Man-Hungry Amazons of Tabasco
sexuality. But at the moment I was thinking less as an anthropologist than as a mere man in trouble. The lady chief snapped commands to her women, and they scattered at once, going about their duties. Then she spoke to me in Spanish, “Follow me!” She led the way into her hut. I followed. My eyes quickly became accustomed to the darkness of the hut’s interior, and I sat where she pointed, on a low pile of woven grass mats, while she threw a shapely leg over the webbing of a hammock and then lay back in it, one bare leg hanging down, her arms behind her head. She looked long and silently at me, and then she spoke again. “Crain Matheson,” she said, “from Chicago. . . . Where is this place?” “Chicago is a city in the
united States,” I said, wondering just how isolated this Indian village was. When she asked, “And what is the united States?” I knew that I was in a world lost in time. It was late October 1957, but only for me. “The united States is a country far to the north of Mexico,” I said. “Mexico?” she echoed. “This is Mexico,” I added. “No,” she said, “this is xiximul.” Then she sat up in the hammock, and pointing towards the south she said, “There lies the land of the Lacadons. The other way lies the land of the Chamulas. All around us is the country of the chicleros. I have heard of Mexico, but it is far beyond the chicleros, far beyond the Chamulas.” “Look,” I said, “xiximul is only your village and the land
about it, and all this is only a part of the state of Tabasco, and this state is only one part of Mexico.” She laughed and lay back again in the hammock, placing her arms behind her head looking frankly at me with aroused desire. “You are a little mad,” she said, “but if you will come here to me, I will make you sane again. Come!” I obeyed. The hammock was a wide one, what in the LatinAmerican tropics is called the hamaca matrimonial, and it easily held both of us, though I was a little awkward getting into it and had to be helped. But after a moment I got the hang of the thing and found it quite comfortable. She held me with everything that can hold a man, and her mouth devoured mine. If I had
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