Tekst piosenki
In 1974
I went to Mexico
To visit my brother
Who was working as an anthropologist
With Tsutsil Indians
The last surviving Mayan tribe
And the Tsutsil speak a lovely birdlike language
And are quite tiny physically;
I towered over them
Mostly, I spent my days following the women around
Since my brother wasn’t really allowed to do this
We got up at 3am and began to separate the corn into three colors
And we boiled it, ran to the mill and back
And finally started to make the tortillas
Now all the other women’s tortillas were 360°
Perfectly toasted, perfectly round;
And even after a lot of practice
Mine were still lobe-sided and charred
And when they thought I wasn’t looking
They threw them to the dogs
After breakfast we spent the rest of the day down at the river
Watching the goats and braiding and unbraiding each other’s hair
So usually there wasn’t that much to report
One day the women decided to braid my hair Tsutsil-style
After they did this I saw my reflection in a puddle
I looked ridiculous but they said
„Before we did this you were ugly
But now maybe you will find a husband.”
I lived with them in a yurt
A thatched structure shaped like a cup cake
And there’s a central fireplace ringed by sleeping shelves
Sort of like a dry beaver down
Now my Tsutsil name was Lausha
Which loosely translated means
„the ugly one with the jewels.”
Now ugly, OK, I was awfully tall by local standards
But what did they mean by the jewels?
I didn’t find out what this meant until one night
When I was taking my contact lenses out
And since I’d lost the case
I was carefully placing them on the sleeping shelf;
Suddenly I noticed that everyone was staring at me
And I realized that none of the Tsutsil had ever seen glasses
Much less contacts
And that these were the jewels
The transparent, perfectly round, jewels
That I carefully hid on the shelf at night
And then put – for safekeeping – into my eyes every morning
So I may have been ugly
But so what?
I had the jewels
Full fathom thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But that suffers a sea change
Into something rich and strange
And I alone am left to tell the tale
Call me Ishmael
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