By keeping his eyes on the place he wanted to go, he achieved a sense of balance that he couldn't get when he was focusing on the mechanics of pedaling. And, instead of seeing the act of riding a bike with embarrassment, pain and frustration, it was suddenly a source of joy.
I wish I were more like my mom. Instead, I am much more like Remi. For so long now I have been pedaling through this dissertation research, focusing only on what my feet are doing. I was unwilling to look up, afraid that my current step would be wrong.
And, honestly, some of what I do is a lot more like rock climbing than riding a bicycle. Having your eye only on the prize is going to get you killed – you have to look where you are putting your feet. But I have also spent way too much time looking at my feet, and it has made me weave from one part of my dissertation to the other. And I was not enjoying it much. The intense fieldwork you do as part of the dissertation is supposed to memorable and something you look back on with fondness, and it has mostly been a source of stress and pain.
But after a week of doing the experimental archaeology, I am jazzed about the research and looking around at the work I have done, seeing it in a larger perspective. And now that I have looked up, I have more balance, and I don't wobble so much. And I can actually enjoy the process a little.
It is not without its stresses. I have been taking video of what we are doing, and invariably, the axe head that Arturo is using falls out of the haft in the video. The hafting of the axes has been a sore point all along. And I had hoped that my forest-wise assistants would help me find the way to haft them successfully. Instead, they offer suggestions as to how to modify the shape of the tool to make it more easily hafted. Like notches.
Great idea, except that the form I am copying does not have a notch.
So we tighten up the rawhide and the leather and give the wood another 50 whacks before the axe head falls off. Again. And we retrieve it, and rebind it, and go back to work. Again. And we laugh about it a little. It is all about perspective. And keeping your head up.
One perspective was pretty funny this week. One of the experiments I am doing is digging with what looks like a really small hoe; you can dig with it like you would a one-handed pick or hoe. Paco is digging beside the house, when he says "Another axe!
As soon as I finish the hide hair scraping experiment, I walk over, thinking that he needs another axe because his has broken. But no, he has found another axe in the place he was digging. Not a total shock, considering that we are very close to the edge of the site of La Estrella, but amusing, nonetheless. Use an axe to find an axe…
The other funny thing that happened with the axes was that, because they kept falling out of the haft when bound with leather, we bound them with pieces of the rawhide from the goat. The thing about rawhide is that it is pliable when wet, but shrinks when it dries. So anything tied with wet rawhide becomes much tighter as it dries. Perfect. We left two of them in the sun to dry.
And drove down the road to find fish for the next experiment. When we came back, there was a chert axe lying on the ground next to the haft. No rawhide. The second axe was nowhere to be found. A dog had apparently found a rawhide chew toy, eaten it, and started on the second one when somebody came by, and the dog decided to eat his prize somewhere else.
We never found it. I never would have considered dogs to be part of the lithic tool formation process, but somewhere in the village is an axe that I worked hard to make, a haft that Arturo worked harder on, and a strip of rawhide in the belly of a very self-satisfied dog. That dog definitely keeps his head up…
Dog troubles continued until the last day. I had set up one of the experiments to carve art into the surface of long bones. And, since I happened to have a ready supply of goat leg bones, I figured, what the heck. I gave each of my main three informants one leg bone each, with the instruction to carve something into it. One took the site guide for Motul and carved a pretty elaborate, if somewhat crude rendering of a figure from a polychrome vessel represented on the cover. Another carved pseudoglyphs from the same brochure. Ticho was not interested in doing art, so I suggested he make a bone rasp, where you cut a series of v-shaped grooves into the bone, and rub another stick along the length of the diaphysis.
As was the case with so many of the other experiments, the guys really got into the process. Especially Ticho, charged with carving the bone rasp. At the end of the day on Tuesday, he lacked an hour's work to finish his musical instrument.
And so we put them away, inside the house. Away from anything that looked like it might be dog-accessible.
Wednesday morning they were gone.
At some point during the night a (very brave) neighborhood dog walked into the house, right past my hammock, and carried off all three bones, located in three different spots around the house.
And all day Wednesday, random dogs, having communicated by d-mail, came by and stood at the entrance to the house, sniffed, and cast a glance my way. You could totally see them weighing the opportunity cost. Getting hit with a rock versus eating a bone. Maybe getting hit with a rock, versus the possibility of eating a bone. Not getting hit with the rock, no possibility of getting a bone. And, one at a time, they would check the ready accessibility of pretty sharp rocks to the gringo on the porch and decide to look for easier meat elsewhere.
Fortunately, I only lost the art, and not the flakes associated with the art. Fortunately, since that is what I was after. And I have a couple of photos (although not of the rasp), so all is not lost. But dang it, that was one of the coolest parts of the project. And what is the point of consigning art if you don't get to keep it?
We did finish the drum, and it worked like a charm. Really nice to hear the marimba player in the group tap out a tattoo on a three-toned instrument. It was a nice way to end the experiments. Although it is far too large for me to ship back, so I am giving it to Arturo, along with the other unfinished one.
So I spent a lot of money and a week and a half of my life chipping, cutting, scraping, butchering, carving, drilling, digging and planting. And it was quite possibly the best money I have spent yet for the research. Certainly the most enjoyable.
In other news, I failed to sell my car this week. Yes, that is right. The guys at the used car dealership didn't even ask what the price was – it was a simple case of not being interested. Carlos and I tried a couple of places that take stolen cars across the border from the US, drive them down here, and then sell them after sanitizing them and faking some paperwork. And they simply did not want the car.
I suspect that the truth is that they cannot find that model of Chevy Blazer in a junkyard, and would have a hard time finding an appropriate VIN to solder off of the old vehicle to place on the new one. Easier to do with a local model like a Toyota. And the fact that the sale is legit means that they would have to pay the taxes like any other car importer, something they want to avoid at all costs.
So I will take it to the border shortly after I arrive in Antigua, and will take a friend with me, to whom I will be donating the car when I leave. Minimally, he can sell it to a junkyard for parts, and make a small profit off of it. And maybe, just maybe, he will find a loophole that will let him own the car. And since it was a gift to me from my loving sister-in-law (thanks again, Patty!), I feel pretty good about spreading the love around. It has been a good car; I hope it will continue to be so for a new owner.
In the meantime, I have some things to straighten out. I have the inventory of tools and flakes that I want to export to the US so that I can do my use-wear experiments. I have the letter written, asking permission to export them. And I have a letter, asking permission to move the items to the capital.
What I don't have is permission to remove the artifacts from the lab.
So I went to talk to Miguelito, who had gone with me to do the work at La Estrella. He said, "Sure! We'll take care of that for you. But one question: When are you going to finish the work at La Estrella?"
I babbled. I am done with the site, and don't want to undertake more excavations there, especially not in the final week. I hemmed. I hawed. I obfuscated. I prattled.
He continued, "The reason I ask is that the owner is looking to sell the land, and wants us to complete the excavations before he sells it."
BS. The bastard wants us to loot his site and turn over the stuff to him before he turns the keys over to the next owner.
After a brief discussion with Antonia, I called Miguel back. "Look," I said. I don't have any real problems with him stating who gets to work. That is fine. I don't like that the police are not allowed to back me up, but that is fine, too. It really chaps some very tender parts of my anatomy to see in print that he is not responsible for the looting on the site, but I can even swallow that. But," I finished, "to turn over artifacts to the owner of the site is not only dumb and irresponsible, it is also illegal, and I cannot do that. Until that paper is changed, I can't do the work."
Whew. Two present progressives, three subjunctives, five additional multiple verb constructions, and I am pretty sure that there was a split ergative and a genitive or dative in there somewhere. I was proud of the oration, especially that part where I start with "Mira."
I am stealing from a friend when I talk about this. Conard Hamilton explained to me that all negotiations in Salvador go through three phases. There is the "fíjese" phase, roughly equivalent to the phrase "see here". It commands attention, and the subsequent discourse expounds on the nature of the problem we are facing. It is countered with the next phase of negotiations, the "si, pero" (or "yes, but") phase. During this phase, additional options are explored in response to the original problems. The final stage is the end game. The "Mira" phase ends negotiations. So you could imagine a bureaucratic interaction:
"Here are my signed forms in triplicate, with the seal and signature of the governor on each one."
Bureaucrat shuffles through the papers, squints at each in turn, and then looks up, preparing for the fíjese. "See here," he says. "We have a problem because the law requires that each page also be initialed by the governor, so that we can be sure he has read each page."
But you are ready with the si, pero. "Yes, but," you counter, "I have a signed statement from you, dated last week, that states specifically that the governor only need sign. There is no mention of initialing."
"See, here," the bureaucrat says, with the temerity that goes with his position, "the new rules have been in place for months now. The governor has to initial each page."
"Yes, but there is no way to do that. The governor is on a junket to Paris for the next three months, and I need this now. Besides, if that is the rule, why is there no paperwork posted to that effect?"
His hand falls on the only surviving copy of a document prominently displayed underneath a teetering stack of papers on the edge of his desk. He pulls it out. Sure enough, the paper states very clearly that, effective immediately, the governor must not only sign the document, but also initial each page of the document, as well. "Mira," he says. Look. "There is nothing I can do. Next in line, please."
The only trump over a Mira, according to Conard, is to play the "my brother-in-law is the ambassador" card. I maintain that the brother-in-law to the ambassador does not have to meet with mid-level bureaucrats, cut his point is well taken. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law, although a swell guy, holds no particular sway here.
When talking to Miguel, however, I found out that the gringo impression of this game is amazingly shallow. I thought that by jumping to the endgame card, Miguel's turn was over. How little I know about the game. "Amateur," he must have thought.
"The letter has already been changed."
Huhn?
"The letter that says that I have to turn over to the landowner any artifacts other than chert or ceramics that I find – you had that changed?"
"Yep."
I wonder when they were going to tell me.
I went over to the office, at the end of a very stressful Friday, to get a copy of the letter. Miguelito gave me the letter (a two-sentence internal memo outlining that the original document was incorrect, and that it should have read thus:...) and introduced me to the guy in charge of archaeology in all of Guatemala, Lic. Salvador. So we started talking about when I can start.
Now, friends, my timetable had just shifted a little. I was originally planning on waiting to help Matt move the artifacts to Nueva San José after the middle of the month. It is a miserable task, doubly so if you are organizing it all by yourself. But it turns out that he is going to get the guys from NSJ to do it for him after he is gone. So I do not have to stick around, and I can head to Antigua as soon as I get the permit to move the artifacts. I was thinking about next Thursday, which would put me in Antigua for the last couple of days of Holy Week, something not to be missed.
And somehow, that went badly agley. I am now doing rescate work (and paying for it) at La Estrella on Wednesday. All so that the landowner can get his loot before the sale.
"Does Don Diablo know about this paper?" I ask Miguelito, all innocence and light.
Of course not (this is the equivalent of the bureaucrat pulling the document out of the pile to show the new law) . DD still thinks he has hoodwinked us, and that he will be the, ahem, caretaker of all important finds we come across. There will be a huge fight (and me without police backing) when I remove the jade head from his property and give it to the Guatemalan government. Thanks, Salvador, for all your help. Can you sign my export permit?
Mira.
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