Voyage By Dhow

by Norman Lewis

  Thompson had done his best, he said, to rectify the worst of the abuses of the pearl-fishing trade. He had been promised a resident doctor to remedy a situation in which men, elsewhere accepted at their age as in the prime of life, were seen on the island as worn out. Above all, ferocious punishments had been abolished. Formerly a diver discovered attempting to dispose of a pearl secretly for his own profit had been given a can of water and set adrift in a canoe without oars. ‘We’re far more civilized now,’ Thompson said. Nevertheless his own description of the pearl fisher’s standard of living was that it was ‘no higher than that of the labouring poor in the most downtrodden countries of Europe’.

  Later on the conversation turned to the eccentric lives of those working Europeans—usually Englishmen—bold enough to take on rarely offered employment in Hodeidah, or the capital, Sana’a. A Britisher, the head of a foreign commercial undertaking in Hodeidah, had found himself in difficulties for importing a gramophone. This he was eventually allowed to play, but only in a room close to the shore where, with all windows closed, the music would be deadened by the sound of the waves. He was soon under investigation for teaching his servant to play tennis, which the Yemeni proposed to ban on the score of its being a dance and therefore atheistic.

  In the Yemen, most human activities apart from those linked with actual survival were banned as ‘against the will of God’. Apart from beheadings prescribed for all major crimes, thefts of petty objects or even food were punished by the amputation of a hand, and a whole range of minor punishments was inflicted for trivial offences seen as possibly against the wishes of the Almighty. It was illegal to sing, and even more to whistle, but retribution could also result from giving a horse a human name, walking backwards, climbing to the top of certain mountains and—seen in this case as a reprehensible superstition—pointing at the full moon. In Hodeidah and Sana’a watches could be worn, but only if they were left unwound as ornaments. Harsh penalties were imposed for smoking. The Britisher in Hodeidah who was forced to close all his windows for playing his gramophone distributed cigarettes among a group of labourers who worked for him. The penalty for smoking them in public turned out to be three months in chains.

  XII

  Ten days later, as expected, a small cargo steamer, the S.S. Minho, called in to pick us up, its only other passenger being a gun-runner who boasted of the fact that he had just sold the Yemeni a cargo of defective weapons.

  It seemed that Sir Bernard Reilly’s appeals on our behalf were at last to bear fruit, for when our ship dropped anchor a quarter of a mile from the Yemeni shore a reception party of notables came chugging out in a motorboat to meet us. The newcomers, including Hodeidah’s remarkably bejewelled harbour-master, climbed aboard, and Rex Stevens and I were told that our party’s permit to enter the country had been granted, and that a house had been placed at our disposal for our stay in Hodeidah. With that the visitors climbed back into their boat and returned to the port. We settled to await their return to be escorted to the promised house, and a longish period of suspense ensued. After an unexpectedly long delay it occurred to Stevens and myself that some problem might have arisen over the fact that Ladislas, who had been running a high temperature that morning, had not been present for our meeting with the Yemeni officials. ‘His Majesty’s permit granting your entry into our country,’ the harbourmaster had said, ‘was for three persons. Where is the third?’ It was explained to them that Ladislas was suffering from an attack of fever, which we took to be malaria. Stevens asked if there was a doctor in the port, and they shook their heads. There was none.

  Two hours passed slowly with no sign of the return of our friends and doubt began to settle in our minds. Could something have gone wrong? Could Ladislas’ absence from the interview have in some way aroused suspicions? There was no way of knowing. It now dawned upon me that Farago’s sudden temperature had come as a surprise. He had passed some hours on the Minho before its departure from Kamaran, and during this time he had appeared normal in every way. But now suddenly he was complaining of a severe attack of malaria. He held out a thermometer which registered, he said, a temperature of 103 degrees. His face was twisted with anguish. It was impossible for him to talk to the Arabs, he insisted, because he was just about to be sick. A lurking doubt appeared in my mind as to whether Farago genuinely intended to go with us into the Yemen or whether, for some reason that remained wholly obscure, he did not. At this point I didn’t, of course, know of the incredible subterfuge by which he alone had already crossed the frontier as a fur-trading agent of Monsieur Klar. At the time I thought it possible, as Captain Thompson had insisted, that as a newspaperman Ladislas would be automatically refused entry to the country, and that his non-appearance was a ruse to enable him to sneak by the officials. But Ladislas was not the only cause of our worries—next day the Minho would leave for Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni were supersensitive to the problem of foreign spies slipping past their frontier guards to explore the strength of their defences. Almost equally they went in fear of the plague—from which sick foreigners might turn out to be suffering. ‘They are the victims,’ as Thompson had put it, ‘of faith, fanaticism and fear.’

  That afternoon the harbour-master and his accompanying officials were back and our intuitions were confirmed. These men had discarded their masks of shallow amiability, and now proclaimed by their expressions that they saw through us. The harbour-master told us that His Highness, the King, had assumed we were there to sell them arms for the defence of their country. If we could offer the latest models of rifles and machine-guns for sale, His Majesty wished to be shown samples of them, but if our intention had been only to travel in his country and study its defences, our entry would be refused.

  The turbaned dignitaries of the town solemnly arose from the chairs we had put out for them, and pressing our hands one by one they silently withdrew. They were returning, the harbour-master said, to obtain further instructions from His Majesty. Then he went. We knew from that time that only unofficial visits could be made to the Yemen.

  Rex Stevens went back to tell the Portuguese ship’s master that we would be ready, tides permitting, to put out at any time, and I was left alone on deck to take in a final view of the memorable front of Hodeidah—gateway to the Yemen.

  This, like all the prospects of southern Arabia, was different in many subtle ways from the models that had inspired it. In the great tidal wave of escapism that had followed the end of the First World War, rich Arabs from north Africa and the Yemen coast had sought temporary refuge from the asceticism of their lives by visits to such European playgrounds as the Cote d’Azure. Overcome with admiration they had strolled down such avenues of social display as the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, determined on their return to repeat these northern splendours in the sweltering tropics from which they so rarely emerged. But the environment they tried to replicate in Hodeidah was far removed from that of the Midi of France. It was charming in a wan sort of way, but it was different, and the final result reflected not the high-spirited self-indulgence of European holiday-makers but the inbred asceticism of Islam. The people of this coast had been trained from birth to draw their pleasures from fasting and prayer, and Hodeidah was the result of a temporary compromise between the two faiths. Decoration and architectural exuberance were restricted in these buildings to the top storeys ‘because they were nearest to Heaven’. At street level they were plain and mute. There were doors but no windows.

  I had been cautiously taking my last photographs of the scene when I noticed that a thin, ant-like stream of distant humans had come into view on the previously vacant and inanimate sea front. Putting my camera out of sight, but continuing to watch, I saw that these people soon branched off on to a narrow track that led eventually into the port. A few minutes passed and a black vehicle like a delivery van came up from the rear, pushing past the pedestrians that blocked its way. It turned off into a cleared space among a collection of hutments close to the water’s edge, where it
came to a halt. As the bystanders closed in, two uniformed men climbed down from the front seats, went back to open the rear doors and reached into the van. Moments later they reappeared with a man who was clearly a prisoner, since his arms were fastened behind his back.

  The Portuguese captain was now at my side. Neither of us spoke while the guards hauled the prisoner into the centre of the cleared space, now kept empty by the arrival of two more guards. The two new arrivals took charge of the prisoner and forced him to his knees. ‘This man has been brought here to die,’ the captain said. ‘Soon the executioner will come and cut off his head. If the people ask for him to die they will shout “na’m”. If they are not wishing this they will make faces, and groan.’

  ‘Why are they killing him? Is he a murderer?’ I asked.

  ‘No, he is not murdering. They are bringing him here because there are foreigners on the ships offshore and they wish them to see. This is the penalty for spying. The executioner will dance before he cuts this man’s head off.’

  ‘But why on earth should he dance?’

  ‘It is custom. The executioner is dancing to give the people good heart. Before he strikes with the sword he will call out “Ya akhuya” which is meaning “Oh my brother”, because he is sad for this man’s death. Perhaps then he will sing. You must understand me these are not cruel people. All people in Hodeidah are kind. Only God is cruel.’

  The crowd closed in and we caught a final glimpse of the executioner as he leapt and cavorted in his dance. Nothing more was seen of his scimitar but streaking reflections snatched from the sun. ‘Listen to the crowd,’ the captain said. ‘Now they will call for the end.’ But the only sound to reach us was a faint ah, whether of pleasure or despair—like a murmur to be heard distantly on some sporting occasion.

  The captain shook his head. We turned and walked back over the deck and I moistened my dry lips. ‘So now we will go to Jeddah,’ he said, and the change in his voice suited his recall to duty.

  ‘What is it like?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, it is still Arabia,’ the captain said. ‘At least we may say it is better than this.’

  ‘That is certainly to be hoped.’

  The captain said, ‘In Hodeidah at this time there are three foreigners and all the Arab people are poor. Jeddah has many foreign people who are coming for a better climate, also because they may smoke, drink and maybe even fornicate with women in hotels. The Lord is everywhere in Hodeidah to punish men who do these things. In Jeddah, Almighty God is remaining in the mosque when the cruising ship is in port. That is important for Jeddah. That is why Jeddah is one rich city while Hodeidah is very poor.’

  He turned away, then remembered our patient. ‘So Mr Farago will be travelling to Jeddah with us?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘When he next takes his temperature I’m sure it will be normal. He will travel with us as arranged.’

  2001

  THE SURVIVORS

  THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA by the Spanish initiated one of the most calamitous series of events and the most protracted human tragedy the world has ever known. Within a generation, all that remained of the grandiose civilizations of Central and South America were ruins and a wretched collection of plantation slaves, while to the north the impetus of conquest and extermination was only delayed. All the European newcomers were destroyers. The French demolished the nations of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. In Canada the British invented germ warfare by distributing blankets from a smallpox hospital among the tribes (a method favoured in Brazil to this day), while the freed American colonists pushed westwards behind a shield of treachery and massacre. The appalling fact is that most of the aboriginal inhabitants have been cleared from what amounts to one third of the world’s surface, and it is perhaps even more depressing that the remnants should have been reduced, by and large, to destitution and cultural nothingness.

  These processes of annihilation have been so thorough that it comes as a surprise to learn that in this continent, north of the Amazon, a major aboriginal group—the Huichols of western Mexico—can have survived with their tribal structure, religion, traditions and art intact. Behind the bastion of the high sierra they were beyond the invaders’ easy reach. Had there been gold or silver in the mountains, greed would have found a way to conquer them; but there was nothing in Huichol territory worth stealing, and there is no finer guerrilla country anywhere. The Huichols evaded the large military forces sent against them and defeated the small ones. Only in 1721, through a policy of blockade which cut them off from the sea and deprived them of salt, could they be induced to sign a treaty of peace. By the terms of this, five missions were to be established in tribal territory, but after a few years the missionaries gave up the struggle and went away. They had discovered that the Huichols were unsuitable material for conversion to Christianity.

  Ten thousand Huichols have survived, and they have doubled their numbers since the turn of the twentieth century. One would expect this single exception to the rule of dwindling populations, apathy and degradation to be exceptional in every way—and exceptional the Huichols are. They live by hunting deer and growing a little maize—neither of them time-consuming occupations—and the huge surplus of leisure is devoted to the pursuit of the arts. They cover their clothing with elaborate embroidery and produce exquisite pre-Columbian objects in feathers, beads and coloured wools. All Huichol art is devotional. ‘Everything we do in life,’ the Huichol shaman-priest instructs the child, ‘is for the glory of God. We praise him in the well-swept floor, the weeded field, the polished machete, the brilliant colours of the picture—of the embroidery. In these ways we pray for a long life and a good one.’

  Most remarkable of the Huichol arts are the wool-paintings called nearikas, which have aroused much interest in Mexico of late, to the point of inspiring imitations of lamentable quality. Nearikas have been used from antiquity as votive offerings on all great occasions—such as at the birth of a child, when they are left at the mountain shrines—but until recently few have been seen outside museums. Some of the most striking are produced during the fiesta following the great peyote pilgrimage, which is a feature of the Huichol religion. The shamans, who have led their pilgrims across Mexico from the Sierra Madre to the sacred land of Wirikúta in the San Luis Potosi desert, eat the peyote cactus and create pictures inspired by their dreams, which are then left for the gods of the Sun, Fire and Water. Enlarged versions of such pictures are now being made and are sold in limited numbers to assist the Huichol economy, and last year (1969) in Guadalajara I saw an exhibition of them organized by Padre Ernesto Loéra of the Franciscan order.

  What distinguished Huichol nearikas from any other Indian paintings I had seen was their exuberance; the feeling they gave of a lack of premeditation, of being the work of talented children. This impression turned out to be an illusion. Nothing in this art follows a mere decorative whim; every line, every curlicue, every blob of colour has its precise meaning. The tufts sprouting from the head of the manikin strutting along a path bordered with icicles and flowers are no mere fantasy, but the feathered ornaments representing antlers worn by the shaman in the exercise of his priestly functions. To have omitted them would have been to deprive the picture of all significance. Most nearikas picture the legends of the Huichol race, or deal with the predicaments of the soul after death. They are always executed in brilliant colours because these are the colours of peyote visions, and they are considered so sacred that the Huichols working on them at Guadalajara do not permit strangers to watch them at work.

  The pictures on view were largely the inspiration and occasionally the actual work of one remarkable man, the shaman Ramon Medina Silva, who lived for some years in a shack on the outskirts of the city near the shrine of the Virgin of Zapópan, a small-scale local version of Lourdes. The shrine attracts the sick from all parts of western Mexico and pilgrims whose complaints failed to respond to the visit sometimes consulted the nearby shaman, who had a wide reputation for treating psychosoma
tic disorders—particularly phobias. It was here that Padre Ernesto first met him, and a cordial relationship developed between the exponents of the two religions. Padre Ernesto seems to have raised no more objection to Ramon’s shamanistic cures, achieved with spittle and incantation, than has the doctor in charge of the Huichol region. Both these enlightened men are happy to see the sick restored to health, whatever the means. Padre Ernesto, moreover, became enthusiastic about the shaman’s artistic gifts, and encouraged him in these in every possible way—for example, by procuring wools of better quality than those within the shaman’s reach.

  Padre Ernesto had spent time with two recently established missions in the sierra, and it sounded as though their operations had been hardly more of a success than those built after the old treaty. But he was philosophic and indulgent, and however unresponsive to his ministrations the Huichols might have been, his enthusiasm for them kept breaking through.

  He attributed the meagre harvest in souls to the Huichols’ bolstering of their indigenous beliefs with the ritual use of peyote. It was a kind of drug-enforced theological brain-washing from which recovery or backsliding—whichever way you looked at it—was virtually impossible. Peyote cults had spread in recent years, the padre said, to many of the Indian tribes of North America, but in reality this was a symptom of withdrawal and despair. The Huichols on the other hand were abstemious and disciplined, and they took their peyote like a dose of strong religious medicine. Peyote was a god, and by eating it they absorbed its divine force. The Huichols would have been horrified, he said, to hear themselves described as drug takers. He showed me a nearika by the shaman Ramon Medina warning of the terrible fate, the madness that overtook Huichols who allowed themselves to be induced by sorcerers to indulge in the hallucinogenic Jimson’s weed (datura)—the methylated spirits of the demoralized Indian.