Cemeteries, Crows, and Curanderos

Growing up we camped a lot. We camped on vacations and weekend trips. My brother was a Boy Scout. My dad had been an Eagle Scout. I thought I knew basically everything I needed to know about the wilderness and camping. 

My family and I when I was in high school

One winter when I was in high school my family and this lady and her husband went camping in Big Bend National Park. It's on the border of West TX and Mexico. The man was a game warden and he knew all kinds of things I had never heard of.

He taught us about this white fuzzy thing on prickly pear cactus. When you touched it, it was red underneath and could be used to dye your skin. We had a lot of fun sneaking up on people and smearing it on their faces. We also learned about using long cactus thorns and reeds or thick grass to make spears. Then, we all threw these spears at each other.

One day we were driving around the park and stopped at an old cemetery. The cemetery had graves that were covered with pebbles and small rocks of all different types, agates, quartz, and some other beautiful rocks. They were stacked along graves and near and on headstones. Our friend saw some rocks she thought were pretty on someone's grave and put them in her pocket.

As we drove and walked around the rest of the day, we gave our friend grief for being a grave robber and stealing from the dead. There was a single crow nearly everywhere we went that day. Her husband and my dad lovingly convinced her the crow was a curandero or witch doctor, and it was going to curse her for stealing from the dead.

Later that day we drove past a different small cemetery. She hollered for us to stop. My dad backed up so we could get out there. She jumped out of the car and everyone sent me out with her. She put her rocks on the graves there although this cemetery did not have rocks. It had coins.... Lots of really OLD coins.

She thought the coins were neat, and so did I. She wanted to stop to look at them, but I refused to pause long enough to let her ponder robbing the dead again. The crows still were everywhere we went. We told her it was because now the curanderos were after her because she stole from the first grave and then put the rocks on the grave of the dead that wanted coins.

We had a chance of snow that night so we packed up camp and went to check into the lodge that night because none of us wanted to freeze. The men checked in and when they got into their room she was scared and yelped. There was a crow feather on laid upon her pillow.

I found out later that night her husband had found it and sneakily gave it to my brother, who quickly snuck in and out of their hotel room there while her husband distracted her unloading the car.