“Telling each other and ourselves stories is a way of finding our place in history, both private and personal. It is a way of locating ourselves in the larger dialogue.”
— Mary Marwitz “Writing for Wholeness: Personal and Cultural,” Essay

Today I received an email from a reader, Rosa Coyle-Hayward. She was asking about the history of descansos & the early pioneers. “where you found out that the early pioneers used to place memorials on their journeys?” She asked.

Of course, I pulled out my early research so that I can have an academically-appropriate respond – she is a university student after all – and immediately handed out these eloquent quotes.

“The enduring nature of the custom [descansos] and the art that it involves is reflected in the name of the city of Las Cruces (the Crosses), New Mexico, where crosses were erected centuries ago to mark the deaths of people who were killed by indians there and burried by people who came by the site soon after.”
— John O. West “Mexican-American Folklore”

And this one…

“…ancient Corsica, where it was the custom of passers-by to leave heaps of stones and broken branches at the site of violent death…”
— Rebecca Marie Kennerly “CULTURAL PERFORMANCE OF ROADSIDE SHRINES: A POSTSTRUCTURAL POSTMODERN ETHNOGRAPHY” – A Dissertation presented at Louisiana State University

Yep! these answer the question and are academically-grounded – But something is missing…

I though for a bit & then it hit me! The answers serve to respond, but why DID they really need to mark a spot?

Then I thought about “why did I start this project in the first place?” Yes I wanted to do a dissertation on the subject – that explains the research, but not why I started this site!

During my research I read “Descansos: An Interrupted Journey” by Rudolfo Anaya, & Juan Estevan Arellano and Denise Chavez (Del Norte , 1995) and I remember the reason why I created this site!

“Time touches everything with change. The old descanso became the new as the age of the automobile came to the provinces of New Mexico. How slow and soft and deeper seemed the time of our grandfathers. Horses or mules drew the wagons. ‘Voy a preparar el carro de vestia,’ my grandfather would say. I remember the sound of his words, the ceremony of his harnessing the horses.

Yes, there have always been accidents, a wagon would turn over, a man would die. But the journeys of our grandfathers were slow, there was time to contemplate the relationship of life and death. Now time moves fast, cars and trucks race like demons on the highways, there is little time to contemplate. Death comes quickly, and often it comes to our young.

Time has transformed the way we die, but time cannot transform the shadow of death. I remember very well the impact of the car on the people of the llano and the villages of my river valley. I remember because I had a glimpse of the old way, the way of my grandfather, and as a child I saw the entry of the automobile.One word describes the change for me: violence. The cuentos of the people became filled with tales of car wrecks, someone burned by gasoline while cleaning a carburetor, someone crippled for life in an accident. The crosses along the country roads increased. Violent death had come with the new age. Yes, there was utility, the ease of transportation, but at a price.

Pause and look at the cross on the side of the road, dear traveler, and remember the price we pay…”

That last line “remember the price we pay…” Yes it is a great price that our society has to pay.

I have learned that pioneers of old would bear witness to the tragedies that unfolded on their journeys and lay their respects with a marker. As do today’s poineers. We bear witness to the tragedy that so quickly come & go. A simple cross, a dented guardrail spray-painted or a pile of rocks are signs (descansos) that those who bear witness chose to express that “something happened here”…

Even on larger scale tragedies like 9-11, Princess Di, Oklahoma Bombing, we see people bearing witness and marking their personal spot – their grief – of the tragedy. It is human to grief, but it is really telling of our society how each one of us tells our stories.

Either as a safety warning – or – just recording a memory. A moment to express this grief & the love for that “someone” who died here. Bearing Witness is keeping that story alive inside of us.

As a way of finding my place within history…