• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

POP / q LY top is an example of how the j virrt pds were born. Whether Wheit or not, there are still giants h * mrtb." John Steinbeck, Laos, 1967 In Laos, retired Indiana farmer Edgar Buell is affectionately referred to as "Mister Pop." To the tribesmen this means, simply, "sent from above." The legend and reality of Edgar Buell have, for good reason, grown in- to godlike proportions. Since his ar- rival in Laos in 1960, his superhuman efforts on behalf of the Meo tribcsmcn have been nothing short of miraculous. When the Communists drove the Meo from the PIaine des Jarres into the hills, he masterminded airlifts of food, clothing, and medicine, and man- aged to keep alive half a million home- less tribesmen as they fled from one village to the next in a desperate, un- ceasing attempt to survive. To protect his refugees, Mister Pop helpcd to sr- ganize, train, and lead a 5,000-man guerrilla army that held off North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces. Buell set up the first medical training rthools in the area. His school system, the first in the history of the mountain pple, was begun in one room, and has now grown to include more than 80,000 students. I This is a moving accounr of a peace- loving man and his crusade to help a bewildered, impoverished people ro (contirmrJ on back flap) MISTER POP MISTER POP by DON A. SCHANCHE DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC. New York MISTER POP COPYRIGHT @ 1970 BY DON A. SCHANCHE All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or parts thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. The material on pages vii-viii, copyright @ 1967 by John Steinbeck, appeared originally in Newday (April 8, 1967) and is reprinted by permission of McIntosh and Otis, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-1 10405 MANUFACTURED fN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA VAN REES PRESS NEW YORK To MARYBELLE Djong chia duo. hua chon duo "Diplomacy ain't all white shirts, nice pants, and money runnin' out'a your pockets." Edgar Pop Buell A Letter from John Steinbeck LAOS has mountains, the strangest I have ever seen. In some places thin shafts of limestone stand high, thin and sharp as knife blades. And then there are the ones that look like animals, like cats and furry snakes, and like hornless cattle. Much of the mountain country of the north and middle is heavy with brush which on ap- roach turn out to be trees. Foot trails wind in the canyons by the water courses connecting little villages-houses set high on posts, with woven bamboo siding and palm-thatched roofs. And where the hills are gentle enough so that a man does not fall off, the little fields of slash-and-burn agri- culture can be seen from the air. The trees are cut and the brush slashed down and burned. Then the mountain farmer plants his rice, sometimes tethering himself to a stump lest he fall off his farm. The cut trecs lying in careful patterns hold back eroding soil in the hard rainy season and draw and hold moisture in the dry. Rut in about five years when thc trecs have rotted so that the water escapes, at just about this time, the thin soil is chopped out and the farmcr must lind another placc to slash out a field and burn in a little richness. His old field goes back to jungle and perhaps in 20 years, he or his sons may slash it nut again. It is a haphazard wasteful way of staying alive, but it is the only way the mountain people have. From Pak Pong, I flew to Sam Thong, the kingdom of Pop Buell, in about 30 minutes. I asked how far it is, and was told eight days on foot, with belongings, meaning women and children; four days by vii the river, but then there are rapids and the Pathet Lao; and 30 minutes by Porter airplane. It doesn't seem fair. Pop Buell, the middle-aged, mid-western American farmer some- times known as Mr. Laos, had just returned from a trip to the States and was being welcomed with an enthusiasm that might well make the Lao king a little restless. Pop Bud1 founded Sam Thong. He walked all over these, I almost said God's, mountains. He brought in the hospital, the school, worked away at the small dusty airfield. But mostly he built his structure with the bodies and brains of the Meo tribesmen. Once over lightly is not good enough for Pop Buell. He deserves and will undoubtedly have a book written about him. I think Pop is an example of how the ancient gods were born and preserved in the minds and the graven images of people all over the world. Remember, the story invariably goes-in olden times the people did not live well as they do now and they practiced abominations. Then a stranger appeared and he taught us to use the plow and how to sow and how to harvest. He brought us writing so we could keep records. And he gave us healing medicines to make us healthy, and he gave us pride so we would not be afraid and, when we had learned these things, he went away. He was translated. That is his figure there, carved in limestone. Well, I don't think Pop is likely to be taken up in a sweet chariot even if he had the time or the inclination, but that ancient story is Pop Budl's story. Whether you believe it or not, there are still giants in the earth. JOHNSTEINBECK Laos, April, 1967 MISTER POP -THA LIN NO1 MOUNG CWA Chapter 1 Everybody should know that nobody knows everything in this world, no one is a complete and perfect person, no one works without doing wrong and nobody appears or comes from the sky, watcr and ground, but I think that every- body comes from the sex. TSENG lived close to the bedrock of civilization in northeasternmost Sam Neua Province of the Kingdom of Laos on the top of a 5,000-foot mountain from which he auld see twenty miles in every direction. To the south and the east on this crisp, dry day he had a particularly clear view of the meandering dirt highway, which was one of his special concerns, coursing through the valley like a crease in a rumpled blanket. From the boulder on which he squatted, Tseng observed the tiny figure of a man dressed in black, rrotring along the road from the south. The man paused, then left the highway to resume his quick pace on a pathway that led up Thorn mountain to Houei Thorn, Tseng's village. Even from a distance Tseng recognized him, although the man obviously was a stranger to the village because he had taken the first pathway to the mountain, a trail so steep it normally was used only for descent. A second footpath partially hidden behind a small karst outcropping was favored by ascending villagers because it was easier to climb. Tseng was frightened by the appearance of the unwelcome stranger. The landscape around Tseng's village was breathtaking, a rising and crowded course of forested mountains stacked like irregular- books on staggered shelves extending along the Annamitc chain from southern China through Laos to the central highlands of Vietnam. In the valleys which swirled like rivers around the mountains, Tseng could see no signs of human activity save the lone figure on the dirt highway, which was the only man-made scat in the leafy rain forest far below. The towering, umbrella-like treetops made an almost continuous green cushion, broken by the occasional splash of wild orchids and ferns grow- ing among the giant liana vines that climbed the trees. Beneath the green cushion lay the valley floor. It was crossed by narrow pathways of umber clay, smoothed by the bare feet of mountain tribesmen who for many years had moved restlessly from one slope to the next in search of wild game, edible jungle shoots, and barely arable mountain- sides that would accept their peculiar agriculture. As the forest climbed the mountain slopes, it gave way to scrubby patches of vegetation and occasional stands of softwood trees sur- rounded by thickets of bamboo, rhododendron, wild ferns, ginger, and tall grass. Finally there remained only a patchwork of scrawny bushes and clumps of grass sprouting from the washed dirt and rocks of the mountaintops. At wide intervals along the slopes, near the peaks of the mountains for as far as Tseng could see, plumes of dark gray smoke rose like waterspouts into the air, forming great mushroom crowns that merged thousands of feet in the sky to cast a gray ceiling over the landscape. Tseng lifted the field glasses that the American Army had given him before he left the lowlands and carefully traced each plume to its source, a raging fire along a mountain's steep side, consuming the softwood trees and simmering among the ferns that died in clouds of dark smoke. These were controlled fires, lit by the mountaineers as the most direct means of clearing land for crops. The Meo people, among whom Tseng lived and worked, are highland nomads, fiercely in- dependent men who prize the freedom of the mountaintops and scorn the valley people below. No one knows with certainty where they came from, but their Mongol ancestry is so clearly written in red-brown skin and high cheekbones that the few anthropologists who have observed them assume the Meo are descendants of Genghis Khan's ruthless armies that invaded Southeast Asia almost 700 years ago.

Load more

  337

Copy Link