A lapidary murder mystery
Puebloan, Hispano and Anglo characters ring true in this local who-done-it — and a notable story of the Totonac flying men
‘DEATH AT LA OSA: A PUEBLO TRIBAL POLICE MYSTERY’ By Jack Matthews
Sunstone Press (2021, 243 pp.)
Turquoise functions like gold in this contemporary mystery set in the fictitious Tulona Pueblo in northern New Mexico. As Hernán Cortés is quoted as replying to Moctezuma’s question why the Spanish came to Tenochtitlan in 1519: “We Spanish have sickness of the heart and its only cure is gold.”
The body of a man is found on the edge of Tulona Pueblo, punctured at the gut, yet having been moved from the original place where he bled to death. Called the Red Feather man by his boots and red bandana, the dead man seems to have been deliberately positioned to face the home of medicine man Santiago Majerus — rumored to be a sorcerer, a “Sleep Maker.”
That is one alluring clue. The other is that the Red Feather man wore a silver belt buckle bearing a turquoise stone of valuable but mysterious provenance. Where did this rare turquoise come from?
“The allure of turquoise stretches across time and the world,” explains the local jeweler Tony Rodarte to the investigating Tulona Pueblo policeman Richard Tafoya. “From Persia and Egypt to the American Southwest to China, this blue stone has been considered magical in power … In the Southwest, turquoise blue is considered the Father Sky stone, the male gem. Green turquoise is believed to be the Mother Earth stone, the female gem.”
The bad guys in this novel try to exploit the ancient rivalries over turquoise mining in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, such as the long-exhausted King’s Manassa and Cerrillos mines. In this story, the elusive gemlike stones originate in the Blue Lady mine — containing another tantalizing legend that seduces greedy men.
The plausibly imagined Tulona Pueblo lies at the heart of this cleverly informed murder mystery — located somewhere between Taos and Questa — there is even a map situating the town of Ojo Verde on the way. Familiar geographical markers like the “old blinking light” are a wink to local readers.
The tri-cultural characters, Puebloan, Hispano and Anglo, have a ring of verisimilitude in this deeply researched, delicately handled work by historian and anthropologist Jack Matthews, who makes his home between Fort Worth, Texas, and Taos.
Family ties are richly entangled among the Pueblo and neighboring towns, such as that of Ben Lovato, attending the ceremony at Earth Cloud Lake that opens the novel, and his pregnant wife Quails Looks Away, who both balance their reverence for the traditional ways (and gender roles) with the necessities of modern life. There are Churro ranchers Loretta and Armando Ortega, regularly hassled by the Department of Game and Fish wardens for bothering the elk; a young clueless Anglo trespassing on sacred Pueblo land, though he makes amends by offering to teach the tribal officer’s son to ski; and the crass and unsympathetic FBI agents who move in to investigate the tribal murder.
And simmering beneath the murder plot is the potential romance between tribal policeman Tafoya and U.S. Forest Service biology specialist Janet Rael (naturally, she drives a red Subaru).
The strength of the novel lies in its layers of authentic detail — from tribal rituals and sense of ceremony, clan relations and grievances that reach back decades but are never forgotten, to the enchanting setting of the high desert, villages and local speech and customs. Author Matthews emphasizes in his preface (as well as in extensive endnotes) that he “respects boundaries” in his depictions, such as of Tulona Feast Day, and has abided by “standards of Article 31, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007.”
‘THE BOY WHO FLIES: A STORY OF TODAY’S TOTONAC PEOPLE’
By JoAnne DeKeuster
(2021, 48 pp.)
The power of dance encapsulates the lesson in this elementary-age picture book told in the first person and inspired by the ancient Totonac people of Papantla, Veracruz, Mexico.
A 9-year-old boy, Arturo Fernando Hernandez, is making his first flight today as a member of Voladores de Papantla — a great and sober honor for the young scion of the 700-year-old ritual that commemorates the time of famine for the tribe.
With serious line and authentic detail, author and illustrator DeKeuster, who operates Enchanted Circle Pottery in Taos, delineates Arturo’s careful preparation for the day, starting with the symbolic clothing he dons, as colorful as the parrot he will impersonate at the ceremony. He listens again to his father’s retelling of the legend, when the elders asked the great spirits what they could do to end the famine.
“Dance for us and we shall observe,” was the reply, except the dance had to be performed very high in the sky, close to the heavens. So the ceremony of flying was perfected — from a tall tree trunk planted in the village center, chosen young men in colorful garb tied to rope drop many feet in the air and then spin around the pole.
On this day Arturo is wildly excited, but also frozen with fear. “What if I am not ready?” he wonders. “What if I disappoint our entire family?”
The moment arrives. Arturo remembers the words of his uncle: “Never look down. Always, always look up to the sky.”
DeKeuster captures these breathtaking moments of the novice voladore with a sense of feverish, however reassuring anticipation.