Tuesday, June 10
Topic: The Head Slither
For my first day of school Stephen’s brother drove me to the head office behind the church. There I met the parish priest and the head nun (school principle). This is where I was first introduced to what I’m going to call “the head slither.” At various points during the conversation the nun’s head would begin to bob from side to side. I’m going to try to describe this motion.
It’s not a simple back and forth motion like shaking your head “no.” Think about the motion of a snake’s body. Now imagine if you could do that motion with just your head. Or alternatively, try to draw a figure 8 with your nose, while tilting you head left and right as you go. That’s the best I can do to describe it.
At first I thought that that this was a nervous twitch. But later I saw some of the other nun’s doing it when talking to a student . So my next theory was that this was some kind of comforting nun motion. I’ve never had much contact with nuns, so I thought that it was possible that I just never noticed it (or maybe it was an Indian nun thing). It is very soothing to watch. It’s hypnotic like watching a slithering snake or a taffy puller.
However, later that day, after making some notes on the board, I turned to that class and said, “Understand?” while cocking my head to the right. When I did this the head of every student in the room began to slither. Not only that, but all of the slithering was in phase. I got a little dizzy both the motion and from general surprise. I didn’t think about it at the moment but later I remembered being told that in some countries people shake their left and right to mean “yes” when Americans do this to mean “no.” It’s one of those things that they tell you when you’re young to make you realize that many of our behaviors are just arbitrary cultural norms. The more I thought about it, the more that this seemed right. Though, after talking about this with Stephen and a few of the nuns I don’t think that that’s quite right. It seems that Indians use the simple head-nod and head-shake the same way that we do. This pervasive head slither is something else. It is now my understanding that this head slither is a physical incarnation of the spirit of the Indian people. It means something like, “OK - I don’t know – maybe – I can try.” It is used when an Indian cannot quite summon the self confidence for a “yes” or “no.” This head motion is used much more frequently then both the simple nod and shake combined. It seems to me that the teachers use them more liberally than English speakers might use a head-nod, but that might just be because I’m more acutely aware of when they use the head slither. Further study is needed.
Dalton
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