'No. But they lived at a time when that knowledge was important.'
'Do you know anyone who has met such men?'
'No, I don't.'
'Did your benefactor know anyone?'
'He did.'
'Why didn't he arrive at the secrets of the sober head?'
'To tame the devil's weed into an ally is one of the most difficult tasks I know. She never became one with me, for example, perhaps because I was never fond of her.'
'Can you still use her as an ally in spite of not being fond of her?'
'I can; nevertheless, I prefer not to. Maybe it will be different for you.'
'Why is it called the devil's weed?'
Don Juan made a gesture of indifference, shrugged his shoulders, and remained quiet for some time. Finally he said that 'devil's weed' was her temporary name |su nombre de leche]. He also said there were other names for the devil's weed, but they were not to be used, because the calling of a name was a serious matter, especially if one was learning to tame an ally power. I asked him why the calling of a name was so serious a matter. He said names were reserved to be used only when one was calling for help, in moments of great stress and need, and he assured me that such moments happen sooner or later in the life of whoever seeks knowledge.
Today, during the afternoon, don Juan collected two Datura plants from the field.
Quite unexpectedly he brought the subject of the devil's weed into our conversation, and then asked me to go with him to the hills and look for one.
We drove to the nearby mountains. I got a shovel out of the trunk and walked into one of the canyons. We walked for quite a while, wading through the chaparral, which grew thick in the soft, sandy dirt. He stopped next to a small plant with dark— green leaves, and big, whitish, bell-shaped flowers.
'This one,' he said.
Immediately he started to shovel. I tried to help him but he refused with a strong shake of the head, and went on to dig a circular hole around the plant: a hole shaped like a cone, deep toward the outer edge and sloping into a mound in the centre of the circle. When he stopped digging he knelt close to the stem and with his fingers cleared the soft dirt around it, uncovering about four inches of a big, tuberous, forked root whose width contrasted markedly with the width of the stem, which was frail in comparison.
Don Juan looked at me and said the plant was a 'male' be— cause the root forked out from the exact point where it joined the stem. Then he stood up and started to walk away, looking for something.
'What are you looking for, don Juan?'
'I want to find a stick.'
I began to look around, hut he stopped me.
'Not you! You sit over there.' He pointed to some rocks twenty feet away. 'I will find it.'
He came back after a while with a long, dry branch. Using it as a digging stick, he loosened the dirt carefully along the two diverging branches of the root. He cleaned around them to a depth of approximately two feet. As he dug deeper the dirt became so hard-packed that it was practically impossible to penetrate it with the stick.
He came to a halt and sat down to catch his breath. I sat next to him. We did not talk for a long time.
'Why don't you dig it out with the shovel?' I asked.
'It could cut and injure the plant. I had to get a stick that belonged to this area so that, if I had struck the root, the injury wouldn't have bean as bad as one caused by a shovel or a foreign object.'
'What kind of a stick did you get?'
'Any dry branch of the paloverde tree would do. If there are no dry branches you have to cut a fresh one.'
'Can you use the branches of any other tree?'
'I told you, only paloverde and not any other.'
'Why is that so, don Juan?'
'Because the devil's weed has very few friends, and paloverde is the only tree in this area which agrees with her — the only thing that grabs or hooks onto it [lo unico que prende]. If you damage the root with a shovel she will not grow for you when you replant her, but if you injure her with such a stick, chances are the plant will not even feel it.'
'What are you going to do with the root now?
'I'm going to cut it. You must leave me. Go find another plant and wait until I call you.'
'Don't you want me to help you?' 'You may help me only if I ask you!'
I walked away and started to look for another plant in order to fight the strong desire to sneak around and watch him. After some time he joined me.
'Let us look for the female now,' he said.
'How do you tell them apart?'
'The female is taller and grows above the ground so it really looks like a small tree. The male is large and spreads out near the ground and looks more like a thick bush. Once we dig the female out you will see it has a single root going for quite a way before it becomes a fork. The male, on the other hand, has a forked root joined to the stem.'
We looked together through the field of daturas. Then, pointing to a plant, he said, 'That's a female.' And he proceeded to dig it out as he had done the other. As soon as he had cleared the root I was able to see that the root conformed to his prediction. I left him again when he was about to cut it.
When we got to his house he opened the bundle in which he had put the Datura plants. He took the larger one, the male, first and washed it in a big metal tray. Very carefully he scrubbed all the dirt from the root, stem, and leaves. After that meticulous cleaning, he severed the stem from the root by making a superficial incision around the width of their juncture with a short, serrated knife and by cracking them apart. He took the stem and separated every part of it by making individual heaps with leaves, flowers, and the prickly seedpods. He threw away everything that was dry or had been spoiled by worms, and kept only those parts that were complete. He tied together the two branches of the root with two pieces of string, cracked them in half after making a superficial cut at the joint, and got two pieces of root of equal size.
He then took a piece of rough burlap cloth and placed in it first the two pieces of root tied together; on top of them he put the leaves in a neat bunch, then the flowers, the seedpods, and the stem. He folded the burlap and made a knot with the corners.
He repeated exactly the same steps with the other plant, the female, except that when he got to the root, instead of cutting it, he left the fork intact, like an upside-down letter Y. Then he placed all the parts in another cloth bundle. When he finished, it was already dark.
Today, late in the afternoon, we returned to the topic of the devil's weed.
'I think we should start with that weed again,' don Juan said suddenly.
After a polite silence I asked him, 'What are you going to do with the plants?'
'The plants I dug out and cut are mine,' he said. 'It is as though they were myself; with them I'm going to teach you the way to tame the devil's weed.'
'How will you do that?'
'The devil's weed is divided into portions [partes]. Each one of these portions is different; each has its unique purpose and service.'
He opened his left hand and measured on the floor from the tip of his thumb to the tip of his fourth finger.
'This is my portion. You will measure yours with your own hand. Now, to establish dominion over the devil's weed, you must begin by taking the first portion of the root. But since I have brought you to her, you must take the first portion of the root of my plant. I have measured it for you, so it is really my portion that you must take at the beginning.'
