29. Victor's Family Reminiscences--Part 2

October 26, 2021

Characters:  Oliver--eventually became VP of a big oil company.  Jenny--my great-grandmother.  Rolf--invented the milk carton.  Esther--my mother's mother (got sick in Mexico and returned to the US).  Rueben-- invented an oil pipeline brush.

Sympathetic magic--the belief that like makes like.  E.g., eating long green beans lengthens lifespan.  Eating red food stimulates blood production.

Notes about President Diaz (1880-1910).

Causes of goatiness in goat's milk:  three fatty acids (caproic, capric, caprylic acids)

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We continue with podcast number 29. The pace is going to pick up now, as I'll have fewer things to say, and we'll focus more on Uncle Vic's report. All members of the family learned some Spanish and a few words of the local Indian dialect. Oliver learned to understand the Mexican version of Spanish and much of the Indian language called Chapotepec very well because he attended an Indian school and lived with an Indian family as if he were one of the Indians. He could tell the rest of them what the Indians were talking about. It seems to me that Galdina was a wonderful Indian mother who was able to give so much loving care to a little white gringo as if he were one of her own children. He was able to get along very well with all of the Indians and learn their language quickly, living in their town far from the plantation. So I looked up the origin of the word gringo, and there are I had always heard that it was from a conflict where mil American troops were being told to go home and they were wearing green clothing, so they were so people said green go, but that's um apparently not really the real reason, uh the real origin of the word. It actually comes from griego, which means Greek, and it goes back to the end of the 18th century. We return to Uncle Vic's manuscript. Mrs. Peterson did not find the adventure in Mexico all too easy to take, since some of her little ones could not stand the Mexican food and goat's milk, which came from smelly goats fed on wild food. She feared the numerous alligators and giant snakes might gobble up her children as they explored the new and fascinating land. Dad and Harold were riding a mule through the jungle when the animal stopped short before what looked like a thick rope or fire hose moving across the path in front of them. It turned out to be one of the giant snakes, which fortunately had its head far off the path and did not see them. The mule was too smart to step on it, so they survived that danger, but they estimated that the giant serpent was over twenty feet long, and it gave them a good scare, although they had said their prayers. Such exciting accounts of the Mexican venture were told later at meetings and parties during the years in the Rock Island home, so Rolf, Edith, and I learned of them vicariously. When mother bought what was sold as beefsteak and found stripes in it, she was sure that it came from a tiger, and it was known that there were tigers in the jungles. But when a family is hungry, almost any kind of meat will do. If by eating tiger meat one could be quick and very strong, then society might soon reduce the number of dangerous animals in the jungle. In fact, there seems to be plenty of solid meat in one of those giant snakes, and surely nobody was known to develop stripes on his skin from eating tiger meat, so why not try a python steak or anaconda meatballs? But Mom would not buy such exotic food. After Edith and Rolf had been deathly sick in a Chihuahua hospital a few weeks on the way down and been sent home to Rock Island, she didn't take any chances with strange and doubtful foods, drinks, and animals. Okay, back to Tom's comment. The notion that eating a fast animal such as a horse will make you fast, and a striped animal such as a tiger will make you striped harkens back to an ancient human belief that cultural anthropologists have called sympathetic magic. Magic in this case refers to how a food's properties transcend its biochemical makeup, that some sort of spirit or property inheres to the food that cannot be scientifically explained. There are so many examples of sympathetic magic and how it impacts our food choice of foods. The Chinese eat yard-long green beans based on the belief that your life will be longer as a result. For years, American athletes were told to eat steak in the belief that flesh begets flesh. Actually, you can beef yourself up on tofu just as well, which has a PER or protein efficiency ratio equivalent to beef. So while every culture has you are what you eat beliefs, they are just beliefs and are not based on any sort of science or data. We return to Uncle Vic. There were many difficulties to overcome. The workmen hired to do the clearing of logs in the jungle and harvesting the mahogany trees were quite obstinate and threatening toward their manager. So one day Dad aimed his pistol at a pheasant high in a tree and killed it with one shot. The men were very docile and obedient after that. He felt that the Lord was surely with him, for he was a truly faithful Lutheran. There were rumors and threats of a revolution against the government of Mexico, and though there were no shots fired in the area where they lived, they were quite unfortunately affected by the war scare, which drove investors away and caused a shortage of capital to run the company. Later on, a new government took over foreign-owned land so that many American plantation companies were driven out of Mexico. We return to a Tom's comment. The war scare that Uncle Vic refers to is the increasing resistance to President Diaz's rule, which marks the dawn of the Mexican Revolution. Diaz began his political career in the 1860s as a general instrumental in forcing the French out of Mexico. From 1880 to 1910, Diaz served as president. A radical liberal called Los Rojos, he believed that the Catholic Church was a powerful impediment to social and economic progress. Diaz was also a pragmatist, and he was able to navigate between conflicting interests during the golden years of his administration. That is, he could get along with the Catholic Church. Toward the end of his presidency, however, the elderly Diaz became quite resistant to sharing power, and the rising tide of dissatisfaction among various social classes resulted in a war scare that Uncle Vic alludes to. In addition to being a radical liberal, Diaz was also an early neoliberal, encouraging foreign investment and the enrichment of the upper classes while tolerating the mass impoverishment and abuse of the Mexican peasantry or Indios. One group that especially favored Diaz was the científicos, those who believed that science held a key to Mexico's future. 1906, the year of their departure, they were only there one year, when Uncle Vic's family gave up the plantation idea, coincided with the very beginnings of the Mexican Revolution. Foreign investment began to dry up as the Mexican government started to resist neoliberal elements. Finally, here's a little treat. This is one of Porfirio Diaz's favorite quotes. Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos, which means poor Mexico, so far from God and yet so close to the United States. That sums up most Mexicans' feelings about Los Norteños, that is, us Americans, the neighbors to the north. And now back to Uncle Vic. The only source of milk in southern Mexico was flocks of goats driven from door to door by a milkman who milked the fresh goat's milk at a set price. If you milk the goat yourself, you paid one third of the set price. Oliver was able to milk one quart daily for the family, and the servants milked their own. He was the only child who enjoyed the milking as well as the milk. During the early primary grades in the village school, he had two Mexican friends his age to work and play with, named Roman and Ernesto, sons of the family servants with whom he lived. They taught him to speak their native Indian language so he was able to converse with them. They also milked for the itinerant milkmen when he came to their cabin, saving precious money for their parents. Reuben could not stand the smell of the goats, which never had a bath and ate smelly wild weeds, so he could not milk the goats and could not drink the milk without throwing it up. And now another Tom's comment. The notions that goatey aroma in goat's milk comes from poorly washed goats or from smelly wild weeds are not borne out by science. Actually, goatiness is associated with three fatty acids found in the cream of goat's milk. These are caproic, caprylic, and capric fatty acids, named after copere, which is Latin for goat. All three fatty acids are synthesized in the lactocytes or milk-producing cells of the mammary gland and reflect the goat's biochemistry. These three fatty acids are not found in wild grasses, nor are they found in the dirt coating animals' fur. Goatiness in milk arises from the two factors that control freshness of all foods, time and temperature. The longer the milk spends at an elevated temperature, the more likely the fatty acids are cleaved off of triglycerides or fats by enzymes. And the fatty acids are released, which then become part of the milk's aroma. Strong-tasting weeds can impart an off flavor. It's just that it's not goatiness. Milk also acquires the aroma of its surroundings. Smokiness, burnt flavors, buck smell, the smell of the male goat, and poor sanitary practices all can all lead to off flavors. They're just not goatey flavors. And we return to Uncle Vic. Oliver, on the other hand, enjoyed it and probably benefited from the milk, since he grew tall and swam over a mile twice each school day to attend school with Roman and Ernesto. They felt safer from the snakes and animals in the jungle when they swam the small stream to and from school. In clear water they could see a long way ahead, so they had no fear of alligators. They could climb trees faster than any alligator could swim to them. Not only did they feel safer in the very clear stream, they also arrived in school cleaner than anyone else, including the teacher. Swimming home again in late afternoon, they all washed off the scholarly sweat of schoolwork, and they pitched in to do work around the house, which the drunken Indian manservant failed to do. His wife Galdina worked hard and brought much cheer not only to her family but also to the Petersons. I enjoyed hearing Mom tell about the songs Galdina sang while she worked around the little San Hieronimo home. She loved Oliver as if he were her own child, as it and she took care of him in her own cabin. It was a very happy and active life. Mom, Reuben, and Oliver lived in a small cabin with the two Indian servants, Jose and Galdina, called Mozos, and their two boys called Ernesto and Roman, pronounced Roman, who were almost the same age as Oliver. The three little boys went to school together while the two Mozos did all the cooking and house cleaning. The school was a mile and a half away, a Chotepec Indian school, where the tuition was$6 Mexican or$3 American, at that time for a 12-month full year of schooling. Ruben went to the Spanish school at the village center where the tuition was$60 in United States currency. But Oliver went to the better school because the teacher who taught at the Spanish school was very drunk from morning to night every day except Sunday. All Ruben had to do was memorize selected Bible verses in the Castilian Spanish, which he could not translate into English. He had no idea which verses he was memorizing. Most of the Spanish people were heavy drinkers of alcohol, but the Indians were not allowed to drink any liquor. San Hieronimo was a very hot, flat, sandy desert town at the base of Mount Han Hieronimo, a flat top and rocky mountain maybe about 5,000 feet high, not high enough for any snow on its top. Over the centuries the natives had carved out a very crude winding path with occasional crude steps at steep places in the path to the top. The native Indians would trudge their way to the top each Saturday night to worship each Sunday morning because they were all sun worshippers, including Jose Galdina and their boys. And now a Tom's comment. I googled San Hironimo and found five mountains by that name, none of them 5,000 feet or 1666 meters in height. I imagine there are tens of thousands of such mountains on Earth, and the vast majority of them are ungooglable. It's also possible that the town of San Hieronimo has disappeared, as in the ensuing 110 years, many Indios have moved to Mexico City or to Los Angeles. And back to Uncle Vic. At the Indian School, Mexican, a low grade Spanish, Chicotepec, and English were taught. The teacher was very excellent in the profession and he spoke all three languages very well. He was educated in some college in Texas. Oliver learned Spanish and Chapotepec very soon and could speak them quite well. He could translate John 316 when his brother Ruben spoke it from rote memorizing, although the Spanish teacher had never taught him this meaning of it. All of the Mexican boys treated Oliver like a Chapotepec Indian, and he liked being treated that way. Over mom's protests and with dad's permission, he wore nothing but a scanty little pair of short pants and no shoes, just like the Indian boys. The hot sands were so hot that he swam to school with the boys over a mile up the little San Hieronimo River, which was about a hundred to one hundred and fifty yards wide. It had a very mild current all the way up to the Cotsu River, where the plantation was located. The little girls in the school called him Blanco Diaz, white god, when they petted him on the shoulder. He truly enjoyed every day in his school, and his brother Ruben hated like sin every day that he had to go to the Spanish school. Oliver made good grades while Ruben struggled miserably under his drunken teacher. Mom and Dad could not understand why. The Spanish school and Ruben's school were only a few blocks from where he lived, but at least one or two days every week Ruben would be back home in a few minutes because the elderly Spanish school teacher was too drunk and he had no assistants to help him. The plantation must have been many miles up the little San Hieronimo River, which flowed rather close to the little wooden house they called home and close to the Chapotepec school. So Oliver had to get up at least an hour before Reuben because it took about half an hour or forty minutes to swim the school. Galdina always woke him up early singing with a big smile of love Guda Dida Rari Chunko which translates into English Good morning my little white darling. So where was this place? Mexico is a big country. There are two clues to go on. One, it must be in Oaxaca because as you'll find out later, they go to many parties hosted by President Porfirio Diaz, and they most likely would have been held in Oaxaca, which is the town he was from and which wasn't that far from the Cootzacolcos River. The second clue is the only word that actually checks out, the Coatzacolcos River. This is a very big river that starts high in the mountains of Oaxaca province and flows into the province of Veracruz, emptying out in the Gulf of Mexico in the town of Coatzacoalcos. The river is over 325 kilometers in length. So what is needed is a topographical map to find this place. One has to look for an area where the Coatzalcoalcos flows through a tropical zone with lots of rain, and yet the mountain San Hieronimo, which is nearby, is quite dry as you climb to the peak. It's a mystery, and I won't solve it using Google Maps, that's for sure. The fact that there is no San Jeronimo in this area is not particularly of concern, as more than 115 years have elapsed. Many of the Oaxacans moved to Mexico City or to the U.S. to escape poverty. Trying to fit the data together is compounded by the distortions of time. I'm thinking perhaps of collective memory because Victor gleaned all of this from all his uh family members. So the fact that I cannot find any ethnicity resembling Chapotepec probably means that the word uh got severely distorted over time. Or uh it may be that that uh uh that they completely died out or uh got absorbed. And now back to Uncle Vic. Oliver begged to go up the mountain, uh Mount St. San Hieronimo on Saturday nights with his Indian family, but mom said no because it was too dangerous. The Spanish always attacked the sun worshipping Indians on their way up Saturday nights, and there was always a lot of shooting. So Dad agreed to go up one Saturday night with the entire tribe of Chapotepec Indians. They took lunches with plenty of water and wrapped themselves in Indian blankets like serapis. They walked on a long, long column with the women and children in the center and a row of men on each side. The women and children carried the food and water, and the men were all armed with rifles and other forms of shoulder firearms. Dad walked with Galdina, Roman, Ernesto, and Oliver in the center column, though he was armed with a revolver and holster and a belt of ammunition. They started after sunset and walked to the mountain and up for a few hours. They then stopped at a narrow plateau to eat some food and let the very old Indians rest for a while. Toward midnight they started up again, up, up over a rocky path. The men never rested and hardly took time for more than anything absolutely necessary. Quiet scouts probed the areas outside the trail and signaled with secret whistles, which probably told the women that everything was okay. And now back to a Tom comment. It's interesting to speculate on what Uncle Vic means by Indians and Mexicans. Since the first conquistadors in the 16th century, societies throughout Latin America have had at the very least three social levels Indios or pure Indians, mestizos, or mixed blood Spaniards and Indians, and criollos, or pure blood Spaniards born in the country itself. Indios have always been at the bottom of the social pecking order. They do not have participate in the cash economy generally, but eke out an existence as peasants have done for thousands of years. Most Indios live up in the mountains away from the mainstream economy. The accumulated resentment of long-term enforced poverty is illustrated by the 1994 Zapatista Rebellion in neighboring Chiapas, east of Oaxaca, where this story takes place, which occurred in 1994. The people living in cities are often mestizos, having a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood. They occupy all levels of society from the very bottom, like the peasants, all the way to the top, like El Presidente. And the Criollos are usually old families that go back to the early days of the conquistadors. The criollos owned vast tracts of land until land reform, when the land was taken away from them. But they still have huge holdings in the countries and are live at a very high level. An interesting aside, Carlos Slim, a Mexican citizen of Lebanese Maronite Christian heritage, was at one time the richest man in the world, and he lives in Mexico. He was born in Mexico and he proved quite adept at buying and selling successful businesses. Recently, his net worth was assessed at$63 billion. This shows you that in Mexico, being an Indian may be a bit of an impediment because you are usually living up in the mountains away from modern society. But down in the flats, Mexico is very much a modern economy. And again, Back to Uncle Vic. On previous pilgrimages, the Spanish Mexicans would frequently attack the Indians with guns, firing wildly, and steal many valuables the Indians might be carrying to the open air house of worship. The Spanish never admitted that they attacked the Indians, even when on some Saturday nights some of the Spanish were shot, wounded, and taken to the hospitals. They'd always say we merely had a little accident while we were working. But the doctors told Dad that they were always removing bullets from the Spanish workers. Fortunately, there was no attack that night when Dad was with the pilgrimage. When Dad decided to go up the mountain the first time, he found out that the Indian law would not allow a non-sun worshiper to go up the sacred mountain with the tribe to worship. Oliver was allowed to go because he was adopted by the tribe for the trip up. But Dad was a very close personal friend of the president of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz. Dad had probably discussed the adoption by the tribe and his wanting to go up with the tribe. So the president issued a Mexican state edict ordering Victor O. Peterson to go up Mount San Hieronimo with the tribe to investigate the alleged shootings by the Mexicans bent on stealing from the tribe. That's the reason there was no shooting for good reason on the trip up the mountain. If an attacking Mexican had been caught, he would have been imprisoned by presidential edict signed by the president himself. And now a Tom comment. So I spent some time looking for the Chapotepec people. Oaxaca is the state in Mexico that has the largest group of indigenous people today. And of course, that's 110 years, 115 years later. But I couldn't find that name.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

I googled Oaxacan indigenous peoples, and here's what I found 17 different indigenous groups, including the Zapotecs, Miztex, Mixes, Triquis, Chinantecos, Chantinos, Huaves, Mazatecos, Nahuas, Amuzgos, Zokes, Chontales, Quicatekos, Chochotekos, Iscatecos, Tacuates, and Sotutziles.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

So either the name got changed over the decades of the story being retold in the family, or the group actually died out. Either of both are likely. Given the violent behaviors of the mestizos, that is people of mixed Spanish and Indian blood at that time, it's quite possible that the group died out. And given the difficult economic conditions caused by a Mexican government with little or no interest in its native peoples, it's quite possible that it was a small group that ended up looking for work in Oaxaca or Mexico City or Los Angeles. In fact, LA today is a very rich repository of Mexican indigenous groups who have given up their colorful and culturally interesting lives and places of living for jobs, jobs, jobs, and a whole lot of asphalt and wires. We return to Uncle Vic. Up, up and up they wound their way, stopping for brief rest periods for old men and women who found it difficult to climb so high. They reached the top maybe a little before sunrise. Each Indian family selected its favorite spot on the very large, smooth, level and flat solid rock. The sight surprised Dad because he had never heard of an old volcano leaving such a smooth, level and flat surface about the sizes of possibly six or eight football fields. He said there may have been a few large rocks lying around, which seemed to be placed around the perimeter of the flat level top, which the Indians may have moved to the perimeter. But no humans could have carved such a large, smooth and level surface off the very top of a five thousand or six thousand foot mountain. Dad discussed that at Augustana College with Dr. Udin, a well-known professor of geology, and he agreed with Dad that it was a remarkable and rare natural phenomenon. And back to Tom again. There is a geological feature called a batholith, which is typified by extreme smoothness and great size. When magma forces itself up through sedimentary layers of sandstone or limestone, it hardens, and then over hundreds of millions of years, the softer sedimentary rock wears away, and one is left with a harder, smooth rock. This rock is often pink because it is high in the mineral feldspar, and it often includes giant crystals of rare earth that are especially useful in the renewable energy industry. Ayers rock in Australia, Enchanted Rock in Texas, and Le Grand Rochet in Isia Ivory Coast, where I go are three examples. And now back to Uncle Vic.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Jose, with Galdina, Roman, Ernesto, and Oliver helping, spread out the family blankets and maybe some pads to sit on. Before the sunrise all kneeled facing the east, with heads bowed down clear to the ground and with heads covered. All stayed in that bowed position, told by Galdino not to peek, until they heard a voice coming from the east end of the area. Then all clasped hands together while some elderly man prayed through a megaphone in the Chopotepec language, thanking the sun for health, food, strength of bodies, warmth, good crops, love, children, happiness, and for maybe a hundred more wonderful things that their God, the Sun, had bestowed on them. His prayer must have lasted for possibly fifteen minutes. All then filed past the low platform of rock at the east end and deposited one penny Mexican in the sacred box on the platform. One penny per family, not one for each member of the family. Galdina and Jose told Dad not to deposit more than one penny for him and Oliver because that would offend the sun god. They all then filed home in bright sunshine at a much faster pace because it was all downhill and safe. Everybody was ecstatically happy, just as if they had celebrated communion, their holy communion.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Well that's it for the second of three podcasts in this series. Just a little update on what's happening on the chocolate front. Within the next week, we'll be renting a place near La Gepis, a charming medieval village on the Aveyron River. There we will start producing truffles and other confections in preparation for the Christmas market. Meanwhile, in the United States, a group of Kalpali students is working on a website that will feature our products for sale. Chocolate bars made in the villages of Depa and Pesoin will be available on those sites. I will have more news when I release podcast number 30, which is the last of the three readings from Uncle Vic's manuscript. See you sometime next week for the third of Uncle Vic's Manuscript Podcasts.