The Water Witch and the Tlaxcaltecas

In Mexico, east of Mexico City lies the land of the Tlazcaltecas. The ancestors of the people there were fierce warriors who allied with Cortez and helped him capture the city of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. I was there with my new and young apprentice geologist "Bob", fresh from university, to drill down to groundwater and to determine if there was any contamination there.

Our work was of great interest to the locals. They came to see us and wonder what we were doing. We always had a crowd there, watching. Before we started drilling I wanted my assistant to determine where the water line was that we knew crossed the site. I wanted him to find it, to mark it so that we didn’t destroy it during drilling. It was the only source of freshwater for the locals and the nearby town of Apizaco.

Bob had his own ideas about how to find the water line and told me that he’d ‘witch it in’. I made the mistake of just telling him no and then going off to make some phone calls.

When I arrived back at the worksite I knew something was wrong. There was a large crowd gathered at the center of the site, and Bob was right in the middle, earnestly trying to explain something to the locals. I could see that the townfolk weren’t happy, and some even had machetes. It turned out that Bob had decided to show me that he could indeed water witch in the waterline. So he made some wands and started looking for the line while I was away.

The locals were curious. What WAS he doing? And before long some of them gathered around and asked. Bob tried to explain, but his Spanish was limited to ‘cerveza’. Somehow the word ‘witch’ was understood and by the time I got there the town was in an uproar and Bob was beginning to understand that he had screwed up. I got him out by telling everyone that I was taking him to see the local Catholic Priest. And we did go see the priest, and we did make a donation to the church, and the priest did come and bless Bob, myself and the site with holy water in full view of the crowd. Bob even made himself a large cross from twisted wire and held it up where everyone could see.

But as the priest droned on I realized that I had lost track of my young geologist. I spotted him then, behind the crowd, behind their backs as they focused on the priest and his sermon, using the damn cross to try and water-witch the water line in while no one was watching.

Later, after I had calmed everyone down, again, I drove Bob to the airport and sent him back to the States. And when I went back to the site I damn well didn’t look for that water line again or make any moves that might be misunderstood as witchcraft by the descendants of the fierce Tlaxcaltecas whose ancestors had massacred the Aztecs.

And that is the story of the Water Witch and the Tlaxcaltecas.