Sky People by Ardy Sixkiller Clarke Page B

like needles sticking in my body. I tried to get away but the pain was so bad I could not walk.”
    “When did the pain stop?” I asked.
    “I don’t remember much. I remember the sun coming up and we went home. We didn’t know that two cattle were killed. We found out the next evening when we met Alonzo.”
    “Did you tell him about the UFO?” I asked.
    “No. We were afraid he might think we were cursed by the Devil.”
    “Can you tell me anything else about that night?” I asked. Both of them shook their heads. After they left, Julia sat with me.
    “They are both good workers,” she said. “I hope Alonzo doesn’t fire them. Their families are poor.”
    I
often think of Alberto and Pedro. They reinforced the concept that our worldview is limited to the teachings of our ancestors, family, and environment. Without formal education, we become victims of religion, prejudice, and superstition. Alberto and Pedro were somewhat typical of many indigenous men I met during my travels. They were submissive to their bosses and worked hard. They loved their families. UFOs did not make sense to them, but the battle of good and evil fought in real life or in the stories of the Bible made sense to them. So they explained away their sighting with the teachings of the local Catholic priest and Christianity, sprinkled with a mix of superstition. They were not atypical, nor were they unique in their beliefs
.

Chapter 9
The Silver Man From the Stars
    A
bout one kilometer (.6 miles) beyond the ruins of Copán, “Las Sepulturas” was connected to the ancient city by a modern stone path. It was the residential area for the ancient city. Ceramics found there date back to 1000 BCE . It is a beautiful, peaceful site, well-maintained and excavated. There I met Luis, an elderly man who told me he lived in one of the Chorti Maya villages that clung to the mountainsides outside Copán Ruinas. As we talked, he told me about the caves that peppered the mountains around the ancient site and about a discovery that he and two of his friends made in one of the caves when they were boys. This is Luis’s story
.
    “We were typical boys growing up in the mountains. We worked hard to help our families and we played hard. We were adventurous youth and dreamed of life beyond these mountains, but we were afraid to leave. We heard stories from the scientists who came here about the outside world. I was born in 1904. I was five years old when Spinden [Herbert J. Spinden, assistant curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York from 1909 to 1929] came to Copán.”
    “So that must mean you are one hundred years old.”
    “I will be one hundred in two days. For now, I am ninety-nine. My name is Luis Santiago. I have seen many changes over the years at Copán. I worked at this site for nearly seventy-five years. Spinden was the first to hire me. Mostly, I was a runner. I would run to get things for them, carried water to them, broughttheir lunches to the site. I worked all day for about ten cents a day in U.S. dollars. Spinden said he would give me more money if I learned English. By the time I was eight, I spoke English. I learned fast. He was true to his word and paid me twenty-five cents a day until he left. I worked with the Carnegie scientists who came to excavate and restore the city after that. They paid me more like fifty cents a day because I could speak English.”
    “That is amazing. You have been involved in this site from the first explorations. You are like the resident historian.” He smiled at my comment, taking it as a compliment as it was intended.
    “When I was a boy, few visitors ever came—not like today. I worked at the site helping the archaeologists who came here to excavate and restore the city. It was an exciting time. Since I was one of the few people who spoke English, I was able to make a good living for my family by serving as an interpreter on the side.” He stopped and smiled as he