“The Achane of Apohpocayan”

In an interview that took place in 2012, Nacho marked the turn away from cooperative milpa farming when he remembered the last time he heard the achane in Apohpocayan. He fixed the moment of his recollection around 1970, early one morning when he and his brothers were walking to their milpa in Apango. Nacho would soon marry Victoria, move into his father-in-law’s house near Ixtahuatalix, and cease working as one with his brothers on a common milpa.

[Apango] is where we had our crop with my brothers. And we heard [the achane then] and we do not hear it anymore. And it was after we were working there in Zapotitlán harvesting our milpa one time in June, July, thereabouts, and it was when we had arrived going down [to our cornfield] early in the morning. We were going [to Apango] around four in the morning, and we heard it as we descended the slope of the ridge. That is where we heard it crying out in Apohpocayan. That afternoon it was sure to rain. And now one no longer hears it. (“Ompa totatocayan ihuan nocniuhuan. Huan ticaquiah huan axcan ahmo ticaquih oc. Huan zatepan tequitiah nican Zapotitlan titapixcayah ce tiempo junio, julio, icuin, huan cuac tia[h]ciauh titehcoh cualcan tyayah. Tyayah quemeh a las cuatro de la mañana, huan ticaquiayah titehcoh. Ompa ticaquih tzahtziz Apohpocayan. Non tiotac seguro quiyahuic. Huan axcan ahmo caquizti.”)1

He turned his memory into a story that I shall call “The Achane of Apohpocayan.” The place name of Apohpocayan is derived from the verb apohpoxoa, which means to wallow in water (Karttunen 1992: 12). Mestizos refer to Apohpocayan as Santa Elena in honor of Elena Mendez, the daughter of General Juan N. Mendez, who led Nahua troops against the French during the French intervention. Apohpocayan is a good place near which to cultivate a milpa because it has an abundance of water flowing out of springs and draining into the Zempoala River that flows through the neighboring community of Zapotitlán de Mendez. Below are the English translations and the Nahuat originals of Nacho’s story.

1. I do not know if I told you, but a long time ago, when I was about twenty years old or so we worked here in Apango.
2. And we used to go from here to where there is a field of tall grass and we heard someone crying out in Apohpocayan.
3. Someone was crying out.
4. According to what they say there was an achane there in Apohpocayan.
5. Because the water made a noise like crying out.
6. In May, when it is going to rain, the crying out begins.
7. If [the achane] cries out now, cries out early in the morning, then there will be a rainstorm in the afternoon.
8. Because whatever is in the water, I do not know what it is doing, but it cries out.
9. We could hear the achane beating a drum.
10. It is heard clearing a path.
11. And according to what the ancestors said, they killed it.
12. The rain gods killed it.
13. Because now, it is no longer shouting.
14. And the ancestors say the achane used to cry out.
15. I do not know myself, but this is according to what the ancestors said.
16. They say there was a boy.
17. He went to look for the crayfish.
18. At the waterfall.
19. And the day came when the boy found a girl there.
20. At the water’s edge.
21. And that boy had a drum like the one the Quetzal dancers use.
22. So then he liked to mark a path [by beating the drum].
23. Then that animal, that girl started talking to that boy.
24. And she thought about embracing him to take him away.
25. So she embraced him and she took him into the water.
26. That is why they say that because of that boy, when they hold a fiesta, I do not know for sure, but the ancestors say he clears a path.
27. But now there is no more noise.
28. That water does not make noise.
29. And a long time ago it cried out in Apohpocayan.
30. They call that place Apohpocayan

1. Ahmo nicmati cox nimitztapohuiaya pero huehcauh cuando nicpiya quemeh cempohual xihuit icuin tequitiah nican Apango.
2. Huan tiyayah nican te in zacat huan ticaquiyah tzahtzi Apohpocayan.
3. Tzahtzi[a]ya.
4. Según quihtoqueh que nohon campa Apohpocayan ompa yetoc ce achane.
5. Porque tzahtzia in at.
6. Tiempo de mayo cuando quiyahuiz ya entonces pehuaz tzahtzi.
7. Como tzahtzi in axcan, cuantzin cualcan tzahtzi, entonces non tiotac quipiya ca quiyahuiz.
8. Porque yeh in at, ahmo mati quen quichiuhtoc pero tzahtzia.
9. Ticaquizquiah non tambor quimacato[c].
10. Cualtzin caquizti tahuiltequi.2
11. Huan según quimictiqueh.
12. Quiyauhteomeh quimictiqueh.
13. Porque axcan ahmo tzahtzioc.
14. Huan tzahtzia quihtoa.
15. Ahmo nicmati pero según ihcon quihtoqueh.
16. Quihtoa yetoya ce telpoch.
17. Quinittati cozolimeh.
18. Ompa campa nohon campa huetzi in at.
19. Huan ehoc tonal ompa cahcito ce cihuapil.
20. Ompa campa atenti.
21. Huan non telpoch quipiya ce tambor de non quemeh quetzaltini.
22. Entonces cuellitaya tahuiltequi.
23. Entonces non ocuilin, non cihuapil pehuac quinonotza non telpoch.
24. Huan quinemili cox quinanahuati ma cuica.
25. Tons quinahuati huan yahque quicuiya in at.
26. Por eso quihtoa por non telpoch cuando ilhuitia, ahmo nicmati pero según quihtoqueh que non tahuiltequitia.
27. Pero axcan ahmo caquizti.
28. Ahmo caquizti non at.
29. Huan huehcauh tzahtzia Apohpocayan.
30. Quilia Apohpocayan.3

A New Image of an Achane

Nacho softened the image of the achane when he told the story of “The Achane of Apohpocayan.” He described it as the tonal of a girl who embraced a boy and carried him into the water where he beat a drum (lines 21–22) like the one used by the Quetzal and the flying pole dancers. Nahuas in Huitzilan played a vertical drum with a single membrane to accompany these dance groups, and Stresser-Péan (2012: 151) notes that others in the Sierra Norte associated the vertical drum with “the fertility and the nourishing of the earth.” This is further evidence that the story of “The Achane of Apohpocayan” is part of the contemporary fertility cult as practiced in the Sierra Norte.

Unlike the stories of the earlier period, this achane is not a threatening figure because she embraced the boy with affection and she did not have a connection with the devil. Nacho declared that he and his brothers heard the boy beating his drum and marking a path when there was a fiesta after the girl embraced him (line 26). To explain why he no longer hears the achane of Apohpocayan, Nacho declared that the ancestors said that the rain gods killed it (lines 11–12).

Nacho did not explain his comment, and my first thought was that he was alluding to the dramatic change in the economy of Huitzilan from milpa to coffee cultivation. Upon my return to Huitzilan in 2003, I was struck by the degree to which coffee orchards had swallowed up land once used for growing corn and beans.

“The Man from Ayehual”

Then, in 2007, Nacho’s brother Miguel told “The Man from Ayehual,” another story I had not heard before, that describes latent if not manifest hostility as a chronic condition of rain god-achane relations but lacking in the ethnic associations found in the earlier stories of the rain gods’ rebellion. The achane no longer was the animal companion of municipio presidents who practiced negative reciprocity and acted like autocrats and Mestizos who threatened the Sierra Norte communities with too much water.

Miguel was seventy-seven when he told this story. He was living with his wife in Calyecapan next door to his brother, Nicolás, known to his family as Colax. His children were grown by now, and he no longer planted a common cornfield with his younger brothers. In Miguel’s story, a rain god and an achane are compadres who give the appearance of loving and respecting each other but actually harbor wishes to do each other harm. They displayed the ambivalence of emotion that Nahuas sometimes actually exhibit with their compadres, and, more often, with their siblings. In short, Miguel told a story in which he normalized relations between rain gods and achane.

Miguel set the action of his story in Ayehual, a locality where the river curves to make a circle below San Miguel (Xamiquel), a community immediately north of Huitzilan. Ayuehual is also near where Miguel and his brothers planted their corn on land rented in Zapotitlán in the locality of Apango between Ayehual and Apohpocayan. Below are the English and Nahuat texts of Miguel’s story, followed by an explanation of why Miguel abandoned the associations among achane, the devil, and Mestizos that he and his brothers had made in other stories such as “The Water in Ixtepec.” Following the texts, I shall suggest that Miguel normalized relations between rain gods and achane in accord with a change in interethnic relations in his community.

1. Jim: Once there was a man from Xamiquel (San Miguel). . . .
2. Miguel: Uh hu, Xamiquel.
3. He was in the place called Ayehual.
4. This man and another man were in Ayehual.
5. One went to speak to the other.
6. The quiyuahteotonalle [rain god’s human companion] asked, “What are you doing, compadre?”
7. The coatonalle [achane’s human companion] replied, “Nothing, I am here is all.”
8. “Ah,” said the visitor.
9. The achane was naked.
10. The visitor saw that the coatonalle did not have any clothes.
11. He was naked.
12. And the visitor asked him again, “What are you doing?”
13. “Nothing, cabrón, I am going to toast some frogs.”
14. The visitor wondered, “You are toasting frogs?”
15. The naked man explained, “And this is to eat in the evening.
16. I get hungry in the evening,” he said.
17. “Uh hu, perhaps you would like to eat one,” he offered his visitor.
18. “Try one of these frogs.”
19. The visitor said, “Good, thank you.”
20. “Eat it if you want to,” said the naked man.
21. From there yes, the visitor asked, “Good, compadre, and where do you put yourself these days?
22. I have been looking for you, and you were nowhere to be seen.
23. I wanted to see you because we love each other.
24. I want us to love each other [and be] in the form of our shadows [coessences as a rain god and an achane rather than in human form].”
25. The naked man replied, “Oh yes?”
26. “That is what I want, and I am wondering where you might be.
27. I have gone everywhere looking for you: in the tall mountains, in the gullies, in the forest, at the water’s edge.
28. I have no idea where on earth you roam!” said the visitor.
29. “And I do not see you anywhere.”
30. “And you wanted to see me?” asked the naked man.
31. “I am thinking that I do want to see you,” replied the visitor.
32. “Oh good, well there is no reason why I would not wait for you,” said the naked one.
33. “Uh hu, I shall wait for you at nine because I come out around eight o’clock.
34. I warm myself when the sun comes out.
35. Go where the sun rises.
36. Go there.
37. And I shall wait for you,” he says.
38. “If you go tomorrow or the next day, I shall wait for you.”
39. Then the visitor, who was a rain god [quiyauhteot], sat down in a cloud that was directly above him and went away.
40. He went where the naked one told him to go to see him.
41. Where the sun rises.
42. The naked one was there but in the water below.
43. That is where his compadre was.
44. Nacho: That is where he was.
45. Miguel: But he spotted him from far away.
46. He did not get close to him.
47. Nacho: He did not get close to him.
48. Miguel: The naked one was a big animal.
49. He was big so that they say the visitor, who spotted him from afar, saw he was a big animal.
50. The animal was called a petacoat [a large constrictor serpent].
51. Nacho: A petacoat.
52. Miguel: The petacoat thought to himself, “Uh hu, let that cabrón come.
53. Let him know I shall swallow him if he comes.”
54. But the visitor did not come.
55. He did not get close.
56. It would be better to go back.
57. And after he went back, he went to speak to him again.
58. “Horalé compadre,” he said, “I did not want to get close.”
59. “Why?” asked the petacoat.
60. “If you had, we would have spoken to each other,” said the petacoat.
61. “Son and the whore, you know I would have eaten [you], and you were going to see me.”
62. Nacho: He did not go.
63. Miguel: He did not go.
64. The rain god was afraid of him.
65. Nacho: He was afraid of him.

1. Jim: Nohon tacat yetoya Xamiquel.
2. Miguel: Uh hu, Xamiquel.
3. Nican Ayehual monotza.
4. Entonces nin tacat yetoya huan nihin tacat yetoya nin Ayehual.
5. Yahca quinonotzato.
6. Quihta, “Toni ticchiuhtoc compadre?”
7. Quilia, “Ahmo tei,” quihta, “nican niyetoc za.”
8. “Ah,” quilia.
9. Nin tacat xitatzic.
10. Quitta ne ahmo quipiya itilman.
11. Quixitatzic.
12. Huan quilia, “Toni chihua?”
13. “Ahmo tei cabrón,” quilia, “nican nimotatatehuatzito,” quilia.
14. Quihta, “Titatehuatzoh [Titatehuatzoc] cacalameh?”4
15. “Huan hin,” quilia, “tacuaz,” quilia, “yohuac.
16. Ta neh,” quilia, “nimayana yohuac.
17. Uh hu, xa ticuaz ce,” quilia.
18. “Xicua ce nin cacalat.”
19. Quilia, “Bueno, tazohcamatic.”
20. “Xicua,” quilia, “como ticuaz.”
21. Ompa quemah, ne quilia, “Huan bueno, compadre,” quilia, “huan can timoahci tehha?” quilia.
22. “Ta neh nimitztemo,” quilia, “huan ahmo canah.
23. Nicnequi nimitzittaz quemeh nican timotazohtah ihcon.
24. Nicnequi ma timotazohtacah nepa campa toecahuil.”5
25. Quilia, “Ah quemah,” quilia.
26. “Nicnequi,” quilia, “huan nimolia, ‘Pos can yetoz?’
27. Ta . . . nochi yahcah,” quilia, “tech ne huei tepemeh,” quilia, “tech in atahuiyo6, tech cuauhyoh,” quilia, “tech in atenti.
28. “Ni razon,” quilia, “can carajo tinemi!
29. Huan ahmo nimitzitta.”
30. “Huan tinequia,” quilia, “tinechittaz?”
31. “Nimoliaya,” quilia, “nicnequi nimitzittaz.”
32. “Ah bueno,” quilia, “pos ahmo tei toni,” quilia, “nimitzhchiya,” quilia.
33. “Uh hu, nimitzchiya quemeh a las nueve,” quilia, “por neh niquizac,” quilia, “quemeh las ocho.
34. Nimototonia,” quilia, “cuando huitza ya in tonal,” quilia.
35. “Pero xyo,” quilia, “ne campa ca huitza tonal,” quilia.
36. “Ompa xyo,” quilia.
37. “Huan nimitzchiya,” quilia.
38. “Como tyaz moztah ozo huipta,” quilia, “pos nimitzchiya.”
39. Entonces non quiyauhteot motali tamelahua nican ahco ce bola de mixti, huan yohui ya.
40. Yohui ya ne campa quinahuati ma ya ma quittati.
41. Campa huitza tonaltzin.
42. Pero non ahmo ahco yetoc sino tani tech in atenti.
43. Yetoc non nicompadre.
44. Nacho: Eso.
45. Miguel: Pero huehca za quinttato.
46. Ahmo quicercaro.
47. Nacho: Ahmo quicercaro.
48. Miguel: Ah pos huei in ocuilin.
49. Huei zo toc quit quittato huehca quittato huei yetoc non ocuilin.
50. Monotza petacoat.7
51. Nacho: Petacoat.
52. Miguel: “Uh hu. Ma huiqui ne cabrón” quitmolia.
53. “Ta ma quimati,” quilia, “nictoloz8 como huitza.”
54. Pero ahmo yahqui cercaro.
55. Ahmo quicercaro.
56. Mejor moquepac.
57. Huan de moquepac, ceppa quilico.
58. “Horalé compadre,” quilia, “ahmo nihueli,” quilia, “nicercaro.”
59. Quilia, “Que ye?” quilia,
60. “Pos ta xiani9 timononotzazquiah,” quilia, “ompa.
61. Hijo y puta,” quilia, “ma ticmatic nicuazquia,” quitquilia, “huan nechittati."
62. Nacho: Ahmo yahqui.
63. Miguel: Ahmo yahqui.
64. Pos quimauhhuili.
65. Nacho: Quimauhhuili.10

Interpretation

Miguel’s story is unlike the ones considered earlier because it is not about interethnic conflict. It is about the relationship between the human companions of an achane and a rain god, who are compadres and are supposed to love each other (motazohtah) but are really ambivalent (lines 22–24). Kevin P. Groark (2008) suggests the term social opacity for the kinds of doubts that Nahuas express about the motivations of other Nahuas and the suspicion that they are likely to do them harm. In Huitzilan, those doubts arise because one with an envious tequiuh (disposition) is likely to dissimulate his or her intentionality. Those born with a twisted heart are inclined to conceal their envy and be out for themselves rather than cooperate with others and feel love; they are the ones who go against the value of “working as one.”

When I heard Miguel tell his story, I could hardly believe what I was hearing because other narrators had told so many other stories in which the achane were the animal companion spirits (coatonalle) of bad municipio presidents or the devil in the guise of a Mestizo. In those stories, the rain gods were affiliated with the priest and the Nahuas and they attacked the malevolent achane and liberated a Nahua or Totonac community from a threat. However, the achane in Miguel’s story is an ancestor, as Nacho explained when adding the detail that he wore an itapachcoton,11 a garment open on the sides. This is the same kind of garment worn by the little old Nahua man who had lost his fourteen-hectare plot of land to the rich man who collected on a tab for food and drink. (See “The Land Transaction.”) Nacho’s mention of this garment located the action in ancient time, perhaps before Mestizos had settled in Huitzilan and posed such a threat to Nahuas by taking their land and, in some cases, their women.

Miguel made dissimulation an important part of his story, describing the rain god as disguising his true intent in seeking out his compadre, the achane. The rain god tells his compadre that he has looked for him everywhere—in the big mountains, in the gullies and canyons, in the forest, in the water—to no avail (line 27). In this context, the act of looking for another (temoa) could be an expression of love. But in fact, while the rain god declared that he was looking for the achane because “we love each other” (“motazohtah,” [line 23]), his real intent was to do his compadre harm.

Likewise, the achane (coatonalle) dissimulated his own hostility toward his compadre, the rain god (quiyauhteotonalle). Miguel described their encounter with food symbolism that carries a lot of emotional meaning, particularly with respect to love and envy. (See Chapter 5.) He described how the rain god finds his compadre, the achane (coatonalle), grilling some frogs, which Nacho explained are his tortillas. The achane is not planning to eat the frogs immediately but will wait to eat them in the evening when he is hungry. The achane offers his food to his compadre, saying: “Won’t you eat one?” (line 17–18). The rain god accepts his offer and thanks his compadre (line 19). All seems in order because the two characters behave as one would expect compadres to behave; they share their food as expressions of their mutual love and respect. However, the achane dissimulates his hostility because he knows that his compadre (the rain god) is looking for him and wants to do him harm by striking him with a bolt of lightning. When his compadre, the rain god, announces he will pay him another visit, the achane says to himself: “Uh hu, let that cabrón come. Let him know I shall swallow him if he comes” (lines 52–53).

The first time I heard this story, I did not understand that envy was the reason for the conflict between the two characters. The Nahuat word for envy (nexicoliz) does not appear anywhere in the story, but is implied rather than asserted outright because Nahuas do not know for certain the intentionality of any person. To help me understand the relationship between the two characters Nacho explained that love (tazohtaliz) and envy (nexicoliz) are two sides of the same coin; where there is one there is the other. He applied his theory to explain the meaning of this story to me in the following way. The two compadres appear to love each other but, in fact, the rain god envies the achane because he “does not tire from working to eat.” (“Nin ahmo ciahui tequiti.”12) The achane, in his animal form, is a petacoat, a large, non-poisonous constrictor snake (coat) with an enormous appetite. He just waits in a pool of water with his mouth open and swallows whatever comes his way. The rain god, like the Nahuas, has to work hard to eat and, thus, envies the achane who does not suffer with work (ihiyohuia). When describing their life histories, Nacho and many other Nahuas told how they had to suffer with work in order to eat. However, while everyone must suffer for this reason, not everyone feels acute envy unless his or her heart is twisted. Nacho was not one to deny that Nahuas had problems among themselves, and the one he frequently mentioned was envy and its dissimulation.

Changing Ethnic Relations

Before and during the UCI rebellion, Nahua narrators expressed their adversarial views of ethnic relations in Huitzilan in their stories of rain gods, as allies of the Nahuas, attacking achane who were the animal companion spirits (tonal) of Mestizos or their agents. In Miguel’s story, the rain god and the achane are compadres who are supposed to love and respect each other. While Miguel did not mention ethnicity, he describes an ambivalent relationship between two men who act like ordinary Nahuas.

Miguel’s story marks a shift from describing the rain god and achane relationship as like the hierarchical and antagonistic interethnic Nahua and Mestizo relations before and during the rebellion of 1977–1984. Those relations changed following the UCI rebellion when the Antorcha Campesina gained firm control of the municipio government in March 1984. That organization retook the community with the support of some Mestizos and Nahuas, who were on the outs with the UCI. The organization has remained in power by regularly bringing up the threat of the UCI’s return and by cultivating class consciousness among the Nahuas. (See Ramé Montiel 2013.)

With the Antorcha Campesina controlling the administrative and judicial machinery of the municipio government, local Mestizo elites in Huitzilan could no longer expect to act with impunity because they no longer controlled the offices of the Agente de Ministerio Público and the municipio president. No member of a prominent Mestizo family has served as municipio president since the end of the UCI rebellion. Nevertheless, in some respects the position of the Nahuas has remained the same. They serve in the municipio government today just has they have in the past, with the consent of Mestizos who have come from outside of their community.