High Desert Sketches

Hispanic-flavored Halloween

By GEORGE A. COVINGTON

There are many advantages to living in a remote and beautiful section of the High Chihuahuan Desert. Like most of the country, Halloween allows us to celebrate vampires, ghouls, goblins, ghosts, witches, zombies and the usual run of the socially unacceptable creatures of the night. However, with our heavy infusion of Hispanic culture we get even more creatures to copy.

La Llorona has been accused of drowning children for 400 years. Betrayed by her lover, she drowned her own children (no one knows why she didn’t try to drown the betraying lover) and has been trying to dunk other people’s kids ever since. Modern Hispanic mothers can wave their cell phones in the air and yell at misbehaving children, “Just remember, I’ve got La Llorona’s number and the dog’s water bowl is a lot deeper than it looks.”

chicken feet

The handsome young man with chicken feet has been around almost as long as La Llorona. The chicken feet symbolize that he is the devil or more honestly this is a simple morality tale to warn young women away from devilishly handsome young men. It might be simpler to tell them, “Check out his feet before his face.” Leo Dominguez swears he once gave a hitchhiker fitting this description a lift over to Marfa, probably to the NPR station.

The poor Chupacabra has been maligned more than he has been seen. The word chupacabra can be roughly translated as goat bloodsucker or Wall Street banker. This scuzzy-looking fanged creature with a beak is described as an anorexic, mangy dog that walks on its hind feet and picks on chickens and goats because they are the only creatures too dumb to run.

Twenty years ago, Bill and Lisa Ivey began a ritual in the Terlingua graveyard, which continues today.  “On Dia de los Muertos, we decided to take some old discarded jars and remnants of candles to the cemetery and distribute the lit candles among the graves,” Ivey explains.  “The day grew dark and cold as a blue northern came through.  We were down to only a few matches, so I decided after the last match we would retreat.  After putting the last match to the last candle we turned to leave and I bent over to pick something up.  Out of one of the supposedly empty jars, a fresh book of matches fell to the ground.  On the cover of the match book were the words ‘Your Host Thanks You’.”

the chupacabra

For non-Spanish speaking readers, Dia de los Muertos translates roughly as George Covington’s birthday, November 2. Purists translate it as the Day of the Dead.

The Terlingua Porch is a community gathering place that measures twelve by sixty feet and has heard enough stories to fill the encyclopedia Americana. Located in the Terlingua Ghost Town, some of these stories have been collected in Tales from the Terlingua Porch by Blair Pittman. One tale is fit for any Halloween telling.

Pittman, an outstanding writer, tells of his personal experience with a spooky situation. One evening he was cooking dinner for a friend named Will, who was camped nearby. When Will left to retrieve onions from his camp site, he disappeared for three hours on a trip that should have only taken several minutes. When he finally made it back to Blair’s house, he said he had been misled into the desert by Blair calling his name and saying, “Come over here.” After he almost he fell off a cliff and hearing mean laughter, he backtracked and eventually found his way to Blair’s driveway. Blair had never left his front porch. For more interesting details buy Blair’s book.

Happy High Desert Halloween!

George A. Covington

George A. Covington has worked in the fields of law, education, journalism and disability rights. He considers himself retired from every one of them with the possible exception of journalism. He is a graduate of the University of Texas schools of journalism and law. He moved to West Texas in 1997 after a 20-year career in Washington, D.C. where he once served on the staff of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (Democrat) and shortly thereafter served as Special Assistant to the Vice President of the United States (Republican) 1989 to 1993.

George A. Covington has worked in the fields of law, education, journalism and disability rights. He considers himself retired from every one of them with the possible exception of journalism. He is a graduate of the University of Texas schools of journalism and law. He moved to West Texas in 1997 after a 20-year career in Washington, D.C. where he once served on the staff of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (Democrat) and shortly thereafter served as Special Assistant to the Vice President of the United States (Republican) 1989 to 1993.