Letters to the Editor
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On the other hand ---
There was some good to come from it all -- The Northern Mexican Yaqui (and also Apaches) are/were hideously impoverished and for several years,they praised Carlos Castaneda because of all the college students who came down there, came up to them -- anyone who looked native -- in a market or elsewhere and said "Are you Don Juan?" To which they usually replied, "Perhaps.What do you want?" And then "Teach me." And then, "Buy my groceries." "Drive me to see my cousin -- he has secret knowledge." "Get me a car."
Perhaps that's all Carlos will be remembered for -- that his stories benefitted a lot of Native Americans.
(Of course, I'm one of those, having read a lot of occult literature prior to reading Don Juan, who thinks if he made it up, I'm even more impressed than if he was no more than the stenographer for a real Don Juan.)