Journey To Ixtlan: Part 1: Chapter 02 - Erasing Personal History.

Journey To Ixtlan. ©1972 by Carlos Castaneda.

Part 1: Chapter 02 - Erasing Personal History.

Thursday, 1960 December 22

Don Juan was sitting on the floor by the door of his house with his back against the wall. He turned over a wooden milk crate, and asked me to sit down and make myself at home. I offered him some cigarettes. I had brought a carton of them. He said he did not smoke, but he accepted the gift. We talked about the coldness of the desert nights and other ordinary topics of conversation.

I asked him if I was interfering with his normal routine. He looked at me with a sort of frown. He said he had no routines, and that I could stay with him all afternoon if I wanted to.

I had prepared some genealogy and kinship charts that I wanted to fill out with his help. I had also compiled from ethnographic literature a long list of culture traits that were purported to belong to the Indians of the area. I wanted to go through the list with him, and mark all the items that were familiar to him.

I began with the kinship charts, and asked, "What did you call your father?"

Don Juan, with a very serious face, said, "I called him Dad."

I felt a little bit annoyed, but I proceeded on the assumption that he had not understood.

I showed don Juan the chart, and explained that one space was for the father, and another space was for the mother. I gave as an example the different words used in English and in Spanish for father and mother.

Then I thought that perhaps I should have taken mother first, so I asked, "What did you call your mother?"

In a naive tone, he replied, "I called her Mom."

I tried to be patient and polite, saying, "I mean what other words did you use to call your father and mother? How did you call them?"

Don Juan scratched his head, and looked at me with a stupid expression.

Then he said, "Golly! You got me there. Let me think."

After a moment's hesitation he seemed to remember something, and I got ready to write.

As if he were involved in serious thought, he said, "Well, how else did I call them?... I called them 'Hey, hey, Dad! Hey, hey, Mom!'"

I laughed against my desire. His expression was truly comical, and at that moment I did not know whether he was a preposterous old man pulling my leg, or whether he was really a simpleton.

Using all the patience I had, I explained to him that these were very serious questions, and that it was very important for my work to fill out the forms. I tried to make him understand the idea of a genealogy and personal history.

I asked, "What were the names of your father and mother?"

He looked at me with clear kind eyes, and he said softly, but with unsuspected force, "Do not waste your time with that crap."

I did not know what to say. It was as if someone else had uttered those words. A moment before, he had been a fumbling stupid Indian scratching his head, and then in an instant he had reversed the roles. I was the stupid one, and he was staring at me with an indescribable look that was not a look of arrogance, or defiance, or hatred, or contempt. His eyes were kind and clear and penetrating.

After a long pause, he said, "I do not have any personal history. One day I found out that personal history was no longer necessary for me, and, like drinking, I dropped it."

I did not quite understand what he meant by that. I suddenly felt ill at ease, and threatened.

I reminded him that he had assured me that it was all right to ask him questions, and he reiterated that he did not mind at all.

He looked at me probingly, and said, "I do not have personal history any more. I dropped it one day when I felt it was no longer necessary."

I stared at him and tried to detect the hidden meanings of his words.

I asked in an argumentative mood, "How can one drop one's personal history?".

Don Juan said, "One must first have the desire to drop it. And then one must proceed harmoniously to chop it off, little by little."

I had a terribly strong attachment to my personal history, and my family roots were deep. I honestly felt that without them my life had no continuity or purpose.

I exclaimed, "Why should anyone have such a desire? Or perhaps you should tell me what you mean by dropping one's personal history."

Don Juan cuttingly replied, "To do away with it. That is what I mean."

I insisted that I must not have understood the proposition, and added, "Take you for instance. You are a Yaqui. You can not change that."

Don Juan smiled and asked, "Am I? How do you know that?"

I replied, "True! I can not know that with certainty, at this point, but you know it, and that is what counts. That is what makes it personal history."

I felt I had driven a hard nail in.

Don Juan replied, "The fact that I know whether I am a Yaqui or not does not make it personal history. Only when someone else knows it does it become personal history, and I assure you that no one will ever know that for sure."

I had written down what he had said in a clumsy way. I stopped writing and looked at him. I could not figure him out.

I mentally ran through my impressions of him- the mysterious and unprecedented way he had looked at me during our first meeting; the charm with which he had claimed that he received agreement from everything around him; his annoying humor and his alertness; his look of bona fide stupidity when I asked about his father and mother; and then the unsuspected force of his statements which had snapped me apart.

As if he were reading my thoughts, don Juan said, "You do not know what I am, do you? You will never know who or what I am, because I do not have a personal history."

He asked me if I had a father.

I told him I did.

He said that my father was an example of what he had in mind. He urged me to remember what my father thought of me.

He said, "Your father knows everything about you, so he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do. And there is no power on earth that can make him change his mind about you."

Don Juan said that everybody that knew me had an idea about me, and that I kept feeding that idea with everything I did.

He dramatically asked, "Do you not see? You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal history, no explanations are needed. Nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all, no one pins you down with their thoughts."

Suddenly the idea became clear in my mind. I had almost known it myself, but I had never examined it. Not having personal history was indeed an appealing concept- at least on the intellectual level.

It gave me, however, a sense of loneliness which I found threatening and distasteful. I wanted to discuss my feelings with don Juan, but I kept myself in check. Something was terribly incongruous in the situation at hand. I felt ridiculous trying to get into a philosophical argument with an old Indian who obviously did not have the 'sophistication' of a university student. Somehow he had led me away from my original intention of asking him about his genealogy.

I tried to steer the conversation back to the topic I wanted, saying, "I do not know how we ended up talking about this when all I wanted was some names for my charts."

Don Juan responded, "It is terribly simple. The way we ended up talking about it was because I said that to ask questions about someone's past is a bunch of crap."

His tone was firm, and I felt there was no way to make him budge, so I changed my tactics.

I asked, "Is this idea of not having personal history something that the Yaquis do?"

He replied, "It is something that I do."

I asked him, "Where did you learn it?"

He replied, "I learned it during the course of my life."

I asked, "Did your father teach you that?"

Don Juan explained, "No. Let us say that I learned it by myself, and now I am going to give you its secret so you will not go away empty-handed today."

He had lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. I laughed at his histrionics, and I had to admit that he was stupendous at that. The thought crossed my mind that I was in the presence of a born actor.

He patronizingly said, "Write it down. Why not? You seem to be more comfortable writing."

I looked at him, and my eyes must have betrayed my confusion. He slapped his thighs, and laughed with great delight.

As if giving me time to write it down in my clumsy way, he slowly said, "It is best to erase all personal history, because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people."

I could not believe that he was actually saying that, and I had a very confusing moment.

Don Juan must have read my inner turmoil in my face and he used it immediately.

He said, "Take yourself, for instance. Right now you do not know whether you are coming or going. And that is so because I have erased my personal history. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am, or what I do."

I interjected, "But you yourself know who you are, do you not?"

Don Juan exclaimed, "You bet I... do not."

Then he laughed at my surprised look.

He had paused long enough in his statement to make me believe that he was going to say what I was anticipating- that he did know. His subterfuge was very threatening to me, and I actually became afraid.

Don Juan, in a low voice, said, "That is the little secret I am giving you today. Nobody knows my personal history. Nobody knows who I am or what I do. Not even I."

He squinted his eyes. He was not looking at me but beyond me over my right shoulder. He was sitting cross-legged. His back was straight, and yet he seemed to be so relaxed.

At that moment he was the very picture of fierceness. I fancied him to be an Indian chief- a 'red-skinned warrior' from the romantic frontier sagas of my childhood. My romanticism carried me away, and the most insidious feeling of ambivalence enveloped me. I could sincerely say that I liked him a great deal, and in the same breath I could say that I was deadly afraid of him.

He maintained his strange stare for a long moment.

Don Juan swept the surroundings with a gesture of his head, and said, "How can I know who I am, when I am all this?"

Then he glanced at me and smiled.

"Little by little you must create a fog around yourself. You must erase everything around you until nothing can be taken for granted; until nothing is any longer for sure, or real.

"Your problem now is that you are too real. Your endeavors are too real. Your moods are too real. Do not take things so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself."

It became clear to me then that he was prescribing behavior for me. All my life I had reached a breaking point when someone attempted to tell me what to do. The mere thought of being told what to do put me immediately on the defensive.

Belligerently I asked, "What for?"

Calmly don Juan said, "You said that you wanted to learn about plants. Do you want to get something for nothing? What do you think this is? We agreed that you would ask me questions, and that I would tell you what I know. If you do not like it, there is nothing else we can say to each other."

His terrible directness made me feel peeved; but begrudgingly I conceded to him that he was right.

He went on, "Let us put it this way then. If you want to learn about plants, since there is really nothing to say about them, you must, among other things, erase your personal history."

I asked, "How?"

Don Juan replied, "Begin with simple things, such as not revealing what you really do. Then you must leave everyone who knows you well. This way you will build up a fog around yourself."

I protested, "But that is absurd. Why should people not know me? What is wrong with that?"

He answered, "What is wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair taken for granted, and from that moment on you will not be able to break the tie of their thoughts.

"I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty- the way people know you, for instance."

I said, "But that would be lying."

Don Juan, in a severe tone, said, "I am not concerned with lies or truths. Lies are lies only if you have personal history."

I argued that I did not like to deliberately mystify people or mislead them.

His reply was that I misled everybody anyway.

The old man had touched a sore spot in my life. I did not pause to ask him what he meant by that, or how he knew that I mystified people all the time. I simply reacted to his statement; defending myself by means of an explanation. I said that I was painfully aware that my family and my friends believed I was unreliable, when in reality I had never told a lie in my life.

Don Juan said, "You always knew how to lie. The only thing that was missing was that you did not know why to do it. Now you do."

I protested.

I said, "Do you not see that I am really sick and tired of people thinking that I am unreliable?"

Don Juan replied with conviction, saying, "But you are unreliable."

I exclaimed, "Damn it to hell, man, I am not!"

My mood, instead of forcing him into seriousness, made him laugh hysterically. I really despised the old man for all his cockiness. Unfortunately he was right about me.

After a while I calmed down and don Juan continued talking.

He explained, "When one does not have personal history, nothing that one says can be taken for a lie. Your trouble is that you have to explain everything to everybody, compulsively, and at the same time you want to keep the freshness and the newness of what you do. Well, since you can not be excited after explaining everything you have done, you lie in order to keep on going."

I was truly bewildered by the scope of our conversation. I wrote down all the details of our exchange in the best way I could by concentrating on what he was saying rather than pausing to deliberate on my prejudices or on his meanings.

He said, "From now on, you must simply show people whatever you care to show them, but without ever telling them exactly how you have done it."

I exclaimed, "I can not keep secrets! What you are saying is useless to me."

Don Juan, with a fierce glint in his eyes, cuttingly said, "Then change!"

He looked like a strange wild animal. And yet he was so coherent in his thoughts and so verbal. My annoyance gave way to a state of irritating confusion.

He went on, saying, "You see, we only have two alternatives. We either take everything for sure and real, or we do not. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second, and erase personal history, we create a fog around us; a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out- not even ourselves."

I contended that erasing personal history would only increase our sensation of insecurity.

Don Juan answered, "When nothing is for sure we remain alert; perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we know everything."

He did not say another word for a very long time, and perhaps an hour went by in complete silence. I did not know what to ask. Finally he got up, and asked me to drive him to the nearby town.

I did not know why but our conversation had drained me. I felt like going to sleep. He asked me to stop on the way, and told me that if I wanted to relax I had to climb to the flat top of a small hill on the side of the road, and lie down on my stomach with my head towards the east.

He seemed to have a feeling of urgency.

I did not want to argue, or perhaps I was too tired to even speak. I climbed the hill, and did as he had prescribed.

I slept only two or three minutes, but it was sufficient to have my energy renewed.

We drove to the center of town where he told me to let him off.

As he stepped out of the car, don Juan said, "Come back again. Be sure to come back."