In one sense, Malpais represents the opposite of the rest of the dystopia, an "uncivilized" place against which the reader - as well as tourists Bernard and Lenina - can gauge the imagined progress of the "civilized" world. In this chapter, Huxley opens another part of his dystopian world - the Savage Reservation - contrasting it implicitly and explicitly with the world of London, where the rest of the novel is set. She has spent much of her life on the Reservation, she explains, where she gave birth to her son, John, the young savage. The young savage introduces them to Linda - a "very stout blonde squaw," who tells Lenina and Bernard her strange story of being abducted by the Indians. Strangely, too, the young man speaks like a character from Shakespeare and tells them that his mother - Linda - comes from the "Other Place." When he also mentions that his father was named "Tomakin," Bernard connects this young man with the D.H.C.'s visit to the Reservation. This wild dance ends with a coyote-masked shaman whipping a young man until he collapses - a blood sacrifice to bring the rain and make the corn grow.Īfter this bloody spectacle, Bernard and Lenina meet a straw-haired, blue-eyed young man dressed - incongruously, it seems - as an Indian.
In quick succession, she and Bernard witness old age in the figure of an ancient Indian, Indian mothers nursing their babies, and a hedonistic ritual dance that fuses Christian and Indian religion. Lenina soon discovers that she has forgotten her soma, so she must experience the Indian village of Malpais as an unmedicated reality.
With their Indian guide, Bernard and Lenina enter the Savage Reservation.
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