I must begin with a disclaimer.  Though of Yaqui heritage, I am not full-blooded, and the white side of the family raised me. I have come late to the culture, do not know all of the stories, and the ones I do know I might have gotten wrong.  Yet I cannot be more wrong than some of the things already published about us.

(This will all come back to Faerie, in ways that you might not expect.)

Spring always turns my thoughts to my culture, when we celebrate the intensive Lenten Ceremonies, long hours of sacrifice and drama, humor and grief, fear and faith, and ultimate eucatastrophe.  Inevitably some white reporter will observe an hour or two of what stretches out for over a month, and he will write about Pagan customs thinly disguised as Christianity so as to evade the disapproval of some conqueror-priest.  Then he will leave our re-creations of the Passion (which he might not have recognized as such at all) and go home to play Easter Bunny with his children, hiding candy eggs that have far less to do with Easter than our masks and dancers, if he would but truly see.

I say this not to disparage Pagans in the least (I married one!)  Rather, I point out a myth: the notion that Christianity belongs solely to the modern western world, of progress and machinery and mass-produced candy eggs laced with imitation flavors, and that anything else, anything that seems more exotic, or older, or more primal, must of necessity be Pagan.  Including fairies.  I have even had devout Christians warn me that overmuch study of the archaeology of Biblical times could capsize my faith!  As for belief in fairies-well, that clearly puts me outside the shelter of the church.

Or does it?

Let's go back to my people, the Yaquis.  We did not come by our faith in the usual way of most Indian tribes, at gunpoint, after conquest, to the eradication of all the ancient ways before-an outrage that must rip the very heart of Jesus.  No, we came about it by listening to a Talking Tree.

The story begins back when our ancestors were a little people, in adulthood about the height of a modern human three-year-old child.  A talking tree came into their midst one day, whispering something in a strange language, but nobody except a young girl could understand what it said.  Her father told her to shut up and don't put on airs-how could she know anything about it?  But the elders sat beside the tree, day after day, trying to understand what it had to say, and failing.  Yet they could hear the whispers grow more urgent with time.  Finally they cried out, "Is there ANYONE who can understand this tree?"

Immediately the little girl's big brother stepped forward, saying, "My sister can," and they sent him to go fetch her.  Well, her father didn't like it one bit, and warned her not to embarrass the family too much with her prattling, but what could he do when the elders summoned her?

She listened, for days on end, and she translated for the people a terrifying message.  She said that an invader would come, riding on white mountains that moved across that sea which lay far to the east (and indeed a tall ship in white sails does look like a mountain when you've never seen a ship.)  The invaders would look like upright turtles with two arms above and four legs below (and so does a conquistador look, in armor, upon a horse) that they would bring a blasting fire with them, and that they would subdue and enslave many tribes.  In time they would even devise great metal birds that would lay eggs that burst into fire on contact, and would destroy whole communities (and it is true that, centuries later, the Mexican government first used aerial warfare on Yaqui villages.) 

Yet the Talking Tree knew two ways for the people to survive.

One would be for the people to stay small, master magic, and fade into the Sea Ania.  Anthropologists translate "Sea Ania" as "Flower World" or "Flower Reality", but the term comes closer to "Flower Climate"-a shiftable state of being.  And to understand the "flower" part, imagine yourself a desert people.  You go for months and months, seeing nothing but sand, and harsh-edged rock, and living things with thorns or prickles, fangs or tusks, horns or stingers.  Then a little rain falls, and suddenly seeds that you never knew were hidden in the sand sprout and bloom, and all the hostile-seeming plants bloom too, and the desert turns into fields of vivid color, and scent, and delicate shapes-just so does a little bit of grace, a little bit of magic, fall upon the soul, awakening seeds till then unseen.

The Sea Ania includes the Yo Ania (Magic Climate) the Huya Ania (Wilderness and Wildness) and the Tenku Ania (Dreams.) Just as a wild dandelion can crack through sidewalk at any moment, so can the Sea Ania overlap the Ania Yoem (Everyday Climate of Humankind) when you least expect it.  I have never heard the elders refer to it as Faerie, but if it isn't the same thing that the elders among the Celts have described, then I know nothing whatsoever.

The other choice, for those who wanted to stay and defend their land, would be to grow to human-size, large enough to take on the invaders in battle, to learn to hunt and so learn how to fight.  But the Talking Tree warned us that if we chose this path, we would have to embrace the religion of the conquerors, making it the next step in the religion that we already had, and to obtain baptism from our enemies.  For the invaders carried a great power that they themselves did not understand, and served badly, with a violence and arrogance that the Creator hated. If we served this Jesus better, He would change sides, and we would never face ultimate defeat.

Quite a divisive choice, you'd think!  And indeed half the people chose one way, and became the Surem, the Little People of the Desert, and the other half became the Yoeme, now called Yaquis.  But nobody fought about it, or second-guessed each other's decisions.  Instead the people threw a three-day festival in honor of each other, and "kissed each other goodbye" (which is how we explain it to children, but in fact there remains some trace of Surem traits among the Yoem, and Yoem traits among the Surem.)

So much the anthropologists would call legend, yet the historians tell some things not so easily explained.  History quite clearly states that the Spaniards found the Yoeme people already carrying crosses.  History records that the Spanish forces outnumbered the Yaquis three to one, that the Spaniards, who had already broken the mighty Aztec empire, had guns, and horses, and armor, and even after growing the Yaqui men stood only about as tall as a Spanish woman, if that (and even smaller Yaqui women fought beside the men.)  History also records that the Yaquis soundly defeated the Spaniards in battle that day-and then shocked them by demanding as their prize the right to be baptized!  They sent elders (women all) to inquire about the Spanish religion, agriculture, and music, and these women then came home with the loot of knowledge, more precious than the gold that the foolish invaders prized.

And it is true that the Yaqui remain undefeated.  We came very close to defeat at times; one fool even signed a treaty, though all others laughed him off as having no authority.  But in the nightmare days of Porfirio Diaz an exodus of Yaquis made it across the border, to Arizona in the United States, to live as free people, and from there supported their kinfolk's right to live free still in Mexico.  Though many died of hunger and exhaustion in that long march, women and children and men, they arrived on Easter Sunday-a sign that God had not forgotten the promise of the Talking Tree-and so named the community Pascua, which means "Easter".

And to this day, if a Yaqui becomes lost in the desert or otherwise in need of rescue, the Surem will come to our aid.  And artifacts of the Surem exist, though white archaeologists have not seen them.  And I have seen the Surem, myself.

(Here I must add another disclaimer.  I have a neurological condition called narcolepsy, and can slip into the Tenku Ania at the blink of an eye.  Sometimes I don't even fall down, but briefly dream standing up.  Those who don't believe in dreams will consider that evidence enough not to believe what I say.  Yet I have never heard any neurologist claim that locations can trigger narcoleptic seizures, so why have I seen a man of the Surem always and only at the same place in the desert?  And once, very briefly, I saw his home: an adobe structure about half the height of a human home, built round, not rectangular.)

Are we then Pagan, we Yaquis, for believing ourselves descended from what Europeans would surely call fairies?  For owing our conversion to the intercession of a tree that talks?  For seeing Christianity as a continuation of the Old Ways of magic, wilderness, and dreams, rather than as their vanquisher?  For thinking that God prefers the humble and the lovers of the land to the arrogant who think of land as one more thing to conquer?  Maybe, instead, it serves neither religion to mark too clear a divide limiting what belongs to each.  Maybe the Divine, no matter how perceived, stretches farther than mortal imagination, and has more children than we can guess.  Maybe we all can walk in Faerie.

By Dreamdeer

The Earthereal Life

"Life is beautiful and dangerous.  Beware!  Enjoy!

I'm called Dreamdeer, due to some pretty strong dreams about Deer. 

I currently live in the Sonora Desert with my wonderful husband, and have done dreamwork more or less all my life.  I indulge in writing and art at the least excuse. 

How do I live the magic?  It's kind of unavoidable for someone with narcolepsy, a condition that blurs the line between sleeping and waking and is apt to plunge me into a dream at any moment. 

In my maternal tribe, dreams are a legitimate variety of reality, part of a larger reality that seems to correspond most closely to the European concept of Faerie. 

I have come to accept that I must deal with whatever reality I happen to land in at the moment, prepared to shift gears in an instant.

Someday I'd like a tee-shirt saying - Narcolepsy: It's not just a disease, it's an adventure!"

Dreamdeer has been a member of Enchanted Folk since August 2008

members.enchantedfolk.com/dreamdeer