The Panama Hat Trail Page 12

  Hunched over, weather-beaten, and ageless, the Andean Indians seemed to be forever walking with heavy loads strapped to their backs. During the course of one week I saw them saddled with clothing, chickens, pigs, cattle (alive and butchered), babies, grandparents, firewood, straw, produce, cases of soft drinks, footlockers, milk jugs, furniture, bicycles, lumber, cinder blocks, sugarcane, pots of water, bundled newspapers, potatoes, tools, and tires. At the end of the nineteenth century, a historian wrote, a Cuenca aristocrat “had a grand piano imported from France carried on the backs of Indians over the Molleturu pass from the port of Guayaquil,” and in this century “the first car in Cuenca was carried in on the backs of Indians.” From the waist up they stoop over at a three-quarter angle to the ground, always looking as if they are headed into a stiff wind. Even when they are walking downhill they tread as if pulling themselves uphill. At times it seems as if the Indians carry the Andes themselves on their backs.

  At Tambo the route to Ingapirca turns right. Along the dirt road covering the last few miles to the site, dozens of Indian construction workers in ponchos formed a seemingly endless brigade, passing huge rocks up a hill whose crest was barely visible. Finally Ingapirca came into view. It is of genuine Incan construction and architecture—trapezoidal stone blocks niched together, crafted with such precision that only a razor-thin mortar binds them. For generations Ingapirca’s finely cut stone has supplied neighbors with home-construction material. Only portions of the ruin have been uncovered, and just recently has the government acted to preserve, protect, and explore it further.

  The ruin includes the stone frame of a castle of sorts, whose front yard consists of a nine-level terrace. Other structures were probably rooms for storage and sleeping, plus what appears to be a seat or perhaps a small bath. A circle of rocks covers a tomb, according to legend. Damp and chilly winds swept across the plateau. The Inca Highway itself winds by the site, and I took great satisfaction in walking one mile of what was left of the 3,250-mile Highway of the Sun, upon which Tupac Yupanqui, Huayna Cápac, Atahualpa, and other Incas had traveled five centuries earlier. The path’s most important point lies more than a thousand miles south at Cuzco, Peru, and according to Hernando de Soto was once wide enough “for six of my men mounted on horseback to ride abreast.” A child of eight who lived nearby approached and without prompting sputtered out a two-minute recitation of the area’s history.

  Within sight of the ruins, farmers tilled a steep field with their oxen while others planted seeds in their wake. At twelve noon a bell rang out, and the campesinos dropped to the ground, unwrapped the scarves from their faces, and pulled out their lunch. The tightly terraced mountainside looked like aisles in an amphitheater. Children who lived in farmhouses along the Inca Highway skipped by after school, entertaining themselves with pebbles substituting for marbles, hopscotch, and, using a cardboard box for a ball, soccer. Ingapirca’s groundskeeper, the one on-site employee, approached as I started up one walkway connecting several of the structures. “Take the other path if you can,” he advised. “This one is older, and we’re trying to preserve it as much as possible.” He was excited because some archaeologists from Spain were due in a couple of weeks to renew excavation efforts. “Who knows what they will find?” the groundskeeper said. “So many things here are yet to be discovered.”

  A guide from the government tourism office pointed out various nearby rocks, one of which takes the shape of an armchair, another a turtle, a third appears as a monkey, and yet another as the face of an Inca. “Do you see them?” she asked brightly, motioning me to the spot from which they appear most visible.

  I hesitated. “Not quite.”

  “Walk over here,” she suggested. I moved a few steps closer and looked again. “Ah, yes. Of course,” I said with a smile. “There’s the turtle, that one’s the monkey, the armchair is up there, and the Inca face is over there.” She lit up too, pleased that I’d seen the images. In truth, I hadn’t seen them at all, not a one, but by this time I’d learned the Ecuadoran custom of politely feigning agreement regardless of the circumstances.

  No one really knows what Ingapirca is all about, which makes it so tantalizing to archaeologists and tourism promoters alike. At the least it was a tambo, a resting spot along the Inca Highway at which the chieftans and their subordinates could spend the night. One theory speculates that Ingapirca was a depot for grain, another that it was a religious monument. A third theory, both elaborate and reasonable, suggests that Ingapirca was a lunar sanctuary.

  A few days after visiting Ingapirca I returned to Biblián and dropped in at Mini Mercado El Rocío. Everything was going well; Isaura was finishing up her second hat of the week and had already paid forty-five cents for the straw to make a couple more. Three customers bought items totaling seventy cents during my brief visit.

  To return to Cuenca I stood on the side of the road just south of town hoping to flag down a truck or a bus. An informal volleyball game was in progress between two policías rurales, across from whose station house I waited. With no words exchanged, they started hitting the ball to me, and I slapped it back. We continued for a few minutes, when one of the uniformed officers stepped out into the road to stop an old pickup truck and ask the driver for his papers. The man, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Moe of The Three Stooges, took out his registration. Although I was out of earshot, their gesticulations told the story. The driver asked why he had been stopped—he had done nothing wrong, his documents were in order, and he was in a hurry to get going. The cop listened patiently, nodded, then shook his head and finally took the driver by the arm. His partner joined him, and they escorted the hapless man across the street into their office. His wife watched from the pickup’s front seat with helpless contempt; their children looked on from its bed.

  A few minutes later the three emerged from the policemen’s shack. One of the cops was pocketing some bills while the driver, continuing his protests, walked back to his truck. Our volleyball game resumed as the pickup pulled away.

  When I returned to Cuenca to check out of my hotel, I ran into a situation I should have anticipated. I had stayed there on the recommendation of a government official in Quito who had assured me that arrangements would be made for my lodging to be gratis, or at the least the manager would grant—I think these were his exact words—“un descuento sustantial,” a substantial discount. Even though it was written in the 1860s, Frederick Hasaurek’s account in Four Years Among the Ecuadorians suggested this would happen: “This custom of making high sounding promises, which are not intended to be kept, is universal among Ecuadorians of the Sierra.” James Orton, who passed through ten years later, agreed: “A newly arrived foreigner is covered with promises: houses, horses, servants, yea, every thing is at his disposal.” Clearly a promise of hospitality was part of the national patrimony.

  The hotel manager had gone fishing, and the desk clerk, who doubled as the bellman, knew nothing of any arrangement. Neither, it developed upon his return, did the manager. Orton, again: “But alas! The traveler soon finds that this ceremony of words does not extend to deeds. He is never expected to call for the services so pompously proffered.” That was my mistake—calling for services so pompously proffered. When I was next in Quito, I made a point of visiting the pompous profferer. The hotel was satisfactory, I reported, but there was some mix-up with the bill. “Well, yes,” he offered gamely. “There did seem to be some confusion, didn’t there.” And that was that.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “ALL WE HAVE IS OURSELVES AND OUR STRAW”

  After I had found another hotel, Adriano González picked me up in his Travelall for the ride once more to Biblián. The fifty-five-year-old comisionista was going to show me the most critical transaction the sombrero de paja toquilla goes through: the sale from the weavers scattered throughout the countryside to the exporting factories, via the middlemen.

  Born and raised in Biblián, González moved to Cuenca when he turned twenty-five. He spends four
days a week in Biblián; the rest of the time he delivers hats to the factories and handles the money end of his trade. At a height surpassing six feet, González towers above the hundreds of weavers he deals with every week. That morning he wore a shirt with snaps up the front beneath a cardigan sweater and a gray jacket. A woman sat in the backseat the entire trip as if she wasn’t there; she didn’t say a word, nor was she spoken to. For more than an hour the chola received less attention than a Latin American seatbelt. Even in the rearview mirror González didn’t notice her. When the three of us got out in Biblián, she started carrying things into Adriano’s house. I motioned to her, mouthing silently: “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, her.” González seemed surprised that she had been acknowledged. “That’s my servant,” he said, at once answering the question and dismissing the subject.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her later.

  “I’m the servant,” she replied.

  I introduced myself. “And you are—” I said, hanging the sentence in midair.

  “—para servirle,” she answered. At your service. In the highlands of Ecuador, it had become increasingly apparent, you either have servants or you are one. There’s very little in between.

  A long hallway led from Adriano’s front door to a kitchen. A dark living room, also serving as the office, was off to the side. The main area, between the dark room and the kitchen, consisted of a large open space separated from the entranceway by a couple of low tables. An adjoining driveway had room for the Travelall, stacks of hats, and a dog. Inside plumbing distinguished the house from most Biblián homes. By the time we had parked the car and sat down in the open area, the servant already had water boiling for coffee and was heating up some bread she had bought at a storefront bakery down the block.

  A light drizzle began. Across the street, Humberto, who sat on the ground in front of his house selling tallos of toquilla straw, started gathering up his paja to save it from the rain. Isabel, a neighbor from one block over, stopped him to pick out twenty-six tallos, enough to weave three or four hats. She gave him sixty-five cents, twenty-five cents less than he asked for. “I’ll pay you the rest on Sunday when I get the money,” she said, pointing her head toward González’s place.

  “You know,” González said, “my work is very hard and I’ve become quite good at it. The main thing is that you have to keep up with it every month, every week, every day. I’ve known most of the weavers since they were little children. I know which ones will bring me the hats I ask for and which ones are not consistent. And I can tell which of the children will be good weavers when they get older. I encourage them. That’s my greatest joy.” I told him how the Ojeda family had impressed me. “Yes, and they’re also reliable. That’s the most important thing.” We sat down for some bread and cheese and coffee.

  “The weavers, they come in either before or after church on Sundays. Then they go to the market to buy their necessities and straw for next week. Some people avoid the crowd and bring their hats by during the week.” The sound of the front door opening echoed from down at the end of the hall.

  “My success has enabled me to have homes here in Biblián where I own eight houses, in Cuenca where I have four, and in Quito where I also have a house. I wish I had time today to take you out to my land. I have a cattle and apple farm near here.” He called for the servant to bring me an apple, and waited until I had taken a bite. “Isn’t it good?”

  A barefoot woman entered with her young daughter, tracking in mud the same color as her skin. A triangular plastic bag shaped like a dunce cap covered her own well-worn toquilla straw hat to protect it from the rain. She pulled a Panama from another plastic bag and clutched it by its loose ends. She and her daughter stood waiting on one side of the table while we sat talking on the other side. Motionless, silent, invisible, she was willing to wait as long as necessary. Adriano walked over presently and took the hat from her. He pulled a short ruler out of his pocket and pressed it for a few seconds against the brim so that one end touched the crown and the other overlapped the edge. Next he pressed it against the length of the crown, and finally he laid it across the top of the hat measuring its diameter.

  “Fifty cents,” he said. His offer was more of a statement. The little girl looked up at her mother and the mother looked over at González. Timidly, she said, “I thought that you—”

  “You should get sixty cents for a hat like this,” González interrupted, “but it isn’t wide enough. Look.” He fetched the model hat he had shown her and the other weavers the week before and got out the ruler once more. “See the difference?” he spoke in a tone that was neither threatening nor upsetting, but rather as parent to child or teacher to pupil. “Next week if you bring in a hat with the right dimensions you’ll get the full amount.” She nodded and held out her hand. The comisionista pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off fifty cents in sucres; to the daughter he gave a couple of sucre coins, a smile, and a pat on the head. The mother nodded, mumbled something unintelligible, turned around, and walked out with her little girl. González tossed the hat in the corner.

  Juan Peñafiel Verdugo walked in. He works exclusively for González, one of ten men who comb the countryside buying hats door to door. Everyone calls these men perros, dogs, snarling through the campo fetching hats and bringing them to their master. The term is no compliment, but it’s been in use for so long it has lost most of its bite. Peñafiel carried with him twenty-eight high-quality hats from Barrio Nuevo in Guapán, a small town to the east, where he spends Wednesdays and Fridays calling on the same weavers week after week. Adriano counted out the hats, piled them next to the barefoot lady’s handicraft in the corner, and went into the office to enter Juan’s count into his logbook and advance him some cash for the following week.

  Perros also stand on street corners on market days, intercepting weavers on their way to the comisionistas. They pay slightly less than the comisionistas, but by selling to perros the weavers avoid the long lines and the trouble of going to González and the others. Perros anchor themselves to the same corner on the same day every week, often buying from the same women week after week.

  “If you want to see a smaller town back in the campo where they make toquilla hats,” Juan said, “come out to Guapán with me or go to Paute or Déleg.” I had heard of Déleg; most of its male population was said to be living in the United States. “It’s not just Déleg,” he continued. “Everyone around here knows someone who has gone there. But they say Déleg sends the most.”

  I dropped in on the Ojedas that afternoon. They entertained me for an hour or so, and their almost ritualistic weaving of the hats grew more and more fascinating. Their craft, so skillful yet so mechanical, was the constant in their lives. The pride of the artisan, however, hardly ever burst through. Undervalued in its own country, the Panama hat must travel to foreign climes to be fully appreciated. María Elena wove as she kept one eye on Dany, each fiber placed in sequence at an angle over—or was it under?—the previous one. Her mother, Isaura, paused between weaving the crown and the brim on hers to rearrange items in the window of their store. Grandmother Catalina listened to the conversation, nodded, smiled, chatted in Spanish I couldn’t understand, all the while moving straws between the forefinger and thumb on each hand. If each strand of paja toquilla had been a musical instrument, the Ojeda family store would have swelled with a symphony.

  “Is there a saint or a special mass or a fiesta to honor the hat weavers or the straw?” I asked.

  “¡No! ¡No hay nada!” There’s nothing! they responded, practically in unison. But every job and crop is honored in some ceremony, I countered. You mean there’s no celebration connected with the sombrero de paja toquilla?

  “Well, we don’t have anything to celebrate, really. The others have their unions with power. What do we have? Nothing. Just ourselves and our straw.”

  How many heads have been covered by Catalina’s hats since she first started weaving Panamas? Figure an aver
age of four hats a week from ages eight to sixty, three weekly for the next twenty years, and one a week to the present. Strip away an arbitrary amount for distractions and disabling illnesses, and round off to the nearest hundred hats. In all, since turning eight years old in 1903, Catalina Encalada Martínez de Calderón has woven fourteen thousand Panama hats.

  “May I try it?” I blurted out. I don’t know what possessed me to ask, but my question provoked great laughter. “No, really,” I protested. “I mean it.” They all looked at each other and smiled. “Sure,” the señora said. “Sit here.” I took her place on a low stool. Janet handed me eight toquilla fibers, all newly moistened from a corn cob kept in a small tin bowl of water. The family gathered in a semicircle to watch the foreigner’s first attempt at what comes second nature to them.

  “Put them in twos so they cross over each other,” Isaura instructed. I put one pair of fibers in one direction, another flat on top at a ninety-degree angle to the first, and a third set in the direction of the first. As I started to put the fourth set down the first one came loose, which weakened the next two sets. I was back at the beginning.

  The girls tittered at my effort. “I’m left-handed,” I explained. “You know, el diablo,” the devil. “It might come out all backwards. Maybe that’s why it fell apart.” Isaura took my hands as if they were extensions of her own and arranged the eight fibers in position. “Next you pull the short ends up. That becomes the very center of the crown. It’s called la rosita.” The señora completed the rosita for me and handed it back.