Wisdom Sits in Places

Basso opens Chapter 4 with a reflection on the role of place in creating a sense of self, and how that self goes on to imbue places with meaning: “they yield to consciousness only what consciousness has given them to absorb” (108). Having established the chapter’s framing of the relationship between self and place, Basso describes a scene in which three Western Apache horseman are sitting in a grove of trees after a long day of sorting cattle. A young man named Talbert Paxton joins them. Paxton is well-liked by the group but is at risk of being ostracized by the community for his bad behavior following a failed love affair. The three older men offer a series of seeming non-sequiturs in response, and although everyone seems comforted by the exchange, Basso is baffled. With the help of Dudley Patterson, a man universally liked in the community, but more importantly, known as wise—Basso comes to understand that the exchange, which references a place called Trail Goes Down Between Two Hills, where a character behaved foolishly because of beautiful women, allowed the older men to chastise and pardon Talbert without insulting him.

Under Patterson’s tutelage, Basso comes to understand how this instance illustrates the idea that “wisdom sits in places.