Esteban Montejo (en Cuba). A man AGAIN.

"…hands were swollen.  I camped under a tree.  I stayed there no more than four or five days.  All I had to do was hear the first human voice close by, and I would take off fast.

I came to hide in a cave for a time.  I lived there for a year and a half. . ..I was careful about all the sounds I made, And of the fires.  If I left a track, they could follow my path and catch me.  I climbed up and down so many hills that my legs and arms got as hard as sticks.  Little by little I got to know the woods.  And I began to like them.  Sometimes I would forget I was a Cimarron, and I would start to whistle.  Early on I used to whistle to get over the fear.  They say that when you whistle, you chase away the evil spirits.  But being a Cimarron in the woods you had to be on the lookout.  I didn't start whistling again because the guajiros or the slave catchers would come.  Since the Cimarron was a slave who ahd escaped, the masters sent a posse of rancheadores after them.  Mean guajiros with hunting dogs so they could drag you out of the woods in their jaws.  I never ran into any of them.  I never seen any of those dogs up close.  They were trained to catch blacks…  When a slave catcher caught a black, the master or the overseer gave him an ounce of gold or more.

Truth is that I lived well as a cimarron, very hidden, very comfortable.  I didn't even allow other cimarrones to spot me: "cimarron with cimarron sells a cimarron."  For a long time I didn't speak a word to anyone.  I liked that tranquility.  …You live half wild when you're a cimarron.

I found out about the end of slavery from all the people shouting. . . They shouted, "We're free now."  But I wasn't affected.  To my mind, it was a lie…  When I came out of the woods I started in walking, and I met an old woman with two children in her arms.  I called to her from a distance, and when she came up to me I asked her: "Tell me, is it true that we're no longer slaves?"  She answered me: "No, son, now we're really free."  And, with that, as quickly as I became a cimarron… I stopped being a cimaroon.  And became myself…a man…again."

[In 1963 at the age of 103, Estaban Montejo recounted his experiences to Cuban writer and ethnologist Miguel Barnet.  Montejo had suffered the lash and toiled as a slave.  He had escaped into the wilderness and lived for years as a Cimmaron/Maroon, and had fought as a soldier in the Cuban war of independence.  His story is a rare and remarkable window into the history of Cuba.]

Babies: Roots of Our Social Glue

NYT- ....Babies became adorable and keen to make connections with every passing adult gaze. Mothers became willing to play pass the baby. Dr. Hrdy points out that mother chimpanzees and gorillas jealously hold on to their infants for the first six months or more of life. Other females may express real interest in the newborn, but the mother does not let go: you never know when one of those females will turn infanticidal, or be unwilling or unable to defend the young ape against an infanticidal male.
By contrast, human mothers in virtually every culture studied allow others to hold their babies from birth onward, to a greater or lesser extent depending on tradition. Among the !Kung foragers of the Kalahari, babies are held by a father, grandmother, older sibling or some other allomother maybe 25 percent of the time. Among the Efe foragers of Central Africa, babies spend 60 percent of their daylight hours being toted around by somebody other than their mother. In 87 percent of foraging societies, mothers sometimes suckle each other’s children, another remarkable display of social trust. (more)

[wonder what the 'negro urbaner' of the Hood baby-hold rate is...certain it would be high compared to other bby 'tribes': idren in tact, sometimes despite we.]

School of self government opens in Chile

TEMUKO, Chile – Based on sections of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Mapuche School of Self Government began its first day of classes Jan. 14 in Temuko, Chile. (more).