A few scattered reflections about rarámuri concept of time vs. Western concept of time

Many months ago, an anthropologist friend mentioned off-hand that the rarámuri have a different way of measuring time, that the entire concept of time as I know it is non-existent in rarámuri culture. That time is an invention, in all the forms that we rely on: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. The rarámuri measure time differently; even concepts that I take for granted, such as the idea of "a long time" and "a little while" take on different meaning in rarámuri culture, or perhaps do not exist at all. Once I attended a political meeting with about 15 rarámuri women from Oasis, of all ages. The youngest was 2 years old and the oldest was probably well past her sixties. We all had to fill out registration forms so that the political campaign could have our information to contact us, and of course the forms ask everyone their age. The younger rarámuri women born in the city know how to read and write, but many of the women born and raised in the Sierra do not know how, so campaign volunteers helped them by asking the questions on the forms and filling them out for them. When they asked the women their age, most of them answered "I don't know." I heard one volunteer, a young man dressed in a suit, say to Teresa, grandmother of 19 and great-grandmother of one, "which month do you like? Just choose one." He was smiling at her, teasing her lightly, but I thought it was disrespectful.

Cuka and Esperanza don't know how old they are. Cuka has three children, aged 14, 12 and 9. Esperanza has two children, aged 15 and 6. From looking at them, I figure the women are about 32 or 33 years old, but they could well be younger...or older. Chita, the mestizo neighbor who knows all the happenings in Oasis, says that Cuka arrived to Oasis with her parents and her new husband when she was probably about 14 years old, but there is no way to be sure. Rarámuri mothers who live deep in the Sierra usually don't travel to hospitals or clinics to give birth, so their babies never receive birth certificates. What's more, they are so physically far from Western society and its conventions that they never attend school, which means they never learn to keep track of time with a calendar. When I asked Esperanza how old she was, she answered, "I don't know. My mom never knew what year it was."

With migration to the city, most young rarámuri enter school and become familiar with Western ideas of time, although I think many of them (including Julissa and Jiovanna) find themselves between two cultures, two sets of established norms and ideologies. In traditional rarámuri culture, age is measured by the body's changes. As a female, you are a teweke (girl) until menstruation begins, and then you become an iweke (woman) and it is time to begin activities that iwekes do: find a partner, have children, learn to sew and cook and care for children. The idea of teenage or adolescent years is non-existent, although I can see traces of Western influence in many rarámuri families in Oasis. For example, Esperanza's daughter is 15 and does not have a partner, does not plan to have one anytime soon, and does not know how to cook or sew. Esperanza once said that she wants her daughters to enjoy their youth and not work or take on the responsibilities of marriage and adulthood until they are about 18--a very Western way of measuring time and age. More and more, mothers who do not know their own age are adopting this idea and raising their children by it.

And yet, the women often tease me for being 24 years old and still unmarried and childless. They teasingly call me "teweke" (girl) when most Westerners would consider me a young woman. They often ask me when I am going to settle down and have kids, and are very amused when I say I have no plans in the near future.

My anthropologist friend remarked once that events in Oasis are never scheduled for a specific time, and that "a long while" for us is often considered a short time for the rarámuri. I have observed this in the hours upon hours that the rarámuri spend dancing matachines during December and dancing as fariseos during Holy Week. Dancing often doesn't stop even throughout the night, and physical exhaustion does not seem to be a factor in calculating how long the dances should last. The same with the races: in the Sierra, they can last for days, but even in the city I have witnessed races of distances and length of time that I could never even dream of completing myself, but are a norm within their culture. It is very difficult to articulate and form conclusions about such a theoretical topic, but I really feel that the way the rarámuri measure age and the passage of time is an extremely important marker of cultural identity. Certainly a lot of these thoughts have caused me to question why I measure my life the way I do, and why I possess certain ideas and behaviors--all things to explore in more writing to come.