What Might Be Going On With The Synoptic Chapter Headings?

I make a variety of charts...looking for patterns or meaning.

I’m obsessed at looking for patterns and numbers in things. And yes, I also see faces in things too LOL. I am in love with the synoptic chapter headers in Blood Meridian and I thought I’d print them out like a short story and see what it looks like. In the past I have counted how many words in each header, I’ve tried to multiply them with the chapter number and I make charts and hang them on the wall like a murder board. I’ll share a picture sometime…in Knoxville October 2024…I displayed one of my Blood Meridian/The Passenger/Stella Maris murder boards at The Cormac McCarthy Society Conference.

Here is a different way to look at the chapter headers…

Synoptic chapter headings

Childhood in Tennessee - Runs away - New Orleans -Fights - Is shot - To Galveston - Nacogdoches -The Reverend Green - Judge Holden - An affray - Toadvine -Burning of the hotel - Escape.

Across the prairie - A hermit - A nigger's heart - A stormy night -Westward again - Cattle drovers - Their kindness - On the trail again - The deadcart - San Antonio de Bexar - A Mexican cantina - Another fight - The abandoned church - The dead in the sacristy - At the ford - Bathing in the river.

Sought out to join an army - Interview with Captain White - His views - The camp - Trades his mule - A cantina in the Laredito-A Mennonite - Companion killed.

Setting forth with the filibusters - On alien ground -Shooting antelope - Pursued by cholera - Wolves - Wagon repairs-A desert waste - Night storms - The ghost manada - A prayer for rain - A desert homestead - The old man - New country - An abandoned village - Herdsmen on the plain -Attacked by Comanches.

Adrift on the Bolson de Mapimi - Sproule - Tree of dead babies - Scenes from a massacre - Sopilotes - The murdered in the church-Night among the dead - Wolves - The washers at the ford - Afoot westward - A mirage - An encounter with bandits - Attacked by a vampire - Digging a well - A crossroads in the waste-The carreta - Death of Sproule - Under arrest - The captain's head-Survivors - On to Chihuahua - The city - The prison - Toadvine.

In the streets - Brassteeth - Los heréticos -A veteran of the late war - Mier - Doniphan - The Lipan burial-Goldseekers - The scalphunters - The judge -Freed from the prison - Et de ceo se mettent en le pays.

Black and white Jacksons - A meeting on the outskirts - Whitneyville Colts - A trial - The judge among disputants - Delaware indians - The Vandiemenlander - A hacienda - The town of Corralitos - Pasajeros de un país antiguo - Scene of a massacre - Hiccius Doccius - A naming of fortunes - Wheelless upon a dark river - The felon wind - Tertium quid - The town of Janos - Glanton takes a scalp - Jackson takes the stage.

Another cantina, another advisor - Monte - A knifing - The darkest corner of the tavern the most conspicuous - The sereño - Riding north - The meatcamp - Grannyrat - Under the Animas peaks - A confrontation and a killing - Another anchorite, another dawn.

An ambuscado - The dead Apache - Hollow ground - A gypsum lake - Trebillones - Snowblind horses - The Delawares return - A probate - The ghost coach - The copper mines - Squatters - A snakebit horse - The judge on geological evidence - The dead boy - On parallax and false guidance in things past - The ciboleros.

Tobin - The skirmish on the Little Colorado - The Katabasis - How came the learned man - Glanton and the judge - A new course - The judge and the bats - Guano - The deserters - Saltpeter and charcoal - The malpais - Hoofprints - The volcano - Brimstone - The matrix - The slaughter of the aborigines.

Into the mountains - Old Ephraim - A Delaware carried off - The search - Another probate - In the gorge - The ruins - Keet seel - The solerette - Representations and things - The judge tells a story - A mule lost - Mescal pits - Night scene with moon, blossoms, judge - The village - Glanton on the management of animals - The trail out.

Crossing the border - Storms - Ice and lightning - The slain argonauts - The azimuth - Rendezvous - Councils of war - Slaughter of the Gileños - Death of Juan Miguel - The dead in the lake - The chief - An Apache child - On the desert - Nightfires - Elvirote - A surgery - The judge takes a scalp - Un hacendado -Gallego - Ciudad de Chihuahua.

At the baths - Merchants - Trophies of war - The banquet - Trias - The ball - North - Coyame - The border - The Hueco tanks - Massacre of the Tiguas - Carrizal - A desert spring - The Medanos - An inquest concerning teeth - Nacori - The cantina - A desperate encounter - Into the mountains - A village decimated - Mounted lancers - A skirmish - Pursuing the survivors - The plains of Chihuahua - Slaughter of the soldiers - A burial - Chihuahua - Westward.

Mountain storms - Tierras quemadas, tierras despobladas - Jesús María - The inn - Shopkeepers - A bodega - The fiddler - The priest - Las Animas - The procession - Cazando las almas - Glanton takes a fit - Dogs for sale - The judge prestidigitant - The flag - A shootout - An exodus- The conducta - Blood and mercury - At the ford - Jackson restored / The jungle - An herbalist - The judge collects specimens - The point of view for his work as a scientist - Ures - The populace - Los pordioseros - A fandango - Pariah dogs - Glanton and judge.

A new contract - Sloat - The massacre on the Nacozari - Encounter with Elias - Pursued north - A lottery - Shelby and the kid - A horse lamed - A norther - An ambush - Escape - War on the plains - A descent - The burning tree - On the track - The trophies - The kid rejoins his command - The judge - A desert sacrifice - The scouts do not return - The ogdoad - Santa Cruz - The militia - Snow - A hospice - The stable.

The Santa Cruz valley - San Bernardino - Wild bulls - Tumacacori - The mission - A hermit - Tubac - The lost scouts - San Xavier del Bac - The presidio of Tucson - Scavengers - The Chiricahuas - A risky encounter - Mangas Colorado - Lieutenant Couts - Recruiting in the plaza - A wild man - Murder of Owens - In the cantina - Mr Bell is examined - The judge on evidence - Dogfreaks - A fandango - Judge and meteorite.

Leaving Tucson - A new cooperage - An exchange - Saguaro forests - Glanton at the fire - Garcia's command - The paraselene - The godfire - The expriest on astronomy - The judge on the extraterrestrial, on order, on teleology in the universe - A coin trick - Glanton's dog - Dead animals - The sands - A crucifixion - The judge on war - The priest does not say - Tierras quebradas, tierras desamparadas - The Tinajas Altas - Un hueso de piedra - The Colorado - Argonauts - Yumas - The ferrymen - To the Yuma camp.

The return to camp - The idiot delivered - Sarah Borginnis - A confrontation - Bathed in the river - The tumbril burned - James Robert in camp - Another baptism - Judge and fool.

The howitzer - The Yumas attack - A skirmish - Glanton appropriates the ferry - The hanged Judas - The coffers - A deputation for the coast - San Diego - Arranging for supplies - Brown at the farrier's - A dispute - Webster and Toadvine freed - The ocean - An altercation - A man burned alive - Brown in durance vile - Tales of treasure - An escape - A murder in the mountains - Glanton leaves Yuma - The alcalde hanged - Hostages - Returns to Yuma - Doctor and judge, nigger and fool - Dawn on the river - Carts without wheels -Murder of Jackson - The Yuma massacre.

The escape - Into the desert - Pursued by the Yumas - A stand - Alamo Mucho - Another refugee - A siege - At long taw - Nightfires - The judge lives - At barter in the desert - How the expriest comes to advocate murder - Setting forth - Another encounter -Carrizo Creek - An attack - Among the bones - Playing for keeps - An exorcism - Tobin wounded - A counseling - The slaughter of the horses - The judge on torts - Another escape, another desert.

Desert castaways - The backtrack - A hideout - The wind takes a side - The judge returns - An address - Los Diegueños - San Felipe - Hospitality of the savages - Into the mountains -Grizzlies - San Diego - The sea.

Under arrest - The judge pays a call - An arraignment - Soldier, priest, magistrate - On his own recognizance - He sees a surgeon - The arrowshaft removed from his leg - Delirium - He journeys to Los Angeles - A public hanging - Los ahorcados - Looking for the expriest - Another fool - The scapular - To Sacramento - A traveler in the west - He abandons his party - The penitent brothers - The deathcart - Another massacre - The eldress in the rocks.

On the north Texas plains - An old buffalo hunter - The millennial herds - The bonepickers - Night on the prairie - The callers - Apache ears - Elrod takes a stand - A killing - Bearing off the dead - Fort Griffin - The Beehive - A stageshow - The judge - Killing a bear - The judge speaks of old times - In preparation for the dance - The judge on war, destiny, the supremacy of man - The dancehall - The whore - The jakes and what was encountered there - Sie müssen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen.