Produced by Al Haines
When the Owl Cries
by PAUL BARTLETT
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1960
(C) PAUL BARTLETT 1960
First Printing
The Macmillan Company, New York
Brett-Macmillan Ltd., Galt, Ontario
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress catalog card number: 60-9265
_Para mi esposa, aficionada de Mexico, con todo mi carino_
When the owl cries, an Indian dies.
_Cuando el tecolote llora, se muere el Indio._
--Old Mexican saying
Author's Note
This novel commemorates the Fiftieth Anniversary of the MexicanRevolution. I have written the book because I am fond of Mexico, whereI have lived for many years. My story of an hacienda family, thoughnot historical, represents the end of hacienda life, the passing of thelanded aristocracy and the beginning of a democratic way. Only throughvolcanic eruption and earthquake could I symbolize the great socialchanges that began to take place about 1910.
_When the Owl Cries _
by
Paul Alexander Bartlett
INTRODUCTION
by
Steven James Bartlett
The book's title, _When the Owl Cries_, comes from the ancientMexican-Indian superstition, "_Cuando el tecolote llora, se muere elindio_"--"When the owl cries, an Indian dies."
ABOUT THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR
_When the Owl Cries_ has been described by reviewers as "The _Gone withthe Wind_ of Mexico." It is a gripping, vivid story that takes place ona huge estate, an hacienda, at the beginning of the Mexican Revolutionof 1910. The novel centers about the life of Don Raul Medina, soon totake over the management of the hacienda from his father, Fernando, whois now dying. Fernando has been a cruel _hacendado_, ruling with aniron hand, whip, and gun. Raul is caught in a complex web: hisestrangement from his emotionally frail and disturbed wife, his lovefor the young blonde Lucienne, _hacendada_ of a neighboring estate, andthe turmoil and hardships they are plunged into during the Revolution.The colorful, descriptive panorama of the novel leads the reader into afirst-hand experience as hacienda life came to an end as a result ofthe Revolution.
_When the Owl Cries_ was originally published in 1960 to commemoratethe fiftieth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution and was an immediatesuccess. The book was listed by the _New York Times Book Review_ in itsBest-seller/Recommended column for 13 continuous weeks after itsrelease. The novel received rave reviews across the country. Excerptsof a few of these reviews appear later in this introduction.
Readers may be interested in some personal background about the authorand where _When the Owl Cries_ was written. Paul Alexander Bartlett(1909-1990) was a fine artist and the author of numerous short stories,novels, and non-fiction works. He came to Mexico during WWII anddeveloped a life-long interest in visiting haciendas throughout thecountry in order to make the first large-scale artistic andphotographic record of these ancient, fascinating, but rapidlyvanishing places. His interest was inspired by the realization thatmost of these old estates were rapidly crumbling and disappearing afterthe ravages of the Mexican Revolution had left them in ruins, and fromthe neglect that followed the Revolution as Mexican peasants dismantledmany of the hacienda buildings for use as building materials.
From the mid-1940s until late in the 1980s, Bartlett visited more than350 haciendas throughout Mexico. Many were remote and difficult to findand then to visit. He, and often with me as his young _companero_,traveled by horseback, by car, boat, motorcycle, or on foot to visitthese old estates. Some were completely abandoned, the roofs of thebuildings having caved in, with gaping holes in their walls and treesgrowing up through their unsheltered floors. Some, in ramshacklecondition, were still being lived in by poor Mexican families. Veryrarely a select few were occupied or maintained in absentia by thedescendants of their original owners, while a small number of theestimated original 8,000 haciendas have been converted into touristhotels, schools, and government buildings.
There was no grant funding available for my father's lifelong project.It was a labor of love financed by his and my mother's meager savings,the frequent fate of creative artists. (My mother was ElizabethBartlett, well-known for her many published books of poetry.) Duringeach hacienda visit, my father made sketches he later turned intofinished pen-and-ink illustrations, of which he completed 350. Thecollection of hacienda illustrations was exhibited in more than 40one-man shows in leading galleries, museums, and libraries in the U.S.and Mexico. In addition, he took more than a thousand photographs ofthe haciendas. Before his death in 1990, the University Press ofColorado published his non-fiction book, _The Haciendas of Mexico: AnArtist's Record_, which contains selections of his many illustrationsand photographs, accompanied by a text that describes hacienda life andthe history of the haciendas.
In 1959, thanks to my parents' friendship with Cuca Camara, of thelong-established Camara family of Merida, Yucatan, my father wasoffered the opportunity live on one of the family's haciendas, locatedoutside of Merida between the small towns of Motul and Suma. My fatherand I lived at the Hacienda Kambul while he completed _When the OwlCries_. The Hacienda Kambul provided a very spartan existence: We sleptin hammocks in a large bare room of what had been the _casa principal_,the main residence of the hacienda. The 20-foot-high ceilings and thethick adobe walls helped cool the hot and dry Yucatecan weather; in themornings, swallows would fly through the opened ten-foot-high doorsinto the room, chitterling and swooping above our heads.
The author on horseback at the Hacienda Kambul]
The time there was not limited to serious writing. We went horsebackriding across the fields of _henequen_, whose fiber, like that ofsisal, was traditionally used for rope and twine. Sometimes, we wouldrelax in hammocks on the wide terrace of the _casa principal_. Often,we would travel out into the _campo_ on the hacienda's narrow-gaugerailway, on a flat-topped rail car pulled by a mule, called a_plataforma_.
Riding an hacienda _plataforma_. The author's son onthe right, the hacienda driver on the left, the mule in front.]
We had no electricity, so evenings were short and mornings early. Wehad a _huipil_-clad Maya maid, Bicha, who, along with a thin, old, lameMaya gentleman, Lazaro, helped us to provision ourselves on a close tostarvation diet. We were sometimes very sick from the polluted water ofthe well, which had unwisely been dug right next to the horse corral.We boiled the water conscientiously, but Moctezuma exacted considerablerevenge despite our efforts.
Stressful life at the Hacienda Kambul! The author's sonon the hacienda terrace; in the foreground their pet dog, a MexicanMaltese, named Mona, whose namesake appears in _When the Owl Cries_.]
It was hard to leave Kambul behind despite the weight we'd lost. But myfather had completed _When the Owl Cries_ in the most appropriatesetting for a book that seeks to recreate hacienda life, and we sharedmany happy memories of our outings and leisurely hours there.