Everyone calls it Bismuna, even many Miskito people, but it's really Bihmuna. Bihmuna, from Bihu Muna which literally means "Landward From Coco Plums", is a picturesque fishing village situated on the inland shore of a brackish lagoon of the same name. It has a narrow opening to the sea across from the village, and its waters provide a protected harbor for small vessels and many kinds of marine wildlife. Any twelve-year-old with a castnet can make money there. Bihmuna is a more prosperous community than the nearby villages on the Coco River, but for that very reason–learning to throw a castnet does not happen in a classroom–kids have little interest in school. The fishery is in jeopardy for lack of management, but never mind, the village is situated in a perfect spot to take advantage of alternative economic opportunities in the drug transshipment industry. They don't prepare you for that career in school either. Even if drug work were to dry up ... if every coke addict in the United States and Europe were suddenly to get angry enough at the injustice that they would all get together and just quit ... zero demand ... there still might be oil. That's what people are counting on. The ground water tastes oily. They can show you the iridescent streams seeping out of the ground. They can point to the spot where the oil company drilled a hole and capped it with a poker face back in the Somoza era. They know that the Nicaraguan Government's quarrel with Honduras over the maritime border has been heating up inversely proportionate to the waning fishery resources. In the political discourse surrounding the new territorial realignment, they are convinced that Brooklin Rivera's high minded talk about coastal vs riverine cultural and economic affinities is just a smoke screen concealing the real motive: transferring Bihmuna to the Sandy Bay district in order to appropriate tax revenues from future oil proffits. They've heard the rumor about the Hugo Chavez-Daniel Ortega deal for a thirty year concession to be awarded to Petróleos de Venezuela. Everyone is scrambling to be in position to benefit once the machinery stars rolling.
From shrimp to cocaine, cocaine to oil. Fast, easy money. Speculation about fast money gives rise to greedy thoughts. Greed and envy are fueling a revival of traditional witchcraft in the village of Bihmuna. When nine people died there suddenly during the month of October, Nicaraguan government authorities in Managua dispatched a special "anti-witchcraft" agent to investigate. They also called Humberto Lacayo, a Church of God pastor from Waspam, Rio Coco, to the scene. Between the ghostbuster and the man of God, they hoped to get to the bottom of the strange circumstances that had been reported and, perhaps, put an end to the string of mysterious deaths.
The situation in Bihmuna hadn't been a subject of conversation at all in Waspam. I was totally unaware of it until I went to Humberto's parsonage to see him before I left for the States. The practice of bumping people off with witchcraft has been commonplace since before Columbus anchored offshore in 1502, so it didn't command the attention of the poulace like the news of the airplane allegedly loaded with bags of money and some 1,500 kilos of cocaine that had just crashed in the jungle upriver near Wiwinak. By the time police arrived the only evidence to be found was two dead Columbian pilots. Every stall in the Waspam market was closed because anyone with anything to sell had taken their wares to Wiwinak, converting a village of 500 into a muddy swap-meet city. But while the eyes of the multitudes were being so powerfully drawn away by the allure of obscene riches, pastor Humberto headed in the opposite direction--to the coast--to do spiritual warfare where he was needed. That's the first thing I appreciate about Humberto: he maintains a spiritual focus.
Nutie and I caught up with him the morning after his return to Waspam. As always he was gracious and unassuming as he informed us of his recent activities. My curiosity was bursting to know what the government agent was doing to combat occult activity in Bihmuna, since my imagination had gone way beyond scenes from the Ghostbusters movies.
"He had a little gadget he used to find buried things," Humberto explained.
"Like what, a metal detector?" I asked, confused. Miskito people bury only plant and animal things in the ground by doorsteps and along footpaths used by their enemies. There's nothing a metal detector could possibly pick up.
"No, just some little gadget," he reiterated, holding in his hand an imaginary object as one would handle a television remote. The second thing I liked about Humberto was that he didn't elaborate on things he doesn't understand. Humberto applauded the fact that his supposedly secular counterpart had gotten people to turn in their books on black magic, and though he didn't know what technology the guy possessed, he acknowledged that it had dug up a lot of stuff. I myself was sceptical in the extreme. I didn't think this guy's "gadget" was anything empirical.
"Like what buried things?" I asked.
"Like snakes."
"Were they buried in jars with air holes in the lid, or what?"
"No, just sealed jars."
"Live snakes?"
"Yeah"
"How did they remain alive, buried underground without any air to breathe?"
That was a dumb question. Why did I bring up such simple details as keeping snakes alive without air? I didn't bother to ask how snakes buried underground in jars could possibly bite or otherwise inflict an intended victim with poison. In matters of witchcraft you have to be willing to suspend logic or else just chalk up any effects to the power of fear and psychosomatic distress.
"I don't know," Humberto admitted, "but I saw it with my own eyes. I don't believe everything I hear either, but I saw it with my own eyes."
"Three years ago in Bihmuna," he said, "there was a woman who suddenly began to wither in the prime of her youth. She was very close to death when I ministered to her. Her belly lurched strangely; then they brought out of her ... as if she were giving birth ... live animals: a toad, a swain (Jesus Christ Lizard), and a small boa about a meter long."
"She looks healthy now ... she works in the store across the street from Kofú," he added. "I saw it with my own eyes."
That's the third thing I appreciate about Humberto: he tells you the truth regardless of whether or not he thinks you're going to believe it. I believe him, but my feet aren't on the ground. Suspended disbelief. I'm uncomfortable and conflicted.
The fourth thing I appreciate about Humberto is his attitude toward the occult. He's not superstitious, he's rational, but he has a keenly developed sense of what our spiritual adversary is attempting to do. In the "magical realism" of the Miskito world, both pagan and Christian, spirituality is super-sized; spiritual manifestations are all around. Each year some bossy woman who loves to have preeminence bursts into a church somewhere to announce that a newborn baby has spoken the words, "Cristo viene pronto." Like, "Oh, news flash!" Every dream is prophetic, revealing what the future holds or declaring that which has been going on undetected, such as culpability for recent crimes. The cause of so many illnesses is, "Someone has cast a spell on me," and "The doctor said there was nothing wrong with him but he died two weeks later," even when the doctor had told the patient plainly that he had AIDS. Then there are the apparitions of demons in the guise of black dogs, the spirits of the deep giving lobster divers the bends, men who turn into monkeys at night, the isingni of a dead uncle who has caused nephew to wake up with a stiff neck by jumping on his back in his sleep, and legends of the great sukyas such as Mikitrik, who crossed the lagoon walking along the bottom like a tapir while smoking his pipe that stayed lit until he emerged on the far shore. Also, traveling "tag teams" of prophetesses--one speaking in tongues and the other interpreting--revealing to anyone who wants to know (and some who don't) who his or her real spouse is supposed to be or outing the alleged authors of witchcraft-induced events. The enemy is so toying with the Miskito people, keeping them guessing as to what is real and what is fake, and who is responsible for all of it. Humberto sees the powers of light and darkness in biblical ratio to each other and to the physical world and understands that the evidence of witchcraft is certainly the appearance of smoke and mirrors but not necessarily the fact of a sudden death. Often, the medium IS the message; people filled with greed or envy will puff themselves up with purported spiritual powers in the name of God or lasa while others, deluded or fearful, will succumb to their effects. Greed and envy: that is the essence of witchcraft here, in the world and in the church.
The story of how Humberto came to hear God's Spirit and trust His power over very real powers of spiritual darkness is one filled with supernatural happenstances. Humberto's father was an intrepid rainforest rover who took latex from chicle trees and sold it to white men for the purpose of making chewing gum. He had a fearless penchant for disappearing alone into the remotest parts--where evil spirits were known to hold sway unchallenged--for weeks in search of chicle. He pushed and poked at the skin of the unseen world, demanding that the evil spirit lasa show himself. One day he came upon an immense sisin or silk-cotton tree, which lasa was said to inhabit. Taking his axe to the trunk, he swung wildly, cutting and bruising deep beneath the bark, calling out, "If you're really there come out! I want to see you face to face."
Suddenly he became dizzy and passed out. Somehow he must have aroused himself and found his way out of the forest, because he was found close to the village, wandering in a delirious state. Nobody could do anything for him; his mind was gone. Finally his father (Humberto's grandfather), who was a sukya, came to his bedside. He pronounced a curse on the giant sisin tree, proclaiming that its branches would soon drop off and that withering, the tree would die. In the middle of the rainy season a precision drought occurred in that one spot in the rainforest. Sure enough, the branches fell off one by one, and the tree died. Humberto's father came to his senses, but from that time on was afraid to go out more than a few paces from his house alone.
He required his wife to be present with him at all times when he was working in the field, and so it was that Humberto was born in a lean-to in his father's bean field. As the boy grew, he replaced his mother as his father's constant companion in the forest. He couldn't to go to school because he had to be close to him; if his father didn't work, the family wouldn't eat. So Humberto grew up a forastero, strong and hard-working but without letters. He wondered many times as he stood out in the rain why his father was so fearful of being alone, and why he must be the victim of the destructive consequences of that fear. Later, his father taught him how to make misla, Miskito moonshine, and discovered how solitary men find happiness without the benefit of friends.
After the Sandinista victory over the Somoza regime, the Miskito people of the Wangki River were forced to relocate in large camps like Tasba Pri or else flee across the border into Honduras. Humberto, now a young man, stayed behind and was sent to live in Tasba Pri. This was a bright change of pace for him, since the people of Tasba Pri were commanded to produce crops collectively right there where they lived, instead of going off one by one to lonely clearings in the jungle. He loved the hard work of farming, but was tired of being alone. His enthusiasm made him a natural leader, and soon he found himself in charge of 85 laborers, most of them older than himself. Soon he had financial resources at his disposal as he was put in charge of buying rations, including liquor and cigarettes for the weekends. He was the party-meister, the magic man who could make everyone happy.
He also met and fell in love with Adela, a young school teacher. Adela was different. She was smart, sophisticated, knew how to read and write, and went to church. Even as a child, Humberto had always liked to go to the evangelistic campaigns that came to his native San Carlos, with Coleman lanterns or portable generators that set the place alight; he would peer in on them from the cover of the darkness outside, listening intently to the preaching until they prayed and shut down the meeting. Adela could preach too, and now he welcomed every chance to hear what was in the book they called Dawan Bila.
Adela also taught Humberto how to read and write, and before long he felt the call to ministry. They were married; later he led his father to the Lord and baptized him in the Wangki River along with his entire family. His father never again was afraid of being alone in the woods. Humberto and Adela raised children who, now grown, have given them grandchildren. Presently he is finishing up high school on Saturdays so that he can go to seminary and get his degree in theology. He knows that a lot of people have gone to seminary and never led anyone to the Lord; he credits Adela with preparing him for ministry. Still, he wants his degree. The fifth thing I appreciate about Humberto is that he knows where he is from, what he wants, and gives credit where credit is due.
He's preparing to return to Bihmuna with haste. He has met with the four churches in the community and organized a prayer vigil. Following that they will go over to Sandy Bay, the seat of the drug lords, and hold a three day evangelistic campaign. I'm saying goodbye, Nutie and I regret that we won't be able to go with him but inform him that we will be praying on our way to and in the United States. Praying for him from Hawaii; that sounds wrong but Humberto only hears the word "praying." I can't give him my phone number because I cancelled my old US plan in favor of a Nicaraguan go-phone during these six months. I give him my and Nutie's e-mail addresses, but he's presently got no e-mail. He promised that this time he's going to sign up and actually use the internet. He writes his cell number on the upper right hand corner of a piece of scrap paper ... 83379191 ... tearing off the tiniest piece imaginable. He hands it to me before embracing. I write his name ... Pastor Humberto ... in little Gideon letters and drop it into my pocket. No need to fold it up.
I've been carrying that shred of paper around with me for a week now, transferring it from pants to pants. What's wrong with me? Why don't I record it in a more permanent location? Nutie would say, "That's SO Miskito." I turn the paper over; there's misspelled handwriting on the other side: ...en la vición de ... con las nubes ... uno como un ...re, que vino as ... de Dios. This reminds me of a sixth thing I appreciate about Humberto: I've only seen glimpses of who he is, but I've seen enough to be certain that he loves God.
