my hands I carved out a hole big enough to hold the owl. I placed the owl in the grave and I put a large stone over it so the coyotes would not dig it out, then I covered the hole with the earth of the llano. When I stood up I felt warm tears on my cheeks.
Around me the moonlight glittered on the pebbles of the llano, and in the night sky a million stars sparkled. Across the river I could see the twinkling lights of the town. In a week I would be returning to school, and as always I would be running up the goat path and crossing the bridge to go to church. Sometime in the future I would have to build my own dream out of those things that were so much a part of my childhood.
I heard the sound of a siren somewhere near the bridge and I knew my father and my uncle were returning with the sheriff. The dead Tenorio who had meddled with the fate of Narciso and Ultima would be carted away from our hills. I did not think that my uncle Pedro would be punished for killing such a man. He had saved my life, and perhaps if we had come earlier we would have saved Ultima. But it was better not to think that way. Ultima said to take life’s experiences and build strength from them, not weakness.
Tomorrow the women who came to mourn Ultima’s death would help my mother dress her in black, and my father would make her a fine pine coffin. The mourners would bring food and drink, and at night there would be a long velorio, the time of her wake. In two days we would celebrate the mass of the dead, and after mass we would take her body to the cemetery in Las Pasturas for burial. But all that would only be the ceremony that was prescribed by custom. Ultima was really buried here. Tonight.
Reading Group Guide
Q and A with Rudolfo Anaya
1. Which writers do you feel have most influenced your work?
I was influenced by a variety of writers while pursuing a degree in literature at the University of New Mexico in the early ’60s. I read contemporary and classical literature. As I wrote and found my own voice and style, I realized that the oral tradition of my community also influenced me. Writers are influenced not just by other authors but by a multiplicity of things.
2. In retrospect is there anything about Bless Me, Ultima you’ve discovered, but didn’t know as you were writing it?
Of course. This is why it’s fun to read the dozens of Ph.D. dissertations and articles written about it. Each reader brings a new perspective to the novel which becomes a new way of understanding it. These various ways of looking at the novel are helpful.
3. Did you model Ultima after your own mother?
No. Ultima is her own person.
4. What is your own experience with the supernatural?
The supernatural and ordinary reality are worlds that exist side by side. I don’t believe “the truth is out there,” I believe it’s within. To discover the truth and power within is to walk in the supernatural. There are many rituals, ceremonies, dances, and religious observances which all touch on the supernatural. These events are most effective when they touch the potential within. In New Mexico these ceremonies are happening all the time. We have many good healers (shamans) practicing today. If you need their help they’re there.
5. Which of your books was the most difficult to write?
Tortuga. It was painful to recreate the hospital and the suffering of the children. It was difficult to reveal the pain, and yet as writers that’s what we do, reveal.
6. How do you think your experience as a teacher influenced your writing?
It didn’t. I have always had my personal themes to develop in my writing and so writing meant revealing my personal path. Of course being around young people and sharing ideas was stimulating, as was publishing anthologies and editing magazines during those years.
7. What would you like your readers to come away with after reading Bless Me, Ultima?
I hope they experience a very unique world. I hope they follow Antonio’s journey and “live” with him through his experiences. I hope there is some healing in the process of reading, as there is in the process of writing.
8. Do you think there’s something different about Bless Me, Ultima than your other novels?
Each novel is unique. Children born from the same parents are unique. Bless Me, Ultima seems to carry the totality of the community’s beliefs in which the characters and the reader participate. Antonio’s experiences propel the plot, and his dreams add complexity to the childhood story. As writers we strive to compose a universe that we hope the reader can enter and know immediately, no matter how foreign the setting. Readers tell me they are able to enter the world of Bless Me, Ultima and come away strengthened by the emotions they feel while reading.
9. Your insight into the mind of the child is evident in your novels and children’s books. Is there a specific reason you are particularly drawn to the child as subject or object?
When I was a child, I thought as a child. As a writer I wanted to compose that world again. I think it’s that sense of loss and what we experienced as children that leads us to write about childhood. I also realize that reading is very important to people, especially young people. I want to hook them into reading.
10. What was your adolescence like?
Raised in the small town of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, on the Pecos River with the Chávez and Gonzáles friends nearby, it was an experience I wouldn’t trade. My family, and most people, were poor, but the setting was perfect for me. The extended family always visited. Playing along the river, attending school and church, experiencing small town incidents, the magic of the storytellers, all were material that later found its way into Bless Me, Ultima. Some say that I romanticized the hard times because my focus was on the magic in childhood. One cannot capture every aspect of a community in a novel, so one writes the themes one has to develop. Economic poverty was there, but the spirit of the people sustained us through the most difficult times.
11. What has the role of religion played in your life?
My mother was a very religious person, much like Antonio’s mother in the novel. I grew up completely imbued with the Catholic cosmology. Later I discovered there are many religions in the world, many spiritual paths. These paths are part of our inheritance as Nuevos Mexicanos. They stretch from Mesoamerica to the Indian Pueblos of the Río Grande, but the Catholic church in Mexico and in New Mexico had tried to wipe out the indigenous religions. Bless Me, Ultima begins to uncover the indigenous myths and teachings of the New World. Antonio is learning not only his Catholic Spanish heritage, but through Ultima he is discovering his Native American side. He must bring these divergent views together, i.e., create synthesis instead of opposition. That sense of discovery of a spiritual path has been my life’s work. Readers will find the theme in all of my books.
12. You have a special fondness for New Mexico. Why?
Economically, New Mexico ranks low, but we know the real treasure lies in the people, the landscape, and the history of its many communities. Here, people have struggled and survived for years, and they have not lost sight of the prize. We believe the region is a spiritual corridor; the earth nurtures us, and our deities can be invoked for the good of the community. Here, Native Americans have been saying prayers and keeping the world in balance for thousands of years. It’s difficult to make a living here, but beneath the daily struggle there exists a fulfilling spiritual sense. This is sacred space for us.