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Contents

Copyright 1966by B.TravenIntroduction copyright 1966by Charles H. MillerAll rights reservedLibrary of Congress catalog card number: 66-15892

First American Century Series edition, 1973

.. Introductionll1 The Night Visitor

5 7 Effective Medicine7 3 Assembly Line8 9 The Cattle Drive

1 1 3 When the Priest Is Not at Home1 2 9 Midnight Call1 6 1 A New God Was Born1 7 1 Friendship1 8 3 Conversion of Some Indians1 9 3 Macario2 3 7 Bibliography

ISBN: 0-8090-0106-3Printed in the United States of America

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ft72 B. TRAVENHe is a strong and healthy fellow, and he is used to hard work.He won't go fifty miles, and he will find some work or a job.Or he will steal a stray cow and sell it to a butcher in one ofthe villages through which he passes. In the meantime, andmore than a half dozen times, he will have had his belly filledwith tortillas, frijoles, and green chili. His belly satisfactorilyfull, he will forget his grief. Once he has found some work, hewill stay on in a village in the end. Once there, it won't be oneweek before a woman will believe herself fairly lucky ifallowed to cook frijoles and toast tortillas for him, and alsohang her basket, or a sugar sack with her Sunday dress in it, ata peg inside the jacalito he will eventually, and quite predict-ably, occupy.

Assembly Line

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m Mr. E. L. Winthrop of New York was on vacationin the Republic of Mexico. It wasn't long before he realizedthat this strange and really wild country had not yet beenfully and satisfactorily explored by Rotarians and Lions, whoare forever conscious of their glorious mission on earth.Therefore, he considered it his duty as a good Americancitizen to do his part in correcting this oversight.In search for opportunities to indulge in his new avocation,

he left the beaten track and ventured into regions not espe-cially mentioned, and hence not recommended, by travelagents to foreign tourists. So it happened that one day hefound himself in a little, quaint Indian village somewhere inthe State of Oaxaca.Walking along the dusty main street of this pueblecito,

which knew nothing of pavements, drainage, plumbing, or ofany means of artificial light save candles or pine splinters, hemet with an Indian squatting on the earthen-floor front porchof a palm hut, a so-called jacalito.The Indian was busy making little baskets from bast and

from all kinds of fibers gathered by him in the Immense73

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74 B. TRAVENtropical bush which surrounded the village on all sides. Thematerial used had not only been well prepared for its purposebut was also richly colored with dyes that the basket-makerhimself extracted from various native plants, barks, roots andfrom certain insects by a process known only to him and themembers of his family.His principal business, however, was not producing baskets.

He was a peasant who lived on what the small property hepossessed-less than fifteen acres of not too fertile soil-wouldyield, after much sweat and labor and after constantly worry-ing over the most wanted and best suited distribution of rain,sunshine, and wind and the changing balance of birds andinsects beneficial or harmful to his crops. Baskets he madewhen there was nothing else for him to do in the fields,because he was unable to dawdle. After all, the sale of hisbaskets, though to a rather limited degree only, added to thesmall income he received from his little farm.In spite of being by profession just a plain peasant, it was

clearly seen from the small baskets he made that at heart he wasan artist, a true and accomplished artist. Each basket looked asif covered all over with the most beautiful sometimes fantasticornaments, flowers, butterflies, birds, squirrels, antelope, tigers,and a score of other animals of the wilds. Yet, the mostamazing thing was that these decorations, all of them sym-phonies of color, were not painted on the baskets but wereinstead actually part of the baskets themselves. Bast and fibersdyed in dozens of different colors were so cleverly-one mustactually say intrinsically-interwoven that those attractivedesigns appeared on the inner part of the basket as well as onthe outside. Not by painting but by weaving were thosehighly artistic effects achieved. This performance he accom-plished without ever looking at any sketch or pattern. Whileworking on a basket these designs came to light as if by magic,and as long as a basket was not entirely finished one could not

ASSEMBLY LINE 75perceive what in this case or that the decoration would belike.People in the market town who bought these baskets would

use them for sewing baskets or to decorate tables with orwindow sills, or to hold little things to keep them from lyingaround. Women put their jewelry in them or flowers or littledolls. There were in fact a hundred and two ways they mightserve certain purposes in a household or in a lady'S own room.Whenever the Indian had finished about twenty of the

baskets he took them to town on market day. Sometimes hewould already be on his way shortly after midnight because heowned only a burro to ride on, and if the burro had goneastray the day before, as happened frequently, he would haveto walk the whole way to town and back again.At the market he had to pay twenty centavos in taxes to sell

his wares. Each basket cost him between twenty and thirtyhours of constant work, not counting the time spent gatheringbast and fibers, preparing them, making dyes and coloring thebast. All this meant extra time and work. The price he askedfor each basket was fifty centavos, the equivalent of aboutfour cents. It seldom happened, however, that a buyer paidoutright the full fifty centavos asked-or four reales as theIndian called that money. The prospective buyer started bar-gaining, telling the Indian that he ought to be ashamed to asksuch a sinful price. "Why, the whole dirty thing is nothingbut ordinary petate straw which you find in heaps whereveryou may look for it; the jungle is packed full of it," the buyerwould argue. "Such a little basket, what's it good for anyhow?If I paid you, you thief, ten centavitos for it you should begrateful and kiss my hand. Well, it's your lucky day, I'll begenerous this time, I'll pay you twenty, yet not one greencentavo more. Take it or run along."So he sold finally for twenty-five centavos, but then the

buyer would say, "Now, what do you think of that? I've got

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