Chón, el Mudo, lives in a world without sound. He has been deaf since birth, and lacking the power of hearing, his other senses have grown keen. When he looks at me with his deep-set eyes I feel that he is reaching inside of me, feeling with the fingertips of some secret “vision” the very contours of my soul. I am grateful that I pass his inspection and that he accepts me as a friend.

The degree to which Chón the Mute manages to communicate without hearing or speaking is extraordinary. His manner of expression is beautiful. He is tall and slender and his arms are long and thin. His large dark hands he moves with the grace of a dancer. He expresses himself with his hands, his arms, his face, his entire body, the gestures of the one leading and flowing into the motion of the other. With no other teacher than necessity, he has evolved an art of pantomime parallel to that of Marcel Marceau. He is a marvel to watch.

Yet pantomime is an art more or less native to the village of Ajoya. Where other people would “hablar en secreto”, the villagers frequently express themselves with gestures. For instance, when Everardo, the playboy and clown of the Familia Chavarín, inquired of me whether I would supply him with aphrodisiacs, he used no words at all, and yet it was imminently obvious what he was talking about, and the effect he desired from the girl he sought to seduce. Similarly when he asked me to bring opium down to him from the mountain, his gestures portraying the opium and procedure of opening the poppy head were dexterous and precise, almost ritualistic, with a wild grin on his face. One afternoon when Everardo motioned for me to follow him into a back room of the casa, making strange and covetous gestures, I had no idea what was in store, but it was to show me some rocks from a secret vein in the cliff he had discovered, and (because most Americans who put a foot into the Sierra Madre are miners) he wanted my advice as to whether his stones were gold bearing, I told him I had no clue.

When “talking” with Chón the Mute, the villagers automatically fall into a sort of sign language, throwing in an unheard word here and there for emphasis, and almost any subject matter seems to be quickly and simply communicated. I found myself talking with Chón in the same way.

Chón has taught himself to read and to write. He is obviously very bright, and has not wasted his mind of superficial chatter. The family he comes from is the poorest of poor and Chón earns his living making “jaulas” or birdcages and “trampas” or traps for rats, from logs which he splits and from sticks. He also makes handsome children’s toys out of wood, carving the pieces with his long, agile fingers. In addition he makes “hamacas” (webbed hammocks) by carefully knotting string.

Chón loves animals. When he first saw a pet squirrel of Ramona’s he fell in love with it. (Ramona told me this tale with some irritation.) Chón asked Ramona if he could borrow the squirrel for a couple of days. Ramona lent it to him, but Chón refused to return it, and when Ramona asked for it back, Chón insisted that it was his now and that he had paid her 10 pesos for it. (He had previously offered her 10 pesos but Ramona, also fond of the squirrel, had refused to sell it.) Chón even went so far as to take Ramona before the “síndico” (Ejidal police) about the squirrel, and when finally the decision was made in her favor, Chón wept like a little boy, not for losing the contest, but over losing the squirrel.