The Dragon and the Iguana
Neighbor children
stole my strawberries.
I caught a little dragon
with fearsome eyes.
I tied him to a cabbage plant
to scare the wicked children
who would plunder my garden.
I woke next morning
to find the dragon gone.
A neighbor’s iguana
cut the string to free him.
Iguanas like children
who share stolen berries.
Iguanas don’t fear dragons.
Iguana on a Rock [Huichol beaded sculpture] -- Hector Ortiz
Neighbor children
stole my strawberries.
I caught a little dragon
with fearsome eyes.
I tied him to a cabbage plant
to scare the wicked children
who would plunder my garden.
I woke next morning
to find the dragon gone.
A neighbor’s iguana
cut the string to free him.
Iguanas like children
who share stolen berries.
Iguanas don’t fear dragons.
Iguana on a Rock [Huichol beaded sculpture] -- Hector Ortiz
In 1768 Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti established himself as the auctor of the class Repilia in his "Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena" in which he defined 30 genera of reptiles (a decade earlier Carl Linnaeus' 10th edition of the "Systema Naturae" had only defined 10). Among the animals that was described for the 1st time was the iguana, a Latin American lizard called "iwana" in the Taino language of the Caribbean. They are distinctive by the presence of a dewlap (a row of spines that runs down their backs) and a small parietal eye on their heads, which can sense brightness but not details. They have keen vision and can see shapes, shadows, colors, and movement at long distances and employ visual signals to communicate with other iguanas.
ReplyDeleteThe Wixáritari ("the people"), known as the "Huichol" to others, reside in the mountains of central Mexico. They are noted for their rukures, beaded sculptures made of glass, plastic, or metal beads pressed onto a gourd or wooden form covered in beeswax. Traditional examples were made of ant-hill stones, corn kernels, bean or pumpkin seeds, small crystal rocks, deer meat or hair, wax figures, and even cotton balls glued onto the gourds. They were representations of requests or needs and were deposited in sacred places with the idea that "just as water is drunk out of a glass or food eaten off a plate, so the gods drink the requests that are put in the gourds, thus more easily finding out what the person wants."