Laurie Anderson The Ugly One With The Jewels Lyrics

The Ugly One With The Jewels Lyrics

In 1974, I went to Mexico to visit my brother who was working as an
anthropologist with Tsutsil Indians, the last surviving Mayan tribe. And the
Tsutsil speak a lovely birdlike language and are quite tiny physically; I
towered over them. Mostly, I spent my days following the women around since my
brother wasn't really allowed to do this. We got up at 3am and began to
separate the corn into three colors. And we boiled it, ran to the mill and
back, and finally started to make the tortillas. Now all the other women's
tortillas were 360°, perfectly toasted, perfectly round; and after a lot of
practice mine were still lobe-sided and charred. And when they thought I wasn't
looking they threw them to the dogs. 

After breakfast we spent the rest of the day down at the river watching the
goats and braiding and unbraiding each other's hair. So usually there wasn't
that much to report. One day the women decided to braid my hair Tsutsil-style.
After they did this I saw my reflection in a puddle. I looked ridiculous but
they said, “Before we did this you were ugly, but now maybe you will find
a husband.� 



I lived within in a yurt, a thatched structure shaped like a cob cake. And
there's a central fireplace ringed by sleeping shelves sort of like a dry
beaver down. Now my Tsutsil name was Lausha, which loosely translated means
“the ugly one with the jewels�. Now ugly, OK, I was awfully tall by
local standards. But what did they mean by the jewels? I didn't find out what
this meant until one night, when I was taking my contact lenses out, and since
I'd lost the case I was carefully placing them on the sleeping shelf; suddenly
I noticed that everyone was staring at me and I realized that none of the
Tsutsil had ever seen glasses, much less contacts, and that these were the
jewels, the transparent, perfectly round, jewels that I carefully hid on the
shelf at night and then put for safekeeping into my eyes every morning. 



So I may have been ugly but so what? I had the jewels. 



Full fathom thy father lies

Of his bones are coral made

Those are pearls that were his eyes

Nothing of him that doth fade

But that suffers a sea change

Into something rich and strange

And I alone am left to tell the tale

Call me Ishmael