From Causes of Insomnia: "El Chiapero"

For years, the residents of El Chiapero have eaten tamales. The women start by smoothing corn chico – stewed with handshakes of crushed limestone and then dried – into a gritty masa. They move dark ears of rock over the disappearing gold buttons, the kernels growing smaller and smaller until there are no kernels. The black manos and metates are Chiaperoso mortars and pestles.

The men hunt javelinas with handguns and, when grey steam ruffles from the bullet hole, they straddle the struggling pig and slit its throat. From behind, two more men raise the legs of the beast. Its blood spills freely over dry ground. Before gutting the javelina and hoisting it on a spit—ragged wood crackling beneath the sow, skin turning as orange as the coals—hot water is poured over the carcass to depilate the hide.

Later, the masa is folded with lard and spread into cups of corn leaves cradled in hands. A fingerhook’s worth of roast pork is laid on the sheen of corn and rolled between palms, tied at the ends, and steamed in a basket. When the tamales are done, the husks are removed and snowcaps of salt are tossed on. Sprays of limejuice rain down.

The Chiaperosos live in what yorkinos call “mud huts” and, though they can’t tell you why, they spit on cracked ground when they hear the name Cortes. They wear shoes woven from recycled corn husks, the soles carved from mesquite roots, the sides packed with clay and corn silk and straw.

In Chiapero there are no electrical outlets. No running water, no television. No schools or school buses painted the bright and dull yellows of corn. Only a handful of residents know how to read, though they’d never admit it for fear of being called arrogant, or sangron, which means “to have a lot of blood.” To be labeled sangron means risking sharing the fate of the javelina.

It is the worst thing in Chiapero to be a sangron. It is the best thing to have sturdy shoes and warm tamale.