THE TRUE ALARCÁN

We have two common scorpion species here, one cream colored and the other black, the black one about 3 inches long if stretched out, and the cream one somewhat smaller. I don't know which species they are, but the cream one goes by the Spanish name of escorpión while the black one is called alarcán.

Roberto the gardener tells me that the sting of the larger, black alarcán is about as painful as a wasp, but the sting of the smaller, cream-colored escorpión is much worse. We can't talk about scorpions without Roberto recalling when he went into the scrub gathering firewood with a friend. His friend was stung by one of those little escorpiones, and it was really bad, his friend getting so he couldn't walk straight. Roberto always shows how he walked down the trail with his arms and legs spread, stumbling from side to side like a drunkard. His friend had to take injections and couldn't work the whole day.

A funny thing about scorpion names in Mexico is that in most places I've been all scorpions have been called alarcán, with the name escorpión used for designating small lizards. When Roberto brought me a black one this week he called it "the true alarcán," which makes me think that in the Maya mind the two scorpion species may be regarded as more different from one another than is apparent to me.

Scorpions here are pretty common if you look for them. You can go for weeks or even months without seeing one, but if you poke about beneath things in a storage shed or in a junk pile or woodpile, chances are good you'll see one or more. Our black and cream-colored ones live in similar habitats. The locals regard them with about the same awe as a North American might a wasp.