The Man In The Maze

In which we find a story of resilience from the Akimel O’odham people of Southern Arizona/Northern Mexico.

Falling from the vertiginous heights of the Library Of Found Things this week is a story that, at first glance, struck this wanderer as pretty weird and unnecessarily brutal. Sacred stories have a tendency to do that when they’re taken literally, so much so that sometimes it feels as if they jump out of the book and whack you around the face. However, taking a moment to parse what it could mean as a teaching tool reveals more to the story than just bloodshed.

Elder Brother And The Creation Of The Earth

There was a time when you people wanted to capture Elder Brother so that you might finally destroy him. You turned to Vulture, who created a miniature Earth with its own mountains, rivers and trees. It took him four days to complete and, when he was done, he flew around the Earth looking for Elder Brother, who was resting atop the newly-created land. Elder Brother’s strength had left him after all his deeds in benefit of humankind but Vulture saw the blue flame of immortality still resided in his heart and knew he couldn’t be killed.

When Elder Brother woke up he stood unsteadily on the new land beneath his feet. He saw the beautiful world Vulture had made and he was impressed. He went to a river in the west and took four branches from an arrow bush there. He blew smoke over them and laughed as he saw the magical power of his enemies on and within them. He rubbed the magic onto his buckskin bag and put the sticks inside. Immediately he felt his strength recover and he continued his journey.

Wherever he found a magician, Elder Brother crushed him and he did the same to the orators and the warriors. He even crushed his own small house beneath his feet before he sank beneath the earth and disappeared. He reappeared in the east and refreshed himself in the waters that lapped the mountain’s base. He touched the waters, the trees and journeyed further into the darkest places on earth. 

When he sat down in the darkness, he heard a voice ask him “Why are you here?” and Elder Brother answered in a despondent tone, “for all I have done for the people they still want to destroy me.”

He continued eastwards, renewing his power four times over where the sun rises. On his journey, he came across Talking Tree who asked him why he came like a ghost to that land. Elder Brother answered Talking Tree the same way he did the Darkness and Talking Tree reached around and broke a branch from his body, carved it into a war club and gave it to Elder Brother. Then Talking Tree broke off another branch and made a bundle of magical sticks out of it and gave them to him for his journey.

Elder Brother travelled to the drinking place of the sun and when he knelt down to drink, he saw a dark blue stone there. He took out the magical sticks of the arrow bush and he left them there but kept Talking Tree’s gifts. He walked south, picking up the strewn necklaces, earrings, feathers and flowers he found there and took them northwards and placed them somewhere new. Then he travelled to the place where the sun set and he slid down four times until he reached the place where the Earth Doctor lived.

The Earth Doctor asked him, “Why do you come here looking like a ghost?”

“Despite all that I have done for them the people still want to destroy me,” said Elder Brother.

Earth Doctor called the West Wind and it came and picked up Elder Brother and threw him to the east, then it violently hurled him back down to earth. The South Wind arrived, picked up Elder Brother and threw him north before the East Wind picked him up and launched him to the west. The winds dropped him back to earth again and Earth Doctor blew smoke on his chest, whereupon green leaves sprang from him and he gained consciousness. 

Then, Earth Doctor called a Council of all the beings in the underworld and carried Elder Brother, as if he were a child. to his newly-rebuilt house and lay him on his back. He sent Gray Gopher into the world and he travelled it extensively, seeing so many hateful people he thought they could never be conquered, then he gnawed at the magic power of their leader and weakened it. Then Gray Gopher returned and was recognised by the Council as a great magician and placed next to Elder Brother. After this, Elder Brother and all of the inhabitants of the nether world emerged once again like fierce birds of prey and conquered the people of the upper world with ease.

What In The Nether World Was That?!

This violent tale is based on Frank Russell’s 1908 report on the Akimel O’odham people and it features one of the main characters in their story cycles, Elder Brother or I’itoi.

This character’s role was to assert order on primordial chaos, as Erdoes & Ortiz put it. He did so not once but multiple times, often even dying in the process and being reborn to battle the forces of evil once again. Apparently this Found Tale was not told as a self-contained tale but as a narrative chain, “an episodic progression with neither beginnings nor ends”. It has that feel to it, too. As if Elder Brother faced adversity (in the form of some hateful people, ‘You’ specifically) time and again, sometimes winning and sometimes losing. Which makes a lot of sense when you learn about the iconography associated with Elder Brother.

Often referred to as The Man In The Maze, the drawing at the top of this article has been featured in many modern media, from Westworld to Fringe. However, when viewed in association with this sequential story of the many victories and failings of Elder Brother, the image takes on new meaning.

You see, the maze itself is life. The man standing at its entrance (or exit, as you may see it) represents all of us. He has gone through the maze taking wrong turns, falling flat on his face, making steady progress before realising he’s woefully mistaken and these ‘hateful foes’ just keep on coming. Just like the story of Elder Brother, the man is supposed to take these turns, supposed to stumble on those pitfalls and supposed to simply keep moving forward. After all, when you find yourself in a maze there really is no other option.

As the great Alfretta Antone said, “In real life ... when you look at the maze you start from the top and go into (it)... your life, you go down and then you reach a place where you have to turn around ... maybe in your own life you fall, something happens in your home, you are sad, you pick yourself up and you go on through the maze ... you go on and on and on ... maybe your child died ... or maybe somebody died, or you stop, you fall and you feel bad ... you get up, turn around and go again ... when you reach the middle of the maze ... that's when you see the Sun God and the Sun God blesses you and says you have made it ... that's where you die.

The maze is a symbol of life ... happiness, sadness ... and you reach your goal ... there's a dream there, and you reach that dream when you get to the middle of the maze ... that's what my grandparents told me that's how the maze is.”

That’s life, a series of false turns and pitfalls but I find a lot of reassurance in this image of the maze and its long life being passed from generation to generation. There’s a Tao to it, a Stoic’s ironic smile, and knowing countless people before me have found their way through it if they’re resilient gives me a warm fuzzy feeling …

… right until I walk face-first into another of the maze’s walls, that is.