Throwback Thursday: Finding the truth about an unusual memory.

     In the late 60s, our family travelled to Mexico. I was very young and only remember that it was a long road trip.
     We traversed the desert in our 1959 Chevy Impala. Along the way stopped in the middle of nowhere for gas. 
     I remember getting out of the car and looking at the desert. I recall the strange and quiet environment. That's when I noticed two boys wearing dresses. I remember staring at them and they stared back. Someone, maybe my mom, told me that it was an old tradition that boys were disguised as girls. Why?Because, back in the old days, the marauding Comanches would come and raid across the desert. They would kidnap the boys and raise them as their own. To safe guard the boys, they dressed them as girls.
     Apparently, the tradition stuck until at least the mid 20th century. It seems to have died out as there is no data available on this custom.
The memory of those two boys has stayed in my mind all these decades. 
So I asked AI to recreate the scene. The image created is so eriely accurate, it's as if the image was pulled out of my head.
I was not able to find any documented evidence of this practice, but there are oral traditions that support the story.

     These people are not the only ones with this tradition. The Garifuna people of Roatán maintain this tradition as part of their culture. In their ceremonies men dress as women to prevent them from being taken by foreign navies and pirates.

     On the funny side, my dad bought a plastic Jesus for the dashboard. Apparently the heat was so intense that Jesus finished the trip bent over from heat exhaustion!
AI helped me with this image also.

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