From
The
Parables of Don Guangoche – Losing at Dice
Since moving away from
Taos, New Mexico in 2005, my visits with the Don Guangoche have been less
frequent. Last September, over a three day weekend I journeyed to Northern
New Mexico. I took a chance that Don Guangoche would be at home. I woke up
early to make the treacherous journey up a rocky four wheel drive pass.
The road winds its way through aspen and Douglas fir, into the Sangre de
Christos Mountains east of Taos.
Presenting a few simple
gifts is a way to honor a “sage”. It is a tradition, and shows respect. I
packed a box with tobacco, sweet grass, some coffee and ten pounds of
pinto beans. The occasional clink, clink, clink, from a bottle of tequila
hitting against a bottle of maple syrup, was the only sound besides the
grinding roar of the engine of my old Dodge truck lumbering along in low
gear. Nearing Don Guangoche’s cabin, his blue eye dog, Yapie escorted me
barking all the way to announce my arrival.
Don Guangoche’s cabin
clings to the edge of a steep canyon, perched like a huge bird house in a
clearing that juts out from the trees. From his front porch, the view is
180 degrees of Northern New Mexico. Looking west, you can see maybe sixty
miles to the horizon. The flat top mountain of Cerro Pedernal stands as a
centurion to the “Ancient Ones”, the Anasazi, whose ruins are not far from
Abiquiu. The huge boulders of Tres Pedres stand out, as if placed by the
hand of God and to the north the giant mound of San Antonio Mountain
distinguishes the boarder of New Mexico and Colorado, just before
Antonito.
Don Guangoche sat
rocking in a chair nonchalantly, as though I drove up his "river bed" of a
road every day. A half smoked, hand rolled cigarette hung from the corner
of his mouth, unlit. As my truck rolled to a stop, he waved his arm and
shouted, “Hey vato, come over here!” Yapie finally stopped barking as I
got down. My insides felt curdled like churned butter after the jolting
drive.
I shook Don Guangoche’s
hand. He pulled me into an embrace and then he slapped me hard on the
back. It was the kind of slap that stings and it carried the message that
my visits have been too long apart.
Don
Guangoche invited me in to his home, “Let’s eat something”. Sitting at Don
Guangoche’s table having a coffee, some chicos with refried beans and
thick home made tortillas was in its self a spiritual experience. The fire
in his wood stove heated the entire cabin as well as kept the coffee hot
and cooked the food that he eats. There’s always a pot of coffee and a pot
of pinto beans on the stove.
After
finishing the chicos and beans, he rolled a cigarette lit it from a
kitchen match that he struck on a post. “So, what is your question, what
do you want to know?” He asked me out of the blue. I really did not have a
question. It was just a social visit, at least that was what I thought. I
told him that I had some time off and decided to come to Taos and pay him
a visit. “Bullshit!” He said. “No one comes up that ball busting hill just
to see me unless they want something.” Next thing, I hear myself saying to
him, “Well, it is really not my question but a question that that others
are asking. I suppose I could use some of your insight.”
I went on
to explain how I had received email letters from people that played dice
at Indian casinos. It was their opinion that the dice games were unfair. I
told Don Guangoche how some of these people reported cheating and bias
dice to make sure players would always lose. The same players who formerly
won are now finding it impossible to win.
“You
White people are so vain. It is all about you and when it does not go your
way, you cry poor me, I am cheated.” He laughed hard at his own joke.
He went
on to explain that Natives had lived in flow before the White Man came
along. “If we did not kill an animal, we did not eat. We did not know
“poor me”, we just knew hunger. Did we stop living in flow? No, we kept on
with life.
After making my statements,
my first thought was where the hell did all of that come from? Don
Guangoche is going to think I am nuts for boring him with such trivial
nonsense. To my surprise, the old man simply said, “Yes, I know…
a decir verdad.”
Confirming what I had asked. Then he went on to tell me this story.
“You
should understand the White Man’s karma. You know the history of how the
People of the Land were lied to and mistreated. The Great Spirit is called
upon all the time. But it is not through Grandfather’s ways that things
happen the way that we think they do. It is the nature of all things to
strive to be in balance. That is the rule. Balance takes time. As a man,
we do not know about the direction of balance or the time involved for
things to come back around. You hear people all the time asking, “Why God,
why did this horrible thing have to happen?” Well, we do not know that it
is so horrible in fact, or just the balance of all things coming around.
To sit as judge is not man’s assignment on this earth, it is God’s.”
“Is it
not true, that in nature, everything is within a cycle? From season to
season, from birth to death, all things move in a circle, do they not? So
it is for the People of the Land. Although they are no longer able to live
life in their ways, their ways do live on.” Don Guangoche paused, puffed
on his cigarette and continued. “That the Native Americans survived long
enough to be given the power of gambling is critical in understanding the
complexity of the question you just asked.”
“For now,
the tables are turned. Instead of the Indians being plied with liquor and
lies to manipulate them, and swindle them from their homeland, now it is
the Indians’ turn to balance all the wrongs suffered upon them.”
“So, it
is part of the balance that the White Man flocks to the Indian casino to
gamble money away. It is in his nature. It is the White Man’s way of his
continued greed. Always more, always more. But see how the tables are now
turned. Ever consider why, with Indian casinos, the members of the tribe
are forbidden to gamble in their own casino?”
“I will
tell you a little of this and then you can do with it what you want. It is
powerful medicine and because it is so powerful, it is hidden. It is
invisible. So, no one will believe you when you tell of it. Because no one
can see it, no one will believe you. This is something I know you
understand. But no one will believe you. (He laughed) And the joke is on
the White Man because he says that “seeing is believing”, and in the
nature of things it is the other way around… we believe in the unseen, we
believe in the spirit of all things.”
Don
Guangoche puffed on a cigarette while holding his mug of coffee. He took
the last drink of coffee and said to me, “Let’s go outside”.
“Here is
the thing about this question, yes or no, it does not even matter to you.
It only matters to the “doubters” out there. Do you understand? Look out
there”. Don Guangoche pointed, sweeping his arm from south to north. “Do
you see anything or anyone who has curiosity about this question? Hell no!
Never the less, the answer to your question is out there, but it will not
be noticed by doubters. Just because something is unseen, that does not
mean that what you are asking about isn’t taking place. Confused esse?”
Don
Guangoche paused while looking at me, but I knew that his question was not
meant for me to answer. It was just his way of asking me if I was paying
attention. A gust of wind blew through the boughs of the fir tress. “Do
you hear the sound of fall coming in those trees? The wind always carries
a message. We need to have the wind blow through the trees in order to
hear the message. Without the trees resisting the wind, we’d hear nothing.
Hey, I have to return some of that coffee back to Mother Earth, then let’s
go back inside.”
The brisk
mountain air was refreshing but it was good to be back to the warmth of
the wood stove. Don Guangoche continued, “I am not going to say it all to
you, but I will tell you that it is not this concocted notion of cheating
with gimmicks that you ask about. There is no need for that. It all favors
the Indian casino now and the White Man should know this. After all, is it
not the White Man’s own game? Blaming the Indian for not being able to win
is so ironic. It is too funny when you tell me of this.” Don Guangoche
filled our coffee mugs with steaming coffee. “There is something going on
alright.” He paused to sip some coffee. “But it is not for this suspected
reason of cheating.”
“Have you
ever heard of the expression critical mass? After most of the tribes had
some sort of gambling on the reservation, Native casinos gained critical
mass. Like closing a circle, the energy that began the process of Tribal
casinos was complete. What is going on now, in my opinion, has to do with
making right the wrongs delivered by the White Man’s invasion of the land.
That is all.”
Don
Guangoche stopped talking as though that was all there was to it. He
started to roll up another cigarette. When he was finished, he shoved it
up behind his ear. He turned his head from my direction. Then, Don
Guangoche laughed a deep belly laugh as though he was really teasing me.
Shaking his head he asked, “What did you think, that I would tell you it
was some kind of a curse on the gamblers playing in Indian casinos?”
He
laughed again and asked me, “Is that what you think? No, mi amigo, it is
just the way of things in the natural cycle of how the balance is
maintained over time. However, this thing does involve a drawing energy
that pulls on the emotions of weak men. It is about the fear of loss.
Natives had to experience their loss in the way that they did. They lost
everything that was important to them. Now it is the White Man’s turn to
lose. The energy comes around. Gamblers lose what they fear. Gamblers fear
losing what they value. They fear losing money.”
Don
Guangoche nodded his head at me as if asking for my confirmation on the
subject. He finished what he had to say with, “Now, I know your next
question, otro vez. How I came to know about this question of yours?
“Later… I will tell you later when you buy me breakfast at Abe’s Cantina
in the morning.”
Don
Guangoche got up. He muttered something in Spanish as he walked over to
the wood piled near the woodstove. I noticed that he picked up several
sticks of juniper then gestured to me to open the woodstove’s door.
Juniper is my favorite wood smoke. The aroma of the smoke invokes a
beautiful feeling. Perhaps it is the reason it is often used for cooking
in Northern New Mexico.
The sun
was about an hour away from setting in a cloudless western sky. You have
to have clouds in order to have a spectacular Taos sunset. I poured two
tequilas while Don Guangoche was out in his root cellar. When he returned
he lit a couple of kerosene lamps before lighting the cigarette he had
stored behind his ear. He cocked his head sideways with the cigarette over
the top of a lamp’s chimney. He puffed smoke as the tip of the cigarette
began to glow red. Don Guangoche spoke as he exhaled smoke, “If you don’t
mind helping with the tamales you can eat super with me tonight.”
The next
morning we had strong coffee sweetened with the maple syrup that I
brought. Then Don Guangoche and I jumped into my Dodge truck and creeping
in low gear, slowly headed down the mountain for breakfast at Abe’s
Cantina. As the truck swayed violently left and right over the boulders,
Don Guangoche chuckled saying, “Don’t worry esse, you don’t have to bring
me back.” I questioned him with probably too much glee, “I don’t”? Don
Guangoche answered, “What the hell, you think you own the only truck in
Taos?”
We
finally got down off of the mountain and arrived at Abe’s Cantina in
Arroyo Seco. Don Guangoche said we would wait in the truck for a little
while. We sat in silence while he smoked. After awhile a tall man I did
not recognize walked into Abe’s. He looked like he was Native, but not
from Taos. He had dark, long flowing hair, with a red bandana tied about
his head and a cowboy hat. Don Guangoche grunted, “Let’s go.”
Inside
the café Don Guangoche nodded to the stranger and said, “Hey Roberto, come
over here and meet my friend Miguel.” This guy wants to know about the
singing in the Kiva. “Yeah?” said Roberto, “What singing?”
“Come
on,” said Don Guangoche, “You can say, vato, he’s okay. I already told him
most of it. You know, about the casino.”
“Unhuh,”
said Roberto. Then turning to me and speaking in a low voice he said,
“Okay, I don’t know what the old man may have told you, but it is probably
true.”
Don
Guangoche scrunched up his face and shrugged his shoulders as if saying,
“See, didn’t I tell you.”
Don Guangoche's Truck
Michael Vernon
"The Professor"
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